I wish you better fortune than I had as Denmark last weekend! Had a blast as the Danes at CircleCon, but the Swedes totally wiped the floor with me in that game.

“I would have lived in peace. But my enemies brought me war."

-Darrow 1:1

A philosophy I've held on to for years now is that every Star Wars is someone's favorite regardless of your own thoughts on it. I don't like everything (The Book of Boba Fett comes to mind) but that is "peak Star Wars" to someone out there.

Being a SW fan is very peaceful when you remember that.

speaking of voting

Hungarians deserve every congratulations for giving Peter Magyar a bigger margin than Orban has ever gotten in all of his rigged elections - and this within the system that Orban rigged. Magyar now has a constitutional majority to undo Orban's constitutional prison and govern as a democratic leader.

Opposition leader Péter Magyar at a rally.

Orbán's electoral crushing is a far greater achievement than most people outside Hungary realise.

He systemically consolidated power for 16 years, fixed the electoral map, abused govt power for political purposes & censored media.

The hurdles that Hungarians overcame for this moment were immense.

Hungarians showing how to win big in an unfair election: organize AND protest AND vote AND demand profound change.

The Holy Roman Empire was Holy Roman and an Empire

"Surely Minnesotans won't fight back," racists in 1863 and 2026

“Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited.”

Geneva Convention Additional Protocol I
and
Department of Defense Law of War Manual, § 5.2.2

Very cool to see the game (almost) out in the wild! Looking forward to getting in my first session on Friday!

My sister and I are jumping into a game of Baltic Empires, which I am super stoked for!! Also playing several French Revolution themes games over the weekend!

Some Marines graduate without their parents' presence amid ICE fears News that ICE would be stationed outside Marine Corps graduation events upended family plans, elicited national reaction and drew out protesters, including Marine veterans.

“They were going to come. It was going to be a big thing. We were going to go to the beach right after. All those plans had to go out the window because they said ICE would be here."

For a year we’ve been saying that Hegseth is forcing a political ideology on the military: an ideology that presumes women and Blacks are inferior (and LGBTQ+ folks have no rights). He’s promoting a destructive racist, misogynist culture that will tear units apart and leave us weak.

Impeach him.

Trump under fire for threat to Iranian cultural sites The UN says both the US and Iran have signed conventions protecting cultural heritage.

From 2020. 'Mr Trump said the US had identified 52 Iranian sites, some "at a very high level and important to Iran and the Iranian culture", and warned they would be "hit very fast and hard" if Tehran carried out revenge attacks on US interests or personnel.'
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-m...

In one sense, mass protests are to a popular movement what exercises are to an army. The more and greater they are, the more acclimated the participants will be for real action if it comes to it.

On the other hand, they directly affect political calculus by shaping and broadening the opposition.

Western civilization includes Just War Theory and the Laws of Armed Combat.

Those aren't PC niceties, they're the legacy of centuries of philosophy, religion, tradition, and the accumulated lessons of bloody experience.

Hegseth doesn't champion Western civilization, he rejects the civilized part.

Brian boru box with vikings and Irish people

Map of island board

Game 7 of boardgame weekend: Brian Boru

From Firetop Mountain we move back a 1000 years to Ireland, with a High King, marriage and Viking invasions

#boardgames #boardgaming

The DC Metro

Happy birthday to the Washington Metro, which opened 50 years ago today with service on 4.6 mi of Red Line between Rhode Is. Ave & Farragut N. System now serves 130 mi.

The DC Metro shows that, with good planning & enough investment, the public sector can succeed & build something extraordinary.

This should be an impeachable offense. I understand that we’re way past any of that, but that shouldn’t stop us from naming it.

Mark Jacob on how the press ignores the biggest Trump story "The president of the United States is clearly mentally unfit for office."

"The best example of the news media deciding somebody is unfit for office, because of their mental fitness or unfitness, is how they treated Biden in 2024. Biden was old and rational. Right now, Trump is old and irrational, but he’s not getting the same kind of treatment." — @markjacob.bsky.social

Pentagon seeks more than $200 billion in budget request for Iran war That figure would far surpass the costs of the U.S. airstrike campaign to date and aims to boost production of critical weapons depleted in the conflict, people familiar with the matter said.

The Pentagon is requesting the equivalent of $1,500 per American household to fund President Trump's unauthorized, unconstitutional, and unpopular war.

Congress must say no.

Great trad band playing first shift.

Happy International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month. The perfect time to reconnect with Tory Brown’s @downtowntbrown.bsky.social brilliant design, Votes for Women on the history of the Suffragist Movement. @fortcircle.bsky.social

Making it up as they go along Where does the war in Iran go from here?

Latest assessment on US/Israeli attack on Iran. The administration continues to give the impression that it is making it up as it goes along. The choices for the Iranian regime remain dire but it continues to show defiance and cause international economic turmoil. open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/m...?

Italy earn first-ever win over England ROME, March 7 : Italy pulled off their first-ever win over England with a 23-18 victory at the Stadio Olimpico on Saturday as the visitors slumped to a third successive Six Nations defeat.The win ends a run of 32 losses for Italy against England, with 26 of those coming in the Six Nations Championship.

Italy earn first-ever win over England

Having the energy to attack Iran because "it's dangerous and totalitarian" but not keeping that energy to attack Russia, which is dangerous at a global scale, totalitarian, planning to invade Europe, and threatening to launch nuclear weapons every two weeks, doesn't really seem coherent.

Trump acknowledges he has launched a war.

This shreds our Constitution, which assigns decisions of war to Congress.

Congress must vote on a War Powers Resolution immediately.  No war with Iran!

Spotlighting The World Factbook as We Bid a Fond Farewell Somewhat devastating news today from the CIA: One of CIA’s oldest and most recognizable intelligence publications, The World Factbook, has sunset. There's not even a hint as to why they …

The CIA just stopped publishing their World Factbook and took every page, including the archived copies of previous versions!

This sucks. It was public domain, so I recovered the 2020 edition (the last one published as a zip file) and shared it to GitHub simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/5/t...

Whenever you see a story about how liberals aren't making their conservative peers feel welcome enough, this is who they're talking about.