Aisle Six at Lake Martin: Conversations with a Mallard

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I like ducks. I watch the same two mallards visit this area of Lake Martin. Almost every morning.

I don’t know if they’re married. Ducks are seasonally monogamous. So this could just be a one-season stand.

Still, they are my friends. I guess they’re here to find food. Sort of like going to Piggly Wiggly with your spouse, minus the buggy, and the rolling of your spouse’s eyes whenever one of you places six jars of something you don’t need into the basket because it’s BOGO.

The Day the Blue Dot Died

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Somewhere far above the planet, an unnamed adversary (or possibly a very angry solar flare with a sense of humor) popped off an EMP that politely but firmly unplugged every satellite we’d been leaning on since the late 20th century. GPS—born in the 1970s as a military system and later handed to civilians like candy—vanished in a blink. Along with it went the internet, streaming music, weather apps, and that calm, robotic voice that had spent decades telling Americans when to turn left.

Comparing Military Capabilities: Israel versus Selected NATO Countries; What US allies potentially bring to the table for Epic Fury

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President Trump has put US allies in NATO on notice about providing security for ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz. He has also condemned specific NATO countries for denying use of NATO air bases and other facilities in support of Operation Epic Fury (the Iran rescue that is ongoing).

Nice Toy, Sharp Edges: Iran and the World’s First AI War

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We’ve got a new toy. It’s sleek, fast, doesn’t get tired, doesn’t argue, and it can chew through more data in a minute than a staff section could in a week. We bolted it onto the most capable military on earth and told it to help us find targets. Then we dropped it into a live fight in one of the most complex battlespaces on the planet and acted surprised when the results were… mixed. Welcome to the world’s first real AI war.

The Infamous Zapruder Film And The Issue Of Its Veracity: Why Did The Government Employ Intelligence Resources In A Secret Squirrel Operation To Evaluate The Film? Part 6

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By the summer of 1963 Vice President Johnson-LBJ-was carrying a lot of baggage and was somewhat on the outs with the administration. Open rumors abounded that were not being denied by the JFK administration that alternatives were being considered for LBJ on the JFK ticket, should he be investigated by congress for either the Billy Sol Estes or Bobby Baker investigations, or both.

The Name Game

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The night I was born, my mother took me into her arms and decided that she was going to name me Elvis.

My aunt recalls: “Your mama loved Elvis. Plus, you were a Capricorn, you know. Elvis and Jesus were Capricorns.”

Hedge Fund Electric: $5 Billion in 2025 Profits. 18% in 2026-2027 Rate Hikes

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“Privatize the profit – socialize the costs?” You betcha.

Utility companies are their own personalized legal black hole. Private companies own them – but get all sorts of government cronyism to aid and abet their profit making and taking.

It’s a quintessential example of the Diet Fascism that now dominates the US.

Trusted There. Restricted Here; Restoring Trust and Rights

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If we trust a service member overseas with a loaded rifle, real rules of engagement, and life-and-death decisions in a combat zone, it makes no sense to suddenly treat that same disciplined professional like a liability the moment they step onto a stateside installation; this policy correction acknowledges a simple truth long overdue—responsibility doesn’t evaporate at the gate. The men and women we entrust to defend the nation are trained, vetted, and held to standards far above the civilian baseline, and if we truly believe in that system, then extending reasonable trust for personal defense at home isn’t radical, it’s consistent. And if someone genuinely cannot be trusted with a firearm under controlled conditions on base, then the harder question isn’t about policy—it’s about why they’re in uniform in the first place.

Who needs Europe? We pay to defend them and absorb $200 billion in annual trade deficits.

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Just three years ago, Rubio and Tim Kaine succeeded in getting Congress to prohibit the president from unilaterally suspending, terminating, denouncing, or withdrawing the U.S. from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization without the approval of two-thirds of the Senate.

Trump has a hard enough time getting one-third of the Senate to agree with him, let alone two.

But he has a phone and a pen. And he has a growing plurality of Americans who believe NATO’s time ended when the Soviet Union died.

Two Wings, One Bird: How We Traded a Republic for a Revenue Machine

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We like to pretend we live in a fierce two-party system. Red vs. blue. Left vs. right. Cable news gladiators screaming like it’s the Super Bowl of righteousness. But step back far enough and the illusion fades. What you actually see is one bird with two wings—and that bird doesn’t care about your values, your vote, or your virtue. It worships one thing: money.