Saturday, February 28, 2026
Punishing Persia
Overnight the air war by Israel and the US against Iran’s Shia theocracy began. This morning, looking for details, I found this useful summary posted online by the Middle East Forum.
Nobody is talking about boots on the ground in Iran, so the basic question is this. Will the Iranians will rise up and overthrow their government? Obviously the hope is that they will.
If Iran’s people do not rebel, the mullahs can probably spread out, hunker down, and survive whatever punishment we can deliver from the air and sea. We can certainly cut off oil exports by ship, and interdict most air travel. They can probably close the Strait of Hormuz, which will further constrain the world’s oil supply and raise prices.
Iran shares land borders with several countries, none of which is a reliable US ally so overland travel cannot be cut off. They also have ports on the land-locked Caspian Sea over which we have no control.
These give them access to Russia, which owes us no favors and is a sometimes ally of Iran. However, Russia is bogged down in Ukraine and may be of little help.
Plusses and minuses. Echoing a frequent Trump refrain, “We’ll see what happens.”
Later … An Israeli official, speaking on background, reports Israeli air strikes killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. Israeli intelligence normally gets such claims right.
Still later ... See also this MEF follow-up with more detail on the attacks and resultant destruction. The effectiveness of Iran's counterattacks, while extensive, is judged to be minimal.
Friday, February 27, 2026
Alert
A column at Power Line reporting that non-essential US embassy employees and likely all dependents have been told by Ambassador Huckabee to leave the country today. Implication: things are about to turn violent, likely by Monday, perhaps sooner.
Authorized departure is the second-to-last step on the State Department’s crisis escalation ladder. The only step above it is ordered departure, which is mandatory evacuation. The United States has not reached ordered departure. But at 10:24 this morning it reached the step directly below it, and the ambassador personally urged speed.
It’s time to keep a weather eye on the headlines, Trump’s short, sharp action is about to kick off.
Later ... Bloomberg reports many nations with embassies in the region are doing likewise, as the talks with Iran seem deadlocked. At least one source believes Iran would rather take a beating than give in to US demands.
Compulsion
The continuing flurry of demands for "more, more" Epstein files reminds me of the story of the little boy out by the stables furiously digging in a big pile of horse droppings. Asked what he thinks he is doing, he replies, "There's gotta be a pony in here somewhere."
Democrats keep thinking there must be Trump misbehavior in those files somewhere. What keeps turning up are more and more ... (checks notes) ... prominent Democrats and Davos attendees!
They're digging their own graves and, agreeing with Napoleon, I say "Don't interfere."
The Great Game in the 21st Century
Along the Afghan-Pakistan border, crossed by the fabled Khyber Pass, CNN reports renewed fighting. This time it involves the Pakistanis and the Afghans, government forces on both sides.
In the past, violence there has involved Americans, before them the Soviets, and before that British against local hill tribesmen. Farther east it is Pakistanis vs. Indians.
We’re talking Gunga Din country here, fighting is as old as this flinty land itself. Sometimes outsiders are involved, sometimes including now, it’s the locals fighting amongst themselves. More than a few movies have been set among these hills, nearly always featuring conflict and killing.
During the US occupation of Afghanistan, the Pakistanis were covertly allied with the Taliban who were fighting us, as well as being overtly allied with us. Now we’re gone and they fight each other. Everybody hereabouts is armed and blood feuds are both a way of life and the local sport.
Kipling’s multiplayer Great Game continues….
Thursday, February 26, 2026
Lack of Curiosity a Risk
Do you pry into the sexual proclivities of your neighbors? Of those whose homes you visit? Whose businesses you patronize? Who belong to the same lodge, church, or bowling league? Do you read a local paper or watch the local news? I answer "no" to all of those questions, but maybe I should?
The fallout from this Epstein business is that a bunch of prominent people here and abroad are quitting their jobs or being fired because they didn't read the gossip sheets and hung out with Epstein enough to get their names in his files somehow.
Sure, some of them may have been involved with his jailbait "proteges." I'll bet many of the others had no idea because they didn't read the scandal sheets and met him in the company of other prominent individuals as he moved in monied circles.
At least by some accounts, Epstein was interested in many things beyond teenage girls and high finance. Perhaps he was good company, and he certainly had enough money to live well, entertain lavishly and fly a private jet.
Some people's lives will end under a cloud because they didn't have a gossip columnist's interest in what Epstein did sexually. The lesson I reluctantly take from all this is that maybe we need to be snoopy about the bedroom antics of our acquaintances, lest we fall into a similar trap.
Who knows what they do behind closed doors with the lights out? It could be grotesque.
And Another Trans Shooter
Here at COTTonLINE we have repeatedly noted the frequency with which transexual individuals are involved in shootings. Today brings another, this time in New Hampshire, as reported by Red State.
This has become a frequent occurrence considering a web search finds an estimate that they constitute no more than 1% of the population. In the last few years they constitute more than 1% of the reported shootings. I sort of get why it happens.
Many species including humans are hard-wired to react badly to misfits. Presumably this has had species survival value, but it is tough on the misfits.
The experience of being trans is analogous to being a person with misshapen feet who cannot find shoes to fit. The available shoes hurt their feet with every step taken, making the pained wearer constantly cranky.
Similarly, the available "slots" in society don't fit the trans person. Normals react to them in distracting, edgy ways at best, and often in hostile, abusive ways. The result is resentment which, when combined with a suicidal impulse, can lead to revenge killings of normals, sometimes targeted, sometimes at random.
“These People Are Crazy”
Salena Zito describes President Trump’s SOTU direct hit on Democrats thus.
The most striking moment of contrast between the president and Democrats was when the latter refused to applaud his proposal to bar states from allowing teenagers to undergo gender transition treatment without parental consent.
“Look, nobody stands up. These people are crazy. I’m telling you. They’re crazy,” he said of yet another 80-20 issue with voters — one that wouldn’t have caused any political harm for them except with the fringe.
Deep in the throes of Trump Derangement Syndrome, they are. Crazy in the eyes of normies, they appear. Democrats a right drubbing, he gave. Please pardon the Yoda-speak.
In the last year Trump has done very many tangible things to help Joe and Jill Sixpack have a better life. And the donkey tribe has fought him at every step. The time between now and November will seem both long and short, but Trump did his party a lot of good Tuesday night.
Wednesday, February 25, 2026
Hiding in Plain Sight?
As regular readers know, the DrsC have a winter home in a 55+ retirement community in eastern Nevada. The residents in retirement communities are oddly homogeneous in several respects and quite unusual in another.
Similarities? Live-in children are unusual, sufficient affluence to afford the price of both admission and on-going HOA dues, etc. Most are married, singles are more often widowed than divorced. Plus at any given time half the people you know have medical issues of one sort or another.
Unusual is that the residents came here from all over, just on our couple of blocks we've had neighbors from CO, MA, ID, WA, CA, OR, and even NV. Everyone arrives a stranger, we came here and made friends or acquaintances. And we basically take everyone at face value, assuming they were whoever they claim to have been before moving here.
My insight is that these 55+ retirement communities are perfect places to stash people in witness protection programs.The odds of running into a former acquaintance from back home have to be vanishingly small.
Nobody questions ones source of income, and as long as a person doesn't claim a false past with a lot of specific technical detail, nobody should get wise to the subterfuge. The ideal place to hide strangers is in a new community where nearly all arrive as such.
Residents can be as social or as hermit-like as they choose, and nobody complains or thinks it odd. One can even be gone all summer and it is taken in stride, quite a few of us do exactly that.
All of which has me wondering if anyone in our neighborhood could be in WITSEC? It is an intriguing thought.
Tuesday, February 24, 2026
When Appearances Aren't Kept Up
Various opinion writers have taken on the task of explaining why Britain's educated classes have determinedly ignored or downplayed the "rape gangs" of Pakistani men preying on lower class white girls. Most such have emphasized fear of being called "racist" or fear of stirring up unrest among a non-assimilated immigrants known for violence. These fears are real enough, but insufficient to explain the persistent refusal to act.
I write to remind readers that very little can be understood about British culture if one ignores the great influence of social class distinctions in that culture. The people making the decisions come from the educated classes, many of whose children don't go to public schools.
The ruling class live parallel lives that only infrequently interact with the lower orders. They voted against Brexit, consider themselves more "European" than Brit, and holiday abroad. They have been snobs since the Norman conquest, at least.
The girls being abused are from the poor white school-leaver class, very often from one parent homes lacking father-in-residence. They are vulnerable because they are latch-key children with little supervision and parental guidance, and few prospects.*
The ruling class understands many of these girls will end up no better off than their mothers, living in public housing, on the dole, and abusing substances. This was true before the rape gangs existed, and may be no worse now. In the upper class view (not mine), jeopardizing civic peace to rescue people living messy, dreary lives isn't worth the grief.
And the relatively large group of Brits in between are anxious not to be lumped in with the irredeemables. The TV series Keeping Up Appearances humorously chronicles the desperate efforts of Hyacinth Bucket to emulate the upper classes while hiding her sister and brother-in-law who are the sort of low-rent Brits whose daughters are being victimized.*The girls Epstein preyed on are said to have come from the US version of this broken-home demographic and were similarly unmonitored and vulnerable.
Rice ... Not Yet Krispy
A quick followup to my Rice Whine post a couple of days ago. Writing at PJ Media, Brian S. Jung claims Netflix, of which Susan Rice is a board member, has refused to fire her in the days following her injudicious promise to exact vengeance upon Trump followers, once he is out of office.
Jung adds that Netflix' stock price dropped over 3% in the days following that refusal. Nice if true, even nicer if it persists and gets worse. Perhaps they should have fired her.
At a minimum, the corporation must issue a clarification that Rice was speaking for herself. That her opinion does not reflect Netflix policy or beliefs.
In the absence of such statement, investors are advised to assume the obverse, That in fact Netflix agrees with her, even if they are too savvy to say it for attribution.
If a clarification is issued and as a consequence, Rice resigns from the board, Netflix' problem is solved without the ugliness of firing. If she doesn't resign, and continues to provide value to the board, the issue is resolved.
Monday, February 23, 2026
Musing ...
This comment is not politically correct, but here goes. Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) ran against Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears (R-VA) in last year's governor election, and won. Spanberger is white, Sears is black. Virginia is a southern state, Richmond is both its state capital and the former Confederate capital.
I suppose the idea was Sears could win some normally Democrat black votes, perhaps she did. I wonder did she lose more than a few normally Republican white votes? In a purple state, a few thousand votes can decide elections.
I haven't seen any fine-grained analysis of who won which VA precincts and by how much. Larry Sabato's politics shop at UVA probably knows but may not divulge the answer if it is embarrassing. You know that if my suspicion happens to be correct, most of the media won't publish it.
An Echo of Weimar
Writing for The Hill, Nancy Jacobson observes the extreme left and extreme right pursuing similar “burn it down” goals, using similar means, while at the same time hating each other.
Both have espoused antisemitic views, are hostile to free speech, and are adverse to free enterprise. Both believe the U.S. is a malignant force in the world. Both encourage an endless cycle of politicized retribution and persecution.
This combination of extreme forces was most famously seen in the Weimar era of Germany, after losing World War I and before the Nazis controlled the country. Organized gangs of bullies on both sides roamed the streets dealing out lawless violence to chosen targets (and each other).
We are mostly still in the talking stage, which is bad enough. Antifa has on occasion gone farther and recent events in Minneapolis suggest the left is mobilizing.
Allowed to continue, at some point the citizenry becomes disgusted with the violence and the government’s weak response. History suggests a strong man surfaces, promising to quell the unrest. No, Trump is not that man.
However, if the situation gets worse, one of his successors might be. This is not a path down which we need to travel, it doesn’t end well.
Sunday, February 22, 2026
Ow, Canada - Poorer than Alabama
Breaking economic news from Canada, their per capita GDP is less than that of Alabama! Oh, the wailing and gnashing of teeth, the rending of raiment.
See this series of reactions posted by Ed Driscoll at Instapundit. An apparent Canadian responded thusly (NSFW).
We imported millions of people from third world shitholes and now our country is turning into a giant third world shithole. How is that possible?
Possible? It is very nearly unavoidable.
The accompanying graph shows more than a quarter of the Canadian populace is foreign born. The US has problems and our foreign born are only maybe 15% (and recently declining).
Acculturation takes time, time we hope we have. Canada’s lump of the foreign born may be indigestibly large.
Goldilocks
As Presidents, Barack Obama and Joe Biden did little, and that poorly. In contrast Donald Trump has done very much, and of that body of work, much that is consequential and positive.
I wonder if, looking back, historians will develop a theory that both too little and too much presidential action is possible. In the current era, both have been exhibited literally within a single decade.
Perhaps a theory of the “Goldilocks presidency” will result. A sort of golden mean where neither too little nor too much is ideally done by the nation’s CEO. Let’s call that a COTTonLINE almost-prediction.
It is not my personal preference, however. I find Trump’s hyperactivity refreshing and invigorating after a longish period of “can’t do,” gridlocked government.
Rice Whine
Susan Rice, Obama's UN ambassador and a current Netflix board member, has gone public with a threat to every company, campus, and government employee who can credibly be accused of cooperating with the Trump agenda. Her threat: we will make your life as miserable as the law allows when we Dems return to power. Margolis accurately calls the Rice threat “fascist.”
She threatens that Dems will remember who "collaborated" and those will get no goodies, no grants, no plum committee assignments, no contracts. They will be on the government's and the media's (excrement) lists. Those not imprisoned will become "non-persons."
Imagine if vengeance becomes official Democrat Party policy. Can you think of anything more likely to force MAGA folks and their allies to think thoughts no one in a republic like ours should ever think?
Thoughts about exercising force majeure to avoid another election where the alternative to winning is exile or a life of torment. Civil war might well ensue.
An SOP of political vengeance is third world madness - banana republic autocrats rule till they die in office of natural or unnatural causes - or they self-exile somewhere with no extradition treaty. The penalty for stepping down in-country is lynching or imprisonment (cf. Brazil, South Korea). It is not our way, it is in fact unAmerican in a literal sense.
If highly placed Democrats don't disavow the Rice vengeance formulation, if they let it stand, be warned. I believe it places continuation of our multiparty elected government at serious risk.
Saturday, February 21, 2026
FAFO in NYC
It is early days in the administration of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. His actions so far appear to be calculated to drive both the wealthy and the upper middle class out of town.
Detroit might be a not-bad model for NYC's future, Mamdani is taking early steps on a path that leads to the Gotham of Harry Harrison's book Make Room, Make Room, and the 1973 film Soylent Green inspired by MRMR.
Downstream from Soylent Green lies the dystopian Manhattan of the 1981 Escape from New York. Seal Team psych washouts yearning to play Snake Plissken lie in wait.
And the people of NYC? They volunteered for what's coming; they voted for Armageddon. Quoting H. L. Mencken, "The common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."
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