I have been there several times. Park down below and walk up the hill. It is very impressive. And the view from the top is wonderful. Looks like now you have to pay to get up to it. Shame really.
Nice video, BS.
I hope it survives the most recent invasion.
Last night, I posted in Saturday-Sunday’s Open Thread about Mysterious Putin’s Russia and an internet shutdown for Russians. Preventing a coup was one proferred explanation.
Today, the Wall Street Journal has it. The experts they consult say it is an exercise in population info control that the Kremlin has long wanted. Putin’s war in Ukraine crossing boundaries threats simply provides a pretext.
But Stephen Green at Instapundit is not persuaded except to remain unsure. LONG EXCERPT:
“Russia Shuts Off Internet in Moscow as It Tests Nationwide Censorship System.
“People in Moscow, a city of 13 million, have found themselves unable to pay online bills or message co-workers in recent days. Commuters stepping out of the city’s subway stations can’t order a cab to the office. Unable to access online maps, many are asking strangers for directions for the first time in years. Those who normally work from home are filling cafes as they seek a stable Wi-Fi connection.
“In recent months, dozens of Russian regions have gone offline suddenly. The Kremlin has defended the shut-offs as necessary to protect Russians from attacks by Ukrainian drones, which can use local cellphone towers for navigation.
“But analysts say what Russians are actually experiencing is the trial of a nationwide system Moscow has been honing to limit information and hobble connectivity in times of upheaval, inspired by lessons from Iran and other authoritarian states.
“‘This is a system they have wanted to build for years. Now the threat of Ukrainian drones is a perfect chance to test it nationwide,’ said Alena Epifanova, an expert on Russia’s internet at the German Council on Foreign Relations. ‘They use it as a pretext, even in regions where there is no such danger.’”
ADDS Stephen Green: “The drone threat is real, but the Kremlin loves having tight control — so who knows?”
https://ace.mu.nu/archives/418918.php
==
Hideous irresponsibility.
==
Suggest one thing we can do which might marginally reduce the temptation to do this sort of thing is to repeal anti-discrimination law applicable to (1) lenders, (2) landlords, (3) real estate agents, and (4) real property sellers.
==
Not my trade, but I do wonder what legal provision there is to arrange for debt-for-equity swaps to recapitalize financial institutions of various sorts.
He brings hard metrics. Plus, cites that the militiamen enforcers of the Theocrats, the Basij, are on the run. The IAF has ‘em in their sights!
Good news.
Based on analysis of how quickly Iran was rebuilding its missile stocks, in as little as 18-24 months, a strike like what the US/Israel have pursued would become politically impossible.
It would have taken Iran approximately 18–24 months of uninterrupted rebuilding after the June 2025 war (i.e., reaching roughly late 2026 to mid-2027) to produce and field enough ballistic missiles and launchers to create a “too great a risk” deterrent threshold against any attack aimed at stopping a final push toward 10 nuclear weapons.
Here’s the breakdown, based directly on observed post-June 2025 rebuilding rates and Israeli/U.S. assessments of what constitutes a saturation-level threat:
Starting Point Right After the June 2025 War
Missiles: Down to ~1,500 operational ballistic missiles (from a pre-war ~3,000). Iran had fired hundreds and Israel had destroyed hundreds more plus production infrastructure.
Launchers: ~200 remaining (from a pre-war ~400–480). Many mobile transporter-erector-launchers (TELs) and underground sites were hit.
Observed Rebuilding Rate (June 2025 – February 2026, ~8 months)
Missiles grew to ~2,500 (a net gain of ~1,000).
? Average production: ~100–125 missiles per month (IDF and U.S. officials described it as “dozens per month” initially, then “accelerating” and “mass production”; some estimates reached “over 100” monthly).
Launchers were rebuilt faster and more easily (TELs are essentially modified heavy trucks plus hydraulic systems; Iran restored enough to support operations again).
This pace already worried Israel enough that they (with U.S. support) struck again in late February 2026 to prevent further acceleration.
What “Too Great a Risk” Actually Means in This Context
Iran’s doctrine relies on saturation barrages — firing more missiles in coordinated salvos than Israeli (Arrow 2/3, David’s Sling) and U.S. (THAAD, SM-3) interceptors can handle. A handful of penetrators can cause politically unacceptable damage.
Israeli intelligence explicitly defined the red line as ~8,000 ballistic missiles (with several hundred reliable launchers). At that level:
Iran could sustain multiple 200–500+ missile waves over days.
Defenses would be overwhelmed.
Retaliation risk would make any large-scale air campaign against nuclear sites (Natanz, Fordow, etc.) extremely dangerous or politically impossible.
Even 4,000–5,000 missiles with 300+ launchers would likely cross into “high risk” territory for a preemptive strike on a nuclear-weapons dash.
Time to Reach the Threshold at Observed Rates
From the post-June 2025 low of ~1,500 missiles:
To ~4,000–5,000 (plausible “high-risk” deterrent): another 12–18 months of production ? total ~20–26 months post-war.
To the full 8,000-missile “existential threat” goal Israel cited: another 18–24 months at the accelerating rate they were on ? total ~26–32 months post-war, landing in late 2026–mid-2027.
Launchers would not have been the bottleneck — Iran had already shown it could restore hundreds relatively quickly.
Bottom Line
If the February 2026 strikes had not happened, Iran’s observed post-2025 production pace would have given it a missile/launcher force capable of making a strike to block a nuclear-weapons breakout (enough HEU for ~10 devices) unacceptably risky within roughly 1.5–2 years from the end of the June 2025 war. That is exactly why Israeli and U.S. assessments described the 2026 operation as a race to prevent Iran from reaching “immunity” through missile saturation.
— Grok
AI – just a scraped opinion.
In the summer of 1976, my brother and sister and I hitchhiked from Swindon, just to see the White Horse. We talked about where we were going, and why, and the nice young man who worked at a local auctioneers was so intrigued by what I told him that he decided that he wanted to see it also, and drove us all the way there. It was amazing, open, and almost deserted. Then we walked from the ancient ring fort along the ancient way at the top of the range of hills, past Wayland’s Smithy (an ancient tomb in a grove of trees) and had lunch at a small village pub. There we had a nice ploughman’s lunch of bread and cheese, and made friends with the dog that belonged to some locals also having a midday break. A wonderful memory, an amazing experience … and I wonder now how long the Britain that we visited then will still be there in the next few years, the way things are going – or so I read in the media.
om, yes it’s public information from the internet– but from 55 different sources. Some from very well informed sources, including these:
Are you doubting that Iran’s intention was to rebuild it’s missile stocks and launchers in sufficient quantities to make a strike like Israel and the US performed last year impossible without consequences that would be politically impossible, either from the gulf states externally or public opinion inside Israel and the US?
You may quibble with the amount of time or the number of missiles it would take– but you’re being naive to think that isn’t/wasn’t one of Iran’s objectives.
Once they made it too costly to intervene again, the process to restore the estimated stocks of 460-480 kg of 60% to it’s final enrichment stage and the 10 or so nuclear bombs built to hold the world hostage while Iran continued on their vision of the final solution.
It’s scraped, but some may be good and some not so. I don’t trust AI to sort wheat and chaff.
om, you can pose the same question to Grok (or any other LLM) and ask for citations to all their information.
Here’s to the question I posed Grok:
Here is a list of the key source websites and publications referenced in my previous response about the time it would have taken Iran to rebuild its ballistic missile and launcher stocks to a deterrent threshold (post-June 2025 war, based on observed production rates and Israeli assessments of ~8,000 missiles as a saturation-level red line).
These are drawn from reports, analyses, and statements by Israeli military/intelligence sources, U.S. assessments, and related coverage around early 2026:
These sources formed the basis for the estimates: post-war low of ~1,500 missiles, rebuild to ~2,500 by early 2026 (~100–125/month net gain), pre-war goal of 8,000 as the Israeli-defined “existential threat”/saturation point, and February 2026 strikes interrupting the trend. Note that exact production figures and timelines remain estimates from intelligence and open-source analysis, as Iran does not publicly disclose them. If you need excerpts or deeper dives into any specific one, let me know!
You’re free to discount the information, since so much comes from Israeli sources and is mere propaganda.
I think the Israelis are likely to have better intelligence about Iran’s motives/capabilities, since the issues involving Iran are existential to them.
Very interesting video about the Marine expeditionary force being sent to Hormuz and possible scenarios for their use.
“The US Navy broke 90% of Iran’s military equation. Sixty warships destroyed. Missile factories in rubble. Two carrier strike groups hold the perimeter. But Hormuz is still closed — because the last 10% only needs one burning tanker to shut down the world’s most critical shipping lane.
So why is the Pentagon rushing a ship that analysts once dismissed as a “failed experiment” — USS Tripoli, LHA-7 — through the South China Sea at high speed? What can 2,500 Marines do that 50,000 sailors and two supercarriers could not?”
Building on TJ’s comment that a regime change might happen sooner than anyone expects, I posed a scenario to Grok:
“The IRGC is susceptible to a coup inside Tehran, since the majority of it’s forces are outside of Tehran and have no ability to move troops back to Tehran without serious air strikes by allied forces. As the Basij has been targeted, it’s unlikely they would provide much support for the regime (which appears to be the IRGC itself). A reasonable size force from the Artesh loyal to the idea of a restoration of a traditional constitutional monarchy could topple the IRGC. Pahlavi has announced his interim government. It seems likely he has been in communication with elements of the Artesh that would back his government.”
Here’s it’s response:
Your analysis is logically sound and aligns closely with the current (mid-March 2026) battlefield and internal dynamics in Iran. The regime’s security architecture is indeed more fragile in Tehran than it appears on paper, and a well-timed Artesh-backed move could exploit that vulnerability.
Force Distribution Reality Check
IRGC in Tehran: The two dedicated Tehran corps (27th Mohammad Rasoul Ollah Provincial Unit + Sarallah Headquarters) have never been massive standing forces. Pre-war estimates put their regular IRGC Ground Forces troops in Greater Tehran at roughly 4,000–8,000 (elite rapid-response, armored, and special units). The bulk of the nationwide IRGC Ground Forces (~100–150k) remains dispersed across the 31–32 provincial corps.
Artesh (regular army): ~350,000 active personnel, deliberately kept away from internal security roles. Most heavy units are positioned for external defense (western borders, south, etc.). Only a few brigades or independent battalions are within rapid ground movement distance of Tehran (e.g., elements in Karaj, Qazvin, Semnan, or the 1st Armored Division remnants).
Bottom line on your point: Yes — the majority of IRGC combat power is outside Tehran, and U.S./Israeli air superiority has made large-scale road/rail reinforcement extremely costly and slow. The regime’s own doctrine assumed it could move provincial IRGC units inward, but repeated strikes on command nodes (Sarallah HQ, intelligence buildings, key garrisons) and highways have largely neutralized that option.
Basij Collapse as a Force Multiplier
Israeli and U.S. strikes since late February have systematically hit at least 11–12 of Tehran’s 23 Basij regional bases plus dozens of checkpoints. Reports from inside Tehran describe:
Heavy casualties among Basij personnel.
Many checkpoints now abandoned or manned by skeleton crews.
Widespread demoralization and refusals to deploy.
Basij was always the regime’s main “meat” for street control. With it degraded, the IRGC no longer has a reliable low-cost force to flood the streets. That leaves only the relatively small core of regular IRGC troops in the capital — exactly the scenario you described.
Artesh as the Kingmaker
This is the decisive variable. The Artesh-IRGC rift is now publicly acknowledged even in regime-adjacent media:
IRGC refusing medical evacuation for wounded Artesh soldiers.
Severe ammunition and supply shortages in Artesh units.
Multiple reports of Artesh commanders refusing orders to suppress protests or transfer equipment to IRGC.
Reza Pahlavi has been actively courting the Artesh since January 2026 with repeated public messages (“You are the national army of Iran, not of the Islamic Republic… protect the people”). He has framed any future government as one that would protect Artesh officers who refuse regime orders.
A “reasonable size force” does not need to be 50,000 troops. Historical precedents (Romania 1989, Egypt 2011, even the initial phase of the 1979 Iranian Revolution itself) show that 3,000–8,000 coordinated regular troops + popular uprising in the capital is often enough to collapse a regime whose ideological enforcers (IRGC + Basij) have already been gutted from the air.
Current Window (March 2026)
The combination of:
Ongoing degradation of IRGC command in Tehran,
Basij disintegration,
Deepening Artesh resentment,
Pahlavi’s explicit transitional framework (announced March 14–16, including the transitional justice committee with Shirin Ebadi),
…has created the most plausible window for an Artesh-facilitated regime change since the war began.
Whether Pahlavi has concrete clandestine channels inside the Artesh high command remains unknown publicly — but the volume and specificity of his appeals suggest he believes he does.
Your scenario is not guaranteed, but it is militarily and politically realistic right now. The next 2–4 weeks will likely determine if a critical mass of Artesh officers decides the Islamic Republic is no longer salvageable and moves to secure Tehran under a Pahlavi-led transitional banner.
I wonder if the Basij and IRGC guys have been or can be doxxed.
If that start happening, do they quit by the hundred instead of by the quartet? Or do they decide that fighting to the death is the better option, considering what the ordinary folks think they have coming?
Excellent replies by Brian and om.Thanks for rhe info.
HEADLINE “Iranian Military Officers Reportedly Seek Contact with Reza Pahlavi, Signal Intent to Defect”
londondaily.com
“Sources close to Pahlavi’s network indicate that the communications include expressions of loyalty to his mission to lead a transition toward democracy in the event of the regime’s collapse. The contacts have reportedly come from individuals within the regular army, the Republican Guard, police forces and intelligence services. The outreach follows recent Israeli air strikes inside Iran, which reportedly damaged key installations and killed senior military figures—events that Pahlavi described as “Khamenei’s war,” rather than Iran’s war. He has positioned himself not as a monarch seeking restoration, but as a civilian figure aiming to guide a democratic transition led by the Iranian people.“
Been said many times that believing we all think alike and thus ascribing odd or evil intent to enemies is not only useless but it makes us big meanies.
But this is ISLAM. They do think differently. Dismissing various intel because “nobody would do that” is dangerous.
A nuclear fission explosion isn’t necessary to do unimaginable damage to an enemy. Going from 60% refined to weapons-grade and into an actual, working bomb has been done. You don’t need a neurotic Jewish physicist having odd affairs with strange women and making bombs on the side (I saw the movie so it must be true) to make a bomb anymore. The directions are out there, plain as a Betty Crocker recipe.
But it makes “noise” from an intel point of view.
Suppose you grind what you have into a fine powder and put it into a hundred, or a thousand, warheads? How long until there are no geigers left to be counted and people will venture into what’s left of Tel Aviv or New York? Will accept anything from downwind of them, whether agriculture or manufactured products?
RADIATION!!! is scary, trails in your kitchen-table cloud chamber notwithstanding.
(Should say our chem prof in high school–1960–showed us how to do it. In case….)
Point being there’s a lot less “noise” from an intel standpoint in doing that. Especially if the crews down the line handling the finished product don’t know what they’re doing and Allah don’t do no medical retirement buddy.
BREAKING NOW!! Nick Shirley exposes California: Uncovers over $170,000,000 in FRAUD – FULL VIDEO
Oughtta be a new government department created specially for him—Department of Fraud / Secretary of Fraud.
Amazing dude…
Uranium ground into a fine powder and spread around just isn’t that toxic. It isn’t Plutonium.
Sorry.
It isn’t Cs-137 or Sr-90, Americium, or Polonium, or even Radium. It is Uranium.
Sorry.
It isn’t magic deadly toxic Unicorn shit.
Sorry.
A bit of good news this morning: Ali Larijani is dead. The IDF got him. They also eliminated the Basij commander, with others. Progress.
“And another one bites the dust!”
Everybody here underestimates people.
om
Toxic/not toxic. Not the point. Unreasoning fear is.
Do you recall Covid? How much reason was involved in various personal decisions; soggy face diaper, snitching on neighbors not obeying the six-foot or other rule, mindlessly obeying whichever power-freak bureaucrat got some air time…?
And how non-toxic is less toxic than plutonium? Is that the same as zero-toxic? WIll it not trigger a geiger counter? Darken a film badge?
You can’t get a vaccine against RADIATION.
I read an Israeli report that Israel considers the dirty bombs to be “over blown” and not really that much of a threat. I went looking after om corrected us on this subject a while back.
Chases Eagles
The people who determine whether a dirty bomb is a threat are the people who are frightened of it. Hence my mention of Covid/ But remember radon? That’s hardly toxic, naturally occurring, seeps into your house through cracks in the foundation. Lots of stuff done for radon; municipal radon mitigation efforts; maybe redo your basement, live someplace else for a while.
It was scary because it was RADIATION!!! darn it. So a cloud of U235 dust over Manhattan and….more work from home? Real estate prices? Need a subway into town any longer?
You can’t see a Covid virus. You can get a geiger counter. And the people saying it’s just background radiation–of which you have never heard in your entire life to this point–likely live elsewhere anyway. Well, okay, maybe some of it’s not background radiation, but what there is additional isn’t dangerous. That’s going to be a hard sell.
Think there will be film badges available at Walmart in boxes of a dozen, cheap?
My father worked in medical sales. Said there were departments in hospitals where the folks had film badges due to what might be running around loose in a HOSPITAL.
I don’t think you’d be able to calm the populace by pointing out that this stuff ending in “um” is different from this other stuff ending in “um”, and this stuff is okay. That’s science.
And an uptick in….say….some form of cancer….. Might be for another reason including changes in diagnoses or immigrants from someplace where they picked up something carcinogenic earlier in life. But….not suspicious?
Perhaps we should check out:
Jack Devanney from Gordian Knot News
Jack has published quite a few essays discussing the ability of life to repair DNA damage from radiation if the rate of exposure is low enough over a given period of time. This is an evolved capability that life required to survive with the normal background radiation in the minerals of the earth, etc. I gather the normal DNA repair rate can handle exposures some few times greater than the usual background radiation rate in most locales.
Thus, the details of levels of exposure, rates and types of radiation, etc. need to get factored into considerations of how serious a given dirty bomb exposure might be. Not to pooh pooh the whole thing, but there may be situations that are clearly survivable with little long term health consequences, etc.
A suitable analysis and education program could be helpful in mitigating the “fear factor” that Richard is suggesting might otherwise override logic and sanity.
R2L.
Covid propaganda notwithstanding, no medical procedure is 100% effective.
And with the provisos your proposed treatment(s) have, not a sure thing anyway.
However, my point is not the people who were exposed. It’s the people who weren’t, being encouraged to go where they could be exposed, as opposed to not going and not being exposed. An “almost certainly” isn’t going to sell those folks. You walk past an alley where similar ones have turned the occasional confined breeze into something which, in other times, put your tie over your shoulder. And there’s dust in that gust…. Your geiger counter clicks a few more times than usual that three seconds.
Does the city have an array of instant laundries where you and your clothing can be sloshed clean before returning to home in the ‘burbs?
Remember the Covid over-panics? Gonna be a more relaxed view of things when it’s RADIATION?
Does the USDA have an extra line on the food source including radiation rating for the source? Does anybody trust the feds not to lie?
Radiation is so easy to detect and avoid and protect oneself from. Completely unlike germs and chemicals, which require a different test or detector for each threat and for which in some cases there are no tests or detectors.
Get yourself a Geiger counter from Amazon, some are under $50. My son got one for Christmas when he was 10 (thought it would be cool to have one). Educate yourself out of your fear by testing bananas from the grocery store and any brick or concrete in your house.
Niketas
Missed the point. Try to think about convincing sufficient people that an area–say Manhattan–which has been struck by a couple of dirty bombs can be made safe so that sad area will be useful.
We are, so to speak, “up wind” of such an area, and we’ll be trying to convince others, from our position of safety and that will go just fine. The people in question, being asked to go downwind, might not be so sanguine.
They physics of radiation don’t matter in that situation.
I was born in 45. In school, we had air raid alerts. The chem teacher and the physics teacher both were at some pains to explain the situation to us. And “fallout” was a constant worry for some folks. Remember strontium 90? Yeah, that one. Try explaining physics to a guy who thinks he got a belt of it in his milk for breakfast.
I’m just eighty-one and I’m not afraid of very much any more. And I’d have to get a heck of a belt of that dust to live long enough to die of it. Not my problem. Point is,,,,,see Covid and other general panics.
@Richard Aubrey:strontium 90? Yeah, that one. Try explaining physics to a guy who thinks he got a belt of it in his milk for breakfast.
Someone taught him that fear. There is no innate fear of strontium-90. Didn’t even exist before the twentieth century. What can be learned can be unlearned.
Point is,,,,,see Covid and other general panics.
I get what you’re saying, but we were taught to fear COVID. We can unlearn it.
People are afraid of a lot of unreasonable things and there are others they used to be afraid of. Unreasonable fears are a cost that prevent reasonable fears from being better addressed, the time and effort spent in education can be well worth it.
Richard Aubrey:
9/11/2001. Manhattan. Clouds of dust. Asbestos. Asbestos kills, asbestosis, mesothelioma.
Kills.
Kills.
Somehow Manhattan is not a ghost town.
People accept risk.
Radiation exposure is a risk.
I wear a dosimeter every f’en day at work. Have worn “death chips” for neutron dosimetry, worked in High Contamination areas (Sr-90), Airborne Contamination (Pu) areas. You learn what to do if a Criticality Alarm goes off or when a Continuous Air Monitor goes off (too much Pu).
Almost like the Israelis and Ukrainians know about air raid alarms and shelters.
People accept risks in life. It is part of growing up.
Om. Your work, having something to do with radiation, is in a mostly-controlled environment. You know what to do in the rare event you get a “hit” on your detection equipment, whatever it may be. And pretty much every place you go is safe.
Somebody who gets a whiff from the previously-described alley might or might not have a detector, and if he does, it may or may not tell him the severity of the hit. Which is what? Was he inhaling when that stuff went by? Is it in his hair? Clothes?
Different issue.
The clouds from the Collapse and the Pile twenty-five years ago are still killing. But their lethal capacity today is little to zero, given the time involved. It was what was ingested then, and it turned out, surprise, that the feds knew the air was toxic then for some time and didn’t tell the workers. Surprise. Never happened before and won’t happen again. Everybody’s confident about that. But it was the exposures then which are still killing cops and firefighters, whose numbers can be found, and unknown numbers of construction guys whose numbers cannot be centralized.
As in Israel where people “accept” risk. You may as well, since there’s nothing you can do about it. But if you can avoid it–you probably will make an effort. So that’s not relevant.
The Covid panic can be unlearned, at least in terms of institutional issues (lockdowns) but there are still people who are “concerned”.
But if you insist that the dirty-bomb fear can be unlearned or it can wear out, as with Covid, that’s after a lot of trouble including…well, you know.
My point is that a dirty bomb will have infinitely worse results than the same size warhead in HE, even if the stuff couldn’t be made to fission (is that a verb?).
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I have been there several times. Park down below and walk up the hill. It is very impressive. And the view from the top is wonderful. Looks like now you have to pay to get up to it. Shame really.
Nice video, BS.
I hope it survives the most recent invasion.
Last night, I posted in Saturday-Sunday’s Open Thread about Mysterious Putin’s Russia and an internet shutdown for Russians. Preventing a coup was one proferred explanation.
Today, the Wall Street Journal has it. The experts they consult say it is an exercise in population info control that the Kremlin has long wanted. Putin’s war in Ukraine crossing boundaries threats simply provides a pretext.
But Stephen Green at Instapundit is not persuaded except to remain unsure. LONG EXCERPT:
“Russia Shuts Off Internet in Moscow as It Tests Nationwide Censorship System.
“People in Moscow, a city of 13 million, have found themselves unable to pay online bills or message co-workers in recent days. Commuters stepping out of the city’s subway stations can’t order a cab to the office. Unable to access online maps, many are asking strangers for directions for the first time in years. Those who normally work from home are filling cafes as they seek a stable Wi-Fi connection.
“In recent months, dozens of Russian regions have gone offline suddenly. The Kremlin has defended the shut-offs as necessary to protect Russians from attacks by Ukrainian drones, which can use local cellphone towers for navigation.
“But analysts say what Russians are actually experiencing is the trial of a nationwide system Moscow has been honing to limit information and hobble connectivity in times of upheaval, inspired by lessons from Iran and other authoritarian states.
“‘This is a system they have wanted to build for years. Now the threat of Ukrainian drones is a perfect chance to test it nationwide,’ said Alena Epifanova, an expert on Russia’s internet at the German Council on Foreign Relations. ‘They use it as a pretext, even in regions where there is no such danger.’”
ADDS Stephen Green: “The drone threat is real, but the Kremlin loves having tight control — so who knows?”
https://ace.mu.nu/archives/418918.php
==
Hideous irresponsibility.
==
Suggest one thing we can do which might marginally reduce the temptation to do this sort of thing is to repeal anti-discrimination law applicable to (1) lenders, (2) landlords, (3) real estate agents, and (4) real property sellers.
==
Not my trade, but I do wonder what legal provision there is to arrange for debt-for-equity swaps to recapitalize financial institutions of various sorts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KE-Ze-VPeE
fwiw
https://nypost.com/2026/03/16/us-news/trump-briefed-that-irans-new-supreme-leader-mojtaba-khamenei-is-probably-gay/
it really is striking he has learned ‘the art of not being seen’
I think she tries to be too even handed
https://evebarlow.substack.com/p/orcs
but we see why even Sky News behaves the way it does,
Grubby, hairy Brit commentator with easily ignored chatter.
But what makes or keeps the “horse” white after hundreds of Brit winters?
miguel cervantes:
There is a Monty Python for that on YouTube. To be seen …. and …. kaboom.
I would dub them the dhimmi circle of delusion
https://fiamengofile.substack.com/p/the-feminists-who-hate-maga-more
I’m reminded of the cave of the swimmer in Eastern Libya, that bookends the English Patient, which has a very minimalistic look to it,
“How not to be seen.” Monty Python
https://m.youtube.com/results?search_query=how+not+to+be+seen+monty+python&sp=mAEA
To be seen was soon to be dead (aka a Norwegian Blue).
That was the case back in 1916 (snipers, artillery) even more so now,
“To be seen is to be droned.” Find the hiding mullah.
Cicero:
The locals (indigenous British) put down fresh chalk every year. As stated by the hairy dude.
As Fogghorn Leghhorn would say “Pay attention boy, I’m talkin’ to you!” 🙂
Fans of XTC and Terry Pratchett are familiar with this horse.
Neo, seems the Oscars went to the Worst Picture Ever. Of course it did
Also Sunday, I linked to a YouTuber whose X.com amateur video showed celebratory Iranians in public possibly by the million.
Today, Stephen Green (pjmedia) also asks if we’re reaching the vox populi tipping point, where the masses takeover from oppressive forces.
Like my source, Green thinks maybe quite soon, too.
https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2026/03/16/iran-looking-almost-ripe-for-regime-change-n4950684
He brings hard metrics. Plus, cites that the militiamen enforcers of the Theocrats, the Basij, are on the run. The IAF has ‘em in their sights!
Good news.
Based on analysis of how quickly Iran was rebuilding its missile stocks, in as little as 18-24 months, a strike like what the US/Israel have pursued would become politically impossible.
— Grok
AI – just a scraped opinion.
In the summer of 1976, my brother and sister and I hitchhiked from Swindon, just to see the White Horse. We talked about where we were going, and why, and the nice young man who worked at a local auctioneers was so intrigued by what I told him that he decided that he wanted to see it also, and drove us all the way there. It was amazing, open, and almost deserted. Then we walked from the ancient ring fort along the ancient way at the top of the range of hills, past Wayland’s Smithy (an ancient tomb in a grove of trees) and had lunch at a small village pub. There we had a nice ploughman’s lunch of bread and cheese, and made friends with the dog that belonged to some locals also having a midday break. A wonderful memory, an amazing experience … and I wonder now how long the Britain that we visited then will still be there in the next few years, the way things are going – or so I read in the media.
om, yes it’s public information from the internet– but from 55 different sources. Some from very well informed sources, including these:
Iran could reach 8000 ballistic missiles by next year, Israeli military says
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202603059373
Iran – Types of Ballistic Missiles – Overview
https://israel-alma.org/iran-types-of-ballistic-missiles-overview/
Are you doubting that Iran’s intention was to rebuild it’s missile stocks and launchers in sufficient quantities to make a strike like Israel and the US performed last year impossible without consequences that would be politically impossible, either from the gulf states externally or public opinion inside Israel and the US?
You may quibble with the amount of time or the number of missiles it would take– but you’re being naive to think that isn’t/wasn’t one of Iran’s objectives.
Once they made it too costly to intervene again, the process to restore the estimated stocks of 460-480 kg of 60% to it’s final enrichment stage and the 10 or so nuclear bombs built to hold the world hostage while Iran continued on their vision of the final solution.
It’s scraped, but some may be good and some not so. I don’t trust AI to sort wheat and chaff.
om, you can pose the same question to Grok (or any other LLM) and ask for citations to all their information.
Here’s to the question I posed Grok:
You’re free to discount the information, since so much comes from Israeli sources and is mere propaganda.
I think the Israelis are likely to have better intelligence about Iran’s motives/capabilities, since the issues involving Iran are existential to them.
Very interesting video about the Marine expeditionary force being sent to Hormuz and possible scenarios for their use.
“The US Navy broke 90% of Iran’s military equation. Sixty warships destroyed. Missile factories in rubble. Two carrier strike groups hold the perimeter. But Hormuz is still closed — because the last 10% only needs one burning tanker to shut down the world’s most critical shipping lane.
So why is the Pentagon rushing a ship that analysts once dismissed as a “failed experiment” — USS Tripoli, LHA-7 — through the South China Sea at high speed? What can 2,500 Marines do that 50,000 sailors and two supercarriers could not?”
Why the US Navy Rushed USS Tripoli to the Strait of Hormuz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMy69tl25r8
Building on TJ’s comment that a regime change might happen sooner than anyone expects, I posed a scenario to Grok:
“The IRGC is susceptible to a coup inside Tehran, since the majority of it’s forces are outside of Tehran and have no ability to move troops back to Tehran without serious air strikes by allied forces. As the Basij has been targeted, it’s unlikely they would provide much support for the regime (which appears to be the IRGC itself). A reasonable size force from the Artesh loyal to the idea of a restoration of a traditional constitutional monarchy could topple the IRGC. Pahlavi has announced his interim government. It seems likely he has been in communication with elements of the Artesh that would back his government.”
Here’s it’s response:
LIVE: Pahlavi Announces Iran Government – Iranians Prepare Uprising To Topple IRGC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6GfSERZ-pQ
I wonder if the Basij and IRGC guys have been or can be doxxed.
If that start happening, do they quit by the hundred instead of by the quartet? Or do they decide that fighting to the death is the better option, considering what the ordinary folks think they have coming?
Excellent replies by Brian and om.Thanks for rhe info.
HEADLINE “Iranian Military Officers Reportedly Seek Contact with Reza Pahlavi, Signal Intent to Defect”
londondaily.com
“Sources close to Pahlavi’s network indicate that the communications include expressions of loyalty to his mission to lead a transition toward democracy in the event of the regime’s collapse. The contacts have reportedly come from individuals within the regular army, the Republican Guard, police forces and intelligence services. The outreach follows recent Israeli air strikes inside Iran, which reportedly damaged key installations and killed senior military figures—events that Pahlavi described as “Khamenei’s war,” rather than Iran’s war. He has positioned himself not as a monarch seeking restoration, but as a civilian figure aiming to guide a democratic transition led by the Iranian people.“
Been said many times that believing we all think alike and thus ascribing odd or evil intent to enemies is not only useless but it makes us big meanies.
But this is ISLAM. They do think differently. Dismissing various intel because “nobody would do that” is dangerous.
A nuclear fission explosion isn’t necessary to do unimaginable damage to an enemy. Going from 60% refined to weapons-grade and into an actual, working bomb has been done. You don’t need a neurotic Jewish physicist having odd affairs with strange women and making bombs on the side (I saw the movie so it must be true) to make a bomb anymore. The directions are out there, plain as a Betty Crocker recipe.
But it makes “noise” from an intel point of view.
Suppose you grind what you have into a fine powder and put it into a hundred, or a thousand, warheads? How long until there are no geigers left to be counted and people will venture into what’s left of Tel Aviv or New York? Will accept anything from downwind of them, whether agriculture or manufactured products?
RADIATION!!! is scary, trails in your kitchen-table cloud chamber notwithstanding.
(Should say our chem prof in high school–1960–showed us how to do it. In case….)
Point being there’s a lot less “noise” from an intel standpoint in doing that. Especially if the crews down the line handling the finished product don’t know what they’re doing and Allah don’t do no medical retirement buddy.
BREAKING NOW!! Nick Shirley exposes California: Uncovers over $170,000,000 in FRAUD – FULL VIDEO
https://commoncts.blogspot.com/2026/03/breaking-now-nick-shirley-exposes.html
Oughtta be a new government department created specially for him—Department of Fraud / Secretary of Fraud.
Amazing dude…
Uranium ground into a fine powder and spread around just isn’t that toxic. It isn’t Plutonium.
Sorry.
It isn’t Cs-137 or Sr-90, Americium, or Polonium, or even Radium. It is Uranium.
Sorry.
It isn’t magic deadly toxic Unicorn shit.
Sorry.
A bit of good news this morning: Ali Larijani is dead. The IDF got him. They also eliminated the Basij commander, with others. Progress.
“And another one bites the dust!”
Everybody here underestimates people.
om
Toxic/not toxic. Not the point. Unreasoning fear is.
Do you recall Covid? How much reason was involved in various personal decisions; soggy face diaper, snitching on neighbors not obeying the six-foot or other rule, mindlessly obeying whichever power-freak bureaucrat got some air time…?
And how non-toxic is less toxic than plutonium? Is that the same as zero-toxic? WIll it not trigger a geiger counter? Darken a film badge?
You can’t get a vaccine against RADIATION.
I read an Israeli report that Israel considers the dirty bombs to be “over blown” and not really that much of a threat. I went looking after om corrected us on this subject a while back.
Chases Eagles
The people who determine whether a dirty bomb is a threat are the people who are frightened of it. Hence my mention of Covid/ But remember radon? That’s hardly toxic, naturally occurring, seeps into your house through cracks in the foundation. Lots of stuff done for radon; municipal radon mitigation efforts; maybe redo your basement, live someplace else for a while.
It was scary because it was RADIATION!!! darn it. So a cloud of U235 dust over Manhattan and….more work from home? Real estate prices? Need a subway into town any longer?
You can’t see a Covid virus. You can get a geiger counter. And the people saying it’s just background radiation–of which you have never heard in your entire life to this point–likely live elsewhere anyway. Well, okay, maybe some of it’s not background radiation, but what there is additional isn’t dangerous. That’s going to be a hard sell.
Think there will be film badges available at Walmart in boxes of a dozen, cheap?
My father worked in medical sales. Said there were departments in hospitals where the folks had film badges due to what might be running around loose in a HOSPITAL.
I don’t think you’d be able to calm the populace by pointing out that this stuff ending in “um” is different from this other stuff ending in “um”, and this stuff is okay. That’s science.
And an uptick in….say….some form of cancer….. Might be for another reason including changes in diagnoses or immigrants from someplace where they picked up something carcinogenic earlier in life. But….not suspicious?
Perhaps we should check out:
Jack Devanney from Gordian Knot News
Jack has published quite a few essays discussing the ability of life to repair DNA damage from radiation if the rate of exposure is low enough over a given period of time. This is an evolved capability that life required to survive with the normal background radiation in the minerals of the earth, etc. I gather the normal DNA repair rate can handle exposures some few times greater than the usual background radiation rate in most locales.
Thus, the details of levels of exposure, rates and types of radiation, etc. need to get factored into considerations of how serious a given dirty bomb exposure might be. Not to pooh pooh the whole thing, but there may be situations that are clearly survivable with little long term health consequences, etc.
A suitable analysis and education program could be helpful in mitigating the “fear factor” that Richard is suggesting might otherwise override logic and sanity.
R2L.
Covid propaganda notwithstanding, no medical procedure is 100% effective.
And with the provisos your proposed treatment(s) have, not a sure thing anyway.
However, my point is not the people who were exposed. It’s the people who weren’t, being encouraged to go where they could be exposed, as opposed to not going and not being exposed. An “almost certainly” isn’t going to sell those folks. You walk past an alley where similar ones have turned the occasional confined breeze into something which, in other times, put your tie over your shoulder. And there’s dust in that gust…. Your geiger counter clicks a few more times than usual that three seconds.
Does the city have an array of instant laundries where you and your clothing can be sloshed clean before returning to home in the ‘burbs?
Remember the Covid over-panics? Gonna be a more relaxed view of things when it’s RADIATION?
Does the USDA have an extra line on the food source including radiation rating for the source? Does anybody trust the feds not to lie?
Radiation is so easy to detect and avoid and protect oneself from. Completely unlike germs and chemicals, which require a different test or detector for each threat and for which in some cases there are no tests or detectors.
Get yourself a Geiger counter from Amazon, some are under $50. My son got one for Christmas when he was 10 (thought it would be cool to have one). Educate yourself out of your fear by testing bananas from the grocery store and any brick or concrete in your house.
Niketas
Missed the point. Try to think about convincing sufficient people that an area–say Manhattan–which has been struck by a couple of dirty bombs can be made safe so that sad area will be useful.
We are, so to speak, “up wind” of such an area, and we’ll be trying to convince others, from our position of safety and that will go just fine. The people in question, being asked to go downwind, might not be so sanguine.
They physics of radiation don’t matter in that situation.
I was born in 45. In school, we had air raid alerts. The chem teacher and the physics teacher both were at some pains to explain the situation to us. And “fallout” was a constant worry for some folks. Remember strontium 90? Yeah, that one. Try explaining physics to a guy who thinks he got a belt of it in his milk for breakfast.
I’m just eighty-one and I’m not afraid of very much any more. And I’d have to get a heck of a belt of that dust to live long enough to die of it. Not my problem. Point is,,,,,see Covid and other general panics.
@Richard Aubrey:strontium 90? Yeah, that one. Try explaining physics to a guy who thinks he got a belt of it in his milk for breakfast.
Someone taught him that fear. There is no innate fear of strontium-90. Didn’t even exist before the twentieth century. What can be learned can be unlearned.
Point is,,,,,see Covid and other general panics.
I get what you’re saying, but we were taught to fear COVID. We can unlearn it.
People are afraid of a lot of unreasonable things and there are others they used to be afraid of. Unreasonable fears are a cost that prevent reasonable fears from being better addressed, the time and effort spent in education can be well worth it.
Richard Aubrey:
9/11/2001. Manhattan. Clouds of dust. Asbestos. Asbestos kills, asbestosis, mesothelioma.
Kills.
Kills.
Somehow Manhattan is not a ghost town.
People accept risk.
Radiation exposure is a risk.
I wear a dosimeter every f’en day at work. Have worn “death chips” for neutron dosimetry, worked in High Contamination areas (Sr-90), Airborne Contamination (Pu) areas. You learn what to do if a Criticality Alarm goes off or when a Continuous Air Monitor goes off (too much Pu).
Almost like the Israelis and Ukrainians know about air raid alarms and shelters.
People accept risks in life. It is part of growing up.
Om. Your work, having something to do with radiation, is in a mostly-controlled environment. You know what to do in the rare event you get a “hit” on your detection equipment, whatever it may be. And pretty much every place you go is safe.
Somebody who gets a whiff from the previously-described alley might or might not have a detector, and if he does, it may or may not tell him the severity of the hit. Which is what? Was he inhaling when that stuff went by? Is it in his hair? Clothes?
Different issue.
The clouds from the Collapse and the Pile twenty-five years ago are still killing. But their lethal capacity today is little to zero, given the time involved. It was what was ingested then, and it turned out, surprise, that the feds knew the air was toxic then for some time and didn’t tell the workers. Surprise. Never happened before and won’t happen again. Everybody’s confident about that. But it was the exposures then which are still killing cops and firefighters, whose numbers can be found, and unknown numbers of construction guys whose numbers cannot be centralized.
As in Israel where people “accept” risk. You may as well, since there’s nothing you can do about it. But if you can avoid it–you probably will make an effort. So that’s not relevant.
The Covid panic can be unlearned, at least in terms of institutional issues (lockdowns) but there are still people who are “concerned”.
But if you insist that the dirty-bomb fear can be unlearned or it can wear out, as with Covid, that’s after a lot of trouble including…well, you know.
My point is that a dirty bomb will have infinitely worse results than the same size warhead in HE, even if the stuff couldn’t be made to fission (is that a verb?).