I have yet another story set in a bar. The bartender at the place closest to me – the one where everybody knows my name – is the most wonderful woman you could ever meet. Seven kids, all of whom turned out great, and two are in the military – a son in special forces and a daughter who is a doctor stationed in Okinawa.
She just found out they’re both being deployed. Obviously no idea where the son’s going but her daughter was able to tell her she’s headed to the USS Tripoli.
So I looked it up. It’s an amphibious assault ship used primarily by the Marines. And then there’s this:
A US Navy warship believed to be carrying Marines and sailors to the Middle East is nearing the Malacca Strait off Singapore as it makes its way to the region, maritime tracking data showed Tuesday.
The amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli was approaching Singapore, at the southwestern edge of the South China Sea, Tuesday morning, according to AIS tracking data seen by CNN.
Obviously she’s very anxious.
That dog looks like he needs a smoke.
As a doc, she has organizational and prep duties while underway. Her anxiety is justified, with Iran being indefatigable despite the massive bombing it has sustained.The USS Tripoli will be a missile/drone target, I’m sure.
Nice life affirming connection, Mike! We should all be so fortunate in our bar haunts.
About your new friend’s military children. According to YouTuber RJ Talks, the arrival of the Tripoli to the Iran War theater is imminent. Likely this weekend.
SEE my post very late night post, the last post, to yesterday’s unthreaded, for my link and more strategic context.
LOL,,,,, A dog that thinks it’s a cat. Cat can be notoriously picky about their food. All the dogs we’ve had, and known, will gobble everything put in front of them, and some stuff they should not eat.
Try a medallion of Blue Buffalo with dab of pure pumpkin on top and add some Iams dry food. Blue Buffalo has a number of flavors, some targeted to certain age segments. They also have stew options in addition to pate options.
Still trying to figure out how the IRG will be destroyed and removed, permanently from power in Iran.
They still run the show in Iran.
They are the Iranian equivalent of Hamas. Hamas seems to have infinite lives and they still survive no matter how many of them get killed or how often they get “defeated.” They are like a cancer that never stops metastasizing.
Unless the IRG can be annihilated it will only be a matter of time when they build up their weapons systems, esp. given the support they will receive from Russia, China and N.Korea.
Our cats have enjoyed a number of brands and enjoy both wet and dry food. Three generations of cats. As long as you meet them half way, their not that picky.
==
Cats are all over a map on table scraps. We’ve had cats who enjoyed a variety of treats and we had one who would only nibble on graham crackers. Had a friend whose cat was mad for saute’ed mushrooms.
My late Weimaraner had the “can I choke this down, if so it’s food” method. My current one has “This is same premium food as yesterday! I want something else!” approach to meals.
John Tyler, fast forward to the 9:45 mark to hear Prime Minister Netanyahu address the issue of regime change. There are things going on we aren’t privy to.
NETANYAHU: We want a transitional leader that will have a transition. You don’t want to replace one Ayatollah with another. You don’t want to replace Hitler with Himmler. So I think the question is will the conditions be created for such a change? I think it’s too early to say. Uh and I think in the final account as I said it’s up to the Iranian people to show that— to choose the moment and to rise to the moment. We can create the conditions but they have to, you know, they have to exploit those conditions at a certain point. It is often said that you can’t win, you can’t do revolutions from the air. That is true. You can’t do it only from the air. You can do a lot of things from the air and we’re doing but there have to be there has to be a ground component as well. There are many possibilities for this ground component and I take the liberty of not sharing with you all those possibilities.
REPORTER: Would you recognize Pahlavi if the people keep chanting for him in the streets?
NETANYAHU: Well, I’m not going to say uh what who specifically is going to be there, but I think he’s been a force for good. He’s been trying to get the people to unite for a transitional government, a democratic transitional government or a moderate transitional government. I hope that one that it comes to being I think it’s too early to say.
The Israelis are considering the transition. There are no guarantees in war, but the covert operations by the Mossad and CIA have been so good so far, it seems, based on these comments, they are planning for that phase of the war.
The entire news conference is well worth the time.
of course the press finds a way to twist these details into a pretzel, the salty kind,
there is a question of domestic vs foreign leadership,
the iraq war showed how we might have imported too many, like maliki, Jafari,
and allawi, along with others, but the
leadership class in the country, was rather moribund,
Our dog acted like we were trying to poison her. She’d delicately take each piece out of her bowl, drop it on the floor, lick it, and then eat it. It took forever for her to eat bowl of kibble. She was an eighty pound rottweiler mix.
Riverside County, Ca opens an investigation to compare the number of ballots cast in a 2025 special election to the number of votes reported to the California Secretary of State.
Good morning everyone. I’m Chad Biano, Riverside County Sheriff. Thank you all for coming this morning. This press conference was called for three reasons. Inform the public of this investigation into the 2025 special election based on information received from the group of citizen volunteers who performed an audit based on public records from the ROV. Number two, discuss interference in this investigation by Attorney General Rob Bont. and number three, assure Riverside County residents that we are committed to ensuring our elections are secure, safe, and accurate.
In October of 2022, investigators from the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office began an investigation into possible election fraud. This investigation is ongoing. On February 9th, 2026, as a result of this investigation, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office served the registrar of voters with a warrant approved and signed by a judge for election materials related to the 2025 special election.
This investigation is very simple. The registrar of voters maintained handwritten logs of the total number of ballots coming into the ROV. An audit of those logs received from the Riverside County Registrar of Voters allegedly shows 611,428 ballots were cast, but 657,322 votes were reported and certified to the Secretary of State. That is a difference of 45,896 votes. The response from the registrar of voters was that it did not rely on logs and that it is a machine count that reflects a much smaller deviation that he chocks up to acceptable human error. I hope we can all agree there is no acceptable error small or large in our elections, let alone a 45,000 vote difference.
Our investigation will determine the validity of that alleged discrepancy. And if found true, we will determine the cause. We will do that by physically counting the ballots. This is not a recount to determine how many votes were for or against Prop 50.
We are hearing quotes like this from both Bibi and Donald:
it’s up to the Iranian people to show that— to choose the moment and to rise to the moment. We can create the conditions but they have to, you know, they have to exploit those conditions at a certain point.
—————————————————–
1. Politically this is Trump keeping his no-foreign-entanglements promise to his base. It may involve boots on the ground and long-term support, but it will be portrayed as “not the same old failed attempts at nation building”.
2. Practically it recognizes that any reform imposed on Islam from within will fail.
To quote that old Leftie Tom Lehrer:
They’ve got to be protected,
All their rights respected,
’til somebody who we *like* can be elected
———–
Not sure what that will look like.
In the meantime
China is starved for oil
Russia is revealed as impotent to those who cozied up to it.
Muslims perceived as “moderate” will have to put up or shut up… The “up to you” message is intended for them, as well.
Lloyds of London’s stranglehold on maritime shipping insurance is being broken.
Western Europe’s trousers are about its knees, revealing a lack of ships and materiel for an action that concerns them more than it does the (energy-independent) US…. this is basically a physical spanking to match the verbal spankings delivered at various summits by both Vance and Trump.
This is how grown-ups do foreign policy.
Thank you Brian E. The video on why the USS Tripoli was very helpful.
According to my very reliable and highly placed source, “all major ops will be concluded by the end of April.”
I asked him whether the Marines will be involved. His deliberately cryptic answer: “Marines are involved in everything.”
He’s very good at telling me something without telling me something.
I second Brian’s motion–watch the Bibi press conference. Very informative and articulately presented. I love Trump, but Bibi does a better job of clearly spelling out why we had to attack, while dispelling various canards, like he’s dead, and that he tricked Trump into war.
Neo, has a soft spot for Barry Gibb.
Here he is with the Gatlin Brothers and Roy Orbison from different camera angles. The song was written by Larry Gatlin and Barry Gibb. Lots of high tenor going on here. I think I can distinguish Barry’s voice.
I suspect that others here know this, but I was surprised to learn that Alysa Liu
is the oldest of five children, with siblings Selina and triplets Joshua, Justin, and Julia, all of whom were born via surrogacies through two anonymous egg donors, with Liu sharing the same birth mother as the triplets.
was quoted as saying that he intentionally chose Caucasian egg donors for his children because he “felt his children would benefit from a diverse gene pool.”
Hahahaha! Dogs rule. Literally.
I have yet another story set in a bar. The bartender at the place closest to me – the one where everybody knows my name – is the most wonderful woman you could ever meet. Seven kids, all of whom turned out great, and two are in the military – a son in special forces and a daughter who is a doctor stationed in Okinawa.
She just found out they’re both being deployed. Obviously no idea where the son’s going but her daughter was able to tell her she’s headed to the USS Tripoli.
So I looked it up. It’s an amphibious assault ship used primarily by the Marines. And then there’s this:
https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/17/middleeast/uss-tripoli-marines-middle-east-iran-intl
Obviously she’s very anxious.
That dog looks like he needs a smoke.
As a doc, she has organizational and prep duties while underway. Her anxiety is justified, with Iran being indefatigable despite the massive bombing it has sustained.The USS Tripoli will be a missile/drone target, I’m sure.
Nice life affirming connection, Mike! We should all be so fortunate in our bar haunts.
About your new friend’s military children. According to YouTuber RJ Talks, the arrival of the Tripoli to the Iran War theater is imminent. Likely this weekend.
SEE my post very late night post, the last post, to yesterday’s unthreaded, for my link and more strategic context.
LOL,,,,, A dog that thinks it’s a cat. Cat can be notoriously picky about their food. All the dogs we’ve had, and known, will gobble everything put in front of them, and some stuff they should not eat.
Try a medallion of Blue Buffalo with dab of pure pumpkin on top and add some Iams dry food. Blue Buffalo has a number of flavors, some targeted to certain age segments. They also have stew options in addition to pate options.
Still trying to figure out how the IRG will be destroyed and removed, permanently from power in Iran.
They still run the show in Iran.
They are the Iranian equivalent of Hamas. Hamas seems to have infinite lives and they still survive no matter how many of them get killed or how often they get “defeated.” They are like a cancer that never stops metastasizing.
Unless the IRG can be annihilated it will only be a matter of time when they build up their weapons systems, esp. given the support they will receive from Russia, China and N.Korea.
Our cats have enjoyed a number of brands and enjoy both wet and dry food. Three generations of cats. As long as you meet them half way, their not that picky.
==
Cats are all over a map on table scraps. We’ve had cats who enjoyed a variety of treats and we had one who would only nibble on graham crackers. Had a friend whose cat was mad for saute’ed mushrooms.
Connecticut Dems demand IDs to recycle cans but not to vote.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/connecticut-democrats-demand-ids-recycle-cans-reject-efforts-verify-citizenship-polls
Mike Plaiss, her son is in special forces and she’s anxious?
If her son is going to deploy, nothing better than with Marines.
I linked to this video last week, but this is a detailed look at the capabilities of the USS Tripoli.
Why the US Navy Rushed USS Tripoli to the Strait of Hormuz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMy69tl25r8
@physicsguy: LOL,,,,, A dog that thinks it’s a cat.
And here we have a cat named Dog!
A novelty hit from 1966, covered more recently by They Might Be Giants. Cute animation.
—They Might Be Giants, “Walking My Cat Named Dog”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0XwJC6FbtA
My late Weimaraner had the “can I choke this down, if so it’s food” method. My current one has “This is same premium food as yesterday! I want something else!” approach to meals.
strange days indeed
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2026/03/21/these-are-the-memes-of-life/
https://donsurber.substack.com/p/highlights-of-the-news-2ad
yuu can’t fool dogs, now people, thats another story, as lincoln put it,
Fetterman unloads a damp squib…
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/john-fetterman-reveals-whos-really-leader-his-party
+ Bonus (repost)
https://instapundit.com/784139/
John Tyler, fast forward to the 9:45 mark to hear Prime Minister Netanyahu address the issue of regime change. There are things going on we aren’t privy to.
The Israelis are considering the transition. There are no guarantees in war, but the covert operations by the Mossad and CIA have been so good so far, it seems, based on these comments, they are planning for that phase of the war.
The entire news conference is well worth the time.
BREAKING NEWS: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Holds A Press Briefing On The War In Iran
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3l81Bt896o
some perspective,
https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/nato-origami-saturday-march-21-2026
of course the press finds a way to twist these details into a pretzel, the salty kind,
there is a question of domestic vs foreign leadership,
the iraq war showed how we might have imported too many, like maliki, Jafari,
and allawi, along with others, but the
leadership class in the country, was rather moribund,
Our dog acted like we were trying to poison her. She’d delicately take each piece out of her bowl, drop it on the floor, lick it, and then eat it. It took forever for her to eat bowl of kibble. She was an eighty pound rottweiler mix.
Riverside County, Ca opens an investigation to compare the number of ballots cast in a 2025 special election to the number of votes reported to the California Secretary of State.
Election Fraud Investigation Press Conference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo6ir8fEULI
We are hearing quotes like this from both Bibi and Donald:
it’s up to the Iranian people to show that— to choose the moment and to rise to the moment. We can create the conditions but they have to, you know, they have to exploit those conditions at a certain point.
—————————————————–
1. Politically this is Trump keeping his no-foreign-entanglements promise to his base. It may involve boots on the ground and long-term support, but it will be portrayed as “not the same old failed attempts at nation building”.
2. Practically it recognizes that any reform imposed on Islam from within will fail.
To quote that old Leftie Tom Lehrer:
They’ve got to be protected,
All their rights respected,
’til somebody who we *like* can be elected
———–
Not sure what that will look like.
In the meantime
China is starved for oil
Russia is revealed as impotent to those who cozied up to it.
Muslims perceived as “moderate” will have to put up or shut up… The “up to you” message is intended for them, as well.
Lloyds of London’s stranglehold on maritime shipping insurance is being broken.
Western Europe’s trousers are about its knees, revealing a lack of ships and materiel for an action that concerns them more than it does the (energy-independent) US…. this is basically a physical spanking to match the verbal spankings delivered at various summits by both Vance and Trump.
This is how grown-ups do foreign policy.
Thank you Brian E. The video on why the USS Tripoli was very helpful.
According to my very reliable and highly placed source, “all major ops will be concluded by the end of April.”
I asked him whether the Marines will be involved. His deliberately cryptic answer: “Marines are involved in everything.”
He’s very good at telling me something without telling me something.
Joe Kent—and his Media apologists—continued:
“Joe Kent vs. Joe Kent: Tucker Carlson, Contradictions, and the Foreign-Fueled Social Media Explosion”—
https://honestreporting.com/joe-kent-vs-joe-kent-tucker-carlson-contradictions-and-the-foreign-fueled-social-media-explosion/
And a “surprise” from down under…
‘‘Putrid Dog’: Chaos Ensues When Australian PM Visits Mosque:
‘“Genocide supporters!” “Allahu Akbar!”’—
https://legalinsurrection.com/2026/03/putrid-dog-chaos-ensues-when-australian-pm-visits-mosque/
Elon Musk offers to PAY TSA Salaries During Democratic DHS Shutdown – Video
https://commoncts.blogspot.com/2026/03/elon-musk-offers-to-pay-tsa-salaries.html
I second Brian’s motion–watch the Bibi press conference. Very informative and articulately presented. I love Trump, but Bibi does a better job of clearly spelling out why we had to attack, while dispelling various canards, like he’s dead, and that he tricked Trump into war.
Neo, has a soft spot for Barry Gibb.
Here he is with the Gatlin Brothers and Roy Orbison from different camera angles. The song was written by Larry Gatlin and Barry Gibb. Lots of high tenor going on here. I think I can distinguish Barry’s voice.
Rehearsals for Indian Summer alternative take 1 1985
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KITRol_ssDE&list=RDKITRol_ssDE&start_radio=1
Initial Indian Summer Sessions 1985 – 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZxbJjVAS-g&list=RDDZxbJjVAS-g&start_radio=1
Trump calls Democrats ‘greatest enemy America has.’
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/mar/22/trump-calls-democrats-greatest-enemy-america/
Sundance suggests that Palantir’s cow-tracking collars pave the way for governments to control people.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2026/03/22/peter-thiels-latest-2-billion-investment-an-agritech-unicorn-or-something-else/#more-281820
I suspect that others here know this, but I was surprised to learn that Alysa Liu
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alysa_Liu#Early_life_and_education
Also, her father, Arthur Liu
https://www.si.com/onsi/athlete-lifestyle/news/alysa-liu-shares-surprising-realization-about-mom-while-discussing-dad-surrogacy
It’s hard for an old fashioned guy like me to wrap his head around this!