Charlie Sherpa

overlooking a series of circular water filled tanks of a sewage treatment plant at night. lights line a long brick building on the horizon as a blue-black sky is stark behind a veil of thin puffy clouds in the distance.

good night, sewers.
good night, streams.
good night, operations and maintenance teams.
good night, settling tanks.
good night, stream banks.
good night, engineers, scientists, crews, managers, inspectors, analysts too.
a good night for us means serving with care.

good night, sewers, everywhere.

Americans are being sent to die in Iran by men who don’t even have the courage to say, “Uh, thank you, Mr. President, but I wear a size 9 shoe.”

FBI warns Iran aspired to attack California with drones in retaliation for war: Alert The warning came in a bulletin that was reviewed by ABC News.

The FBI thinks you are fucking stupid. Iran has zero capability to cross the Pacific and sea-launch a drone attack on California. This is too fucking dumb for me to comment on further.

Poem Sometimes everything seems so oh, I don't know.

everything

Joe Brainard, ‘Poem’

A soapbox poem, of sorts, for @tomsnarsky.bsky.social
and his wonderful series...

Frank Stanford

"the warrior"

I was born
I ride tomorrow

The Strait of Hormuz doesn't even need to be hermetically sealed for there to be a massive impact, just a high risk proposition for shipping

Principles of Boogie Management     Don't blame it on the sunshine Don't blame it on the moonlight Don't blame it on the good times   Establish a collaborative working environment coupled with individual accountability to prevent a blame culture from developing in the first place Brian Bilston

Principles of Boogie Management.

I've got a new personality typology system called the Traits of Hormuz

Because the DOGE-bros’ AI said that removing structural obstacles to allow people freedom of movement was “woke” and “not lethal”?

Iran signaling it may deploy mines to disrupt Strait of Hormuz, U.S. sources say Iran is using smaller crafts to lay mines in the Strait of Hormuz, two U.S. officials said.

Concerning reports that Iran is attempting to mine the Strait of Hormuz. 1/
www.cbsnews.com/news/iran-mi...

Dan Dare (Graphic Novel) An all-new reimagining of the classic British sci-fi adventure strip Dan Dare written by Alex de Campi with art by Marc Laming.

Thank you all for your support of our Kickstarter so far, we know times are tough right now and we really appreciate your pledges!

Thank you!

www.kickstarter.com/projects/798...

Many folks email me about applied TTRPGs (that is, TTRPGs used for different effects, or measuring impact of playing TTRPGs).

It’s not really what I do, but the latest IJRP is chock-full of exactly that kind of research.

A cartoon by Ron Cobb (1975), showing a shadow of US B-52 bomber above cratered landscape. Two people who look like Vietnamese peasants look up; one says “they’re having problems with their economy again.”

This is from 1975.

BBC Verify live page graphic showing (left) the USS Gerald R Ford aircraft carrier, seen by satellite, from Sentinel-2, Copernicus, on 27 February; (right) a map of the Middle East with Crete, Israel and Iran marked, as well as the location of the Ford.

THREAD
A long first week of the Iran conflict and a team effort by BBC Verify to supply news outlets.

Here's my contribution explained with how-to examples.

First, 24 hours' wait, we finally saw the USS Gerald R Ford after it left Crete. My piece with Barbara Metzler:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cx...

The U.S. Built a Blueprint to Avoid Civilian War Casualties. Trump Officials Scrapped It. The Pentagon dismantled its civilian protection mission as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made “lethality” a top priority and the Trump administration reorganized national security around two principl...

NEW: A recently developed Defense Department program was meant to reduce civilian harm during military operations.

But months before the Iran war, the mission was dissolved as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made “lethality” a top priority.

By @hannahallam.bsky.social

The first two pages…

Haiti: Drone Strikes Put Residents at Risk Haitian security forces and private contractors working with them have conducted extensive and apparently unlawful lethal drone strikes.

"According to data reviewed by Human Rights Watch, at least 1,243 people in Haiti were killed by drone strikes in 141 operations between March 1, 2025, and January 21, 2026, including 17 children."

www.hrw.org/news/2026/03...

‘I wish I could push ChatGPT off a cliff’: professors scramble to save critical thinking in an age of AI As AI has upended the way students learn, academics worry about the future of the humanities - and society at large

“There’s kind of a defeatism, this idea that there’s no stopping technology & that resistance is futile, everything will be crushed in its path. That needs to change … We can decide that we want to be human.”

#AcademicSky

DHS Ousts CBP Privacy Officers Who Questioned ‘Illegal’ Orders Department of Homeland Security leaders removed top privacy officers who objected to mislabeling government records to block their public release, WIRED has learned.

Scoop: DHS ousted multiple privacy officers at CBP after they questioned orders to purposely mislabel records about government surveillance to prevent their release under FOIA.

Gullible, Cynical America The trouble with believing anything and nothing at the same time

The data economy has made us dumber in ways that also make us vulnerable to authoritarian takover. We are have become both cynical and gullible in the sense we think we are too jaded be fooled and as a result are tricked more easily www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

OK, comics hive mind: Apart from the big news sites, who are your favorite People Who Know Things for comics? Used to be, bloggers ran the world. I'm coming out of a ten-year burnout, and most of my old list of people who belong on press release lists are not in the game anymore.
Who ya got?

Why Washington’s Kurdish Gambit Could Backfire in Iran The Trump administration should abandon any plans to arm Iranian Kurdish forces before the first fighter crosses the Iraqi-Iranian border. Not refine it.

"An American-backed Kurdish incursion would hand the regime precisely the narrative it needs to reconsolidate," Albert B. Wolf writes in this critique of US strategy:

warontherocks.com/2026/03/why-...

Former military lawyers say use of JAG lawyers in Minnesota violates the Posse Comitatus Act Although recent litigation has focused on troop deployments to American cities, a new challenge in Minnesota looks at DOJ's use of JAG lawyers in non-military cases.

BREAKING: Former military lawyers say use of JAG lawyers in Minnesota violates the Posse Comitatus Act.

Although recent litigation has focused on troop deployments to American cities, a new challenge in Minnesota looks at DOJ's use of JAG lawyers in non-military cases.

New, at Law Dork:

NBC’s Richard Engel: “The White House meme campaign is outraging many former US military commanders… they say only someone who has never really seen combat would think it’s a joke and put out material like this.”

Noem associate Madison Sheahan bought 2,500 marked vehicles for ICE Despite ICE employees seeking to keep a low profile in public, ICE official Madison Sheahan placed a bulk order for marked vehicles.

Wild story from @washingtonexaminer.bsky.social:
ICE "wasted millions" to buy "thousands of employee vehicles that the agency cannot use to arrest illegal immigrants"

The problem: the vehicles are marked with ICE logo and motto

“ICE has never had marked vehicles,” person familiar said

AI fakes spread disinformation. Is the distrust they create even worse? Manipulated images undermine our shared reality—and the democracy built upon it.

Manipulated images undermine our shared reality—and the democracy built upon it.

The ‘Old Guard’ marks centennial of watching over Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Concern over the lack of respect for the gravesite led Army Maj. Gen. Fox Conner to order an armed military guard on March 24, 1926.

Concern over the lack of respect for the gravesite led Army Maj. Gen. Fox Conner to order an armed military guard on March 24, 1926.

U.S. citizen from Skokie stopped at O'Hare, detained by immigration officials for nearly 30 hours

Sundas “Sunny” Naqvi, a U.S. citizen from Skokie, spent nearly 30 hours in custody by federal immigration officials after she was detained at O’Hare Airport last week. She was later released out of a facility in Wisconsin. Naqvi's sister called the experience "terrifying."

Why War Is One Of The World’s Biggest Climate Threats The humanitarian impact of war cannot be overstated. Yet every stage of conflict also leaves a carbon footprint on the planet.

Thinking about this today.

www.forbes.com/sites/nilsro...

At Largest ICE Detention Camp, Staff Bet on Detainee Suicides, AP Reports Camp East Montana has received several 911 calls in the span of five months about immigrants trying to harm themselves.

Staff at the nation’s largest Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility have placed bets on which detainee will be the next to die by suicide, according to new reporting from the Associated Press based on 911 calls and detainee accounts.