LET THEM HATE SO LONG AS THEY FEAR:  Cartels fear US retaliation as Trump-era pressure reshapes strategy: ‘They fear the United States’.

THE MEME POST HAS DROPPED. WHAT ARE YOUR OTHER TWO WISHES?   Meme Them Till They Cry.

GERARD VANDERLEUN’S POETRY BOOK:  I find I don’t wish to explore new lands, but to explore again those I have already passed through, trying to see what I’d missed in the first hectic rush …

FROM CEDAR SANDERSON:  Tanager’s Fleet (The Tanager Book 3).

Captain Jem Raznick and the weary crew of the Tanager crave a moment’s peace after grueling evacuation runs across star systems. But spymaster Jade Star’s urgent summons shatters that hope, yanking them back to the fog-shrouded swamps of Boudreaux. Posing as orchid hunters, they must infiltrate the murky underbelly of the port to find missing operative Dilar Restin, and the explosive secrets he’s uncovered, before it’s too late.

What begins as a covert rescue spirals into a deadly trap: buried family betrayals surface, pirate shadows close in, and unexpected allies emerge from the mist with their own hidden agendas. Only when the true stakes are revealed, the culmination of Jade’s decades-long master plan, does the crew realize the galaxy itself hangs in the balance, with one wrong move dooming them all.

In this gripping space opera finale, Jem races to untangle a web of galactic deceit, protect his makeshift family, and ignite a defiant legacy. Heroism isn’t born in solitude. It is forged in the fierce, unbreakable unity that defies the encroaching void.

WORTH READING:  The American Revolution, as seen from across the Atlantic.

YOU’D THINK THE BRITS WOULD HAVE LEARNED THE RISKS OF UNCONTROLLED IMMIGRATION  FROM THE SAXONS, THE DANES, AND THE NORMANS:  Decades in the planning, the Islamic Republic of Britain.

WELL, THEY WERE TRYING TO BRING ABOUT THE END OF THE WORLD:  Iranian Regime Is About to Find Out Why Attacking Arab Nations Was a Stupid Idea.

THIS AIN’T YOUR GRAN’PA’S GOP:  Secretary Hegseth Blasts the Democrats for Rooting for America to Fail in Iran.

INDEED:  A Reckoning Long Overdue.

THIS IS STUPID AND ENDANGERS THE RAZOR-THIN MARGIN. SORRY, THE LEFT DOESN’T DO THIS:  House GOP Leadership Asks Embroiled Rep. Tony Gonzales to Drop Out.

They’re politicians, not priests.

WHAT HE SAID:  Sinking, Surprises.

THIS WAS ALWAYS OBVIOUS:  America Hits Iran; China Takes the Blow.

THEY’RE NOT LAWS SO MUCH AS SUGGESTIONS:  “[I]nternational law is not law; it is a set of rules and claims that pretends to be law”.

IN A THEOCRACY, THE HOUSES OF WORSHIP ARE PART OF THE GOVERNMENT:  Yeah, About That.

As for the Ivy Leagues and most academia, what the man said.

OTHER STATES GOPS SHOULD CONSIDER THESE:  Propositions.

ABSOLUTELY JUSTIFIABLE: The Sinking of the Dena Was Textbook …the chart don’t lie…

ISLAM MIGHT NOT WANT TO GO TO WAR WITH AMERICAN DOGS. IT CAN’T WIN:  New York, Islam and Why Every Dog will Still Have its Day.

FROM JEFF DUNTEMANN:  Ten Gentle Opportunities.

Having been caught cheating a powerful magician out of ten nuggets of pure uncommitted magic in a rigged card game, Bartholomew Stypek needs a place to hide. As a spellbender he is at best a partial magician, who can read and change magic spells, but, absent a stash of magical force, cannot cast his own. With his anarchic familiar spirit Pickles and the ill-won kitty of magical Opportunities, Stypek throws himself on the mercy of the all-powerful Continuum and leaps blindly across universes, hoping to be dropped someplace far away, boring, and utterly without magic. As the Continuum chuckles in the background, Stypek lands in the break room of a small-town advertising agency in Upstate New York.

Because this new universe doesn’t support spirits, Pickles manifests as the nearest local equivalent: AI software in the agency’s heavily networked copier. She wanders into a nearby corporate network looking for allies, and discovers a virtual universe where AIs live in virtual bungalows and meet in virtual coffee shops for virtual doughnuts. Pickles is soon seducing Simple Simon, an earnest but naive AI tasked with controlling an immense robotic assembly line in the corporation’s manufacturing plant. Stypek, meanwhile, is mistaken for a penniless Eastern European computer science intern, and is taken in by Carolyn Romero, the ad agency’s copywriter. Expecting the usual suspicion and contempt, Stypek is humbled by the kindness he’s shown, and one by one uses the stolen Opportunities to help his new friends with their problems, including Carolyn’s failed marriage.

But Jrikk the magician isn’t so easily thwarted. Soon Stypek, Pickles, Simple Simon, and their human and virtual friends must fight for their lives against the evil force sent to retrieve Stypek to the magician’s dungeons.

ALL WE NEED IS FOR YELLOWSTONE TO GO SPICY:  Dormant Geyser Reawakens in Yellowstone With a Dazzling Show, Supervolcano Speculation.

BUT IT WILL INCREASE GOVERNMENT BUREAUCRATS POWER:  This government squeeze on private landlords will hurt tenants the most.

MAGA LOVES THIS AND IT TICKS OFF ALL THE RIGHT (LEFT) PEOPLE:  Marco Rubio Got Very Sassy With the Fake News Media Regarding the Iran Strikes Yesterday.

DEMS SAY IT’S ALL THE MORE REASON FOR GOP TO CAVE AND RESTORE FUNDING:  Top GOP Rep Slams Dems, Says DHS Funding Games Are Now ‘Indefensible’ After TX Terror Attack.

NATIONAL HEALTH, GUARANTEED TO CURE YOUR ILLS:  This Canadian Man Is Poor, So the Government Offered to Kill Him. Here’s What Happened.

STUDENTS WHO MOURN THE MONSTER ARE NOT BRITISH. NOT AT HEART:  British Students Mourn “Beloved” Ayatollah.

GOOD AND ABOUT TIME:  U.S. Helps Ecuador Launch Land Operation Against Cartels.