HMM: Flight Costs Are Up, but Travelers Aren’t Deterred, U.S. Airlines Say.

At an investor conference on Tuesday, executives from most major U.S. airlines said that robust travel demand was offsetting the effects of winter storms and a huge rise in the cost of jet fuel since the start of the war in Iran. The price of jet fuel on Monday was about 50 percent higher than it was before the war began on Feb. 28.

Executives at American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines said they had incurred $400 million each in higher fuel costs, but that they were not changing their profit forecasts for the first three months of the year because ticket sales remained strong. The executives said their airlines had broken daily or weekly records for ticket sales this year.

“It’s across all segments, covering corporate, covering international, covering premium leisure, covering main cabin, covering our domestic system,” Delta’s chief executive, Ed Bastian, said at the J.P. Morgan 2026 Industrials Conference in Washington. “We’re seeing strength in every market that we look at.”

It’s the same story with beef prices. They’re at or near record highs, but consumer are still buying — there’s little-to-none “protein substitution” going on, even with 80/20 ground beef nearing $7 a pound at Walmart.

Whatever the press tells you about how pinched consumers are, we’re still spending on the things we like.

NEXT!

BREAKING: Israeli military has killed Iran’s Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib pic.twitter.com/EkLz9GSt8a

— The Spectator Index (@spectatorindex) March 18, 2026

IRAN ISN’T THERE YET: What Is the LeMay Threshold?

DID AN IRANIAN EMBASSY JUST DEFECT?

Copenhagen Iranian embassy just raised the lion and sun flag: I don’t know how, but it just happened a couple of hours ago. People are shouting: “Honorable”. 💃🏻❤️🇮🇷🇮🇱🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/sCkScVzMCn

— Jaleh Tavakoli🇺🇸🇮🇷🇮🇱🇺🇦 (@JalehTavakoli) March 17, 2026

UPDATE (From Ed):

👀 https://t.co/3cMWldHlny

— Gay of Hormuz (@GayPatriot) March 17, 2026

BREAKING: Senate Advances the Save Act.

I DUNNO, IT’S SO HARD TO TELL THE HOST FROM THE PARASITE:

"The progressive project" is the sales pitch for a giant parasitic apparatus that feeds off billionaire donors and the state at every level to keep an army of functionaries within the Therapeutic State employed. The Democratic party serves this apparatus, not the other way… https://t.co/2srNKasIQw

— Wesley Yang (@wesyang) March 17, 2026

“ADMINISTRATIVE COSTS”: Canada’s Spending More Than $20,000 in Administrative Costs Per Confiscated Gun in Its Bloated ‘Compensation’ Scheme.

HMM:

IRAN IN CHAOS: PRESIDENT WANTS OUT

"There’s a real upheaval in Iran… President Pezeshkian is considering resigning from his post."

Channel 14's Senior Iran Analyst @DBalazada explains what inside sources tell him is happening today inside the government:

Pezeshkian is… pic.twitter.com/qZxsK9eB1J

— C14 News Israel | EN (@c14israel) March 17, 2026

Exit quote: “The bottom line – Iran is transitioning into an extremist military regime where Mojtaba Khamenei acts as a mere ‘puppet’ of the Revolutionary Guards, who completely control the country.”

That’s in line with my thoughts from a week or two ago, so naturally I’m inclined to agree. Heh.

What’s the mean going forward? Predictions are hard, the wise man said, especially about the future.

SOMETHING LOVELY FROM ASHLEY MCCULLY: The Day We Become Classics.

JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT BEEF PRICES COULDN’T GO ANY HIGHER: JBS strike in Greeley begins with thousands of workers walking off job.

THANKS, FELLAS: Iran Security Chief Had a $10 Million Bounty on His Head, but Israel ‘Did It for Free.’

PANSPERMIA: Asteroid Ryugu Contains All 5 DNA and RNA Building Blocks, Study Shows.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched the Hayabusa2 mission in 2014, sending a spacecraft on a 186-million-mile (300-million-kilometer) journey to Ryugu. One year after reaching the asteroid in 2018, the spacecraft landed on its surface and fired a projectile into it. Hayabusa2’s “catcher” then gathered up the chunks of ejected debris, and the spacecraft carried them back to Earth.

Astronomers have run many analyses of the Ryugu samples since then, but Koga and his colleagues are the first to find all five nucleobases inside them. The researchers studied samples that were collected and curated under strictly controlled conditions and conducted their analysis in a cleanroom to further prevent contamination. They also ran tests to confirm the molecules formed on Ryugu rather than coming from Earth.

Fascinating.

BELIEVE THEM WHEN THEY TELL YOU WHO THEY ARE, PARTICULARLY WHEN THEY DO IT EVERY TIME, GOING BACK DECADES:

Always remember that Democrats hate America and want us defeated. Every single time they will side against you.

Oh, there’s always an excuse. There’s always a reason. But every single time they will decide against America. https://t.co/XN4qu6uwm7

— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) March 17, 2026

TO BE FAIR, THEY ARE NEITHER VERY BRIGHT NOR WELL-INFORMED: CNN Is Shocked: ‘Stupid’ Trump Has Actually Been Talking About Taking Iran’s Kharg Island Since 1988!

OK, CHIEF: Iran’s supreme leader says the US and Israel ‘must be brought to their knees and accept defeat’ before any peace deal can be agreed, Tehran claims – with new Ayatollah still yet to be seen.

Related: Mojtaba: Dead, Or Just Gay?

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Something Just Happened in Minnesota That Completely Altered My View of Reality.

SAIL ON: Aircraft carrier Nimitz service life extended until 2027.

Amid the strain of extended deployments, the Navy told Breaking Defense it has officially decided to keep its oldest active aircraft carrier in the water a little longer, prolonging the service life of the USS Nimitz to March 2027.

A service official revealed the change late Friday, pushing back previous plans to mothball the ship this May.

Extending the Nimitz’s service life means that the Navy could maintain its fleet of 11 carriers. The service is awaiting its newest aircraft carrier, the second Ford-class John F. Kennedy, which is currently slated for delivery in March 2027.

The Nimitz departed Naval Base Kitsap in Bremerton, Washington on March 7 to head to Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia as part of a scheduled homeport shift for the remainder of its service life. It will then undergo its inactivation and defueling of the reactor at HII in Newport News.

Nimitz was the first of the class of 10 carriers that basically defined American power projection for five decades.

I POSTED SOMETHING ON THIS YESTERDAY, BEFORE WE KNEW THE REST OF THE STORY:

A major Reddit scandal is blowing up.

A moderator tied to some of the platform’s largest trans subreddits was exposed as a convicted child sex offender.

But here’s the part that’s really raising eyebrows…

Users claim other moderators knew.

And instead of removing him, they…

— Revolver News (@RevolverNewsUSA) March 17, 2026

ISN’T THAT THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF CHIPMAKING? AI Chips Becoming Cheaper, More Powerful, More Efficient, Leading to an ‘Inference Inflection Point.’

MEANWHILE, OVER AT X…:

I’ve read the poetry of Jim Morrison; the columns of Maureen Dowd; the backs of countless boxes of Boo Berry Cereal; the 1988 Libertarian, Republican and Democrat political platforms in their entireties; the works of various Brontë sisters; particularly heartfelt lines from love…

— Stephen Green (@VodkaPundit) March 17, 2026

Full text:

I’ve read the poetry of Jim Morrison; the columns of Maureen Dowd; the backs of countless boxes of Boo Berry Cereal; the 1988 Libertarian, Republican and Democrat political platforms in their entireties; the works of various Brontë sisters; particularly heartfelt lines from love letters I wrote to my high school sweetheart; I even read George Friedman’s The Coming War with Japan — which he wrote in 1991.

These are the credentials you need to know when I tell you: In the 54 years since I learned to read, I have read some really stupid shit.

But I have never read anything quite so stupid as your post.

And since BBC “presenter” John Simpson chose to delete the post rather than defend it, here it is:

SO FAR, SO GOOD: The US-Israeli strategy against Iran is working. Here is why.

Two weeks into Operation Epic Fury, the dominant narrative has settled into a comfortable groove: The United States and Israel stumbled into a war without a plan. Iran is retaliating across the region. Oil prices are surging, and the world is facing another Middle Eastern quagmire. US senators have called it a blunder. Cable news has tallied the crises. Commentators have warned of a long war.

The chorus is loud and, in some respects, understandable. War is ugly, and this one has imposed real costs on millions of people across the Middle East, including the city I live in.

But this narrative is wrong. Not because the costs are imaginary, but because the critics are measuring the wrong things. They are cataloguing the price of the campaign while ignoring the strategic ledger.

When you look at what has actually happened to Iran’s principal instruments of power – its ballistic missile arsenal, its nuclear infrastructure, its air defences, its navy and its proxy command architecture – the picture is not one of US failure. It is one of systematic, phased degradation of a threat that previous administrations allowed to grow for four decades.

I write this from Doha, where Iranian missiles have triggered alerts for residents to take shelter and Qatar Airways has started operating evacuation flights. I lived through four years of war in Baghdad.

I have worked for the US Department of State and advised defence and intelligence agencies in multiple countries. I have no interest in cheerleading for war.

But I have spent my academic career studying how states authorise the use of force through intelligence institutions, and what I see in the current campaign is a recognisable military operation proceeding through identifiable phases against an adversary whose capacity to project power is collapsing in real time.

Much more at the link, but here’s the kicker: This piece was published by Al Jazeera.

COVERING THE NEWS. WITH A PILLOW:

The New York Times Hires Editor Who Reportedly Covered Up His Pal’s Child Porn Scandal

My story @Mediaite https://t.co/0dHj7QALwm

— Isaac Schorr (@isaac_schorr) March 17, 2026

IRAN: What Happens When There’s Not Enough Regime Left to Change?

CREDENTIALISM IS DEADLY:

Once you start seeing how credentialism has poisoned the military, you can't un-see it.

— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) March 17, 2026

SARAH HOYT’S SHOCKED FACE HAS TAKEN EARLY RETIREMENT: NYC’s smiling socialist mayor is VERY different behind the scenes, as progressives who crossed him allege tyrannical and ruthless behavior.

Known for his smiling and seemingly unflappable attitude, Mamdani attacked both Donald Trump and New York Governor Kathy Hochul, a fellow Democrat whom he deemed too centrist.

But sources inside Mamdani’s political circle have now alleged that the mayor wields his power for personal gain and has no qualms sidelining old friends or his ideologies to further his agenda, The New York Times reported.

He has been accused of snubbing friends, meddling in political campaigns and strong-arming liberal nonprofits to protect his own interests.

So… they’re saying he’s a socialist?