Author Archive: Stephen Green

WHO’S IN CHARGE THERE, ANYWAY?

HMM: Trump says Iran gave the US ‘a very big present’ related to oil and gas.

“They gave us a present and the present arrived today. It was a very big present worth a tremendous amount of money,” Trump said of Iran.

“It wasn’t nuclear-related, it was oil and gas-related,” he added, though he did not offer further details.

He described it as “very significant.”

Asked if it was related to the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil shipping channel that has been effectively blocked since the war began, Trump answered affirmatively.

“It was related to the flow” and the strait, he said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a question from The Hill about what exactly the gift was.

Well, stay tuned.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: NASA to spend $20 billion on moon base, cancel orbiting lunar station.

Isaacman, who was sworn in at the agency in December, made the ⁠announcement ‌at the opening of a day-long ⁠event at NASA’s Washington headquarters at which he outlined a raft of changes he is making to the agency’s flagship moon program Artemis.

“It should ‌not really surprise anyone that we are pausing Gateway in its current form and focusing on ​infrastructure that supports sustained operations on the lunar surface,” Isaacman told delegates at the event.

The Lunar Gateway station, largely already built by contractors Northrop Grumman
and Vantor, ⁠formerly Maxar, was meant to be a space station parked in ‌a lunar orbit. Repurposing the craft for ‌a lunar surface base is not simple.

“Despite some of the very real hardware and schedule challenges, we can repurpose equipment and ⁠international partner commitments to support surface and other program objectives,” Isaacman ⁠said.

Lunar Gateway was designed to serve as both a research platform and a transfer station for astronauts to board moon landers before descending to the lunar surface.

The Lunar Gateway never made much sense, except as a multibillion dollar kludge to cover for SLS not having enough lift to make Artemis work. The real solution was to cancel SLS and Lunar Gateway, and work with SpaceX to get Starship up and running.

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: ‘Bostonian of the Year’ ordered to pay back $224K she stole from her own nonprofit. “Monica Cannon-Grant, the former community organizer who rose to fame leading a massive 2020 Black Lives Matter march through Boston, was ordered Monday by U.S. District Court Judge Angel Kelley to forfeit every dollar she made from her crimes — from diverting donations from her own nonprofit, collecting fraudulent pandemic unemployment benefits, and pocketing rental assistance she wasn’t entitled to.”

NIFTY: F-22 Raptor “2.0” Spotted Undergoing Flight Testing. “Most obvious on the model are the new stealthy fuel tanks, a critical addition to ensure that the F-22 is able to better cover the vast distances that would be involved in a potential future conflict in the Indo-Pacific. In the past, the Raptor’s notoriously short range has been mitigated by using non-stealthy 600-gallon tanks, but these are not a realistic option when faced by more capable hostile air defenses.”

THE DEEP STATE IS REAL…:

…and doesn’t give a damn about what you “little people” might have voted for.

DISPATCHES FROM AL-BRIṬĀNIYĀ:

FAIL, BRITANNIA: The Shocking State Of Britain’s Navy In 2026. “Successive governments have seen fit to think that only six destroyers are adequate, which is clearly deranged and incredibly irresponsible. So, out of six vessels, how many are operational in March 2026? A grand total of two. HMS Dragon, a vessel recently in the news that was supposed to be sent to Cyprus to protect British interests there, and HMS Duncan. The other four are all laid up for one reason or another. The class leader, HMS Daring, is preparing to return to service after an absence of eight years under refit. Given that it generally takes three to five years for a complete stem-to-stern overhaul and refueling for an American aircraft carrier, eight years for a destroyer seems beyond excessive.”

Much more at the link, all of it bad.

ANOTHER REGRETTABLE EDUCATION FAD: It’s flashy! It’s fun! It’s a waste of students’ time and attention!

“I ain’t saying you treated me unkind,” sang Bob Dylan. “You just kinda wasted my precious time.”

From X:

Figen posts a video of a teacher who brought a PlayStation to class to use Assassin’s Creed to teach about the Industrial Revolution.

This is a distraction and a waste of time, responds Tom Bennett. It gets students to expect bells and whistles.

SoL in the Wild agrees it’s “100% terrible.” He blames constant messages to teachers to make lessons fun, fun, fun. Learning is supposed to “feel relevant to students’ lives, be fun, and revolve around engaging, activity-based experiences,” he writes. But, dressing something as a game “distracts from the content and decreases the likelihood that students actually learn the concept you’re trying to teach.”

I don’t recall any of my best teachers being particularly fun. Just demanding.

SERIOUSLY, DON’T MISS IT:

Translation: “Don’t miss this editorial that the Washington Post dedicates to Pablo Iglesias and his comrades on their tourism-committed trip to the miseries that torment Cuba.”

A DAY IS A LONG TIME:

How many thousands of Americans are learning that the ICE they see on the news is not the ICE they see with their own lyin’ eyes?

BIDEN-ERA HANGOVER: Why is ATF Still Leaving Its Options Open for Prosecuting Owners of Braced Pistols? “A March 16 government filing in the ongoing case of Texas v. ATF has now renewed concerns that the agency reserves the right to continue bringing felony prosecutions under the NFA for possession of unregistered braced pistols. The passage in question is meant to rebut the plaintiffs’ claims that there are still live issues in the case that deserve a final judgment on the merits, rather than dismissal on mootness.”

PANIC BY DESIGN:

ELON NEVER THINKS SMALL:

TSMC made $122 billion in revenue last year. It controls 70% of the global foundry market. It took nearly four decades, over $100 billion in cumulative capex, and the concentrated talent of an entire island to build that position.

Elon just announced he’s spending $25 billion to build a competing fab from scratch, in Austin, targeting 2nm, with zero semiconductor manufacturing experience.

Here’s why dismissing it might be the wrong call.

Read the whole thing.

If Terafab is anything like Musk’s other projects, it will arrive late — but it will arrive.

DISPATCHES FROM AL-BRIṬĀNIYĀ: Official decries ‘chilling’ targeting of ambulances at London synagogue: ‘Beyond time for authorities to wake up.’

A local official says that the arson attack on ambulances belonging to a Jewish organization and parked at a synagogue in Golders Green, is “utterly shocking, terrifying,” and says that authorities are not taking enough action against growing antisemitism.

“The targeting of life-saving vehicles stationed the the car park of a synagogue is particularly chilling and will send shockwaves through our community at a time of already heightened fears over antisemitism in the UK,” local Golders Green councillor Dean Cohen tells the Jewish News.

“It’s beyond time for the authorities to wake and and do more to tackle this hate running riot,” he says.

What, and upset the government’s most reliable constituents?

THE LATEST FROM DATA REPUBLICAN:

More:

Ex-USAID employees describe how, before January 20, they moved internal groups off government systems and into encrypted Signal chats, then quickly linked with foreign partners and NGOs after the inauguration. This attempt at creating a color revolution isn’t new news; this part was already reported in NOTUS earlier this year.

But what’s not reported is the international aspect. One participant explicitly frames it as “a global anti-authoritarian movement,” connecting U.S. officials with “colleagues from around the world who have dealt with this directly.”

They reference coordination with Johns Hopkins, “international democracy and conflict mitigation spaces,” and efforts to mobilize across borders against what they perceive as domestic authoritarianism.

At what point does this become treason?

Much more to come, so bookmark her post.

IRAN IS NO LONGER THE STRONG HORSE: