After Trump told the EU to either buy its oil from the US or open the Strait of Hormuz themselves, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer issued a stern letter to Iran and is planning to convene a meeting of 35 nations to discuss what to do.

But what can the Royal Navy do? It has only two aircraft carriers, the Queen Elizabeth and the Prince of Wales. Neither has nuclear power, so they require refueling. They have ski-jump takeoffs, so their planes are limited in the armament and fuel load that they can carry. They don’t have the CATOBAR catapult launch system of the Nimitz class or the newer EMALS system on the Gerald Ford. The UK purchased only 40 F-35B aircraft for the RAF and RN combined, even though each carrier is designed to carry 36 aircraft. So the RAF and RN have to share an inadequate number of aircraft. In 2024, the Queen Elizabeth sailed on a deployment with just 8 F-35s and 8 helicopters. The Gerald Ford carries 75 aircraft.

I would guess I have heard or read at least a hundred times that Democrats/progressives/the left believe in the perfectability of man.  To many conservatives, progressives have faith that if only they are given enough authority, they can change human nature and make humanity perfect.  “Perfect” isn’t my exaggeration of what is said.  That’s the word that I have seen conservatives use again and again when describing what progressives actually hope to achieve, regarding human behavior.

The thing is, though, that I can’t remember ever hearing or reading a progressive professing this belief.  I don’t think I have lived in a total conservative bubble and am therefore ignorant of many pronouncements from public figures on the left. I know where the left generally stands on abortion, gun control, taxation, global warming, and many other topics because I’ve seen, heard, or read about their speeches.  So, how did I miss this widely accepted belief of the left on the perfectibility of mankind?  Can anyone give me some examples of who on the left has made this claim?

Genuine question. I have never understood the worry about Zionism. The Gad Saad post (below) encapsulates my understanding. I get it that whether it was the division of the Raj into separate Muslim- and Hindu-majority states, creating Middle Eastern countries and their borders by the Foreign Office in London, or the UN resolution for the creation of the State of Israel, that dispossessed people will be unhappy and may well engage in conflict. But why the “Palestinian” cause (a term at one point included Jews living in Palestine) is of any terrible import to citizens of countries well away from the Middle East is confusing. I also get that criticizing Israeli policy and action is not per se antisemitic. But fusing Zionism to shadowy international control does seem sketchy to me. The case for a Globalist-Islamic alliance is stronger.

One of Marion Barry’s first acts as mayor was to kill the zoning plan his predecessor had put in motion. The first mayor of Washington, DC under home rule, Walter Washington, oversaw the plans for the city’s subway system (The Metro). He fiercely insisted that the zoning around most stops be adjusted to bring about a mix of residential, retail and office space so the Metro project could help establish distinct neighborhoods. Barry correctly inferred that this kind of renewal would bring more middle-class and upper-middle-class residents back to DC, and those people were not his base.

Large developers also hated the plan because it restricted construction of (then lucrative) office space along K Street. Barry got campaign cash from that sector and a promise that low-income housing would be built in the city’s poorest ward as soon as “suitable sites became available.” Barry then announced that he had shaken down The Man on behalf of the disadvantaged black underclass in his first days in office.

It’s time to stop holding back. Iran must become inoperative. Blow their infrastructure to smithereens, occupy the Persian side of the Strait of Hormuz.

This may be America’s last chance to destroy the menace of radical Islam.

I learned a new acronym the other day: A “PDA” kid.

Wut?

After reeling myself back in, and recognizing that it probably didn’t refer to a “Personal Digital Assistant” child (“PDA” being an acronym from my past), I looked its modernization up.  Here’s what Google AI had to say about children with something that’s (just this past few minutes ago, apparently) been dubbed “Pathological Demand Avoidance.”