If Trump insists on acquiring Greenland regardless of Denmark, Europe, or the Greenlanders' desires, one possible outcome could be the end of NATO. Is that intentional on Trump's part? Is that part of what this is about?

Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, who has the Catholic Church's authority for the US military, has endorsed the disobeying of orders by soldiers whose conscience is offended. 

 This puts a new twist on an old question-

In this video, an angry screaming mob assaults a man and forces him to remove his shirt because it says the word "Freedom." A keffiyeh-wearing protester advises the man, "Take it off and you won't get hurt." The protesters here clearly feel empowered to engage in actual violence.

Apparently the Secretary of War is serious about cleaning up the Pentagon's DEI act. The lawsuits alone will outlast the Trump administration, but it's a noble effort to try to undo some of the most ridiculous chicanery in Washington. 

If you haven't yet heard about Amelia, you might be surprised when you see her. She's a purple-haired, choker-wearing young woman who doesn't immediately strike me as someone who would be right-wing coded. Normally, if I saw someone with purple or blue hair, I might think they were left-wing coded; young women are notably more left-wing than other people; and a choker as a necklace tends to at least shade at lifestyles that are less than conservative-aligned. Nevertheless, when you encounter this cartoon you'll find that she is stridently right-wing. 

A corollary to the recent talk by the Secretary: what does this slogan mean?

I really like this Pentangle group from the Lai du Cor post below.

The most famous piece called "Sarabande" in the West is probably Händel's, although Bach did one as well.

AVI found a great song by a group I'd not heard of before. In the comments I mentioned the source for the magical horn that reveals false lovers: it's a pretty neat Anglo-Norman Arthurian poem called Lai du Cor from the 12th century. There's a summary of the tale and its lessons here. 

Secretary Noem says that US citizens “ should be prepared to provide proof” of our citizenship. 

The Chinese probably intended this to look bad. The only weak thing in the video is the Chinese singing, though. 

Sigurd Yves Larsen, a longtime family friend from before my birth, a close friend of and professional collaborator with my father, has just died at the age of 92. He was born in Brussels in 1933. What I never knew until today is that when Germany invaded Belgium (he being then only 7 years old), his father left his wife and three young children in order to join the Resistance. For the rest of the war they had no idea if he was alive or dead. His wife set out on foot, with all three children, the youngest in a pram, to traverse the entirety of France and try to cross the border to Spain, only to be turned back. They spent the rest of the war in Belgium, then were reunited with the father in 1945. The whole family emigrated to Brazil, then soon to the United States. My father's friend became the head of the physics department at Temple University, and even after retiring, kept working on physics problems I'm told include second virial coefficients, gas thermodynamics, and few-body systems. He had been frail in recent years, but remained in reasonable health until a mercifully brief final illness in the last couple of weeks.

His family journey through France on foot was no isolated case; millions of people were on the road, facing bombs and strafing by the Germans. Per a combination of Grok and Wikipedia: the mass exodus of civilians during the German invasion of Western Europe in May-June 1940, known as "L'Exode" in French history, involved an estimated 6-10 million people fleeing southward from Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and northern France as the Wehrmacht advanced. This included nearly two million Belgians who crossed into France within days of the May 10 invasion, driven by panic and memories of World War I atrocities, creating overcrowded roads clogged with families on foot, bicycles, horse-drawn carts, and occasional vehicles—all moving amid military traffic heading in the opposite direction.

German Luftwaffe aircraft, particularly the infamous Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers, frequently targeted these refugee columns to sow terror and disrupt Allied movements. Stukas would dive steeply with wailing sirens to strafe and bomb the slow-moving crowds, causing widespread casualties and forcing people to dodge attacks while hiking among thousands. These assaults were tactical, exploiting the vulnerability of mixed civilian-military convoys to create blockages and panic.

As impressed as I am by his courage and dutifulness in joining the Resistance, it seems unimaginably harsh for him to leave his family in the circumstances, especially considering that one of his wife's grandparents was Jewish. Still, when men have to go war, they have to go to war.

This story out of Wyoming reminds me that when I was a kid we had a guy who would ride his horse to the VA  (which was the only place you could get a drink, it being a private club in a dry county). The deputies all knew he was coming home drunk, but the horse knew the way and got him home reliably. He was just accepted as one of the local characters. I don’t know if he was a WWII or Korean War veteran; I was just a child, but I remember dad laughing about it with the other firefighters. 

There have been protests for nearly two weeks, and tonight's looked especially fiery: but this is the pivotal moment. The head of the exiled Pahlavi dynasty has called upon the police and military to join the protests and protect them in return for amnesty from the revolution -- for themselves and their families, a dire note rather appropriate to Middle Eastern politics. 

One of the complains of the Declaration of Independence was that the king had set up a "multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance."