Mission Creep ...

The U.S.S. Tripoli entering the Singapore Strait earlier this month. The 2,500 Marines who have been dispatched to the Middle East are part of the U.S.S. Tripoli amphibious ready group.
Credit...Edgar Su/Reuters

Mission creep applies. The more troops, the deeper the US sinks into the quagmire of it's own making. No plan, hubris rules as no problem, we got this according to the troika of the Orange Menace, Nosferatu (Stephen Miller) and Pentagon Pete because god is on our side and fighting and dying for Israel is the right thing to do, right?

Smoke rises from the direction of an energy installation in the Gulf emirate of Fujairah on March 14, 2026. Smoke could be seen rising from the direction of a major UAE energy installation on March 14, in what appeared to be the latest strike targeting the Gulf’s petroleum facilities hours after the US struck Iran’s Kharg Island. - | Afp | Getty Images

In the FT interview, Trump said that “my favorite thing is to take the oil in Iran but some stupid people back in the U.S. say: ‘why are you doing that?’ But they’re stupid people.”

“Maybe we take Kharg Island, maybe we don’t. We have a lot of options,” Trump said. “It would also mean we had to be there [in Kharg Island] for a while.” The White House and the U.S. State Department didn’t immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.

The president then added to the commentary Monday morning, warning that the U.S. would “completely” obliterate Iran’s electric generating plants, oil wells and Kharg Island if the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz is not “immediately” reopened and a peace deal is not reached “shortly.” Iran has not yet commented on Trump’s latest remarks.

Mission creep ...

The arrival of 2,500 Marines and another 2,500 sailors is keeping the number of American troops in the Mideast region at over 50,000 — roughly 10,000 more than usual — as President Trump decides on his next step in his month-old war in Iran.

While it is still unclear just what the Marines, from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, will be charged with, U.S. officials say the president is weighing whether to try a larger attack, like venturing to seize an island or other ground as part of Mr. Trump’s effort to open the Strait of Hormuz.

The narrow waterway, through which around 20 percent of the world’s oil usually traverses, has been largely closed because of attacks by Iranian forces who are retaliating against the U.S. and Israeli war on their country.

Usually there are around 40,000 American troops scattered around at bases and on ships at any time around the region, including in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. But as Mr. Trump has escalated the war in Iran, that number has reached more than 50,000, according to a U.S. military official.

Nosferatu lives

Onward Christian Soldiers ...

Trump with his eyes closed as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth delivers remarks during the Cabinet meeting
at the White House on March 26, 2026.

1 Onward, Christian soldiers,

marching as to war,

With the cross of Jesus

going on before!

Christ, the royal Master,

leads against the foe;

Forward into battle,

see his banner go!

Refrain:

Onward, Christian soldiers,

marching as to war,

With the cross of Jesus

going on before!

Sabine Baring-Gould, 1865

Sabine Baring-Gould, 1865

Pentagon staffers, current officers, former high-ranking military officials, chaplain corps, and veterans groups revealed the “unprecedented” monthly worship services led by Pete Hegseth in a Washington Post report published Sunday. They expressed concerns that the Defense Secretary was flouting the Constitution
by pushing his evangelical beliefs onto service members.

“I don’t approve of cramming your religious faith down people’s throats, and when the top of the chain couches these operations in this hyper-Christian tone, it flies in the face of the freedom of religion that the Constitution enshrines and that our men and women in uniform sign up to defend,” one source told the Post.

Totally agree. As George Carlin said. Keep thy religion to thyself.
Seems Hegseth ignores this sage advice 24/7.

Boots on the ground?

The USS Tripoli, an amphibious assault ship carrying 3,500 American troops, arrived in the Middle East on FridayImage: US CENTCOM/Handout/Anadolu/picture alliance

Boots on the ground? This is the existential question because if this happens, it's over. The kill zone is just the beginning as a small coltinngent of 7000 troops vs a massed array of drones, missiles and mines, not to mention Iranian soldiers equipped to the max with serious ordinance reminds one of the Dardanelles disaster in WW I, aka Gallipoli, where Churchill did the ultimate blunder and hundreds of thousands of soldiers died or were injured doing a op just as foolhardy as this one if said incursion actually happens.

Churchill 1914

The Battle of Gallipoli became a slaughter and quickly morphed into a stalemate just as bloody, just as pointless as that on the Western Front. In the first month after storming the peninsula, the Allies lost 45,000 men. The ill-fated Gallipoli Campaign lasted nine months before the evacuation of the last Allied troops in January 1916. Each side sustained 250,000 casualties with 46,000 Allied troops and 65,000 Turkish troops dead.

The invasion had been scuttled by incompetence and hesitancy by military commanders, but, fairly or unfairly, Churchill was the scapegoat. The Gallipoli disaster threw the government into crisis, and the Liberal prime minister was forced to bring the opposition Conservatives into a coalition government. As part of their agreement to share power, the Conservatives wanted Churchill, a renegade politician who had bolted their party a decade earlier, out from the Admiralty. In May 1915, Churchill was demoted to an obscure cabinet post.

The battle

Map of the Gallipoli peninsula, 1915

Gallipoli campaign

Fought during the First World War (1914-18) from 25 April 1915 to 9 January 1916, Gallipoli was the first major amphibious operation in modern warfare. British Empire and French troops landed on the Ottoman-held peninsula in the Dardanelles Straits with disastrous consequences for the Allies.

The Allies suffered over 220,000 casualties out of a force of nearly 500,000. From their point of view, the campaign was a disaster.

The Turks suffered almost as many casualties, but their victory at Gallipoli rejuvenated the Ottoman war effort. Further success followed at Kut in Mesopotamia (1916) and there was a renewed deployment into Sinai.

Most of the withdrawn Allied troops re-grouped in Egypt where they provided much-needed reinforcements for the Sinai and Palestine campaign.

LoudHmen - This image was made from the following source images (listed at their sources as "public domain" or "not restricted"): Top: Australian War Memorial image P01141.001 Middle left: File:British and French Battle Fleet at the entrance to the Dardanelles.jpg Middle right: File:V Beach Helles Gallipoli.jpg Bottom left: Australian War Memorial image A02598 Bottom right: Australian War Memorial image G00544

Now think of Trump, Pentagon Pete and 7000 soldiers possibly being deployed on Kharg Island.

Kharg Island, through which 90% of Iran’s oil exports flow, has been a major target.
Photograph: EU Copernicus Sentinel-2/EPA

I thought so.

In the eye of the beholder

On the left, an example of the visual imagination task the participants and AI models undertook: from these shapes they had to create a new image, with more or less elaborate instructions in the case of the AI. On the right, the resulting images in the four categories analysed (visual artists, non-artists, human-inspired AI and self-guided AI). The drawings are arranged in order of their creativity ratings (from 1 to 5), from lowest to highest. Credit: University of Barcelona Examples of drawings from each category, with the scores they received from humans, independent AI and the human-guided AI. Credit: University of Barcelona

A group of people and two AI systems were responsible for assessing the degree of creativity of the drawings according to five criteria: liking (i.e. to what extent they liked the drawing), vividness, originality, aesthetics and curiosity. In all cases, the results were clear and unequivocal: the visual artists received the highest score (most creative), followed by the general population, the human-guided AI model, and, by a wide margin disadvantage, the unguided AI model.

Interesting study regarding creativity and it's connect to AI. This is SOOOOO subjective because the eye of the beholder remains forever subjective and varied to the max. As a creative guy, the work I do is, on the tech side, realistic but abstract in concept. In painting, it's abstract so in looking at the end result of these entities creating work using the line sets on the left to apply to the art on the right, just about all of the art works for me as the pieces flow. They aren't stiff and many of the examples shown are whimsical and fun in feeling. 

Waiting for Melissa - Acrylic 1974

Examples of drawings from each category, with the scores they received from humans, independent AI
and the human-guided AI. Credit: University of Barcelona

The same opinion from yours truly applies to this set as well. Not trying to get off the hook but rather just expressing my view because the notion of what constitutes art always remains in the eye of the beholder ... forever. :)

In real time ...

Date:

March 27, 2026

Source:

Kyoto University

Summary:

A massive 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck Myanmar in March 2025, but what makes this event extraordinary is what happened next. For the first time, a nearby CCTV camera captured the fault rupture in real time, giving scientists a rare, direct look at how the Earth moves during a major quake. Researchers discovered that the ground shifted 2.5 meters in just 1.3 seconds, confirming a rapid, pulse-like rupture and revealing that the fault path was slightly curved.

Scientists captured a major earthquake in real time, revealing a rapid, pulse-like fault rupture and a surprising curved path. Credit: Shutterstock

One cannot make this up. :)

“we’ll just keep bombing our little hearts out”

The president’s allies have always said that his unpredictability is his superpower, and
that it keeps his enemies guessing.Credit...Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times

The art of the flail, of dementia, of malignant narcissism 24/7. It's the appearance of a dead man walking, leaving a legacy of incompetence, corruption and the possibility of Armageddon,
all running lockstep in real time.

The president’s allies have always said that his unpredictability is his superpower,

and that it keeps his enemies guessing.

President Trump was fresh off the golf course, and his fury was building.

It was March 21, and as he settled back into his Mar-a-Lago estate for the evening, he was reading another news account about how, for all the military success the United States had in Iran, he had yet to achieve his political objectives.

At 7:44 p.m., the president made his frustration known with an extraordinary ultimatum: If Iran did not reopen the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours and allow much of the world’s oil and gas to flow through, he would bomb Iran’s civilian electric power plants. It was the kind of attack that could constitute a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.

But just hours before the Monday deadline expired, Mr. Trump delayed his threat by five days, easing fears of an imminent escalation with profound military, diplomatic and economic implications.

Still, he warned that “we’ll just keep bombing our little hearts out” if Iran would not make a deal, and as the week progressed he made new threats that left allies off balance and spooked the markets. 

Bluster and bravado but the facts remain. Iran just has to outlast, just like the Vietcong, the Iraqis and the Taliban did as they will remain while the US and Israel cannot.

Random pix ...

 

Off in the Distance

11:00PM Yet Again

Chasing the light

Open For Dinner

Curvature

A Touch of Indigo

Winter - the big fundemental

Two States of Matter

Wisps

Frozen in Time

Suspension's Bridge

The immediate problem ...

Dark Sun - Vue/Robert E.

Yours truly posted this image before but the pix relates to the current insanity happening in the world as we speak. The Great Filter looms as AI, climate change and the possibility of WW III looms as this civilization moves further into the 21st century and we haven't even discussed the Anthropocene, the 6th major extinction event happening 24/7 due to ongoing environmental collapse driven by pollution, habitat loss and the continued plundering
of the world's resources.

This image of Earth’s city lights was created with data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) Operational Linescan System (OLS). Originally designed to view clouds by moonlight, the OLS is also used to map the locations of permanent lights on the Earth’s surface. The brightest areas of the Earth are the most urbanized, but not necessarily the most populated. (Compare western Europe with China and India.) Cities tend to grow along coastlines and transportation networks. Even without the underlying map, the outlines of many continents would still be visible. The United States interstate highway system appears as a lattice connecting the brighter dots of city centers. In Russia, the Trans-Siberian railroad is a thin line stretching from Moscow through the center of Asia to Vladivostok. The Nile River, from the Aswan Dam to the Mediterranean Sea, is another bright thread through an otherwise dark region. Even more than 100 years after the invention of the electric light, some regions remain thinly populated and unlit. Antarctica is entirely dark. The interior jungles of Africa and South America are mostly dark, but lights are beginning to appear there. Deserts in Africa, Arabia, Australia, Mongolia, and the United States are poorly lit as well (except along the coast), along with the boreal forests of Canada and Russia, and the great mountains of the Himalaya.

The immediate problem, war with Iran

Symbolic mock-ups of Iranian missiles are displayed on a street in Tehran, Iran, March 22, 2026
Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters

Iran’s military has said the United States is failing in its war and negotiating with itself to save face, dismissing claims by US President Donald Trump that talks are under way to end the conflict.

“Has the level of your inner ⁠struggle reached the stage ⁠of you negotiating with yourself?” Ebrahim Zolfaqari, spokesperson for the unified command of Iran’s armed ⁠forces, Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, said on Wednesday in comments carried by Iran’s semiofficial Fars news agency.

The insanity gambit

Trump claims US has achieved ‘regime change’, ‘received present’ from Iran

Kharg Island - The third rail option

Kharg Island is Iran’s primary oil export terminal in the Persian Gulf. This rocky limestone island is unique because it is one of the few islands in the Persian Gulf with freshwater which has collected within the porous limestone. In addition to its commercial and strategic importance, the freshwater has biological importance, supporting populations of gazelles. This high-resolution photograph taken by astronauts on board the International Space Station shows detail of the tanker dock facilities, tanks and other infrastructure. Sunglint on the surface of the water highlights small amounts of oil on the sea surface and reveals the direction of the local currents.

Paratroopers leaping down from Osprey choppers and swarming onto the shores of Kharg Island under a hail of gunfire...could this be the next phase of fighting in the Iran war?

The Pentagon is sending its prestigious 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East—elite soldiers trained to parachute into hostile foreign territory and take control of the area.

The deployment, leaked to media on Tuesday, is just the latest round of forces being directed to the region as the U.S. gears up for a potentially huge escalation in the war—a possible invasion of Iran's oil export hub.

Up to 3,000 paratroopers could be joining the estimated 5,000 Marines currently being shipped over, swelling the ranks of the 50,000 American troops already in the Middle East.

Question, What is the betting pool for the Orange Menace
to do the unthinkable while receiving a present from Iran?

I thought so.

Knowing something ...

Images: crisfotolux/Adobe Stock; ec0de/Adobe Stock

 As often stated in BRT, competency and knowing something at deep level requires effort and commitment as true knowledge and expertise is not a given but AI is giving the illusion that it is. 

Knowing the name of something doesn’t mean you understand it.
We talk in fact-deficient, obfuscating generalities to cover up our lack of understanding. Richard Feynman

Whether AI ...

For years, we have been outsourcing pieces of cognition so gradually that the shift barely registered. We outsourced memory to search engines after the well-known “Google effect” showed that when people expect information to remain accessible online, they are less likely to remember the information itself and more likely to remember where to find it. We outsourced navigation to GPS, even as research began to show that heavy reliance on it can weaken spatial memory when we have to find our own way. And we outsourced more and more of our social coordination to platforms that decide what we see, when we respond, and how we stay in sync with one another. 

Now we are beginning to outsource something far more consequential: not memory, not route-finding, not scheduling, but thought itself. Or, more precisely, the labor of forming a judgment before expressing one. 

That is the real cultural shift hidden behind the current enthusiasm around generative AI. The technology is often presented as a productivity layer, a creativity booster, or a universal assistant. And yes, in many cases, it is all of those things. But it also creates a dangerous temptation: to confuse frictionless output with actual understanding, and fluent answers with earned judgment. Research from Microsoft Research found that higher confidence in generative AI is associated with less critical thinking, while an open-access study in Acta Psychologica linked greater AI dependence to lower critical thinking. A recent Nature Reviews Psychology commentary put the distinction perfectly: performance gains from generative AI should not be confused with learning. 

In closing, the notion of AI being the consummate fake comes to mind as its take on reality is like a fabricated town in a western, all facade and no depth in its attempt to describe the vagaries of existence without the wealth of experience we all share as humans residing on a planet called Earth.

"And what is good, Phædrus,

And what is not good...

Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?"

Robert Persig - Lila: An Inquiry into Morals