In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

Addressing the crash of a US KC-135 air refueling plane this past Thursday, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth remarked, War is hell. War is chaos. And as we saw yesterday with the tragic crash of our KC-135 tanker, bad things can happen. American heroes - all of them. CENTCOM confirmed that while the crash involved an unspecified incident with two aircraft in friendly airspace, the loss of the aircraft "was not due to enemy action or friendly fire". So, what was it due to? All we really have is Secretary Hegseth's characterization: "War is hell. War is chaos." As best as commentators with experience in mid-air refueling can surmise without other confirmation, two KC-135 tankers collided during some type of refueling maneuver. One was so badly damaged that it immediately crashed, killing all six of its crew. The other had less severe damage, it was able to return to its base, and its crew survived. I've been ruminating on the idea I began to develop ...

I simply haven't been able to find any good single source on what's happening in the Iran war. Unlike the first year or so of the Ukraine-Russia war, when Oryx provided confirmed equipment losses, and the Institute for the Study of War provided overall updates. Now, legacy media is remarkably incurious, probably due to the refusal of most outlets to sign rhe October 2025 Pentagon media agreement. On the other hand, nobody in alt media seems up to the job of adding two plus two in any insightfiul way. Instead, we get stories like US Intel: Iran Govt Not at Risk of Collapse : U.S. intelligence indicates that Iran's leadership is still largely intact and is not at risk of collapse any time soon after nearly two weeks of relentless U.S. and Israeli bombardment, according to three sources familiar with the matter. A "multitude" of intelligence reports provide "consistent analysis that the regime is not in danger" of collapse and "retains contr...

In the US, the most recent Epstein fallout is David Copperfield announces last Vegas show, weeks after Epstein ties revealed David Copperfield has announced that he is performing his last show at MGM Grand in Las Vegas next month, an announcement that comes weeks after documents released in the Epstein files revealed new details about how the FBI viewed the illusionist’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the late convicted sex offender. The announcement that the 69-year-old illusionist’s last show would be held on 30 April appears to have been made suddenly. In a statement praising and thanking Copperfield for his 25-year stint at MGM, the company said in a statement that it would automatically refund tickets for shows that were booked after that date. while this dog still isn't barking : House Oversight Chairman James Comer said Wednesday that Jeffrey Epstein's long-time accountant Richard Kahn testified to his panel that he never saw a transaction between Epstein...

In Monday's post, I noted that I wasn't going to cover the conventional wisdom on the Strait of Hormuz, because it was too big a subject, and the situation was fluid. But yesterday, I ran across a Substack essay that I think provides a pretty good snapshot of the thinking over the past weekend : At midnight Greenwich Mean Time on 5 March 2026, seven of the twelve International Group Protection and Indemnity clubs that collectively insure roughly 90% of the world’s ocean-going tonnage executed identical cancellation notices for war-risk coverage across the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman, and Iranian territorial waters. . . . In that instant, seven letters accomplished what the entire Iranian navy could not. . . . By every traditional metric of military dominance, the campaign is succeeding. Yet the Strait remains commercially paralysed. . . . [T]he 31 autonomous IRGC provincial commands that replaced centralised authority after the decapitation strikes create a coun...

Via the UK Express : A verbally bruised and battered Sir Keir Starmer is reported to have tried to cool tensions with President Donald Trump who is furious over Britain's reaction to the Iran war by trying to discuss the upcoming US visit of King Charles. The US leader has been outspoken in his criticism of the PM after Downing Street initially refused to allow American bombers to use RAF bases for the attacks on Iran which began on February 28. . . . The Sun reports the phone call was "not a rosy affair" but that Sir Keir tried to use the Royal Family as a way of placating his outspoken American counterpart. According to The Sun , the exchange between the two men was "testy" but Sir Keir mentioned King Charles and Queen Camillia visiting the United States at the end of April as a way of lightening the mood. It sounds as if Starmer, like a good many others, still thinks Trump is basically a four-year-old, and he can be distracted by offering...

I referred to the conventional wisdom on the Iran war in yesterday's post. Later in the day, Iran announced that after several days' delay, Mojtaba Khamenei had been designated Supreme Leader, succeeding his father, something that had been generally expected. In yesterday's post, I quoted AI: Experts and intelligence assessments as of March 2026 indicate that Iran’s political alignment and regime structure are likely to endure despite significant U.S. and Israeli military strikes. While these attacks have decapitated top leadership—including the confirmed death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on March 2—the state's foundational institutions were specifically designed to survive such losses. . . . Analysts from the Brookings Institution suggest that deeply embedded networks like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Assembly of Experts provide a power structure that remains advantaged over any internal challengers. We'll have to see how this sh...

One of the points Tom Nash made in the presentation I embedded in yesterday's post was that the Supreme Leader is essential to maintaining a cohesive regime. Israel took him out on February 28, and so far, he hasn't been replaced. Iran is reportedly delaying naming a successor to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader killed over the weekend in U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran, for security concerns as Israel has asserted that it will target whoever is instated, while President Donald Trump has doubled down on wanting to influence the selection. The New York Times reported, citing two unnamed Iranian officials, that while Khamenei’s second-eldest son, 56-year-old Mojtaba Khamenei, has emerged as the strongest contender to take Tehran’s top job, no one has been named out of fear that they will be targeted. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz posted on social media on Wednesday that any leader appointed by Iran to succeed Ali Khamenei would be “an unequivocal targe...