In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

Just like that, Real Clear Politics ran comments on the Iran war today from both Roger Kimball and Victor Davis Hanson. As I've been saying, RCP reliably runs them as the conservative conventional wisdom, but they seldom add much insight to any issue, and sometimes they just get things wrong. Hanson's point today is that the non-US NATO nations haven't been playing fair: When NATO members in the past have operated unilaterally to defend their own national interests, they have often called on the U.S., as NATO’s strongest member, for overt help. For nearly 40 years, the U.S. had offered logistical, intelligence, reconnaissance, refueling, and diplomatic support to the French in their unilateral and postcolonial efforts to protect Chad from Libya and, later, Islamists. During the 1982 Falklands War, a solitary Britain faced enormous logistical challenges in steaming halfway around the world to eject Argentina from its windswept and sparse islands. ...

Channel 14 says it obtained an exchange among Iranian leaders: President Pezeshkian: “I want to be involved in the negotiations with the U.S. Without a quick deal, our entire economy will collapse in 3 weeks.” IRGC chief Vahidi: “That’s exactly why you can’t be involved. You’ll… pic.twitter.com/EV76ZmFa2w — Open Source Intel (@Osint613) March 30, 2026 As we wait for President Trump's address on Iran this evening, I continue to reflect on the X post above from several days ago. A big theme in the comment thread is that it's no surprise that the Revolutionary Guard is in control. On the other hand, no date is given for the reported exchange between President Pezeshkian and Revolutionary Guard Chief Vahidi, but at least one report claims that Vahidi has been eliminated: 🚨🇮🇷BREAKING: General Ahmad Vahidi who was appointed as commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on March 1, 2026, reporadaly has been ELIMINATED in U. S. & Israel strikes. pic.t...

Pope Leo Explains God Does Not Listen To People Who Wage War So Long As You Don’t Count Moses, David, Joshua, Elijah, Saul, Gideon, Samson, Or Anyone Else In Bible https://t.co/8Hu7kJv7hc pic.twitter.com/q2jBwHjSST — The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) March 29, 2026 I double checked this with AI, which replied, Yes, Pope Leo XIV stated that God "does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war" during his Palm Sunday homily on March 29, 2026. Speaking to tens of thousands in St. Peter's Square, the Pope condemned the ongoing conflict between the U.S., Israel, and Iran as "atrocious" and warned against using faith to justify violence. . . . He cited Isaiah 1:15 to emphasize his point: "Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood". But then I asked AI about Moses and the battle with the Amalekites: According to Exodus 17:8-16, the Battle of Rephidim saw Joshua lead the Israelites ag...

Another area of the UK's decline that I've begun to look at is immigration. This so-called "bitesize" piece from the BBC probably puts the best possible take on it: After World War Two, a mass immigration of people coming to work in Britain began. Many of the early arrivals were from the West Indies, South Asia and Cyprus. The most famous arrival was of people from the Caribbean, mainly Jamaica and Trinidad, on the ship Empire Windrush in 1948. This is sometimes mistakenly referred to as the first arrival of black people in Britain. - UK had a severe labour shortage after World War Two, especially in the transport network and the newly created National Health Service - large areas of the main cities had been destroyed by aerial bombing and a programme of rebuilding began, needing workers - for the above reasons, British governments actively invited people from the Commonwealth to come and work - the economy of the Caribbean islands,...

Yesterday I resumed my occasional ruminations on bad ideas that originated in the UK, in this case, Fabian socialism. This morning I ran into a piece on another bad idea from the UK that's had far less traction, the Archbishop of Canterbury: The posh plot to stick Mullally in Canterbury . As best I can tell, it breaks down the controversy in class terms, which is an almost exclusively intra-UK issue, when the occupant of the Canterbury see is at least politely said still to be the leader of world Anglicanism. But here's the issue as outlined in the piece: The BBC presented Sarah Mullally as a ground-breaker in its coverage of her installation as Archbishop of Canterbury. But the real ground-breaker in the Church of England was George Carey, the archbishop that Margaret Thatcher chose in 1990. This is because Carey was non-U. Carey was the first Archbishop of Canterbury since the Reformation not to have been educated at Oxbridge. Born as the son of ...

I remember a discussion question from somewhere at least 50 years ago that went something like this: "Which of the two British dystopian novels, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World or George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, seems most prescient of current conditions to you? Explain." I thought this was a good question at the time, but I never could come up with a definite answer, and as I revisit the question today, I'm actually more convinced that the answer is "neither". Let's look at Brave New World. According to Wikipedia , Largely set in a futuristic World State, whose citizens are environmentally engineered into an intelligence-based social hierarchy, the novel anticipates huge scientific advancements in reproductive technology, sleep-learning, psychological manipulation and classical conditioning that are combined to make a dystopian society which is challenged by the story's protagonist. Nineteen Eighty-Four , on the other han...

Via the UK Guardian : Donald Trump has dismissed British warships as “toys” in his latest jibe at Nato countries for their lack of involvement in the joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran. Speaking at the White House on Thursday, he claimed he had told the UK: “Don’t bother, we don’t need it.” Trump has previously alleged that he requested two aircraft carriers from the UK that Keir Starmer had initially rejected and then offered to send. No 10 has denied that a request was made or denied. However, The United Kingdom will lead a multinational coalition to re-open and then maintain the Strait of Hormuz “as soon as the conditions are right” — likely meaning not while a war is still going on — it is claimed. The Times cites unnamed British defence officials who say meetings between partner nations have already taken place, and more are planned. . . Why is it that responses to Trump's criticisms from both the UK and NATO always involve meetings? This discussion needs ...