GRASPING AT PINS.

In July, we noted the National Hurricane Center anticipating a relatively quiet North Atlantic hurricane season.

The National Hurricane Center's Atlantic hurricane forecast is out and it relies on that stronger El Niño.  "NOAA predicts below-normal 2026 Atlantic hurricane season."  There was already at least one named Atlantic tropical storm this season.  That heat wave east of the Mississippi during Freedom Weekend?  We used to call that the lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer.

That doesn't deter breathless journalists from breathlessly anticipating stirrings in the doldrums.

The 2026 Atlantic hurricane season is tracking significantly behind historical norms and may set a new record for its delayed activity. As of this week, the first hurricane of the season has yet to form, far behind the average first occurrence date of August 11.

The current record for the latest first hurricane formation in the Atlantic is September 11, set by Hurricane Gustav in 2002 and tied by Hurricane Humberto in 2013.

"Historical norms" refers to a moving average over the past eight decades, give or take, and it is the same category error your weather reader says when he predicts tomorrow will be way hotter or way colder "than it should be" or when a month's rainfall comes in above or below that moving average.  Complex adaptive systems do what they do.  As of Saturday, "Atlantic Hurricane Season Sets Record for Latest First Hurricane Formation," in the vacuously true sense that there were none yet.

PUTTING THE WORST POSSIBLE SPIN ON GOOD NEWS.

Bloomberg's headline is straightforward enough.  "Hormuz Oil Flows Rising as Gulf Giants’ Ramp Up Accelerates."  The first paragraph of the article, however, is a clanker.

The flow of crude through the Strait of Hormuz is creeping higher as producers across the Middle East boost exports in the face of Iran's lingering threat to shipping. The increase is keeping global crude oil prices in check.

The reports I'm seeing of gas lines that Iranian wags, if there are any wags, might be calling "Jimmy Carter's revenge," and the news of the gangbangers that used to raise havoc in Iraq or Lebanon being mobilized to cow the population, strongly suggest to me that if those are the effects of Iran's "threat to shipping," I'd hate to see what defeat looks like.

THOSE SUMMER DOLDRUMS.

Official Washington goes on vacation, and most of Europe takes things even easier than they normally do, but those news holes still have to be filled.

As people around the world mourn the death of music icon Dolly Parton, the National Hurricane Center is monitoring a tropical wave that could become the fourth-named storm of the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season. The pre-season determined name? Dolly.

The wave, far out in the Atlantic, could be named by Aug. 27, but the name "Dolly" was chosen 30 years ago and is not related to Dolly Parton's death on Aug. 25. The wave has a 70% chance of becoming a tropical storm or depression, according to the hurricane center, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

There are no plans to skip over the name "Dolly" if the expected tropical storm forms, the hurricane center told USA TODAY. The center does not control the naming of tropical storms or when the names are used, its website states. "Instead a strict procedure has been established by an international committee of the World Meteorological Organization."

It's an "astounding coincidence" at a time when people from all walks of life are remembering her music and charitable legacies, wrote Roger Edwards, a long-time Dolly Parton fan and meteorologist who retired from NOAA in 2025, in a tribute posted on a social media account.

Anything to make hurricane season relevant when it's the end of August with four possible named storms by the 27th.

There are likely other famous people passing a day or so before a tropical depression gains that person's name.  Around our family, Dolly Parton's name frequently came up in cribbage games when there weren't many points in the crib.  Outside the Beltway's James Joyner notes, "She was truly one of a kind," and Margaret "University Diaries" concludes, "Her voice had the sun of America in it."  R.I.P.

YOU AND WHOSE NAVY?

"Iran threatens 45 tankers with fines, confiscation in Hormuz escalation."  Regime dead-enders think they've identified the ships participating in the shuttle operation transloading Gulf Arabian product to ships sheltering well away from the mullahs' putative blockade.

THE GAS PUMP PAIN ARISES MAINLY IN UKRAINE?

The Establishment's Narrative^(TM) on higher summer gasoline prices is "It's All Trump's Fault."  These are the same fear-mongers who were sounding off about crude oil prices north of $175 per barrel in the aftermath of rogue Iranian elements attempting to close the Strait of Hormuz.

LET THE THING BE PRESSED.

Stephen "Vodka Pundit" Green is not yet urging "Faster, please."  Historian Scott Powell suggests the time to finish the mullahs is now.

Iran is already a militarily defeated nation. To allow this evil, suicidal regime to rebuild and reconstitute itself would be a tragic missed opportunity to liberate the vast majority of Iranian people who want to live as free people under some form of democracy. And fundamentally, it would be a dereliction of duty to the greater Middle East. Defeating this regime also puts the nail in the coffin for Hamas, Hezb’allah and the Houthis, all of which dramatically improves the prospects for peace in the region.

A lot can change in a few days.  Last week came the usual sort of posturing.  "Tehran has vowed not to reopen the critical shipping lane “until America corrects its behavior,” despite a looming agreement with Oman reported to have been close for days."  As well as the usual scavenger hunt in the arsenal.

Iran's regime fired two ballistic missiles toward shipping traffic in the Persian Gulf on Tuesday. The United Arab Emirates has had enough. Abu Dhabi responded by severing every trade, commercial, and financial transaction with the terror state, effective immediately.

Roughly $28 billion in annual commerce is now gone. The UAE was Iran's single largest source of imports, a lifeline the mullahs just torched with their own missiles.

UAE Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Afra Al Hameli made it official Wednesday. No end date. No conditions. Just a hard stop tied to Iran's escalating aggression.

“All trade, commercial exchanges, and financial transactions with Iran have been halted until further notice.”

It helps if you have ordnance that works if you seek concessions.  Dud missiles scratchbuilt with whatever the mullahs scraped together might even have changed minds at CNN.  "Iran has lost significant control of the Strait of Hormuz."

LET'S PLACE YET ANOTHER PIN.

We will be following some predictions about the upcoming hurricane season.  "Complex adaptive systems, doing what they do. 'There is still enough uncertainty that seeing a weaker outcome would not be a surprise.'"  That same Pacific El Niño that figures in prognostications about North Atlantic hurricanes might affect the White Christmas at Cold Spring Shops headquarters.  "Super El Niño Map Shows States Bracing for 'Significant Snow' This Winter."

We'll see what happens.

Much of the Northeast saw one of the coldest and snowiest winters in more than a decade this past winter while in parts of Texas and the Plains, residents saw record warmth and severe drought.

What would a Super El Niño mean for the United States this time around? According to Columbia University, the Super El Niño leads to milder winters in the northern United States and wetter conditions in the southern parts of the country.

"In December 1997, a very strong El Niño brought wetter-than-normal conditions across most of the southern U.S., while the northern states experienced warmer-than-average temperatures, making it the second warmest and seventh wettest winter since 1895," it revealed.

A map from Newsweek, however, showed that four states are more likely to see "significant snow" this winter. California (in the Sierra Mountain range), New Hampshire, New York and Vermont are all expected to see heavy rain and significant snow, according to the latest predictions.

Meanwhile, Southern states along the Gulf and Atlantic Ocean will see periods of heavy rain and cool fronts.

That's going the long way 'round to say "Complex adaptive systems tend to do what they darn well please." We'll have to wait another month or so for the Old Farmer's Almanac to weigh in.

Can it get much weirder than last "winter?"  "Snow cover through most of Advent, cold with little snow cover through January and into February, now the sort of snow with almost enough moisture to congeal in the snow-thrower, and if it's a little deeper, can bring on cardiac events."

The good Lord willin' and the crick don't rise, we'll be issuing report cards once Thanksgiving arrives.

THE ILLOGIC OF MERCANTILISM.

Yesterday, Our President floated the idea of collecting payment for escort services.  I'm referring to the Arabian Gulf, get your mind out of the gutter.  National Review's Andrew McCarthy promptly and correctly flagged that proposal as illegal.

The strait was open when Trump decided to start the war. This was to the great advantage of the United States, a trading colossus with the world’s most formidable economy. If Trump were to impose tolls, fees, taxes, or whatever he deigns to call them — i.e., if he were to do exactly what Iran has been trying to do — that would induce other nations to extort payments for transit through international waters and straits of importance to international trade where they are in a position to intimidate shippers. Free trade would break down, which would be a catastrophe for nations heavily engaged in international trade, such as our own.

Congress should authorize the use of military force to keep the strait open. Still, regardless of whether one thinks the president has authority to use force to remedy a problem he created (because, however we got to this point, it is in America’s vital interest to keep the strait open), he has no authority to toll the strait, as he proposes to do.

It is entirely possible that Congress should enact legislation and/or that a binding international treaty should be forged that would reimburse the U.S. for security costs. I doubt that; I’d estimate that the benefits that the U.S. receives from free transit across the world far outweigh the costs of discouraging Iran from tolling the Hormuz Strait. But wherever you come out on that equation, a president has no authority to dictate transit taxes, and trying to do so is a provocation both constitutionally and in international relations.

I'll leave it to people who pay more attention to international affairs to evaluate whether that strait was open out of parties mutually looking the other way, the mullahs at infidels buying their oil, and the customers at the mullahs developing nuclear weapons.

WILL THE THING FINALLY BE PRESSED?

The useful idiots at Common Dreams are doing what useful idiots do.  "Iran Condemns Fresh US Bombing Campaign as ‘Serious Threat to International Peace’."  Pure projection, but isn't it the way of the abuser to accuse everybody else of being abusive?

The Iranian Foreign Ministry on Sunday condemned the United States’ latest round of airstrikes as a “flagrant violation” of international law that threatens to permanently derail efforts to achieve a peaceful resolution to the war, which US President Donald Trump launched earlier this year in coordination with the Israeli government.

This past weekend, said Iran’s Foreign Ministry, the US carried out “brutal attacks” and “acts of aggression” that pose “a serious threat to international peace and security, rendering futile all efforts made over the past several months to reduce tensions and restore stability in the West Asia region.”

For 47 years the mullahs and their revolutionary guard storm troopers have been fomenting instability and raising tensions.

LET THE THING BE PRESSED.

The Memorandum of Understanding is a dead letter, kinetic actions that might not involve the United States or Israeli forces, and Dmitri Bolt advises Our President, "Iran Is Already Begging for a Deal. Don't Give Them One."  I can understand Our President's hope to leave those Iranians who are not mad Moslems, such as the ones who took advantage of the weekend of mourning to go to the beach, with the vestiges of a civilian infrastructure once the mullahs bug out.

DO WE REALLY WANT TO MICRO-MANAGE IRAN?

That's a V. D. Hanson rhetorical question, which he answers, at some length, in the negative.  We're still hung up in a "peace process," which might be an exercise in futility.

There are legitimate concerns about the tentative memorandum, including the idea of third-party cash infusions to the regime and claims that violence in Lebanon is somehow Israel's fault. In truth, history shows that Hezbollah, with Iranian financial support, consistently instigates the killing and then whines when Israel—or the U.S. in past conflicts—responds disproportionately.

That said, much of the current hysteria assumes a radical change in Trump's strategy rather than a continuity that has brought us to the current denouement. It also does not consider the wider strategic context of the memorandum, the critical role of domestic public opinion in shaping how wars are conducted, or the broader strategy of isolating and weakening the regime.

A closer look at the current position of the U.S. suggests it has done an enormous amount of fiscal, economic, and military damage to Iran—the full extent of which will not be known until foreigners are allowed into the country.

We might be, he argues, in the worst situation but for all the possible alternatives.

Iran has been militarily devastated, but it does not yet consider itself strategically inert. The regime has little concern for the welfare of its own people and assumes Trump will not retaliate against dual-use targets in the manner of most past presidents who ordered bombing campaigns.

Remember, Trump could have gotten a much better deal had we dealt with the Iranians as we did with the once-defeated Iraqis and Taliban, whose governments were forcibly replaced by ones more agreeable to U.S. demands.

But, with a population of 93 million, Iran is neither Iraq nor Afghanistan, which together required decades of U.S. ground troops, $2 trillion in treasure, 7,000 American deaths, and 53,000 wounded. And in the end, those efforts still did not result in lasting Western-style governments aligned with U.S. interests.

Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq was as large or as formidable as Iran. To fully dictate terms to Iran as if it were an inert protectorate, the U.S. would either have to bomb it to smithereens or send in thousands of ground troops, both politically unpalatable to the American people. Trump must deal with the reality that Americans have been sick of dealing with the Middle East for years. By now, they believe that any costly, enforced regime change on the ground—or any years-long no-fly zone—is not worth the life of a single American soldier.

I suspect Our President still hopes, perhaps ever more forlornly, that Iran's civilians will say no to the mullahs, and that leaving the civilian infrastructure in relatively good shape will pay off.

POPULAR OPINION INFLUENCES POLICY.

In "Trump Just Made the Worst Possible Deal… Except for the Alternatives,"  Michael Smerconish contends, "Once the conflict started, the United States faced a difficult reality: no clear path to victory, no public appetite for a prolonged war, and no support for a large-scale ground invasion. The result was an imperfect agreement that satisfies almost no one—but may have been preferable to the alternatives. The memorandum ends active hostilities, reopens the Strait of Hormuz, and creates a 60-day window for broader negotiations."

Reason's Michael Petti argues, "Compromise With Iran Isn't 'Surrender'."  At the moment, the only compromise that seems to be holding is the movement of ships and goods through the Strait of Hormuz, which is mutually beneficial trade at work, something possible with or without diplomacy.  "Both sides give something up and both sides get something in return."  Mr Petti notes,

The United States and Iran were unable to defeat each other in the first round, and, staring at an unacceptably costly escalation, they came to the table. While a final deal hasn't been agreed to, the ceasefire memorandum commits both sides to giving things up, with the U.S. promising to lift all economic sanctions if Iran negotiates away its nuclear program.

Strictly speaking, the ceasefire memorandum commits both sides to sixty days of palaver that might lead to somebody giving things up, that is, if the palaver lasts that long.

IF IT'S THE WEEKEND, THERE MUST BE AN IRAN DEAL.

Here. We. Go. Again.  Again.  "Here.  We.  Go.  Again.  Holding meetings to establish a framework to develop a process will not yield a single gram of fissile material, although it is probably a good way to keep the likes of Danny in McMansions in McLean.  Might be time to punch the mullahs in the mouth again, and let them know that once they turn over the fissile material the anaconda's coils can be loosened."  That was toward the end of May.  Toward the end of last week it was "Here comes another weekend of 'an agreement is near.' The hardliners in Iran and among the Militant Normals are not prepared to be patient."

SHOWING THEM WHAT THEY WANTED TO SEE?

On Tuesday, we noted the quiet movement of tankers out of the Arabian Gulf along the Omani side of the Strait of Hormuz and with the shepherding of the United States Navy.  That story was coming out a week ago.  "The Strait of Hormuz is more open than previously thought as the U.S. shoots down Iranian drones threatening ships and provides ‘naval overwatch’."

Apparently the Navy setting its blockade line at the Iranian - Pakistani border was thought through.  That the Iranians were not seeing many ships moving, and that their enablers in the palace guard media were scoffing at how ineffective Project Freedom was made the likes of CNN and MSwhatever part of an information operation.

The operation consisted of Very Large Crude Carriers, we'd call them "supertankers," exiting through Hormuz without their Automatic Identification System, the maritime equivalent of an aircraft transponder shut off. Once in the Gulf of Oman, these vessels rendezvoused with other tankers and were emptied via ship-to-ship transfers. The empty tankers then headed back into the Persian Gulf to pick up a new load of oil from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, or Iraq. This kept the number of ships in the Persian Gulf stable and provided no hint of Washington running its own "dark fleet" of oil smugglers. Wash, rinse, repeat.

It also explains the U.S. Navy's aggressiveness in the Gulf of Oman in turning around inbound ships bound for Iran. Yes, it served to support the blockade, but it also prevented an Iran-bound ship from stumbling upon a transfer operation and blowing the whistle when they made port.

The blockade runners were covered by a $40 billion war insurance pool furnished by the Development Finance Corporation. Oddly enough, this was another Trump administration initiative that was derided as a failure.

It looks like President Trump's announcement was made because the whole operation was about to become public.

It wasn't so much that the United States was not in a hurry to reopen the strait as it was that keeping the Iranians from profiting by their blockade might have better been accomplished by having only a few ships risk the passage while transloading out of Iranian sight.  "Assuming the accuracy of Trump's statement, it means Iran doesn't control the Strait of Hormuz and can't prevent other Gulf countries from exporting oil. This means the only people Iran is blockading are itself."

Whether that was the cargo that broke the mullahs' economy and that's why they might be signing an agreement remains to be seen.  Here comes the weekend, prepare to be whipsawed.

LET THE THING BE PRESSED.

Last week, Gatestone Institute contributor Con Coughlin contended, "Renewing Military Strikes Against Iran Is the Only Way to End Its Nuclear Ambitions."  As of this evening, those strikes are on again, at least for now.  Mr Coughlin's contention concludes, "With the American president continuing to insist he is under no pressure to reach a deal with Tehran, the intransigence of Iranian leaders could ultimately persuade him that, in order to ensure the Iranians have no chance of resuming their nuclear and ballistic missile programme, he has no alternative but to resume military action against the regime."

What part of "turn over your nuclear dust and we'll stop whacking you" do the mullahs and their gangbanger proxies not understand?  Perhaps Our President will take that position.  He's supposedly taking calls from somebody in Iranian leadership asking him to stop the bombing.  I hope his response is something along the lines of "turn over your nuclear dust and we'll stop whacking you."  Otherwise it's more of the same.  In The (Not Detroit) Free Press, Aaron MacLean counsels, "Mr. President, Don’t Let Tehran Dupe You."  Strategic patience, in his view, isn't working, and Trumpian mercurial treatments of Israel and the Gulf Arab states looks foolish.

Despite the leverage the United States has over Iran, in the form of the blockade and the very substantial U.S. military force still in the region, Iran does not behave as though it is particularly deterred. But Trump certainly seems to act as though he is deterred. Along with his dogged pursuit of a deal, his fear of escalation is another Obama-esque aspect of the president’s current approach, even if the overall comparison has its obvious limitations.

Perhaps Our President is drawing on the experience he obtained working with the people one encounters in the building trades and building services in New York, and he's trying a mix of charm and force.  Mr MacLean's predictions from a couple of days ago might not have aged well.

Tehran certainly seems contemptuous of the risks it faces from the American military capacity in their neighborhood, given the president’s refusal to return to major combat operations in the face of repeated Iranian aggression since the start of the so-called ceasefire—and now, his demonstrated willingness to restrain the Israelis.

The Iranians know the president’s options are limited: taking a bad deal, returning to major combat, or waiting. The first option is politically difficult at home, and the president seems deterred from major combat—but he does say he is content to wait.

The Iranians, meanwhile, are trying to make “waiting” as painful an option as possible. They want to force him to weaken his bargaining position. The question now is whether they succeed, or if Trump rediscovers the confidence and resolve that he projected when this episode began.

We'll see what the next couple of days of kinetic action, or not, brings.

IN THE ABSENCE OF A MANAGER, GIVE STRATEGIC PATIENCE A CHANCE.

Pajamas Media's Rick Moran suggests "The War Has Shattered the Iranian Leadership Structure, Making an Agreement Next to Impossible."  There wasn't much of a "regime" before hostilities commenced, but the hotheads are in the saddle in Persia.

The Iranian leadership structure, as chaotic and contentious as it is in peacetime, was shattered by the decapitation strikes that not only took most of the key decision makers off the board but also drove a hysterical paranoia among the survivors, pitting the major factions against each other in suspicion and fear.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), always a power behind the throne since the founding of the Islamic Republic, was forced to step into the spotlight and take over.

Whether Ahmad "Klingon" Vahidi is still in charge of the revolutionary guards, or not, the True Believers still have the muscle, but apparently even a military dictatorship in a country that has institutionalized the faculty meeting as a governing style doesn't have the authority to reach a consensus on the terms they'd like to dictate to the infidels.

Vahidi is the hardest of hardliners, ordering the attacks on Gulf states and U.S. bases in the region. When President Masoud Pezeshkian apologized to those countries, promising it would never happen again, Vahidi reportedly went ballistic. He severely reprimanded the president, and the attacks resumed.

His biggest problem is that even after sidelining the pragmatists like Pezeshkian and Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, the current speaker of the Iranian parliament, other factions with diverse economic, religious, and policy goals complicate his job enormously. As much as Vahidi may want to be a dictator, the bureaucracy won't let him. He can only do so much to influence events.

I suspect the bureaucracy would like to hang onto their nuclear program, and they might prefer to have everything settled at once, rather than recognize the Strait of Hormuz as international waters and sell some oil now and hope for the best getting the sanctions lifted once the nuclear material is in United States hands.  But what the process-worshippers are discovering is that the faculty meeting approach to making policy has its limitations.

The clerics, while little more than figureheads, are nevertheless important to the legitimacy of the Iranian regime. Vahidi and the rest of the IRGC must pledge their allegiance to the supreme leader and at least appear to obey the clerics.

"Iran is an 'Islamic Republic," writes Amatzia Baram of the Middle East Forum. "Constitutionally and in the eyes of many Iranians, 'The Rule of the [Islamic] Jurist' (velayat-e faqih), the legacy of former Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, is still binding."

Nour News, an outlet affiliated with Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, "acknowledged what it described as a growing 'chronic disorder of governance' inside Iran, arguing that the country suffers not from a lack of information or resources, but from an inability to make 'timely, decisive and rapid decisions.'"

While they dither, perhaps the best thing to do is let the anaconda's coils tighten.

THE MANAGER HAS TO APPROVE.

The ritual for buying a car used to involve one of the dealer's floor sales representative doing most of the dickering: we can hope for precisely the make, model, and options you want to be scheduled in a month, or we can put you in something similar right now, and perhaps at a lower price; here's what I think I can get the manager to sign off on your trade-in, and have you considered financing through us?  But whatever the buyer and the floor representative shook hands on still had to be cleared by the manager, who was the dealer's last chance to extract more favorable terms from the buyer.  Once upon a time, my dad and a floor representative had a price sheet worked out and my dad wrote a deposit check, then the representative went to the manager, and came back with the manager's extractions.  My dad asked for the deposit check back.  The dealership caved: evidently making a sale today was better than having the deposit check go out the door.

A COUNTEREXAMPLE CAN BE A DISPROOF.

Detroit News film critic Adam Graham pans Pressure.

When Dwight D. Eisenhower allegedly told John F. Kennedy that the reason the Allies won WWII was because "we had better meteorologists than the Germans," it's possible that Ike was cracking a joke.

But the dead serious "Pressure" takes this assertion as gospel, and crafts a stiff drama around the weather on D-Day, and the brave men — or the brave man, in this case — who predicted it.

It's the kind of premise you'd expect to see on "SNL": In a world so overindexed on WWII movies, one man attempts to craft an Oscar-worthy biopic of the war's true unsung hero — the weatherman.

But "Pressure" isn't joking, at least on purpose, and director Anthony Maras does a good job of almost making viewers forget how ridiculous "Pressure's" premise is.

"This is a true story," reads the card at the introduction of the film, letting viewers know they're in for a Serious History Lesson.

It is very much not a true story, as anyone who knows why this monument is at Slapton Sands can tell you.

A Bohemian corporal noted upon being advised of Kriegsmarine torpedo boats shooting up a landing exercise there noted that there was a beach near Quineville with similar sands.  The houses of Slapton are closer to the Channel today.

Third Coast Review's Steve Prokopy is fine with a few liberties being taken with history in service of a good story.

I’ve said it before, but I’ll repeat myself until I pass out if I have to: docudramas are not documentaries; they don’t show us exactly what happened because they are trying to tell the best cinematic version of a true story. Admittedly, I’d prefer they don’t outright lie to the audience (I’m looking at you, Bohemian Rhapsody), but if something needs to be altered slightly or characters need to be combined for efficiency’s sake, I’m fine with that. Pressure is director and TV veteran Anthony Maras’ second feature (after Hotel Mumbai, also based on horrific true events), and I have no real issues with its account of the 72 hours leading up to the D-Day invasion of Normandy in June 1944, the largest and most dangerous seaborne invasion in history that effectively decided the fate of World War II.

Mr Graham disagrees, if not as dramatically as the protagonists attempting to make sense of the incoming soundings. "In a larger movie about D-Day, there's a great two-scene performance to be made about the weather guy who got it right when no one else did. Anything more is overcast, er, overkill."

ALL HANDS TO THE PUMPS!

The Popular Perspective on work songs has long been that they establish unity of effort.

As newcomers dove into a vast backcatalog of songs, many quickly highlighted just how catchy these tunes really are. But while early sea shanty composers didn’t envision ever reaching the top of the charts, they certainly wrote them to be earworms. The sea shanty is only one variant of a work song—rhythmic melodies designed to help laborers keep pace with one another during repetitive, often backbreaking jobs. Other types of work songs developed over generations among Appalachian coal miners, prison chain gangs, and British textile workers, just to name a few examples.

Yes, tightening the side-wall on the Big Top:  "Break it, pull it, shake it, now downstake it!  Move on to the next one."

PROGRESS?

As of this afternoon, the latest edition of the Victor E. Garden is being planted, and the ongoing negotiation over nuclear materials that the current owner doesn't want to part with goes on.  Perhaps Commander Salamander is asking the right question, "If Iran Wants to Rule Rubble, Should we Let Them?"

We’re in it now, and at this stage—having taken away the Islamic Republic’s conventional heft and ability to maintain her proxies—we have to deal with the secondary effects—getting the free flow of goods at market prices out of the Strait of Hormuz choke point…while keeping pressure on the Islamic Republic.

We are trying to find some agreement with the forces ruling the Islamic Republic that seem content to destroy Iran as long as they rule over the rubble, and impoverish everyone else as long as it helps support goal #1.

There's a division of war objectives, with the United States concentrating on restoring freedom of navigation and taking control of the fissile material, the Israelis seeking an end to non-governmental organizations with weapons cutting up on their borders, and who knows what ancient rivalries are playing out among the Gulf Arab states and Persia, who are not parties to the cease fire, such as it is, the United States and Israel have mostly been respecting.