1/. Good post by Andrew Sullivan - "The War He's Always Wanted".....
No, not Trump. Netanyahu!
For me and many others, the Iraq War of 2003 was a life-altering lesson in humility. In the wake of 9/11, with trauma warping my frontal cortex, I backed a pre-meditated
, pre-emptive war for regime change in the Middle East — something stupid and immoral I soon realized, however well intentioned. It changed me. But at least in those tense, polarized months of 2002 and 2003, we had hashed out the case for war thoroughly beforehand, as democracies do. A thousand op-eds bloomed; critical votes were taken in the Congress; political careers were weighed in the balance; and Colin Powell went to the UN to present the “evidence.” Seems like a wholly different world, doesn’t it? https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/the-war-hes-always-wanted?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=61371&post_id=189428726&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=2cwgv&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
2/. The brilliant [and as this clips shows prescient] George Carlin on War in the Persian gulf - "Rockets and Penises".
It's amazing how spot on he is about our current "war"......7 excellent minutes.
3/. Carlin leads into SNL's Pete Hegseth [brilliantly played by Colin Jost] demented press briefing......
4/. American car manufacturers are in trouble......the world is leaving them behind.
So what are they doing with their profits? Investing in new technology?
Naaaaa.....Stock buybacks of course......
Perhaps no business needs certainty more than the auto industry. It usually takes at least four years to design a new model and bring it to market, requiring carmakers to divine what buyers will find appealing by the time the vehicles reach showrooms.
Yet industry veterans say they can’t remember a time when the biggest carmakers faced as much uncertainty as they do now. They have been whipsawed by tariffs. Chinese carmakers are breathing down their necks around the world. Self-driving taxi companies like Waymo are changing the very nature of transportation. Software has replaced horsepower as a key selling point. Sales are flat almost everywhere, and profits are declining.
How U.S. carmakers cope with this pivotal moment will determine whether they survive as global players or slide into irrelevance, becoming niche manufacturers of pickups and sport utility vehicles that only Americans buy.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/03/business/ford-gm-ev-self-driving-cars-china.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
5/. The tech bros are going to own us all........
6/. Bill McKibben on the real horror of this war - the environment and the health of Iranian civilians......
I know that I just sent out an edition of this newsletter over the weekend, but hours after it was published, the U.S./Israeli force mounted another series of strikes, these on oil storage sites across the vast city of Tehran. The effect was astonishing—a cloud of truly toxic smoke—and I think it needs more notice than it’s been getting, even amidst all the other horrors of this war. This was in essence chemical warfare, even if the chemicals were the (easily anticipated) result of “normal” bombs. And it affected an almost entirely civilian population, that will be paying the price for decades to come. If we’re going to do this we should at least have to look at it. So, I’m going to offer a few images, and a few firsthand quotes gathered by reporters on the ground
7/. We normally don't include the SNL celebrity guest's monologue, but this one by Ryan Gosling is pretty good......with Harry Styles.....
8/. Thom Hartmann is right on point - Trump's lies are part of a plan to make us disbelieve everything....
We got more lies this morning from the Pentagon press briefing. They’re now up to 17 different rationalizations for the attack on Iran, none of which makes sense. To paraphrase Rod Serling, consider what happened in Minab, Iran.
A Tomahawk cruise missile, an American weapon, a weapon that Iran doesn’t own and can’t fire, struck a girls’ elementary school. One hundred and seventy-five people are dead, most of them little girls who showed up that morning to learn to read.
And Donald Trump stood in front of cameras and said Iran did it. He lied. About dead children. Without blinking. And his crew backed him up, even knowing it was a lie.
And now the corporate media will spend two days on this and then move on to whatever shiny object the White House throws next. That isn’t an aberration: it’s the GOP’s entire strategy. This is who they are and have been since Reagan pioneered the scam: a PR machine front for an iron-fisted oligarchy. https://hartmannreport.com/p/the-most-dangerous-weapon-ever-aimed-555?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=302288&post_id=190422925&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=2cwgv&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
9/. This is exactly how this happens......
10/. Not quite sure what this means, but it's kind of hypnotic AI......"After The War"......
11/. Really, really good article.....so good I read it out to Mary!
One paragraph struck me - Live in the now: When deciding what to keep and what to discard, be realistic about who you are and how you live right now.
“Every item should support the life you live now, not the life you used to live or you aspire to live in the future,” says Lowenheim.
Overcurated home organization content has flourished on social media for the past decade: well-lit photos of pantries, closets and bathrooms with contents arranged in clear acrylic bins. Usually, everything is color coordinated.
I love a tidy, organized space, but these images stress me out. My mouth gets dry when I imagine the upkeep necessary to keep those spaces looking pristine. How much does it cost to acquire hundreds of identical storage bins? How long did it take to aesthetically arrange Khloé Kardashian’s cookies like that? Is this really what I’m supposed to be doing with my one wild and precious life? https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2026/mar/03/home-organization-tips-cheap-easy?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
12/. In another universe this is actually happening!
13/ Billionaires are moving to South Florida! Big time! Aren't we lucky!
In and around Miami Beach, a sliver of a barrier island about 1 mile wide, a gold rush is underway. Masters of finance and tech are vying for parcels of land on the gated man-made islands facing Biscayne Bay, with unobstructed views of downtown Miami.
With so few elite properties on the market — in late February, there were just eight single-family homes in Miami listed for more than $50 million — buyers are offering whatever sum it will take to persuade a reluctant homeowner to part with their trophy. The sales often happen off market, negotiated on padel courts, on private yachts and at the La Gorce Country Club, where the golf club initiation fee is $1.2 million. The buyers are among the world’s richest billionaires, including boldfaced names like Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page and Jeff Bezos and financiers like hedge fund manager Nick Maounis.
“With all these titans of the universe coming, it’s like the stamp of approval,” said Nancy Batchelor, a Miami real estate agent with Compass.
14/. Five star review from the Guardian......."Vladimir" with Rachel Weisz
Vladimir is that rare visitor to the screen – proper television for proper grownups. The eight-part adaptation of Julia May Jonas’s provocative 2022 debut novel of the same name has not shied away from the properties that made the book great – black comedy, bleak insight, evisceration of accepted pieties – and fitted them perfectly to the new form. Jonas wrote, created, and executive produced the series, hence it retains all of the original’s wit, confidence and, crucially, her willingness to dwell in grey areas and luxuriate in the complexities that govern life in middle age.
She also has Rachel Weisz, giving an unswervingly brilliant performance as the unnamed protagonist, a tenured English professor beloved by her students, whose husband, John (John Slattery, playing his one part, but he does it so well and so much better than anyone else, who are we to object to seeing it again?), another tenured academic on the same campus – has just been suspended for sleeping with students. His defence is that this was before the rules changed. “It was a different time” is a recurring phrase – not just from him (for here is the beginning of Jonas’s devotion to rug-pulling) but from his wife and other members of their faculty and peer group, male and female.
15/. Rolling Stone really likes "Project Hail Mary" with Ryan Gosling.......
You open your eyes and have no idea where you are, or how you got there. You’ve been slumbering so long that when you try to stand, your legs don’t work; you end up wriggling on the floor like a worm. Your beard has reached a writing-a-manifesto-in-the-woods length. Because everyone who was with you is now dead, you quickly realize that you are completely alone. Looking out a window, you try to use the sun as a landmark. Then you realize that it’s not “our” sun. You don’t think things could get worse. They do. Because it soon becomes apparent that, having been jostled from a deep, deep sleep, you’re now in deep, deep space, many light years away from home. I’m not an astronaut, you exclaim, despite the fact that you’re on a vessel currently hurtling through the galaxy. This is technically true (despite the fact you once played Neil Armstrong in a biopic, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves). You are not an astronaut. You’re simply the only thing that stands between humanity’s continued existence and its extinction.https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-reviews/project-hail-mary-ryan-gosling-1235522395/#recipient_hashed=fbbe473f5037f7de779a9b352866aaa97ce40dede88d542358cbe645dd211019&recipient_salt=72f9aae92f438bcc1f8948b09959b8992e4c153d9d01266946bf43b0824dab99
Today's joke for the ladies
A man was sick and tired of going to work every day while his wife stayed home.
He wanted her to see what he went through so he prayed, "Dear Lord, I go to work every day and put in 8 hours while my wife merely stays at home.
I want her to know what I go through, so please create a trade in our bodies." God, in his infinite wisdom, granted the man's wish.
The next morning, sure enough, the man awoke as a woman.
He arose, cooked breakfast for his mate, awakened the kids, set out their school clothes, fed them breakfast, packed their lunches, drove them to school, came home and picked up the dry cleaning, took it to the cleaners and stopped at the bank to draw out money to pay the power bill and telephone bill, drove to the power company and the phone company and paid the bills, went grocery shopping, came home and put away the groceries.
He cleaned the cat's litter box and bathed the dog.
Then it was already 1 p.m. and he hurried to make the beds, do the laundry, vacuum, dust, and sweep and mop the kitchen floor.
Ran to the school to pick up the kids and got into an argument with them on the way home.
Set out cookies and milk and got the kids organized to do their homework, then set up the ironing board and watched TV while he did the ironing.
At 4:30 he began peeling potatoes and washing greens for salad, breaded the pork chops and snapped fresh beans for supper.
After supper he cleaned the kitchen, ran the dishwasher, folded laundry, bathed the kids, and put them to bed.
At 9 p.m. he was exhausted and, though his daily chores weren't finished, he went to bed where he was expected to make love -- which he managed to get through without complaint.
The next morning he awoke and immediately knelt by the bed and said, "Lord, I don't know what I was thinking.
I was so wrong to envy my wife's being able to stay home all day. Please, oh please, let us trade back."
The Lord, in his infinite wisdom, replied, "My son, I feel you have learned your lesson and I will be happy to change things back to the way they were.
You'll have to wait 9 months, though. You got pregnant last night!"
Today's judicial joke....
A forest ranger sees a campfire burning in a no-camping area and goes to investigate.
To his horror, he sees a man sitting by the fire, eating a bald eagle, roasted on an open spit. The ranger arrests him on the spot.
At the trial, the judge asks, "Do you know that eating a bald eagle is a federal offense?"
He launches into his tale of woe: "Well, you see, I got lost and I was wandering in circles for two weeks. I was so hungry. Next thing I see is a giant bird swooping down at the lake for some fish. I was hoping I could steal some fish and I was trying to scare the eagle into dropping the fish, so I threw a rock at it. Unfortunately, my aim was off, and the rock hit the eagle right between the eyes, and he dropped dead, then I thought long and hard, but figured that since it was dead already, I might as well eat it as it would be a shame for it to have died in vain."
The judge is moved by this harrowing account, and decides to dismiss all the charges. Before it, he leans across the bench and whispers, "If you don't mind my asking, what does a bald eagle taste like?"
The defendant replies: "Well, your honor, the flavor is basically a cross between a california condor and a spotted owl."
Today's blonde jokes
A blonde stormed up to the front desk of the library and with a screaming voice said, “I have a complaint!”
“How can I help you?” said the librarian looking up at her.
“I borrowed a book last week and it was horrible!”
Puzzled by her complaint the librarian asked “What was wrong with it?”
“It had way too many characters and there was no plot!” said the blonde.
The librarian nodded and said, “Ahhh. So YOU must be the person who took our phone book."
We went to see a movie the other night. I sat in an aisle seat as I usually do because it feels a little roomier.
Just as the feature was about to start, a blonde from the center of the row got up and started working her way out.
“Excuse me, sorry, oops, excuse me, pardon me, gotta hurry, oops, excuse me.”
By the time she got to me, I was trying to look around her and I was a little impatient, so I said, “Couldn’t you have done this a little earlier?”
“No!” she said in a loud whisper. “The ‘TURN OFF YOUR CELL PHONE PLEASE’ message just flashed up on the screen and mine is in the car.”
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