The Saturday Slam

Bullet Points:

** Carolla shares a few thoughts.

** We ate everything but the heart…and it’s still beating…WTF?

** Alfred Thayer Mahan’s enduring principles remain despite tech trends. (1) Command of the sea remains the objective. (2) Technology is valuable only if it contributes to sea control. (3) Concentrated combat power still wins decisive campaigns. (4) Industrial capacity to build, sustain, and replace fleets—including autonomous systems—is a strategic advantage. (5) Commerce protection and maritime logistics remain the foundation of national power. (6) Control of vast oceans is managed by controlling choke points.

** Not a rule-follower.  (right) One of those hostile worlds – egg-shaped – like LV-426.

(LV-426 is a hostile, rocky moon orbiting a gas giant in the Zeta 2 Reticuli system. There may or may not be a derelict alien spacecraft there. Send some guys out to check it when you land. I’m sure everything will be fine.)

** How will Australia defend its new navy base in Perth? There is a big investment in one big base (target). Australia is a strict non-nuclear-weapon state under the international Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The Australian government maintains a steadfast commitment to never manufacturing, acquiring, or possessing weapons of mass destruction. There is a lesson that Ukraine learned when it comes to nuclear weapons. I wonder if the Aussies are quietly wondering if they made the correct decision. (h/t Claudio) Red China doesn’t share their scruples.

** Remember what your leader told you. And the mainstream media rolled in his dung.

** Let’s chat about the Brown Bess. When the Second Amendment was written, this was the dominant firearm in civilian hands and the dominant military weapon of the age. Enough said.

**VDH discusses Europe and NATO.

** Homeless Hospitalers.

** Greenland is in the news again. The USA cannot invade Greenland because we already are there. U.S. military forces have been there longer than Denmark’s because we went in after the Danes surrendered to the Germans, exhausted from 6 hours of fighting in 1940.

** The new big beautiful helipad at the White House.

** The perils of being a snake eater in the military. (h/t Claudio)

** Deciding what is real through measurements. It will bend your mind a little if you obsess over the nature of matter.

In Iran

The U.S. Air Force has surgically dismantled the Aq Tekeh Khan railway bridge in Iran’s Golestan province, effectively severing a critical land-based artery that linked Tehran to Russia and China. This wasn’t just a random target; it was the bypass valve for the “North-South” transport corridor, which Tehran has been desperately relying on to move goods while its maritime ports remain under U.S. blockade. By vaporizing this rail link, Washington has signaled that it’s not just squeezing Iran’s navy in the Strait of Hormuz—it’s systematically strangling the regime’s entire land-based logistical network. The ad hoc government in Tehran has tried to use land routes through Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan to circumvent the U.S. naval pressure, hoping to keep its economy on life support despite the blockade. (a few more thoughts here)

The Agh Tekeh Khan Bridge is located on the Agh Qala–Incheh Borun railway line, a trade and transit route considered critical strategic infrastructure for Iran. Via the Incheh Borun rail border, this line connects Iran to the rail networks of Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and ultimately Russia, serving as a primary branch of the eastern North-South Rail Corridor. The corridor originates in Golestan Province, in the city of Agh Qala, and crosses the Incheh Borun border, roughly 70 kilometers north of the city, to integrate with the transit networks of Central Asia and Russia. In recent years, this path has emerged as one of Iran’s most vital transit gateways, playing a significant role in moving freight between Iran, Russia, and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

The route holds immense strategic value by reducing transit times and costs, offering an alternative corridor for trade between Asia and Europe. It has also received intense domestic focus in recent years as a key mechanism for Iran to expand its trade volume under international sanctions.

Can it be bypassed by using ships in the Caspian Sea? Cargo ships and tankers primarily move goods between the Port of Turkmenbashi in Turkmenistan and major northern Iranian ports, including Bandar Anzali, Amirabad, and Port Caspian. If the USAF hasn’t rendered those port facilities useless, those would seem to be targets on the frag list. Destroying dock facilities would make transferring goods a time-consuming process in a world where bulk and speed matter if you want to feed a population. Iran can pay in gold – they won’t be running out of that for a while. Bombing rail and road linkages to the ports should also be high on the target list. Since they run through rugged mountain passes, collapsing canyon walls make rebuilding transit routes challenging.

VDH discusses the contemporary challenge facing Pres. Trump.

Antimatter in Medicine

A Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scan works by detecting radiation emitted by a safe, radioactive liquid injected into your body to map how your organs and tissues function in real time. Unlike structural scans like CT or MRI, which produce static images of anatomy, a PET scan focuses on cellular metabolism and molecular activity. Positrons are antimatter.

Before the scan, you receive an intravenous (IV) injection of a radiotracer. The most common tracer is Fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG), a simple sugar molecule tagged with a small amount of radioactive fluorine-18. You will rest quietly for about an hour while the tracer circulates through your bloodstream. Naturally active cells—such as the brain, the heart, or fast-growing cancer cells—consume energy at a much faster rate than healthy tissue. These hyperactive areas absorb a massive amount of the radioactive sugar, creating what doctors call “hot spots”.  At the subatomic level, the radioactive isotope in your body decays and emits tiny, positively charged particles called positrons. The emitted positron collides almost instantly with a nearby electron (a negatively charged particle) in your tissue. This collision triggers a physics process called annihilation, which completely destroys both particles. The annihilation releases energy as two gamma-ray photons that shoot away from each other in exactly opposite directions.

You will lie inside a doughnut-shaped PET scanner. The machine is lined with highly sensitive crystal detectors that spot these pairs of gamma rays arriving at identical times (coincidence imaging). A powerful computer tracks millions of these pairings to pinpoint exactly where they originated. The data is then reconstructed into a vibrant, 3D map of your body’s metabolic activity.

Because PET scans highlight cellular activity rather than sharp anatomy, they can look slightly blurry on their own. To fix this, modern hospitals almost exclusively use PET/CT or PET/MRI machines. These systems overlay the metabolic “hot spots” precisely on top of a highly detailed physical map of your organs, showing exactly where a disease is hiding

Here’s a field trip to the/an antimatter factory.

Identify the Aircraft

1

107 built

2

4 built – yes, an absurd little aircraft, but they were deployed in France during WW1 – briefly.

3

Just as “interesting” as #2 above, but they built about 100 of them. It was a troop transport. I pity the poor sod who was ordered to embark in hopes of reaching a destination other than the “streets of glory.” Deployed to Egypt.

Parting Shot

As with Americans, Europeans question why they should pay to defend Europe when it barely has air conditioning.

End