Bullet Points:
** This is precisely how Hollywood works. The dysfunction runs deep. I’ve sold three screenplays. Two were sold and were never made. I sold a third, and the dufus who bought it “rewrote” it into a karate Jesus movie, and the story had nothing to do with karate or Jesus. I wrote a couple treatments for series, one based on my novel, “White Powder.” Another was based on the actual event surrounding the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Then I gave up on Hollywood.
** The Binding Problem. Neuroscientists generally categorize the binding problem into Perceptual Binding – unifying physical properties within or across our senses. This explains how a specific color, texture, location, and sound are instantly pinned to one distinct physical object. Cognitive binding links abstract concepts and memories. This allows your brain to instantly map the visual image of an apple to your abstract, stored knowledge about it (that it is edible, sweet, or used to bake pies). The Hierarchical Convergence model proposes that information flows up a hierarchy where specialized lower-level streams eventually converge onto higher-order neural networks that represent complex, multi-feature concepts. But nobody has a unified field theory for why and how the human mind works, or how we can function fully if half our brain is removed. In a typical brain, cognitive functions like vision, attention, and movement are split across both halves. Functional MRI (fMRI) studies show that in individuals with half a brain, the remaining hemisphere significantly increases connectivity between its internal networks. This allows the single hemisphere to multitask and run the “software” of an entire brain simultaneously.
** Muslims argue that it’s acceptable for an adult male to have sexual intercourse with a nine-year-old girl because Mohammed did it. Likewise, it’s acceptable to rape an infidel child or woman because they’re unbelievers. It’s a sick philosophy.
** (H/T Claudio) VIENNA — Strange bedfellows – The United Arab Emirates, a Western darling for security cooperation in the region, appears to have regularly used Aviacon Zitotrans, a sanctioned Russian airline linked to the Kremlin’s military and paramilitary operations, over the past year, a Defense News investigation shows. Analysis of thousands of flight records, along with gigabytes of leaked internal company documents, aviation filings, and emails, suggests a link between the sanctioned aircraft and more than 100 missions flown for the UAE government and its royal family since mid-2025. The Russian company behind these planes, Aviacon Zitotrans, has been sanctioned by the United States, Canada, and Ukraine for its support in Russia’s war effort. Previous reporting also revealed its role in sustaining Moscow’s mercenaries in Africa. The specific planes that appear in the flight logs of the UAE’s operations have been separately designated as blocked property by the U.S. government. This article is the second in a multi-part series that uncovers the peculiar network of front companies, airlines and Soviet-era freight planes.
** Tarantula season in Arizona runs from August through October. I saw the first tarantula on the road just yesterday, so it may be running a little late this year. Cooler evening temperatures and high humidity from the summer monsoon rains signal the start of the season. Mature male tarantulas leave their underground burrows to roam across the desert, roads, and sidewalks in search of female mates. Females typically stay inside or near their burrows. They are mostly nocturnal and most active around dusk and after sunset. Arizona tarantulas (such as the desert blonde) are docile, shy, and non-aggressive. They rarely bite unless heavily provoked, and their venom is mild—similar to a bee sting.
** Old NFO reports on Samsung’s smart refrigerators glitching – “And I sure as hell don’t want them to connect to the internet through my router! THAT is asking for trouble! That’s also why I don’t have Alexa or any of those in my house, nor do I have any ‘smart’ house features.”
** BRM sets an example for all by going on vacation again. I swear, between conventions, conferences, bar crawls and so forth, he knows how to blow out the baffles and head off to parts known and unknown.
The Kurds were in Denial
I was on a Zoom call with people in Erbil, Kurdish Regional Governate, Iraq, on Monday. They asked whether the US would actually pull troops and air defense systems from the US base (sharing an airport) in Erbil. I said that yes, the US is serious about that. It pleased the Turks no end, and the US is tight with Turkey these days.
On September 30, 2026, the U.S. military completed its final withdrawal of troops from Erbil Air Base in northern Iraq, officially ending a 12-year multinational counter-ISIS mission known as Operation Inherent Resolve. The pullout from Erbil represented the final phase of the total exit of all American military personnel from Iraqi territory. The withdrawal culminated in a joint U.S.-Iraq agreement negotiated in September 2024 under the Biden administration, which set a hard deadline of September 30, 2026, to wind down the coalition’s presence.
While the U.S. military vacated federal areas of Iraq earlier in the year, it kept its last 1,500 personnel and major air defense systems at Erbil Air Base in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region. This specific base was used as a logistical hub to support ongoing anti-ISIS counterterrorism operations in neighboring Syria.
According to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), the anti-ISIS coalition headquarters and supporting operations are transitioning to Jordan, where U.S. forces will continue to monitor and counter ISIS remnants inside Syria.
The departure from Erbil came amid heightened regional conflict involving the U.S., Israel, and Iran. Erbil Air Base had increasingly become a target for drone and missile strikes launched by Iran-backed militias. While Iranian officials and allied regional groups celebrated the withdrawal as a strategic victory, local Kurdish officials expressed concerns regarding future security and vulnerabilities to external attacks. The US made MANY promises to the Kurds in Erbil (Barzani) about maintaining air defense of the city during the current War with Iran. Those promises were not kept.
The Road to Ukraine
(H/T Claudio) In a September 2026 interview with Ukrainian journalist Dmytro Karpenko, he describes what he says happened while he served with Wagner in Mali. He says captured Africans labeled “terrorists” were deliberately injured and killed during training exercises — used as live casualties for tactical medicine and, in another case, to demonstrate a killing technique.
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That specific testimony has not been independently verified. It should remain his account, not be presented as established fact. But it does not exist in an evidentiary vacuum. (VM comment) Think about spetsialnogo naznacheniya and osobogo naznacheniya, both of which may be interpreted as “special purpose”. As syllabic acronyms, they are not normally capitalized. In Ukrainian, they are known as spetspryz (спецприз), an abbreviation of viiska spetsiialnoho pryznachennia (війська спеціяльного призначення). Russian Spetsnaz training historically calls for a hand-to-hand combat kill of a condemned prisoner as part of the training evolution. The prisoner (referred to as a puppet) is given a knife, and the Spetsnaz operative is unarmed. If the puppet wins, he gets a good meal and fights another day. If Spetsnaz wins, he graduates from the course.
Human Rights Watch has repeatedly documented torture, summary executions, disappearances, and other abuses against civilians by Malian forces operating with Wagner. After Wagner formally left Mali, Russia’s Defense Ministry-controlled Africa Corps replaced it, retaining many former Wagner personnel and elements of its leadership.
Dmytro Karpenko says he served with Wagner in Mali from 2023 to 2024. After returning to Russia, he says he signed a Russian Defense Ministry contract in 2025, joined the 14th Separate Guards Special Purpose Brigade, and was later captured fighting in Ukraine.
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That does not prove that the exact practices he describes would simply be reproduced elsewhere in Europe. But it does show why treating Russian military violence in different theatres as completely separate stories is too narrow. Personnel move. Organizations are absorbed and renamed. Combat experience and institutional habits can move with them. (VM comment) They’re Russians being Russians.
Ukrainian Combat Evolution
LVIV, Ukraine — Ukraine needs a “new Manhattan Project,” former Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov told a standing-room-only crowd of self-proclaimed tech nerds on Saturday at IT Arena here, the country’s biggest annual technology conference. (H/T Claudio)
Then he played an AI-generated clip of what he meant: a robopunk mix of humanoid and crab-like ground robots skittering across a barren front line, doing work that is still too complicated for the robots Ukraine fields today.
To be fair about it, DARPA has been working on this sort of drone military killing machine for thirty years. I have no idea what the state of the art is because that would be classified, but I anticipate that it’s somewhat advanced – and when Skynet becomes sentient – life imitates art. AI (or SI) lets these combat ground drones operate independently of a human operator as hunter-killers.
We haven’t seen the US entries in Ukrainian combat as far as I’m aware, but the Ukrainians want something like what we have developed and are further developing. Likewise, China has gone heavy in this direction.
Writing
For those of you who have been following the duelist series: The Confederate Cipher, Hudson’s Scouts, The Crow Creek Expedition, and Vengeance and Retribution, there will be a change, and possibly an improvement, with the fifth book of the historical fiction series. Interventions will include photographs of historic places, things, and people, plus a few AI-generated photos of people interacting in historical events. In some cases, I enhanced historic photographs. The photographs will be included in both the digital and print editions of Interventions.
Major General George A. Custer, USV, and Elizabeth Bacon Custer – 1865
Lieutenant Colonel Henry L. Hudson, US Army (Engineers) – 1865
United States Marshal Stephen (Wolf) Lucier – 1865
The decommissioning of USS Mackinaw, Washington Navy Yard, 1865. She was recommissioned in 1866. More about that in the upcoming novel.
End
Traveling through Arizona during the Tarantula breeding season on astraight rural highway with little traffic. Along with the heat waves coming off the asphalt, in the far distance an “object” appeared on the road. Slowed down as I approached and surprised to see that it was a Tarantula crossing the highway. Had it been a rattlesnake it would have been dispatched by the hot tires of the F 350.
They’re cool, benign and it’s interesting to see a spider the size of your hand cross the road.
Sad to see that yet again the Kurds were left hanging in the wind.
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Photos in the next book! Interesting idea. I look forward to it. By the way if I had one thing I’d like it would be a simplistic map of the major locations in the story. Figuring out Hud’s travels while reading the story would have been enhanced with a historical period map in the front of the book. My thoughts were a USA map and a Britain map. Looking forward to the book.
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Reference the “White Powder” book. I gave a copy away as a gift a week ago. The recipient quickly and enthusiastically read it and asked where book two was in the series is? I’ll give him “Hunting in the Shadows” by Michael Watson as his next read.
I agree about “sad”, but a more inevitable result might never have happened in recorded history.
America apparently breeds really good salesmen. IDK how we get people to believe the things
we tell them, contrary to all common sense and precedent.
– Kle.
I’m reminded of the line from Alexander Pope: “Hope springs eternal in the human breast…”.
Thanks Al. I’ll work on the maps for this upcoming novel. Because I have the locations in my mind, I didn’t seriously consider adding them but it’s doable. I don’t want to overdo the graphics. Some reader will criticize either way.
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What about a map with the chapter headings at the period? Not necessarily every chapter will need one.
Yes a few chapter based maps would work well. Hud got around by train, ship, horse and foot where his travels stretched my mental maps of the USA and Europe to its limits. Especially where the ports, rivers and various smaller towns were located.
The upcoming book has a couple of journeys that would benefit the reader by including maps. I’m on it.
I’m a hard-copy reader and when I think about maps in books, I’m reminded of the maps in the 5×8″ printed edition of “The Hobbit”; I take out my reading glasses and my 5X magnifying lens and I still can’t make out half the lettering.
Then again there are the old foldout maps which you might have unfold seven times (they take up a quarter of the thickness of the book), then it covers the entire dining room table; when it comes time for dinner and you have to clear the table and re-fold the damned thing, you spend a half hour trying to remember which fold goess over which – good luck!
When it came to following Hud’s peregrinations in “The Series” I used the following:
https://apps.nationalmap.gov/viewer/
(LL: you can even draw on it)
BTW: although the movie(s) would be entertaining and educational (perhaps even profitable), for the life of me, I could not cast the characters as you’ve developed and allowed me to envision them.
There was a jigsaw puzzle of the LOTR map, with a reverse side having a combination of book cover art.
I will add that I bought the puzzle and put it together with my young sons before reading The Hobbit out loud to them. The story is written to be read out loud, and the map made a great reference point for where the party was at any given time.
You guys are a tough crowd. Sample maps on tomorrow’s blog.
I don’t want any maps.:)
I’ve served with the Peshmerga in combat. They are some of the best men and women I served with. Best smugglers too. They have some, “Hard Bark on them”, as I like to describe them. The 2024 U.S.–Iraq deal that forced the September 30, 2026 exit from Erbil betrayed them. Erbil was the last hub and the air-defense umbrella over a partner hit by more than a thousand drones and missiles. Pulling the troops, Patriots, and C-RAM, with no replacement, broke the promise that air defense would hold through this war. Ready does not intercept ballistic missiles. Turkey’s satisfaction should not have decided it. Trust is the whole relationship with the Peshmerga. They do not fight for a payroll or a press release. They fight because a partner said they would be there when the shooting started, and they remember who kept that word and who did not. Count on that!
-STA Lethal⚡💀⚡
Hard bark on them… Paul Newman in Hombre’s movie, 1967. “Mister, you have got a lot of hard bark on you”.
“Hombre”. One of my favorite movies. IIRC, that line was delivered by Richard Boone.
YES!
“…because Mohammed did it.” Pretty much sums up the ‘Religion of Peace’. England waited too long to find this out after a decade or more of ‘multiculturalism’…now what do they do once the enclaves are heavily established and ‘that sort’ are entrenched, let alone their brand of justice lets them off or fear of social media retaliation? Now look at Michigan and NYC, does not bode well when people are so stupid as to elect these types into office (then look skyward with that confused look on their faces like a first timer in Home Depot). Then again, we have people advocating and being empathetic towards an evil convicted murderer because the state of Tennessee had an incompetent in ‘the room’ and she was given internet access to find ways to thwart the ‘effect’. Common sense is lost on far too many, while the Aware Normals just shake our heads muttering ‘here we go again’.
***
Tarantula Season…Yeah, no thanks. When does scorpion season happen? Been to Scottsdale, the yard had a short fence around it to keep said critters out of the yard. Me? I’d have perimeter motion sensing mini flame throwers…toast the invaders.
***
Opening Pic: Sometimes you have to step back from the fray and think a little. Ex: Wife comes out to the garage, sees her husband sitting there staring at something in his hand…quiet. She asks him if everything is okay…he looks up, shows her this coil of wire on a stick and says, “I’ve had this coil of wire for forty years…and it’s almost gone…not sure what I’m going to do once it runs out so was thinking about that.” 🤣 Of course we males can drive by a ‘Free Dirt’ pile and say, ‘That’s some nice dirt’…then try to find a project that needs some good dirt, like we just got ‘activated’. The same thing happens when us handy types are told by our wife a particular outlet stopped working…inside of three seconds we’re in the garage grabbing tools and tearing into the offending device…can’t have THAT not working now, can we?
Yes! Yes! Let’s make a religion of perversionand call it —-.
IMHO we are being invaded, our children are being proselytized, the guard dog(s) are falling asleep having been fed Pentobarbital(?), and the baaing sheep have already fallen to their knees in preparation for bending all the way over.
Washington, and many statehouses are incompetent…brother sent this over the transom, very well done: https://youtu.be/_enDYCzM3J8?is=b1Zt4JIEkdu-o4aZ
…and those who lived in the area knew exactly why this I-80 routing forced by Washington was problem before it even began; don’t listen to historical evidence, the locals, or others in the know…no way Jose’…just keep following your own asinine procedures of ‘we know better’. Look where that has gotten America.
Full faith and credit of the United States is about the same a, “Sweet ride, one owner, low mileage, needs notihing”.
So…you’re a believer?
😂
Heh…and ‘bought at night’ when it looked so good.
“bought at night, IN THE RAIN…”
Talk to an autobody person about this. Could be bent like a banana, and you can’t tell, sigh…
** opening art: very Tilda Swinton, very androgynous (particularly the fingers)
** “The Kurds were in Denial”
I wonder the validity of the paragraph in Wikipedia:
“Modern strategic ties began in the 1960s. Israel (via the Mossad and military advisers) provided training, weapons, medical aid, and intelligence support to Iraqi Kurdish forces under Mulla Mustafa Barzani against Baghdad. This continued intermittently for years and formed part of Israel’s “periphery doctrine” of allying with non-Arab minorities.” and if there’s any truth at all, I wonder if the US attitude towards these people has changed with the transformation by State (and other depts) in attitude towards Israel under the Obama/Biden revisions/replacements.
True. But the Kurds are Zoroastrians. The Syrian Kurds are communists (atheists). Most of the Barzani family are Christians. They don’t have mullahs. The Israelis have no problem with the Kurds, and they hate the Iraqis. Pres. Trump counted on the Kurds to provide a ground force against Iran. Then Turkey objected, and Bob’s your uncle.
Regarding promises made and not kept. It is sad, and it pains me to say it, but the United States does not have an enviable record regarding the keeping of promises. One would have thought the Kurds would have remembered 1991, when certain promises were made to them, and the Iraqi Marsh Arabs, that if they did certain things they would be supported and, when they did what was asked of them, the promises were not kept and they were shafted. One can also look at historical precedents, the American Indians in the 1800s, Tibet in the 1960s, The Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) in 1975 and, in particular, the Montagnards, Cambodia in 1975, Laos, and in particular the Hmong, in 1975 and, closer in time, Afghanistan 2021.
Sadly, Albion is not the only perfidious thing.
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So far as the Iraqi Marsh Arabs go, I highly recommend Wilfred Thesiger’s classic and strangely beautiful book “The Marsh Arabs”. Hard to grok that the events and lifestyle described in Thesiger’s account date back to only the 1950’s, well within living memory.
Ah yes, Mike_C. Perfidious Albion. Aptly named then, and it does not appear, given their current situation, that much has changed in the intervening yers. It would appear now though that, rather than restricting their perfidy to colonials and subject peoples, they are now doing the same thing to their own natural born Caucasian British citizens. In the current case, they are putting the interests of hundreds of thousands of illegal, unvetted, Muslim invaders and Muslim residents, ahead of the United Kingdoms national security and the interests of the natural born Caucasian British citizens. This, it appears, is not going down well with said citizens. Given Larrys fellow blogger LSP is currently there perhaps he would be in a good position to comment than I. I remember, although Larrys fellow blogger BRM would be better placed and qualified to comment than I, when they shafted Rhodesia in 1980. Amongst their perfidy was the rigging of the election to ensure that the Communist Mugabe and his thugs won. The fallout from this scurrilous act continues to today.
“how we can function fully if half our brain is removed.”
Larry, if you’ll recall, when we talked to Katie Hopkins she described herself in a similar situation, same as my wife, both having roughly half their brains removed.
I recall the discussion and find the situation fascinating.
Poor Katie. Clearly they removed the part enabling doublethink and wishful self-delusion. Both so necessary for being a socially-integrated and acceptable member of modern society. Enjoy Product, then consume more Product!
😂
Thing is, if she’s working at full capacity after said surgery imagine what her country’s ‘superiors’ are operating at despite – theoretically – having everything…uhh…intact?
When living in Hollomon, NM, dad would talk about the annual spider migration. They’d let the spiders get all caught up in the tumbleweeds conveniently piled on the barbed wire fences. And then they’d set said tumbleweeds on fire.
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I know, not very ‘ecological’ but that was in the late 50’s early 60’s and it was on a military base. Who cared?
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And, apparently, holding the brakes on your fighter jet while hitting the afterburner to set the spiders and tumbleweeds on fire was a thing done, carefully, when the base commander wasn’t watching.
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Simpler times…
See….what I said about those scorpion fences in Scottsdale and setting the little buggers on fire before encroaching on the perimeter. We’re onto something…even though I don’t have access to a jet using one of those propane burners rigged to a motion sensing device would suffice…all night long you’d hear this thing go off for ten seconds…but you’d be safe from the pests. Now if only we could rig something that would work on politicians.
Would dropping politicians into a pit of tarantulas change their perspective on the love their constituents have for them?
can somebody tell me why we give a rat’s bottom what the turks think? nato shouldn’t mean we have to kiss butt ever after while they slight us at every turn.
President Trump likes the Sultan. The Turks are an issue in Syria.