Compact Nuclear Reactor

Loading a Valar Atomics Compact Nuclear Reactor onto a C-17 Aircraft

Defence Blog reports:

The United States Department of War and the Department of Energy transported a next-generation nuclear reactor aboard a C-17 military aircraft on Feb. 15, 2026, from March Air Reserve Base in California to Hill Air Force Base in Utah for testing under a federal nuclear modernization initiative.

'Compact' is a relative term. 

Bistro Alder

Bistro Alder Ceiling

Had dinner with wife and older son at Bistro Alder yesterday evening. We lucked out when we got a table because they were pretty much fully booked.

The ceiling in this place is nuts. Somebody went to a great deal of trouble to create this.

Detail

Propaganda

Propaganda

It seems that Trump is trying to reverse many of the trends brought to us by recent Democrat administrations. That is all good and well, but he needs to bring the smack down on the legacy media. The one voice behind the bulk of legacy media is what has made so much corruption and perversion possible. Whose voice are we hearing? That's who he should be targeting. Perhaps the big television networks should lose their broadcasting licenses. The Washington Post seems to have gone down in flames. That's a good start. 

Albatross

Grumman HU-16B Albatross

Previous Albatross posts:

• Grumman Albatross
• Castaways
• Jimmy Buffett's Albatross

Not to be confused with:

• Albatross D.III German WW1 biplane
• Albatros C.III German WW1 biplane
• Aero L-39 Albatros Czech jet trainer
• Albatros nightclub in Barcelona

Funnies

10 Short Videos #6045

10 Short Videos #6045

Superb Individual Response

The Calivons Gets The Best Exhibit ever

American bullfrog tadpoles are on a Whole Nutha Level!

Why Molotov Cocktails Are Called Molotov Cocktails?

Citroen 2CV on muddy road

“Compliments Café”

Disneyland Construction 1954: Life Before Safety Rules

$1799 BATMAN FIGURE IS CREEPY

Truck Driver's Worst Nightmare

This arrow is a trap! (RIP bowstring)

Squire autonomous seaglider drone

Squire autonomous seaglider. (REGENT Defense pic)

Funny looking bird. Eight electric motor driven propellers, flying boat hull, gull wings, wing tip sponsons. Defense Blog has the story.

Sphenoid Bone

Sphenoid bone

Younger con is taking a class in Anatomy & Physiology. Last week they were looking at bones of the skull. He's telling me about his class and then he mentions this one weird bone that is like in the middle of your head called the Sphenoid Bone. New to me.

Bus Crash

Bus Crash

One person died. This wreck happened on Iowa State Route 4 about 6 miles north of my wife's hometown of Rockwell City, Iowa. Bus was carrying a community college baseball team to a tournament in Arkansas. The crash happened around 11AM, and as you can see, there is no snow or ice on the road. So what caused the crash? Tire blow out? Driver fell asleep? Heart attack? Who knows?

Iowa is pretty flat, and the roads are mostly straight. There are curves here and there. It's kind of baffling.

Jolley Curve - site of the crash

Mah Nà Mah Nà

manamana
Evgeniy Jeka

"Mah Nà Mah Nà" is a popular song by Italian composer Piero Umiliani. It originally appeared in the Italian film Sweden: Heaven and Hell (Svezia, inferno e paradiso). On its own it was a minor radio hit in the United States and in Britain, but became better known internationally after it was used by The Muppets and on The Benny Hill Show.

Golden Brown

This morning's post from Lone Star Parson includes the music video for Golden Brown by The Stranglers. I was going to repost it, but I already did two years ago. Anyhoo, I found this on Wikipedia:

The video for "Golden Brown" was directed by Lindsey Clennell. It depicts the band members as explorers in Egypt in the 1920s and performers for a fictional "Radio Cairo".

The video is intercut with stock footage of the Giza pyramid complex, the Mir-i-Arab Madrasah in Bukhara, the Shah Mosque in Isfahan, the Great Sphinx, sailing feluccas, Bedouins riding camels, and camel racing in the United Arab Emirates. The performance scenes were filmed in the Leighton House Museum in Holland Park, London, which was also featured in the video for "Gold" by Spandau Ballet in 1983. Both videos were filmed in the Arab Hall room of the museum.

Funnies

10 Short Videos #6044

10 Short Videos #6044

1. Brazil police rescue an injured jaguar struggling not to drown with an improvised flotation device
2. Joe Rogan | Sleeping mouthpiece and mouth tape
3. Drug Planes Crashed Into the Ocean
4. This dude just hand-started a Panhead
5. Flying Through Plasma
6. Glitter my stallion's hooves with me
7. A little distance plz
8. Removing Phillips head screws from motorcycle clutch
9. Brotha I'm just wingin it.
10. The Skyscraper That RUINED Paris

More Tokamak

ITER tokamak under construction in Cadarache, France

Previous posts:

• Tokamak
• WEST & EAST

Chicago

Chicago Timelapse - 1870 to 2026
History Revived

Very cool. Via The Feral Irishman

Houseless

Comment from MOTUS A. D.

 MajorKong64 (dinna fash)

So yesterday, I wanted to take a ride to a popular place near here. I was unaware how popular it was until we arrived. For several years, people have been living off grid, buying travel trailers instead. Our site, Travel Trailer living has over 12k members.

it is easy to do the math. My truck and trailer cost about 60k. I can ditch our housing costs, 3k property tax, house payment 1000 a mo, homeowners ins 1000 a year, city tax 1500 a year. This saves me 1500 a month.

Thus I pay for the truck and trailer in 3 years and actually own something. Here are pictures of all the people who said screw it. They live here for 20 a month, free water, solar for electricity, portable tanks to dump gray and black water. Free dumpsters.

Imperial Dam long term parking area.




maybe this is the future once the aristocracy owns everything

Update: Travel Trailer living website.

Imperial Dam Long Term Parking

Donroe Doctrine

Aurora Borealis over Kapisillit, Greenland

Valdai Club to Discuss the ‘Donroe Doctrine’ and US Claims to Greenland

The ‘Donroe Doctrine’ got a chuckle out of me.

Funnies

10 Short Videos #6043

10 Short Videos #6043

Another Tales of the Rails!

Thai ads are so unhinged in best way

Why do I return my Hawks to the Wild?

Kyawthuite: The Worlds Rarest Mineral

Fruit Of The Loom Mandela Effect!

Bring back Smorz

Portland

This is How Disney Engineered Sound Before Computers Existed (1941)

These Boxes Are NOT Rotating — Your Brain Is Lying

This Bag Saves a Lot of Cleanup

The Passenger

Iggy Pop - The Passenger (Official Video)
Iggy Pop Official

Matchbox Model Cars

How Model Cars are Made (1962) | British Pathé
British Pathé

Just wow. Picked this up at The Feral Irishman.

Communist China

United Front-Linked Organizations Identified by Country

Jamestown posted this story by Cheryl Yu about China's United Front System today (Google search). It's a little long (3000 words, more or less), I just read the executive summary which I copied and pasted below. How do combat this kind of invasion?

Harnessing the People: Mapping Overseas United Front Work in Democratic States

Executive Summary: 

• The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has created a global network of individuals and organizations as part of its united front system. In four democratic states—the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Germany—this network includes more than 2,000 organizations. These constitute latent capacity that the Party can mobilize to advance the Party’s agenda.
• Beijing’s network is the product of protracted co-optation of existing civil society organizations overseas and the global expansion of domestic united front elements. The Party has spent decades assiduously cultivating overseas Chinese community organizations, co-opting local leaders and institutions to embed its preferences within civil society. Even groups that previously spent decades supporting the Republic of China (Taiwan) now fly the flag of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
• The Party leverages this global network to support its primary goal of national rejuvenation. According to the Party’s definition, rejuvenation entails unification with Taiwan and making the PRC the global leader in terms of national power. United front work supports this goal by contributing to the PRC’s diplomatic, economic, scientific, and even military development, as well as the Party’s ability to respond to crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
• This includes engaging in malign and illegal activities in foreign countries. Overseas groups with ties to the united front have directly supported illicit technology transfer, espionage, talent recruitment, and voter mobilization on Beijing’s behalf. These groups also engage in transnational repression, monitoring, harassing, and/or intimidating dissidents, ethnic minorities, and other critics of the Party.
• In democratic countries, these groups influence political decision-making by conditioning stakeholders to consider Beijing’s interests and sensitivities. United front organizations have been instrumental in shaping the approaches of local governments and political actors, particularly where oversight is weak. They have influenced legislation and public statements, and managed official engagements with the PRC.
• Where the CCP encounters opposition, the united front functions as a political weapon to isolate, neutralize, or counter Beijing’s critics. The united front system leverages its network of organizations to remove impediments to the achievement of core CCP ambitions through influence, subversion, co-optation, and coercion. These goals include building support for and neutralizing resistance to the annexation of Taiwan.
• Constraining the CCP’s ability to interfere in democracies requires active transparency. Much of the CCP’s united front activity is at least partially visible in democratic societies. Better education and information sharing could help officials and the general public recognize risks and avoid entanglement. United front groups are rarely listed in existing foreign agent registration systems, limiting the ability of governments to monitor or investigate them.

Joseph McCarthy may have been a slimeball, but it kind of looks like he was right about the commies.

Funnies

10 Short Videos #6042

10 Short Videos #6042

WEARING MY CHICKEN?!

NARCAN

SCIENCE TIME!THE TREE HOLE CAN. JULIUS SUMNER MILLER 1973.

American Measurements Test

How Hawala Money Transfer Works?

Why Traffic Lights Should Be Replaced With Mini Roundabouts

Why All Products In The Soviet Union Were Unbranded?

Isengard’s miniature was the size of a rugby field!

Joe Rogan Reacts to South Park Exposing How Ridiculous Nutrition Politics Became

The Special Oxygen Bar!

Tokamak

3D rendering of the ITER tokamak at Saint-Paul-lez-Durance, France

TCD has a story about this. I suspect this is the same one as shown in my post from three days ago.

Black & white jigsaw puzzles are ten times tougher than ones with color.

The Lincoln Lawyer: Season 4 - Netflix Series

The Lincoln Lawyer: Season 4 | Official Trailer | Netflix
Netflix

They really fell down on this one. It's like 90% of the show is about women commiserating about 'poor, poor' Mickey Haller. Christ on a crutch. It doesn't move along like the older seasons did, the pace is glacial. I suspect the show has been infected by the Harlan Coben disease.

That said, there is a good scene near the end of episode eight where Cisco is leaving a high rise hotel after having served a subpoena to a gangster. Previously Cisco had been beat up by a couple of thugs who caught him snooping around the gangster's previous hotel, so when he sees a couple of thugs in the hotel lobby while he is on his way out, he gives them a wide berth. But as he is walking across the parking lot to his car, he realizes that the reason the gangster freaked out when Cisco showed up at this door is not because of the subpoena (he doesn't give a fig for the subpoena), but rather because he is afraid of somebody else, somebody else who has sent those two thugs he saw in the lobby, who were headed to the elevators. About the time we see the light in Cisco's eyes when he realizes this, we also see the gangster falling from his eighth floor window in the hotel. He lands right on the top of a car with a satisfying smash. He was a villain, after all. 

In episode 10 we have a scene where the whole debacle is wrapped up in the Judge's chambers. Besides the prosecutor and Mickey, we've got the county Sheriff, a couple of FBI agents and somebody higher up in some local government office. The FBI won't let out any information that would exonerate Mickey because it would compromise their investigation of a nationwide biofuel fraud operation. You kind of get the idea of how difficult it is for the FBI to make these kind of cases.

The show also lays out how the biofuel fraud worked, and it was easy as pie. All you have to do it lie and the government starts pouring money into your pocket. No wonder the Somali's in Minnesota managed to make off with so much loot. Nobody is watching the effing store.

Cast

Actor	Surname	Title	Character	Surname	Role
Manuel	Garcia-Rulfo		Mickey	Haller	a criminal-defense lawyer and recovering addict.
Neve	Campbell		Maggie	McPherson	Mickey's first ex-wife and a criminal prosecutor.
Becki	Newton		Lorna	Crane	Mickey's second ex-wife and his legal aide
Jazz	Raycole		Izzy	Letts	a former addict and the firm's office manager
Angus	Sampson		Dennis 'Cisco'	Wojciechowski	Mickey's go-to investigator and Lorna's husband.
Cobie	Smulders		Allison J.	Haller	Mickey's half-sister
Lana	Parrilla		Lisa	Trammell	a chef accused of murdering a real estate developer
Michael	Goorjian		Alex	Gazarian	a contractor affiliated with the Armenian mob
Hemky	Madera		Felix	Vasquez	an FBI agent
Angélica	María		Elena	Haller	Mickey's mother, an actress
Philip	Anthony-Rodriguez		Adam	Suarez	Big cheese in the district attorney's office
Angie	Campbell		Jessica	Westfeldt	an intern at Mickey's practice
Lombardo	Boyar		Frank	Valenzuela	a bail bondsman acquainted with Mickey
Constance	Zimmer	DDA	Dana	Berg	a deputy district attorney prosecuting Mickey
Scott	Lawrence	Judge	Lionel	Stone	the judge presiding over Mickey Haller's case
Kyle	Richards		Celeste	Baker	a new client of Lorna
Jason Butler	Harner	Detective	Kent	Drucker	investigating the murder of Sam Scales
Jason	O’Mara		Jack	Gilroy	Maggie's new boyfriend
Marcus	Henderson		Yannick	Bamba	Crip who guards Mickey in jail and becomes his new driver
Gigi	Zumbado		Grace		a forensic video analyst who dates Izzy
Sasha	Alexander	FBI Agent	Dawn	Ruth	Vasquez' partner
Emmanuelle	Chriqui		Jeanine	Ferrigno	Alex Gazarian's girlfriend
Javon	Johnson		Carter	Gates	a new client of Lorna accused of murder
Christopher	Thornton		Sam	Scales	a con man who owes Mickey money because of his repeated arrests
Elliott	Gould		David "Legal"	Siegel	Mickey's mentor and his father's former legal partner

Derived from Wikipedia

Previous posts about this series:

• Season 3
• Season 2
• Season 1

Two Wheel Transport

How e-Bikes are Killing Motorcycles - Aniioki A9 Pro Max Review
FortNine

I fully expect the government to weigh in on high-power electric bikes any day now.

The Janus Halcyon 250 is Dangerous and Wonderful
FortNine

Weird combination of custom throw-back and economy import. It's like a 1930's bike made with modern manufacturing techniques.

The government is legally required to drive you over this bridge*
Chris Spargo and Evan Edinger

We've got bike lanes all over Washington County, but you'll see a zillion cars before you see a bicycle, and that's good, because I hate seeing bicycles in the bike lane next to traffic flying by at 50 MPH.

Funnies

10 Short Videos #6041

10 Short Videos #6041

It's a long way down

Not every gentleman can impress a lady

Why are you guys so anti-dictators?

Snow apocalypse in Kamchatka

The Seal Song Translated To English

SURYA BONALY LEGENDARY OLYMPIC PROTEST 1998

How to setup containment for spraying

How books are made

Outside the Matrix: Laughter Is the End of Fear

Blame it on the #cat

10 Short Videos #6040

10 Short Videos #6040

Seem to have hit a dry spell on technical shorts, or maybe I'm just not holding my mouth right.

Somebody help the bro
Chinese nurse dancing in the hall
You’re having a quiet pint and then
Now that's professional
Mom is behind just smiling
Music to my ears
the learning curve was not so itsy bitsy
He’s right behind me isn’t he?
This starling can copy ANY sound
Toxic managers be like

Funnies