You need full storm gear to deal with what’s going on. My Congresscritter, Matt “DUI” Gaetz is in trouble with the Trumpsters after voting for the War Powers Act resolution in the House. Gaetz wants to get reelected and the Florida 1st District has more veterans than any other district in Congress. Vets aren’t happy to see 5,000 troops shipped to the Middle East because Trump ignored reality on the assassination of an Iranian and an Iraqi general. The Trumpsters are calling Gaetz a RINO.

You are right to stay home with your new cat. Sometimes you get lucky. It took months for Koshka, my first cat, to accept Dot and Sox. Sox really had his feelings hurt over the rejection. T’challa is a handsome lad – the name suits him.

I took a day off and spent it with my cats. Introducing a new cat to the family is always a bit stressful, but T’Challa is pretty much the best cat in the whole wide world so that’s made it way easier than it should have been. He even spent a couple of minutes grooming Chuck this evening, only five days since I brought him home! Maybe tomorrow things will become a bit clearer. Though I’m fitting my glasses for windshield wipers. That’s the only way I’ll be able to see a darn thing with all the flying monkey poop spewing everywhere.

I’ll be posting in a bit about the missile attacks on Ain al Assad and Irbil, but they were essentially the official government of Iran response to the assassination of Soleimani showing that Iran had to capability to hit the targets it wished to hit. Iran warned Iraq, who warned everyone on the bases to stay out of harm’s way. I seriously doubt the responses of the Quds Force or the Kataib Hezbollah will be as bloodless. As for the possibility of Iran shooting down the Ukrainian airliner, shit happens under stress, but “shrapnel” damage can be caused by the turbine blades in a failing engine. On take off aircraft have a maximum fuel load so fires are always a possibility when things go wrong.

Soleimani wasn’t going to lead the attack on the embassy so if there was such an attack planned, it will happen. If we had taken out Bin Laden on August 6th, September 11th would have still happened.

When the US is led by a guy who has lied over 15,000 times in three years, the Fog of War hasn’t got a chance of being noticed in the ocean of bullshit.

His withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal is the proximate cause, but that is just the latest of US screw ups going back to World War II. There were no attacks on US forces by Iran and its allies while the deal was in force, but Trump’s withdrawal “let the dogs out’.