Old Civilizations, Wonderful Things

It was a relief to see the astronauts make it safely through re-entry and successfully splash down in the Pacific last night. I read that Congress would not allocate funds for much new development for this mission, so much of the technology was 50 years old. But when lunar landings start again, with rovers and a planned permanent moon base, new technology will be contracted out to private firms.

The artist's rendition of a future moon base here reminds me of some of the torn-up landscape we passed this week from the probably-doomed high-speed rail project in California. Except that there was a lovely ranch house a few hundred feet away, over a small ridge.

Is California government, with Gavin Newsom and Eric Swalwell, a dying civilization?

If you gave away $126 billion to subsidize free flights between LA and San Francisco at current demand levels, you could fund roughly 150 to 200 years of travel before the money runs out. https://t.co/8ro72lJIfc

— Hans Mahncke (@HansMahncke) April 8, 2026

One wonderful thing that has happened in California recently is that Victor Davis Hanson is looking and sounding much better after his cancer surgery (with a complication). He is a tough guy. Some commentary from him below.

Old Civilizations, Wonderful Things

ABC quoting Trump on April 8:

"A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will," Trump wrote on his social media platform.

At the same time, continuing a series of mixed messages, Trump said "maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen" now that the U.S. is dealing with "different, smarter, and less radicalized" leaders in Iran.

Ace on April 8:

Communist Dingbats Yesterday Until 7pm: Trump Is a Madman! He Will Nuke the World!

Communist Dingbats at 7:01pm: TACO! Trump Is a Huge Pussy Too Afraid to Do What Is Needed and LET THE NUCLEAR BIRDS FLY!!!!

An amazing collection of commentary on Trump's usual "chaos" step in his negotiation tactics. (Don't comment on old threads)

I noticed that the government of Iran (or whoever is sort of running things) did not believe that Trump was going to kill everyone in the country. They sent women and children out to become human shields for dual use facilities which Trump said he was going to bomb. In other words, THEY were willing to kill everyone to win.

But if you have to communicate with a reasonable sceptic, VDH may help, with By All Means, Let the War Crimes Trials Begin:

The Left and some on the Right went crazy over a recent Trump tweet.

He warned that if the Iranian regime did not cease blocking the international Strait of Hormuz, he would hit its dual military-civilian infrastructure. He promised that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”

His wording may have been sloppy, but Trump obviously meant that the murderous civilization/culture of radical Iranian theocratic Islam would cease to exist and wouldn’t come back once power plants and transportation systems crucial to the regime’s survival were cut off.

Why do we know that?

Because, unlike in most prior American wars, Trump has never targeted dual-use infrastructure—not in bombing ISIS, not in removing the Venezuelan thug Nicolás Maduro, not in the 2025 bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities, and not in the present war—with the exception of a key bridge central to the regime’s efforts to reposition missile assets to avoid air strikes.

Ever since Trump announced that “help is on the way” to the Iranian people, the entire aim of the five-week war has been to selectively target the regime’s command and control and military assets.

The goal was to diminish its threats abroad, while weakening and humiliating the mullahcracy at home—so that soon the Iranian people might at last be able to overthrow the odious theocracy.

Trump’s critics knew all that.

But they see political advantage in tagging Trump as a Strangelovian madman, no different from the Nazi criminals in the docket at Nuremberg.

A few less unhinged people argue that his rhetoric nevertheless comes across as unpresidential.

Perhaps.

But it may be no accident that his Gen. Curtis LeMay-like bluster might have pressured the Iranians to reopen negotiations.

On Monday, the Democrat Borg was declaring Trump a savage maniac.
By Tuesday, it was blasting him as a TACO (“Trump Always Chickens Out” for not carrying out what the day before they had dubbed a war crime.

The common denominator was an overarching, deranged hatred of the president, as his critics can never decide whether he is Adolf Hitler or Neville Chamberlain.
But since the Left has called for investigations of war crimes, by all means let them begin.

Obviously, Trump’s critics conveniently no longer buy the argument of “dual-use.” It posits that the juice powering an evil enemy is its roads, bridges, fuel, and electricity. To disable them supposedly shortens the war and the killing . .

Continue with this video. VDH looks better, doesn't he?

Weekend

The Week in Pictures: Peace-Fire Edition?

Among the many genius effects of Trump is that his crazy-man approach to dealing with our enemies only makes our enemies more insane and intransigent than before. I refer, of course, to the Democratic Party (and the mainstream media, but I repeat myself). It is a remarkable thing that Iran appears (at this writing—this could change before these pixels are dry) to be more reasonable than Democrats when it comes to Trump. I hope he keeps his laser-pointer fully-charged and holstered.

Music

Debussy plays Claire de Lune on piano roll. Heavy on the foot pedal, like my piano teacher told me he played it.

Listening to Claire de Lune in a deeper way (video short) https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Kfq-Vx6p2YA

Inspired by a poem

Inspired by Paul Verlaine's poem by the same name, below. Translated by William Faulkner:

Clair de Lune, by Paul Verlaine

Your soul is a lovely garden, and go
There masque and bergamasque charmingly,
Playing the lute and dancing and also
Sad beneath their disguising fanchise.

All are singing in a minor key
Of conqueror love and life opportune,
Yet seem to doubt their joyous revelry
As their song melts in the light of the moon.

In the calm moonlight, so lovely fair
That makes the birds dream in the slender trees,
While fountains dream among the statues there;
Slim fountains sob in silver ecstasies.

Hope you have something nice planned for this weekend.

This is the Thread before the Gardening Thread.

Last week's thread, April 4, Holy Saturday and the world keeps turning

Updates: Do you have friends who persist in believing that the Apollo missions were all faked? Some references:

Grok explains Apollo 11 film and photos

Failure is not an option (book)

Insty, to the flat earth gang:

The story behind the New York Times’ 1903 claim that human flight was between one and ten million years away is even worse than it looks. Once you understand the backstory, you realize that the New York Times story is not really about flight at all but about how elites and credentialed “experts” mistake their own failures for the boundaries of possibility. The New York Times did not dismiss the possibility of powered flight at random. There was a very specific reason behind it. At the time, America’s most prominent scientific authority, Smithsonian Secretary Samuel Langley, had been showered with large amounts of taxpayer funding to build an aircraft, the Langley Aerodrome. Despite all the money, institutional backing, and elite prestige, Langley and his team could not get it to fly, culminating in a series of very public failures, the last on December 8, 1903. So when the New York Times declared that flight was millions of years away, what it was really saying was that if the most credentialed and well-funded “experts” cannot do it, then it cannot be done. A mere nine days later, the elites’ proclamation of impossibility lay in ruins. Two totally unknown bicycle mechanics from Ohio achieved the first powered flight using improvised parts, a few hundred dollars of their own money, and sheer persistence.

All has not been sweetness and light at NASA. There have been whistleblowers claiming that the organization has been cavalier about risks to human life.

Comments are closed on last week's thread, so you won't ban yourself by trying to comment. But don't try it anyway.