Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 21, 2026

Kremlin spokesman admits Putin’s press service uses a VPN to bypass Russia’s Telegram restrictions

I is skeptical of this story but Oman is for a sure a different place for the time being then its neighbors in a very good way. Reflections on Oman

The conclusion of Justice Gorsuch’s concurrence in the tariff case.

‘Unprofessional behavior’: NASA report rips into astronaut-stranding Starliner mission

From chickens to humans, animals think “bouba” sounds round. There seems to be a deep-seated association between sounds and shapes.

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 20, 2026

Supercarrier USS Gerald R. Ford Has Crossed Into The Mediterranean. The carrier’s rush to the Middle East comes as the military build-up in the region appears to be approaching its crescendo.

Pensions cost the government 10% of GDP. If no reforms are made by 2050, Brazil will spend more on pensions as a share of GDP than many richer and greyer countries… Though Brazil’s share of young people is similar to that in Chile or Mexico, its pension spending is already at Japan’s level. That is despite a modest reform in 2019 that introduced a minimum retirement age. The population is ageing rapidly. Without reform, its social-security deficit, or the shortfall between contributions and payments, is set to rise from 2% of GDP today to over 16% by 2060.

Supreme Court Strikes Down Trump’s Tariffs

With today’s Supreme Court ruling affirming the illegality of President Trump’s emergency tariffs, the country will now be about $2 trillion deeper in the hole. With the national debt already the size of the entire U.S. economy and interest on the debt costing more than $1 trillion this year, this is very bad news. Congress should work quickly to fill that hole. Whatever one feels about the tariffs themselves, the country needs that $2 trillion in fiscal improvements.

Past: CFT clearly met those criteria, Isaacman said today. But NASA did not classify the mission as a Type A mishap during and shortly after CFT, apparently because agency officials were too focused on getting Starliner certified to fly operational astronaut missions to the ISS. “Concern for the Starliner program’s reputation influenced that decision,” Isaacman said today. “Programmatic advocacy exceeded reasonable balance and placed the mission, the crew and America’s space program at risk in ways that were not fully understood at the time decisions were being contemplated. This created a culture of mistrust that can never happen again, and there will be leadership accountability.”

Current: Just to be clear here, NASA declared its recent test a “successful wet dress rehearsal” despite missing its T-30s target by almost five minutes, botching the dreaded Orion hatch close out procedure, and managing to achieve up to 16% H2 due to copious leakage at the fueling interface. For reference, the lower flammability limit, and system requirement, is just 4%, beyond which this nightmare fuel can burn and detonate in air. The “wet dress” was so successful, in fact, that they have to do it all over again in the unspecified near future. But before that, the same team ran a “(no) confidence test” on the leaky fueling interface which failed badly enough that they buried it until 8pm on the following Friday.

On Thursday, the Center for American Progress, a prominent left-leaning think tank that often cultivates policy ideas later adopted by the Democratic Party, proposed a two-year freeze on the prices of 24 food items, such as strawberries and ground beef.

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 19, 2026

U.K. Denying U.S. Use Of Key Bases Would Impact Bombers’ Role In Iran Air Campaign

China Now Finds Itself in al-Qaeda’s Crosshairs

Ultramarathons might push red blood cells past their limits—accelerating their aging in the process.

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 17, 2026

Final Pieces Moving Into Place For Potential Attack On Iran

Super Tanker Rates Soar Amid Sanctions, Supply Shifts, and Strategic Hoarding

California Bringing Gasoline From Bahamas, Raising Fears of Higher Prices. Gas has risen 40 cents in California over the last two weeks, averaging $4.58 a gallon.

NYC mayor unveils record $127B budget, up whopping $11 from this year. The socialist city leader’s plan includes a whopping 9.5% proposed property tax hike on New Yorkers, which he claims would be a “last resort” — while allocating another $1.2 billion for migrants.

99% of adults over 40 have shoulder “abnormalities” on an MRI. The trouble is, the vast majority of people in the study had no shoulder problems. The finding calls into question the growing use of MRIs to try to diagnose shoulder pain—and, in turn, the growing problem of overtreatment of rotator cuff (RC) abnormalities, which includes partial- and full-thickness tears as well as signs of tendinopathy (tendon swelling and thickening).

The Bacon Paradox

As Russia continues striking Ukraine’s energy system in subzero temperatures, photographs from Kyiv capture life in the freezing capital

President Karol Nawrocki has called for Poland to seek a nuclear deterrent, saying that it is necessary in the face of an “aggressive, imperial Russia”.

India seizes Iran-linked US-sanctioned tankers, steps up surveillance

Is the autism epidemic a myth?

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 15, 2026

Turkish foreign minister warns of nuclear arms race if Iran gets the bomb

Egypt is on a positive autopilot: Inflation fell from 38% in late 2023 to 11.9% in January. The pound is strengthening. Reserves are rising.

A Closer Look at King Tut’s Footwear: The Pharaoh Was Buried With Over 80 Pairs of Sandals Made from Gold and Papyrus

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 14, 2026

What is epibatidine, and how did it kill Navalny? A guide to the frog neurotoxin that five countries say poisoned Russia’s opposition leader.

Iranian Regime Hunts Down Protesters as Uprising Continues

China housing market shows no clear turning point as price declines continue

This shows how South Africa has decayed in just a decade

Three Key South African Cities Hit by Water-Supply Shortages

US House overturns Trump’s Canada tariffs in rare bipartisan rebuke

If the 5% figure is not inflation adjusted (and it does not seem to be) you need to cut it that figure in half to get the increase in real terms. Credit card balances hit a fresh high in the fourth quarter, rising by $44 billion to $1.28 trillion, according to a new report on household debt by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York released Tuesday. That’s a 5.5% jump from a year earlier.