Tuesday: Hili dialogue

March 17, 2026 • 6:45 am

Welcome to the Cruelest Day: Tuesday, March 17, 2026, and it’s St. Patrick’s Day, honoring the patron saint of Ireland. The parades in Chicago were on the weekend and went on despite rain. As usual, the Chicago River was dyed emerald green by spraying nontoxic dye from boats. Here’s what it looked like when they dyed it during on the weekend.

It’s also Corned Beef and Cabbage Day (the traditional Irish meal), and Submarine Day, explained this way (it’s connected with St. Patrick’s Day):

On March 17, 1898, St. Patrick’s Day, Irish-born engineer John Philip Holland demonstrated a submarine he designed, the Holland VI, for the U.S. Navy Department, off the coast of Staten Island. During the demonstration, the vessel was submerged for 1 hour and 40 minutes. Holland launched the submarine the year before, on May 17, 1897, after it was built at the Crescent Shipyard in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The submarine was noteworthy for having features that would become the standard for submarines in future years. It and other of Holland’s submarines are also noteworthy for being the first to run on electric batteries when submerged, but on internal combustion engines when on the water’s surface. We celebrate the Holland and all other submarines on March 17 each year.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the March 17 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*The NYT’s war news summary.  Bombing continues from both sides. And our allies aren’t keen to join in at keeping the Strait of Hormuz open. Israel says it has killed the head of the Basij (Iran’s plainclothes police division) in a targeted strike.

American allies around the world have responded coolly to — or outright rebuffed — President Trump’s call to send warships to escort merchant vessels in and out of the Persian Gulf, illustrating the consequences of his dismissive approach to global alliances.

“You mean for 40 years we’re protecting you and you don’t want to get involved in something that’s very minor?” Mr. Trump said at a White House appearance, noting that Europe, Japan and others depend on oil from the Persian Gulf far more than the United States does.

He said that “numerous countries have told me that they’re on the way,” but when asked to name them, said, “I’d rather not say yet, but we’ll be announcing them.” And he expressed frustration that some nations have demurred on requests for military assistance, adding that he has long believed that, “if we ever needed help, they won’t be there for us.”

“We don’t need anybody; we’re the strongest nation in the world,” Mr. Trump insisted. He suggested his current request for assistance amounted to a test for allies: “I’m almost doing it in some cases not because we need them but because I want to find out how they react.”

The sharpest refusal to his belated effort to build an international coalition against Iran came Monday from Germany, whose defense minister, Boris Pistorius, said, “This is not our war; we did not start it.” Top officials of Japan, Italy and Australia said Monday that their countries would not participate in efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Others were noncommittal, including France, South Korea and Britain, whose prime minister, Keir Starmer, said his country would not be “drawn into wider war.”

Well, we are responsible to some extent for stemming the flow of oil by getting into a fight with Iran, so I suppose you can justify the U.S. being responsible for opening up the Straits.  I am not mad at our allies who don’t want to help out. Apparently some of them are helping but haven’t been named.  And on the continued fighting:

  • Israel strikes Iran: The Israeli military said on Monday it had launched a “broad wave” of attacks across Iran. Earlier, airstrikes again targeted the Mehrabad airport in Tehran, and a thick plume of smoke was rising from the airport, according to several residents of Tehran.

  • Iranian response: Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, told CBS News on Sunday that the country was “ready to defend ourselves as long as it takes” and denied Mr. Trump’s claim a day earlier that Iran wanted to make a deal. “We never asked for a cease-fire, and we have never asked even for negotiation,” he said.

The NYT also reports that in the arguments over who would be Iran’s next Supreme Leader, there was a squabble (the NYT calls it a “full-on war of succession”) between the moderates and the Revolutionary Guards. Since Mojtaba Khamenei was chosen, the Guard clearly won.

*At the Free Press, Michael B. Oren, former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S., tells us “How this war ends.”

 . . . barring an irrepressible popular revolt or a coup within the Iranian regime, neither of which currently seems probable, there is only one way that this war can successfully end. Decisively defeating Iran requires an initial application of massive military power followed by a long-term strategy of total containment. The model must not be the “forever wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan, but rather the generational struggle against Soviet Communism—the Cold War that the United States ultimately won.

. . .Should the war end now, much of the Middle East would once again fall into Tehran’s sphere of influence. Confident that future American presidents will not renew major operations against it, the regime can resume its manufacture of ballistic missiles and reconstruct its nuclear facilities. The Strait of Hormuz will become an exclusively Iranian-controlled channel while terrorist attacks multiply across the Western world. The Gulf States, already afraid to alienate Iran by retaliating for its rocket and drone attacks against them, will rush to pay homage to the Islamic Republic. The people of Iran will be subject to unending and increasingly violent oppression. The international balance of power will also be skewed, with Russia and China reaching dangerous conclusions about America’s staying power.

To avoid that catastrophic scenario, the United States and Israel must deny Iran a victory by any definition. They must continue their intense bombing campaign to destroy Iran’s ability to produce, store, and launch missiles and drones. They must clear the Strait of Hormuz of Iranian mines, so that oil freighters can be safely escorted through its waters. Once defanged, Iran can be sealed by a hermetic naval blockade that will prevent the export of a single drop of oil and the entry of all but essential foodstuffs and medicines. Every effort should be made to ease the suffering of the civilian population while facilitating their ability to resist—and perhaps overthrow—the regime. It may take several years, but the Islamic Republic will fall. The Soviet Union eventually collapsed because outside pressure forced it to collapse in on itself. The same can be true of Iran.

None of this will require a single boot on the ground, nor certainly a prolonged military occupation. Unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran is a long-established nation that America need not intervene in to rebuild. But like the Soviet Bloc, Iran represents an idea that must be defeated. And once that is accomplished, energy supplies can be safeguarded and Russia and China deterred. The U.S. can broker previously unthinkable peace treaties in the Middle East and help forge a strategic alliance stretching from the Mediterranean to the Ganges. Iran can rejoin the community of nations and rekindle its people’s hope for freedom. That, in answer to the interviewers’ most frequently asked question, is how the war must end.

Note that Oren says that this is how the war must end, not how it will end. His last paragraph is optimistic, but I still wonder how regime change, which is assumed, will be effected.  Will Iran, after a long period of being besieged, voluntarily adopt democracy? That’s what Oren assumes, but also says it will probably take several years to accomplish. What happens if we get a Democratic President before that?

*Trump is now going after radio stations, threatening to revoke their licenses if they don’t cover the war patriotically, but instead propagate “fake news.”

President Donald Trump on Sunday endorsed Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr’s threat to revoke broadcast licenses over news coverage of the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran, calling media organizations “Corrupt and Highly Unpatriotic” in a Truth Social post.

“They get Billions of Dollars of FREE American Airwaves, and use it to perpetuate LIES, both in News and almost all of their Shows, including the Late Night Morons, who get gigantic Salaries for horrible Ratings,” Trump wrote.

“As I used to say in The Apprentice, ‘FIRED,’” he added.

Carr, in his Saturday post on X, warned he would deny or revoke government-issued licenses if broadcasters run what the agency deems “fake news.” The warning was the latest salvo from the official who since becoming FCC chairman at the outset of Trump’s second term has relished the role of media enforcer.

“Broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions — also known as the fake news — have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up,” Carr wrote on X. “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not.”

Here’s Carr’s tweet:

If it smells like censorship and walks like censorship, it is censorship.  This is an arrant threat to shut down broadcasters if they don’t toe the political line, and will surely bring on big-time lawsuits if it’s enforced. It is an unconscionable violation of freedom of speech.

*One way to severely impede Iran’s nuclear program is to seize the uranium the regime has already enriched. That would require boots on the ground, but could be done. The WSJ discusses the pros and cons.

President Trump has said preventing Iran from ever developing nuclear weapons is a central aim of the war he is waging. In the absence of regime change—or at least a deal to hand over its enriched uranium by Tehran’s leaders—that could mean seizing the country’s fissile material.

Accomplishing that in the face of resistance from Iranian forces would be a complex military operation that could require the deployment of hundreds of troops at one or more sites for days, former U.S. military officers and experts said.

The U.S. military has elite teams specially trained to remove radioactive material from a conflict zone. But locating and seizing the hundreds of kilograms of highly enriched uranium that Iran possesses would require an intricate choreography and could be fraught with risk.

President Trump has said he wouldn’t rule out sending ground troops into Iran if necessary. But on Friday, he signaled an operation to seize the country’s enriched uranium wasn’t imminent.

. . .Before Israel and the U.S. conducted a series of airstrikes on Iran in June last year, the country was believed to have more than 400 kilograms of 60% highly enriched uranium, and nearly 200 kilograms of 20% fissile material, which is easily converted into 90%-weapons-grade uranium.

President Trump has signaled that an operation to seize Iran’s enriched uranium isn’t imminent. Nathan Howard/Getty Images

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi has said he thinks the uranium is mainly at two of the three sites that the U.S. and Israel attacked in June: an underground tunnel at the nuclear complex in Isfahan and a cache at Natanz. Around half the 60% material was in the Isfahan tunnels, Grossi said recently.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has acknowledged that Iran isn’t currently enriching uranium. Grossi’s agency hasn’t seen any signs that the Iranians have sought to move that material. Iran’s leaders insist publicly that they don’t want a bomb.

But if those caches remain in the hands of an Iranian government looking to ensure its survival, they could be used to pursue a bomb. The Iranians have centrifuges to enrich uranium and the capability to set up a new underground enrichment site, experts said.

. . .The White House could decide to leave the stockpile in Iran’s hands, with a warning that any attempt to remove it or to resume enrichment would trigger further U.S. military strikes. Given Israel’s penetration of Iran’s nuclear program and U.S. satellite reconnaissance, there is a good chance Tehran’s work would be caught.

If Trump decides to try to grab the uranium, retired Adm. James Stavridis, who served as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization commander and the former head of Southern Command, said it could require “potentially the largest special forces operation in history.”

The article adds that it could take 1,000 personnel on the ground to deal with the material from just one site. For all the sites it seems an impossible task. This is something to worry about later, though we can be sure that the U.S. is already planning it now.  We surely cannot leave a theocratic Iran, bent on terror, with a stockpile of highly enriched uranium.

*And from the UPI’s odd news, a snack was auctioned off for a very high price (I love the phrase I’ve bolded):

Guinness World Records said the auction of Cheetozard — a Flamin’ Hot Cheeto shaped liked the Pokémon Charizard — resulted in a new record.

The record-keeping organization said Goldin Auctions’ March 2025 sale of Cheetozard ended in a final price of $87,840, earning the highly-specific record for the highest price paid for a video game likeness corn snack.

The 3-inch-long Cheeto is affixed to a custom “Cheetozard” Pokémon card and encased in a transparent box.

“Goldin specializes in rare and one-of-a-kind collectibles, and the Cheetozard is exactly this,” Goldin Auctions Head of Consignment Dave Amermanat told NBC’s Today. “Part of what makes this item so fun and unique is that it bridges two fandoms — Pokémon and Cheetos.”

The Cheeto was originally purchased on eBay for $350 by Paul Bartlett, owner of sports memorabilia company 1st & Goal Collectibles, sometime between 2018 and 2022. Images of the snack went viral on social media in 2024.

Here’s the highly valuable corn snack from Instagram (click to go to site):

 

I dare not reproduce the Charizard for fear of being sued for violating copyright, but you can see it here. I guess they sort of resemble each other.  I can see a hoax forming, when an employee of Cheetos deliberately makes one Cheeto that looks like another Pokemon character and then, for a secret cut, gives it to someone else to auction off for big bucks.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej is reassuring a worried Hili:

Hili: This garden once gave a feeling of safety.
Andrzej: Little by little, everything will return to normal.

In Polish:

Hili: Kiedyś ten ogród dawał poczucie bezpieczeństwa.
Ja: Powoli wszystko wróci do normy.

*******************

From Cats that Have Had enough of Your Shit:

From the Unitarian Universalist Hysterical Society:

From Now That’s Wild:

From Masih. Judge for yourself. For once the Netherlands was less woke than Germany. Sound up:

From Luana. Is the caption true?

From Barack Obama. This Center is very close to where I live, but I don’t think people will be able to make out the words that are high up:

Two from my feed. The first one is cute, but they won’t be lining up at the slaughterhouse. . . .

And a wickedly smart (and self-aggrandizing) crow:

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

And two from Dr. Cobb. First, a nice cuppa tea. Be sure to listen until the end. The “WVS” is the Women’s Voluntary Service and they’re talking about WWII.

So, BlueSky, one of my passions is the study of tea in WW2. I need you to watch this oral history from three ex-tea ladies from the Bermondsey WVS.Because you could guess for ONE THOUSAND YEARS and you would not guess where it is going… #skystorians #history #tea

— John Bull (@garius.bsky.social) 2026-03-15T20:06:47.614Z

And a historical irony (click on tweet to go there):

14 thoughts on “Tuesday: Hili dialogue”

  1. Gurwinder : “A nice reminder that everything you’re worried about is ultimately insignificant.”

    I saw that too —

    [ deleted lots of stuff ]

    Not captured by those spells anymore.

    Dawkins said “Stop worrying and enjoy your life” and “We are the lucky ones.” He’s got a good, positive point comparatively – and even more meaningful, as it is true it “ultimately” is predicted to be consumed by the Sun… or whatever… or escape it, on a space ship, etc…

    [ deleted more ]

    Man, touched a nerve!

    Reply

  2. I think it has been known forever that Iran can easily close the Strait of Hormuz. So not having a plan for keeping it open when you attack Iran seems like an oversight to me.

    Reply

    1. Sal addresses the issue in yesterday’s 15 minute episode of “whats going on with shipping”. Although he seems unusally frustrated he makes a couple of really important nuanced points toward the end about Iran quietly bringing ships through their territorial waters as the price of admission. Url should be

      Reply

      1. I’m watching him every day now.

        I truly wish this vile regime would fall. However, I give it longer odds than the Soviet Union because the they’re religious fanatics. They’ll be harder to dislodge.

        Also, it’s not just the Strait of Hormuz, it’s the whole 600+ miles of the Iranian coast.

        Reply

        1. From my systems viewpoint, FK, these behaviors are representative of an entirely transactional individual who treats the world as zeroeth order…that is, every action he does is fully isolated in what passes for his mind. I too check on Sal daily because he helps me understand what the higher order components of global shipping and the economy are and he brings historical knowledge and sometimes subject matter experts from other areas to the table.

          Reply

  3. In addition to being St. Patrick’s Day, it is also St. Gertrude’s Day; she is the patron saint of cats.

    Reply

    1. That’s in the Hili post tomorrow, but if you look up St.Gertrude, you’ll see that the “patron saint of cats” monicker seems to have been added in the nineteenth century, though she died in the seventh century.

      Reply

  4. The text on the Obama Library is a terrible example of sign-making. There have been lots of memes about it. My favorite replaces what’s there with running text of Obama’s most famous quote: “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.”

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  5. There’s a lot of disharmony in the (wildly differing) guesses as to Iran’s nuclear inventory. I thought uranium (by definition here enriched) stored for weapons production was in gas form (Hex gas) rather than what pictures often suggest: scary but routine looking silver discs or … like gold bars maybe?
    If it is in gaseous form, one theory goes, it could have been corrupted/escaped in our bombings of the facilities, no? Trying to get a grip on this, even though I’ve always liked reading about nuclear stuff.

    People in the neighborhood, Obama edition. I get in trouble for my appreciation of brutalist architecture but even I’m not wild about the new Obama library near PCC(E)’s area. I don’t like all the writing on it: brutalism isn’t about “adornment.”
    (my personal view only).

    D.A.
    NYC

    Reply

    1. I’d like to know what these guesstimates are based on. I can’t imagine any embedded sources at this point.

      And re. the Obama library, even tho I live in a Victorian place and have a lot of criteria there (the best have to have a tower, for starts; I also greatly admire Craftsman style like Greene & Greene, Deco and some Moderne) I’ve seen far worse Brutalism. But who’s supposed to go up there to clean out the pigeon nests etc? U Pittsburgh got in bed with that style for awhile but thankfully that phase has passed.

      Reply

  6. Masih’s posts vary between heartbreaking and inspiring.
    Heartbreaking because of what these women are suffering, and inspiring because of their courage.

    The subject of the post today is just disgusting. It illustrates the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of today’s feminist movements. The leaders of these movements and their supporters have made it quite clear that their goals have nothing to do with advancement of women’s opportunities, education, or freedom. They openly support those who actively suppress those goals.

    Reply

  7. Michael Oren knows the region very well. The Strait of Hormuz is the most potent card that Iran has left, and until we restore shipping through that narrow passageway, Iran will hold the world hostage.

    We should not seek a diplomatic agreement with Iran to reopen the Strait, as reaching an agreement will only prove that the Iranian regime still holds the card. The allies need to reopen the Strait by force. This is where we’re at.

    Reply

  8. “Well, we are responsible to some extent for stemming the flow of oil by getting into a fight with Iran, so I suppose you can justify the U.S. being responsible for opening up the Straits.”

    I do wonder though, why most of these countries remain in NATO. I mean, if they were attacked by a non-NATO country, wouldn’t they expect other democracies (including Turkey!!) to assist them? It all stinks of a deeply hypocritical antisemitism. So what else in new?

    Reply

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