January 16, 2026

Son of former shah says he is 'uniquely positioned' to lead Iran as he predicts end of regime

Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s former pro-western monarch, has predicted the country’s Islamic regime will fall and claimed he is “uniquely” placed to head a successor government.

His bid to assume the leadership of a possible new Iran follows weeks of mass protests that have left thousands dead after being brutally suppressed by security forces.

His credentials are certain to be challenged by other opponents of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s regime, given Pahlavi has not been in Iran since his family fled the country at the beginning of the 1979 Islamic revolution. Many question his level of popular support, even though his name has been chanted at some protests.

Calling on the west to help unseat Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, Pahlavi said on Friday that the regime was nevertheless doomed to collapse with or without such assistance.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/16/son-of-former-iranian-monarch-calls-for-targeted-intervention-to-hasten-regimes-collapse

Not a great idea, only marginally better than what they have now.

January 16, 2026

US cities increasingly compelled to police abuses by immigration agents

Rochelle Bilal, Philadelphia’s sheriff, warned ICE agents last week: “If any of them want to come in this city and commit a crime, you will not be able to hide.

“Nobody will whisk you off,” she said. “You don’t want this smoke, ’cause we will bring it to you.”

On the surface, it sounds like Philly political braggadocio. Sheriff’s deputies don’t generally spend their time arresting anyone. They serve warrants, guard prisoners and keep court in order. Under other circumstances, Bilal’s comments could be dismissed as a Democratic elected official throwing red meat at a blue audience.

But she’s not alone. Last year, municipal leaders in cities including Chicago, Portland and Charlotte made simple promises for their police not to cooperate with immigration enforcement, and to monitor the activities of ICE for civil remedies. In June, Michelle Wu, Boston’s mayor, signed an executive order requiring regular Freedom of Information Act requests of the DHS to learn when and where immigration arrests are made.
(snip)

State or local police arresting federal officers would have been unthinkable last year. But federal agents have never faced widespread accusations of misconduct, as they do now. State law enforcement is increasingly presenting itself as an answer to federal impunity for civil rights violations.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/16/ice-agent-local-police-abuse

Because the truth is, we can no longer depend on the federal government.

January 16, 2026

Is anyone else following the Buddhist monks' Walk For Peace?

I am (it's on Facebook, but doubtless elsewhere, too) and I'm so inspired by it. I'm Christian, but I really love this. And they are accompanied by a formerly stray dog from India who was injured along the way and is now being rehabbed in NC. The dog is adorable. The monks are walking from Fort Worth to DC to raise awareness of the need for peace without and within.

January 16, 2026

Ailing astronaut returns to Earth early in NASA's first medical evacuation

An ailing astronaut returned to Earth with three others on Thursday, ending their space station mission more than a month early in NASA’s first medical evacuation.

SpaceX guided the capsule to a middle-of-the-night splashdown in the Pacific near San Diego, less than 11 hours after the astronauts exited the International Space Station. Their first stop was a hospital for an overnight stay.

“Obviously, we took this action (early return) because it was a serious medical condition,” NASA’s new administrator Jared Isaacman said following splashdown. “The astronaut in question is fine right now, in good spirits and going through the proper medical checks.”

It was an unexpected finish to a mission that began in August and left the orbiting lab with only one American and two Russians on board. NASA and SpaceX said they would try to move up the launch of a fresh crew of four; liftoff is currently targeted for mid-February.

NASA’s Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke were joined on the return by Japan’s Kimiya Yui and Russia’s Oleg Platonov. Officials have refused to identify the astronaut who developed the health problem last week or explain what happened, citing medical privacy.

https://apnews.com/article/nasa-space-astronauts-crew-medical-spacex-d89651fb83a8eb32d8619052424a5cb8

Why are they being so secretive? I don't recall them being that secretive previously..

January 16, 2026

Federal immigration agents filmed dragging a woman from her car in Minneapolis

A U.S. citizen on her way to a medical appointment in Minneapolis was dragged out of her car and detained by immigration officers, according to a statement released by the woman on Thursday, after a video of her arrest drew millions of views on social media.

Aliya Rahman said she was brought to a detention center where she was denied medical care and lost consciousness. The Department of Homeland Security said she was an agitator who was obstructing ICE agents conducting arrests in the area.

That video is the latest in a deluge of online content that documents an intensifying immigration crackdown across the midwestern city, as thousands of federal agents execute arrests amid protests in what local officials have likened to a “federal invasion.”

Rahman said that she was on her way to a routine appointment at the Traumatic Brain Injury Center when she encountered federal immigration agents at an intersection. Video appears to show federal immigration agents shouting commands over a cacophony of whistles, car horns and screams from protesters.

In the video, one masked agent smashes Rahman’s passenger side window while others cut her seatbelt and drag her out of the car through the driver’s side door. Numerous guards then carried her by her arms and legs towards an ICE vehicle.

https://apnews.com/article/aliya-rahman-minneapolis-ice-arrest-videos-b277e328a2053fde361c6a74295efb06

She repeatedly asked for medical help. They finally took her to an ED when she passed out. How nice of them

January 15, 2026

Study finds Tyrannosaurus rex did not reach full size until age 40

There is no question that Tyrannosaurus rex got big. In fact, this fearsome dinosaur may have been Earth's most massive land predator of all time. But the question of how quickly T. rex achieved its maximum size has been a matter of debate.
A new study examining bone tissue microstructure in the leg bones of 17 fossil specimens concludes that Tyrannosaurus took about 40 years to reach its maximum size of roughly 8 tons, some 15 years more than previously estimated. As part of the study, the researchers identified previously unknown growth marks in these bones that could be seen only using polarized light.
"This growth trajectory is more gradual than expected," said paleohistologist Holly Woodward of the Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences, lead author of the study published this week in the journal PeerJ, opens new tab. "Rather than T. rex ratcheting up to adult size quickly, it spent a lot of its life at juvenile to subadult sizes."
The researchers scrutinized annual growth rings - akin to those present in tree trunks - in the Tyrannosaurus leg bones from the various specimens, which ranged from smaller juveniles to massive adults.

https://www.reuters.com/science/study-finds-tyrannosaurus-rex-did-not-reach-full-size-until-age-40-2026-01-15/

January 15, 2026

Trump threatens to use the Insurrection Act to end protests in Minneapolis

Source: Associated Press

President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to invoke an 1807 law and deploy troops to quell persistent protests against the federal officers sent to Minneapolis to enforce his administration’s massive immigration crackdown.

The threat comes a day after a man was shot and wounded by an immigration officer who had been attacked with a shovel and broom handle. That shooting further heightened the fear and anger that has radiated across the city since an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fatally shot Renee Good in the head.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, a rarely used federal law, to deploy the U.S. military or federalize the National Guard for domestic law enforcement, over the objections of state governors.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/immigration-crackdown-minnesota-shootings-renee-good-a0c368079c106b599245996fded8c1b9

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He really, REALLY wants to start a civil war, He thinks he can win. Big news, fat boy---liberals got guns too!

January 14, 2026

Donald Trump is waging war against human conscience

Osita Nwanevu

It’s garnered less attention than the other events of our already wretched new year. But to understand why Renee Nicole Good was killed on Wednesday, why the White House has designs on Greenland, and why the people of Venezuela may soon be governed, in effect, by a junta of oil companies backed by the US military, we should also consider an email Martin Peterson, a philosophy professor at Texas A&M, received about his course Contemporary Moral Problems last week.

His syllabus, he was informed, contained material banned by the college’s board of regents in December – part of the wave of censorship the Trump administration and the Republican party have encouraged at universities across the country. He was given two options: change the syllabus “to remove the modules on race ideology and gender ideology, and the Plato readings that may include these” or teach another course.

The offending material included selections from Plato’s Symposium, one of his most important and widely-read works. In it, the philosopher Socrates and his companions at a banquet discuss the nature of love. And in one passage, the playwright Aristophanes offers an account of how love and sexuality came to be. There were once three sexes, he says – male, female and androgynous – and all humans were, at first, physically joined pairs. But after we mounted an attack on the gods, Zeus split us in two, and we’ve ached to complete ourselves with partners – ⁠of the same or another sex – ever since.

The “gender ideology” of this tale comes to us from the fourth century BC. And philosophers in the many centuries since have examined it not only for what it tells us about the Greeks in Plato’s day but for what it might tell us, as far removed as we might be from ancient Athens, about sex, love and longing. It is a tale about universal aspects of the human experience philosophers have examined in the service of understanding what it means to be a human being.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jan/14/donald-trump-plato-gender-education

So in Texass Plato is now banned. Hmmmm

January 14, 2026

Cities and states must hold ICE accountable for violence. The feds won't

Last Wednesday, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent shot and killed Renee Good, a 37-year-old American mother. Already, the federal investigation into the killing raises serious concerns, which is why the parallel investigation Minnesota officials are conducting is vital.

Mere hours after Good’s death, the Trump administration prejudged the case before any investigation could begin. The administration was swift to blame the victim, with the president and the DHS secretary making disparaging, accusatory, and prejudicial statements about her motives and conduct; Donald Trump said she was a “professional agitator” who had “viciously” run over the officer, while Kristi Noem accused her of “domestic terrorism”. Additionally, JD Vance, the vice-president, incorrectly claimed the shooter had “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution by state officials. And the FBI has shut state investigators out.

These responses are not the way government officials should ever treat a use of deadly force by a law enforcement officer, much less before investigating. And indeed, the administration’s claims – made within 24 hours of the killing – are not consistent with what is known about Good and her actions.

As former federal prosecutors who spent decades in the justice department’s civil rights division investigating law enforcement uses of force, we know that an incident like this must be followed by a credible investigation that produces a complete explanation of what happened and why – and who, if anyone, needs to be held accountable.

Constitutional democracy depends on ensuring that those who exercise government power do it lawfully. Even when a use of force turns out to be legally justified, meaningful investigations make us all safer – the public and law enforcement officers alike. Credible investigations can deter violence by ensuring consequences for illegal acts, build public trust in law enforcement and help prevent future loss of life. Even if the federal government brings no charges, the public deserves an account of its investigative efforts and decision. The Department of Justice – including during the first Trump administration – has provided this transparency following previous investigations into law enforcement violence, as in the cases of Freddie Gray, Tamir Rice and Michael Brown.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jan/14/ice-violence-minneapolis-killing

Absolutely. No way in hell is Shitler's government going to do anything. Pam Bondi is a puppet.

January 12, 2026

Grammatical pet peeves

There are some things that just grind my gears, yet they are so common, even in journalism, that they are almost standard today. I can't really tell you which is my no. 1, so I'll just list them in no particular order.

1. Could of, would of, should of. NO! It's could HAVE, would HAVE, should HAVE! I learned this in fourth grade, FFS!!! Where were you? This is just lazy.

2. "Here's what" to know. Grrr. Unnecessary verbiage, and silly besides. Either "What to know", which makes perfect sense and is concise and to the point, or "This is what to know," which is grammatically correct but unnecessary verbiage. "Here's what" is lazy.

3. What I call the "sportscaster glitch" because that's where I hear it most often, and usually (forgive me) from male sportscasters. The women don't seem to do it as much. "He ran such and such, did Lawrence," is my imperfect example, but anyone who's listened to or watched football or basketball has heard this absolutely cringey thing repeatedly.

Okay, what are yours? This is my diversionary tactic on a Monday morning.