Happy birthday, Laura!

Happy birthday, Laura!

I've had a surprisingly social weekend, but the good news is that Lazarus Data Recovery was able to retrieve 360 Gigabytes of music and film files which I need as research for an ongoing project.

Phew.

And now I can begin the process of reclaiming my Nerdhole, get a new desktop setup and stop using it as an overflow dump zone/storage space.

Happy birthday, Laura!

Three cheers for Lazarus! Also, excellent name for a company that recovers files from dead computers.

I just can’t with the Iran news. It seems like we’ve been beefing with them since the Carter administration.

I just can’t with the Iran news. It seems like we’ve been beefing with them since the Carter administration.

From what I can glean from all the YouTube videos on the subject, this is going hand in hand with the diplomatic approach getting Iran to stop its nuclear program.

They are bringing a big stick to the negotiations and essentially saying, "Comply or we strike."

Unlike Desert Storm there's no massing of troops to go in on the ground. Trump's team wants to essentially do what they did in Venezuela which is take out the autocrat at the top, put in someone more compliant, and keep most of the current structure in place.

I don't think they can do that in Iran without taking out the Iran Revolutionary Guard, which is not going to comply with any diplomatic demands. Further, even though Khemeni sounds (even looks a bit like) Khomeni, he's mostly a figurehead instead of a deep thinking leader. So taking out Khemeni (who is 80) isn't like taking out Maduro.

That said, you don't just line up two air craft carriers off the coast for show. It's staging for the attack.

But it will probably be: attack and then push them back to the table. If they're defiant, attack harder. Back to the table, etc.

tl;dr: Trump wants a compliant Iran (no nukes, stop using proxies to attack Israel and other terrorist groups), but doesn't want to get stuck being responsible for running the country.

So it's a little like old school American colonialism, where we install a compliant puppet government. That said - it would probably still be good for the Iranian people to take out the current power structure.

Oh yeah, that's also part of the US plan: to do strikes and then support an uprising from below.

Anyway, something will probably happen within the next two weeks.

Also, Mexico? Very fucked up right now. A friend of mine just spent a week's vacation in Puerto Vallarta, and was supposed to fly home today, but the airport is shut down and they're not getting out before Thursday.

Yeah I was just reminiscing with my friend Farrah earlier today about being in PV on this day a few years ago with Brenda. And then saw the news. Yikes.

We’re easily past 18″ here in this part of Brooklyn, and we still have a couple more hours of snowfall to go.

Enjoying the pretty while I can, before it all turns into a dirty ugly mess.

Yikes, a foot and a half!

We got a couple of inches only.

Debra Messing is going to lose it (again).

Stay warm, NYC gang!

We’re easily past 18″ here in this part of Brooklyn, and we still have a couple more hours of snowfall to go.

How many Abominable Snowmen are roaming the streets?