March 26, 2026

THE ALWAYS SHARP AND STYLISH DAUGHTER IN LAW HAS BEEN ADDING A BUNCH OF PRODUCTS TO HER STORE:  Morrigan’s Mercantile.

Posted at 12:32 am by Sarah Hoyt

March 25, 2026

OPEN THREAD: Hump Day.

Posted at 9:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds

SINCE IT’S COLD, IT’S JUST WEATHER, NOT CLIMATE: Vostok, Antarctica: The coldest March temperature ever recorded globally was set on this continent on Tuesday, March 24–and it was downright chilly. “Vostok, Antarctica, recorded -76.3°C on March 24, 2026. That has beat out the previous March record, which was -75.7°C in Dome Fuji, Antarctica, in 2013.”

But wait, it’s a cross-hemispheric phenomenon: “Three of the coldest locations in the Northern Hemisphere pushed it to a new level this winter, with one spot in Greenland dropping to about as cold as it gets. Here in Canada, the community of Braeburn, Yukon, saw readings fall to -55.7°C on Dec. 23, 2025, marking the country’s coldest temperature since 1999.”

Posted at 9:17 pm by Glenn Reynolds

OLD AND BUSTED: “Tea in the Sahara.”

The New Hotness? Dinner in Tehran, anyone?

Just a few days ago, President Miguel Díaz-Canel publicly admitted that his government had entered negotiations with the United States. Trump just gave Secretary of State Marco Rubio his 18th, or possibly his 27th, job: settle things in Cuba. The Cuban government announced various economic reforms, including opening up Cuban businesses to private investment by Cubans abroad. Why did that happen? “The economic opening comes amid unprecedented pressure by the Trump administration,” the Miami Herald reported. I knew it had to be something.

Meanwhile, in and around the Persian Gulf, the endgame is nigh. The US Navy is just about to be crushed by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Just kidding. That’s the headline that CNN and similar organs of anti-Trump animus have inscribed on their wish list. So far, my favorite chunk of surreality was the charge that neither Trump nor his military advisors anticipated that Iran would threaten to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which some 20 percent of the world’s black gold passes each day.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth was right to call CNN’s story on the subject “patently ridiculous.” Iran has been periodically threatening to close the strait since 1979, when that malevolent lunatic Ruhollah Khomeini took over Iran and plunged it into its current grotesque misogynistic dystopia.

Iran says the strait is closed. Scratch that.  It is open to all ships except those from Israel and the United States. Since only about a dozen US-flagged ships pass through the strait annually, that is not much of a burden. But then Saudi Arabia said (I translate freely from the Arabic): “Screw this. Bypass the Strait of Hormuz altogether. Sail up the Red Sea and we’ll load your oil at the port of Yanbu.” “Oh, wait,” quoth whatever Iranian authorities are still ambulatory, “we didn’t mean it. Come back!”

India is allegedly taking them up on the offer:

UPDATE: And so is Capt. Stubing!

Posted at 9:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS: “Early on, Bruce really and truly did speak for the working man. But somewhere in Hollywood he lost his way:”

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 8:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

OH, YOU SWEET SUMMER CHILD! Scott Jennings Embarrasses MeidasTouch Dweeb Over Dems and Gas Prices.

Tweet continues:

MOCKLER: “This is going to be a big blue wave.”

“It already was going to be before the war in Iran. And this is the most like visceral change that we’ve seen so far.”

“When I drove to the airport today, I passed by two gas stations and I was paying attention. American families are paying attention to this.”

JENNINGS: “I’m old enough to remember when Democrats were advocating for higher gas prices to bring about the end of the internal combustion engine.”

“NOW, all of the sudden gas prices are a big deal.”

MOCKLER: “Wait, which Democrats said they want higher gas prices?”

JENNINGS: “Literally ALL of them.”

MOCKLER: “They said I want higher gas prices?!”

JENNINGS: “Yes! That was the stated policy, to drive prices, up to get rid of the internal combustion engine.”

Flashbacks:

● Biden Taps Economist Who Bemoaned Gas Prices ‘Too Damn Low.’

● Bloomberg headline: The Earth Wants Biden to Keep Gas Prices High.

● Great Moments in Gaslighting: Biden: High gas prices to last ‘as long as it takes’ for Ukraine victory.

● 2008 L.A. Times headline: “The joy of $8 gas.”

● “Under my plan, energy costs will necessarily skyrocket…”

In other words, Obama administration retreads [were] following the same playbook as the original Obama administration: “We’re going to keep at it to ensure the American people are paying their fair share for gas,” is the perfect Kinsley Gaffe for an Obama administration retread like Biden:  As Steven Chu, Obama’s then-incoming energy secretary, told the Wall Street Journal in the fall of 2008: “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”

Posted at 8:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

TIME TO GET THE HOOK:

It will be a happy day when the last of the left-wing late-night “comedians” is finally off the air. The latest outrage comes from Jimmy Kimmel, who might have been funny once in his life, but if so, I missed it:

What is it with the left and their hatred of plumbers? I’m so old, I can remember prominent lefties assuring themselves that “a working-class hero is something to be.”

UPDATE: Speaking of which:

Posted at 8:16 pm by Ed Driscoll

“SCIENCE.”

Posted at 6:24 pm by Glenn Reynolds

PEOPLE LIKE MULLIN BUILT THIS COUNTRY:

Posted at 5:43 pm by Stephen Green

GUNS: The Narrative Uber Alles: Gun-Related Injuries and Juvenile Mental Health.

In a recent medical journal report the authors find that a firearm injury to an adult is associated with a child in the family receiving a psychiatric diagnosis. They imply that distress related to the injury leads to the emergence of psychiatric difficulties and subsequently a psychiatric diagnosis. On its face, this seems plausible.

The authors note some limitations, including relying exclusively on commercial health insurance to obtain data regarding injuries and psychiatric diagnoses. While they utilize a large sample it is perhaps only about 13 percent of the US population. As they note, it excludes families covered by Medicaid, which may be different in important ways from those whose health insurance tends to be through an employer. Additionally, they point out that an alternative explanation for an association between injuries and children’s receiving a psychiatric diagnosis is that the injury prompted a set of interactions with the medical community, thus increasing the likelihood that psychiatric difficulties would be identified and diagnosed in these children. This seems plausible as well.

However, the conclusion that an adult’s injury leads to a child’s diagnosis is undercut by the graph they present showing diagnoses both before and after the injury. While the graph indicates that indeed children’s psychiatric diagnoses increased following the injury, they were on an upward curve before the injury. This might suggest that situational factors led to both the diagnosis and the injury.

Much more at the link, but these days it pays to be extra-skeptical of anything published in medical journals — particularly when it involves firearms.

Posted at 4:52 pm by Stephen Green