Lilli Moreno, I did not know it was you who was killed by a car on February 16, 2026, until a friend showed me a photograph at a bar not far from where you died. I instantly saw the Lilli who once asked me to explain the actual meaning of Schrodinger’s cat. A few months later, I also saw you operating a table at the late night art market at Bad Bar. We were, in time, close to the final hour of August 11, 2024. I bought one of your small metal matchboxes (this one decorated with a picture of a flower) for $11. We talked a little, we laughed a little. And later I was in the psychedelic bar watching one of my favorite scenes in Star Wars on a very flat TV screen above the bottles of spirits: the setting of the two suns on the parched planet Tatooine. I will still have your matchbox. It will live among my books.
The world has not changed one bit since you left, Lilli Moreno. In fact, it’s getting worse.
We may be gutting our urban forestry program but fear not, Washington State is still funding the construction of new urban highways.
www.khq.com/legislature/…
— Anna Zivarts (@nondriver.bsky.social) March 2, 2026 at 2:55 PM
Today will be cool (low of 42) and rainy. It’s the kind of day that’s made for the charmingly melancholy jazz of Bill Evans. At this point, however, we can forget about any kind of snow falling upon the living and the dead. We can also expect, when summer temperatures arrive, which might be as soon as next month, an explosion of rats and bugs because winter proved to be hospitable. Indeed, I can remember when Seattle winters were so cold that rats would climb into car engines for warmth or shelter only to freeze to death. Those days are more and more receding into the past in our warming world.
Dem superstar Rep. Jasmine Crockett lost Texas’ Democratic Senate primary to populist and God-loving Rep. James Talarico (and it wasn’t even close—53% to 46%). The race between Attorney General Ken Paxton and incumbent Sen. John Cornyn was close and, as a consequence, is headed to a runoff election on May 26. Expect the battle between these hyenas to get very, very ugly.
Greedy defense contractors have sold the US government very expensive and clumsy interceptor weapon systems. The whole dismal story is in a report posted this week by Bloomberg: “Iran’s Missile Math: $20,000 Drones Take on $4 Million Patriots.” The drones are called Shahed-136, which are basically “small, rudimentary cruise missiles.” It’s estimated that Iran has about 80,000 of these weapons, and can manufacture about 500 of them a day. Also, Shaheds can be transported by a conventional truck to any launch site in the country. The US, on other hand, uses cumbersome missiles that cost millions to hit just one of these cheap-ass drones. The fear on the US side is that, because our defence contractors can produce only 600 or so of these expensive weapons a year, their stock will soon be depleted by the constant swarm of inexpensive drones, which have the power to destroy buildings or badly damage military bases.
Qatar’s Patriot interceptor missiles will last four days at the current rate of use, Bloomberg reported. Qatar has requested help countering drones, which have proven a greater threat than ballistic missiles, while the UAE has requested medium-range air defense assistance. #MiddleEast
— NOELREPORTS (@noelreports.com) March 2, 2026 at 9:58 AM
The US has known about these Iranian drones for years but failed to make needed cost-effective adjustments because, arguably, there’s no money in making and selling cheap stuff to US taxpayers. Defense contractors want the US to buy state-of-the-art shit, even if they are impractical and ineffective.
Realizing the great disadvantage the Iranian drones present, the US is now making an exact copy of the Shahed, called LUCAS, in Arizona at $35,000 a pop. The factory began operation last year; meaning, the US had until then no idea how to make cheap missiles. They had to steal the technology from the Iranians. And what can we conclude from this fiasco? The US’s military certainly has the biggest budget in the world by far ($1 trillion annually), but it might be filled with expensive junk. China, on the other hand, has the second-largest budget ($250 billion annually), but that money might purchase or manufacture weapons at reasonable or state-controlled prices. If this is the case, then China has, due to a lack of super-greedy defense contractors, the superior arsenal.
If the Iranian drones do the trick, if they hit regional American military bases and oil production sites on the regular, then the US consumer can kiss goodbye to cheap oil forever. It will take years to repair the damaged infrastructure, busted bases, and restore confidence in the US’s ability to protect Gulf assets.
I read somewhere that some ants send their elderly to fight wars. Apparently, the young are too precious to waste on deadly conflicts. With humans, the old tend to start wars and send their youth to fight them. It seems we humans have it backwards. Those who declare war must be handed the guns and armour (or an exoskeleton developed by Elon Musk) and head straight to the battlefield. That includes Captain Bone Spurs.
Who knew? The pigeon that hangs out in Beacon Hill Station actually has an Instagram account. Presently, the bird only has 27 followers. All humans. I have seen this pigeon several times while waiting for a train in one of America’s deepest subways. The bird walks around with an air of total calm. No predators down here. No rain. Some food. And generally nice people going this way and that.
Let’s end AM with a compilation that was released 30 years ago and launched Seattle’s post-Sir Mix-a-Lot hiphop, Tribal Music’s Do the Math.
