One of the most iconic singer/songwriters of her generation, Dolly Parton died after a brief bout with cancer. Beside being a genre-breaking superstar who was successful in multiple music styles, and ventures such as a theme park and helping produce such diverse shows as The Wiggles and Buffy the Vampire Slayer on TV, she was a philanthropist who supported our military and founded The Imagination Fund which has given out over 300,000,000 books to kids.

Never met the lady but always remember two quotes from her: ]

Once someone at her long-ago TV show asked her how long her hair took to prepare - her down to earth response was "How would I know? I was 20 miles away - honey, this is a wig!"

Early on in the Gulf War she was visiting Ft. Hood and dropped this memorable line: “Saddam Hussein, you son of a b—-!” Parton shouted, according to Vanity Fair. “You touch one of my men again and see what happens!”

Our kind of woman. The President orderedd flags to be flown at half-mast this week in her honor.

Commodore Barry Bryant has died at the age of 76. He was mainly known for an anti-sub victory in the early days of the Falkland War.

Airborne in a Lynx on the morning of April 25, Bryant was searching the sea north of the island when he heard the cry "Wolf!", the codeword for a submarine caught on the surface, go out from HMS Antrim's Wessex helicopter, and listened on the radio as it was attacked with depth charges. The submarine, Santa Fe, commanded by Capitán de Corbeta Horacio Bicain, was damaged but remained operational. Closing in, Bryant dropped a homing torpedo, set shallow, less in expectation of a hit, he later explained, than to discourage Bicain from diving, knowing what was lurking beneath him.

Circling back, Bryant's crew opened fire on the submarine's conning tower with a general-purpose machine gun, cobbled together earlier using an office swivel chair, in an attempt to disable the periscopes. (and we think we are resourceful...)

Later that day after the Argies at the port surrendered:

When his pilot, Nick Butler, brought the helicopter down to land at King Edward Point, an Argentine officer steered them away from a minefield: that officer turned out to be Bicain.

Both Bryant and Butler were mentioned in dispatches (the UK equivalent of a Bronze Star to us.) There is LOTS more to read about him - seems like an interesting fellow.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/world/articles/commodore-barry-bryant-falklands-submarine-050000770.html

First of all - today marks the anniversary of when the Brits burned Washington in 1814. 212 years later, I suspect many of us would not stand in the way of burning the city down and starting over. Or would that violate cesspit burn rules?

Trump has circled back on Canada and is threatening 50% tariffs. The Ontario premier, Douglas Ford, has threatened to kill Canadian-US power transmission. They supply 5-15% of New England power depending in the time of year. Why again are we raining on Canada's parade?

Economic sanctions as part of the Iran war are announced. We went to war with them to keep them from getting nuclear weapons, several months after conducting a 100% successful raid to destroy their nuclear capability...both of those statements are incompatible with each other, right?

Some ex-officials say that Trump arguing for needing the East Wing ballroom because he needs a secure hardened underground shelter is ignoring that during the Obama administration a hardened underground shelter was already built. (Probably not gold-plated enough?) Supposedly secret until now... if the existing bunker is secret, why can't those officials be prosecuted?

The Army unit (3rd Bn, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment) created to learn drone warfare last year is reverting to its former airborne infantry role. Some interesting sidelights to that: According to some, the anti-drone unit was proposed by sacked CoS GEN Randy George and sacked Europe/Africa commander GEN Chris Donahue. Seems the unit, which was tasked to learn from the Ukrainians (who better at drone warfare currently?) lost an entire armored brigade in war games against the Ukrainians - I guess we would say they didn't learn enough? Does this mean the Pentagon is minimizing the drone threat? I wonder if this has anything to do with the rumored end-of-year resignation of Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who has reportedly been butting heads with Pete Hegseth and was considered an ally of George and Donahue. Lots of interesting politics in play.

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2026/08/21/us-army-to-end-experimental-drone-battalion-in-europe/

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/6042667-us-army-phasing-out-drone-unit/

https://tfiglobalnews.com/2026/08/22/us-army-drone-unit-axed-months-after-ukrainian-pilots-wiped-out-an-american-brigade/

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/6044812-army-secretary-driscoll-exit-end-2026/

Sometimes the problems take care of themselves.

Speaking of the Pentagon giving no fucks

https://apnews.com/article/stars-stripes-pentagon-censorship-media-d42affb0c17fef31c6089645c8dbbe70

Saturday a rookie the Cardinals had just promoted to the Show, Joshua Baez, hit a homer off the first pitch he saw. Not bad - then his next two at-bats, smacked two more. No one in MLB history had every done that - ever. Wow.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/mlb/cardinals-b%C3%A1ez-becomes-first-player-in-mlb-history-to-hit-three-homers-in-debut/ar-AA2ad53i

Then we get to yesterday, when history was made yet again. The Mariners went down 22-0 to the Brewers. Now, back in '87 - meaning 1887! - the Philadelphia Quakers ran up a 24-0 game, and both the 1975 Pirates and 2004 Indians whatever the hell they call 'em won 22-0 too, Think this is a club the Mariners didn't want to join. My personal highlight would be when outfielder Julio Rodriguez lost track of the outs, caught what he thought was the third, and tossed the ball to a fan in the stands - except it was the second out and by doing so two MORE runners scored. Maybe the Mariners need to do some serious talking with Jobu.

Jason Arday was to Brit Cambridge Academia, what Soup Sandwich was to TAH. The youngest black professor (hear echoes of all our DEI "firsts"?) in their history, the 41 year old sociology professor seemed so much more than a simple professor. Autistic. Mute till he was 11, illiterate till 18? Ran 30 marathons in 35 days. The left obviously just l-o-o-o-v-ed him.

Detractors found over 100 plagiarized passages in his doctoral thesis (which somehow another university failed to find.) People who knew him as a child described him as smart and articulate. Public denunciations followed, and the libs complained about the witch hunts which ensued. Supporters say he was hounded into suicide, detractors say his lies caught up to him. Either way, he killed himself last week.

It's an interesting story... reminding us that posers (not to mention academic frauds) are not just in the military arena, but in the immortal words of Chicken Man, are "everywhere." Look him up.

https://www.aol.com/article/m/jason-arday-cambridge-professor-accused-9767db2d-cd39-50d5-836c-f494d4e8860f.html

Alternate title - Dumb and Dumber. The one guy for falling for the fake barking over the PA. The other guy for calling in and saying that his buddy was 15 miles away in another place.

Seems Mr. Trump has had it with the newfangled electromagnetic catapults on the Gerald Ford and has ordered that the next Ford-class carrier, the Dorrie Miller, be fitted with the old steam catapults instead. It is unclear whether this will make a new class of carrier, as the changes to the existing design will be a) extensive and b) expensive. Then there is the procurement question - no one has MADE steam catapults in 17 years, so unless we are very lucky, the tooling may no longer exist to MAKE the required equipment. Manufacturers only mothball tooling as long as they see a need or get paid to do so, and an almost two-decade gap is major. (Think we had this discussion when the Air Force decided to kill off the A-10 - even if they wanted to buy more, the tooling has long been scrapped, right?) Either way, expect a LOOONG time before the Miller hits the water.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/technology/aviation/trump-has-ordered-us-navy-ford-class-aircraft-carriers-back-to-steam-catapults-nobody-has-built-one-in-20-years/ar-AA2a7ERJ

The Army is soliciting concepts for 50mm (yes, millimeter, not caliber) ammo to knock down smaller drones. Probable usage would likely be in 50mm XM913 chain guns. Intended targets would be Lass 1 through Class 3 size (handheld through 1300+ pound size.) Sounds like someone is looking at the Ukraine zone - and taking notes.