Jen and Noam are finally back! Not that much has changed - we still don't know what the game plan in Iran is, nor when the Strait of Hormutz will be open again. Now the conversation is about if we will be sending troops to the Middle East, again to do what we don't know exactly. Whatever it is we're doing, it's because Israel tricked Trump somehow. Not much logic to be found in that argument, but people sure are willing to make it publicly.

We also discuss the big state sponsored holiday / human safari trip to Havana that all of the cool progressive influencers went on to "highlight the struggles of the Cuban people." Oddly, no suffering was documented, but everyone seemed to have a really good time.

For our WAWC, we finally both watched the same thing; Project Hail Mary, which we both recommend. It's a nice, not dark movie about a man and a spider rock in space.

Noam and Jen return to the war in Iran, after a detour into discussing if Tucker is lying or telling the truth about the CIA getting ready to bring a case against him. This of curse leads to a conversation about foreign influence in the right wing griftosphere, how Twitter isn't a reliable place to make a living, and how those two things intersect.

Moving back to Iran, we discuss the reporting that the Trump administration did not plan for Iran to shut down the Strait of Hormuz. We agree that there is a distinction to be made between if the closure was unexpected, or was assumed to work itself out somehow. Whichever it is, it's clear that this is a situation that is certainly not going to give Americans the warm fuzzies about continuing this war.

We also discuss the attack on Temple Israel in Michigan, and how the word "Israel" seems to be very confusing to anti-Zionists. There is also the issue of calling attacks like this blowback for the war in Iran, which obviously makes no sense outside of excusing terrorism.

For our WAWC, Noam has nothing but Jen has a YouTube video - What Higuruma tells us about Japanese courts, human nature, and meaning of justice. In essence, it's a good primer on the Japanese court / criminal justice system, which is important for understanding a story arc in Jujitsu Kaisen.

Jen and Noam return to the war (it's a war now, the president said so) in Iran, including the additional strikes completed by Israel on the Assembly of Experts. What they are experts in we're not sure, obviously not in Zoom. We also talk about how we still don't have an explanation for why the US attacked Iran, let alone an idea of what all of this is supposed to accomplish or what the endpoint is. Not ideal for a situation where the president is flippantly discussing how people die in war.

Speaking of war, TwitX has decided to declare war on AI slop war videos. Naturally, some people think this is some nefarious plot to hide from the world that Israel is destroyed, because surely the internet wouldn't lie to them. Then again, Trump is posting that Iran is destroyed, so there is that.

For our WAWC, Noam recommends Slay The Spire II which is finally out on early release on Steam. It has already consumed hours of his life, and we may not see him for a while. Jen recommends the anime Oshi No Ko and wonders about what makes a story ending bad vs just not what you wanted it to be.