HEATHER

 

April 7, 2026

Heather Cox Richardson

Apr 08, 2026

At 5:06 this morning, President Donald J. Trump posted on social media: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS? We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!”

Trump has painted himself into a corner in his impulsive war against Iran. His job approval is dismal and Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20% of the world’s oil travels, is sending the cost of oil soaring, squeezing the global economy. Always in his life he has had someone to fix his mistakes—his father, Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, the “adults in the room” in his first administration who distracted him from catastrophic errors, and so on—but no one was willing to bail him out of the global disaster of his war on Iran.

So he threatened that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” an open threat to push his current embrace of war crimes all the way to genocide. No one knew if he was gearing up for a ground invasion of Iran in a war that has never received congressional authorization, or a massive bombing campaign, or even the use of nuclear weapons.

Or if he was making yet another empty threat.

Within the announcement were signs that perhaps it was bluster designed to let him claim victory and walk away. Despite his claim, there has been no “regime change” in Iran: the regime is very much still in place, although it has changed leadership in the wake of the bombing deaths of previous leaders. The new leaders appear to be more radical than their predecessors.

There was also the unmistakable echo of television advertising in his announcement. Either “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” or “maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS? We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World.”

At 6:32 this evening, we learned that the horrifying announcement of the morning was, indeed, cover for Trump to declare victory and get out of the crisis he has caused in the Middle East.

Trump posted: “Based on conversations with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir, of Pakistan, and wherein they requested that I hold off the destructive force being sent tonight to Iran, and subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz, I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks. This will be a double sided CEASEFIRE! The reason for doing so is that we have already met and exceeded all Military objectives, and are very far along with a definitive Agreement concerning Longterm PEACE with Iran, and PEACE in the Middle East.

“We received a 10 point proposal from Iran,” Trump continued, “and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate. Almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the United States and Iran, but a two week period will allow the Agreement to be finalized and consummated. On behalf of the United States of America, as President, and also representing the Countries of the Middle East, it is an Honor to have this Longterm problem close to resolution. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP”

Michael Rios of CNN reported that Iran’s media is claiming it has achieved a great victory, forcing the U.S. to agree in principle to its 10-point plan, which includes the end of sanctions against Iran, the removal of all U.S. combat forces from bases in the region, and Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz. If these terms are correct, they leave the United States significantly worse off than it was before the war and leave Iran significantly stronger.

Trump called Rios’s story a fraud, and immediately sought to reassert his strength. He posted, “Authorities are looking to determine whether or not a crime was committed on the issuance of the Fake CNN World Statement,” and said that “CNN is being ordered to immediately withdraw this Statement with full apologies for their, as usual, terrible ‘reporting.’”

Political commentator Ben Rhodes summed up the situation: “In the best case scenario, Trump struck a deal to reopen a Strait that was open before the pointless war he started, with [Iran] demonstrating its control over the Strait and potentially extracting fees plus sanctions relief. Thousands of innocents—including hundreds of children—dead in Lebanon and Iran for no reason. U.S. troops killed and wounded. U.S. embassies and bases in the Middle East badly damaged. U.S. standing in the world obliterated. U.S. munitions badly depleted. Hundreds of billions spent. Prices up everywhere. More global economic fallout to come. Putin strengthened and enriched. Just a catastrophic situation even in the best of circumstances. A profoundly shameful episode in American history no matter what happens next.”

And then, a minute after midnight, Trump posted:

“A big day for World Peace! Iran wants it to happen, they’ve had enough! Likewise, so has everyone else! The United States of America will be helping with the traffic buildup in the Strait of Hormuz. There will be lots of positive action! Big money will be made. Iran can start the reconstruction process. We’ll be loading up with supplies of all kinds, and just ‘hangin’ around’ in order to make sure that everything goes well. I feel confident that it will. Just like we are experiencing in the U.S., this could be the Golden Age of the Middle East!!! President DONALD J. TRUMP”

Journalist Aaron Rupar of Public Notice wrote: “Trump went from making insane genocidal threats this morning to hyping the ‘golden age’ of Iran hours later, and he received no concessions in between. He’s an absolute basket case who needs to be removed from power before he follows through on one of his mass murder fantasies.”

The American people spent the whole day wondering if their mad king would destroy the world, only to find out he was terrorizing them in order to protect his ego after starting a disastrous war. Throughout the day, Democratic members of Congress have called for Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) to recall the Senate and for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to recall the House of Representatives from break to end the war in Iran and start the process of removing Trump from office.

Trump’s threat that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again” was not just a reference to Iran. If he had destroyed Iran in our names, unhampered by the Republican Congress members who have vowed to defend the U.S. Constitution, it would also have been an epitaph for the United States of America.

KRUGMAN

 

Ignorance and Ignominy

Our Hormuz humiliation was not an accident

Paul Krugman Apr 8

So the world’s greatest military power went to war with a poor, medievalist theocracy. It was an incredibly uneven match. Here’s are the GDPs of Iran and the United States in 2024:

Yet Iran won. The Iranian regime has emerged far stronger than it was before, controlling the Strait of Hormuz and having demonstrated its ability to inflict damage on both its neighbors and the world economy. The U.S. has emerged far weaker, having demonstrated the limitations of its military technology, its strategic ineptitude and, when push comes to shove, its cowardice.

We’ve also destroyed our moral credibility: Trump may have TACOed at the last minute, but he threatened to commit gigantic war crimes — and for all practical purposes our political and civil institutions gave him permission to do so.

How did this happen? Naturally, the Iranian Minister of War credited divine intervention, declaring that “God deserves all the glory.” His nation, he said, fought with the “protection of divine providence. A massive effort with miraculous protection.”

Well, theocrats gonna theocrat.

But I lied. That wasn’t a quote from an Iranian official. That’s what Pete Hegseth, our self-proclaimed Secretary of War, said while claiming that one of the worst strategic defeats in American history was a great victory.

There will be many analyses by military and strategic experts of the Iran debacle. But let’s not lose sight of the larger picture: We were led to disaster by the boastful ignorance of men like Trump and Hegseth — boastful ignorance made even worse by claims that God supports whatever they want to do.

With men like that running America, major disasters were just a matter of time. I’d like to think that they have been chastened by this debacle, that they have learned something. But I don’t believe that for a minute.

God help us.

No One Is Intimidated by Trump Anymore

 

No One Is Intimidated by Trump Anymore

From Iran to the Supreme Court, the president’s attempts to bully both his adversaries and allies are proving increasingly fruitless.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

A quiet fell upon the Supreme Court chamber on Wednesday as Donald Trump arrived and sat in the public gallery with his soon-to-be-dismissed attorney general, Pam Bondi, and White House counsel David Warrington. He was purportedly there, in a presidential first, to witness oral arguments for Trump v. Barbara, a case concerning Trump’s executive order to limit birthright citizenship. In reality, his appearance was the culmination of a weeks-long intimidation effort targeting the justices, during which he lambasted his own appointees, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, as “an embarrassment to their families” and insisted that only “Dumb Judges” would disagree with his position. Now he’d come to the court to stare down any robed figure who might dare oppose him.

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Yet none of the Supreme Court justices appeared to even notice, much less care, as they entered the room and sat, never so much as acknowledging Trump’s presence. If the president intimidated anyone, it may have been his own solicitor general, D. John Sauer, whose raspy voice wavered as he began to make specious arguments about the intentions of those who had crafted the Fourteenth Amendment. Evidently, Chief Justice John Roberts was far from convinced. When Sauer contended, “We’re in a new world now … where eight billion people are one plane ride away from having a child who’s a U.S. citizen,” Roberts rejoined, “Well, it’s a new world. It’s the same Constitution.” Laughter echoed throughout the chamber.

And there sat Trump. His glare had evidently failed to do the trick. As the justices questioned the ACLU’s Cecilia Wang, the attorney representing the opposition to Trump’s gambit to gut birthright citizenship, he walked out. It was the latest example of what has become a clear trend in his second term as president: No one of consequence is intimidated by him.

Attempts at intimidation—sometimes successful, often failed—have always been part of Trump’s modus operandi, dating back to early in his real estate career. The tale of 100 Central Park South is a telling example. After buying the rent-stabilized building in 1981, Trump menaced the tenants to get them out so that he might raze and replace it. His tactics included threatening them with eviction, ignoring a rat infestation, and shutting off the heat and hot water. Though at one point Trump paid out over half a million dollars to the tenants and agreed to government monitoring, the fight dragged on for decades.

Much of Trump’s intimidation strategy as a businessman—threatening lawsuits and using the media to level attacks—was influenced by his friendship with Roy Cohn, the notoriously pugilistic attorney and Communist-hunter. And Trump often doubles down on this strategy when he’s on the losing end of a fight. After his failed attempt to buy an NFL team in 1981, he bought the New Jersey Generals of the upstart rival USFL in 1983. He tried to use the team and the media coverage he’d garnered as leverage to buy an NFL team in 1984—and failed again. (He would later admit that he had no interest in owning a team filled with “low class, all third-rate players.”) Trump also sued the NFL, claiming it was an illegal monopoly. Here, he won: A jury ultimately awarded him the massive sum of one U.S. dollar. The USFL, bleeding money and exhausted from Trump’s constant feuds, folded in 1986.

But then Trump realized that he could control his public image even more by becoming part of the media. In 2004, he became the host of The Apprentice, a reality-TV competition show that sold the fantasy that Trump was a successful businessman rather than simply the spoiled scion of a real estate empire established by his much savvier father. Falsely claiming to be “the largest real estate developer in New York,” Trump relished the opportunity to intimidate contestants who had not been born with a silver spoon and the filial resources to survive multiple failures. In season 3, he asked contestant Michael Tarshi if he was stupid, called him “lazy,” and said that the difference between them was that Trump works hard. In a 2013 episode of Celebrity Apprentice, Trump remarked to the former Playmate Brande Roderick that “it must be a pretty picture, you dropping to your knees.”

Over the course of 15 seasons, plus another eight for its celebrity spin-off, The Apprentice projected exactly the image of Trump that he desired—an image that endures in the minds of many millions of Americans to this day. Sitting in his leather wingback chair at the head of a shiny wood table, spotlighted in the show’s otherwise dimly lit “boardroom,” he cut a physically and mentally imposing figure. Before The Apprentice, Trump had been a loud and obnoxious playboy, no doubt; arrogant, yes, but not quite imperious. The show made him into a kingly figure: all-powerful and all-knowing. (“Nobody outthinks me,” he said in one episode. “Nobody.”)

Hollow as it was, this omniscient-bully act played well on TV—which proved just as true in politics as in entertainment. In his 2016 run for president, Trump dispatched the Republican field by publicly belittling his opponents at every turn, then tried to do the same to Hillary Clinton. In their second debate, following the emergence of the infamous Access Hollywood tape, Trump brought along several of Bill Clinton’s accusers and sat them in the audience to intimidate his Democratic opponent. But that’s largely forgotten today because of what happened later that evening: He stalked Clinton around the stage as she spoke, his chin raised high, attempting to loom over her.

This imperial glare became his signature as president, or one of them. An even odder mannerism is his aggressive handshake, which, like a country club test of masculinity, often involves tugging the person’s hand toward him and refusing to let go. It has led to some rather awkward situations. There was the famed “Handshake Showdown” with the newly elected Emmanuel Macron, during which Trump sought, rather literally, to exert pressure on the French leader; more such handshakes would occur between the men over the years. Other world leaders have been subjected to this puerile charade, as well. There was the extra-long lock with the late Shinzo Abe of Japan, several deeply analyzed grips with former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and more recently his tug-of-war shake with the president of Paraguay, Santiago Peña.

These efforts seem silly, but Trump’s intimidation shtick can sometimes work, which is of course why he does it. During his first term, he continually pressed NATO allies to increase their defense funding. Recently they agreed to raise their military spending to 5 percent of their national income—a significant increase. His tariff threats may have been ridiculous and ultimately prove damaging, but they did lead to a series of deals as nations tried to avoid his wrath. While many educational institutions have fought back against his attempts to limit free speech on college campuses, some weak-willed and shortsighted universities, including Columbia, capitulated to him. Some of the country’s biggest law firms proved similarly weak-kneed.

More often than not, though, Trump’s intimidation act falls flat. This is largely because, despite the fact that so many alpha males see him as the top alpha—an image he continually promotes through nonsensical memes refashioning his flabby, overweight body as some sort of iron-fisted muscleman—in the end he’s all bark, no bite. Or, as some put it, Trump Always Chickens Out.

We see his true colors when it counts. During his infamous meeting with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki in 2018, Trump not only failed to confront the Russian dictator about his nation’s interference in our elections, but he practically kowtowed to him, stating that he trusted Putin more than our own intelligence agencies. In his second term, Trump’s been louder and more demanding than ever, with rarely a day going by without him spewing vitriol and threatening someone or some nation. But it’s hardly made a dent. He’s repeatedly threatened Jerome Powell for not lowering interest rates, even ordering his Justice Department to open a bogus investigation to put the screws on the Federal Reserve chair. But the Fed has refused to do his bidding. Trump tried to bully Denmark into ceding Greenland, yet that just made that nation more determined than ever to protect the territory. He’s also tried to bully Canada, repeatedly calling Trudeau a “governor” and threatening the current prime minister, Mark Carney, with closing the Gordie Howe International Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario. And he’s gotten bupkis.

No one’s buying Trump’s routine any longer, but this is not to say that he isn’t still dangerous. He is, very much so—not because he’s an iron-willed titan but because he’s a foolhardy buffoon. He’s never been tough enough to admit defeat, like a real man would, so he’ll go to great lengths to deny his losses and cover up for his failures.

We’ve seen this in his war with Iran. As the U.S. fails to meet Trump’s stated objectives there, he’ll continue moving the goalposts. Though he initially promised the Iranian people freedom, he’s abandoned that promise of late, suggesting that somehow that goal was already achieved, even though the Iranians remain under the thumb of a vicious theocracy. So, no regime change after all. What about “ensuring” Iran will never get a nuclear weapon? Iran still has its stockpile of enriched uranium. Meanwhile, the Strait of Hormuz, where maritime traffic flowed freely until the U.S. and Israel bombing campaign began on February 28, remains closed, and the global economic repercussions continue to worsen—indeed, the damage may be permanent.

Trump has given Iran a deadline of Tuesday night to reopen the strait. Otherwise, he wrote on Truth Social on Sunday, “you’ll be living in Hell—JUST WATCH!” At the White House on Monday he added, “The entire country could be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night.” But Iran’s leaders aren’t scared of Trump, and why should they be? He’s been giving such ultimatums and deadlines for weeks, to no avail. Iran has learned what’s now finally dawning on Americans, including even some Republicans in Congress: Trump’s will never matches his bluster, and his attempts at intimidation are merely the hallmarks of a weak, insecure, and overcompensating coward.

 

Break Now, Fix Later What a ballroom can tell us about the future Ed Elson Apr 7 Here’s a question for you: What was last week’s most important headline? Was it Trump’s address to the nation (where he told us nothing)? Was it the jobs report (which will likely be revised down)? Was it the firing of Pam Bondi (who’ll likely be replaced by someone worse)? No. Last week’s most important headline was something else. Per The Wall Street Journal: JUDGE HALTS CONSTRUCTION OF TRUMP’S WHITE HOUSE BALLROOM. We’ll get to why this matters in a moment. But first, a quick refresher on this ballroom. Last summer, President Trump announced plans to build a 90,000 square-foot ballroom for a proposed budget of $200 million. (That budget has since doubled.) In order to do this he needed to demolish the East Wing, a historic portion of the White House complex that was built more than a hundred years ago. This was a controversial decision that required permission from Congress, however Trump didn’t seek any permissions and tore down the East Wing anyway, giving rise to one of the most iconic and disturbing images in recent memory. That was the East Wing seven months ago. Fast-forward to today, the structure remains obliterated, a giant crater in the middle of our nation’s most historic site. It’s an unpleasant sight, but one we assumed was temporary … until last week. A federal judge ruled the ballroom project unconstitutional, which means the ballroom may never get built — but more importantly, the East Wing will remain in ruins for the foreseeable future. This matters for historic, ceremonial, and architectural reasons obviously, but also for a more profound reason. The ballroom has become a metaphor for the President’s entire approach to policymaking. It is the mirror image of every major executive decision that has reverberated across economies, markets, and borders. It’s U.S. policy, if U.S. policy were a building. I have a name for this strategy. I call it BNFL: “Break Now, Fix Later.” It describes the President’s tendency to break things (often old and historic), promise to build something “bigger” and “better” in their place, until he realizes he doesn’t actually have the wherewithal (or the constitutional authority) to get it done — at which point he becomes bored and moves onto the next shiny object. The end result is that “the builder” never actually builds anything, but mostly just destroys things. Break Now, Fix Later. As we shall see, BNFL describes almost every important decision the President has ever made — and it may help us predict those he’ll make in the future as well. Iran Let’s start with the crisis du jour: Iran. It’s still not entirely clear why we invaded Iran. Supposedly it’s because Iran’s nuclear capabilities had grown significantly, even though he literally told us last summer that they were obliterated. Either way, the general idea was that Iran posed an “imminent threat” due to its belligerent regime led by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. The solution, then, was obvious: Install a new regime. Indeed, Trump said regime change would be the “best thing that could happen.” As with the ballroom, the regime change operation kicked off by tearing things down. The U.S. launched more than 12,000 airstrikes on Iran, hitting 11,000 targets and more than 150 vessels. It also (according to preliminary investigations) destroyed a girls’ elementary school, killing over a hundred children in the process. Trump quickly swept those details aside and hailed the successful assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei that brought the murderous dictator’s regime to an end. A few days later, we learned who’d be running the new regime: the dictator’s son. Yes, the Iranian succession plan went exactly according to script — only instead of the 86-year-old Ayatollah dying of natural causes (which was already imminent), he was assassinated by the nation’s sworn enemy. So not only did we not install a more friendly regime, we made the existing regime even angrier and more radical. Soon after Khamenei Jr. was installed into power, Trump arrived at the “fix later” part of the operation. The “goal has been attained” he said. “We’ll be leaving very soon … within two weeks.” Few believe his new timeline after he blew the first one. But what’s more important is the sentiment: The operation was more tiring and complex than he bargained for — he’s over the whole Iran thing. A trail of destruction is left in his wake. Not just in terms of lives (nearly 4,000 and counting) but the economy too. U.S. gas prices have risen more than 30%. In Europe, they’re up more than 50%. Fertilizer prices, an essential input cost for food, have risen nearly 50%. Construction material prices are ballooning, which will lead to even higher housing costs. Investors went from expecting multiple rate cuts this year to expecting a rate hike, and recession odds have risen almost 10%. As I wrote a couple weeks ago, this war is making all of us poorer. In sum: lots got broken and nothing got fixed. Tariffs The same pattern played out last year in what has become Trump’s most defining policy: tariffs. On Liberation Day, Trump invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to authorize the largest tariff hike on foreign imports in nearly a century in an attempt to rein in the trade deficit. Many of our closest allies were blindsided with tariff rates as high as 50%. He even tariffed the Heard and McDonald Islands, a territory inhabited by only seals and penguins. Chaos immediately ensued. The S&P 500 sold off nearly 10% – its largest weekly drop since the pandemic. $5 trillion in market value was erased. As Trump started to ease and pause tariffs, markets recovered — but supply chains didn’t. Nearly a third of all sea shipments were cancelled immediately. As import costs rose, companies began to pass those costs onto their customers. Within a few months inflation was ripping upward again, as nearly 80% of the tariff burden was funneling down to the consumer. The financial loss for the average American household was estimated to be nearly $2,000. Things got even stupider when the Supreme Court determined in February that the tariffs were illegal. This wasn’t a difficult decision: Trump had falsely claimed emergency powers and levied a tax on Americans without congressional approval. As our founding father James Madison put it, “Congress alone has access to the pockets of the people.” The U.S. government must now return the $160 billion it had collected over the course of the tariff saga. (In other words, this was all for nothing.) Ironically, despite bearing the majority of the costs, consumers won’t see a penny back as they did not directly pay the tariffs themselves. So not only did we not get anything done, we also set back American households even further. #BNFL. DOGE A major component of the Trump 2.0 agenda was to reduce wasteful government spending. The goal was, in Trump’s words, “to do what has not been done in 24 years: balance the budget.” So he created the “Department of Government Efficiency” and employed Elon Musk to get it done. Within days it was clear how Elon and Trump had a shared passion for blowing things up. They immediately ripped up thousands of contracts, fired more than 200,000 government workers, and fed an entire agency known as USAID “into the wood chipper.” It’s estimated the elimination of USAID (which specialized in foreign assistance) will lead to nearly 10 million preventable deaths over the next four years. A high price, but a price they were willing to pay. That was until DOGE got shut down. After a highly predictable falling-out between the President and Mr. Musk, the agency was quietly dissolved and its employees let go. The department said it saved $215 billion. Independent analyses have concluded the real number was a fraction of that, but for simplicity’s sake we’ll go with it. On their own terms those results were underwhelming: Elon’s original projection was $2 trillion. It wouldn’t be a true BNFL, however, if Trump didn’t actively make matters worse — and in the case of government efficiency, that’s exactly what he did. Right as Elon was cancelling spending plans, Trump was building a new one: the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which would prove to be one of the largest government expenditures in American history. The bill both reduced revenues and increased spending, loading up our government with an additional $850 billion in expected interest payments, and adding an estimated $4.2 trillion to our national debt over the next decade. There is literally no bill less efficient than this, which begs the obvious question: What was DOGE even for? Take Your Pick So far we’ve reviewed three major policy decisions, each of which were quintessentially BNFL, but let’s be clear, there have been plenty more. For example: Promising (threatening) to “take” Greenland, thus ruining our relationships with NATO allies, only to get distracted and ultimately reverse the decision on the global stage. Pressuring the Fed Chair to cut rates (and threatening to fire him), which eventually raised yields as investors priced in the danger of an un-independent Federal Reserve, only to walk back his comments and let Powell play out the rest of his term. Pursuing greater energy independence with “Drill, Baby, Drill” policies, which actually just meant gutting clean energy programs, which backfired when we spiked oil prices with yet another war in the Middle East making us even more in need of renewable energy than we already were. Like the ballroom, each policy starts with a grand vision that could feasibly be framed as a net positive for society but is soon followed by a cynical fit of destruction. Then, once it’s time to actually build the thing, the circumstances suddenly change and it’s no longer possible. The strategy amounts to annihilation. It’s “move fast and break things,” minus the innovation. Two Interpretations There are two ways to interpret the BNFL strategy. One reading is that he’s simply in over his head. After all, it’s easier to break things than to make things. To build anything worthwhile, you have to invest time and effort, you have to achieve a consensus, you have to pay attention to detail, and the President has no interest in any of these things. There’s also a darker interpretation, however, and although I don’t necessarily believe it, I think it would be unwise to rule it out. That reading is the following: Maybe he genuinely only wants to destroy things. Maybe this systematic pattern of destruction is actually by design, and his promises to build things anew are in fact lies designed to conceal his thirst for destruction. That would make him a psychopath, sure, and psychopaths are rare. At the same time, though, the probability that a series of policies would all lead to the same destructive end by accident is … equally rare. Again, I’m not saying I believe this interpretation. I’m just saying it’s possible. Artemis I’ve struggled to write this, as every time I try to type my mind returns to Artemis II. More specifically, it returns to the mission’s recent image of Earth, which will go down as one of the most iconic images ever. The image is a reminder that to build anything worthwhile takes time. It took nearly a decade of planning to send these astronauts into space. The astronauts themselves prepared for this specific mission for more than three years. The operation didn’t just involve them, but the coordinated efforts of tens of thousands of people. Nothing this hard could ever get done without collaboration and planning. In a way, it’s the opposite of BNFL. Build now, fix … forever. A stark contrast to the image with which this post began. See you next week,