Edward Vallecillo

The Spanish Legion is already standing guard over the Christ of the Good Death. It will go out in procession on Maundy Thursday, in Málaga.

After the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded in January 1986, killing its seven crew members, President Reagan appointed a commission to investigate. Richard Feynman, already battling cancer and reluctant to join, accepted because a former student asked. He quickly grew frustrated with the slow, formal hearings and NASA’s optimistic safety claims (1 in 100,000 chance of failure). Instead, he talked directly to engineers, who revealed far higher risks. The night before a key televised hearing, Feynman bought a C-clamp from a hardware store. During the session, he took a sample of the rubber O-ring material from the solid rocket boosters, clamped it, and dropped it into a glass of ice water (mimicking the cold launch temperature that day). After a moment, he removed it and showed how the rubber had lost its elasticity, it no longer sprang back. He explained simply: at low temperatures, the O-rings couldn’t seal properly, allowing hot gas to leak and cause the disaster. His live demonstration cut through layers of management denial and became one of the most iconic moments in engineering accountability. In his personal appendix to the report, he famously wrote: “For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.”

NEW: Democrats have officially claimed a second upset in Florida's recent special elections. The AP just declared Brian Nathan, an electrical workers union leader, to be the winner of a tight state senate contest in reliably Republican West Tampa. nytimes.com/2026/03/30/us/…

🇪🇺 Laura Kövesi, the first person to hold the job of European prosecutor, said her biggest test was never whether Europe could create an independent prosecutor. It was whether Europe was prepared to let one do the work. She revealed in an interview that a high-ranking official from the European Commission once asked her to tone down her public statements about the scale of corruption and fraud cases uncovered by the EPPO. She firmly refused, replying: “How dare you? We are independent.” Kövesi made it clear that fighting EU fraud requires genuine political will, not just words. So far, her office has opened over 3,600 cases and frozen more than €1 billion in EU funds.

Today the @DailyMail published the findings of my two-year investigation "The Brass Pass" into the hidden epidemic of domestic abuse suffered by military wives and girlfriends. A dossier of 52 cases reveals torture by Army men against their wives.

🚨 Breaking news Diplomatic incident underway Italian 🇮🇹 Foreign Minister Tajani is furious because Israel prevented the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pizzaballa, from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Palm Sunday Freedom of worship is involved

Strong words from Pope Leo on Palm Sunday in which he repeated that Jesus is the “King of Peace” 7 times in his homily. “Christ, King of Peace, cries out again from his cross: God is love! Have mercy! Lay down your weapons! Remember that you are brothers and sisters,” the pope said.

JUST IN: 🇻🇦🇮🇱 The Vatican summons the Israeli ambassador to it, "Yonatan Shuai", after the Israeli police prevented the Patriarch from entering the Church of the Resurrection. Victorious - Channel 15

WATCH: “MEMPHIS PD showed what we were protesting— violently harming people peacefully protesting.” Rep. @Justinjpearson and activists say @MEM_PoliceDept escalated for no reason with tear gas at the end of the #NoKings protest today. (and the headlines aren’t telling the story)

Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem, the highest-ranking Christian leader in the Holy Land, and the heir of the See of St. James the brother of Jesus, critisizes the disgusting misuse of Christian Scriptures to justify geopolitical support of the nation state of Israel.

"Jesus is silent, not because he has nothing to speak, but because he will not follow the logic of verbal violence. His silence is a refusal to participate in the game of power that crushes. It is a silence that refrains from fueling the cycle of evil, nor does it seek to hurt anyone" - Quote from the Palm Sunday Meditation of H.B. Card. Pizzaballa

BREAKING: The United States just took over $126 million from Switzerland’s fighter jet account to cover missile shortfalls in the Iran war. Switzerland did not approve this. Switzerland did not consent. Switzerland had already frozen its Patriot payments after learning deliveries would be delayed four to five years. The US circumvented the freeze. SRF, Switzerland’s national broadcaster, reported on March 26 that Washington redirected Swiss funds originally allocated for 36 F-35 fighter jets to cover Patriot air defence shortfalls using the Foreign Military Sales pooled trust fund, a structure that allows the Pentagon to reallocate payments across a buyer’s contracts without that buyer’s permission. Swiss armaments chief Urs Loher confirmed the diverted amount is a “low three-digit million” Swiss francs and called the situation “very unsatisfactory.” The money Switzerland paid for jets is now subsidising a war Switzerland refused to participate in. Bern halted new arms exports to the US on March 20 citing the Iran conflict. Switzerland rejected two US military flyover requests linked to Iran operations. Two hundred years of armed neutrality, and Washington reached into the account anyway. Here is why. The United States fired 943 Patriot interceptors defending Gulf states in the first four days of Operation Epic Fury per a US Congressional study cited by the Jerusalem Post last week. Lockheed Martin and Boeing produce 620 Patriot interceptors per year combined. In four days, America burned through eighteen months of global Patriot production. The war has consumed roughly one-third of the entire THAAD missile stockpile. Annual THAAD production does not exceed 100 units. The cost asymmetry is what makes the depletion irreversible at current production rates. Each PAC-3 interceptor costs $3.9 million. Each Iranian Shahed drone costs between $20,000 and $50,000. The cost exchange ratio is 114 to 1 in Iran’s favour per Military Times. Iran manufactures an estimated 10,000 Shaheds per month per Reuters. America produces 620 interceptors per year. Iran builds more drones in a single week than the United States builds interceptors in an entire year. Every interceptor fired in the Gulf is one that cannot be delivered to Switzerland, Ukraine, Taiwan, Japan, or Poland. The State Department warned allies on March 27 that Patriot deliveries to Ukraine would face disruptions as the Pentagon prioritises Iran per Quiver Quantitative. Senator Chris Murphy said on record: “We’ve been told again and again one reason we can’t provide interceptors for the Patriot system for Ukraine is that they’re in short supply.” Lockheed signed a framework to quadruple production to 2,000 units per year. That capacity will not arrive for six to seven years. The Pentagon has asked Congress to shift $1.5 billion from other programmes to accelerate procurement per Bloomberg. None of this helps now. The interceptors are depleting now. The allied accounts are being raided now. Switzerland is considering reducing its F-35 order from 36 to 30 jets and accelerating evaluation of European alternatives per Bluewin and Global Defense Corp. Swiss parliamentarians have called the redirection “an unacceptable violation of procurement sovereignty.” The Swiss parliament is preparing formal hearings. Switzerland is the canary. A neutral country with two centuries of armed neutrality just had its fighter jet money taken without consent to feed a four-week-old war that burns 18 months of interceptor production every 96 hours. Every US ally with a pending defence contract should be asking one question: whose account is next? Full analysis: open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

I was deeply grateful for Pope Leo’s gracious letter on my Installation as Archbishop of Canterbury. I have responded assuring the Holy Father of my prayers. I look forward to meeting the Pope soon, and strengthening the bonds of friendship and commitment to Christian unity. archbishopofcanterbury.org/news/pope-and-…

They're a network of spiral holes and underground aqueducts built by the Nazca culture that tapped into the water table and used wind to circulate air and push water through underground channels, some still functioning today after roughly 1500 years. That's the real story and it's extraordinary on its own terms.

Everyone obsesses over whether aliens built the Nazca Lines, completely ignoring the true engineering miracle hiding right beneath them: a 1,500-year-old network of spiraling aerodynamic wind pumps that turned the world's driest desert into a permanent oasis. Modern concrete crumbles after a few decades, yet 32 of these ancient, stone-lined subterranean aqueducts are still successfully irrigating Peruvian farms today. If a pre-industrial society could engineer a self-sustaining desert water grid using nothing but rock, wood, and wind, what exactly is modern infrastructure's excuse?

Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines are fucked. Here’s why: Depending on which source on X you look at (or believe), each of these countries have about three weeks worth of fuel reserves at “normal consumption” rates, and maybe six weeks (or less) with rationing. It’s not enough… they’ll exhaust their reserves before resupply arrives: Each of these countries rely on Asian refineries (India, Singapore, China, South Korea, Japan) for refined fuel. Each of these countries rely on imports from the Middle East, which as we all know, aren’t moving. Each are also already dipping into their strategic petroleum and fuel reserves, and banning/restricting exports. Here’s the timing problem: If a loaded oil tanker cleared the straight of Hormuz today, it would take: - about ten days to three weeks to reach a refinery - take about 5 days to refine, blend, and load a full fuel tanker - take two to three weeks to arrive in port - this doesn’t take into account time to distribute to retailers Best case, it will take a month to get fuel to Australia, and 5/6 weeks for New Zealand. That math doesn’t math. And this doesn’t take into consideration the likelihood that each of these refining nations are going to prioritize refilling their petroleum/fuel reserves before they start exporting again. Every day this goes on, is one less day of reserves is Australia/NA/Philippines and one more day to restock the refining countries. It’s a 1 = 2/3 dilemma for AUS/NZ. If the conflict lasts another two weeks AUS/NZ may completely exhaust their fuel supplies, even with rationing, before they receive resupply. The two largest states in AUS are already reporting around 400 filling stations have completely run out of fuel. Buckle up. Exciting times are ahead…

Sandy, we hope you're doing well. The d6 dice pool system was a major evolution in TTRPG design; you should justifiably proud of being part of the Chaosium team who created it for the Ghostbusters RPG. Here's the credits for that game. nb Greg & Lynn are sadly no longer with us.

It wasn’t just that the ancient city was undiscovered: Archaeologists didn’t think the seminomadic people of the region even *lived in* cities in the Bronze Age. But now they’ve found Semiyarka, on the Kazakh steppe, and dated its occupation to 1600 B.C. archaeology.org/issues/march-a…

Assyrian Christian girls in traditional attire from the Nineveh Plains, Assyria. ❤️ Their dresses are soft and beautifully embroidered, carrying patterns passed down through generations. Each detail reflects tradition, family, and a deep connection to their homeland. This was home. And then everything changed. On the night of August 6, 2014, ISIS came. 😠 Over 200,000 Assyrian Christians were forced to leave their beloved Nineveh Plains, Assyria, in just hours. 💔 Homes left behind. Churches destroyed. Lives shattered. Many fled to the USA, Australia, and Europe, others to neighboring countries—hoping it would only be temporary. Even history was attacked. Ancient Assyrian artifacts in Mosul and in Kalhu carved long before Christ, were destroyed. The great lamassu (Assyrian winged bull) were broken into pieces. But still… something remains. In these girls, in their identity, in their story— a people that could not be erased. 💔💔 😔😢 🌸 The love of a homeland 🕯️ The memory of what was 🫶 The strength to continue #Assyrian #NinevehPlains #AssyrianGenocide #Mesopotamia #AssyrianHistory #Nineveh #Assyrian #AssyrianAttire #Christian

ONCE UPON A TIME... Fifty-two years ago, two amateur historians, one temporarily working as a shoe repairman, the other as a security guard, released a little game in the form of three forty page booklets. With an odd but intriguing name suggested by the shoe repairman’s daughter, these “Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns” sold one thousand copies in their first year, mostly to military hobbyists and collectors of miniature lead soldiers