Notes from the edge of civilization: February 22, 2026
Hawking war and cheap hats; weedkiller is now defense readiness; and, everyone hates Elon.
Hawks are a miracle of nature, seeing the world with eight times the visual acuity of humans. They observe ultraviolet light and navigate via invisible columns of rising warm air. They are a masterclass in precision, patience, and the elimination of wasted motion.
So it’s rather tragic that they’ve come to be associated with policymakers who see a so-called “threat” and want to strike first, hoping that dominance and deterrence will work in their favor.
Unlike real hawks, whose instincts were refined over eons inside an ecosystem that punishes miscalculation, human “war hawks” operate inside a political ecosystem that often rewards sound bites over strategy, posture over prudence, and short-term optics over long-term consequences. In nature, if a hawk misjudges its dive, it goes hungry. In Washington, if a senator misjudges an invasion, the costs are amortized across generations, with no real personal consequence or accountability.
This week, Republican Senator “Uncle” Lindsey Graham publicly argued that US military planning for potential strikes on Tehran is advancing. He said a decision on whether to attack Iran could come within weeks rather than months. He framed the prospect not as a reluctant necessity but as something close to destiny. And in a moment that felt almost satirical, he held up — and put on — a “Make Iran Great Again” hat.
A predator in nature does not brand its prey. It does not turn escalation into merchandise. A campaign-style slogan repurposed as foreign policy shorthand captures the sheer lunacy of our times. Real hawks conserve energy, strike only when survival demands it, and understand the terrain before they commit. Washington’s hawks appear to mistake rhetoric for reconnaissance.
Having been the subject of past British and American interference in its domestic affairs, we can’t help but wonder how the Iranians will welcome back a monarchical dynasty that was deposed some 50 years ago. It all seems surreal, doesn’t it?
Speaking of surreal… If there’s one thing that perfectly captures the Bizarro World logic of the current administration, it’s elevating a controversial weedkiller — one that’s kicked Bayer into deep litigation and arguably polluted every Midwestern watershed — to the level of “national defense.” This week, the White House formally declared that securing a steady supply of glyphosate — yes, that glyphosate — is a matter of national security.
An executive order on February 18 read, in part:
Future reduction or the cessation of domestic production of elemental phosphorus and glyphosate-based herbicides would gravely threaten American national security…
For an administration seriously talking about kinetic action in the Middle East, you might expect an executive order for the production of tanks, semiconductors, or strategic minerals. Nope. IATWKS — it’s about the weedkiller, stupid.
Glyphosate — best known through Monsanto’s Roundup and now owned by Bayer — has been the subject of tens of thousands of lawsuits. In 2015, the cancer research arm of the World Health Organization classified it as “probably carcinogenic to humans.” Bayer has paid out billions in settlements without admitting fault, and still insists the product is safe when used as directed.
At a time like this, we desperately need a hero.
No can do.
MAHA champion Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., supported the move, saying: “Donald Trump’s Executive Order puts America first where it matters most — our defense readiness and our food supply. We must safeguard America’s national security first, because all of our priorities depend on it.”
MAHA? More like HA HA!! The joke is on us. Turns out, the revised MAHA acronym now stands for: Make America Herbicide-friendly Again!
What does it say about a society when you can’t seat a jury because half the room wants to see the defendant frog-marched to prison before opening statements even begin? When the jury is in San Francisco and the defendant is Elon Musk, it says a lot.
Musk is facing a class action suit in the US District Court for the Northern District of California over his chaotic 2022 courtship of Twitter — the ‘will-he-won’t-he’ acquisition saga that ended with him buying the company and renaming it X. Investors allege his public indecision manipulated the share price.
Jury selection began this week and nearly half the jury pool raised their hands to say they can’t be impartial because they just hate the man. Out of 93 prospective jurors, 40 were dismissed after admitting they couldn’t set aside their biases. One volunteered that if this were criminal court, he’d feel a “moral obligation” to convict and see Musk imprisoned. Another objected to the very “existence of billionaires.” A third said she hated the way Musk laid off Twitter’s moderators.
But this isn’t just about Musk. It’s about the collapse of the “neutral public” and the idea that citizens can bracket their feelings and participate in civic ritual as dispassionate arbiters. In theory, juries are to be drawn from a community of one’s peers. In practice, the community now arrives pre-polarized, marinated in algorithms, and standing on their moral high horses.
San Francisco once worshipped tech founders. Now, it convicts them before the trial even begins.
Maybe people have already made up their minds because they are thinking people who do their research. I always wondered how realistic it is to expect a bunch of people to be unbiased in evaluating evidence during a trial, when they have been living in an information vacuum. Makes one wonder if they have any brain cells.
For what it's worth, IMO, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) is untrustworthy, because it is an arm of an untrustworthy global entity (WHO), which wanted vaccine passports and total control of otherwise sovereign pandemic responses. Decades ago, IARC declared that saccharine was a probable/possible human carcinogen. The non-nutritive sweeteners that replaced it were worse (e.g., aspartame). Later, IARC, wrote "Oops, my bad! Never mind." (words to that effect) and removed saccharine from that "naughty list." As a longtime diet soda drinker who had to give them up after saccharine was no longer allowed, I've thought of IARC as an untrustworthy organization ever since.