The Price is Paid, so let's at least get a benefit:

I predicted that Trump would bomb Iran with a 95% certainty months ago.  Two days ago I told Trump to get on with it because negotiations had obviously failed.  Today Trump bombed Iran.  My prescience is established.

I opposed war with Iran because I like the idea of international law -- a set of requirements before you're allowed to attack another country.  Iran had not met those requirements, and therefore was not a legitimate target.  But now that America has violated international law and there's no getting it back, now that we're in this new anything-goes world of might-makes-right, I want the war to actually achieve something.

Iran has been a thorn in America's side for 50 years.  It's time to remove the Iranian government and put in an American ally, like we did with Venezuela.  Alternatively, we can smash Iran into a million different pieces, the Azeri Republic, Kurdistan, the Arab Iranian Republic, etc.  The point is Iran should no longer be our enemy at the end of this war.  Remove this piece from the chessboard, permanently.  I don't want to think or worry or care about Iran for the rest of my life.  50 years is enough.

Iran oppresses its own people.  The same as the brutal Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, it's constantly mass murdering to put down rebellions.  It keeps its women in garbage bags and beats women to death who attempt to escape their garbage bags.  It promotes terrorist attacks abroad, mainly against Israel but also in Iraq.  It stupidly keeps enriching uranium which has no point except to nettle its neighbors.  Iran has a bonanza of fossil fuel resources, but due to channeling all its GDP into military spending, the world has had to keep it under sanctions the entire time.  It would help out the world economy if we could create a peaceful Iranian government and thus remove all sanctions and trade freely with them for the first time in 50 years.  Iran is one of the only countries with emigration control, like East Germany it does not let its people flee its tyranny.  Iran is a theocracy, and the worst type, a Muslim theocracy.  Islam is an evil religion and all its adherents are evil.  An entire country whose ethos is to devote themselves to an evil religion is not a good thing.

We don't need boots on the ground to achieve regime change, which should now be the explicit goal of this operation.  Anything short of regime change means we'll be facing these exact same issues next year, five years from now, ten years from now, and fifty years from now.  50 years of trying to negotiate an acceptable equilibrium with this government is enough.  No more.  All we need is to support regional revolutionaries in their desire to be free of Iran.  Kurds, Azeris, emigrants who have already fled Iran, whoever.  Everyone.  Anyone.  These people can be our boots on the ground.  Give them air support and destroy the Iranian military so that random militias can handle the rest.

However, if we need a limited duration invasion with boots on the ground, perhaps helicopter landings of special forces or whatever, then that's fine too.  Whatever it takes to get the job done.  The worst possible result of this war is another inconclusive nothing burger, where Iran is ready to blow shit up again in a couple months, and all we did is stir the dirt around a bit.

Whenever you do something, it should be all in.  This is my exact same complaint with Putin.  Because Russia didn't go all in, they're stuck in a Ukraine quagmire.  Now America faces the exact same question.  Now that we've started a war, are we going to go all in or not?  Are we going to do what it takes to actually win a war, or are we just going to chicken out again like we did with Yemen?  Note that Yemen is still as fucked up as ever, because we gave up on that war.  Do we want that result with Iran?  Or do we want a decisive military victory and a clear change in the vector of history?

No more 12-day war bullshit followed by ceasefires and 'negotiations.'  Smash them into the ground.  Utterly obliterate Iran.  The people of Iran don't even like this government, they're our biggest allies in this war.  Destroy the military, the regime, the national apparatus, and the people will greet us as liberators.  Nobody likes Iran.  Their own people hate Iran.  We hate Iran.  All their Arab neighbors hate Iran.  Even China and Russia hung them out to dry.  Put a stake in them.  Wipe Iran from the world map.  Nobody wants them, nobody needs them.

Railgun manga concludes next chapter:

In one month, one of the many milestones of 2026 will be reached.  It's taken 19 years, but Railgun is finally ending.  The Railgun anime's upcoming fourth season should be able to cover the remainder of the manga, creating one of the only long and fully adapted stories in anime.

Unfortunately, Mikoto's adventures continue in Index, which isn't even close to being done, and feels like it will never be done, so we don't actually get any emotional closure from the conclusion of Railgun.  I partially wrote '100 Waifus' so Mikoto and Touma could finally get together, because I saw the original author was never going to get around to it.  After watching and reading the last of Railgun, I suggest people read '100 Waifus' next, so that they can finally get the closure they deserve.

I've embarked upon my 52nd reread of '100 Waifus' with the goal of showing the book is complete and doesn't need any additional editing.  So far so good.  This, along with my defeat of Skullfeather, is one of the two personal milestones I wanted to reach this year.

The end of the Winter Olympics is another milestone.  It was fun while it lasted.  March Madness starts in three weeks so sports are doing a good job extending throughout the year.  The World Cup kicks off in June.

The newest addition to my wonderful fictional character hall of fame is Sophia from Kiyoubinbou.  Just as her older sister says, she's a maji tenshi.  A loli in love sporting red-haired twintails.  She's hardworking, conscientious and considerate but still willing to state what she wants.  It's a shame Japan and the censorship system in general will never allow her love to come to fruition with the protagonist, she's clearly the best girl by far, but I can at least celebrate her while Japan drops the baton.  The series as a whole isn't that deserving of recognition, but it's like Sana from Tenshin Ranman.  She's so good it doesn't matter what series she's in.  Sophia receives the song Prophecy from Shakugan no Shana because of its appropriate tone of longing.

The same can be said of Katniss in Hunger Games.  Hunger Games is at best a decent series, but Katniss is more than decent.  Her heroic decision to volunteer for the gladiatorial combat, with a survival rate of at best 1 in 24, to replace her drafted imouto Primrose, is unforgettable.  Then her acumen in combat and her judgment in who is worth her allegiance and who isn't is also praiseworthy.  She also looks good and has good fashion sense.  I also like that she ends up being a wife and mother.  I can only say good things about her through and through.  She receives the fitting song titled 'Hero of the end'.

Michio and Miria from Isekai Meikyuu also made my wonderful list.  Michio for his boldness and decisiveness to acquire what he wanted, and Miria for her cute catgirl looks and love of fish as well as desperation to get noticed which is a form of courage in and of itself.  Miria gets 'Judgement Day,' fitting since she's a criminal facing judgement.  Michio gets 'Pain in Rain,' fitting due to the extremes he went through to afford his slaves.

In other fantastic news, Tenpure!! is getting an English translation in a couple months.  This visual novel is by Circus, the makers of Da Capo, so is almost guaranteed to be great.  It's been on my visual novel translation wishlist for a long time (the game came out originally in 2018), but now it can properly transfer over to a game I eagerly play.

It's clear that Iran isn't going to give up its nuclear program no matter how many rounds of negotiation there are, so I wish Trump would just start bombing already and prove my prediction correct.  What is he waiting for?  Nothing is going to change no matter how long he waits.  Either do it or admit it was all a bluff and slink away.  Stop wasting everybody's time.

Aside from his stupid, voluntary war with Iran that 80% of Americans are against, I liked the rest of his state of the union speech.  I'm in favor of a booming economy, tame inflation, a gigantic drop in crime, the end of illegal immigration, stopping transgender surgeries on kids, voter ID laws, etc.  I'm pretty sure most Americans are, and in fact the polls show 64% approval of the speech.  These really aren't controversial goals.  Trump represents the mainstream, down-to-Earth American.  I like his boasting over getting to host the Olympics and the World Cup during his term, something I pointed out the moment he was reelected.

Perhaps it's just the bitter cold of winter, but Russia has not been advancing the front lines for months.  It's been pretty pathetic following the daily military updates.  We're now into the fifth year of the war.  If Putin had mobilized like it was World War II, as I had advised, this could have ended four years ago, but he chose to keep it a 'special military operation' with low military spending and low recruitment/mobilization, so here we are.  I'd like to tell him "I told you so," but I suppose Putin doesn't care so long as he eventually achieves victory, however long that will take.  We won't know if his plan was good or bad until the war is over and somebody has won.

The Astrarium finally matters:

Heaven Burns Red didn't have a new event today, but it did unlock the badge exchange feature.  The Astrarium let me earn badges which could then be exchanged for powerful new necklaces.  I purchased both the new necklaces on offer and am up to full equippable strength again.

The new score challenge was no match for my thunder squad, which got a blazing high score of 1.6 million, enough to earn all the rewards on offer in one go.  It's all thanks to Nanami and Byakko joining my thunder squad, I'm so much stronger now than when I relied on Yingxia.

Speaking of Byakko, thanks to my leftover paid quartz, I got her thundercat limit break up to 3.5.  I also got phantom thief Jamie up to level 4, max limit break.  Tuxedo Ruka went up to 2.5.  Waitress Kozue also reached 2.5.  Spica Yuina reached limit break level 2.  Hot springs Niina reached level 1.

I stripped Yingxia's extra reversions away from her and gave them to Ichiko instead.  Ichiko needed the extra skill slot because I had her learn her new master skill, which gives +10 stats to all sextuplets.  With Ichiko's support Squad 31-E may actually be strong now.  Misato also reached the crucial +5 reversions that gives an extra skill slot.  I slotted in her North Wind's Boon skill that improves her ice attack.  Sadly I failed to recruit the new Misato SS Memoria which probably would've given me access to a better skill, but I can't have everything.

Hisame also learned her master skill, which gives +1 Sp to all allies whenever Hisame breaks an opponent, something pajamas Hisame already wants to do, because Dreaming Desire rewards +8 sp to the entire squad whenever she breaks an opponent with it.  I'm giving Hisame all the support I can to keep her viable because she's so cute I want to keep playing her.

I also got 2 more mementos to max -- Spica Yuina's and base Nanami's.  If they're going to be the headliners of the thunder and light squad I need for them to be appropriately equipped.  That's +20 stats to the two of them.  Thundercat Byakko's memento isn't far behind, granting her +16 stats for now.

Spica Yuina's almighty skill, Bluestar Iridescence, is now max level. 

I taught Miya her skillful means orb skill.  Every serious character needs to know this skill, it's so useful.

Olympic women's individual figure skating resulted in an American winning gold, followed by two Japanese for silver and bronze.  I admit Alysa Liu did a perfect skate, but she didn't perform any hard jumps like the bronze medalist Ami did.  Ami landed two triple axels.  No one in the competition landed a quad, which is a huge regression from the previous Olympics where three Russian girls could.  So we're watching a bunch of phonies pretending to be gold medalists when they wouldn't even be bronze medalists 4 years ago.  To add insult to injury, when Alysa Liu was younger she was landing triple axels and quadruple lutzes, so the 'gold medalist' you see before you today is infinitely worse than her own younger self, who couldn't win gold.  Women's figure skating should be so much more splendiferous than this.

First, age limits need to be removed, so that younger girls who can land quads are allowed to compete.  Then Russia needs to be invited back to the Olympics, so Russian girls who can land quads are allowed to compete.  That will get us back to the ground level of quality skating we used to see in the sport.

Congratulations to the women's and men's hockey team for beating Canada in overtime for the gold.  The ice hockey gold and the women's individual figure skating gold are worth a lot more than the gold medal in moguls.  With those medals, team USA moved ahead of team Italy in the medal count.

Russia got its first medal of the Olympics, in the new sport of ski mountaineering, a silver.  I watched the event and it was pretty fun but I wouldn't call it a very 'distinguished' medal.  Nevertheless, it's one more medal than Ukraine has earned.  I think it's ironic that Russia is banned from the Olympics and still gets more medals than Ukraine which has all sorts of institutional support.  It shows yet again that I bet on the winning side of this conflict.

Misaki route cleared:

Ren'ai 0 Km wasn't a terrible visual novel, but the only two appealing heroines are Sakuya and Misaki, and now I've played both their routes.  I don't feel like playing any of the others.  I'd be better served playing more Tenshin Ranman if I was deadset on playing bad heroine routes.

Rather than Tenshin Ranman, it would be preferable to play Happiness 2, which I haven't gotten around to in all this time.  So Ren'ai 0 Km is really far down the priority list.

In Heaven Burns Red, I got thundercat Byakko to limit break level 3, making her a viable candidate for my thunder squad.  I also got some useless limit breaks -- 2.5 for magicat Tenne and fireworks Miya.  For the low price of $20, the rolls were pretty rewarding.  I also finished acquiring every currently possible seraph's skill evolutions.  The first time I've caught up since the game started years ago.

One day before the next new event, I managed to grab all the loot available in the current event.  I'm certainly looking forward to which character will be featured in the plot tomorrow.

The main focus continues to be the Olympics.  It may feel like the USA is doing miserably this Olympics, because a bunch of medal favorites have failed to medal, but 3rd place is actually pretty standard for our winter Olympics standings.  Norway or Russia almost always win.  USA has only won once, in 1932.  Norway is set to win again these Olympics.  Norway has the advantage of lots of natural ice and snow, but that doesn't explain their dominance.  America, Canada, and plenty of other countries have ice and snow.  Alaska has more ice and snow than Norway.  I have to believe its Norway's high per capita gdp that allows them to have the hobbies of winter athletics no other country can afford to dabble in.  All winter sports are expensive to participate in, and most people don't have free time to get good at them.  Norway has so much money they can afford the winter equipment and ski resort rentals and the leisure time to train.  Everything lines up for them.

Still, it's a little silly that Norway, a country of so few people, can dominate the world in winter sports.  The next factor that goes into this equation is the fact that most young athletic prodigies around the world are steered into professional, high-paid sports like football, soccer, baseball or whatever.  The few remaining athletic youth dedicate themselves to summer Olympic sports like swimming or track.  It takes a weird person to get obsessed with snowboarding or curling.  Norway has leaned in to their natural advantage of being a winter wonderland and dedicates all their young athletes to winter sports.  So Norway's best are competing against the worlds' rest.

As evidence that anyone can become competitive at winter sports if they try hard, look at host nation Italy.  They've never done well at the Olympics, but when they knew they were hosting they put a lot more effort into winning, and here they are, 2nd place in the medal count, ahead of the USA.  If every nation tried as hard as Norway to win at the Olympics Norway would revert to its population mean.

Another example proving Norway isn't really as good as they look is ice hockey.  Ice hockey is a highly paid sport so serious athletes compete at it.  And when serious athletes are involved, the USA and Canada rise to the fore.

Nevertheless, winter Olympic medals denote greatness.  I'm very impressed with small countries like Norway, Austria, Switzerland and the like racking up giant medal counts.  The theory of Aryan supermen is very much supported by winter Olympic results.  Perhaps a lot of the blonde athletes in the Olympics are dyed, but nobody can argue with the blue eyes.  It's amazing how many blue-eyed athletes are winning medals, compared to their percentage of the world population.

The Aryan supremacy theory does suffer a bit from how beautiful the South Korean Olympians are, though.  I noted the same in the Summer Olympics.  There must be something in the water over in South Korea, because all their athletes are supermodels.  The Japanese tend to be more 'cute' than beautiful, but they're also a sight for sore eyes.

I've been watching all the alpine skiing, cross country skiing, figure skating, speed skating, and biathlon events.  I also like snowboard/ski cross races.  I don't like and don't care about the stunt-like sports, big air, moguls, halfpipe and the like.  I'm totally unimpressed with ski jumping or sliding sports.  Curling and ice hockey are kinda watchable if I have nothing better to do.

The biggest draw of the Winter Olympics is women's individual figure skating, and as luck would have it the top 5 competitors going into the free skate are Japanese, American, or Russian.  I can't lose.  They're also beautiful to watch, nevermind the medal results.  They're all performing at a level beyond what Inori can do in Medalist, which is satisfying.

I've completed my rewatch of 'Who Made me a Princess?', proving it's a great anime worth rewatching.  The only great series that isn't currently airing that I haven't rewatched is Spy x Family S3.  But Spy x Family is already proven great by the fact that I've rewatched the first two seasons, so all 200 of my ranked anime have definitively proven themselves.

As for great manga, it turns out all of Guyver is translated into English.  The problem isn't the translators, it's the creator, who refuses to continue the story.  It's another one of those series that the afterlife in Eden is required to fix.

Tamon-kun Dropped:

The bizarre personality of a fangirl of an idol not accepting that idol's actual love and desire for a romantic relationship is annoying and intolerable.  It drags the series on indefinitely when there was an easy solution from the beginning.

Meanwhile, I included Sumire Morohoshi in my anime voices hall of fame.  She's the voice of Athanasia from Who Made me a Princess?.  I dropped an unimportant seiyuu to make room.

Replacing people in limited slots was the name of the game in Heaven Burns Red as well.  After extensive playtesting, I learned that giving all your characters the ability to auto-crit every turn is worth a lot more than a buff that gives all your characters the ability to crit only once.  As such, I added Admiral Aoi, with the auto-crit passive ability, to my thunder, dark and ice squad.  She was already in my secondary fire squad.  Diva Ruka takes care of auto-critting in my primary fire squad, and Spica Yuina takes care of auto-crit in my light squad.  Erika is a good healer, in the sense that she can completely block incoming attacks, so your squad doesn't even need to heal, so I mainly replaced healers in my elemental squads to make room for her.  I took that ability to the extreme in my thunder squad, adding Nanami to the squad, who eats dp from the rest of the party.  If I take no damage at all during the fight, it's okay to be stuck at 1 dp permanently.  Nanami's ability to give around +200% to skill attack to everyone every turn is too good to ignore.  And she fits in perfectly with the thunder squad because her exclusive ability is a thunder attack.

I paid a lot of money to get Nanami, Admiral Aoi, Diva Ruka and Spica Yuina, plus the limit breaks to make them viable, so I should actually take advantage of having them.  They're designed to be stronger than easier to get SS Memorias.  It does mean the resources I invested into the likes of Goddess Yingxia will now fruitlessly go to waste, but that's already happened before with Idol Erika.  Live and learn.

My secondary fire squad swapped base Isuzu for hot springs Isuzu, and base Ichiko for wedding dress Ichiko, so that I could access their additional exclusive abilities.  (Base SS Memoria exclusives can be introjected into non-base SS Memorias of the same character, so you always want to move on from the base model as soon as possible.)

Ninja Mari was switched out for Admiral Aoi in my ice squad.  I got Ninja Mari up to max limit break, but she's still too weak to use, because she only gives crit once per ability use, and only to the frontline at that.  It's super-weak compared to critting every turn with everyone automatically.  Just by switching Mari out my ice squad instantly became my second strongest, after my fire squad.

In my dark squad it was Snow White Yuki who got the boot in favor of Admiral Aoi.  I can break most enemies with Hisame's Munezuka so Yuki was redundant.  Ironically, I got a second limit break for Snow White Yuki today, just before acknowledging she was useless outside of the Skullfeather fight.  But that second limit break will help me farm Skullfeather more efficiently moving forward, so I can't complain.

The Olympics have been fun, but I wish I could have seen Ilia land a quadruple axel.  It's a huge letdown how he performed on the big stage.  I feel like the latest episode of Medalist where Inori does a triple salchow is more impressive than anything the men did in their showdown.  Currently the medal table has Norway in front, then Italy, then the USA and Japan who are tied for third.  We're really underperforming considering how many athletes we sent to these games.

I'm still kind of reeling from having defeated Skullfeather.  I was supposed to level to max first, then fight Skullfeather, but I skipped all that and went directly to victory.  But that doesn't change the fact that I still need to level everyone so they can be prepared for whatever new challenge awaits them.

'In Another World with 100 Waifus' read and edited for the 51st time:

The remaining edits were all name changes for the various sons and daughters of Christopher.  I added in Kotone, Inori, Yuuma, Nozomi, Miku and Tina from Senmomo, Medalist, Demons Crest, Cafe Stella, Limelight Lemonade Jam and Koujo Denka no Kateikyoushi respectively.  I had to take out Chisato, Yamucha, Mitsuki, Hinowa, Kaoru and Mai to keep the number of names, and the number of unique names, balanced.  But this way I got to represent all of my top 200 anime in '100 Waifus' again, even the anime that hasn't started airing yet like Demons Crest, so the book is future proofed.  All my hall of fame visual novels are also covered once more.

The name galleries are a sort of side quest of the book.  Getting the name galleries right is important to me, because it represents the best fictional works and fictional characters people should be paying attention to after they finish my book.  It's like a waymark for what fans should do next.  The best art in the world should have a spotlight put on it so no one misses out.

Other than the new Misuzu description, 99% of the edits ended up being name related.  That's because the content of the book really is solid, and doesn't need poking any further.  The names could be improved, and I had to edit the book anyway, so it was a good time to improve all the names I could.  Now the names are good enough that I can leave the book be.  Even if new great art appears and isn't represented in '100 Waifus,' the great art that is represented in '100 Waifus' is still great enough to satisfy the most voracious of appetites.  People could consume the art listed for decades and still have more to do.  And no matter how many high quality works come out in the future, the works listed in this book will definitely be competitive with them.  I guarantee it.

Even on the 51st readthrough it was still sexy.

I know virtually everything that's going to be said word for word before I read it by now, but the story still brought a small smile to my face constantly.  The wordplay, the witticisms, the flirting, it was all so delicious to devour that it didn't really matter that all the drama had been leeched away (by the fact that this was my 51st time.)  This is an inexhaustible resource.  The book is fun as poetry long after you've become accustomed to it as prose.

With all the changes (99% name-related, but changes nonetheless), I'm on the hook to read the book for a 52nd time.  But I don't mind when it's still this fun.

Skullfeather down:

Money can buy power!  After a year of spending and playing, spending and playing, spending and playing, the moment has come -- I've beaten the last boss of the game.  (as it currently stands.  The game is still expanding piece by piece, so maybe a stronger boss will appear eventually, but for now I've won.)

As I explained long ago, all I needed was to get snow white Yuki into fighting shape by giving her a limit break.  This limit break increased her toughness and sp regeneration rate, which was absolutely vital to my eventual victory.

Diva Ruka was also a requirement, and it helped that she was limit break level 2 now.

Of course phantom thief Jamie was a requirement, and it helped that she was limit break level 3 now.

Skullfeather is a unique boss that has to be fought in two different places with two different squads.  The buffs and debuffs on the boss carry across both fights, so what happens in one place affects the other place.  The boss is constantly buffing itself in both places, so you need a seraph with a special ability to strip those buffs away in both locations during the fight.  Phantom thief Jamie wasn't enough, I needed snow white Yuki to do her part too.  They both had the ability I needed, so I cultivated them both to be battle-ready.

Snow white Yuki's squad had the tough sledding, because at limit break 1 she really wasn't up to standard.  I ran through all 4 of my buff-wiping abilities and the boss still wasn't broken yet.  That's living on the edge.  In a few more turns Skullfeather would have buffed its defense, and all hope of victory would have faded away in a logarithmic curve.  I ran through all 4 of samurai Inori's super-powerful tadamusa attacks, and Skullfeather still wasn't broken.  I ran through all 4 of Yingxia's 7th stratagem buffs, and Skullfeather still wasn't broken.  I ran through all 4 of Hisame's Munezuka techniques, and Skullfeather still wasn't broken.

Miya's new skill evolution, Radiant Nova+, was necessary to permanently lower Skullfeather's defense (a new ability it didn't have until the skill evolved, which I accomplished just three days ago.)  This helped weaken the boss even when my other squad was attacking it, because the debuff carried over (because it was permanent).  But she also used all or almost all of her Legend of Inari exclusive attacks.

All I had left was the lingering effects of Miya's debuffs and two exclusive abilities -- Hisame's Dreaming Desire and Inori's Yo-arashi.  So I used my overdrive and threw my last techniques left at the boss before it buffed its defense again -- and broke Skullfeather.

After that red riding hood Karen blasted its devastation rate up to 999% instantly, and then my attackers went to town on it -- diva Ruka provided the finishing blow with a fitting blazing ignition+ skill evolved attack.  My fire squad still had plenty of power left in the tank, but it turned out they didn't need it.  The debuffs Miya provided the squad as a free service meant I was way stronger than Skullfeather imagined I could be.

Skullfeather provided an eternal daphne as a reward, which I eventually decided should go to ethereal Kozue.  That gives my ice squad three eternal daphne holders out of six, which is pretty good.  That's the same amount as my thunder squad has, which I generally consider my second best elemental squad.

This would definitely be a good time to stop spending money on Heaven.  I'm stronger than the last boss, I don't need to buy superfluous strength.  My squads are close enough to their idealized forms.  Now I can relax and play the game for the plot.  The game is actually free to play, only the power-hungry have to pay up, and I'm satiated.

As expected the Seahawks dominated the Super Bowl.  Their defense is too good.

Team America won the team figure skating competition in thrilling fashion.  They were tied with team Japan going into the very last skate, and our skater only scored 6 points more than theirs in the last skate, 200 to 194.  That's only a difference of 3%.  So we won by a 3% paper-thin margin on the last skate.  Incredible drama, and incredibly great figure skating by both teams.  This is what the Winter Olympics are all about.