Friday quickies – Iran, author update, tankers lose naming rights

Our favorite folks in the Mideast, those crazy mullahs of mayhem, have announced the discovery of one of the world’s largest deposits of lithium. Think lithium-ion batteries – with all the push toward electrification, you can safely describe it as a strategic asset and Iran claims to have found about 8.5 million tons’ worth.

If that number is accurate, it would mean Iran now holds the largest lithium reserves outside of South America. Last year’s US Geological Survey estimated the total lithium reserves in the world at roughly 89 million tons, meaning this discovery could amount to nearly a tenth of the world’s lithium.

The price of lithium has surged in recent years, largely spurred by ambitious emissions goals by countries in Europe and North America creating an increased demand for electric vehicles, which use lithium batteries. A McKinsey study from last year reported a 550% annual increase in the price of the metal.

Quartz

Just what we need. Too, didn’t they announce a rebadged F-105 as a stealth fighter a while back? Watch and see how this plays out.

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R.L. Stine, the author of the children’s “:Goosebump” series of books,  has accused his publisher of censoring his books.

Certain titles from the Goosebumps anthology, second only to the Harry Potter books in terms of popularity, have been re-released as sanitized e-books by Scholastic, a new report from the Times has revealed.

“I’ve never changed a word in Goosebumps. Any changes were never shown to me,” Stine explained on Twitter.

One Goosebumps character is now “cheerful” instead of “plump.” Elsewhere the word “crazy” has been changed to “silly.” And a character who dressed as a “dark and stormy night” for Halloween now no longer wears black face paint.

When the authors are dead and unable to talk back, it’s one thing – should be interesting to see how this turns out when the author is alive – and pissed.

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III Armored Corps, headquartered at Ft. Hood,  has announced that only crews who qualify “distinguished” in gunnery in their own tanks will be allowed to name their equipment.

III Corps’ commander, Lt. Gen. Sean Bernabe, and Command Sgt. Maj. Arthur Burgoyne Jr. are both infantrymen, not tankers or cavalry scouts who are typically tied to the tradition of naming their tanks.

(Lt. Col. Tania Donovan, a spokesperson for III Corps)Donovan said that, even if crews qualify distinguished on another crew’s tank, they still will not be able to name their own.

But per an anonymous armor officer:

“Sounds like a dumb rule that has [command sergeant major] written all over it,” they said. “Not that many crews will shoot distinguished, so there will be very few named tanks.

“But tankers really look forward to naming their tank after gunnery. It’s something that [the] crew talks about when it’s sitting for hours on the firing line, waiting for its turn to shoot,” they added.

Crews naming their tanks has been a staple of armor culture going back to World War II.

Military Times

The article goes on to say that junior officers usually get more junior gunners, while older more experience gunners usually wind up with senior officers, so the effect of this is to create another division between ranks.  Dunno about that, but it seems to me that trying to make naming your vehicle a privilege for the upper rankers only seems to be a little petty.

Category: "The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves", Iran, Liberals suck