It’s a form of pareidolia, I think; people have a very hard time with the absolute void at the center of what’s happening, and so the pattern matching wetware, with literally no guidelines, goes ballistic.

pushing war into degrees of shimmering, spectral existence that the postmodernists themselves would barely be able to handle.

I'm essentially in a "the Caracas raid didn't take place" mindset about the whole thing. Not that it's not signifcant shift, but rather that it seems to be more about staging a sphere of influence-flavoured fantasy of power for the hybrid warfare age than anything else.

I think they wanted something to post about and it just went from there

Yeah. My book proposal.

Honestly, my only take on Jon Stewart in 2025 is that it kinda sucks for us libs that everyone else has e-girls and podcast bros and shit and we’re stuck with the moldy meatloaf from 2004 we found in the back of the fridge.

As someone who was just recently diagnosed with an insane pollen allergy at 43 years old, I'll quote Burroughs on this point: "Whether you sniff it smoke it eat it or shove it up your ass the result is the same: addiction."

ok but this is what taking claritin feels like

It's weird how R2D2 is a little guy.

Agree. To treat the “operational” side of war as a technical matter requiring little attention in such a course is bad history. Example would be the fundamental importance to understanding the SWW of seriously discussing contrasting Axis and Allied central direction of war/grand strategy.

Ok I’m going to say it because Christmas spice and all that. a) It’s absolutely fine - indeed a great approach - to teach the history of war primarily from the point of view of social/cultural history. b) But the military side of things in those classes is often not well done historiographically.

These people love to tell themselves that, unlike us, they care about *all* of the injustice, which is why they do not react strongly to Trump. But when you conflate injustices of all magnitudes into one giant edifice ("capitalism" or whatever), that's not wisdom, that's nihilism.

"How are you tonight? You enjoying the new PGMs? You ready to AirLand Battle? You here to have a good time? Those were the last guys. Wrong fucking war. [P-80 Shooting Stars and MiG-9s scream through the skies of Berlin]"

My dog's reaction whenever the cat starts licking or snuggling him is this combination of euphoric "oh my god my friend is here and he loves me!" and anxious "I must remain perfectly still or else my friend might decide to try to murder me."

obviously not the major driver of his health concerns but it is very funny to read A Christmas Carol as an adult and realize that when tiny tim first says "God bless us, every one!" he's a severely malnourished child and they've given him a cup of hot gin

It is extremely funny to me to imagine this happening in an American context. It would be like Marco Rubio was on track to win 2028 with record numbers, cratered to Ben Bernanke as the Dem candidate and then Bernanke proceeded to convince multiple senators to join the Democratic caucus.

one I think deliberately overlooked question in these conversations is: why are pgms typically quite expensive? and the answer is because they are designed to travel long distances and get through replacing that with cheap mass that won't get through seems pound foolish, at least on its face

Your home planet's moon that you over-mine for a valuable resource thus destabilizing and destroying it and ruining the environment of said planet in the process necessitating peace talks with your mortal enemy in order to end decades of hostilities? That's Praxis.

and be horrified when the political spectrum devolves into a Schmittian struggle between those illiberals with strong gods and everyone else.

My point of contention here is that Clare was instrumental in shaping the intellectual climate that led to the NatCon revolution: you may want to include the Woke era as part of what gave it its engine of growth. Fine. But my argument here is that you cannot play footsy with some illiberals...

From the idea that it was mostly rich people that got killed in the terror

*Unbearable voice* "In 'Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres' you can clearly discern a lyrical sea-change from the days of 'Anthem' which..."

I think the best parallel is the Iran-Iraq War. It’s a brutal slog between under equipped and exhausted conventional military forces that probably has no real bearing on how other contemporary conventional conflicts be will be fought.

Something that I think has happened since the Battle of Kyiv or so is that wars are now primarily waged for the purpose of generating pornography

Achilles’ Perpetual Stand

Why is this so funny?

[I turn on the TV and every channel is showing me being burned in effigy] This can't be good

The best way of knowing whether you're a real Canadian defence and politics knower is when you're trawling the blandest news sites imaginable covering total glup shitto govt initiatives and you start getting full page splash ads from Hanwha Ocean and Saab.

Oh no.

losing your mind seeing a marble torso is at least a reputable way of going awooga though

Evil emperor kicks a wretched homunculus into the pit for failing to find the Chosen One – a classic failure to apply the RACI matrix. 💪 Responsible: the Wretched Homunculi 💀 Accountable: the Scheming Vizier <- kick HIM into the pit 🤷 Consulted: the Dark Oracles 👁️ Informed: the Fetid Stakeholders

Said the phrase 'I'm over the moon!' to a Polish man and he was a little confused and asked what I meant so I explained and when I finished he just shook his head and said 'You're happy but you have no business in space.'

Do it.

It also highlights the basic proposition that the F-35, with its proprietary software and need for updating prior to every mission, represents: deeper US integration, when Canada needs to disentangle our military from the United States’. Ignoring the software elides this difficult reality.

I realize he is a horrible monster but Trump constantly repeating the phrase "Transgender for Everybody" like it's a trademarked slogan is so funny

every day I have to log on and see Takes

Earlier this year a group of government and CAF officials, plus health care leaders, gathered for only the second war games involving Canada’s health care system since 1939. It was more urgent, and less hypothetical. And it became a question about national resolve. www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

YES. YES!! www.liberalcurrents.com/the-plutocra...

Noam Chomsky was always bad and if you’re surprised you should feel bad.

It becomes a national prosperity issue when you calculate the impact of Toronto on Canada’s GNP. If living close to opportunity is a luxury item, Canada is hosed from a productivity perspective.

downwardly mobile educated alienated elite-adjacents clearly are a large part of the contemporary american left's constituency, but it's such a stupid thing to have a complex about or considering particularly damming. read like any history book ever about who starts political movements.

look when has collapsing a government increased the power criminal elements hold over a region either in fiction or in reality

I think regime collapse is possible, but then the million dollar question is 'what comes next?' as much as the USG might hate Maduro, it's not hard to imagine a word where paramilitary and narco-capital end up growing stronger as a result of this

Anti NATO is really one of the world's most premiere luxury beliefs

Irish antimilitarism is funny because the core premise is that Ireland‘s history of British exploitation is exactly why defense of Ireland‘s airspace and sea lanes should be mostly outsourced to the United Kingdom.

The lion does not concern himself with the diminishing returns of nicotine

Imagine spending your career as a special operator doing bad ass shit and then your command is nixed cuz the Secretary of War is mad women can do awesome things he can't.