Today I am harshly reminded of another American moment. In 1954, Joe McCarthy went on the rampage. Lawyer Joe Welch responded to McCarthy: "If it were in my power to forgive you for your reckless cruelty, I would do so. [...] but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me."

Although county sheriffs did exist, most policing was controlled informally from the courts and was not quite what we would recognize as police. Law enforcement did not exist in the administrative sense until several decades after the Revolution.

Albertan independence is probably not actually going anywhere or getting voted on. However, I want to take a look at the map to understand the strategic picture. Could Alberta go independent and stay that way? No. The answer is just no.

I still have not had full time to listen to the last hour of so - I keep starting it over. However, @derparrot.bsky.social's video, "A Critique of Cultural Determinism" is one of the best ways to understand the Trumpian ideology - to the extent it is that. www.youtube.com/watch?v=BE6k...

So, the State department apparently just announced they are going to refuse all Visa applications from a huge swath of countries. I recognize a Fox News link isn't going to popular on BlueSky, but Reuters didn't bother to list the *75* countries for some reason. www.foxnews.com/politics/us-...

As prosimed in a quick response, I am going to lay out why removing Maduro was a truly terrible idea, by way of explaining exactly why Maduro being in power was an excellent situation for the the United States. In brief: Maduro was so bad we looked fantastic in comparison

New Podcast! Episode 96: In the Valley, Part 5 Jackson's Escape, Cross Keys and Port Republic uscivilwar.substack.com

Of all the Roman Emperors, the single worst was probably Commodus. His signature move was trying to rename everythign himself. Commodus, in the words of @mikeduncan.bsky.social, took a strong state and drove it straight onto the rocks, purely for his ego and despite a complete lack of achievements.

I remembered today that Clamavi de Profundis has albums' worth of great Christmas music. Also, enough Lord of the Rings tunes to satisfy even a dragon's greed. www.youtube.com/@ClamaviDePr...

I respect Mr. Chovanec's work, and commented on the aspect regarding the coup (the US didn't create, lead or even contribute; we observed). However, there is another crucial point where this is mistaken in detail, if not in spirit: the oil nationalization happened fifty years ago in Carter's term.

Hat tip to @catholickungfu.bsky.social for reposting this first. Evil always contains its own destruction. That does not mean it cannot do terrible damage on the way, and it is far better to stop it early. It will collapse eventually, but you & I might not live to see it.

Nixon is such a fascinating figure because he was, in the Greek sense, a Tragic Hero. I should explain. A Tragic Hero does not mean "good guy who dies at the end of the story". It means "genuinely noble figure capable of great deeds, brought down by a key character flaw".

While that is "a" problem, I am not sure it's even in the Top 10 List (number 8 will shock you!) of problems to solve. Much like Musk's Hyperloop nonsense, this is worse than impossible - it's just hilariously impractical on every level.

Upon reflection, I must politely disagree with Mr. Palmer in principle if not in the specific. The point of American colleges is education; to pursue specific skills is also worthwhile, but it are different things. Both are worth doing.

One of the core problems with the, errr, "complicated" official government narrative is that there's no good answer here. Some of the people trying to spin this are pretending there are only two possible actions: doing nothing at all, and killing people mercilessly. Also, the Civil War.

Y'know, the other day I watched a Marvel film about Superheroes to get away from all this ugly news. I decided to turn on an old favorite, "Captain America: The Winter Soldier."

New podcast! By the end of May, 1862, Confederate Gen. Joe Johnson knew he must attack. A crucial Union strategic choice gave him room to pick his preferred point. But a key failure sent the entire battle spinning out of control. uscivilwar.substack.com

I liked Rogue One. As an ensemble film, it's kinda rough as the characters ultimately don't really know one another very well and several barely interact. This story feels stretched to cover six protagonists, three antagonists, and couple side characters.

I don't play CoD, but I scrolled on Metacritic, and, uh...

This is a hyper-specific desire, but I want a Zorro RPG along the lines of Kingdom Come: Deliverance. You would have a 'de la Vega' and 'Zorro' identity (using both to uncover villains' plots). There'd be swordfighting, riding, exploring California, finding treasure, perhaps estate management, etc.

New podcast! Episode 94: Richmond is a Hard Road to Travel uscivilwar.substack.com

I've been planning to start a discussion of this. Because I criticized @mcmegan.bsky.social recently, and absolutely intend to do so again, I feel it's important to agree with her on this: Many of Trump's policies were also bad under previous Presidents, but this was rarely acknowledged.

I feel like a Great Gatsby party while trying to kill basic food assistance for the poor is a little too on-the-nose for historians. Who is going to believe that such a creature really existed?

[comedy post] I wanna know who, just WHO!, is responsible for the absolutely state of Gaelic spelling. There is no rational world - NONE! - in which "Samhain" is pronounced "Soween". dictionary.cambridge.org/pronunciatio...

To expand upon my comments here, Douthat's statement is indicative of complete vacancy of the heart. It's a non-argument that applies to anything you want, and hence has no value. It applies to every thuggish fool ever born, and every scum in power imagines themselves as the same Very Special Boy.

Lead: "Americans should pepper-spray themselves: It's unfair to put all this work on ICE." By Ross Douthat.

“It’s just, if we build this robot army, do I have at least a strong influence over that robot army, not current control, but a strong influence? [...] I don’t feel comfortable wielding that robot army if I don’t have at least a strong influence.” finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-mu...

Mike Johnson is something of the Lord North of our time, except more pathetic in every sense. Let me explain. 1/9

I went out to protest today myself. I will upload footage later. The key is that I went to what I assume would be a very small, low-key protest: Suburbs, well distant from even a smaller town center, Red county. Sidewalk was packed a block in every direction, shoulder to shoulder or even more.

It's late, and I am tired, but that is sometimes the best time to work. or maybe the best time to answer this question is always "right now".

So, I apologizer for linking to reddit, but in a very, uh, "interesting" decision CNN evidently edited-out this rather "interesting" exchange with Stephen Miller. Miller claimed Trump has "plenary powers," which is tantamount to claiming the dictatorship. www.reddit.com/r/instant_re...

I would further add that these WW2 stories, even had they hadn't been un-researched nonsense, were not necessary to the point. You can reasonably argue that our military procurement is too slow or inflexible. But that would require work to understand complex issues.

New Podcast! Episode 93: In the Valley, Part 4 The Great Reversal: Front Royal to First Winchester uscivilwar.substack.com

To begin with, I can't specifically comment on the validity of the arrest. Maybe the arrestee was some horrible monster. I find that singularly unlikely because real criminals are not usually thrown into minivans. I am commenting on the absurd "policing" demonstrated here.

We can explain Confederate Theory of Victory, because they 100% had one. In 1861, it was: "We will mass-mobilize a militia all all White men, slaves will obediently labor as the social order dictates, and Britain (maybe France too) will side with us for cotton. This was proven wrong by 1862.

The most satisfying feeling in the world: Carefully analyzing a question, double-checking your math, testing the outcome and deliver the perfect answer. Most agonizing feeling in the world: ...immediately noticing you were looking for a Min instead of Max.

Not many know this, but I became an insane Yakuza/Like A Dragon fan with Yakuza 0. This? This is exactly the thing I want, in exactly the way I want it. store.steampowered.com/app/3937550/...

I this was an interesting comment, though I would need to digest it. Certainly the orcs are pitiable. My interpretation of Tolkien is that they would be far better if not regularly crushed under by Morgoth or Sauron. No creature able to sing goofy little songs can be altogether wicked.

Love to see great communications that really get at what the audience is looking for. www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/bl... #Bloodlines2

I hate to copy @bretdevereaux.bsky.social twice in one day. Seems rude. However, I noticed something which seemed slightly off. Is it just me, or does this sound a little *too* similar to his Cadorna article? youtu.be/Vryh8h_1JaQ?...

I noticed many responders have successfully erased the nonsense of that era. Some professors were severely attacked for trying to teaching difficult topics. The protestors also deserve free speech, but that does not make their actions inherently wise. www.thefire.org/research-lea...

James McPherson's Battle Pout of Freedom.

One of the key, uh, "challenges" of the Trump 2 administration is that basically every position is being lent out to the exact worst possible human being who could hold it. Can you imagine a worse choice for Secretary of Defence than Hegseth? A worse HealthSec than RFK Jr.?

I'm pretty sure the answer is "Practice."

Also, this is an excellent video to understanding how slavery dominated Southern thinking. There are a handful of points I could quibble with, but still among the best ways to communicate what slavery meant to people.

New podcast: Bonus Episode 11: Did Slavery Help America Develop? *Free Markets vs. Slavery in the Clash of Economies* uscivilwar.substack.com

With respect to Mr. Yglesias, the first, second and third reason to listen to non-experts is not that the experts are stupid, or short-sighted, or insular. It's because they're quite frequently wrong. Even well-meaning professionals with years of experience and strong incentives fail horribly.

I hear this from Star Wars fans, and not totally unreasonably. But if an institution stays intact for a "thousand generations" it probably has some merit. The problem of TLJ, and fan opposition to the Jedi, is that getting rid of Jedi does not solve the problem of Sith.

Classics $200,000 History $150,000 English $800K STEM $3,600,000,000 Languages $150,000 Someone who is good at the economy plase halp my university is dying