He is easily the worst human being I have ever personally met, by at least an order of magnitude. And that list includes some thoroughly nasty bits of work in the Balkans, South East Asia, and Afghanistan.
Is there a significant difference between northern Italy and southern Italy in that regard? I was surprised how different many cultural attitudes were between the north and south of Italy, but that’s one aspect I wasn’t in a position to understand.
Never mind the 1920s (although we ALL know the implications of that).
Set it in the 2020s, you cowards, and all the little yellow bastards are working for DOGE, ICE, Palantir, or otherwise up to their necks in Trumpworld.
Art.
Oh, if there’s *enough* US casualties, even if only by *accident*, then Pandoras Box is well and truly opened.
Even if the administration was desperate to cut a deal, the US public wouldn’t stand for it.
“the express purpose of sympathy bait to pump up their zyn/junk food aid packages”
Im also not ruling out “hey, look at the sacrifice I’m making for freedom, so how about you let me get in your pants once I get back stateside?”
I’ve had some thoughts about this before.
bsky.app/profile/pete...
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
…but only if it’s being done to Americans.
A couple of sunk DDGs, a LHD, or even a CVN? US military families killed in missile strikes on Kadena? Strikes on the US homeland? Absolutely.
But if it’s just being done to Taiwan? Or any other INDOPAC ally?
Well, they’re pretty woke, you know…
Ellis, from Die Hard, talking into a walkie-talkie and trying to look smooth, and confident, before Hans Gruber - in a career-defining performance from Alan Rickman - shoots him.
The White House has just released a new photograph of JD Vance taken during his negotiations with Iran last week.
"We need to spend more on defense" folks have to reckon with the fact that we have blown colossal amounts of cash on DoD and CENTCOM's emotional support activities and the American voter does not see anything positive received in return for this spending.
Even for Hegseth, this is stupid and lazy. If you really want something bloodthirsty, vengeful or otherwise shocking there’s a lot of the Old Testament to choose from.
Judges 19-21 in particular is a wild ride.
Didn’t the absolutely enormous casualties of WW1* put a dent in public and private religious faith in the UK and Europe?
*Something like 2% of the UKs population was killed in WW1 (compared to something like .2% of the US population)
A tribute to how the Trump administration is managing the US air traffic control system.
Look, if I was DJT and I was going to do an "I am Jesus" slop post, I would tell Gronk that under no circumstances should the guy I was healing have an uncanny resemblance to Jeffrey Epstein.
That would be the advice Hegseth is giving him, too.
“Competence Porn” is one of those phrases I had never heard of or even considered possible - but now I’ve heard it, it’s a phrase I expect I will use a lot.
So far it’s been interesting and informative (I hadn’t realised how much BAOR divisions in the 1970s looked like US Army 1950s Pentomic divisions, for example) if a bit uneven, with perhaps a tendency for Barry to advocate a bit for those senior officers he personally admired (such as Bagnall) 2/2
A hardcover copy of the book “The Rise and Fall of the British Army 1975-2015” by Ben Barry, sitting on a wooden table. The cover features British soldiers (from the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment, judging by their berets and badges) wearing combat jackets, on parade in the snow.
For this weeks #histbookchat, #photofriday and #booksky, I’m about halfway through Ben Barry’s “The Rise and Fall of the British Army 1975-2025”. Its covered late Cold War BAOR, Northern Ireland, Falklands, Gulf War and Bosnia so far.
What I expect to be some Iraq/Afghan axe-grinding awaits me. 1/2
Officer Eddie (one of Chief Wiggum’s subordinates in the Springfield Police Department on “The Simpsons”) making a radio call from his police car using a made-up and ridiculous phonetic alphabet: “Licence Plate: Eggplant - Xerxes - Crybaby - Overbite - Narwhal”
Also quite a few who didn’t love all of it, but were even less keen on going back to a lifetime in a slum or coal mine.
As an Aussie in charge of an ad-hoc coalition thing in Afghan, I found myself saying
1. To Aussies, “I don’t care what the other dads let their kids wear, take it off now”
2. To (mainly) US “Look, I’m fairly sure that’s not allowed in your service regs. Want me to check with a US E9 or O6?”
I had a few of those conversations with subordinates over the years, too.
That said, I was amazed at what patches people would get away with wearing in Afghanistan (from across the coalition), especially in big, anonymous HQs or ad-hoc multinational organisations.
Tommy Franks’s disembodied head being lighter than air sounds about right
French Indochina, eh?
Not sure what a win in Maine is worth if it’s going to be Platner.
‘Within the cabinet, Mr. Hegseth was the biggest proponent of a military campaign against Iran.’
This isn’t a surprise, either.
‘This account of how Mr. Trump took the United States into war is drawn from reporting for a forthcoming book, “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump.”’
Well, of course it is. Why promptly report news of consequence when you can string along a NYT book deal instead?
📚last book you read: After Henry by Joan Didion
📚your current read: The Rise and Fall of the British Army 1975-2025 by Ben Barry
📚last book you bought: Iran: What Everyone Needs To Know by Michael Axworthy
📚next read: The People Immortal by Vasily Grossman
But shall this crazed old man be tamely suffered to drag a whole ship’s company down to doom with him?