My school district is being forced to lay off several educators and a librarian because of a $500,000 budget gap, or roughly the amount spent on the war while I was typing this post.
meanwhile the war is more unpopular than vietnam was in 1971
Lots of these examples didn't achieve their touted benefits, of course, or involved longer bloodier conflicts than they'd been sold as. But Afghanistan is the only example where the enemy we were fighting actually ended up in control of the country again.
Setting aside drugs, in what sense were any of those a defeat? Who did we lose to in Panama? Noriega died in prison. And who has considered the Gulf War a defeat? It was famously a decisive victory. Iraq didn't pan out well of course, but the government we installed is still there, as are US bases.
The only war the US has failed to decisively "win" since Vietnam is Afghanistan and in that case the withdrawal deal with the Taliban was made by Trump. Even the insurgency in Iraq, unpopular as that war became, didn't end in any kind of defeat.
And that smaller number of ships isn’t going to be enough to stabilize energy prices.
There goes that scheme. I guess they can try insuring a smaller number of ships but that capacity is going to shrink fast if/when ships get hit and payouts happen.
Lol
H/t @horadam.bsky.social
A while back we were joking here about how a little over a year ago, some economist must've looked at a monkey's paw and said "I wish regular people appreciated textbook economics more."
Like he could've just come out of the White House every morning like a cuckoo clock, said something outrageous to make his base happy, then went to golf. And people would call him an economic genius because he grew gdp and tamed inflation. But here we are.
I know I keep saying this, but I get a perverse sense of relief when things like this happen due to the war because oh hey, reality still exists. It’s not all just content. Cause and effect are still a thing. You haven’t totally lost your fragile grip on sanity.
frankly the War Queer was just badly broken design-wise, due to the ability to take both weapon and sexual specializations
ah THE COMPLETE HOMOSEXUAL HANDBOOK, one of the lesser known late TSR products.
“One way to look at the rise of Donald Trump is as part of a decades-long backlash among the American leadership class to the idea of accountability,” @adamserwer.bsky.social argues:
Another good bit:
"Similarly, conservatives may be violent, fascists must be violent. That violence is necessary is a core claim for them in a way it isn’t for even quite radical conservatives. For these reasons conservatives can exist within democracy, fascists cannot."
This is a thought-provoking definition of conservatism
"This, in a nutshell, is conservatism: The ideology does care about upholding the social order, but only those parts of it that are considered extra-human in origin, man-made deviations from that are to be disdained, rejected, or even purged."
A woman and man from the WWII era. They are smartly dressed, the man is wearing a navy jacket.
We have the Navy jacket worn by my grandfather in this pic.
I've never been able to button it and I'm a woman.
As I recently noted elsewhere, the average age of a World War II US infantryman was 22 years old. You ever tried to wear actual surplus stuff from World War II? Feels like you wandered into the husky boys section
If Battlestar survives 400 years into the future Shakespeare play style people will NOT believe that Gaius Baltar came before Elon Musk/assorted AI guys were a thing
Every time I am forced to use Matlab I can only conclude it is a language designed by and for sociopaths
Shout out to this @olivia.science blog post that I sent out on a neuro listserv back in grad school, that a prof there is apparently still mad about
neuroplausible.com/matlab
Photo of a ceramic plate, with etched text on it that reads "please don't do cocaine in the bathroom"
Getting my annual eye exam, and they apparently have a policy against fun
Unusually, OK requires Senate appointees promise to not run for election. Unenforceable and constitutionally debatable, but it's likely whoever will voluntarily comply. I have no idea if Stitt wants the seat himself, but he's well positioned to pick a placeholder and then run himself, if he wants.
We'll see who he picks, no great hopes. But it's notable Trump is giving a Senate appointment to a relatively traditional Republican governor, not super-MAGA, who he's attacked before as a RINO and such. We're talking small degrees, but a Stitt appointee will likely be marginally more normal.
stay in school kids
finally watched Casablanca. wild in this day and age for something to actually live up to the hype
This is misleading because it compares to the opening surge, not Iran’s total capability. Early barrages are usually the peak; declines reflect expended salvos, dispersal, pause, etc not necessarily destroyed stockpiles or production capacity. It measures tempo, not long-term military capability
The only statistic you need to know about the effectiveness of the air war in WWII was the Luftwaffe had a grand total of 380 operational aircraft on the Eastern and Western front to stop a combined 17,000 Allied and Soviet aircraft supporting Operation Overlord and Operation Bagration
For example, if we measured the economic loss of shutting down the Middle East, as well as the amount of money we are currently spending to maintain the AirPower we have in the region, you’d find that the cost is far far higher than “We HiT 200 TaRgEtS”
