Clay Copper

Thought this was pretty cool. I started playing during COVID (on my phone while feeding my newborn daughter lol). Control, sacrifice (esp cat/oven), infinite value (clover) and planeswalkers hooked me instantly. Favorite card is still Yorion, and I wish they'd bring companions back.

Lol, pockets heavy, priors confirmed.

It's way too easy to reject lessons bought in partners' blood by insisting it'll always be different in the US context. And it will be to some extent, but translating to our context is the (difficult) task, not rejecting it out of hand.

"We don't need survivable med bc China will abide by LOAC."

Knowledge management has certainly improved, but there's still a strong preference for hard "facts." So a database of health faculty assessments with a bunch of quantitative data (# beds, # nurses, MRI) is good to go, but it's tough to collect and translate better ways to do things (esp from PNs).

We're working on solutions in our extremely narrow, mostly insignificant, woke/gay part of the military, but it's a systemic and cultural issue. It did not surprise me that a TOC was totally exposed from above, because our med assets would be too. But the Brits have exercised survivability!

And nobody is tracking lessons learned from engagements anyway. Lessons learned are somebody else's job, someone who sits in a very clear box and is supposed to learn lessons and translate those via a set of busted-ass OSD processes. Those processes are slow and political and full of too many cooks.

/ We also absolutely do not set SC/engagement teams up for success to learn. We barely teach them how to teach, then we slot then into courses or exercises and do a show and tell. We don't task or empower them to learn, and planners are too busy to focus on lessons learned other than for planning. /

We're working on this in medical, but it's a serious challenge. Leaders don't understand that we learn from engagements (or should) instead of just building partner capability. It's never been great, but the current crop is worse (Tata is a complete dunce, no idea what he's doing). /

Sorry, just been writing and noodling on this recently. It's frustrating to send people downrange to learn skills from partners who clearly are more capable in diseases American docs just don't see, but have our folks hide so they don't have to experience the awkwardness of cross-culture/language.

But whether it's C-UAS or survivability, or even just learning how to treat tropical diseases we're not familiar with, there's a serious cultural issue that impedes our ability to learn from "lesser" partners - even when it's not steeped in the current politics around Ukraine. The UK is much better.

And Zelenskyy is doing a diplomatic sales pitch (laudatory) to show Ukraine's value globally. The article has the "what" down (we haven't translated lessons learned into improved capabilities), but the "why" (or "why not") is much harder. There are a lot of reasons and Other People's Wars is good. /

We've got people working alongside Ukrainians every day. A few EUCOM and NATO outfits do it as their primary responsibility. We've had observers in Ukraine too, along with other NATO allies. We pay for Ukrainians to be at all the conferences and exercises. The article mentions none of that. /

👋 Dozens of us!

I probably should've just gone with enchantress, but I decided to build Cleopatra. I like the allies/betrayal ability and being able to put counters on opponents creatures and then run a very instead active deck. Not as confident in the power level, but hoping I'll be fun to build in the league!

Where I am we get a DELEGATION OF AUTHORITY email across the entire org if someone in some tiny office on the periphery so much as takes a long shit. I guess you're probably right lol.

I want to relitigate the the non-sacking of Austin over Prostategate.

It's going to be two more CECOTs in compliant countries (Ecuador or Venezuela, maybe Honduras if they're jealous of the naughty brother getting all the USDs) and a smash and grab "partnered" op every three weeks + random boat strikes. I'm sure SOUTHCOM will love splitting it with Noem.

Pictured, Shield of the Americas Inaugural Initial Planning Conference:

So Kristi Noem, who failed out of DHS and who clearly did not know she was being shit-canned today, is going to lead something that definitely exists called Shield of the Americas Defense Initiative, that its founding director doesn't know exists.

You give SOUTHCOM planners an inch...

Excuse me, we are focusing on bilaterals and have no need for an organizational relationship with more than 2 members. Current Interagency capacity requires strictly monogamous international relations.

Hard to find a better example of learning from partners to improve US readiness than right here.

Goo Goo Dolls - Flat Top [Official Music Video] YouTube video by Goo Goo Dolls

Goo Goo Dolls suffered through a career of some of the worst music video creatives in the biz.

Woke up today with this song I haven't heard in 10yrs in my head for some reason:

🎶 A visionary coward says that anger can be power

As long as there's a victim on TV 🎶

100%, instilling the incredible amount of overconfidence that directly led to the next random fact where I learned the very real limits on the American passport.

I was 20 at the time, I was young and stupid and thought my American passport rendered me functionally immortal.

I snuck into the American Colony Hotel, posed as a conference organizer, and chatted up Secret Service so I could shake Jimmy Carter's hand - got bounced soon after, but then Rosalyn saw them kicking me out and had USSS grab me and sit me next to Jimmy (as "guest of the President lol").

Cool day.

Broadly agree, but where could it have even gone under a white flag? I guess India takes it and then has to figure out what to do with 200+ crew who can't be repatriated indefinitely. Does India bother with that?

"Decadence" lol.

Bessner truly is one of the most insufferable people around.

Glad you chimed in, I thought I remembered reading some convincing arguments about that.

Nvm, I see they got there