Philological Essayist

"There's a star maaaaan waiting in the sky..." Come on everybody, let's sing and be merry!

Iran’s people were facing a horrible shortage of water before the war began. If we are destroying desalination plants and setting fire to Teheran we are committing unfathomable crimes.

Despite the grave, and possibly nuclear, threat that this might entail, let me be a historian & mention that this is historically dumb: what do you mean Iran has not surrendered to its enemies in thousands of years. Have you heard of Alexander? The Islamic Conquest? The Mongols? Tamerlane?!

Dumbass

The Dutch verb moeten ("to have to") is often borrowed into diaspora Tarifit as an uninflected imperative particle, e.g., moet a t-ttegged ("you must do it"); moet a nraḥ ("we must go").

“Stop attacking us from your territory and we won’t fire missiles at you” isn’t surrender, it’s deterrence.

Zelfs dan zou dat, iig vanaf Reagan, geen "laughing matter" mogen zijn, zelfs niet in een cinematografische context.

Yeah, agreed. Better leave the imperial era names for what they are.

I would have gone with "Meiji," or something like that...

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#8марта #нетвойне

#gummbah

1. In strategic terms this is correct.

2. The US military and intelligence apparatus still has immense resources and a lot of skilled people capable of big tactical wins in airstrike targeting and maybe down the line seizing Kharg.

3. Hubris generated by 2. reinforces 1.

in this former mining town, they know two things: Brexit means Brexit, and the Pahlavi dynasty (1925-1979) are the rightful rulers of Persia.

You need more than just a few pints forced down my throat to have me say similar dangerously arrogant stuff about other nations... Even when in a former mining town.

Video showing bombings in west of Tehran. The white tower you see to the lower right is Tehran’s iconic Shahyad/Azadi tower, a symbol of the city since 1970’s, designed by Hossein Amanat, the elder brother of Yale historian, Abbas Amanat.

"A U.S. diplomat who was in the embassy when McGurk arrived found his steady advance astonishing. “Brett only meets people who speak English. … There are like four people in the government who speak English. And somehow he’s now the person who should decide the fate of Iraq? How did this happen?”"

It’s time to end Britain’s first-past-the-post election lottery The Gorton and Denton by-election confirmed just how capricious our electoral system has become

I think there is a vg case for the Alternative Vote (pluralist majoritarianism) UK's evolving party system - not least as of balanced use for voters on different sides of political spectrum. It allows sincere voting by every voter + strategic choices by those who care
www.ft.com/content/38d8...

The thing about the MAGA administrators is that it is run by people whose perverse fantasies were shaped by first-person shooters and Medieval Crusader-themed RPGs. We are living under Gamergate's shadow.

Price of Crude Oil WTI (USD/Bbl) over a five-year period, spanning from 2021 to early 2026. The chart shows a significant price peak in 2022 reaching over $120, followed by a general downward trend with various fluctuations, eventually hitting a low near $55 in late 2025 before a sharp vertical spike to the current price of 90.900. This recent surge represents an increase of +23.880 (+35.63%), highlighted in green text above the blue line graph.

The real insanity isn’t how much oil prices have spiked, it’s that we’re still burning oil for energy.

I've worked long enough with those to wish them such a future, minus the "iron rice bowl" they could fall back on, because that would be too socialist, obviously.

By making the workforce pliable, and teaching the virtue of "sucking up and kicking down the ladder." #SeenThatBeenThere

One reasonably good bottle of wine per three months. Congrats!

kevinrkirk 2d @ Threads Why are we bothering with the Strait of Hormuz when we could simply do this? Explain it to me like l'm 5. (Drawing of chopping of part of land) suahuatica 2d MOUNTAIN HARD AND BIG, WATER NO UP. MANY MANY DIG DIG.

Happy Friday. Don’t skip school.

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👉 www.uea.ac.uk/groups-and-c...

Dear scholars (especially of religion). Please, please, please stop writing articles on Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. that use vague references to Christianity as if it is as the default tradition to which all others can be compared.

On the CIA backed coup in Iran in 1953: the flagship journal of Middle East Studies did a roundtable on the topic just two years ago, which includes authoritative summaries of the events, state of the field questions etc- and its all free and open access here:

Tonight, two of the white nationalists I reported on in this piece showed up to attempt to intimidate me on a private night out at a small music venue.

I’ll have more to say tomorrow. I’m safe.

They also didn’t pay cover 🖕

"War" from Old High German *werra* meaning “confusion, discord, chaos” and "Monger" from Old English *mangere* meaning a “dealer or trader”

With the aid of "security" personnel. It wasn't a 1-to-1 fight, either (essential additional info for the podcast dudebros, who may conclude from that -correctly!- that Sheehy is a coward).

They didn't just remove him - Senator Sheehy (R-Montana) literally broke his arm.

Photo showing the Modarres Expway with the greenery & trees lining the road

Aerial photo of Tehran with abundant greenery

A street in Tehran lined with trees

Photo of a Tehran blvd with cars and threes on sides of the road and in the middke

Among the things that makes me really sad is the loss of the trees. Tehran is relatively green, being in the mountains and benefitting from glacial streams. Some trees are quite old and they help much to control the air pollution. Their loss is devastating.