Backroom Errata

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Greyblades

Elucidate, historian. Was the norman conquests not a substanstive enough societal change to consider a book mark in history to lable pre and post?

---

Oh, no it was, and it was catastrophic, the economy, the administration utterly collapsed under Norman incompetence. England's famed coinage which had been 95% pure silver (what became sterling silver) since probably the time of Offa of Mercia was debased.

However, when you describe it as "pre-feudal" you're perpetuating a post-medieval myth that before the Normans came we were living in some sort of Tolkienesque idyll. In reality, even before the Conquest every Englishman needed a liege lord and whilst it wasn't strict Norman feudalism it wasn't exactly "not feudal", though. It was terrible principally because the English became, to quote Robert Bartlett, a "subject people".

So, we should describe the period before the Normans as "pre-Norman" or "pre-Conquest" as opposed to "pre-feudal".

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Montmorency

I don't like the application of the "1%" concept, which is just a slogan, but sure, whatever.

---

Well, thanes might have been a bit more than 1%, but the top, the people who might become earls, they were probably less than 1%. Probably less than 100 people.

Quote:

---

There have been about two instances this year in which your thought process was so outrageously defective that I tried to unmistakably and compassionately impress on you the severity of your mistakes. I hoped you would take it to heart and check yourself. If from that you've learned only to double down and preemptively attack, well, fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, won't get fooled again.

---

There's been at least one instance where you've completely misconstrued my point to the extent you spent pages fighting me on a non-issue. You need to adjust your perspective on other people, generally.

I believe a wide range of things you consider insane and you likewise. You need to just accept that and stop worrying about it. If I worried about all the insane stuff you and Beskar said I'd actually go insane.

Quote:

---

The way you speak makes it seems as though you think kings were the sole and unlimited sources of political power in pre-modern times. Who you knew and what you could do for each other has always been an organizing principle of complex societies.

---

The king was the exclusive font of power and law. This is still technically true in the UK (but not other modern European monarchies), hence all the recent contortions over the prorogation. I could go into all of the machinations of how this worked in practice but despite what you might call "political realities" it was also a reality that everything rested on one man, and it was exclusively a man in Anglo-Saxon England, from a royal family (not just a noble one).

Quote:

---

I don't know about Mansa Musa sprinkling gold here and there, but there was a coherent monetary framework in place in the 18th century. It's not debatable that there were relatively few megamillionaires and billionaires, adjusted for inflation, before the world wars and globalization.

---

You mean when he destroyed the entire economy of Egypt (no mean feat) twice? we live in a highly monetised society, where wealth is very mobile. In the medieval world you had people with thousands of serfs, multiple massive castles, who controlled the lives of perhaps tens of thousands of people directly and through their vassals. Money's less of a thing when you have direct control of physical resources and people.

Quote:

---

The important takeaway is that de facto hereditary class has been big throughout American history, it is cultivated and perpetuated through interrelationships among the elite as much as wealth per se, and wealth can always be obtained through mutual services and leveraging of prestige and privilege. As has been increasingly pointed out, even the entire American upper-middle-class looks ever more like a hereditary class in practice.

---

Ah, I see, you have confused "no upper class" with no class. I have s social class, I can't lose it, I inherited it from my father and I wear it all the time. It allows me to do things that perhaps someone of a lower class couldn't get away with - although that's probably less true today than ten years ago.

Quote:

---

You always return to your understanding of modern English class. Without even engaging on those terms, you should realize that the world is bigger than England.

Though separately I would be interested if you can find any other examples of French "peasants" cheering Queen Elizabeth. She visits Normandy frequently enough, after all, usually to commemorate WW2 events. Come to think of it, I wonder if that has any relevance...

---

That anecdote was about French class - you know France - that place where all the wine is made by people living in castles? I mostly compare American class to English class because it is the closest point of contact for you.

Quote:

---

A certain kind of modern American doesn't realize it because he has access to consumer choice, and to tribal opiates like god and guns.

---

You want to distance yourself from Marx you shouldn't use his language.

Quote:

---

If you want to say the churl was better off than a modern American or Englishman, that's a separate topic, and it will have to admit much more information than just class theory. I would agree only on some very narrow constructions. Such as I already mentioned, that on some measures of inequality the churl could have been closer to his lord than the modern analogues.To the extent that you reacted against any subtext that the modern American is 'declining' or 'degenerating' into churlhood, I was and am willing to accommodate that.

---

That would have been a more interesting discussion, but instead you fixate on fixing the churl in an analogous position where he is "low class". In a slave-owning society slaves are low-class, free men tend to be an actual cut above.

Quote:

---

The king owning all land is a legal fiction, not an intrinsic power dynamic. The land is not a magical organism that responds to divinely-vested authority. Kingship is not a unit of power.

---

There's very little evidence people saw it that way. Very few bad kings were openly defied or deposed - thing had to get really bad for that to happen. This is a society where the majority of people believe the King actually is anointed by God. I realsie that might be difficult to wrap your head around but there's really no evidence this was the upper class in cahoots to trick the poor people.

Indeed, the concept of a legal fiction isn't really a concept compaitible with the medieval worldview when the flawed "earthly" law is meant to be shaped by God's law.

Quote:

---

Without refreshing my memory I believe there were some other conflicts ongoing beyond umbrage at Cromwell being a commoner.

---

There was a tug of war over reformist and traditionalist bishops and Cromwell was on the losing reformist side (it swung back the other way later) - there was also his failed marriage to Anne of Cleves. Overall, though, if Cromwell had been nobly born he probably would have been disgraced rather than executed.

Quote:

---

Speaking of rape, elites, and the South, here's a wonderful little story:

Wade Hampton II was one of the big names among the Southern elite of the antebellum period. Hampton had four daughters. I'm just going to post something from Wiki without further comment.

---

Charming

Quote:

---

If you think it's not insightful, that's fine. I offered you that. But it's not a false comparison.

---

I dissagree - I don't think there's a meaningful comparison here. Not beyond "some people are poor, some are rich."

Quote:

---

If there is a sense that Russia is "post-Soviet," that is not the sense in which any part of the world is "post-Roman." It's the height of banality to repeat the fact that Roman civilization has influenced subsequent civilizations.

:shame:

---

Seriously, look up the way the Tribal Assembly worked - then come back.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Philippus Flavius Homovallumus

I believe a wide range of things you consider insane and you likewise. You need to just accept that and stop worrying about it. If I worried about all the insane stuff you and Beskar said I'd actually go insane

---

In the most recent example of you attacking a source, it wasn't a matter of 'here's how we disagree and why', it was indefensible. It considered it disgusting in its own right, all the more so if meant to screw with me. Don't you perceive any variations in my approach to you? If it all seems monotonous then you've escaped the intended effect entirely.

Quote:

---

That would have been a more interesting discussion, but instead you fixate on fixing the churl in an analogous position where he is "low class". In a slave-owning society slaves are low-class, free men tend to be an actual cut above.

---

Yes, low-class freemen. Above slaves. Below the rest. It's really straightforward semantics.

Quote:

---

The king was the exclusive font of power and law. This is still technically true in the UK (but not other modern European monarchies), hence all the recent contortions over the prorogation. I could go into all of the machinations of how this worked in practice but despite what you might call "political realities" it was also a reality that everything rested on one man, and it was exclusively a man in Anglo-Saxon England, from a royal family (not just a noble one).

---

Quote:

---

There's very little evidence people saw it that way. Very few bad kings were openly defied or deposed - thing had to get really bad for that to happen. This is a society where the majority of people believe the King actually is anointed by God. I realsie that might be difficult to wrap your head around but there's really no evidence this was the upper class in cahoots to trick the poor people.

Indeed, the concept of a legal fiction isn't really a concept compaitible with the medieval worldview when the flawed "earthly" law is meant to be shaped by God's law.

---

Now,

Quote:

---

You mean when he destroyed the entire economy of Egypt (no mean feat) twice? we live in a highly monetised society, where wealth is very mobile. In the medieval world you had people with thousands of serfs, multiple massive castles, who controlled the lives of perhaps tens of thousands of people directly and through their vassals. Money's less of a thing when you have direct control of physical resources and people.

---

Exactly. No king can directly control the whole mass of the population. Prior to the civil bureaucracy he has intermediaries, some of whom are high nobility. These individuals have practical independent power as a byproduct of these resources and authorities, and through their dealings and intrigues with one another. No noble, no king, is either omnipotent or invincible. That a king isn't overthrown is no implication that he rules nothing but meek subordinates who have no concept of personal advantage.

Quote:

---

Ah, I see, you have confused "no upper class" with no class. I have s social class, I can't lose it, I inherited it from my father and I wear it all the time. It allows me to do things that perhaps someone of a lower class couldn't get away with - although that's probably less true today than ten years ago.

---

?

Quote:

---

That anecdote was about French class - you know France - that place where all the wine is made by people living in castles? I mostly compare American class to English class because it is the closest point of contact for you.

---

Expand on it. What were the peasants (who? how many?) doing when Elizabeth visited this year, or all the other years? Chinese tourists also cheer when they see the Queen.

Quote:

---

You want to distance yourself from Marx you shouldn't use his language.

---

Is this like that Islamophobic meme where if you recite a certain phrase you become a Muslim against your will? If you say "opiate", "bourgeois", "dialectic" to a mirror in a dark room you become a Marxist?

Quote:

---

Charming

---

Patriarchy.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Montmorency

In the most recent example of you attacking a source, it wasn't a matter of 'here's how we disagree and why', it was indefensible. It considered it disgusting in its own right, all the more so if meant to screw with me. Don't you perceive any variations in my approach to you? If it all seems monotonous then you've escaped the intended effect entirely.

---

No, that was yet another example of you jumping all over me because you don't like my opinion.

"Source look dodgy, possibly dishonest" is an opinion on a source. I don't like shoddy historiography, you're reading too much into it.

Quote:

---

Yes, low-class freemen. Above slaves. Below the rest. It's really straightforward semantics.

---

Who are "the rest"? They're a minority. In reality you have slaves, the Royal family, the Thanes, and the churls are "the rest".

Quote:

---

Now,

Exactly. No king can directly control the whole mass of the population. Prior to the civil bureaucracy he has intermediaries, some of whom are high nobility. These individuals have practical independent power as a byproduct of these resources and authorities, and through their dealings and intrigues with one another. No noble, no king, is either omnipotent or invincible. That a king isn't overthrown is no implication that he rules nothing but meek subordinates who have no concept of personal advantage.

---

This is an anachronistic interpretation of medieval society, it grossly under-estimates the medieval reverence for monarchy. This is a society where good people burned other people alive for having the wrong beliefs.

Quote:

---

?

---

I suppose you think I'm joking again, or trolling.

Quote:

---

Expand on it. What were the peasants (who? how many?) doing when Elizabeth visited this year, or all the other years? Chinese tourists also cheer when they see the Queen.

---

I might go look it up, since you asked nicely.

Quote:

---

Is this like that Islamophobic meme where if you recite a certain phrase you become a Muslim against your will? If you say "opiate", "bourgeois", "dialectic" to a mirror in a dark room you become a Marxist?

---

No, I just think it sounds silly. Seeing religion as the "opiate of the masses" and referring to historical wealthy, non noble, classes anachronistically as "bourgeois" makes you look like a Marxist. You claim not to be a Marxist, though, even though you look like one.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Montmorency

I think I've found a good comparison to illustrate: HP Lovecraft (colonial Anglo) and TE Lawrence (British Anglo).

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._June_1934.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...e_lawrence.jpg

Tell me you don't see it? Now the next step if my notion has any validity would be to identify any systematic proportion among the general population of this facial model - maybe it's just a weird coincidence. (Well, the proper first step would be to parametrize the putative facial model but...)

---

The thing that stands out the most to me is that they both have quite long faces, which is not really a trait that I would particularly associate with the British Isles. The guy in the second photo looks almost German, though I suppose something could feel off about that assignment. But knowing their nationalities, my assessments are of course compromised.

Quote:

---

Considering the great variation in appearance within the groups "Asian" and "Latin American" (of whom the latter comprise everything from overwhelmingly European-ancestry countries like Argentina and overwhelmingly Amerindian (and minimally-admixed mestizo) countries like Bolivia), that's too sweeping an assessment. At any rate, it isn't helpful to dignify sorting by appearance or color.

---

And that's how you are supposed to interpret it; don't think of Argentina, but maybe you can think of e.g. Honduras. It was a Mexican gang in this case, but I don't think that it is important.

Oh - on Ellipsis:

"It is not normally necessary to use an ellipsis at the beginning or end of a quotation; almost all quotations will be taken from a larger context and there is usually no need to indicate this obvious fact unless the sense of the passage quote is manifestly complete."

MHRA Style Guide, Second Edition, p.46.

So, ellipsis at the end of a quotation begs the question what is missing. But hey, it's not like I'm an expert on academic writing, is it?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Philippus Flavius Homovallumus

No, that was yet another example of you jumping all over me because you don't like my opinion.

"Source look dodgy, possibly dishonest" is an opinion on a source. I don't like shoddy historiography, you're reading too much into it.

---

It's not a valid opinion. It's beyond the pale.

Quote:

---

So, ellipsis at the end of a quotation begs the question what is missing.

---

The allegation of dishonesty is what begs the question, fallaciously.

Quote:

---

But hey, it's not like I'm an expert on academic writing, is it?

---

Between you, after all said, and an academic work where content and context present no indication of misrepresentation, you shouldn't expect an appeal to your authority to carry any clout.

This flagrant malicious arrogance and self-righteous dishonesty is what totally tarnishes my esteem of you, which perhaps has been perniciously inflated all along. :(

Quote:

---

Who are "the rest"? They're a minority. In reality you have slaves, the Royal family, the Thanes, and the churls are "the rest".

---

Yes. What are the logical entailments?

Quote:

---

This is an anachronistic interpretation of medieval society, it grossly under-estimates the medieval reverence for monarchy. This is a society where good people burned other people alive for having the wrong beliefs.

---

Such a dramatic claim, that everyone below the King in medieval societies was essentially a willingly-servile wretch with no concept of self-worth beyond the wellbeing and prosperity of the King, would of course demand prodigious evidence, and at least a response to the counter-evidence. Every monarch has claimed divine legitimacy in some form, yet we know for a fact that there has been great variation in the strength of these regimes. We know for a fact that people at all levels of courtly society have always jockeyed for influence among each other. A king is just a man, with finite resources and transactable loyalties. He cannot grant, or retract, a prerogative without a price.

Quote:

---

I suppose you think I'm joking again, or trolling.

---

I don't even understand what that section means.

Quote:

---

No, I just think it sounds silly. Seeing religion as the "opiate of the masses" and referring to historical wealthy, non noble, classes anachronistically as "bourgeois" makes you look like a Marxist. You claim not to be a Marxist, though, even though you look like one.

---

I used "bourgeois" in reference only to modern (in the broad sense) groups.

Capital, class, and factors of production are terms used by Marx. They are also common to all other modes of economic analysis. I'm not doing anything special when invoking very diffused terminology. Opiate is a metaphor and not economic terminology, and a conservative or non-ideological writer would have no barrier to applying it where she deems appropriate in the sense of a distracting or neutralizing force. A common alternative in use is "soma."

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Viking

The thing that stands out the most to me is that they both have quite long faces, which is not really a trait that I would particularly associate with the British Isles. The guy in the second photo looks almost German, though I suppose something could feel off about that assignment. But knowing their nationalities, my assessments are of course compromised.

---

One of the difficulties I would have is - since I'm a visually weak person - describing in detail what the similarities or differences are between their faces. It's not about the length per se. All I can tell you is that they look like basically the same face to me, with minor variation. Without examples (though IMO a greater number of instances in my perception) I would further add that Australians tend to have a certain highly-common facial type of archetypical character. The question remains whether there is some systematic prevalence here, or if it is just a coincidence. Half of Australians are first or second generation immigrants, so even if some archetypes could be characterized whether there would be any correlation to self-reported or genetic heritage is another question.

Now this, this is probably a coincidence.

@everyone

Here is a fun thing. I believe we've seen the like in a movie or two before. Science-fiction prescience?

Wanna be entertained by an ethnic joke?

At an upcoming New Year's party:
"Did you hear Bibi has been indicted for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust?"
"A toast to that."
"Next year in DC!"

What does "God have mercy on the man who doubts what he's sure of" mean?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Montmorency

It's not a valid opinion. It's beyond the pale.

---

Why?

It's a source - doesn't matter what it's moral stance is if you're analysing it from an historical viewpoint. Falsification or manipulation of evidence for a perceived moral good is not acceptable.

To suggest the reverse is to engage in the sort of mental doublethink practised by modern politicians who lie to advance their political agenda.

Quote:

---

The allegation of dishonesty is what begs the question, fallaciously.

---

Accusation of incompetence, actually, and its not fallacious. The source is presented in such a way as to undermine the credibility of the work it is presented in. This despite the utterly banal point it is trying to make, which is that white Americans were almost universally racist at the time - especially those who were "officers and gentlemen".

Really, everything you say here is just you attacking my character because I disagree with your assessment. People can get professorships and Full Chairs and still be utterly terrible historians.

Quote:

---

Between you, after all said, and an academic work where content and context present no indication of misrepresentation, you shouldn't expect an appeal to your authority to carry any clout.

This flagrant malicious arrogance and self-righteous dishonesty is what totally tarnishes my esteem of you, which perhaps has been perniciously inflated all along. :(

---

The amount of negative moral weight you apply to "bad book, obvious point" here is what is really beyond the pale. I linked to and quoted a review from when the book was released which accuses the author of misrepresentation.

I have a low opinion of the man who wrote the book as an historian. That's it. The end. No further comment. No further interest. I still don't understand why you posted the link to begin with - surely none of this was news to you.

It's also worth noting that your supposed esteem was based on the belief that I was firstly a theologian and then, after I insisted I was an historian, that I was a critic of old English literature. Now that you're being forced to confront the fact I'm a serious historian you don't like me. You only liked me when you thought I was an academic of "soft", irrelevant, subjects like religion and lit crit.

Quote:

---

Yes. What are the logical entailments?

---

Most people are churls - as a class churls exist between the two extremes in society - the warrior-elite and the disenfranchised slaves. They overlap with both in terms of their actual lives and how they are lived.

Quote:

---

Such a dramatic claim, that everyone below the King in medieval societies was essentially a willingly-servile wretch with no concept of self-worth beyond the wellbeing and prosperity of the King, would of course demand prodigious evidence, and at least a response to the counter-evidence.

---

This is not at all what I said. You are completely missing the point I was making, which is that this is not a society you can just interpret through a modern lens - the people just don't think like you. There is a huge body of literature on the conduct of medieval "princes" of which Machiavelli was really the last word, and probably actually a bit of a satire.

In the peasant's revolt of 1382 the commons attacked the King's officers, they attacked the King's Palaces, they killed the Archbishop of Canterbury. Then they met with the King, negotiated, left, came back, negotiated some more, the King's party murdered Wat Tyler and the Rebels were ultimately dispersed. Richard II then went back on most of the grants he'd offered the Rebels and things went back to normal. About a decade and a half later Richard's nobles turned against him after years of excess and bad government, declaring him a Tyrant not a King, and Henry Bolingbroke deposed him. That only happened once Richard's behavious came to be seen as morally rupugnant and against God's Law, though.

Quote:

---

Every monarch has claimed divine legitimacy in some form, yet we know for a fact that there has been great variation in the strength of these regimes. We know for a fact that people at all levels of courtly society have always jockeyed for influence among each other. A king is just a man, with finite resources and transactable loyalties. He cannot grant, or retract, a prerogative without a price.

---

I said "I could go into all of the machinations of how this worked in practice but despite what you might call "political realities" it was also a reality that everything rested on one man," so obviously I've already acknowledged that members of the court could jockey for position.

They could also try to use witchcraft to murder the king - but only evil people do that.

Nonetheless, a King is still a magical person ordained by God. For the ultimate example of this look at the Japanese Emperor, who has survived everything for the last 2.5 millennia.

Quote:

---

I don't even understand what that section means.

---

Well, I've explained it multiple ways - you just don't believe me.

Quote:

---

I used "bourgeois" in reference only to modern (in the broad sense) groups.

Capital, class, and factors of production are terms used by Marx. They are also common to all other modes of economic analysis. I'm not doing anything special when invoking very diffused terminology. Opiate is a metaphor and not economic terminology, and a conservative or non-ideological writer would have no barrier to applying it where she deems appropriate in the sense of a distracting or neutralizing force. A common alternative in use is "soma."

---

I'm critiquing your assertion that "God and Guns" are opiates in the first instance. All Americans have an unhealthy relationship with firearms, even the ones who don't like them, but they are not an "opiate" and neither is religion. Marx's assertion that religion was an opiate was based on his observation of the agnostic, deistic and atheistic Upper Class and their use of opiates. He concluded that the only reason the lower classes believed enthusiastically in God was because it was a substitute for economic or political access, or just opium they couldn't afford.

That's a specifically Marxist viewpoint, it was enumerated by Marx.

As far as I'm concerned it's also utter rubbish - it infantalises certain people for holding certain beliefs the observers doesn't share. Reductive and insulting.

Quote:

---

One of the difficulties I would have is - since I'm a visually weak person - describing in detail what the similarities or differences are between their faces. It's not about the length per se. All I can tell you is that they look like basically the same face to me, with minor variation. Without examples (though IMO a greater number of instances in my perception) I would further add that Australians tend to have a certain highly-common facial type of archetypical character. The question remains whether there is some systematic prevalence here, or if it is just a coincidence. Half of Australians are first or second generation immigrants, so even if some archetypes could be characterized whether there would be any correlation to self-reported or genetic heritage is another question.

Now this, this is probably a coincidence.

---

They both have quite long, rectangular, faces. In the case of TE Lawrence the long nose in particular might be interpreted as a result of his Scottish ancestry. However, generally people in Britain have more oval shaped faces, if anything.

Hmmmm, another familiar face.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGGqWwVb3sU

Hmm, I read a little about rifts between Lukashenko and Putin a year ago and apparently it's now gotten fairly serious.
https://abcnews.go.com/International...plies-68428223

And I wish Brenus were still here. I completely missed last month's general strike in France.
https://twitter.com/Pie2reLouis/stat...81869155340294

Intermission: healthcare in China is mostly privatized, very expensive, very corrupt, and sucks ass. Even with government and private insurance, citizens pay up to 1/3 of costs out of pocket, 3 times that of US patients. USA! USA!

Oh wait, our current path is toward resembling China? Damn.

Quote:

---

2015 data showed that 44 percent of poor families in China are impoverished by illness debts.

---

Someone send this shit to the Sanders campaign.


In other news, women now make up the majority of the US workforce, having regained their numerical superiority in higher education decades ago (there used to be more women than men in college before WW2).

The female is future?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Montmorency

...The female is future?

---

Absent the development of a fully artificial womb, that has never been in question.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh

Absent the development of a fully artificial womb, that has never been in question.

---

The King is dead, long live the Queen.

Pro-gun demonstrators occupy Kentucky Capitol building. Again.

Not sure if they're consciously aping certain other R/republican militants.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EPoxOE_X...jpg&name=large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EPoxOE9W...jpg&name=large

And here I was thinking it was another Russians in Donbass picture.

Furunculus will be pleased to see... this diagram.

Attachment 23281

ACIN will be pleased to learn that the US is losing the satellite race with China.


No one should be pleased to hear:

Quote:

---

Some deportees are killed following their return to El Salvador. In researching this report, we identified or investigated 138 cases of Salvadorans killed since 2013 after deportation from the US. We found these cases by combing through press accounts and court files, and by interviewing surviving family members, community members, and officials. There is no official tally, however, and our research suggests that the number of those killed is likely greater.

Though much harder to identify because they are almost never reported by the press or to authorities, we also identified or investigated over 70 instances in which deportees were subjected to sexual violence, torture, and other harm, usually at the hands of gangs, or who went missing following their return.

In many of these more than 200 cases, we found a clear link between the killing or harm to the deportee upon return and the reasons they had fled El Salvador in the first place. In other cases, we lacked sufficient evidence to establish such a link. Even the latter cases, however, show the risks to which Salvadorans can be exposed upon return and the importance of US authorities giving them a meaningful opportunity to explain why they need protection before they are deported.

---

Almost every single deportee either killed or assaulted. We must end our part in the horror.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Montmorency

ACIN will be pleased to learn that the US is losing the satellite race with China.

---

And you doubted me when I said in the long run technological capability will be on parity?
Our only strengths are in the ability for our democratic institutions to reform and to maintain demographic advantages through immigration. conservatives want to hand china the world.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

And you doubted me when I said in the long run technological capability will be on parity?
Our only strengths are in the ability for our democratic institutions to reform and to maintain demographic advantages through immigration. conservatives want to hand china the world.

---

I think the dispute was more on the timescale.

Not sure that it fits here but starting a new thread seems not worth it:
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/07/u...cli/index.html
I applaud the cops' decision. No checking if the animal has rabies (if a wild anilmal is not afraid of people the odds are that it is sick), no calling respective specialists to take care of it, no taking it out of the city. Just let it out of the crate right in front of the building and get done with the trouble!

One more news:
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2...member-states/

A point of interst (to my mind) is near the end: Are there parts of neighboring countries that really belong to us?

Putin has prolonged his presidency indefinitely.
https://abcnews.go.com/International...imits-69500911

Can Queen Elizabeth II be charged with a crime?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://i.imgur.com/xQJDpQP.jpg

Points for anyone who labels the green countries.



Doodles from Curtis Lemay's journals. He sure liked bombing stuff. Also a good doodler.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://i.imgur.com/7Cagwqz.jpg

WW1 infantry attack plans look like model maps of ancient battles.

https://i.imgur.com/7wckgwY.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/i1fdCy9.jpg

LeMay was a piece of work.

My god.

Attachment 23362

https://hushkit.net/2020/02/27/flyin...n-fighter-ace/

Interview with an Iranian F-14 pilot, and his combat history in the Iran-Iraq war.

Choice bit:

Quote:

---

Reza and I launched in an F-14A (serial No. 3-6078 BuNo 160376 callsign ‘Captain One‘) around 0530 AM local time and came under the control of Dezful air base’s Ground Control Radar in SW Iran. The area was calm and our radar scope clear. We would run to the vicinity of our border with Iraq under Dezful air base’s radar control and then would head back. This would go on a few times. One time we would turn right, and next we would turn left. In the middle of my last right turn, Reza my RIO strangely (and impatiently) asked me to halt my right bank and hold it. A second later, he called out a high velocity contact on radar fifty miles out. Radar calmly asked us to hang on a second, as it could be friendly aircraft. Seconds passed, and the radar operator calmly told us that there were no friendlies in the area and asked us to watch out. My senses were now in a state of heightened tension. I could tell something was up. Moments later Reza said “… don’t have whatever it was on my scope any more, but it was for real..” He had not finished his sentence when Dezful ground radar officer came back on and told us there were a pair of enemy aircraft 30 degrees to our left, low, with a heading of 180 probably on a bomb run against the Iranian towns of Ahwaz or Dezful. I pushed down low while talking to my trusted radar intercept Officer (the ‘back-seater’ or RIO).

The radar controller kept giving us the updated track, heading and speed of these ‘bandits’ closing on us. Reza was also urging me to keep a tight left turn as he warned me of the closure rate and distance. I reached out and flipped the switches for a heat-seeking AIM-9 missile launch. At first, I got a glimpse of the number 2 in trail, and moments later his number 1 came to view as well. It was hard to tell the type of the enemy aircraft but a guessing game ensued. Was it a MiG-21, or an Su-22 strike aircraft? Unsure, I pressed on, while Reza my good RIO kept an eye out for others. The Number 2 aircraft noticed us and banked so hard to the right I thought to myself that maybe its pilot had gone mad. Now the flight leader was mine. I was prepared to launch the Sidewinder (my guess is that we were about three miles out) but he noticed us either through his fleeing wingman or somehow managed to see us, dropped his ordnance plus fuel tanks as he dove down hard to the right. He entered into a valley and flew fast and furious over a riverbed towards Iraq. We gave chase about 200-300 feet above him and entered the valley. This pilot seemed to know the area quite well. He weaved and whirled so well it enraged me. It was really difficult for me to accept that a 1950s MiG-21 was giving me a run for my money in my modern F-14. A few instances he came close to within range of my heatseeking missile but each time he would turn so sharply and timely as though he could read my mind. This Iraqi pilot was for sure a miracle worker. I was in awe of his superior airmanship. In a nimble MiG-21 he flew brilliantly. I was chasing and admiring when my back-seater Reza called out our fuel level which made me come out of afterburner and give an audible sigh. I was like “Oh man we have come this far for a kill, and now we have to go back due to low fuel.” I wanted to kill this guy by then. Adrenaline was pumping through me, I was full of rage, disappointment and excitement. I thought if it comes to it, I am gonna have to ram this guy then. Maybe he read my mind. I don’t know.

At this point, for reasons I will never understand, this Iraqi pilot made a rookie mistake. Instead of climbing to clear a ridge, he turned and impacted the hillside at high speed as we flew over. Seconds ago, I wanted him dead. Now he was dead. But my heart broke for him. Maybe I even shed a tear. That pilot was incredible. An exceptional airman. Even though I was unable to shoot him down, the kill was later credited to us as a manoeuvre kill. 38 years after and I am still sad that a good pilot had to pass-on that way. He did not deserve to perish like that. Our fuel level was now critical and finding the airborne tanker was a challenge. However the tanker pilot had heard our plea over the radio and had decided to abandon its track to meet us for a much needed air-to-air fuel transfer. We made contact with them and got home safe.”

---

This is some kind of military aviation blog, and this interview is one of a series of interviews with Cold-War-era pilots.

Thanks for sharing, Montmorency, that was indeed an interesting reading. If the subject of post-revolutionary Iran interests you, the Intercept recently published a captivating article about MEK.

https://theintercept.com/2020/03/22/...-e-khalq-iran/

I feel bad but :laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:

Attachment 23470

Tell me your favorite link in the great chain. I have one in mind.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

It's satire in case you found it too believable

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Montmorency

I feel bad but :laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:

---

Trump is Polish?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Beskar

Trump is Polish?

---

The femoid race is of Arabesque stock.