The Morning Rant: Minimalist Edition

The idea of America as the world's policeman has been discredited, as our efforts since World War II often have been ham-handed, ineffectual, hugely expensive in blood and treasure, and have become a conduit for massive graft across the globe.

Should we have invaded Iraq and Afghanistan after September 11th? In hindsight....no. We should have decapitated Iraq by killing its leaders, both military and civilian. We should have bombed Afghanistan further into the stone age, and kept their heads in their holes with regular visits of American air power. Trying to create some sort of Jeffersonian democracy where the concepts are unknown is a recipe for failure. And the conceit among the so-called "elites" in our government was boundless, but borne of abject ignorance of the people they intended to mold in their image.

They simply do not understand that Western Culture took thousands of years to
develop, and one of the bedrocks was Judeo-Christian philosophy, which is completely foreign to the majority of the world. Respect for life; respect for the individual; respect for the law; respect for religion....these are all ideas that do not exist in the third world countries that the hubris of the post-modern West wants to recreate in our image.

Perhaps it is time to retire the badge of "World's Policeman," and assume the more modest title of "Protector Of Our Own Culture." And by that I mean Judeo-Christian philosophy, the glories of Western civilization and, the most pressing issue today, The protection of Christianity and Judaism from the marauding bands of savages that seek to destroy the very religions whose ethos created the modern world.

No, I am not singling out Islam, although its adherents are by far the worst perpetrators of religious violence. Socialism is at least as antithetical to religion as is Islam, which is in many respects a sham religion created to protect and hide a revolutionary political philosophy. Although socialism as currently practiced seems to be more religion than political philosophy! It certainly has its share of fanatics.

Observe the destruction of Christian communities across Africa and the Middle East, the unending hatred of Hinduism and Christianity by the Muslims of Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh; and let us not forget the persecution of Christians in Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea. And the campaigns against Jews across the world is something that most would not have expected after the Holocaust, the recreation of the state of Israel, and the recognition that there are only about 15,000,000 Jews in the entire world!

But accepting that responsibility would also require embracing the reality of Western Culture's enemies. They cannot be reformed. They cannot moderate themselves the way Catholicism and Protestantism did. Islam and socialism are immutable, so nation building and a gentle hand will not work.

Israel is fighting Islam's evil on many fronts, most recently in Syria where the al Quaeda-borne new president has unleashed his fanatics against the Druze. Obviously, that is not the only place where Islam seeks the destruction of a religion and culture, and it certainly won't be the last.

Tours, Lepanto, Vienna...when is the next one? And when is the West going to recognize that there will be a next one? Hopefully before it is too late.

[Crossposted at CutJibNewsletter and X/Twitter] And the Apple and Spotify feeds for CJN's podcast should be working!

Posted by: CBD at 11:00 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 Wah hey!

Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea at July 22, 2025 11:01 AM (XZ5S6)

2 Meow

Posted by: Lurking Cheshirecat at July 22, 2025 11:02 AM (w3u3d)

3 Fox News host Greg Gutfeld cheered Hunter Biden after the former president’s son went on a profanity-laced tirade, tearing into members of the Democratic establishment who he says undermined and mistreated his father toward the end of his presidency.
“But Democrats, if you listen to him … what have Democrats been trying to do? All six months. Try to be authentic. They try to fake swear, do a lot of theater. That’s real swearing,” Gutfeld said after watching the interview Biden gave to YouTube personality Andrew Callaghan. “You gotta give it to him. That guy is authentic, he’s the real deal, and dare I say … I like him.”

Posted by: SMOD at July 22, 2025 11:02 AM (RHGPo)

4 Hola

Posted by: Thanatopsis at July 22, 2025 11:03 AM (GYt5+)

5 Tours, Lepanto, Vienna...when is the next one?

The what now?

Posted by: 99% of the electorate (who probably also buy Kinkade "art") at July 22, 2025 11:03 AM (Riz8t)

6 Speaking of policeman, I missed this yesterday...

"A federal judge on Monday sentenced a former Kentucky police officer to nearly three years in prison for using excessive force during the deadly 2020 Breonna Taylor raid, rebuffing a U.S. Department of Justice recommendation of no prison time for the defendant."

https://wtop.com/national/ 2025/07/sentencing-hearing-set-for-ex-kentucky- officer-convicted-in-breonna-taylor-raid/

I foresee a commutation coming this week...since Harmeet asked for only 1 day in prison (aka time served)...

Posted by: Nova Local at July 22, 2025 11:04 AM (tOcjL)

7 Art people nooded

Posted by: Lurking Cheshirecat at July 22, 2025 11:04 AM (w3u3d)

8 A year ago today.

https://is.gd/c4Ni2u

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Lying Dogface Pony Soldier at July 22, 2025 11:05 AM (L/fGl)

9 If W had handled Afghanistan correctly, Iraq wouldn’t have been necessary. And by correct I mean make the rubble bounce.

Posted by: Duke Lowell at July 22, 2025 11:06 AM (u73oe)

10 Muslims in government get to make the rules.

He who makes the rules, wins.

See MN or MI for details. It's by design. And growing.

Posted by: Martini Farmer at July 22, 2025 11:06 AM (Q4IgG)

11 Who the hell hired JOHN BRENNAN’S DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS AT OBAMA’S CIA to work under the 2nd Trump administration as a Senior Advisor to the new Deputy Secretary of Defense?

Tom Rakusan must IMMEDIATELY be terminated from DOD and perp walked off the property.

Posted by: SMOD at July 22, 2025 11:06 AM (RHGPo)

12 Martin Armstrong is claiming his models show a nuclear war within a year. he is a bit shy, apparently, of saying where or who.

Posted by: Kindltot at July 22, 2025 11:07 AM (D7oie)

13 The problem is the US refused to use nukes. In 1950, when the Red Chinamen illegally invaded Korea, a few nukes and presto! No more Red Chinamen. The world would be a better place today. Hanoi too. A few nukes dropped there in 1965 and presto! No Uncle Ho running around. Nuke a few muzzie places and presto! Fewer crazy muzzies running around.

Posted by: Zombie U Thant at July 22, 2025 11:07 AM (rfMRc)

14 Posted by: 99% of the electorate (who probably also buy Kinkade "art") at July 22, 2025 11:03 AM (Riz8t)
-----------
Meow, indeed.

Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea at July 22, 2025 11:08 AM (XZ5S6)

15 Islam is an absolutely horrible belief system. There is nothing redeeming in it.

Posted by: Bulg at July 22, 2025 11:09 AM (77rzZ)

16 and have become a conduit for massive graft across the globe.

Which is why it keeps happening.

Posted by: Aetius451AD at July 22, 2025 11:09 AM (bss/y)

17 Willowed, of course:

Watching a Sanford and Son episode yesterday. Fred was having an issue with Julio the neighbor, using a bit of Fred's yard to temporarily stire his junk.

Fred:"First you give them a bit of yard, then more, then they are in your house, and all the cockroaches arrive. And pretty soon, your house is full of Puerto Ricans!"

LOL

Posted by: Deplorable Ian Galt at July 22, 2025 11:10 AM (ufFY8)

18 I still say we should have fused a few atoms over a few muzzie sacred landmarks after 9/11. Was very disappointed that we didn't.

Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at July 22, 2025 11:10 AM (g8Ew8)

19 Arguably the problem was not invading, but staying and "nation building". I was skeptical about this at the time, but very many were insistent that it worked in Germany and Japan, so it'll be fine. Wasn't.

I keep going back to the 2nd Afghan War, which the Brits won. (Roberts's war.) The got rid of the Maximum Leader for Life, and warned them not to join with Russia, and left. THAT worked.

Posted by: Eeyore at July 22, 2025 11:10 AM (od0dV)

20 Afghanistan raises the question what's the point of spending a trillion dollars a year on the military (40X the entire GDP of Afghanistan) if it can be defeated by a ragtag band of goat herders with IEDs and Toyota pickups?

Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at July 22, 2025 11:10 AM (6rbLO)

21 Response to 9/11 should have been a nuclear attack on Tora Bora and destruction of the 4th or 5th most holey site in Saudi Arabia, with a warning to escalate. Would have ended the nonsense immediately, as well as not foisting the "Patriot Act" and other assaults to liberty on US!

Posted by: Foreign Policy On The Cheap at July 22, 2025 11:11 AM (G5+As)

22 Iraq and Afghanistan made a ton of money for a lot of people. That’s why those wars happened and why forever war will never end.

Has nothing to do with regime change or spreading muhDemocracy or uphold western values.

Follow the money. Like always.

Posted by: Its Go Time Donald at July 22, 2025 11:11 AM (Vvm2m)

23 Good morning.

Posted by: Boss Moss at July 22, 2025 11:11 AM (fp/uw)

24 Brian Stelter@brianstelter
"Local. Trusted. Defunded." That's what the big digital sign outside GBH's building in Boston says now. Like other PBS/NPR stations, GBH is starting a new fund-raising push: "We're not backing down" despite the federal funding loss, "but we can't do it without you..."

-
Can't do it without me? Well, then, you're screwed.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Lying Dogface Pony Soldier at July 22, 2025 11:11 AM (L/fGl)

25
ow-ow-OW!

Posted by: Nancy Pelosi at July 22, 2025 11:11 AM (EFZgU)

26 OT but good news. ICE is going after employers. Chris Bray on substack has some posts on the new slavery and enforcement actions that deserve more attention. I'm sure the employers using slavery will be the next "conspiracy theory". https chrisbray substack.com p buying-laborers-and-storing-them

Posted by: Smellslikevictory at July 22, 2025 11:12 AM (xhw2P)

27 "A federal judge on Monday sentenced a former Kentucky police officer to nearly three years in prison for using excessive force during the deadly 2020 Breonna Taylor raid, rebuffing a U.S. Department of Justice recommendation of no prison time for the defendant."

https://wtop.com/national/ 2025/07/sentencing-hearing-set-for-ex-kentucky- officer-convicted-in-breonna-taylor-raid/

I foresee a commutation coming this week...since Harmeet asked for only 1 day in prison (aka time served)...
Posted by: Nova Local at July 22, 2025 11:04 AM (tOcjL)

If this is the guy who was blasting away blind through the window, then he needs to serve his sentence.

Posted by: No excuses at July 22, 2025 11:12 AM (TbWk/)

28 the unending hatred of Hinduism and Christianity by the Muslims of Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh;

To be fair, the Hindu Nationalists are equally hostile to Christianity, characterizing it as a gentle and kindly demon that offers people escape from their karma.

Somehow this is considered a bad thing.

Pretty sure they've massacred at least one group of Christians.

Posted by: Gensnippet@netscape.com at July 22, 2025 11:12 AM (a+4eV)

29 12 Martin Armstrong is claiming his models show a nuclear war within a year. he is a bit shy, apparently, of saying where or who.
Posted by: Kindltot at July 22, 2025 11:07 AM (D7oie)

I keep seeing people talking about it, but it all seems to be a whisper campaign- which means it is likely bullshit.

'Hey Kindl, did you hear there's going to be a nuclear war?!'

Posted by: Aetius451AD at July 22, 2025 11:12 AM (bss/y)

30 A year ago today.

https://is.gd/c4Ni2u
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Lying Dogface Pony Soldier at July 22, 2025 11:05 AM

Look up "cringe" in the dictionary...

Posted by: RedMindBlueState at July 22, 2025 11:12 AM (kgE5c)

31 Islam is an absolutely horrible belief system. There is nothing redeeming in it.
Posted by: Bulg at July 22, 2025 11:09 AM (77rzZ)

Islam is great if you are a dude, because you can screw women at will and treat them like property. Plus, you can have slaves and lie your ass off for Allah.

Trouble is, it is evil.

Posted by: Deplorable Ian Galt at July 22, 2025 11:13 AM (ufFY8)

32 Who the hell hired JOHN BRENNAN’S DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS AT OBAMA’S CIA to work under the 2nd Trump administration as a Senior Advisor to the new Deputy Secretary of Defense?
—

My question is why are there so many deputies and senor advisors in every government agency?

Posted by: Its Go Time Donald at July 22, 2025 11:13 AM (Vvm2m)

33 We can't even police our own country. And our government is just as bad as the thugs doing crimes.

Posted by: Case at July 22, 2025 11:13 AM (ilX37)

34 "Local. Trusted. Defunded."

Yo Tater. "Trusted" is not a synonym for "Trustworthy."

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at July 22, 2025 11:14 AM (PiwSw)

35 Because of the religious side to Islam, I forget the similarity. Socialism aims to enslave or kill dissenters, much like Islam, and demands cultish adherence, also like Islam. Just ask Leon Trotsky!

Posted by: Huck Follywood at July 22, 2025 11:14 AM (KXsyo)

36 Look up "cringe" in the dictionary...
Posted by: RedMindBlueState at July 22, 2025 11:12 AM (kgE5c)
-----------

Wait, that wasn't the illustrated dictionary?

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (tT6L1) at July 22, 2025 11:14 AM (tT6L1)

37 24 Brian Stelter@brianstelter
"Local. Trusted. Defunded." That's what the big digital sign outside GBH's building in Boston says now. Like other PBS/NPR stations, GBH is starting a new fund-raising push: "We're not backing down" despite the federal funding loss, "but we can't do it without you..."

-
Can't do it without me? Well, then, you're screwed.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Lying Dogface Pony Soldier at July 22, 2025 11:11 AM (L/fGl)

Why did I just picture Zelenskyy in my head reading that?

Posted by: Warai-otoko at July 22, 2025 11:14 AM (RlmPm)

38 OT but good news. ICE is going after employers.

Good. They're criminals as well.

Posted by: BUT MUH LAWNZ at July 22, 2025 11:14 AM (TbWk/)

39 We should have bombed Afghanistan further into the stone age, and kept their heads in their holes with regular visits of American air power

----------

I recently came across a useful term for this practice, applied to Japanese airstrips on bypassed Pacific islands in WWII:

"Maintenance bombing"

It's not enough to bomb them into the Stone Age; you need to keep them in the Stone Age.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at July 22, 2025 11:15 AM (hY4dx)

40 (who probably also buy Kinkade "art")

At least the pictures his studios make are pretty.

You can't say that about most of that the Good And Beautiful call "art"

Posted by: FeatherBlade at July 22, 2025 11:15 AM (a+4eV)

41 I keep seeing people talking about it, but it all seems to be a whisper campaign- which means it is likely bullshit.

'Hey Kindl, did you hear there's going to be a nuclear war?!'
Posted by: Aetius451AD at July 22, 2025 11:12 AM (bss/y)

I am old, I was told my entire life the world was going to end in nuclear fire, slow radiation death, and starvation, and there was nothing I could do about it. For some reason this justified everything that was done to me and my future.

Posted by: Kindltot at July 22, 2025 11:15 AM (D7oie)

42 Somebody axed Trotsky about something once.

Posted by: Boss Moss at July 22, 2025 11:16 AM (fp/uw)

43
WGBH??

That's my turf.

You know what they serve up? That shriveled bitter cunt Emily Rooney, Andy Rooney's spawn, and her Lies & Bullshit.

Posted by: Soothsayer at July 22, 2025 11:16 AM (EJeBD)

44 35 Because of the religious side to Islam, I forget the similarity. Socialism aims to enslave or kill dissenters, much like Islam, and demands cultish adherence, also like Islam. Just ask Leon Trotsky!
Posted by: Huck Follywood at July 22, 2025 11:14 AM (KXsyo)

I'd say there are also similarities because both systems play to the baser side of human nature. Envy, greed, betrayal, etc.

Posted by: Aetius451AD at July 22, 2025 11:16 AM (bss/y)

45 Going after only employers would be the best strategery IMO.

What’s easier? Rounding up 100 illegals individually or arresting the guy hiring the 100? Put the guy doing the hiring in prison. Then the net guy will think really hard about hiring his 100 illegals.

Do this for a year and eventually word gets out to every business owner, I better not fuck around with illegal hiring.

Once the jobs go away most will self deport. Then ice turns to deporting the ones who refuse to leave on their own.

Posted by: Its Go Time Donald at July 22, 2025 11:17 AM (Vvm2m)

46 Truth is, most religions other than Judaism or Christianity are pretty awful.

Posted by: Bulg at July 22, 2025 11:18 AM (77rzZ)

47 You can't say that about most of that the Good And Beautiful call "art"
Posted by: FeatherBlade at July 22, 2025 11:15 AM (a+4eV)
----------
Clement Greenberg has a lot to answer for.

Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea at July 22, 2025 11:18 AM (XZ5S6)

48 Dennis Prager often said that somebody has to be the world's policeman. Who would you rather it be, China or the USA?

Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at July 22, 2025 11:18 AM (63Dwl)

49 "Somebody axed Trotsky about something once."
*****
They were very picky.

Posted by: Cosda at July 22, 2025 11:18 AM (LU9SB)

50 WGBH??

That's my turf.

You know what they serve up? That shriveled bitter cunt Emily Rooney, Andy Rooney's spawn, and her Lies & Bullshit.

Posted by: Soothsayer at July 22, 2025 11:16 AM

Dear "Greater Boston", LOLGF!

Posted by: RedMindBlueState at July 22, 2025 11:18 AM (kgE5c)

51 I am old, I was told my entire life the world was going to end in nuclear fire, slow radiation death, and starvation, and there was nothing I could do about it. For some reason this justified everything that was done to me and my future.
Posted by: Kindltot at July 22, 2025 11:15 AM (D7oie)

When the USSR fell I thought it seemed like a lot of people had no idea what to do.

But the thing is for me (born in 75) I became aware during Reagan, so I did not have the previous 30-40 years of everyone talking about how inevitable and gargantuan and implacable the USSR was. For the rest of you guys, it must have been odd.

Posted by: Aetius451AD at July 22, 2025 11:18 AM (bss/y)

52
And WGBH also puts on racist shows for the "black community," in which several local black racist "community leaders" sit around and "discuss" "issues," i.e. bitching about white people.

Posted by: Soothsayer at July 22, 2025 11:19 AM (EJeBD)

53 G'morn, y'all.

If I hadn't had a busy morning, I would've put this under the Report, but I guess the Rant is okay, 'cause it's Throck Buckmorton's frequent posting spot and this is up his balliwick:

"Effective Immediately": Shipping Line Suspends EV Cargo Due To Lithium Battery Fire Concerns
U.S. shipping and navigation services company Matson surprised customers…

The surprise is they didn't all do this long ago!!

And MiladyJo adds, and surprising the shipping lines haven't been sued by all the companies that lost products to the EV fires.

Posted by: mindful webworker - blazing boatloads at July 22, 2025 11:19 AM (RviYc)

54 46 Truth is, most religions other than Judaism or Christianity are pretty awful.
Posted by: Bulg at July 22, 2025 11:18 AM (77rzZ)

----------

Zoroastrianism had some good points, according to Zarathustra.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at July 22, 2025 11:19 AM (hY4dx)

55 Find the most obscure topic you can think of and there’s someone on your tube with channel dedicated to that topic.

You do not need pbs in today’s world. It’s like a rotary phone.

Posted by: Its Go Time Donald at July 22, 2025 11:19 AM (Vvm2m)

56 We should have razed Tehran on the morning of September 12th 2001. No one would have said shit. Except leftards of course but what else is new.

Posted by: ... at July 22, 2025 11:20 AM (9/ad+)

57 Re: 9/11

Saudis, funded by terrorists in A-Stan, attack the US

so naturally, we invade Iraq

Mistakes were made
'who do we bomb?'

Posted by: Don Black at July 22, 2025 11:20 AM (AOsQT)

58 Because of the religious side to Islam, I forget the similarity. Socialism aims to enslave or kill dissenters, much like Islam, and demands cultish adherence, also like Islam. Just ask Leon Trotsky!
Posted by: Huck Follywood at July 22, 2025 11:14 AM (KXsyo)

I'd say there are also similarities because both systems play to the baser side of human nature. Envy, greed, betrayal, etc.
Posted by: Aetius451AD at July 22, 2025 11:16 AM (bss/y)

PLUS, they don't eat bacon. Buncha' worthless fucks.

Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at July 22, 2025 11:20 AM (g8Ew8)

59 Thus spake Zarathustra.

Posted by: Boss Moss at July 22, 2025 11:20 AM (fp/uw)

60 Let's start by reminding everyone that "Islam" isn't translated to "Peace". It's actually "Submission".

Posted by: proudvastrightwingguy at July 22, 2025 11:20 AM (Ovc06)

61 OMG! OMG! OMG!!!

Stephen Colbert Humiliated as Fox News Host Greg Gutfeld Might Replace Him as Late Night Star

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Lying Dogface Pony Soldier at July 22, 2025 11:20 AM (L/fGl)

62 Dennis Prager often said that somebody has to be the world's policeman. Who would you rather it be, China or the USA?
Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at July 22, 2025 11:18 AM (63Dwl)

How many of his kids signed up to be killed in a 3rd world shithole?

Posted by: Its Go Time Donald at July 22, 2025 11:21 AM (Vvm2m)

63 59 Thus spake Zarathustra.
Posted by: Boss Moss at July 22, 2025 11:20 AM (fp/uw)

========

Buh...buh...Bu-buh!!!!!!

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, searching for thrills with John Frankenheimer at July 22, 2025 11:21 AM (GBKbO)

64 It has been said, with a measure of romantic flair, that America bestrides the globe like a colossus, not with the cold truncheon of Caesar, but with the earnest clipboard of the hall monitor.

And perhaps it once was noble: to marshal our resources, our principles, and our prodigious naval fleets to shepherd a trembling world through the detritus of totalitarianism.

But, ladies and gentlemen, I submit that nobility, like champagne, loses its effervescence when shaken too long.

We have become, not the lighthouse on the hill, but the insomniac constable at every port. A nation so diffused in mission, so polyglottal in its entanglements, that one wonders whether Foggy Bottom is issuing foreign policy directives or simply coordinating room service requests for the entire planet.

I do not mean to dismiss the virtues of engagement. But engagement, when unmoored from prudence, devolves into a compulsive habit, like correcting grammar at a dinner party.

There is a point at which the world must be allowed to burn its own toast.

Posted by: Thomas Bender at July 22, 2025 11:21 AM (XV/Pl)

65 PLUS, they don't eat bacon. Buncha' worthless fucks.
Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at July 22, 2025 11:20 AM (g8Ew

And they don't like dogs.

Obviously evil fucks.

Posted by: Aetius451AD at July 22, 2025 11:21 AM (bss/y)

66 Are we to be the permanent fire brigade for every ideological kitchen blaze from Tripoli to Taipei? Must our sons patrol borders they cannot pronounce, mediate disputes whose historical grievances predate the wheel, and fund institutions whose bureaucratic opacity rivals that of Byzantium?

It is not isolationism to say that self-preservation is a virtue. Nor is it xenophobia to assert that a republic, not a planet, is the unit of our constitutional concern. Let Germany man its own front. Let the United Nations try diplomacy without the lubricant of American largesse. Let Paris attempt, for once, to pacify the global tantrum without our checkbook.

America, I assure you, is not retreating, it is recollecting. Recollecting its purpose, its principles, and the tragically unfashionable notion that freedom begins at home and is best tended by those who remember what it costs.

Posted by: Thomas Bender at July 22, 2025 11:21 AM (XV/Pl)

67 37 24 Brian Stelter@brianstelter
"Local. Trusted. Defunded." That's what the big digital sign outside GBH's building in Boston says now. Like other PBS/NPR stations, GBH is starting a new fund-raising push: "We're not backing down" despite the federal funding loss, "but we can't do it without you..."

-
Can't do it without me? Well, then, you're screwed.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Lying Dogface Pony Soldier at July 22, 2025 11:11 AM (L/fGl)

Why did I just picture Zelenskyy in my head reading that?
Posted by: Warai-otoko
-----
They'll be promptly at the next state legislature meeting to rattle their tin cup. But, in fairness, WGBH is likely to take a big hit as they produce a lot of those expensive documentaries, etc. for the rest of the PBS system.

Posted by: whig at July 22, 2025 11:22 AM (ctrM5)

68 America, I assure you, is not retreating, it is recollecting. Recollecting its purpose, its principles, and the tragically unfashionable notion that freedom begins at home and is best tended by those who remember what it costs.
Posted by: Thomas Bender
======
You've been playing around with AI doing that bit haven't you.

Posted by: whig at July 22, 2025 11:23 AM (ctrM5)

69 I’d be ok with being the policeman but we send a bill any time you call 911. Oh you need some seaway cleared of pirates? Happy help. Our fee is $5/M per hour per ship. We will send the bill to every shipping line that uses this seaway. Payment due upon receipt.

Failure to pay will result in all assets forfeited to the US Navy.

Posted by: Its Go Time Donald at July 22, 2025 11:24 AM (Vvm2m)

70 The idea of the US as the world's policeman was sold to the public by the newly-minted officers of WWII, despondent over their career advancement prospects in a world at peace.

But, salvation was at hand!
The "brushfire" theory of pre-emptive warfare promised a steady stream of endless engagements all over the world.

And boy howdy has the military-industrial-complex loved, loved, loved that--the US has had only 1 President in 75 years that hasn't started a new war/action: Trump.

Who cares about the trillions wasted and the millions of lives lost--promotions and pensions are all that matter.

Posted by: People's Hippo Voice at July 22, 2025 11:24 AM (yxVqi)

71 Truth is, most religions other than Judaism or Christianity are pretty awful.
Posted by: Bulg at July 22, 2025 11:18 AM (77rzZ)

True… but wide swaths of Christianity here in America are pretty bad now. Think Joel Osteen… think 90% of churches closing their doors during covid (I made up the 90% number; it seems about right)…. Think how many Protestant churches today (I’ll criticize my own tribe) trip over themselves not to offend and some even fly the pride flag (not my own church but I see a lot)

Posted by: LinusVanPelt at July 22, 2025 11:24 AM (ANuwa)

72 Tangentially, just watched Path to War about Johnson's WH focusing on Vietnam.

Yalies and Harvard lads don't come off very well, for some reason.

Experts, you know.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, searching for thrills with John Frankenheimer at July 22, 2025 11:25 AM (GBKbO)

73 Never heard of him but I'll have to give him a listen.

Joe Rogan Loses Top Spot on YouTube Podcast Charts to Pro-Trump Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Lying Dogface Pony Soldier at July 22, 2025 11:25 AM (L/fGl)

74 "Somebody axed Trotsky about something once."
*****
They were very picky.

Posted by: Cosda at July 22, 2025 11:18 AM (LU9SB)

They just needed to get a handle on things.

Posted by: Comrade Flounder, Disinformation Demon at July 22, 2025 11:25 AM (i24o9)

75
I cued it up:

Doris Day's high beams & CAROL WAYNE explains her feelings about animals:

https://is.gd/hHohA5

Posted by: Soothsayer at July 22, 2025 11:25 AM (EJeBD)

76 Posted by: LinusVanPelt at July 22, 2025 11:24 AM (ANuwa)

Sadly true, Linus.

Posted by: Bulg at July 22, 2025 11:25 AM (77rzZ)

77 True… but wide swaths of Christianity here in America are pretty bad now. Think Joel Osteen… think 90% of churches closing their doors during covid (I made up the 90% number; it seems about right)…. Think how many Protestant churches today (I’ll criticize my own tribe) trip over themselves not to offend and some even fly the pride flag (not my own church but I see a lot)
Posted by: LinusVanPelt

That's just winnowing. Nothing wrong with separating the wheat from the chaff.

Posted by: FeatherBlade at July 22, 2025 11:25 AM (a+4eV)

78 17
‘ Watching a Sanford and Son episode yesterday. Fred was having an issue’

Fred was unabashedly bigoted. Lamont tried in vain to reel him in.

Posted by: Dr. Claw at July 22, 2025 11:26 AM (jbnUc)

79 They'll be promptly at the next state legislature meeting to rattle their tin cup. But, in fairness, WGBH is likely to take a big hit as they produce a lot of those expensive documentaries, etc. for the rest of the PBS system.
Posted by: whig at July 22, 2025 11:22 AM

And not for nothing is their HQ here called the Taj Mahal.

Posted by: RedMindBlueState at July 22, 2025 11:26 AM (kgE5c)

80 Watching a Sanford and Son episode yesterday. Fred was having an issue with Julio the neighbor, using a bit of Fred's yard to temporarily stire his junk.

Fred:"First you give them a bit of yard, then more, then they are in your house, and all the cockroaches arrive. And pretty soon, your house is full of Puerto Ricans!"

LOL
Posted by: Deplorable Ian Galt at July 22, 2025 11:10 AM (ufFY

That show was so funny, filled with dialogue that could never be written today. The exchanges between Aunt Ester and Fred were hilarious. The fact that Red Fox and LaWanda Page grew up together and were lifelong friends, allowed them to play off each other perfectly.

Posted by: thatcrazyjerseyguiy at July 22, 2025 11:26 AM (5xuJ/)

81 You know what they serve up? That shriveled bitter cunt Emily Rooney, Andy Rooney's spawn, and her Lies & Bullshit.

Posted by: Soothsayer
=======
I never cared for Andy Rooney nor the rest of the CBS assholes like Cronkite or Rather in the first place--I would imagine his entitled nepot spawn would be worse.

Father used to like to watch 60 minutes every Sunday so I heard enough of Rooney's pseudo avuncular grandpa act. I preferred to read Mike Royko for my humor.

Posted by: whig at July 22, 2025 11:26 AM (ctrM5)

82
What, nobody remembers Carol Wayne?

Per Wiki:

In January 1985, Wayne vacationed at the Las Hadas Resort in Manzanillo, Colima, Mexico, with companion Edward Durston, a car salesman. After an argument, Wayne reportedly took a walk on the beach. Three days later, a local fisherman found Wayne's body in a shallow bay. An autopsy performed in Mexico revealed no signs of alcohol or other drugs in her body, and her death was ruled "accidental."

Posted by: Soothsayer at July 22, 2025 11:27 AM (EJeBD)

83 Socialism is a religion pretending to be a political system.

Islam is a political system pretending to be a religion.

Both are evil systems that go against God’s wishes. But free will.

Posted by: Jukin the Deplorable at July 22, 2025 11:27 AM (17s+e)

84 Wilson was the one who pivoted from a foreign policy based on national interests to one based on making the world safe for democracy.

Posted by: Biff Pocoroba at July 22, 2025 11:27 AM (XvL8K)

85 How do you expect to be the "Protector of our own Culture" without being the World's Policeman and putting boots on the ground in all those other places where our culture is being expunged?
How do you expect constant bombing campaigns will keep those committed to expunging our culture from popping out of their holes and perpetrating atrocities when they can? (For example, expunging the Christian population in Iraq.)
How do you imagine people will not tire of the constant cost of such a bombing campaign, both the financial and the inevitable loss of life due to the usual friction of war? (Anti-air missiles, accidents, and the like.)

230 years of continuing war, 384 years including the Siege of Vienna, ended the problem in that sector.
The Reconquista, which began 10 years before Tours, took 770 years.
The problem of Lepanto remained for 277 years, including the Barbary Wars fought by the U.S., until the French annexed Algeria, with another 55 years to complete.
Together, they cover 1181 years.

Of course, the Arab Spring has thrown away those victories after a mere 120 years, so yet another grant battle is already inevitable.

Posted by: Sam at July 22, 2025 11:27 AM (7jMef)

86 That show was so funny, filled with dialogue that could never be written today. The exchanges between Aunt Ester and Fred were hilarious. The fact that Red Fox and LaWanda Page grew up together and were lifelong friends, allowed them to play off each other perfectly.
Posted by: thatcrazyjerseyguiy
========
The show was cribbed from the British series of Steptoe and Son. Unfortunately, a lot of that series was lost during the 60's and 70's due to industry consolidation by the late 70's.

Posted by: whig at July 22, 2025 11:28 AM (ctrM5)

87 I love those old Carson clips. He was the best

Posted by: LinusVanPelt at July 22, 2025 11:28 AM (ANuwa)

88 If there’s one thing on earth you can trust, it’s a medical examiner report from Mexico.

Posted by: Its Go Time Donald at July 22, 2025 11:28 AM (Vvm2m)

89 Pigs are flying over a frozen Hell!

Keith Olbermann Shocks His X Followers, Slaps Down Left’s Colbert Conspiracy Theory

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Lying Dogface Pony Soldier at July 22, 2025 11:28 AM (L/fGl)

90 Tony Hinchcliffe seems to be called Kill Tony on YouTube.

Posted by: Boss Moss at July 22, 2025 11:28 AM (fp/uw)

91
Carol Wayne's headlights while doing a skit with Johnny Carson:

https://is.gd/5rkltY

Posted by: Soothsayer at July 22, 2025 11:29 AM (EJeBD)

92 Unfortunately, the U.S. was handed the mantle of protector of the sea lanes from the U.K. after WWII.

Thanks to the Korean War and the UN, Truman pretty much set the pattern that carried us through the Cold War, with only a small breather after Vietnam to figure out wtf just happened.

I wouldn’t worry about our being the World Police continuing on like it has for the past eighty years.

We can’t afford it any longer, financially or politically.

The world is going multipolar now.
So each big player will have their own sphere of influence much like the way it was before WWI

That’ll work fine until the large alliances that are forming decide to go at it over scarce resources.

I’m more worried about ethnic/race based civil wars hitting the West over the next several decades, due to excessive migration, than police actions and major wars,

Posted by: SpeakingOf at July 22, 2025 11:29 AM (6ydKt)

93 The big defining feature of Islam, as far as I see it, is its emptiness.

There's nothing there. It's a huge elaborate swoopy mess of calligraphy that says nothing in particular. There's a single god. He told this one guy to tell everyone else to get in line. That one guy is awesome because he's that one guy. His god is awesome because it is his god. No miracles that aren't trivial or tangential, no mechanisms, no theology of any significance beyond "Get In Line". It's a theory with a single axiom.

Judaism has a whole history of a personally involved Lord guiding His people. Christianity is an enormously convoluted tangle of mysteries and soteriology that we still haven't really untangled after 2,000 years and probably never will. Hinduism has its own history to fall back on for substance as it is just slightly older than the thumb. Everyone else has some kind of justification for "Why", but Islam is just spiritual Stockholm Syndrome with a dash of sociopathy and animal cruelty. It barely even counts as a religion.

Posted by: Warai-otoko at July 22, 2025 11:29 AM (RlmPm)

94 And not for nothing is their HQ here called the Taj Mahal.
Posted by: RedMindBlueState
======
Then, may it soon become a glorified tomb as well.

Posted by: whig at July 22, 2025 11:29 AM (ctrM5)

95 90 Tony Hinchcliffe seems to be called Kill Tony on YouTube.

Posted by: Boss Moss at July 22, 2025 11:28 AM (fp/uw)

He made one Netflix special...I watched 15 minutes of it (wasn't my thing) - funny enough, Rogan was a special guest in it...

Posted by: Nova Local at July 22, 2025 11:29 AM (tOcjL)

96 Kill Tony is the name of his show.

Posted by: Its Go Time Donald at July 22, 2025 11:29 AM (Vvm2m)

97 > Who the hell hired JOHN BRENNAN’S DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS AT OBAMA’S CIA to work under the 2nd Trump administration as a Senior Advisor to the new Deputy Secretary of Defense?
----------
Sounds like another Laura Loomer post. Seriously, for all her detractors and her batshit conspiracy theories, she's about the only one who is outing these ticks.

Posted by: Martini Farmer at July 22, 2025 11:29 AM (Q4IgG)

98 and assume the more modest title of "Protector Of Our Own Culture."

I've been called an "Isolationist piece of shit" for advocating something similar. I wear that as a badge of honor.

Posted by: NR Pax at July 22, 2025 11:29 AM (jjoN6)

99 True… but wide swaths of Christianity here in America are pretty bad now. Think Joel Osteen… think 90% of churches closing their doors during covid (I made up the 90% number; it seems about right)…. Think how many Protestant churches today (I’ll criticize my own tribe) trip over themselves not to offend and some even fly the pride flag (not my own church but I see a lot)
Posted by: LinusVanPelt at July 22, 2025 11:24 AM (ANuwa)

There's also the other extreme of brutal authoritarianism packaged as "godly child-rearing" though that's probably fallen more out of favor as time as gone on. Huge in evangelical circles back in the day. Highly destructive as well.

Posted by: Another failed institution at July 22, 2025 11:30 AM (TbWk/)

100 100

Posted by: NR Pax at July 22, 2025 11:30 AM (jjoN6)

101 'Perhaps it is time to retire the badge of "World's Policeman," and assume the more modest title of "Protector Of Our Own Culture."'

HEAR, HEAR!!

Posted by: For gp, The Action IS The Juice at July 22, 2025 11:30 AM (kRXt7)

102 There’s a profound disconnect between “American Values” that US foreign policy supposedly advances around the globe. And let’s not discount the fact elements in our own country have a deep seated hatred of American values. They don’t advance or maintain them here, why would anyone expect them to be deployed anywhere else?

Free speech. Freedom of religion. Right of self-defense for the individual. Presumption of innocence in a court of law. These are the fundamental human rights - individual rights - that should be championed, I’ve never heard a peep officially about any of it.

Just vague, anodyne pronouncements about “Democracy”, which is a wretched philosophy and only given a perfunctory whitewash as the answer to all our problems in the post World War II period.

They started running PSAs in the 1950s - “A dictator can never emerge in a Democracy, the people won’t allow it.” Sure, Jan. Pull the other one, it plays Yankee Doodle.

Posted by: Common Tater at July 22, 2025 11:30 AM (ds7a/)

103 @68

>>You've been playing around with AI doing that bit haven't you.

Can you guess who's voice that is?

Posted by: Thomas Bender at July 22, 2025 11:30 AM (XV/Pl)

104 "We're not backing down" despite the federal funding loss, "but we can't do it without you..."
--------

We're not backing down but we need the fruits of your hard work and sweat to keep us going because we're sure as shit not gonna start doing all that now.

Posted by: ... at July 22, 2025 11:30 AM (9/ad+)

105 The show was cribbed from the British series of Steptoe and Son. Unfortunately, a lot of that series was lost during the 60's and 70's due to industry consolidation by the late 70's.
Posted by: whig at July 22, 2025 11:28 AM (ctrM5)
------------
The first few episodes were cribbed directly from "Steptoe and Son" scripts. Then the writers struck out on their own and, IMO, the show got even better.

Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea at July 22, 2025 11:30 AM (XZ5S6)

106
Tangentially, just watched Path to War about Johnson's WH focusing on Vietnam.

Yalies and Harvard lads don't come off very well, for some reason.

Experts, you know.
Posted by: TheJamesMadison

The Best and the Brightest

Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at July 22, 2025 11:30 AM (63Dwl)

107 Afghanistan raises the question what's the point of spending a trillion dollars a year on the military (40X the entire GDP of Afghanistan) if it can be defeated by a ragtag band of goat herders with IEDs and Toyota pickups?
Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at July 22, 2025 11:10 AM (6rbLO)

The Taliban has US lawyers and politicians on their side.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at July 22, 2025 11:30 AM (ExV1e)

108 Dog the Bounty Hunter’s Stepson Shoots and Kills His 13-Year-Old Son in Freak Accident

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Lying Dogface Pony Soldier at July 22, 2025 11:31 AM (L/fGl)

109 And not for nothing is their HQ here called the Taj Mahal.
Posted by: RedMindBlueState
======
Then, may it soon become a glorified tomb as well.
Posted by: whig at July 22, 2025 11:29 AM

Amen.

Posted by: RedMindBlueState at July 22, 2025 11:31 AM (kgE5c)

110 A lot of the world doesn't want democracy. They want kings or dictators. Or no government at all. Fine. F*** 'em.

Posted by: Don Black at July 22, 2025 11:31 AM (AOsQT)

111 The US on the world stage… I’m a big Mahan fan. Have a collosal and powerful Navy to keep the sea lanes open for trade. A high tech Air Force with drones to bomb the shit out of bad actors. Hardly ever see a need for boots on the ground. Stay out

Posted by: LinusVanPelt at July 22, 2025 11:32 AM (ANuwa)

112 89 Pigs are flying over a frozen Hell!

Keith Olbermann Shocks His X Followers, Slaps Down Left’s Colbert Conspiracy Theory
____

Keef is just jealous of Coolbert'$ $ucce$$. "I could lose $40 million a year," Keef whined. "Just like that!" [Snaps fingers.]

Posted by: DiSpAtChEs FrOm ClOwN wOrLd at July 22, 2025 11:32 AM (qUkBO)

113 108 Dog the Bounty Hunter’s Stepson Shoots and Kills His 13-Year-Old Son in Freak Accident

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Lying Dogface Pony Soldier at July 22, 2025 11:31 AM (L/fGl)

When I saw this story 2 days ago, I don't know how this happens without negligence, unless it was a shot through a floor or a wall b/c if you and the kid are in the same room, you shouldn't ever be able to shoot your kid...

Posted by: Nova Local at July 22, 2025 11:32 AM (tOcjL)

114 87 I love those old Carson clips. He was the best
Posted by: LinusVanPelt
======
Try some of Craig Ferguson clips. Different vibe than Carson but same intent on entertaining the watcher rather than indoctrination.

Posted by: whig at July 22, 2025 11:32 AM (ctrM5)

115 Afghanistan raises the question what's the point of spending a trillion dollars a year on the military (40X the entire GDP of Afghanistan) if it can be defeated by a ragtag band of goat herders with IEDs and Toyota pickups?
Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at July 22, 2025 11:10 AM (6rbLO)

The Taliban has US lawyers and politicians on their side.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at July 22, 2025 11:30 AM (ExV1e)

The purpose of a system is what it does.

Posted by: Comrade Flounder, Disinformation Demon at July 22, 2025 11:32 AM (i24o9)

116 Afghanistan raises the question what's the point of spending a trillion dollars a year on the military (40X the entire GDP of Afghanistan) if it can be defeated by a ragtag band of goat herders with IEDs and Toyota pickups?

To be fair, we *could* have defeated the goat herders, but we're not allowed to do what actually needs to be done there.

Posted by: Ian S. at July 22, 2025 11:33 AM (2ocoG)

117 We should not put boots on the ground anywhere unless:
1) we intend to fully conquer and subjugate the population via ruthless and cold detachment
2) the country has a fully functional bill of rights equal to our own.

Either they are on our level, and worth fighting for, or they are beneath us and deserve to be treated as animals.

No one deserves our blood and our treasure for their freedom--they can earn it themselves.

Posted by: People's Hippo Voice at July 22, 2025 11:33 AM (yxVqi)

118 'what's the point of spending a trillion dollars a year on the military (40X the entire GDP of Afghanistan) if it can be defeated by a ragtag band of goat herders'

Or the point of maintaining a strategic bomber force if it can be one-third destroyed by a cheap drone attack? Ask Russia.

Posted by: For gp, The Action IS The Juice at July 22, 2025 11:33 AM (kRXt7)

119 116 Afghanistan raises the question what's the point of spending a trillion dollars a year on the military (40X the entire GDP of Afghanistan) if it can be defeated by a ragtag band of goat herders with IEDs and Toyota pickups?

To be fair, we *could* have defeated the goat herders, but we're not allowed to do what actually needs to be done there.

Posted by: Ian S. at July 22, 2025 11:33 AM (2ocoG)

This, 100%.

Posted by: Nova Local at July 22, 2025 11:33 AM (tOcjL)

120 The American military, post WWII has never lost a war or kinetic military action from it's own action, it simply was not allowed to win.

Posted by: Thomas Bender at July 22, 2025 11:33 AM (XV/Pl)

121 I’m a big Mahan fan.

I think the era of the single, decisive sea battle is over.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 22, 2025 11:33 AM (Riz8t)

122 Islam is not all bad.

Pro-Hamas Activists Vandalize AOC’s Bronx Office

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Lying Dogface Pony Soldier at July 22, 2025 11:33 AM (L/fGl)

123 Israel is fighting Islam's evil on many fronts, most recently in Syria where the al Quaeda-borne new president has unleashed his fanatics against the Druze.
-

Also against Christians. Terrible atrocities, as we all witnessed from ISIS and Al Queda years ago.

Kurds are next if Jolani's animals are not stopped.

Oh, and Trump's envoy is an utter idiot:

https://tinyurl.com/2b2kmv43

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at July 22, 2025 11:34 AM (VFv8R)

124 U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced Monday morning that officers seized nearly 300 pounds of the highly addictive stimulant, which suspects attempted to disguise in between the panels.

Photos provided by CBP appear to show officers cutting through and peeling back layers of duct tape and aluminum foil strapped onto the panels, eventually revealing stacks of methamphetamine.

Posted by: SMOD at July 22, 2025 11:34 AM (RHGPo)

125 The show was cribbed from the British series of Steptoe and Son. Unfortunately, a lot of that series was lost during the 60's and 70's due to industry consolidation by the late 70's.
Posted by: whig at July 22, 2025 11:28 AM (ctrM5)

Yep. Knew that.

Posted by: thatcrazyjerseyguiy at July 22, 2025 11:34 AM (5xuJ/)

126 Most of the world doesn’t want a constitutional republic with respect for God-given rights. Nor do they want us to have one, either!

Posted by: NemoMeImpuneLacessit at July 22, 2025 11:34 AM (075ei)

127 110 A lot of the world doesn't want democracY

—

Much of the US doesn’t either. 40% of the country would be more than a happy with Comrade Bernie or someone like him being a life long ruler.

Posted by: Its Go Time Donald at July 22, 2025 11:34 AM (Vvm2m)

128 They hit Sandy Cortez's office?

Posted by: Boss Moss at July 22, 2025 11:34 AM (fp/uw)

129 The Christian God (read: God) wants us to ask "why" and delights in letting us know Him.

Islam doesn't want you to ask questions - and if you do, the answer is "because Allah said so". Every time.

Very different dynamic.

Posted by: ... at July 22, 2025 11:35 AM (9/ad+)

130 "Local. Trusted. Defunded." That's what the big digital sign outside GBH's building in Boston says now.

Seems like they should be proud that they're no longer accepting involuntary donations from people outside their broadcast area.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at July 22, 2025 11:35 AM (ExV1e)

131 48
‘ Dennis Prager often said that somebody has to be the world's policeman. Who would you rather it be, China or the USA?’

We’d have de facto veto power over any ‘law‘ that they try to enforce.
I say let China try.

Posted by: Dr. Claw at July 22, 2025 11:35 AM (jbnUc)

132
Have Gun, Will Travel

Paladin shares wise words about gun safety:

https://is.gd/59Tbxo

Posted by: Soothsayer at July 22, 2025 11:35 AM (4TGkL)

133 Pro-Hamas Activists Vandalize AOC’s Bronx Office

—

As the sun rises in the east every day, so does the left end up eating its own.

Posted by: Its Go Time Donald at July 22, 2025 11:35 AM (Vvm2m)

134 Islam is not all bad.

Pro-Hamas Activists Vandalize AOC’s Bronx Office
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Lying Dogface Pony Soldier at July 22, 2025 11:33 AM

Broken clock, and all that.

Posted by: RedMindBlueState at July 22, 2025 11:35 AM (kgE5c)

135 And MiladyJo adds, and surprising the shipping lines haven't been sued by all the companies that lost products to the EV fires.
Posted by: mindful webworker

That's entirely backwards. If anything, the shipping co.s have claims against the EV co.s. If you want your cargo shipped, you have to agree that your cargo is not hazardous.

"Hey, MegaShip~! My cargo blew up. WE'RE GUNNA SUE!"
"What did you ship?"
"A bomb."
"Get out yer checkbook, right now."

Posted by: weft cut-loop at July 22, 2025 11:36 AM (mlg/3)

136 130 "Local. Trusted. Defunded." That's what the big digital sign outside GBH's building in Boston says now.

Seems like they should be proud that they're no longer accepting involuntary donations from people outside their broadcast area.
Posted by: I used to have a different nic at July 22, 2025 11:35 AM (ExV1e)

======

Why did they apply for the money to begin with?

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, searching for thrills with John Frankenheimer at July 22, 2025 11:36 AM (GBKbO)

137 I think the era of the single, decisive sea battle is over.
Posted by: Archimedes at July 22, 2025 11:33 AM (Riz8t)

Mebbe…. But control the seas and you’re not gonna lose a war. That was Mahan’s primary point… projection of power

Posted by: LinusVanPelt at July 22, 2025 11:36 AM (i5Vkf)

138 Many people don't want their own freedom and many more than that don't want anyone else to have it either.

Posted by: ... at July 22, 2025 11:36 AM (9/ad+)

139 Much of the US doesn’t either. 40% of the country would be more than a happy with Comrade Bernie or someone like him being a life long ruler.

Assuming, as they do, that they will be part of the winning team.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 22, 2025 11:36 AM (Riz8t)

140 111 The US on the world stage… I’m a big Mahan fan. Have a collosal and powerful Navy to keep the sea lanes open for trade. A high tech Air Force with drones to bomb the shit out of bad actors. Hardly ever see a need for boots on the ground. Stay out
Posted by: LinusVanPelt
=======
Yep. There was also the idea that the Marines were the expeditionary forces needed for temporary police actions or to get US folks out of a country in a hurry. Framers did not want a large permanent land army because in their experience, that meant that army would end up being employed somewhere nasty while losing blood and treasure of the US.

Posted by: whig at July 22, 2025 11:36 AM (ctrM5)

141 I’m a big Mahan fan.

I think the era of the single, decisive sea battle is over.
Posted by: Archimedes at July 22, 2025 11:33 AM (Riz8t)
-----------
That's not what Mahan was all about. Drachinifel has an excellent video where he summarizes all the points of Mahan's thesis.

Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea at July 22, 2025 11:36 AM (XZ5S6)

142 Once the jobs go away most will self deport. Then ice turns to deporting the ones who refuse to leave on their own.
Posted by: Its Go Time Donald at July 22, 2025 11:17 AM (Vvm2m)

Need to get them off welfare also.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at July 22, 2025 11:36 AM (ExV1e)

143 99 True… but wide swaths of Christianity here in America are pretty bad now. Think Joel Osteen…

You don't like my jokes?

Posted by: Joel Osteen at July 22, 2025 11:36 AM (PiwSw)

144 143 99 True… but wide swaths of Christianity here in America are pretty bad now. Think Joel Osteen…

You don't like my jokes?
Posted by: Joel Osteen at July 22, 2025 11:36 AM (PiwSw)

======

"Man, fuck y'all. Get out of South Carolina, bitches. This is our turf."
-Jesse Gemstone

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, searching for thrills with John Frankenheimer at July 22, 2025 11:37 AM (GBKbO)

145 >To be fair, we *could* have defeated the goat herders, but we're not allowed to do what actually needs to be done there.
----

The US hasn't engaged total war doctrine since the echo from Nagasaki faded away

we've been fighting to 'not lose' ever since

Posted by: Don Black at July 22, 2025 11:37 AM (AOsQT)

146 The American military both won and lost a war in the American Civil War. A lot of lessons were learned from that struggle on both sides.

Posted by: NemoMeImpuneLacessit at July 22, 2025 11:37 AM (075ei)

147 The dispute was over the “key judgment” in a January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) that Russia had interfered in the election specifically because Putin and the Russian government “aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances.”

The senior intelligence officials pointed out the lack of evidence to substantiate the claim. “We have no intelligence to directly support this ‘aspiration’ point,” said one member of the small group of individuals working with Brennan, FBI Director James Comey, and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on the assessment of Russian activity in the lead-up to the 2016 election.

The official worried that the inclusion of the claim would “open the IC to a line of very politicized inquiry that is sure to come up when this paper is shared with the Hill.” A recent CIA analysis of the inclusion of this disputed “key judgment” noted the risks of including poorly supported judgments since skeptical readers are inclined to “reject an entire analysis if a single judgment appears exaggerated, biased, or unsupported.”

Posted by: SMOD at July 22, 2025 11:37 AM (RHGPo)

148 “Isolationist” was a carefully constructed perjorative in the period leading up to World War 2.0

This is part of the mind fvckery that is so often deployed, couch every issue as a binary, good vs. bad choice. “Here are the two (2) options, and there are ONLY two options.” No shading, no much vaunted “nuance”, no third or fourth or fifty options.

Either one is an isolationist piece of shit, OR, you are OK with whatever ill advised overseas adventure they conjure up. When was the last time you heard a General use the word Victory? Or describe in detail the compelling national interest that demands spending blood and treasure in some overseas shit hole? They tried to sell the Ukraine as “Freedom and Democracy”; does anybody believe that?

Posted by: Common Tater at July 22, 2025 11:38 AM (ds7a/)

149 The show was cribbed from the British series of Steptoe and Son.

Sanford and Son is immediately better than anything British by virtue of the Quincy Jones theme music though.

Posted by: Ian S. at July 22, 2025 11:38 AM (2ocoG)

150 And Catholicism is not all good.

U.S. Congress Report Reveals Biden Admin Funded Protests Against Netanyahu

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Lying Dogface Pony Soldier at July 22, 2025 11:38 AM (L/fGl)

151 "what's the point of spending a trillion dollars a year on the military (40X the entire GDP of Afghanistan) if it can be defeated by a ragtag band of goat herders"

Putin can have all of Europe for all I care; they've shown they don't want liberty. Maybe Putin can shock some sense into them, and get them to repel the third-world invaders.

Posted by: For gp, The Action IS The Juice at July 22, 2025 11:38 AM (kRXt7)

152 Much of the US doesn’t either. 40% of the country would be more than a happy with Comrade Bernie or someone like him being a life long ruler.

Assuming, as they do, that they will be part of the winning team.
Posted by: Archimedes at July 22, 2025 11:36 AM (Riz8t)

They all assume they'll get to be Kommissars, not proles. They're also assuming they won't be shot or sent to the gulag once they've served their purpose to the Party.

Posted by: Not thinking it all the way through at July 22, 2025 11:38 AM (TbWk/)

153 We never should have gone to war with Spain in 1898f. That's what launched us on this imperial bullshit.

We shoulda stopped acquiring territory after the Alaska Purchase.

Posted by: Bulg at July 22, 2025 11:38 AM (77rzZ)

154 145 The US hasn't engaged total war doctrine since the echo from Nagasaki faded away

we've been fighting to 'not lose' ever since
Posted by: Don Black at July 22, 2025 11:37 AM (AOsQT)

======

"We'll fight them to a stalemate until they decide to give up. Bombing supply lines. No more."
-General Wheeler

"Sounds good to me."
-President Johnson

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, searching for thrills with John Frankenheimer at July 22, 2025 11:39 AM (GBKbO)

155 Most of the world doesn’t want a constitutional republic with respect for God-given rights. Nor do they want us to have one, either!
Posted by: NemoMeImpuneLacessit at July 22, 2025 11:34 AM (075ei)

What the general population wants is not a factor, since the opinion of the masses is considered dangerous to a well functioning world. What matters is all the grants and funding going to the leaders.

Posted by: Kindltot at July 22, 2025 11:39 AM (D7oie)

156 Try some of Craig Ferguson clips. Different vibe than Carson but same intent on entertaining the watcher rather than indoctrination.
Posted by: whig at July 22, 2025 11:32 AM (ctrM5)

Ferguson is a pretty doctrinaire "Comedian Leftist", and it's all over his stand-up act. But he studiously avoided making that part of his late night show, which was a pretty smart move. He's actually funny and a good writer, though, so that was an option for him. Unlike other "comedians".

In fact, I'd go so far as to say his late night material was generally better than any of his stand up, for exactly this reason. A conscious effort to avoid partisan laziness forces you into writing actual comedy, and not falling back on cheap Clapter.

Posted by: Warai-otoko at July 22, 2025 11:39 AM (RlmPm)

157 The problem is the US refused to use nukes. In 1950, when the Red Chinamen illegally invaded Korea, a few nukes and presto! No more Red Chinamen. The world would be a better place today. Hanoi too. A few nukes dropped there in 1965 and presto! No Uncle Ho running around. Nuke a few muzzie places and presto! Fewer crazy muzzies running around.
---
Truman was a punk-ass bitch.

And Patton should have been marching east to Russia, not dicking around in Germany, clearing out the commie bastards and confining them to their shitty country.
But Ike was a bureaucrat hamstrung by the commie-loving FDR.

Posted by: People's Hippo Voice at July 22, 2025 11:39 AM (yxVqi)

158 You don't like my jokes?
Posted by: Joel Osteen at July 22, 2025 11:36 AM (PiwSw)
-----------

Sorry, I cannot get the image of you resembling Martin Short imitating Tim Allen out of my head whenever I see your name.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (tT6L1) at July 22, 2025 11:40 AM (tT6L1)

159 137 I think the era of the single, decisive sea battle is over.
Posted by: Archimedes

Imagine the hordes of Chinese ships off our coast deluging the country with drones and missiles. Navy is about the main way to take them out before they do it.

Losing merchant fleets and shipbuilding always then causes the navy to shrivel. Navy and now Air Force, as technical services, are always the hardest to spin up during a war due to massive capital expenditures and the need for trained personnel to replace losses.

With a Navy and Air Force, you have to fight with what you have for a long while which is not true for land forces.

Posted by: whig at July 22, 2025 11:40 AM (ctrM5)

160 51
‘ everyone talking about how inevitable and gargantuan and implacable the USSR was. For the rest of you guys, it must have been odd.’

It sure was. I thought the Soviet Union would be there for at least my lifetime.

Posted by: Dr. Claw at July 22, 2025 11:40 AM (jbnUc)

161 A recent CIA analysis of the inclusion of this disputed “key judgment” noted the risks of including poorly supported judgments since skeptical readers are inclined to “reject an entire analysis if a single judgment appears exaggerated, biased, or unsupported.”

Posted by: SMOD at July 22, 2025 11:37 AM (RHGPo)

You think?

Posted by: Comrade Flounder, Disinformation Demon at July 22, 2025 11:40 AM (i24o9)

162 Sanford and Son:
Can't find video of it, but seems like I remember Fred Sanford saying (re: accounting), "They pay me 2-oh, I write down 1-oh, Uncle Sam gets zero."

Posted by: Don in SoCo at July 22, 2025 11:40 AM (vd6bO)

163 Every church has gone apostate, and believers have been called to come out of her since 1988. Most dangerous place to be.

We are currently in an extended Judgement Day, which evidence shows, will culminate in the end of the world and all things in 2033.

Posted by: Come Out Of Her, My People at July 22, 2025 11:40 AM (G5+As)

164 That's not what Mahan was all about. Drachinifel has an excellent video where he summarizes all the points of Mahan's thesis.

I've read his book. He does say that.

Alfred Thayer Mahan, a prominent naval strategist, advocated for the idea of a decisive sea battle as a key element in achieving naval supremacy. He believed that a nation's power was heavily influenced by its control of the seas, and that a strong navy, capable of winning such a battle, was essential for projecting that power. His writings, particularly "The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783," significantly impacted naval doctrine and fueled naval arms races in the late 19th and early 20th centuries

Alfred Thayer Mahan's concept of the decisive battle in naval warfare refers to a decisive clash between opposing fleets, aiming to establish command of the sea. This victory would then allow the victor to control sea lanes for trade and transportation while disrupting the enemy's ability to do the same. It's not just about winning a battle, but about achieving a strategic advantage that cripples the enemy's naval power and all

This was the source of the Japanese Kantai Kessen doctrine.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 22, 2025 11:41 AM (Riz8t)

165 163 Every church has gone apostate, and believers have been called to come out of her since 1988. Most dangerous place to be.

We are currently in an extended Judgement Day, which evidence shows, will culminate in the end of the world and all things in 2033.
Posted by: Come Out Of Her, My People at July 22, 2025 11:40 AM (G5+As)

Dude, people have been saying this same bullshit for hundreds of years. Only the dates have changed.

Posted by: Still no SMOD at July 22, 2025 11:41 AM (TbWk/)

166 "And Patton should have been marching east to Russia"

To achieve total victory over Russia? Tall order, even for his Third Army.

Posted by: For gp, The Action IS The Juice at July 22, 2025 11:41 AM (kRXt7)

167 150 And Catholicism is not all good.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Lying Dogface Pony Soldier at July 22, 2025 11:38 AM (L/fGl)

No religion is perfect - it's been tainted by humanity and its sinfulness.

That said, some religions are much, much closer to the perfect and the good than others. That said, the other religions normally have a nugget that they can teach us. My example is always the Mormon faith. Absolutely bonkers, but it's the one faith that truly embodies the desire to prepare and be ready for anything, and once you're prepared, to help your neighbor prepare.

Posted by: Nova Local at July 22, 2025 11:42 AM (tOcjL)

168 Ferguson is a pretty doctrinaire "Comedian Leftist", and it's all over his stand-up act. But he studiously avoided making that part of his late night show, which was a pretty smart move. He's actually funny and a good writer, though, so that was an option for him. Unlike other "comedians".

In fact, I'd go so far as to say his late night material was generally better than any of his stand up, for exactly this reason. A conscious effort to avoid partisan laziness forces you into writing actual comedy, and not falling back on cheap Clapter.
Posted by: Warai-otoko
------
I do know he talked about being proud to become a US citizen. And a lot of his show was more repartee with the stars and starlets of Hollywood, not political as such.

He would have made a far better replacement for Letterman than Colbert.

Posted by: whig at July 22, 2025 11:42 AM (ctrM5)

169 And Patton should have been marching east to Russia
Posted by: People's Hippo Voice

That's ridiculous.

Posted by: Bulg at July 22, 2025 11:42 AM (77rzZ)

170 As I read about how Tulsi has leveled accusations that are not crimes because when information was withheld from him,Trump was not yet President, I recall that Obama set new standards for officiousness in establishing "The Office of the President-elect"!

Obama, say hello to Petard... Petard, meet Obama!

Maybe his actions and statements at the time should be examined!?

Posted by: Ray Van Dune at July 22, 2025 11:42 AM (PQOq3)

171 For all the treasure that we have spent protecting Western Europe from the Soviets to see it turn as bad or worse than the USSR on human rights is very sad but predictable.

Posted by: Jukin the Deplorable at July 22, 2025 11:42 AM (17s+e)

172 166 "And Patton should have been marching east to Russia"

To achieve total victory over Russia? Tall order, even for his Third Army.
Posted by: For gp, The Action IS The Juice at July 22, 2025 11:41 AM (kRXt7)

=======

I really doubt Patton Oswald would have convinced the army to do anything.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, searching for thrills with John Frankenheimer at July 22, 2025 11:42 AM (GBKbO)

173 The question I'm NOT hearing is, why would Putin want Trump- who hates commies and thugs and all things unAmerican- over a Democrat who would be much more amenable and pliable and suitable as 'the useful idiot' ?

Posted by: Don Black at July 22, 2025 11:42 AM (AOsQT)

174 "wide swaths of Christianity here in America are pretty bad now."

Learn directly from Scripture, and not from people who try to explain it to you.

Posted by: For gp, The Action IS The Juice at July 22, 2025 11:43 AM (kRXt7)

175 Touching on the failure of Global Institutions to maintain order....

It has become fashionable in diplomatic salons—those wood-paneled cathedrals of chardonnay consensus, to intone solemnly about “the international community.” One hears it invoked with such frequency that it begins to feel as though it were a functioning organism rather than what it is: a phrase, a gesture, a mildly hypnotic incantation meant to reassure us that the grown-ups are still in charge.

They are not.

The truth, whispered in corridors but shouted from every failed summit, is that our so-called global institutions, be they the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, or any number of alphabet-soup organizations headquartered in Geneva or Brussels, have become elaborate stage sets.

They possess gravitas in diction but impotence in deed. Their resolutions are drafted with exquisite nuance and enforced with precisely none.

Posted by: Thomas Bender at July 22, 2025 11:43 AM (XV/Pl)

176 With a Navy and Air Force, you have to fight with what you have for a long while which is not true for land forces.

Especially when China's shipbuilding capacity is 500X ours.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 22, 2025 11:43 AM (Riz8t)

177 173 The question I'm NOT hearing is, why would Putin want Trump- who hates commies and thugs and all things unAmerican- over a Democrat who would be much more amenable and pliable and suitable as 'the useful idiot' ?
Posted by: Don Black at July 22, 2025 11:42 AM (AOsQT)

======

The question to use is oil.

"Trump wants to make America energy dominant. Russia requires oil revenue to fund its government (roughly 70% funded by oil revenues). Would Putin rather have an America that is energy dominant or an America that hobbles its energy production capabilities?"

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, searching for thrills with John Frankenheimer at July 22, 2025 11:44 AM (GBKbO)

178 We never should have gone to war with Spain in 1898f. That's what launched us on this imperial bullshit.

We shoulda stopped acquiring territory after the Alaska Purchase.
Posted by: Bulg at July 22, 2025 11:38 AM (77rzZ)

There were a number of very vocal, and eventually silenced critics of the Span-Am war in the US who said that in attempting to conquer and free the Spanish colonies through American arms, we inherit the Spanish Empire, and in turn become Spain.

Posted by: Kindltot at July 22, 2025 11:44 AM (D7oie)

179 Consider: genocide flourishes beneath the very banners of their Human Rights Councils.

Rogue states occupy chairs with titles so ironic, Orwell would blush. Armed conflict erupts within hours of their peacekeeping mandates, while their blue-helmeted bureaucrats convene yet another emergency session… which yields nothing but a strongly worded communiqué,and an uptick in hotel bookings.

One is reminded of the old saying: if you want nothing to happen, form a committee.

These institutions were founded on idealism, yes, but idealism must be tempered by realism or it calcifies into pantomime. And pantomime, dear friends, cannot hold a line, broker a ceasefire, or quell a riot. It can, however, draft a glossy report no one reads, and call it “progress.”

Posted by: Thomas Bender at July 22, 2025 11:44 AM (XV/Pl)

180 Let's not forget China, which is a hellhole of human indifference.

Posted by: Miley, okravangelist at July 22, 2025 11:44 AM (w6EFb)

181 "I really doubt Patton Oswald would have convinced the army to do anything."

I'll bolster that!

Posted by: For gp, The Action IS The Juice at July 22, 2025 11:44 AM (kRXt7)

182 The planet’s security cannot be outsourced to panels and panels cannot substitute for resolve. Peace is not achieved by gavel or gala. It is enforced, regretfully, and sometimes terribly,by strength, by clarity, and by the will to draw a line that means something.

But global institutions, fearing the impoliteness of boundaries, prefer fog.
And in the fog, the jackals multiply.

Posted by: Thomas Bender at July 22, 2025 11:45 AM (XV/Pl)

183 Ironically, our teaching of the love of Dada to backwoods women with a 3rd grade education made them crave testosterone fueled men more.

Posted by: lonetown at July 22, 2025 11:45 AM (RNi0L)

184 That's not what Mahan was all about. Drachinifel has an excellent video where he summarizes all the points of Mahan's thesis.
Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea
_________

For naval history fans, Drachinifel's video on the Russian Baltic fleet's voyage to Tsushima is a must. The stop in Madagascar brought on all manner of drugs, STDs and exotic animal pets.

https://tinyurl.com/bptu6aty

Posted by: Biff Pocoroba at July 22, 2025 11:45 AM (XvL8K)

185 Now, what follows from the failure of global institutions to maintain anything approximating order is not a sudden burst of international self-reliance,oh no. It is, rather, a kind of geopolitical entropy. A slow sag into disorder. A theater without a director, a banquet without a host. And in that vacuum, as in all vacuums, something rushes in.

That something, invariably, is us.

The United States,originally a republic crafted to be suspicious of foreign entanglements, has been cast, not by desire but by default, as the world’s de facto bail bondsman. When the bailiffs of Brussels wring their hands and issue another "deep concern," when the blue-helmeted peacekeepers retreat before even arriving, when the conference tables in Vienna groan under the weight of inaction,the world does not ring Geneva.

It rings Washington.

Posted by: Thomas Bender at July 22, 2025 11:45 AM (XV/Pl)

186 182 The planet’s security cannot be outsourced to panels and panels cannot substitute for resolve. Peace is not achieved by gavel or gala. It is enforced, regretfully, and sometimes terribly,by strength, by clarity, and by the will to draw a line that means something.

But global institutions, fearing the impoliteness of boundaries, prefer fog.
And in the fog, the jackals multiply.

Damn, dude, you seem to be going for the Nobel Prize in lit.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 22, 2025 11:46 AM (Riz8t)

187 And we, being both cursed and blessed with capability, answer the phone.

Why? Because we can. And because no one else will.

We dispatch carrier strike groups not to expand empire, but to fill silence. We patrol the shipping lanes not to display flagrant strength, but because no one else has a navy capable of keeping the lights on in Singapore or Tokyo. We field troops in a dozen theaters not because we crave dominion, but because there is no grown-up in the room besides us, and the furniture is on fire.

And so we are condemned to a paradox: our hegemony is not the triumph of ambition, but the residue of abdication. We are the last adults left at the playground after the monitors went home.

Let us be clear: this is not sustainable.

No civilization can forever absorb the cost—in blood, in treasure, and in moral fatigue, of cleaning up after a multilateral mess while being chided for carrying the mop.

Posted by: Thomas Bender at July 22, 2025 11:46 AM (XV/Pl)

188 Pretty sure they've massacred at least one group of Christians.

Posted by: Gensnippet@netscape.com at July 22, 2025 11:12 AM (a+4eV)

More than one.

But it isn't an existential issue for the world.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo (with a beret and a Gauloises) at July 22, 2025 11:46 AM (SuQXo)

189 What’s needed is not perpetual American interventionism, but the emergence of real, muscular, self-respecting institutions abroad. Institutions that can enforce norms rather than narrate them. Alliances that can act rather than applaud. Governments that understand that sovereignty includes responsibility, not just autonomy.

Until then, America remains the world’s sheriff, not because we deputized ourselves, but because the rest of the posse went out for lunch and never came back.

Posted by: Thomas Bender at July 22, 2025 11:47 AM (XV/Pl)

190 Learn directly from Scripture, and not from people who try to explain it to you.
Posted by: For gp, The Action IS The Juice at July 22, 2025 11:43 AM (kRXt7)

A lot of that book is wrong, you know. Trust us, we're scholars.

Posted by: The Jesus Seminar at July 22, 2025 11:47 AM (PiwSw)

191 What’s needed is not perpetual American interventionism, but the emergence of real, muscular, self-respecting institutions abroad. Institutions that can enforce norms rather than narrate them. Alliances that can act rather than applaud. Governments that understand that sovereignty includes responsibility, not just autonomy.

Well, both Japan, and now Germany, are rearming. Yay?

Posted by: Archimedes at July 22, 2025 11:47 AM (Riz8t)

192 153 We never should have gone to war with Spain in 1898f. That's what launched us on this imperial bullshit.

We shoulda stopped acquiring territory after the Alaska Purchase.
Posted by: Bulg

That was the opinion of the Speaker of the House, Thomas Reed at the time. He felt that it would inevitably lead to the fall of the American Republic and lead to a trading empire. The later Insular Cases meant, for the first time, that we were admitting territories that would never be able to become a state.

Even William McKinley, as a former ACW Union officer, was lukewarm on the war but Hearst and his yellow journalism moved Congress enough to declare war. Some of those in Congress were openly imperialist and said so in their speeches.

Posted by: whig at July 22, 2025 11:47 AM (ctrM5)

193 Effin E-slam ain't the problem. Effin leftards are the problem. They are the reason the camel bangers are troublesome. And they share the same goals. Killing the domestic communists would go a long way toward keeping the sheep breeders in line.

Posted by: Xipe Totec at July 22, 2025 11:47 AM (pohLc)

194 Our dealings with the world should be more "Warhammer 40k" and less "model UN."

If your culture doesn't respect life, liberty and property, it is heretical and must be purged.

Posted by: People's Hippo Voice at July 22, 2025 11:48 AM (yxVqi)

195 It is proper to single out Islam as a retrograde belief system, as no other religion has the same bloody imperitive since the demise of Baal, Moloch, Thuggee and Aztec practices.

Buddhism, Hindism, Zoroastrianism, Shintoism don't encourage the death, rape, and enslavement of those who are not of their sect.

If there was such a thing as "Friday School" for Moslems the 6-8 year olds would sing

"Mohammad hates you
This I know.
For the Quran tells me so.
Kill the Christians and the Druze,
Kill Yazadis and the Jews."

Posted by: Minuteman at July 22, 2025 11:48 AM (47/pr)

196 U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced Monday morning that officers seized nearly 300 pounds of the highly addictive stimulant, which suspects attempted to disguise in between the panels.

I guess we know why Hunter spouted off.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at July 22, 2025 11:49 AM (ExV1e)

197 40% of the country would be more than a happy with Comrade Bernie or someone like him being a life long ruler.
Posted by: Its Go Time Donald at July 22, 2025 11:34 AM (Vvm2m)

Right up until they got their wish.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at July 22, 2025 11:49 AM (ExV1e)

198 Well, both Japan, and now Germany, are rearming. Yay?
Posted by: Archimedes

Japan is rearming because it is facing the fact that China has become too powerful for the spread out US Navy to take on and get an assured win. That same Chinese Navy, which Japan has faced down historically before, might then threaten Japan itself if they take down Taiwan. Plus Taiwan is a big trading partner with Japan.

Then you have the Chinese mucking about with their bribes etc. with S. Korean government. A lot of the scandal leading to the former president's removal was influenced by the opposition party's China links.

Posted by: whig at July 22, 2025 11:51 AM (ctrM5)

199 40% of the country would be more than a happy with Comrade Bernie or someone like him being a life long ruler.
Posted by: Its Go Time Donald at July 22, 2025 11:34 AM (Vvm2m)

Right up until they got their wish.
Posted by: I used to have a different nic at July 22, 2025 11:49 AM (ExV1e)

So many people are Leon Trotsky and don't know it. They should hope the Democrats continue to lose.

Posted by: Ian S. at July 22, 2025 11:51 AM (2ocoG)

200 Afghanistan raises the question what's the point of spending a trillion dollars a year on the military (40X the entire GDP of Afghanistan) if it can be defeated by a ragtag band of goat herders with IEDs and Toyota pickups?
Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at July 22, 2025 11:10 AM (6rbLO)

The military was not defeated. The civilian leadership was. Go to war with the sole purpose of destroying your enemy’s willingness and ability to make war. Other considerations should not enter the discussion. Pakistan and Iran never faced consequences for harboring and abetting the factions that stirred the pot. This lies at the feet of George W Bush.

Posted by: Pete Bog at July 22, 2025 11:51 AM (VeMN6)

201 But of course.

Report: Squatters are taking over lots razed by the LA wildfires, and the victims can't do anything about it (because it's California)

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Lying Dogface Pony Soldier at July 22, 2025 11:51 AM (L/fGl)

202 Effin E-slam ain't the problem. Effin leftards are the problem. They are the reason the camel bangers are troublesome. And they share the same goals. Killing the domestic communists would go a long way toward keeping the sheep breeders in line.

Posted by: Xipe Totec at July 22, 2025 11:47 AM (pohLc)

This guy gets it.

Posted by: Comrade Flounder, Disinformation Demon at July 22, 2025 11:52 AM (i24o9)

203 'Well, both Japan, and now Germany, are rearming. Yay?'

Good! Let's pull our troops and tend to our own probs for a change.

Posted by: For gp, The Action IS The Juice at July 22, 2025 11:52 AM (kRXt7)

204 "So many people are Leon Trotsky and don't know it."

Lobotomy does that. Side effect.

Posted by: For gp, The Action IS The Juice at July 22, 2025 11:53 AM (kRXt7)

205 Damn, dude, you seem to be going for the Nobel Prize in lit.
Posted by: Archimedes
======
Bender's playing around with AI. You can always tell when a person's voice radically changes in writing.

Posted by: whig at July 22, 2025 11:53 AM (ctrM5)

206 There was a couple few years “window”, they could have nuked Moscow. Communism, Naziism, not a nicklel’s worth of difference between them. Not worth investigating anyhow. But Socialism was fashionable with the best and brightest in the 1930s and they infested the Ivy league, and many looked the other way in the 1940s as the Soviet Union were part of the Allies. They effected US foreign policy as a result, and they’ve been fucking with American society for 80 years. They imported plenty of Nazis after the war, too - propaganda specialists, mind control types, chemical warfare specialists, etc. All of the worst sorts of of human fuckery have been deployed internally. If you hadn’t noticed.

Posted by: Common Tater at July 22, 2025 11:53 AM (ds7a/)

207 and the victims can't do anything about it

I can drive a D7 and I have a few ideas of what can be done.

Posted by: NR Pax at July 22, 2025 11:53 AM (jjoN6)

208 Martin Armstrong is claiming his models show a nuclear war within a year. he is a bit shy, apparently, of saying where or who.

Posted by: Kindltot at July 22, 2025 11:07 AM (D7oie)
==
Oh bullshit - what fucking model can you come up with to predict that?

Posted by: Black JEM at July 22, 2025 11:53 AM (GZYu7)

209 I looked into KVIE 6 Sacramento. It gets $8 million of it's $16 million from membership. It's losing $2.5 million from recission. That $8 million had some charitable IRS deductions btw.
So it's crying alligator tears. After ripping off taxpayers by sticking its hands in the unwary public's pockets it wants you to believe that money was theirs. It never was. It was just more corporate looting of the public fiscal.

The big money is in the defense contractors. Maybe DOGE can bite them.

Posted by: torabora at July 22, 2025 11:53 AM (G0jjl)

210 The US hasn't engaged total war doctrine since the echo from Nagasaki faded away

we've been fighting to 'not lose' ever since
Posted by: Don Black at July 22, 2025 11:37 AM (AOsQT)

I think it's more accurate to say since the ChiComs crossed the Yalu River.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at July 22, 2025 11:54 AM (ExV1e)

211 Japan is rearming because it is facing the fact that China has become too powerful for the spread out US Navy to take on and get an assured win. That same Chinese Navy, which Japan has faced down historically before, might then threaten Japan itself if they take down Taiwan. Plus Taiwan is a big trading partner with Japan.

There was a good Insty column on this today.
Taiwan, Japan, and Australia are seriously arming up. South Korea, Philippines, and Vietnam ... less so, but significantly.

India are close to a largely indigenous nuclear "triad" [ICBMs, bombers, and submarines] and are pushing hard to field a powerful Indo-Pacific blue-water navy.

Britain and France are harmonising their nuclear "deterrent" systems, navies, air forces, and (France) land armies. Poland is massively buttressing its military, as are (smaller) Sweden and Finland...

The US is onshoring everything possible, as fast as possible and pushing defence production on steroids, as well we should IMO...China is definitely being surrounded, and that’s its own fault.

https://instapundit.substack.com/p/slouching-toward-war

Posted by: Archimedes at July 22, 2025 11:54 AM (Riz8t)

212 205 Damn, dude, you seem to be going for the Nobel Prize in lit.
Posted by: Archimedes
======
Bender's playing around with AI. You can always tell when a person's voice radically changes in writing.
Posted by: whig at July 22, 2025 11:53 AM (ctrM5)

=======

It is with uncommon emotion that I find this sentiment unbecoming such a gentleman, and a scholar.

With great regret, I must inform you of your incorrect notions regarding the ability of one to change voices easily. There are many such historical examples extending back to antiquity to reference.

Bearing a heavy heart, I bear this news to you, my dearest acquaintance.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, searching for thrills with John Frankenheimer at July 22, 2025 11:54 AM (GBKbO)

213 CBD. Great post!

Posted by: Minnfidel at July 22, 2025 11:55 AM (ewjUl)

214 Damn, dude, you seem to be going for the Nobel Prize in lit.
Posted by: Archimedes
======
Bender's playing around with AI. You can always tell when a person's voice radically changes in writing.

He was doing Hemingway yesterday, and it was quite convincing.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 22, 2025 11:55 AM (Riz8t)

215 No, I mean, Patton should have been allowed to clear the Russians out of Eastern Europe.

And nuke Leningrad if they refused to change the name.

No other country should have been allowed nukes.

Posted by: People's Hippo Voice at July 22, 2025 11:56 AM (yxVqi)

216 214 He was doing Hemingway yesterday, and it was quite convincing.
Posted by: Archimedes at July 22, 2025 11:55 AM (Riz8t)

=======

I think I can pull off Elizabeth Gaskell with some decent skill.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, searching for thrills with John Frankenheimer at July 22, 2025 11:56 AM (GBKbO)

217 @205

>>Bender's playing around with AI. You can always tell when a person's voice radically changes in writing.

You still have to prompt and direct it's musings, it just doesn't spit out WFB style treatises on it's own, I'll have you know.

Posted by: Thomas Bender at July 22, 2025 11:56 AM (XV/Pl)

218 "what fucking model can you come up with to predict that?"

You just design a model that predicts it. It's not hard. Like this:
Let Pw1 be probability of nuke war in one year.
The model is Pw1 = 1.

Posted by: For gp, The Action IS The Juice at July 22, 2025 11:56 AM (kRXt7)

219 ChiComs crossed the Yalu River.

I. P. Freely

Posted by: Commissar of plenty and festive little hats at July 22, 2025 11:57 AM (8Vunf)

220 He was doing Hemingway yesterday, and it was quite convincing.
Posted by: Archimedes at July 22, 2025 11:55 AM (Riz8t)

=======

I think I can pull off Elizabeth Gaskell with some decent skill.

Up next...Dr. Seuss.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 22, 2025 11:57 AM (Riz8t)

221 220 I think I can pull off Elizabeth Gaskell with some decent skill.

Up next...Dr. Seuss.
Posted by: Archimedes at July 22, 2025 11:57 AM (Riz8t)

=======

We will rule the world with a goose
We will rule the world with a moose
We will dominate you here
We will dominate you there
We will dominate you everywhere.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, searching for thrills with John Frankenheimer at July 22, 2025 11:58 AM (GBKbO)

222 The neutron bomb is what is needed today. Some weird beard or commie cocksucker gets all bowed up somewhere, you neutron bomb him and his family. If the weird beard or commie cocksucker is a broad, use 2 neutrons. Rinse and repeat as many times as needed and enjoy.

Posted by: Zombie Samuel T Cohen, A Jew Who Was Tired Of Playing Around at July 22, 2025 11:58 AM (rfMRc)

223 Report: Squatters are taking over lots razed by the LA wildfires, and the victims can't do anything about it (because it's California)
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks

Watch how fast those squatters get moved out when Newsome wants those lots for Section 8 housing.

Morning all.

Posted by: rickb223 at July 22, 2025 11:59 AM (ndc+z)

224 162
‘ I remember Fred Sanford saying (re: accounting), "They pay me 2-oh, I write down 1-oh, Uncle Sam gets zero."’

The IRS got the last laugh on poor Redd Foxx.

Posted by: Dr. Claw at July 22, 2025 11:59 AM (jbnUc)

225 "I think I can pull off Elizabeth Gaskell with some decent skill."

I can write kickass Bukowski.

Posted by: For gp, The Action IS The Juice at July 22, 2025 11:59 AM (kRXt7)

226 I think we were right to invade Afghanistan, but it should have been a strictly punitive mission, with the aim of destroying as many Taliban as possible within a reasonable time period.

Posted by: Paco at July 22, 2025 11:59 AM (mADJX)

227 You just design a model that predicts it. It's not hard. Like this:
Let Pw1 be probability of nuke war in one year.
The model is Pw1 = 1.
Posted by: For gp, The Action IS The Juice at July 22, 2025 11:56 AM (kRXt7)

Like that model dreamed up by the Brit who broke the rules and got caught… his model predicted a gazillion Covid deaths unless governments everywhere instituted lockdowns and martial law

Posted by: LinusVanPelt at July 22, 2025 11:59 AM (lepZb)

228 "it just doesn't spit out WFB style treatises on it's own"

Thank goodness.

Posted by: For gp, The Action IS The Juice at July 22, 2025 12:00 PM (kRXt7)

229 @220

Up next...Dr. Seuss.

“The Grand Global Gang That Couldn’t Quite Do”

In a tower quite tall, by a lake that was blue,
Sat a group with a flag and a lofty worldview.
They talked and they typed and they drafted things twice,
With committees on hunger and panels on rice.

They’d frown and they’d fuss and they’d murmur, “We must!”
Then form a new council and call it robust.
They’d hold fancy galas and post noble quotes,
While pirates took tankers and tyrants took votes.

“There’s trouble in Blarnia!” “Unrest in Magoo!”
“Quick, form a task force! And draft a review!”
But alas! By the time that the memos were read,
The cities had crumbled, the crops were all dead.

Posted by: Thomas Bender at July 22, 2025 12:00 PM (XV/Pl)

230 Representative Ryan Mackenzie, R-Penn., told Newsweek earlier this year that “large-scale migration from countries with low rates of immunization brings down our own nation’s average rates and increases our susceptibility to outbreaks.”

Posted by: SMOD at July 22, 2025 12:00 PM (RHGPo)

231 I would've loved to have a show where Archie and Fred Sandford met up.

Posted by: Bulg at July 22, 2025 12:00 PM (77rzZ)

232 230 Representative Ryan Mackenzie, R-Penn., told Newsweek earlier this year that “large-scale migration from countries with low rates of immunization brings down our own nation’s average rates and increases our susceptibility to outbreaks.”
Posted by: SMOD at July 22, 2025 12:00 PM (RHGPo)

=======

That's a racism!

It's obviously the Amish.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, searching for thrills with John Frankenheimer at July 22, 2025 12:00 PM (GBKbO)

233
Watch how fast those squatters get moved out when Newsome wants those lots for Section 8 housing.

Morning all.

Posted by: rickb223

=====

At some point, the property owners will get sued by the squatters. For what? Who knows.

Posted by: 2009Refugee at July 22, 2025 12:00 PM (HkRCO)

234 They spoke with great flair of “collective accord,”
While dodging the costs they preferred to ignore.
They promised “inclusive, just oversight schemes,”
Then went home in jets to their five-star regimes.

Their blue hats looked bold, their charts looked immense,
But their action was lacking a certain... suspense.
For when war came a-knocking or floods struck the land,
They offered a handshake instead of a hand.

The world cried, “Please help!” but the help rarely came,
Just a logo, a slogan, and someone to blame.
Their hearts may be golden, their mission divine,
But effectiveness? Sadly, it fell out of line.

Posted by: Thomas Bender at July 22, 2025 12:00 PM (XV/Pl)

235 171 For all the treasure that we have spent protecting Western Europe from the Soviets to see it turn as bad or worse than the USSR on human rights is very sad but predictable.
Posted by: Jukin the Deplorable
========
Welfare states, enabled by US policy after WWII, are inherently elitist run. That, given the history of Euroland, easily leads to an aristocratic return to power where the plebes have none and every contest between the people's will and the aristos is resolved in favor of the aristos.

Now they use the largely unaccountable bureaucracy at the EU to stamp on any dissent, threat to their trading zone, and use that to divide and conquer the citizens of the formerly sovereign states. The entire motive of the EU was to recapture the power of the aristos from the people who they blamed for WWI and WWII.

Posted by: whig at July 22, 2025 12:01 PM (ctrM5)

236 >>You've been playing around with AI doing that bit haven't you.

Can you guess who's voice that is?

Posted by: Thomas Bender at July 22, 2025 11:30 AM (XV/Pl)

-------------------

Cruel VDH?

Posted by: ShainS -- Make Alligator Alcatraz the Gulf of Gator Gitmo! at July 22, 2025 12:01 PM (MikbX)

237 Maybe a corollary to my earlier rant/spew about the emptiness of Islam:

Human nature is awful and broken and brutal. Religions throughout history generally serve to temper that awfulness, because there is something there acting as a counterpoise to it. Heavenly reward, spiritual balance, divine duty, whatever it may be. Because Islam is effectively empty, though, there is no counterpoise there, just the undefined will of an undefined god that can be whatever you need it to be to stay in power. You're left with only the raw unfettered awfulness of human nature gussied up with the trappings of a religion.

It really is very similar to leftist/marxist political ideologies. There's nothing really there besides the awfulness of human nature cloaked in a bunch of gnostic gibberish that everyone either pretends they understand, or acknowledges they don't understand and idolizes those who pretend to.

It's probably also part of why internecine conflicts in Islam and Marxism are so bafflingly brutal. At the end of they day, they're all only fighting over who's going to be in charge.

Posted by: Warai-otoko at July 22, 2025 12:02 PM (RlmPm)

238 Go back to “The Department of War” because that was when we won wars. Wars are not defensive if you want to win.

Posted by: Jukin the Deplorable at July 22, 2025 12:02 PM (17s+e)

239 No other country should have been allowed nukes.

Impossible. Can’t un-invent it. The US could have seen to it that totalitarian, collectivist ideologies never got any traction. They knew this new technology was a game changer, but they allowed, even facilitated, the Reds to remain in Russia, China, Yugoslavia, Korea, and of course Viet Nam. Just profoundly idiotic.

Posted by: Common Tater at July 22, 2025 12:02 PM (ds7a/)

240 238 Go back to “The Department of War” because that was when we won wars. Wars are not defensive if you want to win.
Posted by: Jukin the Deplorable at July 22, 2025 12:02 PM (17s+e)

======

Trump referred to Hegseth as Secretary of War in a Truth social post at some point in the last few weeks.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, searching for thrills with John Frankenheimer at July 22, 2025 12:02 PM (GBKbO)

241 Representative Ryan Mackenzie, R-Penn., told Newsweek earlier this year that “large-scale migration from countries with low rates of immunization brings down our own nation’s average rates and increases our susceptibility to outbreaks.”

In Chicago last year, 57 measles cases were recorded in connection with a migrant shelter. A tuberculosis outbreak was associated with Chicago shelters at the time. In 2023, migrants apparently brought measles to New York City. The CDC and others have conducted studies on the prevalence of infectious diseases among immigrants and refugees, including tuberculosis, syphilis, gonorrhea, Hansen’s disease, HIV, and hepatitis B and C.

Posted by: SMOD at July 22, 2025 12:03 PM (RHGPo)

242 The neutron bomb is what is needed today. Some weird beard or commie cocksucker gets all bowed up somewhere, you neutron bomb him and his family. If the weird beard or commie cocksucker is a broad, use 2 neutrons. Rinse and repeat as many times as needed and enjoy.
---
Space-based gamma lasers.
A Star of Death.
That's where our billions of military research should have focused.

We don't need to know your exact location but we'll sterilize the Earth for decades down to the mantle in a mile-wide circle.
Oh, you're building ICBMs? Zap!
Building nukes now? Zap!

Posted by: People's Hippo Voice at July 22, 2025 12:03 PM (yxVqi)

243 At some point, the property owners will get sued by the squatters. For what? Who knows.

Posted by: 2009Refugee at July 22, 2025 12:00 PM (HkRCO)

---------------

Reparations.

Posted by: ShainS -- Make Alligator Alcatraz the Gulf of Gator Gitmo! at July 22, 2025 12:03 PM (MikbX)

244 So when crises emerge, as they constantly do,
Don’t look to the tower, the desk, or the queue.
For the Grand Global Gang, though they mean very well,
Can’t plug every leak with a recycled shell.

If you want real results, if you want follow-through,
Then actions, not panels,must carry you through.
And perhaps, just perhaps, what the world really needs,
Is fewer decrees… and a few more good deeds.

And the cry will go out, America F**k Yeah!

Posted by: Thomas Bender at July 22, 2025 12:03 PM (XV/Pl)

245 You still have to prompt and direct it's musings, it just doesn't spit out WFB style treatises on it's own, I'll have you know.
Posted by: Thomas Bender
======
Not your voice, inauthentic and comes across as such. I spent decades grading papers and I can smell when someone's voice abruptly changes from other assignments.

Same as AI music and their YT short documentaries: insipid, uninspiring, and flat.

Posted by: whig at July 22, 2025 12:04 PM (ctrM5)

246 The entire reason the establishment hates Trump and tried so hard to stop him from taking office is that he doesn't want the US to be the world's policeman. The establishment on both sides of the aisle do.

Do you know which country was the largest recipient of USAID money during Biden's term? Ukraine and it wasn't close. That's on top of the billions in military and other forms of aid we sent them.

And lots of people were getting paid.

Posted by: JackStraw at July 22, 2025 12:04 PM (viF8m)

247 If you need to make the model look fancier, you can do stuff like:
Pw1 = e^(pi*i) + 2.0000E0

Posted by: For gp, The Action IS The Juice at July 22, 2025 12:04 PM (kRXt7)

248 "Man, fuck y'all. Get out of South Carolina, bitches. This is our turf."
-Jesse Gemstone
Posted by: TheJamesMadison, searching for thrills with John Frankenheimer at July 22, 2025 11:37 AM (GBKbO)

I watched a few episodes of that show just because they filmed it here.

The North Charleston Coliseum never looked so good as it does in the first episode.

Posted by: SpeakingOf at July 22, 2025 12:04 PM (6ydKt)

249 Why Iraq and Afghanistan anyway? The attackers were Saudi and Osama was in Pakistan.

Posted by: Inisfree at July 22, 2025 12:04 PM (3g6r+)

250 Physics breakthrough: 174-year-old Thomson effect theory proven in real experiment

Japanese researchers observed the transverse Thomson effect for the very first time, and it could groundbreaking.

Imagine a device that could actively switch between heating and cooling a targeted area by changing a magnetic field, rather than needing to separate heating and cooling units, or reversing the current direction as with Peltier coolers. It could be revolutionary.

Posted by: SMOD at July 22, 2025 12:05 PM (RHGPo)

251 248 I watched a few episodes of that show just because they filmed it here.

The North Charleston Coliseum never looked so good as it does in the first episode.
Posted by: SpeakingOf at July 22, 2025 12:04 PM (6ydKt)

=======

The location shooting that tickled me most was the Sky Zone.

I took my kids there more than once.

Posted by: TheJamesMadison, searching for thrills with John Frankenheimer at July 22, 2025 12:05 PM (GBKbO)

252 At some point, the property owners will get sued by the squatters. For what? Who knows.
Posted by: 2009Refugee at July 22, 2025 12:00 PM (HkRCO)

Isn't there an abandoned air base or similar out in the California desert where squatters live and even the local Sheriff doesn't bother them because it's too much trouble? Saw a video on it once but can't remember where in California it was. Like a lawless Pottersville.

Posted by: Born Free at July 22, 2025 12:06 PM (rfMRc)

253 ICE Is Helping Alleviate Pressure On America’s Emergency Rooms

Posted by: SMOD at July 22, 2025 12:06 PM (RHGPo)

254 Well-stated, Warai-otoko. I think that is the first time I have seen the word "gussied" and "internecine" used correctly in single (rant?).

Posted by: Don in SoCo at July 22, 2025 12:06 PM (vd6bO)

255 NPR's top editor has tendered her resignation days after the radio station lost $500million in federal funding for an alleged bias against conservatives. Edith Chapin, who serves as editor-in-chief and acting chief content officer at National Public Radio, announced her departure on Tuesday. Chapin told an NPR reporter she quit rather than being fired and that she was not leaving due to the funding cuts. She also said she handed in her notice two weeks ago ahead of the cuts, which Trump repeatedly promised on the campaign trail.

Posted by: SMOD at July 22, 2025 12:07 PM (RHGPo)

256 Why Iraq and Afghanistan anyway? The attackers were Saudi and Osama was in Pakistan.
Posted by: Inisfree at July 22, 2025 12:04 PM (3g6r+)

Iraq - to finish Daddy's war.
Afghanistan - so the CIA could, for a time, corner the heroin market.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at July 22, 2025 12:08 PM (ExV1e)

257 I’ve discovered a new reason to be annoyed by AI ;-)

Posted by: LinusVanPelt at July 22, 2025 12:08 PM (lepZb)

258 If you want real results, if you want follow-through,
Then actions, not panels,must carry you through.
And perhaps, just perhaps, what the world really needs,
Is fewer decrees… and a few more good deeds.

And the cry will go out, America F**k Yeah!

Gotta admit, that's pretty awesome.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 22, 2025 12:09 PM (Riz8t)

259 Even William McKinley, as a former ACW Union officer, was lukewarm on the war but Hearst and his yellow journalism moved Congress enough to declare war. Some of those in Congress were openly imperialist and said so in their speeches.
Posted by: whig at July 22, 2025 11:47 AM (ctrM5)

Whig, what's your take on the USS Maine explosion? Accident, enemy action, or false flag?

Posted by: Bulg at July 22, 2025 12:09 PM (77rzZ)

260 Much better to use AI to talk like Bad Santa.

Posted by: pudinhead at July 22, 2025 12:09 PM (W3T6M)

261 I’ve discovered a new reason to be annoyed by AI ;-)

Posted by: LinusVanPelt at July 22, 2025 12:08 PM (lepZb)

AI doesn't bother me. It's its users who bother me.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo (with a beret and a Gauloises) at July 22, 2025 12:09 PM (SuQXo)

262 PDT is celebrating Festivus early, because he is sure doing the airing of grievances.

Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door at July 22, 2025 12:09 PM (gm9Sb)

263 239 No other country should have been allowed nukes.

Impossible. Can’t un-invent it. The US could have seen to it that totalitarian, collectivist ideologies never got any traction. They knew this new technology was a game changer, but they allowed, even facilitated, the Reds to remain in Russia, China, Yugoslavia, Korea, and of course Viet Nam. Just profoundly idiotic.
Posted by: Common Tater
======
Robert Heinlein wrote a short story, Solution Unsatisfactory in 1941 that dealt with a superweapon (radioactive dust in his case), that would allow the US to dominate the world but the awful congruence meant that the US inevitably had to become an imperialist power that did not allow any other country the means of acquiring such power and the means of attacking others with it.

There is a reason that a lot of bright people in the West, during WWII and its aftermath, thought that such weapons could only be controlled by a global government. This is because inevitably they would be used. Theme became common in both Heinlein and others post WWII until it became clear that the Soviet Union and later China had no intention of giving up their weapons to some international group.

Posted by: whig at July 22, 2025 12:10 PM (ctrM5)

264 @245

>>Not your voice, inauthentic and comes across as such.

I would hope that most would be able to discern my typical, I pick things up and put things down, pig-scratch, from the more refined and sophisticated musings.

Posted by: Thomas Bender at July 22, 2025 12:10 PM (XV/Pl)

265 255 NPR's top editor has tendered her resignation days after the radio station lost $500million in federal funding for an alleged bias against conservatives. Edith Chapin, who serves as editor-in-chief and acting chief content officer at National Public Radio, announced her departure on Tuesday. Chapin told an NPR reporter she quit rather than being fired and that she was not leaving due to the funding cuts. She also said she handed in her notice two weeks ago ahead of the cuts, which Trump repeatedly promised on the campaign trail.

Amazingly, a former CEO of NPR has said that mixing journalism and federal funding is a huge mistake. She's right, although what NPR does can hardly be called journalism.

https://is.gd/f09YJB

Posted by: Archimedes at July 22, 2025 12:12 PM (Riz8t)

266 Whig, what's your take on the USS Maine explosion? Accident, enemy action, or false flag?
Posted by: Bulg
=======
Accidental explosion in the powder magazine. Spain had no reason to blow up the Maine in such a way. False flag, probably not AFAIK.

Posted by: whig at July 22, 2025 12:12 PM (ctrM5)

267 @NASA
·
1h
Uranus is warmer than we thought.

Posted by: Don Black at July 22, 2025 12:12 PM (AOsQT)

268 259
‘ Whig, what's your take on the USS Maine explosion? Accident, enemy action, or false flag?’

I’m not Whig but will weigh in.

Accident. Coal dust (or about any dust)
can be very explosive.

Posted by: Dr. Claw at July 22, 2025 12:12 PM (jbnUc)

269 @NASA
·
1h
Uranus is warmer than we thought.

Posted by: Don Black at July 22, 2025 12:12 PM (AOsQT)

Sorry. We stopped for Chipotle last night.

Posted by: Comrade Flounder, Disinformation Demon at July 22, 2025 12:13 PM (i24o9)

270 Why Iraq and Afghanistan anyway? The attackers were Saudi and Osama was in Pakistan.
Posted by: Inisfree

It was claimed that we boxing in Iran.

Posted by: Operator Error at July 22, 2025 12:14 PM (b8aHw)

271 249 Why Iraq and Afghanistan anyway? The attackers were Saudi and Osama was in Pakistan.
Posted by: Inisfree at July 22, 2025 12:04 PM (3g6r+)

Who were the prime shit-stirrers then?

Iran, Pakistan, and Syria.

Where are Iraq and Afghanistan?

Smack dab in a straight line between them all.

It was all probably supposed to be a staging operation for a much broader effort. Then a bunch of dipshits started fucking around with dragging everything out and dicking around with cups of tea just so they could keep their fat oily queerhawk faces on cable news.

Posted by: Warai-otoko at July 22, 2025 12:14 PM (RlmPm)

272
AI doesn't bother me. It's its users who bother me.
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo (with a beret and a Gauloises) at July 22, 2025 12:09 PM (SuQXo)
----------

I'm right here, you know!

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (tT6L1) at July 22, 2025 12:14 PM (tT6L1)

273 AI doesn't bother me. It's its users who bother me.
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo (with a beret and a Gauloises) at July 22, 2025 12:09 PM (SuQXo)

AI could not have made me laugh like that!

Posted by: LinusVanPelt at July 22, 2025 12:14 PM (lepZb)

274 Amazingly, a former CEO of NPR has said that mixing journalism and federal funding is a huge mistake. She's right, although what NPR does can hardly be called journalism.

https://is.gd/f09YJB

OTOH, there's this:

NPR President: Defunding NPR Was Racist

https://is.gd/IPGAk8

Posted by: Archimedes at July 22, 2025 12:15 PM (Riz8t)

275 Accidental explosion in the powder magazine. Spain had no reason to blow up the Maine in such a way. False flag, probably not AFAIK.
Posted by: whig at July 22, 2025 12:12 PM (ctrM5)
---------

Never let a good crisis go to waste.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (tT6L1) at July 22, 2025 12:15 PM (tT6L1)

276 I'm right here, you know!

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (tT6L1) at July 22, 2025 12:14 PM (tT6L1)

It was funny, and pretty well done!

But you said it was AI. That is the important part!

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo (with a beret and a Gauloises) at July 22, 2025 12:15 PM (SuQXo)

277 Europe succeeded because they made a number of cultural changes first under Roman Catholicism and then later under Protestantism.

These made Europe surge past other world powers and host a myriad of countries more powerful then every other country in the world, and eventually led to the US, the most powerful country because, amusingly, it took the changes Europe had made and went farther.

But Europe and the US have been stepping away from those changes for years, and in parallel watching living standards and raw power decline.

100 years ago a 4th rate European power like Belgium could hold large swatches of Africa, now it can't stop African colonists from coming to its lands and looting its wealth.

Posted by: 18-1 at July 22, 2025 12:16 PM (t0Rmr)

278 Damn, I forgot all about the Maine. I was supposed to remember it. Fail.

Posted by: For gp, The Action IS The Juice at July 22, 2025 12:16 PM (kRXt7)

279 275 Accidental explosion in the powder magazine. Spain had no reason to blow up the Maine in such a way. False flag, probably not AFAIK.
Posted by: whig at July 22, 2025 12:12 PM (ctrM5)
---------

Never let a good crisis go to waste.
---------------
Heh, my grandfather served in Cuba with the Iredell Blues. He was a yuge fan of Teddy Roosevelt.

Posted by: pudinhead at July 22, 2025 12:17 PM (W3T6M)

280 Bin Laden and company got the response they wanted after 9/11. If they had gotten a different response, perhaps everyone afterward would have reconsidered.

Clinton beforehand, and Obama after GW, demonstrated that no US president had the sack to do what was needed. Bin Laden was correct in his assessment.

Posted by: Ex Rex Reeder at July 22, 2025 12:17 PM (MZ+PY)

281 Posted by: 18-1 at July 22, 2025 12:16 PM (t0Rmr)

Europe committed suicide in 1914.

Posted by: Bulg at July 22, 2025 12:17 PM (77rzZ)

282
AI could not have made me laugh like that!
Posted by: LinusVanPelt at July 22, 2025 12:14 PM (lepZb)
------------

AI is odd. I've been using Grok. Grok can come up with some pretty good stuff. I asked it to do an AoS style post. I wound up with something which included a bacon pyramid.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (tT6L1) at July 22, 2025 12:18 PM (tT6L1)

283 Oh bullshit - what fucking model can you come up with to predict that?
Posted by: Black JEM at July 22, 2025 11:53 AM (GZYu7)

Armstrong is heavily into foreign exchange, international clearing of debt, Gold and balance of trade. His general theory is that war is not expected if there is good interchange of trade, but when that grinds to a halt war becomes likely
At the moment, the EU is trying to figure out how to avoid bankruptcy, and the ECB is floating capital controls on how much physical cash the average Euro can hold personally since they are bleeding money and are trying to paper it over "electronically" by increasing the velocity of the Euro. One out is war with Russia, who probably is not going to take the bait.
My guess is that the French will be encouraged to nuke a front in Ukraine to stop the Russian advance

Posted by: Kindltot at July 22, 2025 12:18 PM (D7oie)

284 @273

>>AI could not have made me laugh like that!

“They say laughter is the best medicine. Unless you’ve been stabbed. Then it’s gauze.”

AI Mitch Hedberg

Posted by: Thomas Bender at July 22, 2025 12:18 PM (XV/Pl)

285 I. P. Freely
Posted by: Commissar of plenty and festive little hats at July 22, 2025 11:57 AM (8Vunf)

I.P. Daly. Cousin of Claude Ballz.

Posted by: Harry Sachs at July 22, 2025 12:19 PM (5xuJ/)

286
America remains the world’s sheriff

Who is the world's Barney Fife?

Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at July 22, 2025 12:19 PM (63Dwl)

287 It was funny, and pretty well done!

But you said it was AI. That is the important part!
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo (with a beret and a Gauloises) at July 22, 2025 12:15 PM (SuQXo)
-------------

Yeah, I thought it was good, too.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (tT6L1) at July 22, 2025 12:20 PM (tT6L1)

288 America remains the world’s sheriff

Who is the world's Barney Fife?
Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr.

I don't know, but Zelensky is the world's Earnest T. Bass.

Posted by: Bulg at July 22, 2025 12:20 PM (77rzZ)

289 Posted by: 18-1 at July 22, 2025 12:16 PM (t0Rmr)

Europe committed suicide in 1914.
Posted by: Bulg at July 22, 2025 12:17 PM (77rzZ)

After doing some reading I’ve concluded that WWI might’ve been the biggest human caused catastrophe in history. WWII was just a continuation of that war after a rest period. The collection of knuckleheads (to be kind) in charge in Europe (and the US - Wilson) at the time were astonishingly inept. Bunch of inbred royals

Posted by: LinusVanPelt at July 22, 2025 12:21 PM (lepZb)

290 286
‘ Who is the world's Barney Fife?’

France. No question.

Posted by: Dr. Claw at July 22, 2025 12:21 PM (jbnUc)

291 There is a reason that a lot of bright people in the West, during WWII and its aftermath, thought that such weapons could only be controlled by a global government. This is because inevitably they would be used. Theme became common in both Heinlein and others post WWII until it became clear that the Soviet Union and later China had no intention of giving up their weapons to some international group.
Posted by: whig at July 22, 2025 12:10 PM (ctrM5)

Thank GOD. Can you imagine what a modern global government with a monopoly on nuclear weapons would be like?

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at July 22, 2025 12:21 PM (ExV1e)

292 America remains the world’s sheriff

Though at the same time if any of those "deputies" we send abroad actually resolve any of those world issues they are likely to find themselves facing criminal charges for it...

Posted by: 18-1 at July 22, 2025 12:22 PM (t0Rmr)

293 After doing some reading I’ve concluded that WWI might’ve been the biggest human caused catastrophe in history.

I'd put my money on Genghis.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 22, 2025 12:23 PM (Riz8t)

294 If any nation uses a nuclear weapon ever again, it will not be a major power. It will be a rogue state. I don't imagine that's a highly controversial prediction.

Posted by: Warai-otoko at July 22, 2025 12:23 PM (RlmPm)

295 Tora Bora should still be radioactive today had W acted properly.

Posted by: toddg at July 22, 2025 12:23 PM (HsIYU)

296 288 America remains the world’s sheriff

Who is the world's Barney Fife?
Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr.

I don't know, but Zelensky is the world's Earnest T. Bass.
Posted by: Bulg at July 22, 2025 12:20 PM (77rzZ)

I would cast Zelensky as Wimpy from Popeye. Gladly pay you Tuesday for a weapons shipment today.

Posted by: Our Country is Screwed at July 22, 2025 12:23 PM (N39Ws)

297 I'd put my money on Genghis.
Posted by: Archimedes at July 22, 2025 12:23 PM (Riz8t)

On net, that dude probably brought more people into the world than he took out....

Posted by: Warai-otoko at July 22, 2025 12:23 PM (RlmPm)

298 New one: Petey B.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 22, 2025 12:24 PM (Riz8t)

299 If we're the sheriff of the world, then the world needs to foot more of the bill.

How much does it cost to deploy an aircraft carrier? Nuke sub? How about maintenance? Yet, we pay for our overseas bases, on top of getting raped by tariffs.

Something has to give.

Posted by: blake - semi lurker in marginal standing (tT6L1) at July 22, 2025 12:24 PM (tT6L1)

300 Nood.

Posted by: I used to have a different nic at July 22, 2025 12:24 PM (ExV1e)

301 A Ventura surfing instructor whose arm was severed in a collision with an Amtrak train earlier this month is recovering after a grueling surgery to reattach the limb.

The horrific July 7 incident unfolded just before 5:30 p.m. as 24-year-old Ventura native Elieah Boyd pushed her 80-pound electric bike across the train tracks near Seaward Avenue.

“There was no train horn. It was like three seconds from when I saw the train to when it happened,” she told KTLA’s Sandra Mitchell. “I just happened to have my hand still on the bike as the train goes by. The train barely clipped the bike, just enough to take my arm completely off.”

Just two weeks out from the traumatic injury, her arm now in a wrist-to-shoulder sling, the smiling 24-year-old said she remembers looking down and not seeing her arm, thinking to herself that there was no way what had just happened was real.

Posted by: SMOD at July 22, 2025 12:24 PM (RHGPo)

302 Tactical nuke dilemma: where to set the dial-a-yield. You want to send a message, but you can't decide if you want 400 or 40 or 4kT. Is 400kT too flamboyant, too overstated? But 40kT seems like a waste of 90% of a perfectly good bomb.

Posted by: For gp, The Action IS The Juice at July 22, 2025 12:24 PM (kRXt7)

303 Nood

Posted by: Thanatopsis at July 22, 2025 12:25 PM (GYt5+)

304 >>America remains the world’s sheriff

>>Who is the world's Barney Fife?

Over the last few decades? Also America.

Posted by: JackStraw at July 22, 2025 12:25 PM (viF8m)

305
After doing some reading I’ve concluded that WWI might’ve been the biggest human caused catastrophe in history. /i]

Looking back I suspect the best outcome would have been if France/Britain could have been persuaded to give a number of their colonies to Germany.

Note, colonies by that point where net losses for the home country.

But it would have kept the Germans busy doing things other then making war and without the pressure of the war perhaps the Russian government has the time to reform peacefully.

Posted by: 18-1 at July 22, 2025 12:25 PM (t0Rmr)

306 Accident. Coal dust (or about any dust)
can be very explosive.
Posted by: Dr. Claw
=====
Yes it is. Forgot the Maine was probably coal fired at the time.

I seem to recall vaguely about some divers going down to the Maine's resting place to try to figure out what happened but not much more than that.

Posted by: whig at July 22, 2025 12:25 PM (ctrM5)

307 I'd put my money on Genghis.
Posted by: Archimedes

Actually, the Mongol conquests had some good after-effects. It opened up direct contact between Europe and the Far East for the first time in history, to the benefit of both regions.

And the Mongols, once they settled down, proved to be pretty capable rulers most of the time.

Posted by: Bulg at July 22, 2025 12:25 PM (77rzZ)

308 "the biggest human caused catastrophe in history."

When Eve yielded to temptation.

Posted by: For gp, The Action IS The Juice at July 22, 2025 12:26 PM (kRXt7)

309 Christians did horrible things in God's name. The difference being it was not of God or his teachings. Commies and Islamist one and the same. Do what they do because they are evil!

Posted by: SOMEASSHOLESTOLEMYPEN at July 22, 2025 12:27 PM (e8Dnf)

310 > Isn't there an abandoned air base or similar out in the California desert where squatters live and even the local Sheriff doesn't bother them because it's too much trouble? Saw a video on it once but can't remember where in California it was. Like a lawless Pottersville.

Slab City, built on Camp Dunlap. 100 miles NE of San Diego.

Posted by: bonhomme at July 22, 2025 12:27 PM (lIio7)

311 Actually, the Mongol conquests had some good after-effects. It opened up direct contact between Europe and the Far East for the first time in history, to the benefit of both regions.

Sure, but then there's the small matter of the roughly 50M people they killed, to say nothing of the Black Death they introduced into Europe.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 22, 2025 12:28 PM (Riz8t)

312 NPR President: Defunding NPR Was Racist

An AI-created funk song about how white people should just say the N word with the hard R has over a million listens across YouTube and Spotify. The Dems don't understand the incentives here - if everything is racist, nothing is and everything goes.

Posted by: Ian S. at July 22, 2025 12:28 PM (2ocoG)

313 But it would have kept the Germans busy doing things other then making war and without the pressure of the war perhaps the Russian government has the time to reform peacefully.

Posted by: 18-1
=====
I doubt it. Germans were prepared to go into France since the 1900's with the Von Schiefflen plan. The Franco Prussian War created the modern German State and the massive 'reparations' levied against France after that and stripping Alsace and Lorraine from France (against Bismarck's advice btw), led to Germans fearing French returning the favor.

WWI nearly happened because of French protectorates in Morocco and Algeria where the Germans sought a casus belli.

It did not help that Kaiser Wilhelm the II was both bombastic, fickle, and unsuited for the role he was born into. He was weak when he should have been strong (overruling the military) and strong when he should have been weaker (listening to domestic politicians).

Posted by: whig at July 22, 2025 12:30 PM (ctrM5)

314 yum yum shit
yummy shit pebbles

Posted by: Aliassmithsmith at July 22, 2025 12:41 PM (WKi79)

315 You are completely right. Half of the world is still mired in tribalism and barbarism and they cannot even begin to understand Western Civilization. I was involved in drafting and editing of the US annual Human Rights Report, and I was struck at how we criticized other countries for their native forms of government and cultural mores that they continued. Countries that were based on consensus building and used councils to legislate and judge were criticized as "not democratic." It was moronic.

But the biggest obstacle to a new recognition of the threat of non-Western countries to the preservation of the US and our way of life is the sacred principle that all cultures are equally valid. We can't say we are "better" than any other country/culture. Well, Western Civ is responsible for probably 98% of scientific discoveries, the development of technology that fueled the Industrial Revolution, the development of energy resources and the exploration of outer space, not to mention philosophy, governance, navigation, exploration. I remember when Obama was elected President and we had to listen to all the accomplishments and discoveries of Muslims -- absurd.

Posted by: Delilah at July 22, 2025 12:56 PM (nAGrR)

316 It took me the first sentence to see this was written by an isolationist.

Posted by: Cow Demon at July 22, 2025 01:05 PM (Pce4l)

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