Mantergeistmann
No bio...
User ID: 323
Mantergeistmann
16m ago
Yes, most of the commentary I've seen is that it has to do with Cofnas's remarks after Arday's resignation and suicide. Now, that may very well be a fig leaf and they were planning on getting rid of him regardless, but...
Mantergeistmann
1hr ago
Nathan Cofnas, first to expose the plagiarism and lies of Jason Arday
Technical point of order: didn’t others do so first, but it didn't gain traction because they were muzzled? First to successfully expose him, yes.
Sadly, more cynical but perhaps more realistic is Thomas Browne's Religio Medici:
Many from…an inconsiderate zeal unto truth, have too rashly charged the troops of error, and remain as trophies unto the enemies of truth: A man may be in as just possession of Truth as of a City, and yet be forced to surrender.
Mantergeistmann
3hr ago
Also, if we're using Reliable Sources, I'll note that the actual, official Doomsday Clock is closer to midnight than it ever was in the Cold War.
Is that reflective of the world situation, or is it being used as a commentary on "we dislike Donald Trump"?
Mantergeistmann
3hr ago
Yeah, I was thinking of one case in particular:
the woman’s work visa expired around 2017, and she was marked for removal from the United States a few years later. She and the Coast Guardsman were married early this year [...] when the woman and her Coast Guard husband were preparing to move into their on-base housing on Wednesday, they went to the visitor control center to get a pass so she could access the Key West installation. During the routine security screening required for base access, the woman’s name was flagged as a problem.
I saw a lot of people referring to it as a paperwork issue or ICE targeting servicemember spouses, but this case seemed... well, what did anyone expect? The timing of the husband's ship was such that the marriage must have taken place only a few weeks prior to this event, at most. All I can think of is that either the husband didn't know her status (and maybe she didn't, either, somehow, despite having lived and presumably worked in the US illegally for nearly a decade?), or that they assumed (erroneously) that marriage would automatically resolve any status issues. In which case... well, I can forgive her for not knowing the law, but a USCG man should presumably at least think to speak to base counsel or his CO prior to marrying any foreign national, let alone one who has immigration status issues?
Mantergeistmann
4hr ago
Third option: they plead ignorance to those claims, and argue that they only looked at his academic and interview credentials, and didn't know about anything else other than that a routine background check came up clean. Also damning, but less obviously so to the public eye (who is likely to be unfamiliar with how Arday's work compared to any other sociologist or academic), and therefore able to be clung to.
Mantergeistmann
5hr ago
Iran's ability to project force across the Middle East involved individual men crossing borders clandestinely with guns and bombs, which is not a capability they have lost.
They were transporting significantly heavier weapons than that. I'm pretty sure the Houthi missiles aren't (at least mostly) domestically produced, shall we say.
Mantergeistmann
5hr ago
Reading that, I imagine that's what it must have been like to listen to Tokyo Rose or Lord Haw Haw on the radio during WWII. Except I always had the impression those two were at least a bit entertaining, and willing to reach out emotionally to listeners with something other than blatant contempt and hatred.
Also, as someone who overuses italics themselves, that writing style is grating. I may overuse them, but he misuses them.
Mantergeistmann
5hr ago
Abraham Lincoln was essentially in the group you criticize, he didn't think black people would turn out as capable as white people, but he didn't think they should be slaves
Or, to hear it from the great man himself (slightly adjusted by Teddy Roosevelt):
I think the authors of the Declaration of Independence intended to include all men, but they did not mean to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all men were equal in color, size, intellect, moral development or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness in what they did consider all men created equal-equal in certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. This they said, and this they meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth that all were actually enjoying that equality, or yet that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society which should be familiar to all - constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and, even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people, everywhere.
Mantergeistmann
5hr ago
I also just admire a guy who managed to get into the history books by being virtuous and hard-working.
If you think about it, those are some of the few things that are completely within one's control. We cannot control our height, or our ability to grasp complex subjects instantly. We can control how hard we work and be good people.
A lot of people hate the so-called "Protestant work ethic", but at its core, there's something very egalitarian about it.
Mantergeistmann
5hr ago
almost nobody thinks that deporting military spouses over paperwork issues is a good idea
Caveat: if you've been in the US illegally for several years, get married, and then immediately try to move onto a military base without adjusting your immigration status first... well, I can see how some people might describe that as a "paperwork issue", but I don't think it's an unfair result. And if it isn't a "paperwork issue" in your estimation, sadly, it'll be conflated with those cases that are by people trying to gin up negative publicity, and so I have to eye every story with suspicion that there's more going on behind the scenes than a sob story.
Mantergeistmann
15hr ago
Could the Thames be reclassified as an International Waterway if London were to secede?
Mantergeistmann
15hr ago
Presumably you have no complaints about the BRRRRT Act? It's not boring, but it's as neutral as you can get.
Mantergeistmann
15hr ago
The Maritime Executive… I love it.
Maritime Executive is my go-to lunchtime reading. Partly because I used to be in an adjacent industry, and partly because it's so damn reassuring and unpoliticized. Reassuring because no matter what's going on in the world, the large shipbuilding and shipping and tourism companies really don't give a damn except for a bit of geographically local excitement.
So Iran made two southern-approaching ships turn back
It's possibly worth noting that both of these were Chinese vessels... There's some geopolitics going on there beyond just coincidence, or I'll have a hat sandwich.
Mantergeistmann
22hr ago
Poland is about to get its first, I believe, and Czechia is expanding theirs.
Mantergeistmann
23hr ago
If those were their only assets and if they needed to threaten a larger nation than Taiwan (say, Japan or Philippines), I would agree with you.
Mantergeistmann
23hr ago
built any amphibious invasion craft
Your info may be out of date.
Mantergeistmann
1d ago
For God's sake, he was a time-traveling, long distance running cyborg Rainman with 3 kinds of gigacancer!
Also a professional snooker player and semi-pro London footballer.
Mantergeistmann
1d ago
But off the top of my head no example captures a proper parallel, because a proper parallel doesn't exist, can't exist; there's too much intersectionality to the situation.
Not even intersectionality. Most people didn't have an "autobiography" that's seeming to be chock full of more lies than Marco Polo's journal about to be published that they were gearing up to do a press tour for at the time the scandal reared up.
Mantergeistmann
1d ago
On the other hand, the abstraction only works when all parties accept the implication: the Taliban didn't have the good sense to give up in the face of overwhelming force that wasn't accompanied by wanton destruction. Neither does Iran, it seems.
Yes, unfortunately, it gives any defector in the system too much power, so long as public opinion will be on their side as poor victims. If public opinion of Iran's behavior was similar to that of General Sherman talking about the South, things would be far, far different, I feel.
A people who will persevere in war beyond a certain limit ought to know the consequences. Many, many peoples with less pertinacity have been wiped out of national existence.
Mantergeistmann
1d ago
I don't know about the PSP remaster, but I'm pretty sure they did something to fix it in the latest PC remaster.
Mantergeistmann
1d ago
Currently the US spends 3.4%, and that's projected to go down in the future.
Minor quibble: that number would have to go up very slightly to meet the new NATO requirements, and I presume the US will be more than willing to meet said commitment.
Mantergeistmann
1d ago
Sometimes I saw people saying about war 'why not just do arbitration instead or go to the UN or do an elaborate computer simulation to see who would win' but the violence is the point, that's the proof of work that no judge or agreement can override and sometimes it just feels good to hurt people.
So what I'm hearing is that the objectively best solution is to replace warfare with giant robots in a civilized fighting tournament.
Mantergeistmann
1d ago
It was playing the PS1 version of Final Fantasy Tactics
It probably says something that you didn't even need to finish your explanation after that; I knew exactly what you were going to be referring to.
The added irony/unfairness is that if Cofnas were to kill himself as a result of this, the result would not be one of soul-searching or questioning on anyone's part. It would almost certainly be celebration, and confirmation that Arday was firmly in the right and a flawless victim.
More options
Context Copy link