The Chatbot Did It

 

Another Substack post.

For the Record: Tracey on War

Via Wonkette.

I guess that qualifies me, as somebody who's been pretty loudly opposed to every US war since well before Tracey was born, to decide who gets to be taken seriously and who doesn't, and I'd like to say if watching the Ukraine story has suddenly made you understand... pic.twitter.com/vwN09muzB2

— Yas We Can (@Yastreblyansky) April 4, 2022

What I don't get is people like Tracey who've been pretending to be anti-war all this time and it turns out they're just anti-American.

— Yas We Can (@Yastreblyansky) April 4, 2022

I completely forgot Tracey was complaining about unfairness to Russia way back five years ago, that time Maxine Waters beat him up.

Here's the full @MaxineWaters @mtracey interview. Sensitive viewers, you are warned. pic.twitter.com/gyU2pw6FdD

— Tommy moderna-vaX-Topher (@tommyxtopher) June 3, 2017

The Persian Wars

Screen capture from The Persian Wars, via Ancient History Lover/YouTube.

OK so that was a pretty exciting war that had us glued to the TV last night, but it clearly didn't change the basic outcome, that Iran had already won on 3 January, with the US killing of two Iranians, Qassem Soleimani and one other whose name I'm not finding, and five members of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces including deputy commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and his son-in-law Mohammed Reza al-Jaberi, the group's public relations officer: with that, the casualty list included

• Iran: 1 American dead and no Iraqis (per latest report)
• US: 2 Iranians dead, 27 Iraqis

Also

Iran informed Iraqi leadership about an attack on their country. The US did not inform them or Congress but several guess at Mar-a-lago were informed about it https://t.co/ONok5TkoZu

— President “I Caught the Swamp, I Caught Them All” (@realworldrj) January 8, 2020

It's attention to these details that makes Iran the winner.

This tail has too many dogs

Update: Now furnished with a last paragraph!

Iranian interior, via DesignSponge.

If you've been having these unpleasant little Gulf of Tonkin flashbacks, or even Remembering the Maine, over the ongoing harshness involving a couple of damaged ships and the float of a war proposal, you're not the only one, and some of our fellow sufferers are in high places, I'm glad to say, according to Helene Cooper and Edward Wong at The Times:

WASHINGTON — As the Trump administration draws up war plans against Iran over what it says are threats to American troops and interests, a senior British military official told reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday that he saw no increased risk from Iran or allied militias in Iraq or Syria.

A few hours later, the United States Central Command issued an unusual rebuke: The remarks from the British official — Maj. Gen. Chris Ghika, who is also the deputy commander of the American-led coalition fighting the Islamic State — run “counter to the identified credible threats available to intelligence from U.S. and allies regarding Iranian-backed forces in the region.”

More ominously still,

One American official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential internal planning, said the new intelligence of an increased Iranian threat was “small stuff” and did not merit the military planning being driven by Mr. Bolton. The official also said the ultimate goal of the yearlong economic sanctions campaign by the Trump administration was to draw Iran into an armed conflict with the United States.

It doesn't get any more explicit than that. "Yeah, we're trying to get a little war going, so the boss decided to make up some shit."

Or you could look at these signs as welcome signs of Bolton's incompetence, that the British command feels the need to take public issue with him and some White House resister is impelled to speak about it this bluntly. He's like the bad kid in the marshmallow experiment, unable to delay gratification, and he's unable to conceal his designs, unable to manage alliances, unable to command loyalty in his own shop. And his enemies are taking command of Trump, starting with one of Mad Dog Mattis's close confederates, on Fox (which is where the Emperor goes when he needs to find out what he thinks):

An Irony of Unimaginable Proportions

Reprinted (with minor edits) from Christmas 2012

On the conservative Liberty Counsel radio show Faith and Freedom, hosts Mat Staver and Matt Barber discuss the fact that an elementary school in Jackson County, Fla., removed a nativity scene while allowing Santa Clause and Frosty the Snowman to remain. “What an irony at this time of year, where Jesus gets put in the closet, and in California, where we’re litigating out there, where they’re wanting to make homosexuality the preferred method or topic of counseling discussions, but anything contrary to that would be banned,” said Staver.

“This is just an irony of unimaginable proportions,” he went on. “When we say there’s a war on Christmas and somebody says ‘oh,’ mockingly, ‘oh there’s no war on Christmas,’ this is a war on Christmas. This is discrimination, it is viewpoint-based discrimination.” Then Barber argued that as “people who are engaged in all form of aberrant sexual behavior” come out of the closet, “Christians are being forced into the closet, and here literally the baby Jesus is forced and crammed into the closet."

(Via Raw Story)

Houses of Parliament, London, February 2009. Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images Europe.

If homosexuality is the method of the counseling discussion then it's not the topic, and if it's the topic then it's not the method, because anything contrary to that is banned, but you don't have to have counseling discussions at all, honestly, and most of us don't. At worst you can just have counseling. Let the record show that.

As to whether it's a war or not, that's a matter of perspective, isn't it? But to my way of thinking, there's something awfully violent about the concept of a war and it doesn't represent the way I feel, which doesn't even have anything directly to do with Christians and Christmasites; it's more about our own traditions and families, and preserving them the way they've always been.

An irony of unimaginable proportions

On the conservative Liberty Counsel radio show Faith and Freedom, hosts Mat Staver and Matt Barber discuss the fact that an elementary school in Jackson County, Fla., removed a nativity scene while allowing Santa Clause and Frosty the Snowman to remain. “What an irony at this time of year, where Jesus gets put in the closet, and in California, where we’re litigating out there, where they’re wanting to make homosexuality the preferred method or topic of counseling discussions, but anything contrary to that would be banned,” said Staver.

“This is just an irony of unimaginable proportions,” he went on. “When we say there’s a war on Christmas and somebody says ‘oh,’ mockingly, ‘oh there’s no war on Christmas,’ this is a war on Christmas. This is discrimination, it is viewpoint-based discrimination.” Then Barber argued that as “people who are engaged in all form of aberrant sexual behavior” come out of the closet, “Christians are being forced into the closet, and here literally the baby Jesus is forced and crammed into the closet."

(Via Raw Story)

Houses of Parliament, London, February 2009. Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images Europe.

If homosexuality is the method of the counseling discussion then it's not the topic, and if it's the topic then it's not the method, because anything contrary to that is banned, but you don't have to have counseling discussions at all, honestly, and most of us don't. At worst you can just have counseling. Let the record show that.

As to whether it's a war or not, that's a matter of perspective, isn't it? But to my way of thinking, there's something awfully violent about the concept of a war and it doesn't represent the way I feel, which doesn't even have anything directly to do with Christians and Christmasites; it's more about our own traditions and families, and preserving them the way they've always been.

I've been around Christians all my life, eaten and drunk with them, forged deep friendships. Hell, I've spent unforgettable nights with Christian girls—that was back in the seventies, of course, when the boundaries were a little looser than they are now. When women are Christian, it doesn't feel quite as unnatural, somehow; if I were a woman I might well be a Christian myself, because there really is something attractive about that church-lady combination of sweetness and competence. Sexy, even, as she wrestles you into position in the telephone tree or car pool.

With the men, there are the old stereotypes: the furtive, rabbity look, the damp hands and reedy voices, the inexplicable interest in organ music. But it was never more than a caricature. Indeed, nowadays Christian dudes all seem to be gym bunnies, with arms like duct pipe! Star athletes, too, and fighter pilots, and politicians, giving it up for Jesus after making a 70-yard touchdown run or passing a bill to cut off somebody's food stamps. A little intimidating, to tell the truth.

We're a Frosty (or Frostine) family, essentially. I mean like anybody else, we enjoy all the different aspects of the Yuletide, all the way through the Long Advent from Hallows to Isaac Newton's birthday on December 25th; and my mom's a grammarian by profession, so we have a special veneration for Santa Clause (we recognize her as a female in spite of her long white beard, and at Yule we do a wassail procession, chanting the Sanctae Clausulae from house to house). But it's the Snowman that gives the real, deep rhythm to our lives, in the recurring form of his annual sacrifice, from rolling up to melting down, so that his love can explode from the fields in the form of asparagus, and radishes, and lettuce and so forth, all the way until the Frost kisses the season's last pumpkin to sleep.

That's what Brother Martin always said, when he came around for a cup of wassail on Newton's Eve with real-snow Jack wax (what some call maple taffy) and doughnuts for us kids. If there'd been a good snowfall, as there always seemed to be at Yule when I was a kid, we would have rolled a fresh Frosty, and he used a Sharpie to dot its button eyes, bringing the Snowman to life, and he and my parents sat around drinking for a while and telling winter stories, and we'd stay up so late that we never remembered when he left or how we ended up in our pajamas, in bed, the next morning.

Bringing Baby Jesus into it—in his little corncrib, as if he were being fed to the cows—seems so incommensurate with the emotional tone of the whole thing. Happy barn-birth and merry massacre! It ought to be no wonder why we prefer him in the closet. Call it viewpoint-based discrimination if you will, but have a little compassion for a tradition in danger.

Harbin International Ice & Snow Festival, Harbin, China, January 2011. Photo by Sheng Li/Reuters.

Men medium-rare

...but media-frequent! Fighting keyboardists and TV bobbleheads Israeli-style.

Still from Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket with members of the Israeli cabinet. Montage by Amir Schiby.

“And once again the screen is awash with men, battalions, battalions of men, swarms of men; commander men and commentator men, calming men and threatening men, men with a rich past in positions of command, men with greying temples, men with a rich past in position of command and greying temples, Ashkenazi men and Mizrahi men, men who know what’s best now, men who have no idea what’s going on now, men who talk much but say little, stern-gazed men, stern-faced men, men with a knife between their teeth and a quiver in their loins, men who lost their teeth, men who know “their” mentality all too well, men who’ve spent sleepless nights in roles that are best keep silent, men who are best kept silent, explicit men and implicit men, men yanked from among the mothballs, from the kitbag, leftovers from primaries, parachuted CEOs, retired generals, retired experts, retired men, chewing men and swallowing men and men regurgitating, men with frameless glasses, men who start each sentence with “I would suggest that all of us…”, men horny as hell, men horny for hell, for blood and for bombs, men for whom this is their finest hour, men who flower now, youthful men, men whose old age is worthy of their youth, men who’s erection never rests, men whose erection, whose erection, whose erection, whose erection, men who ate from the same tin bowl, men who have known each other since —-  and even since ——, men who say wars are not for sissies, men who lack the female touch, men whose heart is untouched by the breath of a sleeping baby, whose manly, sane, reasonable, baboon-like, warmongering reasoning is unclouded, men who are retired war criminals, who meet in the studio with smiles of relief, hello War Criminal A, hello War Criminal B, men who know how to read aerial snapshots and even utter the words ‘aerial snapshots’ without a blink, men who don’t  blink, grey-eyed men, with eyes that have already seen everything, men who are no easily moved by a residential building being blown sky-high, men who know everything has a price, men who tell us what the leaders are planning, men who love saying the word “leaders,” men who know maybe about one hundred words, maybe two hundred, but what does it matter when these are the right words, men like machines, men with broad shoulders and a belly that’s kept out of the frame, men specialising in restoring deterrence and not in restoring human beings, men who set fires and don’t stick around to put them out, putting out is for sissies,  men without occupational concerns, men who for whom this is their occupation, to observe and explain and justify human wrecks, men drawn to the smell of blood, men who never remember that last time, when they also came and said and promised, men who’s manhood is only longer than their memories, men who announce this is the time to unite, meaning that it’s time for men to unite, agains the women and the children and the fags, men who declare a war on non-men, men who talk of “spaces” and “sectors” as if they were demonstrating geometrical theorems, men squirting testosterone all over the screen, men who move forces, men who like sending wishes of swift recovery and god forbids the wounded should ever run out on them, men who like wounded men, true are the lover’s wounds, men with a bass or a baritone voice, preferably bass, a little rough and a little hoarse, men on the skewer, men medium-rare, men who are hunters, not gatherers, men who understand the other side understands but one language because they themselves understand but one language, men made in the same mould, on either side, men who hate each other the more they become like one another, men who have us all by the balls because they don’t have any of their own, men who push buttons, launchers, men who hit targets and tick them off, men who don’t see people behind the targets, who don’t see bereaved families behind the ticks, men who calculate grief like they calculate munitions and market losses, men who are good at calculating, men with connections in high places, highly connected men, finally contented men, men who will soon depart the studio, wipe off the make-up, get out into the darkening evening, into their despicable anonymity, men who will do anything to come back, next time, to that same brilliantly lit, shining, electrifying studio, who will do anything to be again, if only for one moment, real men, they’ll really do anything, wreck anything.”

Text by Idan Landau in response to Israeli TV coverage of the Gaza operation, English version by Dimi Reider, published in Reider's blog at +972. The original Hebrew version appeared on Landau's blog yesterday. 

Facepalms and headbangs

Foreign Policy magazine's blog, Passport, reports a new use by US forces of heavy metal music as an implement of psychological pressure, from their friend Mikko Hyppönen, a Finnish security expert, who received an email from an anonymous Iranian nuclear scientist:

I am writing you to inform you that our nuclear program has once again been compromised and attacked by a new worm with exploits which have shut down our automation network at Natanz and another facility Fordo near Qom.

According to the email our cyber experts sent to our teams, they believe a hacker tool Metasploit was used. The hackers had access to our VPN. The automation network and Siemens hardware were attacked and shut down. I only know very little about these cyber issues as I am scientist not a computer expert.

There was also some music playing randomly on several of the workstations during the middle of the night with the volume maxed out. I believe it was playing 'Thunderstruck' by AC/DC. 

A lot of people think these stories are kind of amusing, every time they come out, which is surprisingly often. I don't exactly; used in combat, the music may not be so evil, although [jump]

From Vulture.

War is the immoral equivalent of...

...whatever you want to market as the moral equivalent of war. That's clearly what William James meant in 1906 in the first place, when he was talking about a "war against war" (the idea Woodrow Wilson would later blow up into the Thanksgiving parade balloon of a war to end war). If that isn't what you mean--if you don't mean to suggest that war is immoral, but something like "my idea is the equivalent of war in the moral, as opposed to practical or political or aesthetic, sense", you should stay away from the phrase altogether. So consider yourself warned. Incidentally, note (I saw it in the URL for James's essay) that it has a very cute algorithm* acronym: MEOW.

*Whoever looked at this today (October 2 2012), thanks, I never would have found this bit of aphasia without you.