Hijinks on the High Seas

I’ve always been interested in naval hijinks, mostly because navies are the premier means of “projecting power” for nation-states.* And, of course, gathering intelligence as well. The US’ military has a huge emphasis on naval force-projection because of the logistics of having a navy: a carrier task force group is a movable city with its own inner supply chain. As mentioned elsewhere, you can tell a lot about the purpose of a nation’s military by its force structure.

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Crèche and Burn

I’ve been amazed at all the tasteless christmas molded plastic landfill-in-waiting that are being deployed in the war on christmas. The “war on christmas” is the concerted attempt by people to make christmas look cheesy, silly, and degenerate, right? Or did I miss the “war on christmas” strategy meeting?

Caine posted a link to the hipster crèche, which is definitely a fine piece of work. It reminded me that it’s time to post my own offering…

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Sunday Sermon: Military Honor

[Spoiler Warning: If you haven’t seen Seven Samurai, I am going to drop an important plot-point. And what’s wrong with you?]

I grew up reading about feats of derring-do, famous last stands, and martial arts philosophy. My favorite movie was, and remains, “Seven Samurai” by Akira Kurosawa – it’s an extended meditation on the different aspects of military honor, courage, despair, humor, and the fleeting moments of peace that warriors can occasionally snatch out of the mud and blood and awfulness.

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Jose

Jose was awesome; he brought in the table with the room-service and explained “I added a few pieces of bread to your order.”

“Thanks! I love carbs with my carbs!*” and he laughed with me as I signed the bill and handed him some cash with it.

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An Extract —

In my recent post “Nationalism Is A Lie” there was so much horror behind what I wrote, that I was either going to have to write a textbook-length incoherent screed,* or leave a lot on the table. So I thought that rather than diverticulating into asides, I’d post this piece separately.

Trigger warning: really horrible people doing really horrible things, with a walk-on by the Roman Catholic Church

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