Counting Coup

One fascinating characteristic of the well-indoctrinated ultra-nationalist is they tend to lose their sense of reflexivity. Ultra-nationalism depends on authoritarianism and exceptionalism, so it doesn’t hold up well to challenges against its authority – after all, it wouldn’t have to be authoritarian if it were possible to justify their beliefs. What we wind up with is this weird sort of “what I say, goes, as long as it applies in the direction I want it to.”

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Retro-Scoping the FBI

The retro-scope appears to now be part of the investigative procedure for any incident that has political implications. Because its time-horizon goes about -10 years (with some blurry images back to -20 years) the entire current crop of politicians grew up in a time before retro-scoping existed, so they do not fear the ‘scope, nor do they fully understand it. They will.

I did a google image search for “retroscope” and look at this beauty!

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What Happened to Kurdistan?

It sounds like the Kurds have been out-maneuvered by the Iraqi regime; then left twisting in the wind by their American backers. Iraqi Abrams M-1 tanks (which are basically invincible against the light vehicles the Kurds have) were the convincing argument – the Iraqis inter-penetrated Kurdish positions in the Kirkuk area, essentially a peaceful “overrun” maneuver – and the Kurds realized that if they offered resistance, they’d be slaughtered.

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Powerful Enough to Fuse Hydrogen

I only see spam when I check my email on my iPhone; my desktop and laptop have some nifty bayesian spam classifiers that are about 99% accurate. On most days I never see any spam at all. It might be fun to do a breakdown of the various forms of spam that I get, but roughly it’s about 30% erectile dysfunction, 25% political (lots of anti-Obama and anti-Hillary. Still anti-Hillary) , 20% tactical/paramilitary gear, 10% how to pick up girls, 10% hair growth, 5% brides for sale.

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