Quote from: Sheilbh on Today at 05:25:56 PMYeah - I think Henry Hill had a line on this in his final column on Conservative Home where he said a lot of the challenges we're facing are the accumulated consequences of the electorate's decisions/revealed preferences.
QuoteBusiness bad? Fuck you, pay me. Oh, you had a fire? Fuck you, pay me. Place got hit by lightning, huh? Fuck you, pay me.

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on Today at 08:49:30 AMWe have a pretty feckless electorate as well. The whole country is deeply unserious and, to be frank, I find the left here to be just as stupid as the right.Yeah - I think Henry Hill had a line on this in his final column on Conservative Home where he said a lot of the challenges we're facing are the accumulated consequences of the electorate's decisions/revealed preferences. I think there is a lot to that.
Quote from: Jacob on Today at 11:28:11 AMHowever it works out, war is the kind of thing that is difficult to just bullshit your way out of and change the topic on. The exception is small distant, low-effort colonial wars maybe... but that's not what this war on Iran is.I also think there's an interesting side on this in terms of economc war.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on Today at 08:33:53 AMIt is a bit interesting—the world of national security / defense policy wonks has been somewhat undermined in the last 10 years due to the general decline in respect for expertise as a concept. But on Iran this situation is playing out pretty damn close to how the experts were saying it would play out literally 35+ years ago.I agree in a way - I feel like there's a fairly deep pool of national security/defence policy wonks (able to work for both parties) over the last twenty years who've been pretty open to bombing Iran.
Guess their expertise meant something.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on Today at 08:33:53 AMWe don't even have a real National Security Adviser—Mike Waltz (himself a disaster) was ousted in May and they've just had SecState Rubio add the duties of NSA to his portfolio. Note that NSA has usually been filled by someone with significant command experience in the military, significant academic defense policy experience, or significant intelligence community experience.
From 1998 - 2025 Rubio's only jobs have been as an elected official in legislative roles.
Rubio's professional training was as a lawyer.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on Today at 07:10:56 AMThe thing is you can massively degrade Iran's entire country, but not meaningfully reopen the Strait. These tanker ships generally won't move without insurance, and the insurance has been pulled. Sure, the U.S. could do what Trump said and insure ships on a case by case basis--many still will decline, not wanting to actually lose their vessel and crews. Some will likely go along--like Tim posts though it will be nothing more than a trickle.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on Today at 06:42:48 AMISW showing the general decline of Iranian strikes on US/Israel and Gulf States since war began:Congrats then, you are winning the war and losing the peace.
https://imgur.com/a/sdOYIXq
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