The Off Topic Topic

[HVC]

Towards? What could possibly go wrong

[The Larch]

Tucker Carlson and the Hell's Angels are not a combination I ever expected.

Fox News' Tucker Carlson speaks at Hells Angels president's funeral
Host speaks at funeral of Ralph 'Sonny' Barger, leader of the group considered by the DoJ to be linked to organised crime

The rightwing Fox News host Tucker Carlson spoke at the funeral of Ralph "Sonny" Barger, the longtime president of the Hells Angels motorcycle club, in Stockton, California, on Saturday.

The Department of Justice (DoJ) considers the Hells Angels to be linked to organised crime.

According to one justice department study, although Barger "describe[d] the organisation as 'a bunch of fun-loving guys who just ride motorcycles' ... research data show that the Hells Angels are involved in murder; the manufacturing and distribution of methamphetamine; the distribution of cocaine, heroin, and marijuana; the purchase and sale of firearms; and other criminal activities."

Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson, the son of a media executive who married an heiress to the Swanson frozen dinner empire, attended a private school in Rhode Island and Trinity College, a liberal arts college in Hartford, Connecticut.

At Barger's funeral, wearing a blue button-down shirt and chinos, he described to the assembled bikers what he said was the biker leader's credo: "Stand tall, stay loyal, remain free and always value honor."

He asked: "Is there a phrase that sums up more perfectly what I want to be, what I aspire to be, and the kind of man I respect?"

Carlson also said Joe Biden "should be saying" Barger's words "every single morning as he salutes the flag".

Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Barger was 83 when he died from throat cancer in June. He joined the Hells Angels in 1957.

According to his Guardian obituary, he became "the epitome of the outlaw biker ... an image he cultivated with charisma and shrewdness, turning Hells Angels into a worldwide brand.

"Though law enforcement saw the Angels as more of a gang than a club, in the 1960s the media latched on to Barger ... selling the outlaw image to the world as a form of countercultural protest ... in films such as Easy Rider (1969)."

Also in 1969, Hells Angels provided security at a Rolling Stones concert at Altamont, California. A fan, Meredith Hunter, was stabbed to death by a gang member.

Barger's Guardian obituary also noted that "in 1979 Barger was one of 33 people charged with racketeering under federal Rico (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) laws. Though the outcome of most cases was mistrial, he and [his wife] Sharon were the only two acquitted outright".

In Stockton, law enforcement warned of violence at Barger's funeral but the event passed without incident. Local media said about 7,000 attended.

Carlson said of Barger: "And I thought, that's the outlaw biker that every mom in my neighborhood was scared shitless of as a child?

"That's Sonny Barger's worldview? Why aren't we hearing that from the people who run the country? Why is it left to Sonny Barger to say, 'Stand tall, stay loyal, remain free, and always value honor?'

"The president of the United States should be saying that – every single morning as he salutes the flag – but only Sonny Barger is saying it. And I thought to myself, 'I want to pay tribute to the man who spoke those words.'"

The man who spoke those words' run-ins with the law did not end when he was acquitted on racketeering charges.

As his Guardian obituary described it, in 1987 he "was again arrested on federal conspiracy charges of drug and gun running in California, but found himself on trial in Louisville, Kentucky, accused of supplying explosives to destroy the Outlaws motorcycle gang there in a territorial dispute.

"He was convicted and served three and a half years of a four-year sentence. He insisted he had been entrapped by the FBI."

Later, "he married Beth Noel (nee Black). They divorced after a domestic dispute in which she was hospitalised for a broken rib and lacerated spleen. He was convicted of aggravated assault, but served only eight days in jail.

"With warfare between gangs intensifying, in 2002 he tried to organise a peace conference at the Laughlin River Run rally in Nevada, but a battle between Hells Angels and Mongols left three dead, and the conference was cancelled."

[Jacob]

His pal Putin allied with organized crime - including biker gangs - in his rise to power. Makes sense for Tucker and his backers to copy that playbook as they try to implement the same type of regime in the US.

[Jacob]

Though Tucker left out the one bit of the HA creed that - even if they don't say it, they nonetheless implement consistently "ruthless exploitation of those weaker than them for personal profit, regardless of the law."

Which, you know, is pretty consistent with Tucker's values as well.

[grumbler]

So apparently, today NASA is smashing a probe into the asteroid Dimorphos (orbiting another asteroid Didymos), to research techniques for redirecting asteroids with trajectories towards Earth.

The guy who described this for the BBC this morning was a member of the Earth Defense Council. Didn't even know we had one of those.

[grumbler]

Easy Rider was not about an outlaw biker gang.  That was The Wild Angels, also starring Peter Fonda three years earlier.

[Jacob]

The guy who described this for the BBC this morning was a member of the Earth Defense Council. Didn't even know we had one of those.

Kind of reassuring that we do... even if it sounds like something out of a mid-level indie sci-fi game.

[Jacob]

Interesting read IMO:

TRAPPED BY THUCYDIDES? UPDATING THE STRATEGIC CANON FOR A SINOCENTRIC ERA
JOHN SULLIVAN

Ancient Greek roots run deep in America. "What Athens was in miniature," Thomas Paine predicted, "America will be in magnitude." From the beginning of the American experiment, Thucydides' history of the war between Athens and Sparta provided useful lessons for the nation's founding fathers. John Adams wrote to his ten year old son, John Quincy, that his future country "may require other Wars, as well as Councils and Negotiations," adding, "[t]here is no History, perhaps, better adapted to this usefull Purpose than that of Thucidides." Nearly two centuries later as an emerging Cold War threatened America's sense of security, Secretary of State George Marshall declared, "I doubt seriously whether a man can think with full wisdom and with deep convictions regarding certain of the basic international issues today who has not at least reviewed in his mind the period of the Peloponnesian War and the Fall of Athens."

The end of the Cold War did not result in Thucydides' retirement. "Whenever we get a new war, we get a new Thucydides," Joseph Lane astutely noted. Most recently, the text was repurposed in the 21st century by Harvard professor Graham Allison to describe the risks of war with a rising China in terms of a supposed "Thucydides Trap." In its latest reprise the analogy comes off more strained than illuminating. Neither the United States nor China fits neatly into the old Athens-Sparta antagonist roles, nor does the current international system resemble the system of ancient Greece: two roughly equal alliance structures vying for dominance within the confines of a zero-sum competition. Thucydides examines one possible outcome of an extended contest between two great powers not possessing powerful incentives to prefer coexistence over unilateral dominance. The persistent use (and misuse) of Thucydides has led to problematic thinking about great-power competition with China. It is time to expand our thinking beyond Western perspectives by considering historical works on strategy and rivalry in addition to Thucydides.

Fortunately, a viable candidate already exists within the Chinese canon, a work roughly contemporaneous with Thucydides. This text, known as the Zuozhuan, is China's oldest historical narrative and chronicles the decline of the Zhou dynasty from 722 to 468 BCE. Describing the machinations of various rulers, ministers, and military commanders over a span of 255 years, this complex masterpiece traces the difficult strategic choices faced by regional powers during this chaotic period as they struggled to adjust to an uncertain security structure. In particular, its description of the competition between the two greatest powers of its time, the states of Jin and Chu from roughly the mid-7th to mid-6th centuries, provides interesting parallels with the current state of Sino-U.S. relations. The Jin-Chu rivalry reflected the multi-faceted challenge of two competing powers navigating a multi-state system neither side sought to destroy or overthrow, but instead hoped to co-opt and lead on its own terms. Moreover, the length of the historical arc measured in centuries rather than decades better facilitates analysis of the long-term strategic impact of great-power competition.

International relations scholars might find much food for thought through study of this classic text. As central authority retreated, the former Zhou system reflected many traits similar to anarchy, with dozens of regional states resorting to hegemony, balancing, or bandwagoning to mitigate threats to survival. Leaders on the central plains of ancient China, it turns out, practiced balance of power politics just as energetically as their European counterparts. Powerful countervailing incentives also existed within the system, particularly a desire to return to the rules and norms that moderated interstate behavior under the old Zhou governing rubric. These incentives tended to limit the scope and scale of warfare and opened up potential avenues for cooperation and coexistence. This combination of realpolitik coupled with a desire for predictable norms in some ways mirrors the contemporary security environment. While we should continue to study Thucydides intensely, we would benefit by pairing his text with this near-contemporary classic from China.

...

The rest of it is here: https://warontherocks.com/2020/12/trapped-by-thucydides-updating-the-strategic-canon-for-a-sinocentric-era/

I tried to see if I could find a copy of the new translation... it seems to be sold out at a price of a hundreds dollars for two separate listings, identical except the price point CDN $148.50 and CDN$ 333.40, with page counts of 872 and 2243 respectively. Hilariously it's also shown as Appropriate for ages: All Ages, so I guess I should try to get a copy for my kids?

There is a "Reader" available as an ebook for CDN$29.99 with "selections from", weighing in at 320 pages. The completist nerd in me finds it hard to not have the whole text though....

[Jacob]

So apparently, today NASA is smashing a probe into the asteroid Dimorphos (orbiting another asteroid Didymos), to research techniques for redirecting asteroids with trajectories towards Earth.

Video of the impact: https://twitter.com/i/status/1574539270987173903

[grumbler]

So apparently, today NASA is smashing a probe into the asteroid Dimorphos (orbiting another asteroid Didymos), to research techniques for redirecting asteroids with trajectories towards Earth.

Video of the impact: https://twitter.com/i/status/1574539270987173903

Yeah.  They chose that asteroid because it would be easy to measure the results of the impact by seeing how the impact changed its orbit around Didymos (almost said "the impact of the impact" but decided not to).

[Josquius]

Also spacey I notice NASA keeps cancelling their moon launch.

I wonder how viable Cape Canavril is going forward. Strikes me Florida is especially vulnerable to climate change.

[Grey Fox]

The cape is fine. They have the same issue the shuttle had. Their fuel is extremely leaky.

[Jacob]

Are any of you following the current drama in the chess world?

[celedhring]

Are any of you following the current drama in the chess world?

Been hearing about it, I'm wondering how can one cheat at a live chess event?

[The Larch]

Are any of you following the current drama in the chess world?

You should mention it includes rumours of use of anal beads for cheating purposes.