Ghost of LL

I don't remember which edition. It's been a very long time since I read it. And I have A Distant Mirror on my Kindle. I've been meaning to get to it.

I may be misremembering, but I thought she did write about seeing the chase from a passenger liner. Perhaps that was in one of the subsequently added forwards that you mention. But I really thought it was in that chapter.

I remain very skeptical of Clemson/UNC/Florida State moving out of the ACC anytime soon. That requires the SEC or B1G inviting them. And that requires the networks promising to pay. I'm not sure the networks are eager to undermine the ACC, particularly after seeing what has happened to the Pac12.

Yes. The retired numbers are now lit at night. The conference championships are now combined; the Big 12 conference championships are not split out from the SWC championships.

Yep. On independence back in the early 1990s, a war broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh. Nagorno-Karabakh is within Azerbaijan's internationally recognized borders, but it's populated by Armenians. The Armenian residents started a rebellion. Armenia supported them and the declared independence. So they have had a little statelet that isn't internationally recognized. It's kind of akin to what the Russians did in South Ossetia and Transnistria. For thirty years, the Azerbaijanis have just had to eat shit on that deal because Armenia is protected by Russia. There are Russian peacekeepers there that prevent Azerbaijan from retaking Nagorno-Karabakh. But now Russia can't do anything; they're busy getting their asses kicked in Ukraine. So now the Azerbaijanis have decided it's time for a reckoning. They're supported by Turkiye/Turkey and to a lesser extent by Israel. Armenia is supported by . . . well, not really anybody. So the Azerbaijanis had no real trouble overrunning Azerbaijan. So now comes the ethnic cleansing bit. Hard to say how much is being forced by the Azerbaijanis and how much is just good sense on the part of the resident Armenians in deciding that they don't want to stick around and figure out how much the ethnic cleansing is going to be forcible. Regardless, there's about 125,000 Armenians who are fleeing Nagorno-Karabakh. And that's a helluva refugee crisis for a country with a population of less than 3 Million.

I think that's way too limited a universe. We can play North Texas from time to time. Or conceivably Texas State. Or maybe SMU (but probably not).

Goddamn, this is amazing. These are guys Alabama used to get and we’d be all “how the fuck does Alabama get these guys.” But now they’re coming to Texas.

If he’d have stayed in Lubbock, he would’ve gotten actual medical care in less than the two hours it took to drive to Jackson. Perhaps he would be alive and coaching.

Oh, good—now I can just pop a gummy and chill.

I want to see so much more of that against this shit team. And the other teams in this shit conference, for that matter.

Yep—run the game plan they should’ve been running all along, and suddenly they look pretty good.

Fuck this—I’m switching to the Rice game. At least that’s interesting.

Neither of these teams are very good. It Alabama’s OLine just looks helpless.

Well, on the upside, SMU won’t be taking any more times out this half.

Yeah, but largely because anybody in the Top 10 could lose to anybody. No. 4 Florida State at an unranked Clemson (and unranked for very good reason) should not be much of a draw. But damned if I don't think Florida State could lose that after the shit performance they turned in last week. But you're right--then there's some fun stuff like Iron Skillet action and Coach Prime. It's a fun Saturday.

Oh, hey, look--I'm not at all trying to justify the genocide. First, I specifically called it a genocide. And second, I specifically said I would use the word "justify." So don't put me in that camp, brother. But I think it's materially different from the Nazi genocide of the Jews. The Holocaust was the set and overt policy of the de jure government of the Third Reich. From the head of state and head of government right down through his ministers, there was a set governmental policy of destroying European Jewry. The Armenian genocide was much less set as government policy, if for no other reason than the government of the Ottoman Empire was incapable of setting policy. And I think that is reflected by your initial paragraph, includes one characterization of the Ottoman entry into World War I as certain advisors allowing the Germans to walk them into a war of choice. It's a lot messier than that. Shortly after the outbreak of war, the Allies pursued the German battlecruiser Goeben and light cruiser Breslau across the Mediterranean. The pursuit is brilliantly retold by Barbara Tuchman at the beginning of The Guns of August. The Breslau and Goeben made it into the then-neutral port of Constantinople, where they . . . kind of fake sold themselves to the Ottoman Empire. Which is to say the Breslau and Goeben were reflagged and renamed. But they stayed under the same command and were crewed by the same crews (albeit with new uniforms). So a couple weeks later, the Breslau and Goeben went into the Black Sea with orders from the War Minister, Enver Pasha, to attack the Russian fleet, which it did. But that order went out without the knowledge of the Navy Minister or the Grand Vizier (i.e., prime minister). So where Enver got the authority for that is unclear. By which I mean he didn't have the authority. It was absolute piracy. So that's how the Ottomans got into World War I in very short form. It's actually quite a lot messier and more complicated than I'm really describing. Exactly who did what and why continues to be a matter of significant historical dispute. And it's not like their governmental decisionmaking got less dysfunctional l over the course of the War. Throughout the War, the Ottomans continued to have ministers, generals, and provincial governors taking unilateral and unsanctioned actions that in any functional government would have been decided upon by the head of the central government. And all this is not to in any way absolve the Ottoman Empire of the genocide of the Armenians. I'm not saying that it was the work of some rogue forces within the government. That's not right. It was the government that carried out the genocide, but it was a government that was by that point so dysfunctional and chaotic that it hardly merits being described as a "government." But, at the end of the day, that's the government the Ottoman Empire had.

That sounds like some CRT to me.

My Brother in Christ--what do you think would happen to a teacher in this state (or about two dozen others) who characterized the treatment of the American Indians by the United States Government as "genocide" in a lesson? Do you think there's any chance that teacher isn't fired?

Well, if you go way back on this thread to late January 2021, you'll see me express the concern that Putin might, if he were really smart, approach Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, and Poland and offer to partition Belarus and Ukraine with an aim of restoring the pre-1939 borders. Knowing what we know know, I think we can say that Hungary would've jumped at that offer. I don't know about Slovakia and Romania. Poland likely would've rejected it. But who knows? But had the offer been made and accepted, it would've prevented any effective Western response. Ukraine would've never been able to defend against a Russian invasion carried out in conjunction with an invasion from the west. But even if it had, the United States and the UK would've have any way of getting weapons into Ukraine. But in any event, Putin isn't very smart. And that isn't a Putin idea. It's more like a Stalin idea.

Starting in 2019, the Legislature made it pretty damned impossible for cities to annex neighboring unincorporated areas. So you have fast-growing cities like Prosper that maybe had a plan to annex those donut holes, but those boundaries are now forever frozen. And that's the product of recapture, which has now simply become a scheme to enrich exurban schools at the expense of rural and urban/inner-suburban schools. And No-CR, but this is exactly why you see rural Republicans and urban/inner-suburban Democrats together in opposing the school-voucher scheme that Abbott and Patrick are going to push through in the next special session.

I'm a lawyer, which makes me an expert on every subject matter. Just ask me. I think your read on the rise of Erdogan is dead right. The hope of admission into the EU kept Turkiye close to the Ataturk vision. Once that was gone, the secularists became very demoralized. Coupled with the fundamentalists' infiltration into the army, and the AK Party was able to seize and hold on to power. And I'm not calling India "Bharat" anymore than I am calling it Burma "Myanmar." Calling the country "Myanmar" indicates a tacit acceptance of the illegitimate military dictatorship governing that country. And calling India "Bharat" would adopt the BJP's vision of India as a Hindu ethno-state. I ain't doin' it.

That's right. Once we leave this conference, I'm sure I'll never think about Tech or TCU or Houston. It's like how I was with Houston before this season--I wouldn't even check on their score. I certainly wouldn't watch a game in which they were playing. And it's not some boycott or anything; it's just not of any interest. But Baylor is different. I have a moral objection to Baylor even having a football program. If the NCAA had any basis for existing at all, it would've given Baylor the death penalty. So if Baylor is going to be allowed to have a football team, it should be nothing but an embarrassment to its alumni forever after.

Ok, yeah. But at the time he was in the Austrian Navy, Austria actually did have a long coastline on the Adriatic and probably the single strongest navy in the Mediterranean.

I actually like LHR, or at least I like T5, which is the only terminal I fly through these days. It is really easy to navigate between the A, B, and C concourses. The Galleries Lounges are really very nice with a great view of the ramp and runways. And if you're not in the lounge, there are a lot of good restaurants and bars. But the fees charged are just ridiculous. It can easily be $300 per ticket. And so yeah--if I have to connect, I'm going to look at other options. That is one thing I like about American, however. When I go and look at other options (e.g., LH or KLM out of AUS), those airlines show their fares on the front page without all the fees and taxes. So you're like "hot damn, I can get to Oslo for just $600." It's only when you go to the final check-out page that you see there's another $800 in taxes, fees, and surcharges. American doesn't do that shit. The price on the first page is the all-in price. And I really appreciate that transparency. When I lived in Dallas, I was exactly the same way. Most of my flights were to Houston or San Antonio or occasionally New York or Chicago. And you can't beat the convenience of flying Southwest on a route where they have a lot of flights. This is right. Frankly, I don't understand why you would ever fly a US-based carrier overseas if there is an available European or Asian codeshare. I'll book on the AA website, but you better believe I'm looking for that magical "Flight Operated by Japan Airlines" notation in the flight details.