D or not to D

@Petitopinionsjm @GrayConnolly @2worldsPodcast Spot check for gun licensing and storage incoming

@GrayConnolly @2worldsPodcast Probably get a visit by the AFP tonight

Australia is the greatest country... a former Paratrooper successfully shames a serving Assistant Minister into doing the right thing, albeit after that serving Minister had tried other, much cheaper options. BZ to Sam @2worldsPodcast

@kogoha @VoicesofWW2 Bullshit. The Japanese killed three times as many just in Nanking late 1937 to early 1938.

@VoicesofWW2 理由にはならない。史上最大の民間人大虐殺であった。

V-E Day was nine days old. In London and New York, people were still hung over from celebrating. On Okinawa, the 6th Marine Division was fighting for a 50-foot hump of dirt called Sugar Loaf Hill. It was not strategic on its own. It was one anchor of the Shuri Line, the last defensive belt protecting southern Okinawa, and the Japanese had honeycombed the entire ridge with tunnels, machine gun nests, and mortar pits dug into the reverse slope where naval gunfire could not touch them. The Marines attacked Sugar Loaf 11 times in 7 days. They took the crest, were blown off by mortars from the hill behind it, attacked again, took it again, lost it again. Veterans of Guadalcanal and Tarawa later said Sugar Loaf was the worst week of the war. 2,662 American casualties. For a hill you could walk across in 30 seconds. The seasonal rains turned the battlefield into a swamp of liquid clay mixed with corpses and human waste. Tanks sank to their turrets. Wounded men drowned in the mud waiting for stretcher bearers. By the time Okinawa was secured in late June, 12,520 Americans, 110,000 Japanese soldiers, and over 100,000 Okinawan civilians were dead. Six weeks later, Truman ordered the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Sugar Loaf Hill is one of the reasons why.

@MCCCANM They still do it. They just do it in places more likely to expose them to security issues.

In the movie “Top Gun”, Maverick picks up Kelly McGillis by singing in the Officer’s Club. The “O Club” – as it’s known – was a thing, but died a slow death. I missed most of it in my career. In the day, Mom got pissed at the Nellis AFB O’ Club for “Lingerie Night” where models came in & showed off lingerie for sale. It was an early memory for me, seeing those women cross the hall…Mom was beyond pissed & went on a crusade w/ the other Officer’s wives, ending up in the General’s office. They won, but I wish they hadn’t. Before 9/11, the Air Force allowed busses of women to come onto the base on weekend nights, headed to the O’ Club. My Dad was the commander of Security Forces at the time; it was a thing he allowed & for a reason. Seriously, busses full of women, all going to the O’ Club…it was a hot spot at any base. The O’ Club could be a wild place. Once, at Nellis, Dad got a call on a Saturday (I think, but definitely a weekend). It was “Red Flag”, with fighter pilots from all over the world attending to do simulated air war against each other…they’d gotten drunk in the O’ Club & started actually fighting, smashing things up. Shit show. He told his troops to go get all the dogs…Nellis was a center for military dog training & he had turned the “Squadron” into a “Group”, then made “Silver Flag” in the desert, where SF got to play war. It was now not just a place SF could be stationed, it was the home of SF. Anyway, he recalled all the troops, went to the club & locked all the doors except one. Then they let the dogs in…nobody escorting, just release the dog with the command to go fuck things up. One by one, the pilots came out in surrender. He loved that story…wish I could hear him tell it one more time. Anyway, the Tailhook Scandal happened & that was the death signal. Now, Commanders counted the amount of drinks you had. Instead of being a place you could relax, you had to be on duty still. You had to pay to be a member of the O’ Club. It became a place where your career was in jeopardy, so membership declined. The Officer & Enlisted Clubs eventually merged to try & survive, but I don’t think it has gone well. Some Commanders would hold mandatory meetings there, and you had to be a member to attend, which generated some memberships, but that was received poorly. The Pilot Training Bases still have a decent club scene. They don’t allow civilians to come anymore, but it’s a bunch of young trainee pilots trying to flex on each other, playing a very physical game called “Crud”. You’ll have to google that. I helped a Major refit the Club at Vance AFB around 2000. He knew what to do & it was great…he managed to get an ejection seat & a stick from the T-37 right at the bar. Then he wired it so that if you pulled the “Trigger” on the stick, it set off alarm lights & sirens in the club, and now our brand new, naive student who fancied himself a steely-eyed killer owed the whole club beers when the lights & alarms went off. I had a few good nights at O’ Clubs. Vance AFB could get wild on Assignment Night. Randolph AFB was still kicking… the AF Nursing program was based nearby & it had a basement Crud room w/ sandbag walls, so things could get wild when the nurses showed up to have fun. My buddy may make General, but I remember him passing out on a General’s lawn as a Lieutenant after a good night at Randolph & being woken by the sprinklers. We lost something. Some of it was worth discarding, but not all of it was & it built relationships in a way we lack today. The Clubs were good, and it makes me sad they are in such a bad state today.

@dunce_scotus maybe they switched the teacher and nurse cohorts to game the algo in both places?

Did they reactivate the retired teacher botnet for Budget week? Or did something happen to Bluesky to send them all back here?

@mommiana5 Saw some today. Even wearing a Chinese army cap like the woman in the hang on sloops film clip

Nobody has pointy upward nipples anymore last i seen those was a pic from 1970

@rohancct @Australis_Felix No, I think that sport gets the state of origin rule only when they play Australia. Otherwise support Australia

I have a basic test of whether a migrant has fully assimilated. If Australia are playing Italy, Greece or Croatia (as 3 examples) in a sporting match, they have assimilated fully if they support Australia. If they are still supporting their mother country they haven’t.

@john_macgowan Can you imagine the chortling at the bar in Tatts and the other men only clubs that were effectively forced to open to women

I actually have no sympathy for women aggrieved by the Giggle v Tickle decision. As the Public Image Ltd song goes: "This is what you want, this is what you get." In the 30 years since Kimberlé Crenshaw published "Mapping the Margins" and birthed Intersectional Feminism those values have come to philosophically dominate every level of bureaucracy and academia. Women have acquired tremendous political, cultural and institutional power. Female tastes define our entire society. At an economic level, it's lead to the creation of whole skyscrapers full of pointless jobs, sinecures, crèches for the daughters of intersectionality to occupy. Pick me girls and "based" women have still benefited from this, even as they decry it. The ones that complain the loudest, the "TERFS" or whatever - they wouldn't have a shred of cachet in civil society were it not for 90s feminist metanoia. Despite all these changes women are not any happier than they were running around in hoop skirts demanding voting rights. Of course not. Go and read the literature. Female happiness, contentment, equality, these were never part of the bargain. Intersectional feminism describes infinite tesseracts of oppression and privilege that never end. The war will never be over. You will go to a International Women's Day Morning Tea, full of men in women's clothing, and you will be miserable and unable to say anything, trapped in a monolithic grievance complex, forever. That was the deal you signed on to. That was written on the tin. This is what you voted for. Still vote for. It is tempting to consider legislative solutions to this. But the people proposing them have never dealt with women prone to making bad choices. You have to let women wallow in their mistakes and understand the full weight of them. Otherwise they keep making them. This generation of women will have to be made to live with the bad decisions of their mothers. Maybe their daughters too, just to really drive it home. And to unmake the societal chaos intersectional feminism has wrought, men can't be the ones to fix it with a Bill or a regulation. Somewhere out there, a woman aggrieved at the fact the law no longer recognises women are even real, will write a monograph, like Crenshaw did in 1991, and then over 30 years, the process can run in reverse. Feminist philosophy undergoes various epistemic ruptures every 30 years or so anyway. They're due for another gestalt switch. Maybe the next one will be less shit and they won't accidentally delete their entire gender from the statue books. In the meantime: "This is what you want, this is what you get."

@VoteLewko It’s Neck Beard the pirate. Feared wherever the useless gather

According to the Gaza Flotilla group "Sam Watson is a First-Nations Flotilla Participant from so-called Australia". Off to help the starving Gazans he is also a member of Ham-Ass. Or possibly Fat-tah.

@benmoores2 @David_Uplifting As much as I love the AWM, I think the invalides is better. Just for the extra 400 years if nothing else

@David_Uplifting Duxford is okay but random fact if you hire a private plane you can fly in and visit it for free. Recomended ;-)

A thread on the seven worst military museums and seven best military museums around the world. Buckle in for a dark to entertaining ride. Starting with the worst....

@MOSSADil Excellent head shot.

⚠️WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGE - PALESTINIAN TERRORIST STOPPED BEFORE ATTACK Israeli forces eliminated an armed terrorist in Qalandiya, north of Jerusalem, during an operation in the area. The footage shows the terrorist’s rifle recovered at the scene. Another potential attack stopped before Israeli civilians or soldiers were murdered. Boost the algorithm: Bookmark, Share, Reply, Repost, Like and Follow @Mossadil.

@IMPERATORAUS Except art deco

I hate Modernism.

@r3tarddownunder @abbiechatfield Bpd

I think @AbbieChatfield is off her meds again. This rant about progressives being on the right side of history is genuinely hilarious. She is retarded.

@RealMarkLatham @JamieMagill5 Gower for the win.

@JamieMagill5 My five in order: 1. Junior Waugh (effortless) 2. Greg Chappell (standing tall) 3. Boycott (technical perfection) 4. Viv Richards (across the line) 5. Barry Richards (creamy) Notice no Lefties?! They don’t play it the same way.

We've all heard about the best cover drivers in the game but how about the best on-drivers? Arguably a much tougher art form🎨 🏏 ❤️ I'll put PBH May, Mark Waugh, Graham Gooch, KP, Viv Richards, Mohammed Azhharuddin and Greg Chappell up for starters..... @RealMarkLatham

@Bedeapk face?

The face that launched a thousand ships

@john_macgowan A decapitation?

Is the collective noun of ISIS brides really cohort? What about, “a thrall of ISIS brides” or “an explosion of ISIS brides”? A cell?

@thinkReal 😂

This is a flat out lie from the @AusFedPolice Commissioner! NO member of any Joint Counter Terrorism Team entered Syria between 2014 - 2019, as ALL intelligence collection of Australian citizens had to be conducted with a warrant from @HighCourtofAus and if one was issue (like was for Jake Bilardi) collection was done in Baghdad or by Operation Gallant Phoenix in Jordan. I was the Australian government's leading #ISIS intelligence analyst between 2013 - 2020, I have been part of ALL previous repatriations and #JCTT operations, and am still Australia’s leading #ISIS expert. I'm unsure why the @AusFedPolice would mislead the Australian community when there is no need. Why wasn't Operation Kurrajong mention during the repatriation in 2019 or 2024?

@PhillipAdams_1 Bullshit. Gough didn’t mind Pol Pot. I doubt trump would have bothered him

I contacted him via Ouija board and his comments were too obscene to repeat

@kershaw_alex Such a good book. I’m still scarred by the open coffin story.

Join us!!!

most doctors will change the subject quickly when you mention time travel