Optimal Cynic

@Mike_Mobley @micyoung75 Just because the president can do something, doesn't mean he should.

@micyoung75 "At the pleasure of the President."

He sent the email to Hegseth. The man who fired him was one of the recipients. “Our soldiers are truly the best in the world - they deserve tough training and courageous leaders of character.” His replacement was Hegseth’s personal military aide. The Pentagon described him as able to carry out the vision “without fault.” George’s fault, apparently, was refusing to discriminate against officers by race and gender and then asking for a meeting to discuss it. He served thirty-some years. West Point. Desert Storm. Iraq. Afghanistan. Two years early out the door. The email had a subject line. It said “Thank you.” That’s it.

@lamboness @Chellaney It's a toddler throwing a tantrum. It's not a carefully crafted rhetorical masterpiece.

@Chellaney For a Doctor to miss Metanomy, Figures of Speech and Hyperbole tells me all I need to know about the university you attended.

Trump’s use of profanity (“Fuckin’ Strait”) and aggressive insults (“crazy bastards”) in this post, alongside the sarcasm or taunting in his closing phrase, “Praise be to Allah,” may be seen by his critics not merely as a lapse in executive restraint and impulse control, but as indicative of diminished judgment at a moment when his war on Iran is holding the world economy hostage.

@UnbiblicalCord Then you were replying to the wrong person.

@OptimalCynic You're right that it's not achievable with Starlink. I was clarifying how it is achievable and uses line of sight. RF is propagating and IR is focused.

For those curious about how the Artemis II crew is sharing photos on social media during their journey, Reid said the following during his February 20 weekly update: “…all four astronauts will hand their social media over to our respective agencies… so while we’re up there, our social media coordinator for the astronaut office, Camille, will be posting… so we will write the content, we’ll give her the ideas, we’ll send pictures down while we’re on our way out to the Moon and back, and then she’ll do the posting on the various platforms… it’s us posting, but not directly, because we will not have internet connection while we’re out there on the Deep Space Network.” instagram.com/reel/DU_whd5Dp…

@Icepilot1582611 @shashj At what point will you admit that bombing for regime change has failed? Give me a time frame. How long should we let Trump do it before deciding he was just incompetent?

@OptimalCynic @shashj The Persians, 90 million of them. The Mossad, who have infiltrated the mullahs from the start.

As well as reading the North Atlantic Treaty & Article Six, people also need to read a history book. - In 1973 European allies mostly refused landing and overflight rights for the US airlift to Israel - In 1986 Italy, France and Spain refused overflight rights to the Reagan admin during the bombing of Libya - In 2003 many Europeans broke with the Bush admin over Iraq. France, Germany & Belgium blocked NATO planning; Turkey refused the use of its bases. - In 2011 Germany stayed out of the Libya war The current anger at Europe is rooted in a much larger transatlantic rupture. European allies have lost confidence in US judgment and decision-making under this administration; the situation would probably be different if this was seen as a necessary war to stave off an Iranian nuclear weapon. That loss of confidence & trust will have wider repercussions. I worry what it means for a crisis over Taiwan, for instance. It's hard to imagine effective US-Europe co-ordination if a war were to break out while transatlantic relations are at such a low ebb.

@Icepilot1582611 @shashj He did promise regime change, he just chickened out of the promise. And no, I'm not ragging on him for failing to achieve it. I'm saying it's impossible to achieve the way he's going about it. And the Persians on the street can't overthrow the regime either without an invasion.

The top 3 layers of the hardliners are dead. How much power have they got? "He hasn't changed the regime in Iran"??? Really? You're going to rag on him because he hasn't achieved regime change in a month? Something he's never promised? If all the Persians do is mourn, you'll be (at most) half right. Trump has only promised that the mullahs will be set back a decade or two ... & that's 95% done. It ain't over & the Persians on the streets get a vote.

@aschomm1 @AlexForrest77 @HistorylandHQ Ah, but you failed to consider that Twitter 2026 is a lot like Buenos Aires 1946

@OptimalCynic @AlexForrest77 @HistorylandHQ Oh boy. I had a simple question about German immigrants 🙈

Using his fluent German, Sergeant Olin Dows of Rhinelander, New York, talked to a hidden group of Germans in an area under American attack in France, begging them to surrender. To his great surprise, 56 Germans came towards him with their hands up. (1944)

@AlexForrest77 @aschomm1 @HistorylandHQ Yes, there is a reason - that's not it though. But even if it was, I can't think of a better reason to import mercenaries than to kill racist secessionists.

@aschomm1 @HistorylandHQ Because Abraham lincoln imported hordes of german mercenaries to kill southern Americans in the 1860s. Theres a reason why there are large swaths of german decsendants across the country.

@phl43 "France actually honours its commitments" Uh... Israel still remembers the times that was emphatically not true. The Sa'ar missle boats, the Mirage 5, etc etc.

What is funny about those posts from the pro-Israel brigade on how the UAE withdrew from the Rafale F5 program to punish France for its "betrayal" is that we have actually been shooting down Iranian drones over the UAE since the beginning of the war, because despite what low-IQ American posters think France actually honors its commitments, but those morons don't know that because they don't know anything. The UAE withdrew from the program because of a dispute over technology transfers, which doesn't seem to have anything to do with the war or any imaginary "betrayal" of the UAE by France. This is just another fake story created by propagandists who are butt-hurt that France recognized Palestine a few months ago and had the audacity to make some very mild criticisms of Israel's scorched earth policy, which feeds on the Europe Derangement Syndrome that American rightoids have recently developed.

@Painefulfacts @SandyofCthulhu These are the same Greeks who thought the gods lived on Olympus.

@SandyofCthulhu I mean mountains are pretty good reason it would be strange if there were a reason why mountains were colder. It's very possible that they just were thinking about Icarus flying much higher than mountains

Oh no the ancient Greeks didn't know that getting higher in the air got colder. Didn't they have weather balloons? Satellites? Scout planes? The idea that it got warmer closer to the sun is actually pretty logical. The main way to disprove it if you can't fly is to look at mountains, but perhaps there is some other reason the mountains are cold up high.

@PeterMOrem @SandyofCthulhu Well it's more ambiguous in the original Homeric Greek...

@SandyofCthulhu Sadi Carnot had a solid grasp. "Is it not to the cooling of the air by dilatation that the cold of the higher regions of the atmosphere must be attributed ? " "On the Motive Power of Heat", p240 play.google.com/books/reader?i…

@boomers_ass @anon_DAOT Tell that to a little girl who's inspired because she loves space flight and every single moon astronaut she's ever heard of is a man. Now she can see a woman there it makes her dream just a little more real. Don't underestimate the power of "if you can see it, you can be it"

@anon_DAOT I have no problem if she is proud to be the first women, and she can bring it up if she likes. That's not the problem here. The problem is NASA promoting it, and all the news orgs (the Lame Stream Media) harping on it.

I've been hearing this the last few days and it's been bugging me. Does it really matter that she's a woman? Or that the pilot is black? Isn't it enough to just say she's one of the four people who've accomplished this incredible feat?

@ophello @Freedom2speak17 @ManaByte @TFMetals Plus it's about relative motion, not absolute anyway

@Freedom2speak17 @ManaByte @TFMetals The earth is 7926 miles wide. It spins once per day. You think that motion is noticeable from space? That’s like saying “I don’t believe the hour hand on my watch is moving. I’ll believe it when I see a video of it moving.” That video would have to be sped up to show movement.

NASA says some of the Apollo landing sites will be visible at the very beginning of the Artemis II lunar flyby on Monday. They’ll say exactly what ones in the daily briefing tomorrow. That means moon landing deniers are going to have real bad day on Monday.

@Enkidu312221 @peterrhague You think that nobody should do anything on April 1st? That's hilariously stupid

@OptimalCynic @peterrhague Now whos the one who's naive here and needs to grow up fool

The Moon landing deniers coming out in forces is a sign of desperation on their part. The fact that humanity is going there again is deeply threatening to them. Not only will Artemis yield great benefits for science, exploration, and development - it will also produce a torrent of additional evidence that these people are stupid.

@Enkidu312221 @peterrhague From a conspiracy nutter, that's complimentary

@OptimalCynic @peterrhague Youre an idiot

@UnbiblicalCord @sumochops @johnkrausphotos Go and read what I was replying to more carefully.

@OptimalCynic @sumochops @johnkrausphotos The Orion Artemis II Optical Communications System (O2O) uses infrared laser beams (specifically at a 1,550\text{ nm} wavelength) to provide high-bandwidth "internet-like" connectivity. They don't give them direct internet access for security purposes..

@charultd @johnkrausphotos What a sad little mind you have. I pity you

@sumochops @johnkrausphotos Now compare the distances

@johnkrausphotos Imagine believing this So you're telling me I can get starlink just off the top of Mont Blanc... But... NASA / Elon / someone else can't just turn the StarLink around by 180 Deg and suck their data down the opposite way?????? Surely it's line of sight???

@DavidEHowardIV @johnkrausphotos Under the cloud

@johnkrausphotos Where are Papua New Guinea and the islands of Indonesia in this picture?

@Manilishi173025 @johnkrausphotos Photos of what? The rocket? Think about what size it is and what kind of telescope you'd need to pick it out

@johnkrausphotos Why are there no pictures from earth?

@RawBar13 @TheColbster94 @ChrisTurnbull23 @johnkrausphotos You're not very bright

@TheColbster94 @ChrisTurnbull23 @johnkrausphotos These liars can't even make maps properly. None of them match what the "globe" looks like.