Old Dead Meat

A few folks I have learned from have decided to follow me recently. Fair warning, I get cranky occasionally. Please forgive me, and don't hesitate to disagree with me or even chew me out. I don't mind. Also, I have varied interests, ignore what bores you Cheers.

Shōgun was a loud reminder that even in this day and age, excellence can still be achieved. Hiroyuki Sanada has done nothing but make great projects in Hollywood for decades. He’s as consistent & reliable as they come. This show was his chance to take center stage. Prestige TV.

@plamen_neykov @DrJStrategy Have you looked at how much fossil fuel is required to create renewable energy sources? Do your wind mills or solar power last for 2 or 3 decades before they have to be replaced?

@DrJStrategy Just a small factoid - 47.3% of the EU's electricity in 2025 did came from renewables. From fossil fuels: 29.0% I'm just wondering how long would it take to get it to say 1% or 0%?

Food for thought. Trump, Hormuz and the End of the Free Ride For half a century, Western strategists have known that the Strait of Hormuz is the acute point where energy, sea power and political will intersect. That knowledge is not in dispute. What is new in this war with Iran is that the United States, under Donald Trump, has chosen not to rush to “solve” the problem. In Hegelian terms, he is refusing an easy synthesis in order to force the underlying contradiction to the surface. The old thesis was simple: the US guarantees open sea lanes in the Gulf, and everyone else structures their economies and politics around that free insurance. Europe and the UK embraced ambitious green policies, ran down hard‑power capabilities and lectured Washington on multilateral virtue, secure in the assumption that American carriers would always appear off Hormuz. The political class behaved as if the American security guarantee were a law of nature, not a contingent choice. Their conduct today is closer to Chamberlain than Churchill: temporising, issuing statements, hoping the storm will pass without a fundamental reordering of their responsibilities. Trump’s antithesis is to withhold the automatic guarantee at the moment of maximum stress. Militarily, the US can break Iran’s residual ability to contest the Strait; that is not the binding constraint. The point is to delay that act. By allowing a closure or semi‑closure to bite, Trump ensures that the immediate pain is concentrated in exactly the jurisdictions that have most conspicuously free‑ridden on US power: the EU and the UK. Their industries, consumers and energy‑transition assumptions are exposed. In that context, his reported blunt message to European and British leaders, you need the oil out of the Strait more than we do; why don’t you go and take it? Is not a throwaway line. It is the verbalisation of the antithesis. It openly reverses the traditional presumption that America will carry the burden while its allies emote from the sidelines. In this dialectic, the prize is not simply the reopening of a chokepoint. The prize is a reordered system in which the United States effectively arbitrages and controls the global flow of oil. A world in which US‑aligned production in the Americas plus a discretionary capability to secure,or not secure, Hormuz places Washington at the centre of the hydrocarbon chessboard. For that strategic end, a rapid restoration of the old status quo would be counterproductive. A quick, surgical “fix” of Hormuz would short‑circuit the dialectic. If Trump rapidly crushed Iran’s remaining coastal capabilities, swept the mines and escorted tankers back through the Strait, Europe and the UK would heave a sigh of relief and return to business as usual: underfunded militaries, maximalist green posturing and performative disdain for US power, all underwritten by that same power. The contradiction between their dependence and their posture would remain latent. By declining to supply the synthesis on demand, and by explicitly telling London and Brussels to “go and take it” themselves, Trump forces a reckoning. European and British leaders must confront the fact that their energy systems, their industrial bases and their geopolitical sermons all rest on an American hard‑power foundation they neither finance nor politically respect. The longer the contradiction is allowed to unfold, the stronger the eventual synthesis can be: a new order in which access to secure flows, Hormuz, Venezuela and beyond, is explicitly conditional on real contributions, not assumed as a right. In that sense, the delay in “taking” the Strait, and the challenge issued to US allies to do it themselves, is not indecision. It is the negative moment Hegel insisted was necessary for history to move. Only by withholding the old guarantee, and by saying so out loud to those who depended on it, can Trump hope to end the free ride.

@MtR22g5zxUvvqp9 Very cool

またフォロワーが増えたので 自己紹介をします 槍の研究を生業として 趣味でサラリーマンをしてます フォローしてくれた皆さんにはXでは珍しい槍の世界を見せましょう #槍

@IronBagel It's wonderful.

Oh, that reminds me. I've always admired the Fallout fandom in US, and last year I finally got to organize Japan's first Fallout cosplay gathering. It's called "Dawg Meet." I worked really hard to come up with that silly name.🫢 Please forgive me.

@ShamashAran @qsfkbwIhuWLhnjI She is what we call a candidate for a Darwin Award

あなたの考えは理にかなっていると思いますが、私はアメリカではそのような制度には賛成できません。その理由は、この国の歴史を知ると理解しやすいと思います。 アメリカ合衆国憲法の第二修正は「権利」として位置づけられており、市民であれば誰でも銃を所有できるべきだと考えられています。 しかし、この国には過去に深刻な問題のある歴史があり、奴隷制度が廃止された後、黒人が銃を持つことを妨げるために様々な障壁が設けられました。 同じように、黒人が投票することを難しくするための制度も存在していました。 そのため、アメリカ合衆国最高裁判所は、「権利を行使するために条件や障壁を設けること自体が憲法に反する」と判断しています。

アメリカの皆さん、 銃器購入には 知能テストを義務付けるべきだと思いますが、 どう考えますか？

@daveysparklz @Johnnyric00 @harveyspistols And hey, just to brighten your day, guess what this nimrod was carrying? That's right, a Glock. shootingnewsweekly.com/safety/theres-…

@oledeadmeat @Johnnyric00 @harveyspistols Let me guess you carry a 1911 without one in the chamber at 6 o'clock.

Why is it legal to use lethal force to defend yourself against an unjustified shooting if the person is not dressed up in black and wearing a badge?

@daveysparklz @Johnnyric00 @harveyspistols And if you want to name call, elevate the quality of your insults. My twitter name is practically begging for it, but no one really puts any effort into it any more.

@daveysparklz @Johnnyric00 @harveyspistols At home a 4006TSW, out a SR9c. I love 3rd Gen Smiths, but they are boat anchors. Both of them I'm very comfortable with and can hit what I am for with. They are both reliable and accurate. 4006TSw is CHP edition and a joy to shoot. Now, do you want to name call or discuss?

@Johnnyric00 @harveyspistols Moreover, the average person doesn't get out to the range more than a few times a year, so an extra margin of error for such folks is prudent. Try considering the situations of folks other than youself in such analysis. Massad Ayoob has, which is why we know him and not you.

@oledeadmeat @harveyspistols You are what we call a Fudd that has no real world forearm knowledge outside a flat range. Of course your carry a ruger lol.

@Johnnyric00 @harveyspistols And still your replies lack anything resembling analysis or logic or thinking. Risk assessment is the issue. The average, law abiding, concealed carry person is far more likely to have a fumble fingered try to relieve them of their weapon than for them to need to use it.

@daveysparklz @Johnnyric00 @harveyspistols The brilliance of your wit is too dim to see.

@oledeadmeat @Johnnyric00 @harveyspistols Shut up fudd.

@daveysparklz @Johnnyric00 @harveyspistols youtu.be/8-ab_d9lCkg?si…

@oledeadmeat @Johnnyric00 @harveyspistols

@Seanfucious Underwater deserves a look if you have not seen it.

I wish there were more big budget films about Cthulhu

@GHHILL1911 @Manhattva Isn't Russia giving Iran targeting information right bloody now?

@Manhattva This is... Wow. Honestly, this is amazing. Putin just flexed HARD on NATO.

NATO is not only done, They are trying to unite enemies in alliances against them.

@Johnnyric00 @harveyspistols Now you can disagree, and if you want to to argue my logic have at it. But, obviously, I don't think it's stupid.

@oledeadmeat @harveyspistols It was a glock, she is likely carrying a glock as a service weapon. A modern pistol will only fire if the trigger is pulled. A glock has a trigger safety so she actively pulled the trigger with her finger. She is a shit cop and you're comment is stupid.

@Johnnyric00 @harveyspistols But he was carrying a Glock where the safety is on the trigger - which is great for cops because they have authority, retention holsters and going into dangerous situations where they need to draw and fire more frequently than a civilian - the Glock system is preferable.

So.... medical schools weren't teaching nutrition before? That seems incredible and also just a bit of an oversight. nytimes.com/2026/04/02/us/…

@lynxgirlpaws @KMBK_ARKADIA Texas has gravitas so we pull things South. :)

@KMBK_ARKADIA I'm convinced Japanese twitter is only getting posts from the American South lol. I mean I hate all those things too but it's such an amazingly Southern list when said all together like that

多くのアメリカ人が嫌ってるもの ・カリフォルニア人 ・葛 ・アービーズ ・薄い肉