Jump to content

Ghost of LL

Certifiably Surly
  • Posts

    6644
  • Joined

  • Days Won

    1

Everything posted by Ghost of LL

  1. 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).
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. Oh, good—now I can just pop a gummy and chill.
  5. I want to see so much more of that against this shit team. And the other teams in this shit conference, for that matter.
  6. Yep—run the game plan they should’ve been running all along, and suddenly they look pretty good.
  7. Fuck this—I’m switching to the Rice game. At least that’s interesting.
  8. Neither of these teams are very good. It Alabama’s OLine just looks helpless.
  9. Well, on the upside, SMU won’t be taking any more times out this half.
  10. 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.
  11. 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.
  12. That sounds like some CRT to me.
  13. 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?
  14. 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.
  15. 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.
  16. 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.
  17. 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.
  18. 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.
  19. 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.
  20. But Nagorno-Karabakh is . . . landlocked?
  21. 1) I don't use "Turkiye" because I'm of a sufficiently advanced age that it takes me time to adjust to new things. But yes--that is the preferred spelling, and I ought to adopt it. Getting used to "Czechia" is also taking a bit of time. 2) The Turks deny the Armenian genocide for much the same reason Americans deny the genocide of the American Indians. I mean, it's not a pleasant thought to think about your ancestors committing genocide. And beyond that, once you acknowledge that your country committed a genocide, unpleasant ancillary questions arise. Like reparations. It's nice that you acknowledge this historical crime, but what are you going to do to remedy the injury? And there is something . . . I don't know exactly the right word, and I distinctly don't want to use the word "justifiable," so let's just say "unusual" . . . about the Armenian genocide. It came in the course of a war fought by the Ottoman Empire for its very survival, and it was motivated in large part by the exigencies of that war. Without World War I, the Armenian genocide doesn't happen. The Ottomans thought the Armenians were a potential fifth column at the heart of the country. And in some instances, Armenians did engage in acts of resistance against the Ottomans and gave aid and comfort to invading Russian forces. With a lot less basis, the United States interned its citizens of Japanese extraction based on their ancestry just a quarter-century later. The difference is that the United States sent the Japanese-Americans by train to camps, where they were fed, sheltered, and clothed. I mean, still really bad. But they weren't sent on a death march through the desert, raped and murdered in their thousands along the way, and then ditched at a random spot in the desert to fend for themselves and likely die. Now, at Turkish nationalist would point out that the United States handled it a bit better because it wasn't in mid-collapse as a result of a failing war effort. The Turkish nationalist might also point out that the American desert isn't populated by a people like the Kurds, who have an ancestral and bloody hatred of the people being transported. And the Turkish nationalist might argue that the murderous intent of a small number of governmental functionaries shouldn't be imputed to the state, which was governed and administered by people who had no intent to commit genocide (though they may have been consciously indifferent to the fate of the Armenians at the hands of the Kurds, their fellow Turks, and the desert). So the entire circumstance is murky, shrouded by the confusion of wartime secrecy and regime collapse. And ultimately, there is no Auschwitz; there are no gas chambers. Many of the incriminating documents were destroyed (though that act itself reflects the Turkish knowledge and complicity in the crime). What documents remained were left unexamined; there was no Nuremberg prosecution. And at the end of it, Turkiye--see, I'm learning--emerged as a secular Turkish ethno-state. And that couldn't happen if it were still populated by millions of Armenians. And the Turks are very proud of their country's founding from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire and the occupation of large parts of the Anatolian Peninsula by the Allied powers. And it really is a kick in the balls to point out that the bedrock on which that foundation is laid is the genocide of one of the Peninsula's nations. . . . so yeah--kind of exactly how Americans deny the genocide of the American Indians.
  22. I'll just trace it back to World War I. Prior to World War I, the Armenians were scattered throughout the Ottoman Empire, but were heavily in Constantinople and Armenia. Those were two pretty important places. First, Armenia straddled the border between the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire, which were at war with one another during World War I. Second, Constantinople was the capital of the Ottoman Empire, and Russia had the longstanding ambition of seizing Constantinople (which they called Tsargrad) from the Ottomans. The Armenians were sympathetic to the Russians, as the Russians were also Christians and purported to protect Armenian interests. And so when the Russians advanced into the Ottoman Empire in 1915, the Armenians largely supported them. The Ottoman Turks consequently saw the Armenians as a nascent fifth column, which happened to reside in two strategic places. So the Turks rounded up the Armenians and genocided them. Not cool. But so anyway, the Armenians super-hate the Turks. And, well, the Turks pretty much hate the Armenians, too. The Azeris are a Turkic people who happen to be Muslim. So they have a close ethnic and religious bond with the Azerbaijanis. And Turkey has traditionally supported Azerbaijan. Since the first war, Turkey has closed its border with Armenia and has supplied Azerbaijan with weapons. On top of that is Turkey's--which is to say Recap Erdogan's--ambition to position Turkey as the leader of the Turkic peoples stretching from the Anatolian Peninsula to western China. Not just in Azerbaijan, but all the people in the -stans are all some flavor of Turkic. And Erdogan sees it as a historic Turkish mission to lead those people while also setting Turkey up strategically to be a real modern player in the global energy market. And then there's Israel, which has some weird historic . . . I don't know that I would say "alliance," but I would definitely say "friendliness" with Turkey. The Jews were largely tolerated in Palestine under the Ottoman Empire. And as a democracy and Nato member that is not Arab, Turkey has kind of shared America's affinity for Israel. And Israel and Turkey share interests in Syria and elsewhere. So Israel has also been selling Azerbaijan weapons. Oh, and of course, Israel hates Iran. And Iran hates Azerbaijan because there is a large Azeri population in northern Iran that has some asperations of seceding and joining up with Azerbaijan. It's kind of like Iraq and the Kurds--there are times when Tehran's writ doesn't run in the north of the country. So the Iranians are interested in helping Armenia. But Armenia's real protector . . . or at least the country that purports to be Armenia's protector . . . is Russia. But the thing is, Russia does a shitty job of actually protecting Armenia. It couldn't protect the Armenians in 1916. It can't protect them now. So really what this boils down to is Armenia picks shitty friends. And the Azerbaijanis, Turks, and Israelis know it. So there's this territory inside Azerbaijan--Nagorno-Karabakh. Its population is overwhelmingly Armenian. But it is inside Azerbaijan's internationally recognized borders. In the early 1990s, Armenia invaded and basically set up a state akin to what Russia did with Transnistria or South Ossetia. And Azerbaijan has kind of had to eat shit for thirty years because Russia would could to the aid of Armenia if it came down to it. But now Russia can't do shit; it's too busy losing a war against Ukraine. And nobody else is going to come help. So they're going to have to bend over and take it. And that's why there are protests in Yerevan against the government. The government is heavily pro-Russian. And that's always been the rule for Armenia: it is a Russian vassal. If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule? There is a reasonably strong pro-Armenia group in America owing to the fact that there are a fair number of Armenians here. Well, I mean . . . "strong" is a relative term. It's not going to push policy like AIPAC can. But it's probably stronger than the pro-Bangladeshi lobby. But it's nothing compared to the energy lobby. And Azerbaijan has oil. And Turkey is a highway for oil and gas transportation. So yeah--Armenia is going to get some nice words from us, but it's not getting any real support. It's certainly not going to get any help keeping territory that it's running inside Azerbaijan's internationally recognized borders.
  23. I'll tell you what--if I were going to this game, I'd pre-game in Fort Worth. SMU plays at TCU at 11:00. Get you some Iron Skillet action for the last time for the foreseeable future. Go to Joe T's for a late lunch. And then head down to Waco for the Texas game. Pull into the Bidet on the Brazos just in time to take care of what is going to come naturally after your meal at Joe T's.
  24. Dude, I love a good flag. But more than that, I love a bad flag. And this is a bad flag. It's just wretched. It looks like the defender ship from Space Invaders is coming in to dock, . . . and now the more I think about it, maybe it's a fucking fantastic flag.
×
×
  • Create New...