100%. I know that the jury is out, academically speaking, on the actual effectiveness of the bombs, but it makes intuitive sense to me that they at least contributed to the Japanese decision to surrender unconditionally.

In fact, up until the bombs were dropped, Japan was working with the Soviet Union to act as mediators in peace talks, so Japan could get a better deal. Of course, while the USSR entertained the diplomatic overtures from Japan, they were actually planning on declaring war, as they had promised at Yalta. But, I think it still contributes to my point that a civilian population that has been targeted by a besieging force must believe their only options are unconditional surrender or utter destruction (which, incidentally, is exactly the verbiage the US presented Japan in the Potsdam Declaration 10 days before the first bomb was dropped). If there is a plausible third option available (or believed to be available), then that’s what will be pursued.

No, it was not my intention to suggest that. I’m sure the Germans threw everything they could afford into the Battle of Britain.

Though, I am most definitely not an expert in the field and should be treated as I am, a dude on the internet lol.

However, even Germany in early WW2 (arguably at the height of their power) was unable to throw enough explosives into London to make that switch flip in the civilian population from “we shall fight them on the beaches” to “okay, in light of recent events, we are reevaluating our ‘Never Surrender’ policy…”.

In fact, I might even suggest that the scale of bombing necessary to make it a viable tactic was impossible at that time, as the nuclear bomb hadn’t yet been invented. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable than me can fact check this assertion, but I think the only time intentionally targeting civilians has successfully cowed a belligerent was when the US nuked Japan. And even then, it took two.

Also, to add to the other poster’s point, in a medieval siege, the defenders have every reason to believe the attackers will happily let every man, woman, and child behind the walls die gruesome deaths to starvatiom or disease. That’s why, when it came down to the wire, cities would submit.

In modern times, cultivating a believable military posture of, “Surrender, or we will personally execute every last motherfucking one of you” is politically dicey. Look at the news stories coming out of Gaza about supplies running low thanks to Israeli interference. Right, wrong , or indifferent, the international community (as well as your domestic community, if those that disagree with these sorts of tactics are allowed to make their voices heard) tends to look down their noses at targeting noncombatants populations. So, due to these complications (which were largely absent or less impactful from warfare in the time of Genghis Khan) wholesale slaughter of civilian life isn’t really openly used. In fact, guidelines like “proportionality” are invented which dictate the level of response you can give certain provocations and what not.

So, if you’re a modern day commander being tasked with taking an urban center, the closest way to approximate a medieval siege would be to absolutely carpet bomb everything. Make it known that you will happily let every single person in Moscow die, if not send them to the afterlife yourself. While you’re bombing the suburbs, you’ll also need to encirce the whole city to prevent supplies from being delivered, since you can’t guarantee every bomb will hit it’s target and need starvation to provide additional assurance to the population that, if they maintain their current course, they are doomed.

Unfortunately, the world isn’t going to allow that, and you know it, so you commit to the level of bombing deemed acceptable by the world at large. At best, you wind up in a situation like London during the Blitz. Your bombing runs are effective, in that they disrupt the daily life of citizenry, and cause some infrastructure damage and loss of life. However, you’re never going to be allowed to scale up to the point where your victims feel they have no way out but to submit. There’s enough plausible deniability that, even when a bomb hits close to home (literally or figuratively), the victim is more pissed at the bomber than their government.

I have it on good authority that that isn’t an issue in this instance. They’ve towed the boat outside of the environment.

I go to Subway with an upsetting degree of regularity, but it’s the only place where I can get fresh vegetables as part of my meal in under 30 minutes. The cheapest footlong on the menu is the Spicy Italian (or whatrver their latest menu refresh is calling it) for $10.99. Any other sub is $11.99 and up.

Miniature models come in two flavors for me, DnD or 40K (which is really just my way of saying fantasy or sci Fi aesthetics). So, when I saw this, my first thought was that it was an imitation Tyranid model which has taken inspiration from one of the critters in the Star Wars movies. Imagine my surprise when I check and see that it’s got nothing to do with Tyranid at all and is just the Star Wars monster.

Great sculpt, hope to see the final product painted up! Thank you for sharing.

I mean, the article states that the victim did suffer some symptoms, so I wouldn’t say they were totally unaffected. If the article is accurate, would it be possible that she was inhaling vapor from the spill? The victim is quoted as saying she had to be at that board for 5 hours, and the Wikipedia article indicates that the primary danger of elemental mercury is inhalation of vapor (it claims 80% absorption rate via respiration, as opposed to the 1% via direct contact). Unfortunately, I am pretty ignorant of chemistry, so I’ve no idea if my speculation is plausible. How much room temp mercury would need to be sitting in front of you before you felt the effects of the vapor. Or even if you would at all, since the CDC website says the vapor is more dense than air.

Additionally, I noticed that one of the symptoms of mercury inhalation is cognitive impairment. Obviously this is more speculation, but perhaps the intent was not to kill, but rather to sabotage the victim’s play? After all, it seems like the perpetrator and the victim were rivals. Could be a Nancy Kerrigan-Tonya Harding situation, just more classically Russian what with the use of poison rather than brute force.

For what it’s worth, having a lower retirement grade shouldn’t actually affect his pension at all, at least in so far as I understand it.

Walz joined up in 1981, which was the year after the “High-36” retirement system was adopted. Under that system, the army looks at your career and plucks out the 36 months where you earned the most money. In the vast majority of cases, these are the final 3 years of your career. These are averaged out, and then multiplied by a percentage (2.5% per year of service, e.g. 20 years of service = 50%) to determine your monthly payment.

All of which is to say that his pension calculations do take into account the time he was an E9, even if his paperwork and other privileges rflect the lower pay grade.

Caveat: it’s been several years since I retired, and it’s a very complex process. I could be off base as it applies to Walz’s case specifically, but what I’ve described is generally true.

Alright, I’ll bite, what distinguishes a hot dish from a casserole? Tater tot crust?

Reporting in that I did, in fact, want to listen to it, and did so. Thank you for sharing your work!

I dispute the premise that SBMM is a fundamental requirement for PVP to work, though obviously it’s become intertwibed with the genre that a game choosing not to use it is going to have a more difficult go of it to onboard folks.

There was a time before SBMM after all. A time of server browsers, admins with chips on their shoulders, GameSpy, and “unofficial” map rotations and rules.

Now, for about a billion different reasons, this model is not going to make a comeback and become king again. But, I just wanted to mention that MM is not as “fundamental” as your comment indicated.

I assumed something like shredded wheat.

You deserve the hose for this, because now I can’t stop thinking about it.

Keep up the good work!

I overheard a conversation between two old guys at the Omaha VA discussing one of their relatives coming out as nonbinary. The sentiment was, in essence, “well, are they gay or what? Idk what these damn kids are doing anymore…” After some internal debate, I piped up and explained the sexuality and gender are two separate topics. To these guys’ credit, they seemed to take it in stride, if a little befuddled by it all. Considering the other options and prevailing opinions of many of the patients around here, I’ll take a couple of Vietnam vets’ bewildered acceptance of non-cisgendered people over ignorant hate seven days a week, and twice on Sunday.

This is very good, thank you.

Hey I just wanted to say thank you for the breakdown. The intricacies of translation are interesting.

Out of curiosity, what service do you use for this? I’m looking to make a purchase I’d rather not have tied to my bank account. I was going to go pick up a visa prepaid.

I disagree with your assessment that far right and populist descriptors are opposites. Admittedly, there’s a degree of subjectivity in definitions here, but my understanding is that conventional scholarship has coalesced around a definition of Populism that is agnostic of the left/right spectrum.

For example, this journal article from 2012 defines it as “a thin-centered ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, the ‘pure people’ versus the ‘corrupt elite’, and which argues that politics should be an expression of the general will of the people”.

If you care to read a little more, the authors break down their definition into it’s constituent pieces and provide context, but the important piece is that you can see how populism can come from both the left and the right.

As examples, we can look at, say, the Occupy Wall Street movement from a while back. Very much spawned from left leaning ideology, but it’s defining feature was casting the “corrupt elite” (in this case, the fabulously wealthy) against the general people (i.e. the 99%). On the other side of the coin we can look at Donald Trump’s MAGA movement. The image he wants to cultivate is that of an outsider, someone not tainted by the corruption of the Washington elite. That resonates with a sunset of the population.

Both of these movements have radically different goals and politics, but the framework of those arguments follows the same general template.

I apologize for the US-centric examples, but that’s what I know. As consolation, the article I linked to is specifically a comparative study of European vs Latin American populism.

I wish you the best of luck in your spiritual journey, but the idea of getting a definitive answer to the God question is something humans have been working on for thousands of years. I wouldn’t beat yourself up about not having one lol

Big ups for Underrail. I’m about 10 hours into my first playthrough and having a blast. I’m concerned I’m going to hit a wall at some point because I didn’t really come into the game with a build in mind, so I’m pretty far from optimized. This far though, I’ve managed to scrape by on luck and buffs, but like you said, it keeps you on the edge.