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With what, with the french army being unable to field defences and a huge chunk of the armies from the east coming back? You (and the article) are severely overstating the effect of the mutinies on the capabilities of the French Army. They were still perfectly capable of 'fielding defences' and con...

Are you fucking serious? This is what the NSA is supposed to do. Spy on other nations to gain the US an advantage. Where exactly is the cause for outrage? The part where several of the nations allegedly targeted by the NSA sent soldiers to fight and die alongside yours in Iraq, and I think I'm just...

Are you fucking serious? This is what the NSA is supposed to do. Spy on other nations to gain the US an advantage. Where exactly is the cause for outrage?

JULIAGGEDON AVERTED What a dismal day in Australia. Watching Gillard's acceptance speech you could see why she never broke through with voters - the nasal voice, the terrible turn of phrase, the clunky repetition - but also why she is a fundamentally better person than Rudd or Abbott. Her hand may h...

Morrison's an awesome bloke, and I've no doubt he means what he says, but it remains to be seen the extent to which this kind of intent can reform an entire service.

Wait, you mean to tell me the US is backing potentially unsavoury Sunnis against Shia in order to thwart Iranian regional ambitions? This is indeed a radical departure from the foreign policy norm. Fucking Obama!

The idea that the Fermi Paradox exists because other species have figured it out and are hiding is pretty interesting and cool, but the rest of the premise makes some enormous assumptions about alien behaviour that are really grounded in a pretty narrow view of human history and interaction (maybe I...

Just as concerned by the change in the way content is charged for as the privacy angle TBH. It's hard to see Microsoft implementing it given (as outlined above) how marginal the One's utility as a media centre will be in the next five-ten years anyway. Stream content off an app built into the TV tha...

That is a valid point, but my general idea was more that it is possible for democracies to allow for a quick removal of a leader or head of government. I am not in favor of allowing parliament to dismiss a member of the cabinet per se, only the head of government/Government as a whole. Except I'm n...

It is more than hilarious that nearly all democracies in the world except the USA have some sort of recall mechanism or vote of no-confidence and manage to do just fine, but such a mechanism is too threatening to the home of the brave. Not sure you can seriously compare recall mechanisms and votes ...

My experience is the complete opposite TBH. The 'internet generation' (in Australia at least) is so conditioned to the idea that analysis/critical thinking is what's important that they totally ignore actual data and find it totally bewildering when they're assessed on their knowledge of facts. That...

John McCain didn't lose because of Sarah Palin. No and nobody claims so in the movie. They make it quite clear that they are already losing before they pick her in the movie. The movie makes the claim that John McCain lost because of several factors, one of them being Sarah Palin. Which is a fair (...

I've only seen the last third of the movie but I thought it represented most of what is wrong with the framing of American politics. I'm sure that in a narrow sense it's accurate. But its framing of politics as a game in which Sarah Palin turned out to be TO strikes me as missing the point pretty dr...

I guess fiction can be fun. He talks about how 'they' (ie the military/intelligence guys) had clearly wrong goals or attitudes and had to change and shift them - which is lovely heartwarming stuff. Too bad this feedback cycle was used to create a machine for kicking in thousands of doors to maintai...

It's a hard article to respond seriously to because of how little it is representative of what is actually happening in Australia. Clearly there are structural issues in the economy that are driving high cost of living pressures, and questions need to be asked about the alternatives to the current m...

I think we should cast Sachin Tendulkar as Thrawn. He's p. famous. Maybe have Murali cameo as Talon Karrde.

Since the OP asks about 'planning' and creating a 'geo political plan', Augustus is pretty clearly a candidate. He spent years securing the physical reality of the empire and setting in place plans and institutions that defined its future. That's the interesting part to me - to what extent does som...

I think that was only part of it. The other part of the narrative was the loss of Empire and of old British values and coupled with the other part it works well IMO. Not what you would expect from a Bond film, but really "old Bond" has been kinda dead since the reboot. So I guess it comes...

WTF? What the hell is so damn "valorous" about piloting what amounts to a glorified RC aircraft? Important, yes, it's arguably that, but valorous? Again, WTF? Nothing is and the award isn't an acknowledgement of valour. All militaries have decorations for outstanding service rather than i...

Really? That was my massive problem with it. As you said, it's about the fundamentally grubby nature of espionage, the way its inherent betrayal destroys everyone who touches it. Which would be great if its name was The Spy Who Came In From The Cold or The Honourable Schoolboy and the lead character...

Half of the book is basically just Sun Tzu finding creative ways to say, "Don't be a fucking moron." In other words, it's little more than fortune cookie cliches for milwankers -only adding the words "in bed" to the end doesn't make Sun Tzu's sayings mildly amusing on dinner dat...

Nonsense, Stark. It's a compelling argument she puts forward there.

Silly me, I should have known that Mando would come to the rescue.

The French will attack. They may stop it sooner, but its going to happen. Why? You seem to be totally ignoring the way French strategy was governed by Entente strategy and in particular Russia - and more importantly, if Russia is neutral, how does France end up in conflict with Germany and Austria-...

Why is it that all the idiots and whackadoos that I come across think the U.S. government is complete crap and totally incompetent EXCEPT when it comes to massive conspiracies, converting the country to socialism/Communism and organizing to take guns away from citizens? I WISH our government was cr...