Cassie Jaye Discusses Lessons Learned Making The Red Pill

 Best TEDx talk I've seen in quite a while.

Here's the Wikipedia article on The Red Pill, if you aren't familiar with it.

Well. That's something I wouldn't do.

Heh.

Grim's going to love talking about this item.

So what is actually going on here? American writer Ethan Watters’s recent book, Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the Western Psyche, offers a highly subversive answer. It is that American society has been permeated by psychoanalytical beliefs about the fragility of the human mind.

This creates an expectation, he argues, that people who have been through horrible experiences will be traumatized. The veterans are simply falling in with that expectation, and exhibiting the symptoms that the theory says they should be showing.

In Britain, where the psychoanalytical approach never got such a hold on popular culture, this expectation is much rarer—and so are the symptoms of PTSD.

Now, I seem to remember some EC comics from the 1950's (you can find reprints of these things if you look) with titles like "Frontline Combat" that had all sorts of stories about GI's going bonkers in combat--mostly they seem to be Korean War stories--that seems to agree with the first paragraph above.

Maybe the saying is right: It's all in your head.

Aptly named "Badass of the week" (and probably year, decade and century at this point...)

When asked by Southeast Asia Bureau reporter Rick Westhead why he risked his life to save his wife, he simply replied “She is very important for me” through his interpreter.

Well said.

Greatest obituary photo EVAR.

Kurt Albert, who died on September 27 aged 56, invented the “redpoint” or free style of climbing – in which the ascent is performed without technical aids.

Not a lot of people go out doing what they love.

"Millin, Black Bear."

LONDON — Bill Millin, a Scottish bagpiper who played highland tunes as his fellow commandos landed on a Normandy beach on D-Day and lived to see his bravado immortalized in the 1962 film “The Longest Day,” died on Wednesday in a hospital in the western England county of Devon. He was 88.

There were giants in those days.

Grim is going to like this one.

When one thinks of heraldry, images of the lion and the unicorn most often spring to mind. In Papua New Guinea, however, beer labels are featured on shields used as protection in battle. Fighting shields had not been used in 50 years but when war broke out between groups in the 1980’s there was a need for them once more. Artist Kaipel Ka uses beer advertising designs on shields he makes for various warring groups. The emblems act like the team colors of sporting groups.

Heh. So, what would you put on yours?

I could think of lots of worse things to be doing than to be making armor in Poland.

LUBLIN, Poland (Reuters) – Just like his Medieval counterparts 600 years ago armourer Tomasz Samula has hardly any time to outfit his knights before battle commences.

Samula is racing to add the final touches to the metal breastplates, helmets, gloves and other accoutrements needed by the Lublin knights before they take part in re-enacting Grunwald, one of the largest battles of the Medieval age.

I imagine Lars and Grim will appreciate this item.

I had no idea this even happened.

Amedeo Guillet, who died on June 16 aged 101, was the Italian officer who led the last cavalry charge faced by the British Army.

Early in 1941, following outstanding successes in the Western Desert, the British invasion of Mussolini's East African empire seemed to be going like clockwork.

But at daybreak on January 21, 250 horsemen erupted through the morning mist at Keru, cut through the 4/11th Sikhs, flanked the armoured cars of Skinner's Horse and then galloped straight towards British brigade headquarters and the 25-pound artillery of the Surrey and Sussex Yeomanry.

Wow.

Discussion Plutarch.

Ok, I hope everybody has had a chance to read the lives mentioned here.

So, what do you all think? Was Plutarch's comparison apt?

Discuss. Support your arguement.

UPDATE: Bumped to the top by Grim because of the importance of the discussion; newer posts below.

Plutarch's Lives

I've had to go back and read a bit of this, and so I'll beg indulgence on the tardiness of it.

Most often these days any published Plutarch seems to be merely chunks of his original work--for instance, my first experience was a Penguin classic called "Fall of the Roman Republic" which had all the relevant Roman lives for the 1st century BC. But none of the Greek lives, much less the comparisons. This is sad, as it obscures Plutarch's purpose a great deal. However, I was able to find a print copy of the complete lives that Barnes & Noble has recently issued as part of it's "Library of Essential Reading".

Now, I am traditional in that I prefer my books in hand, rather than online, but in the spirit of the times, the internet has become the world's library. So I have found online a complete transcription of the Lives here. (Send Mr. Thayer a thank you note--He seems to have retyped rather than scanned the text--quite an undertaking.)

Obviously the next thing to do was to pick which lives to read (and feel free to read them all). I had at least one life in mind and but then considered several others, but finally went back with my first thought.

So, we will read the pair of Alcibiades (Greek, 5th century BC) and Coriolanus (Roman 5th century BC). Make sure you read the comparison as well.

And if agreeable, we'll commence with some sort of discussion next Monday. And if people really like it, well read some more.

So we loosed a bloomin' volley,
An' we made the beggars cut,
An' when our pouch was emptied out.
We used the bloomin' butt,
Ho! My!
Don't yer come anigh,
When Tommy is a playin' with the baynit an' the butt.
--Barrack Room Ballad.

Lieutenant James Adamson was awarded the Military Cross after killing two insurgents during close quarter combat in Helmand's notorious "Green Zone".

The 24-year-old officer, a member of the 5th battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, revealed that he shouted "have some of this" before shooting dead a gunman who had just emerged from a maize field.

Seconds later and out of ammunition, the lieutenant leapt over a river bank and killed a second insurgent machine-gunner with a single thrust of his bayonet in the man's chest.

Traditionalist.

Strong Men Armed.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 12, 2010 - U.S. forces in the Marja region of Afghanistan are engaged in a series of missions to prime the Taliban stronghold before a massive assault that's expected soon, defense officials said today.
Some 12,000 U.S. and NATO troops and 3,000 Afghan forces are expected to be involved once the larger-scale operation begins in earnest. Officials declined to reveal when the assault would start, saying only that it is expected to commence soon.

Good luck and God Speed.

Give them the bayonet.

Colonel Lewis L. Millett, an Army veteran of three wars who received the Medal of Honor for leading a rare bayonet charge up a hill in Korea, died Saturday in Loma Linda, Calif. He was 88.

The colonel was hard core. He would have been an interesting man to serve with.

Moonrise.

Bumped:
1 in custody, 3 overboard.

"Defense Department officials confirmed that one pirate is in custody. A U.S. official said the status of the other pirates is unknown but they were reported to "be in the water."

Heh. Now I know that supposedly merchantmen are not supposed to be carrying weapons these days, but something tells me that the guys in the water have extra holes in them.

Still, compliments to the crew.

UPDATE:
Finally.

An American ship captain was freed unharmed Sunday in a U.S. Navy operation that killed three of the four Somali pirates who had been holding him for days in a lifeboat off the coast of Africa, a senior U.S. intelligence official said.

I was wondering how long this farce was going to go on. Now. Start bombing the pirate ports until they get the idea that this is not a healthy occupation.

Dead stick into the Hudson river.

I used to live on the Jersey side of the Hudson. Its pretty big, actually. But I wouldn't want to try to ditch an airliner into it.

This video on CNN shows the actual ditching, as captured by some security cameras.
(there's some audio too, of 911 calls, a couple of people astonished at what they have just seen).

The pilot, it turns out, is a safety expert. The Smoking Gun has managed to come up with his resume.

As the Smoking Gun said in its email: "All hail "Sully" Sullenberger, the hero of Flight 1549."

"This is not news, this is just the Marines."
-commentor

Heh. Ooo-rah. Get some, you jar-heads.

(hat tip to Ace)

PHILLIES WIN THE SERIES!!!!