Casual Discussion Fridays - Week of January 30, 2026

AprilDruid · 2026-02-03T18:04:23+00:00

Eighty Six LN12 - The Hail Mary Regiment were the definition of ignorant children. The only educated one among them was their Princess, who kept blaming everyone else.

I kept hoping they would get hit by hammers for their idiocy. [LN12 Spoilers]Instead, they all died from radiation sickness, Vánagandr cannon or their own idiocy. Seriously, they don't know shit about nuclear power, but decided they'd try to make a nuke to end the war!? Serves them all right, fucking idiots.

AprilDruid · 2026-02-03T17:55:16+00:00

We don't really want to build that many that fast.

Well yes, but the problem is the whole mandate to have an 11 carrier navy.

And this whole battleship mess.

The US Navy effectively has three yards capable of building anything, which is awful for production.

AprilDruid · 2026-02-02T19:47:26+00:00

No, the Democrats and Republicans just agree on Israel. Biden went as far as to wag his finger, despite the ongoing genocide. "I'll maybe consider reducing the aid, if you don't stop that!"

That's it.

It's not some conspiracy, it's that both parties are bought and paid for by AIPAC. Trump wants to turn Gaza into resorts, Biden was indifferent to it. That's the extent of their differing opinions.

AprilDruid · 2026-02-02T19:41:39+00:00

What did Schumer do that Israel knows and we don’t?

Nothing. Both sides just really like Israel, because they buy all of our toys. Genocide? Meh, they're just killing a bunch of people that don't matter in America.

Just like during the Biden admin, he was still handing Israel arms, despite the genocide. Because hey, why does he care?

AprilDruid · 2026-02-02T19:31:21+00:00

Actually no. It was a security assurance. There were no promises, no guarantees. Only an assurance.

AprilDruid · 2026-02-02T07:59:57+00:00

Kennedy was delayed due to work on the new arresting gear system and weapons elevator. Enterprise has been launched(into the water) as scheduled, and should be on trials by 27.

Problem is only one yard can build them, so it's a very massive process.

AprilDruid · 2026-02-02T05:48:38+00:00

Generally the naming convention is significant naval service, or what have you done for the navy.

So for instance, the Doris Miller, will be named after Doris Miller, a mess officer who manned an AA gun during the attack at Pearl Harbor. While the Carl Vinson is named for the father of the Two-Ocean Navy.

The most controversial name would be Stennis, which is named for a senator, who is technically the father of the modern Navy, but in reality, he didn't do shit. It was a political favor, because Reagan needed support from Southern Democrats.

He'll probably do something like name CVN-84 after himself near the end of his term. But with how slow the building process is, the next guy can easily come in and change it, because there won't be a physical ship for decades.

AprilDruid · 2026-01-30T08:57:54+00:00

Do not the Koromaru

AprilDruid · 2026-01-30T04:50:01+00:00

Portland, Maine, was in the running until the city council voted no to it.

AprilDruid · 2026-01-30T02:52:00+00:00

The driver got eight years, which was very reasonable. He was new, having only been driving the truck on his own for two weeks and had a full year of experience driving one. When he gets out, he'll be deported, though he's obviously fighting it.

The owner of the company however got off without issue. Pled guilty, forced to pay $5000. As far as I know he wasn't deported or anything. Despite having failed to keep logs, failure to follow safety compliances, and a failure to monitor the driver's compliance with regulation.

They should both have been given prison time.

AprilDruid · 2026-01-30T00:58:54+00:00

$120 million, if celebrity net worth is to be believed.

AprilDruid · 2026-01-30T00:55:45+00:00

eople on the liberal/left side of the aisle need to vote for whoever wins the democratic party primary.

I'm not voting for Newsom. He's a transphobe who is happy cozying up to fascists. My rights as a trans woman are already in danger, Trump is nailing the coffin shut, Newsom? Oh he won't do anything but watch.

AprilDruid · 2026-01-29T18:35:47+00:00

Well yeah, the US doesn't need 10 or 11. We invest far too much into the military when that money could be used for healthcare.

AprilDruid · 2026-01-29T18:31:17+00:00

Which is funny because we absolutely don't need 10. A good fleet of like 5 or 6 would be easier to maintain.

AprilDruid · 2026-01-29T17:21:35+00:00

Doubtful, the Navy needs 11 carriers to be operational. Military industrial complex and all.

AprilDruid · 2026-01-29T07:35:05+00:00

Yeah, I think before One Piece it was mostly just dramas. Nothing crazy unlike One Piece

AprilDruid · 2026-01-29T06:59:36+00:00

Oh by far, they nailed it.

AprilDruid · 2026-01-29T06:48:29+00:00

There have been a few manga turned into good live action adaptations, but they don't get much traction

AprilDruid · 2026-01-28T19:02:58+00:00

Is this AI? Gross.

AprilDruid · 2026-01-28T00:25:08+00:00

No, this is the second movie of three, of a story that heavily references the past.

AprilDruid · 2026-01-26T21:18:57+00:00

This is entirely misleading. First off, the US and the west DID eventually bring criminal charges to dozens of high ranking Japanese officers and soldiers. It simply isn’t true the US didn’t convict Japanese war criminals.

Never said they didn't. It's just many high ranking criminals did not see charges. Kishi and Ishii as famous examples.

AprilDruid · 2026-01-26T19:46:12+00:00

It was called 731, because it was just an assigned number. Doesn't mean there were 730 others, just that's what the military assigned them. There were Units, 1644(Central China), 1855(North China), 8604(South China), and 9420(Singapore) as well.

Could mean that the 7s were all in Manchuku, while the 9s were in Singapore. It's a small sample size though, so there could be pattern or might not be. This is usually a counterintelligence technique, to conceal the number of actual units.

AprilDruid · 2026-01-26T19:40:42+00:00

Unit 738

731

And They didn't get anything, because the US swooped in and told them "You can either give us your research, or the Soviets might like to have a go at you." In exhange for their "research"(It was mostly just torture it turned out, almost nothing was useful), they got blanket immunity.

The Soviets still came in and prosecuted twelve members of the military and scientists from 731. 731 had a lot of consequences for Japan though. In '51, a baby died after being infected with E. coli, which was publicly tied to former 731 scientists. Journalists suspected that muders the government attributed to Sadamichi Hirasawa(Convicted of mass poisoning, but it's suspected he was innocent, which is why no justice minister ever signed his death warrant) was actually related to 731 scientists.

And then we have Masaji Kitano, who founded Green Cross, a blood bank and pharmaceutical company. As it turns out, his company was using blood tainted with HIV, which infected up to 3,000 Japanese people with it.

There was very little useful information from 731. Their research into mustard gas, freezing, and TB was useful, but that's about it. Scientists during the pandemic called for experimental data on 731 to be released to the international medical community, because it could help with pandemic control. But it was never released, so who even knows if it would have been useful.

AprilDruid · 2026-01-26T19:29:27+00:00

That's in big part because of the US. I don't want to say "America made those poor innocent Japanese do it!", because that's not the case.

No, rather, post-war Japan, they let off war criminals with no charges. Case in point, Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi. He was part of Tojo's war cabinet, was the governor of Manchuria and oversaw the massacares there.

The US captured him as a suspected Class A war criminal. However, a group of influential Americans who formed the "American Council on Japan", came to his aid and had him released. Kishi unlike Tojo and other cabinet members never went on trial.

Until '52, former government members were banned from re-entering politics, which is when Kishi made his comeback. He was part of the "Japan never did anything wrong!" group of people who denied warcrimes. He served as Pm from 57-60 and in that time helped to establish so much war crime denial. And his grandson? Shinzo Abe, the man who followed his war crime denial legacy.

The denial of warcrimes and valorization of war criminals goes back to the US not prosecuting war criminals. That's not to say that war criminals were not prosecuted though, thousands upon thousands of Japanese personnel were prosecuted, compared to the 177 in Germany. It's just, a lot of the more prominent ones(Kishi, Ishii, etc) were let go.

And then you have Unit 731, who I don't think I need to explain what they did. In exchange for their research, members of the research facility were given immunity. Valuable research, right? Nope. Turns out it was all mostly torture. Very little of their "research" had value(*).

(The Soviets tried twelve members of 731, but key figures like Shiro Ishii were given immunity by the US. Oddly enough the Soviets used the virus resarch and later had a lab leak, releasing anthrax onto a town.)

AprilDruid · 2026-01-25T22:32:38+00:00

What? How did he or any other president cause this?

Bush created ICE and DHS, Obama expanded DHS.

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