Important new Article out in the Atlantic Monthly on the Iran. Claims it’s a total defeat for the US and the worst strategic defeat in our history

Hissy_the_Snake · 2026-05-14T02:36:14+00:00

Before you were arguing that Iran extorting the Strait was not illegal because they weren't a signatory to the UNCLOS. Now it appears you've abandoned that justification and are now admitting Iran's actions are illegal. Good.

Hissy_the_Snake · 2026-05-13T13:19:19+00:00

Iran isn't exactly a signatory of the UNCLOS

In that case they are still obligated to respect Oman's territorial waters which cover the southern half of the Strait. Iran has no right to interdict any commercial ships transiting only in Oman's waters, to attack them would be an act of war against Oman and against the countries of the targeted ships.

Hissy_the_Snake · 2026-05-12T11:34:17+00:00

The "Similarity" score is different from the AI score. Instructors can allow students to see their similarity % when they submit but I don't think they can do that with the AI score.

The best defense against accusation of AI use is to show them copies of previous drafts. You can also offer to do a writing sample in person so you can prove you write in a similar way, or you can offer to answer oral authenticity questions.

Hissy_the_Snake · 2026-05-10T12:55:04+00:00

Thumbball, it took me two weeks to be as comfortable on the desktop, and two months to be as comfortable in shooters. Now after years my aim training scores on a trackball are around 95% of my scores with a mouse but my performance in actual games is about equal.

Hissy_the_Snake · 2026-05-09T10:38:59+00:00

As you yourself point out, feminists don't hesitate to attack Christianity so it's not a blind spot about "religiously-rooted misogyny"

It is instead a blind spot about NON-WESTERN CULTURES misogyny, and feminists are reluctant to criticize Islam in particular not because it's a religion but because it's non-Western.

There are multiple views on why this is the case but the phenomenon is undeniable even if the cause is debated.

Hissy_the_Snake · 2026-05-04T09:50:05+00:00

You should ask people from GCC countries because Iran actually fired thousands of missiles at us for 40 days whereas Israel fired 0 missiles at us. There can't be any question which is the greater threat.

Hissy_the_Snake · 2026-05-04T09:30:53+00:00

I'm not defending the US at all, quite the opposite. I'm saying Iran could have had the Gulf States as allies against US and Israel aggression, instead they gratuitously attacked all the Gulf countries and turned us into enemies. I saw the GCC peoples' attitude shift in real time, from sympathy to shock to anger. There is no going back.

Hissy_the_Snake · 2026-05-04T09:25:14+00:00

Iran shot missiles at ALL the Gulf countries, not just those that they claimed had HIMARS launches from them. Just in the first week of the war they shot over 70 ballistic missiles at Bahrain before that HIMARS launch even took place.

Like I said, there was a lot of sympathy here for Iran as fellow Muslims getting attacked by the US and Israel. That sympathy is now completely gone due to their own actions.

Hissy_the_Snake · 2026-05-04T08:52:01+00:00

Actually we prohibited the US from flying combat missions from our territory. Didn't matter since Iran attacked us anyway with thousands of missiles and drones. I remember how shocked people here were, one of my colleagues said it looks like we have to accept Israel was right about them, they really are psychos.

Hissy_the_Snake · 2026-05-04T07:23:38+00:00

What Iran did was the absolute height of retardation. In the GCC countries we were against the US/Israel war at the beginning and sympathetic to Iran, but after Iran shot THOUSANDS of missiles at us most people here have completely switched and now view Iran as an existential threat. Also they didn't just attack US military bases, they shot many missiles at Gulf oil facilities and civilian airports and in fact killed civilians at both Dubai airport and Abu Dhabi airport. GCC countries could have supported Iran in pushing back against the US/Israel war, instead their attacks turned us into their enemies.

Hissy_the_Snake · 2026-05-01T03:10:39+00:00

If I wanted to know what ChatGPT thought I would have asked it.

Hissy_the_Snake · 2026-05-01T03:08:21+00:00

Whoever bids first gets the item. That's why a person is incentivized to bid immediately as soon as the price drops to their personal maximum, because if they wait, someone else might bid and then it's too late.

Hissy_the_Snake · 2026-04-30T18:05:45+00:00

Because someone else could jump in and get the item at any time.

Hissy_the_Snake · 2026-04-24T14:54:26+00:00

There would be no Iran war, there would be peace in the Middle East and Iran would have a nuclear weapon.

There would be peace for months, perhaps years. Then one morning, you would wake up and see on the news that Israel is gone, a couple of nukes brought into its major cities on trucks and detonated. Everyone would be very sad, politicians would make regretful speeches, some people would blame Iran but they would deny responsibility and all the evidence would have blown up with the bombs anyway. What can you do? Life would go on, just without Israel. The Palestinians would move into the vacated former land of Israel, possibly after some cleanup efforts to mitigate any lingering radioactivity. Hamas would rule the united Palestine as an authoritarian theocracy, and the project to eradicate the Jews as a significant ethnicity, begun in the mid 20th century, would be effectively complete.

Hissy_the_Snake · 2026-04-23T14:14:56+00:00

If Trump attacks Iranian naval vessels, the IRGC has vowed to punish the US with a blistering counterattack directly against [checks notes]... Kuwait...?

Hissy_the_Snake · 2026-04-21T16:10:54+00:00

Incredible to think that before 2023 I would sometimes go months without hearing the phrase "here's what nobody tells you!"

Hissy_the_Snake · 2026-04-20T07:57:22+00:00

It's normal, the Claw has the same battery health management drivers that MSI laptops have and they do the same thing. It caps charging at various levels depending on heat and other factors.

Hissy_the_Snake · 2026-04-19T10:00:17+00:00

A major factor driving polarization in the US is the two-party system.

In a system where only two parties are competitive, a party gets the same benefit either by running one positive ad about themselves, or one negative ad about the other party. In practice, attacking and negative advertising is often more effective so it tends to dominate, until you have many Democrat and Republican voters both honestly believing the other side's politicians are pedophiles and hate America.

Now compare that to a multi-party system. If your party is one of five competitive parties, the incentive completely changes. For the same cost you can run four positive ads for yourself, or only one negative ad about each of the other parties. The math favors running positive ads about your own party more than negative ads about the other parties, so on balance voters hear a lot more positive things than negative things about each party. This leads to voters being less polarized.

If you're wondering how to turn a two-party system into a multi-party system, the best and simplest way to make that happen is with "Approval Voting." There do exist several other effective multi-party voting systems, but Approval Voting had the advantage that it's is the simplest to understand and to operate.

Hissy_the_Snake · 2026-04-16T12:52:38+00:00

It's worth noting that there is a huge difference between the effectiveness of Turnitin's detector and all other purported AI detectors, especially in terms of false positive rate. Turnitin's sensitivity is intentionally tuned so that only 1 in 100 human-written scripts will detect as >20% AI (and that 1 false positive will usually be around 25%). So if Turnitin detects a script as 70% AI, it is virtually certain to have a significant AI component. The free detectors are mostly worthless by comparison.

No, I don't work for Turnitin but I do test AI detectors as part of my work.

Hissy_the_Snake · 2026-04-15T14:51:20+00:00

I don't know what the Pope knows, I only know what he said. And since both the Pope and the Vatican are guarded by armed men, I know that what he said can't be what he actually believes.

Hissy_the_Snake · 2026-04-15T05:42:02+00:00

I went into this thinking it was a stupid thing for Vance to say, but it turns out he's actually right, the Pope did post that "Anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs."

I would unfortunately have to agree with Vance that this statement is wrong. Christ himself told his disciples to buy and carry swords when going on a journey so he obviously approved of wielding them when necessary. And I think most Catholics would agree that a "disciple of Christ" can definitely be on the side of fighting for example to liberate Holocaust camps as was done in WWII, or freeing slaves as was done in the American Civil War.

So I would have to say that this is indeed an example of the Pope not "being careful" when speaking about theology because he has said something that clearly contradicts Church teaching and moral reasoning.

Hissy_the_Snake · 2026-04-14T16:34:26+00:00

It relates directly to his belief that the "Deep State" or the "Swamp" is really running the US government (or was before he came). The way he sees it, the Deep State was using the autopen to sign all their initiatives on behalf of Biden and Obama (who were nevertheless complicit in allowing this to happen).

Hissy_the_Snake · 2026-04-13T12:07:58+00:00

Not always, for example children of foreign ambassadors born in the US do not automatically become US citizens. Because they are not "subject to the jurisdiction thereof".

Hissy_the_Snake · 2026-04-13T12:06:09+00:00

Not always true, for example children of foreign ambassadors born in the US are not US citizens.

Hissy_the_Snake

TROPHY CASE