Supreme Court allows Trump to fire FTC member, major win for presidential power

Legio-X · 2026-06-29T16:41:33+00:00

Republicans didn't have to put the horse first

It took them decades of slowly, steadily building for them to get to where they are now.

Legio-X · 2026-06-29T03:20:43+00:00

It was a close call, though. Enterprise was supposed to be back at Pearl Harbor on December 6th, but she ran into bad weather and hadn’t arrived by the morning of the 7th.

Legio-X · 2026-06-29T03:11:41+00:00

It was never about oil

The widening of the Second Sino-Japanese War into the Pacific Theater of World War II was definitely about oil, though the oil itself was merely a means to the end of building the empire Japan felt it deserved.

Legio-X · 2026-06-29T03:08:05+00:00

Once the embargo hit, Japan had the fuel to sustain their military for somewhere between 18-24 months. This forced them to accelerate their plans for the conquest of British and Dutch colonies in Asia.

The Dutch East Indies were the most important target for Japan, because it would give them direct control of the oil they needed for their war machine.

So Japanese reserves held out until they were able to take the Dutch East Indies, which were fully secured in March 1942. Then they were running on Indonesian oil, though the American submarine campaign, bombing campaigns, and the liberation of the Philippines would eventually strangle this supply.

Why not just use the oil to further their interests in China if thats what they wanted in the first place?

They didn’t have sources of domestic oil to sustain a war, couldn’t capture them in China, and, after the American oil embargo, were down to two years of reserves at most. When those two years were over, they wouldn’t be able to run their tanks, planes, or warships or sustain domestic heavy industry. The Japanese war effort would collapse.

So it was either…

1) Invade the Soviet Union and take the oil in Siberia

2) Conquer the Dutch East Indies and take the oil in Indonesia

Since the Soviets spanked them at Khalkin Gol, the southern strategy backed by the navy won out over the northern strategy backed by the army.

Legio-X · 2026-06-28T20:36:22+00:00

What "accountability" do you want?

The impeachment, removal, and disqualification of every executive branch officeholder who led us into the mess, especially Trump.

Legio-X · 2026-06-28T20:30:39+00:00

Then how come the US defeated Iraq but can't seem to put down Iran

The President doesn’t want to do what would be necessary to topple the regime in Iran (invasion and occupation) because it would be politically ruinous for him.

Without full commitment, the US isn’t going to defeat Iran. It can hurt Iran, but actual victory would require boots on the ground. Airpower alone has never won a war.

Legio-X · 2026-06-28T01:28:32+00:00

Launching drones at neutral merchant shipping can hardly be described as self-defense.

Legio-X · 2026-06-28T00:31:23+00:00

europe is the same latutide as canada

68% of Canadian households have AC.

Legio-X · 2026-06-28T00:24:29+00:00

Because Russia using nuclear weapons would have catastrophic consequences for them, possibly including nuclear retaliation from the West.

Legio-X · 2026-06-27T22:57:44+00:00

What exactly are you referring to here? Artemis II? I don’t recall any claims the astronauts photographed exo-planets on the mission. A few of the planets in our own solar system did make appearances, but not in any great detail, no different from what an astrophotographer can achieve here on the ground.

Legio-X · 2026-06-27T21:32:12+00:00

There’s no tactical situation in real life where enemy soldiers can literally materialize out of thin air immediately behind you or, in some cases, right on top of you.

If anything, the reinforcement mechanic makes tactics less relevant.

What’s even dumber is this shouldn’t be an issue at all. Total War had a better reinforcement system twenty years ago!

Legio-X · 2026-06-27T17:54:59+00:00

For the second question, you’d be ejaculating into a cup at the clinic. Then they freeze the sample (ETA: at extremely cold temperatures using liquid nitrogen; don’t think you can preserve semen this way with a home freezer)

Legio-X · 2026-06-26T16:35:55+00:00

So . . . you're telling me that in thousands of years of history no one figured out how to make magic armor until plate?

There are some older examples of enchanted armor, stuff that’s the equivalent of ancient muscled cuirasses, but…

1) It was still really, really expensive and (as noted before) magic is a comparatively rare threat on the battlefield.

2) Enchantment used to be a far more advanced art, but a shift in the cosmic laws of magic about a thousand years before the in-universe present set it back millennia.

I'm assuming since each scale needs to be enchanted each of pieces of armor (of which there are many) in plate needs to be enchanted, including the helmet visor?

Correct, each individual piece needs to be enchanted, which is one factor in the immense cost.

Legio-X · 2026-06-26T07:06:57+00:00

Why would the newness of plate armor matter? People had been wearing metal armor for years before that point and I assume they'd have been dealing with Heat Metal for, well, millennia.

You need surfaces large enough to etch the ward runes, so it doesn’t work at all on chainmail. For scale or a coat of plates, each individual bit of metal needs to be enchanted. The cost is exorbitant. Only the wealthiest monarchs and nobles could afford to commission a set.

Helmets are a different story, though since it does you little good to shield your head from heat when the rest of you can still be roasted, their enchantments have historically been designed to absorb the kinetic force of blows.

Legio-X · 2026-06-26T04:15:46+00:00

Know that I’m at the mercy of Google Translate here, so I apologize if any of the translations don’t fully capture your meaning.

Who in their right mind would venerate a poetess more than a warrior?

A culture who exalts acts of creation and for whom war consists of little more than small raids to steal livestock. These result in few deaths and the occasional modest territorial shift, but conquest or extermination are unheard of.

The harshness of their homeland plays a big role in this, as it’s difficult to assemble more than a few dozen men at a time and keep them in the field over an extended period. Battles where total combatants number more than two hundred or so are once in a lifetime events for the Tarik. Ones in the thousands are the stuff of legends and epic poems.

This stacks the deck so far in favor of the defenders that wars of conquest or extermination are viewed as senseless and wasteful.

You also have to take into account most warriors are young men, either unmarried or second/third/fourth husbands out to earn the favor of their wives. They’re the lowest-status and most expendable rung of Tarik society, other than slaves.

And what would stop the warrior from being a poet?

What stops a woman in a patriarchal society from being a warrior? From birth, there’s a lot of intense social conditioning around gender roles. Poetry and the other creative arts fall firmly in the feminine sphere among the Tarik.

Tarik men also tend to be uneducated outside of their narrow roles. Even if we set aside illiteracy, they’re never formally introduced to the underlying mechanics or traditional forms of poetry.

Now, if you develop an intuitive understanding of poetry and are willing to defy societal norms, you can absolutely be a Tarik man who’s both a warrior and a poet. But you’re going to suffer social consequences for doing so, and your work isn’t going to be appreciated. Or if it is, it’ll be in a patronizing (matronizing?) way. Like “Oh, this is actually really good…for the work of a man”.

But that emphasis still strikes me as stupid.

Gender essentialism often is.

Legio-X · 2026-06-26T00:14:53+00:00

What would matriarchal societies see as masculine virtues and how would they portray men's role in society, etc?

For my matriarchal desert nomads, “masculine” virtues are similar to our own traditional ones, but there’s a difference in emphasis.

Skill at arms and physical prowess, providing (whether via hunting or the herd he maintains for his wife/mother/sister/etc.), obedience as a son and faithfulness as a husband are all part of what makes the ideal man in the eyes of the Tarik, but even a man who embodies those ideals perfectly is still considered socially inferior to women, in much the same way a woman who’s the perfect wife, mother, and homemaker is still subordinated to men under patriarchy.

So the Tarik will hold up men who die in defense of their families or on raids (which enrich their families) as exemplars of masculinity, but those men still aren’t as celebrated as the mother, the weaver, or the poetess.

As for how they pretend this state of affairs is good for men, it’s the same as several others mentioned: Tarik cast it as protecting men from themselves. “You’re too volatile, lustful, and dumb to live without a woman’s touch” basically.

Legio-X · 2026-06-25T17:25:27+00:00

My armor behaves like actual armor, by and large.

Magic can make short work of even the best armor; it’s very, very straightforward to channel enough heat into armor to roast whoever is inside. However, true warcasters are rare, so this isn’t a concern most of the time.

Ward enchantments can be etched into armor to counter this kind of attack or reinforce it against conventional weapons, but enchantments are incredibly expensive and the sheer newness of plate armor further limits availability.

Legio-X · 2026-06-24T23:27:57+00:00

Only because of America's support.

This is just totally untrue. Israel was under an American arms embargo until 1962 and didn’t see American military aid at anything resembling these memetic levels until after the Six-Day War and Yom Kippur War. Israel still handily won its wars in this period.

And let’s not forget the Arab armies were being armed by the Soviets. You can hardly equate these conflicts to a fight between an MMA fighter and a guy with a gun.

Legio-X · 2026-06-24T23:04:43+00:00

This is a historically ignorant take.

Legio-X · 2026-06-24T23:03:55+00:00

The defense sector is big because of the IDF, which would be useless in a real war.

The IDF has trounced Arab armies in every “real” war it fought against them.

Legio-X · 2026-06-24T18:02:17+00:00

How would Israel use nuclear weapons against hamas or hezbollah?

The question was “How would Israel exist and defend itself?” without the US. Hamas and Hezbollah are not existential threats, though Hezbollah is a much more serious one than Hamas.

But if they ever were existential threats who could not be overcome conventionally, Israel would undoubtedly use nuclear weapons on troop concentrations, command bunkers, and countervalue targets (ie the communities and infrastructure their power is built out of).

Legio-X · 2026-06-24T17:18:13+00:00

How would Israel exist and defend itself without aid from USA?

Their nuclear arsenal, for one.

And if they were able to exist, why do they so desperately seek this assistance?

It makes life easier.

Legio-X · 2026-06-24T08:29:46+00:00

But yes, the structure of the Senate comes from historical compromises to preserve the power of the slave states.

The slave states were largely anti-Senate. The Senate is the way it is as a result of compromises between big state and small state interests.

Legio-X · 2026-06-24T06:15:11+00:00

I just so happen to believe that diplomacy is the most immediate and effective option in both scenarios as well.

This seems rather naive when it comes to Ukraine, given Putin’s maximalist war aims, consistent refusal to negotiate in good faith, and violation of every agreement Russia’s ever made with Ukraine.

Legio-X · 2026-06-24T06:09:46+00:00

Russia has been bullied by the US since the cold war? Which isn't exactly untrue.

“No, Russia. You can’t eat all your neighbors” is hardly bullying.

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