Alan Allport

How do you put your feet on the chair ahead of you on a plane?

Decisively won does set the bar quite high tbf.

Korea, Iraq II and Yugoslavia/Kosovo are open for debate.

But think of the social media content it will generate

The US has fought wars for bad reasons, but this would be the first time we fought a war for no reason.

I wish they had decided that in each film Benoit Blanc would have a completely different accent and this would never be explained.

the average American cannot imagine the luxury of a Tesco Express.

I think there’s a lot of flimsiness there but if I were at the bottom of that chain of command I would feel less than confident that a military court would later back me up if I decided to refuse orders. I hope personnel in that situation are getting the opportunity to take legal advice.

In a borderline case a soldier can ask for an order to be clarified and ideally to consult with a JAG officer, but in the heat of the moment that’s not a luxury that’s often going to be available.

This is tricky. The UCMJ says that an enlisted person not only can but should disobey an illegal order. The problem is that unless that order is clearly and manifestly illegal (killing unarmed civilians, say, in cold blood) the enlistee is at risk of a military court later deciding otherwise.

I’d pay to see that

My ______ Life: An audience with Steven Fielding. Fill in the blank challenge.

Read the original article. The total absence of any discussion about the economics of this (and much else) is certainly revealing.

Also at no point did Oscar Isaac say “that’s Fronk-en-steen.”

Finally got round to seeing the new #Frankenstein which I enjoyed, but considering it was supposed to be a faithful rendering of Mary Shelley’s novel I was disappointed at the omission of the dance scene.

Design assumption was that no combat a/c was going to survive a couple of hundred hours flying time anyway.

Churchill in particular was pushing the Air Ministry in the late 30s to stop purchasing obsolete (sic) fixed forward firing interceptors and invest in turret fighters instead.

At a slight tangent… One of the things I like most about Britain at Bay is how you gently puncture some current myths. E.g. re the Spitfire, which was actually seen at the time as being made obsolete by the Defiant. That (and much else) was completely new to me.

Both books are excellent – thanks!

By the sounds of it the airframe was already starting to suffer symptoms of metal fatigue after 40 hours.

And that was with relatively established, reliable tech. The Jumo engines on the Me-262 needed to be essentially rebuilt every 20 hours or so of flying time, the silver lining being that the pilot would have almost certainly wrecked the a/c by that time anyway in a landing/takeoff accident.

Pretty remarkable how some of these planes are still flying and an expression of the dedication that’s been put into conserving them.

The airframe of a Spitfire or comparable a/c was never expected to last much beyond 150-200 flying hours. Chuck em together and get them up there was the QC philosophy.

“Embarrassing” and “horrifying”: CDC workers describe the new vaccines and autism page "The best way I can put it is it feels like we're on a hijacked airplane."

“The best way I can put it is it feels like we’re on a hijacked airplane.”

The CDC’s new autism page reads like an anti-vax blog, and the agency's employees are not happy about it.

"Fool of a Took!"

The media doesn't treat the Trump regime's allegiances with neo-Nazis like Nick Fuentes as antisemitism, but Zohran's belief in Palestinian liberation is treated as antisemitism.

It's completely backwards and insane. Zohran will protect American Jews; the fascists will target American Jews.

That’s Mr Carson to you!

Some of my students loved it, apparently. I never watched it because it sounded so boring.

“Our mission is to, ow you say, keel zis Candace Owens”

Sign at the US Military Academy at West Point:

Wait, so I bought my inflatable frog suit for nothing?
Thanks Mamdani.