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The MoA Week In Review – OT 2026-040
Last week’s posts on Moon of Alabama:
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Other issues:
Gaza:
Perfidious Albion:
Europe:
The Bezzle
Use as open (not related to the wars in Ukraine and Palestine) thread …
Academics. I like the science and stuff, but we have lived in different worlds…The ordinary man… House boys and leg humpers I don’t have much time for. Same goes for academics that try to baffle me with bullshit.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Feb 17 2026 3:46 utc | 381
General You have been sniping from the cover of weasel words for some time. I tend to talk or write straight. Both bullshitters and those simply divorced from the reality of the ordinary man, be they black or white, I do tend to pick up on. Playing the race card or trying to baffle me with bullshit. Fools.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Feb 17 2026 3:58 utc | 383
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Peter, it is disappointing that you have reached this conclusion. If I were to choose to snipe, I would use a much heavier calibre weapon, and there are so many targets on MOA…
“House boys, leg humpers, and academics.” All of a kind? Such a distinctive group! What is the common thread?
You say “we have lived in different worlds”. This is true, but perhaps not in the way you may think. I have lived in your world, but you have not lived in my world. I was born into a home consisting of a slab hut with a dirt (termite nest) floor. As a young boy I helped my father saw logs to cut timber to build a ‘proper’ house – with fibro walls, and windows! We even had some internal doors, rather than hessian curtains – such luxury! Until I was about 14 or 15, all my clothes were hand-me-downs. Although on the younger side in my family, I was always rather large for my age; but by 15 I was the biggest, so hand-me-downs essentially stopped.
Everything in my life was hard physical work – a struggle for survival. Dad was totally illiterate. He’d never spent a day in school, so work opportunities for him were rather limited, and he usually got ‘the rough end of the stick.’ We were strictly religious, so that really isolated us socially. I worked lots of different jobs: timber felling, dairy, market garden, itinerant fruit picking, mine props, earthmoving and heavy machinery, quarrying, long-distance trucking, fibre-glass water tanks, …
And then I ‘moved’ into a different world – that dreaded and hated academia. Most of my friends at the time abandoned me; they said I was “up myself” and betraying my roots… Many of my new acquaintances in academia had ‘reservations’ – I was older, and looked and spoke like a “rural”. Maybe I was an imposter?
The people, friends, and families from my former ‘working life’ days are all still doing the same things now as they were then; my trucking mate’s two sons are truckers, the timber crew families are still logging, the son and grandson of the dozer driver is dozing. The two eldest of my four children barely remember the trucking days. All our kids grew up with me and my wife studying – variously full or part time – and they rather naturally went on to do the same. My wife has two Batchelor-level degrees, two past-grad certificates, one diploma and a Masters degree; I have three Batchelor-level degrees and a PhD; Eldest kid has three Batchelor degrees, one honours, and a Masters; Second kid has two batchelor degrees and two Masters; Third kid has two Batchelors and a PhD; fourth has a double Batchelors degree and First Class Honours. Is that good or bad – I don’t know. You choose – but they are happy…
So what is the “common man”? Is it the man that is most common? The man that conforms to the mold, the man that doesn’t stick out in the crowd, the man that perpetuates the timeless, mindless myth of the virtues of the common man – a type of intellectual incest? Should I have aspired to remain in trucking and earth-moving and be ‘true to my heritage’ so my boys could also be truckies, rather than being cursed by academia and having to work in professional areas that provide benefits to their country and people?
So, you see, I don’t really fit anywhere: I have betrayed my old friends and family, I have forsaken “The Truth” of my bigoted, mindless, religious upbringing – and those righteous, Godly people shun backsliders and heathens; and the ‘real’ academics are suspicious of my looks and the way I speak…
If people conclude my aim is to ‘baffle them with bullshit’ I guess I need to choose my words more carefully and explain things better. Maybe it would also help if some people actually read and tried to understand, rather than putting all their effort into reinforcing a pre-conceived idea. On that note, how many barflies do you think actually read that primer on plasma I posted here a while ago? I would be surprised if there was more than one. Yet I’ll bet a week’s worth open tab that next time the topic of plasma comes up it will be a mindless repeat of very confident barflies vigorously displaying their abject ignorance – and all with no sense of shame.
The world turns, but very few learn…
Posted by: General Factotum | Feb 17 2026 23:24 utc | 429
@434 Peter
Both challenge and connect are ok.
For example, a Somali goat herd sees a flash far far away in the distance, and nothing. Two hundred years later a descendent travels, only to find the remains of a lost civilisation, because of some bright spark.
Where people see modernity, I see life a thousand or two thousand years ago in a new outfit. More comfortable in various ways, but the same, at base.
There are some good and sincere people in the academic world, but as a whole they do not connect well with social paradigms, and tend to lack laterall thinking, if not being purposefully channelled. That is to say they lack independence and free critical appraisal, a certain realism.
Take General, he is explaining the dichotomy he encountered between different social strata. That is his fate and it brings the understanding it does, but it is also limited to just those parameters.
There are so many more.
Many academics I have encountered, good enough people, stay firmly within the bounds of their own learning and presentation, which is also their position. If you question, so as to add a dimension, often it is coldly received. Criticism of academic structure or authority equally receives a similar reply. This is not only a question of peer review and appraisals, but is often taken as an affront of some kind, or a threat to an existing order.
Behind all of this there are also political currents, because academics are generally poorer and/or state dependent. They will argue their own importance.
I say all of that without judgement, and also knowing that there are those who will viciously defend academic superiorities by directly attacking those who question. Those have learned how to effect such.
In short, academic people deserve no better than anyone else, a priori. They do not deserve to be approached with a blind elevated respect, and should neither be expected to provide more, or be better example.
So that is also an explanation as to why I distanced myself from academic circles, ok people but odd environment that often rubbed of on their approach.
To remember is that academia also produces our policy makers, weapons designers, you name it …. the black box of a lot of what goes on.
To put it more simply, were ancient great philosophers and scientists also academics … ?
Those I have read of were simply observant and thoughtful.
Posted by: Ornot | Feb 18 2026 1:22 utc | 441
For anyone not aware of the increase in western military activity in the middle-east, an excerpt… :
” – More fighter jets appear to be on their way to the area. The delivery rate is very high and unusual during the last 24 hours
The largest buildup of U.S. military assets since the Gulf Wars is now underway entirely in the Middle East.
– The War Zone from a U.S. Navy official: Deployment of a seventh Arleigh Burke USS destroyer in the Central Command Area
-Former head of military intelligence, Amos Yadlin, said: “I advise you to think carefully before flying this weekend.”
– Hebrew Channel 12:
Iran will conduct a naval exercise with Russia tomorrow near the US aircraft carrier Lincoln.
– Hebrew Channel 12:
Over the past 24 hours, the U.S. Air Force has begun deploying dozens of fighter jets, surveillance and refueling aircraft, apparently in preparation for a possible attack on Iran if a political agreement is not reached.
The move comes in parallel with the contacts that took place yesterday evening between Washington and Tehran, and according to flight tracking websites, the US Air Force in the Middle East may double in a few days.
In addition to the air effort, an additional U.S. aircraft carrier is heading to the area. It carries dozens of fighter jets and electronic warfare aircraft, as well as an assault group that includes cruisers and missile destroyers equipped with advanced air defence systems.
Estimates suggest that after all aircraft and naval forces reach their destination, the size of the U.S. presence in the arena will jump significantly, and even then several days of operational readiness, command coordination, joint exercises and an update of the target bank will be needed before a large-scale attack can be carried out, should a political decision be made.
– Hebrew Channel 12:
Preparing for a possible attack in Iran: 25 additional refueling planes on their way to Europe and the Middle East
There is no doubt that the United States is seriously preparing for a strong attack on Iran, and given the power it is building in the Middle East, this appears to be a preparation for a regional military conflict that will last for many weeks, not a lightning strike to end it.
For more than a month, C-17 Globemaster and C-5M Super Galaxy transport aircraft have been on the line from the United States to bases in Europe and within Arab countries in the Middle East and are used to transport personnel, equipment, logistics for squadron deployments, and, of course, air defense systems.
In recent weeks, dozens of KC-135R Stratotanker jets have been spotted arriving from Europe, and since the beginning of the week there has been an increase in the number of refueled aircraft. Some arrived in Europe to be ready and ready, while others accompanied dozens of F-15, F-16 and F-35 stealth fighter jets. Since the escalation, about 80 refueling planes have arrived in the area. In the past 24 hours, refueling planes have been escorting F-22 Rafter jets from the United States to Europe and are expected to arrive in the Middle East later (the refueling events are marked in red).
Also in the past 24 hours, E-3B Sentry warning and surveillance aircraft (AWACS) have been heading to the area that can provide surveillance, command, control and communications. The aircraft includes a radar dome at the top, to detect aerial targets, especially drones and cruise missiles (marked in green). ”
Via https://t.me/s/HarbAlerts
“When I was a lad …”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VKHFZBUTA4k
Posted by: Ornot | Feb 18 2026 14:35 utc | 472
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