Husbandist|Strategist|Militarist|Jurist|Papist ~ Red Tory ~ ISTJ ~ Souths/Richmond ~ Basset Hound aide-de-camp ~ Proverbs 27:17 ~ RT=interesting / Like=noted

Sydney, NSW, Australia
As November ends, traditionally, a month for remembering those who have passed, I now, finally, publish, "A Grief Endured". I hope my own account helps anyone who struggles with their loss and their grief. It is, always, okay to not be okay. GC medium.com/@gaf.connolly/a-g…
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The first couple of seasons of Battlestar Galactica were OK but come on .... omitting the long running NCIS but including the Irish "Normal People" (not bad/could be worse) is a tell on journo social anxieties
The New York Times’ final list of the 100 Best TV Shows of the 21st Century is now complete. What do you make of the final ranking? Which placements surprised you the most?
Apart from rule of law benefits - the correct number of illegal immigrants is zero - there is a simple maths solution that deportations/removals & visa reductions/cancellations provide swiftly to many social problems
States with higher ICE illegal immigrant deportations are seeing the largest rent decreases, according to DHS.
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"I like Ike"
It's hard to put it clearer than the 1956 Republican Party platform: "...the purpose of the Republican Party is to establish and maintain a peaceful world and build at home a dynamic prosperity in which every citizen fairly shares." That dynamic prosperity is for our citizens.
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NB: the British Isles are surrounded by their natural moats so any illegal migration by sea is because of UK government policy ... you get all of the illegal migration you tolerate and thus encourage
Most migrant arrivals by small boat in single day of 2026 bbc.in/4jn6x77
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NB: very hard to understand the Anglo mind without understanding the hymn "Jerusalem" - which was Blake's poem put to music during the Great War & sung all over the British Empire
Jerusalem. Surely one of the greatest pieces of music ever written. Spectacular. #bbcproms #lastnightoftheproms #theproms #jerusalem Clip from BBC Last Night of the Proms
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Gray Connolly retweeted
A charming artifact of the Before Times.
31 years ago today, the BBC premiered the first episode of ‘Pride & Prejudice’ starring: Colin Firth as Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy & Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennet.
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Gray Connolly retweeted
Understanding #history is the key to leadership.
I have never tmk heard an Ed Sheeran song and apparently there is new Taylor Swift music ... The futility of trying to understand popular culture is why one should not try. You are better off understanding the Thirty Years War or the Spanish & Austrian succession wars.
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Good morning all & OTD in 1917, in the depths of the worst fighting of the #GreatWar, the Australian Corps suffers 5,770 casualties in the space of a few days while advancing through well entrenched German defences ivo the Polygon Wood in Belgium.
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Britain's 5 year terms are an absurdity - in a parliamentary system, elections should be frequent, with MPs feeling the sword of Damocles over them for poor performance. This is a recipe for snouts in troughs & further sclerosis
🚨 BREAKING: Andy Burnham confirms the next general election will take place in 2029 “All of this speculation on an early election, I can knock that dead”
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Gray Connolly retweeted
Did you know one of the translations of the Hobbit into Hebrew was done by Israeli pilots who were POWs in Cairo, Egypt? Some of the details: jpost.com/israel-news/father…
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Some good stuff in this Russia thread & reality is that Russia in different hands would have a similar policy to Putin's as Russia has a history & drivers independent of Western desires. We should be modest & realistic about what the West can do re Russia (or Iran or China etc)
This is a poor take that suggests he doesn't know much about Russia in the 1990s, including Russia-US or wider Russia-West relations in the 1990s. By giving only one part of the story, he is repeating the Russian political elite's line that it was all the West's fault. Long🧵
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Gray Connolly retweeted
Correct
One of our greatest foreign policy coups in the 21st century was letting Beijing “steal” Pakistan as an ally. One of the great blunders would be taking them back.
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Gray Connolly retweeted
Much attention on the symbolism of the Xi visit. How about this? After-dinner entertainment “Nessun dorma” from Turandot is the aria sung by a man as he waits to find out whether or not he will be executed at the hands of a capricious, cruel member of the Chinese ruling family. Well played!
Truly unbelievable—Here’s another behind the scenes of last nights State Dinner at the @WhiteHouse…
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There's a reason you are seeing an angry backlash right now against libertarians/classical liberals coming from the Postliberal and NatCon right. It has to do with the fact that they can't compete with us on the substance of ideas, and they know it. Even the "best" Postliberal/NatCon scholars are either mediocrities with weak publishing records (excluding their own house blogs) or they are older academics like Deneen and Vermeule who got tenure for stuff they did decades ago & then transitioned into postliberal activist writing that probably could not pass peer review at any credible mainstream outlet. The Postlibs/NatCons also lose just about every debate they have with us on the substantive points, be it free trade vs tariffs (or really any economic subject), the history of the American founding, the contours of political philosophy, the evidence of whether their preferred policies work as intended (see also: Orbanism), you name it. Whenever Oren Cass goes up against a real economist, he gets his rear end handed to him or worse - he gets caught fabricating evidence or badly misreading source documents, and then he lashes out with name-calling. As a result, the Postlibs/NatCons have generally retreated from the debate space on all of these issues. Turning to their published works, it's invariably dreck. Deneen and Hazony's books are comically superficial to the point of being visibly out of their depths on the subjects, thinkers, and historical events they attempt to discuss. When they venture into the economic sphere, they display an incompetence that does not even know the scholarly literature and that seldom ventures beyond obsolete crankery from the 19th century. And their claims about the political sphere, be it on policy or even the mood of popular opinion, are undermined by empirical evidence that they often never even considered because it conflicts with their ideological priors. So instead, they go on the attack against libertarians and classical liberals to try to discredit these ideas through sloppy caricatures. And then they proclaim their own "victory" like the armless, legless Black Knight from a Monty Python sketch.
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Ladies, if he is: ✅ Built like a refrigerator ✅ Living in a waterfront home ✅ Always fishing with the boys ✅ Willing to ghost you for months ✅ Still somehow extremely desirable He’s not your man, he’s a Fat Bear Week contender.
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I have never tmk heard an Ed Sheeran song and apparently there is new Taylor Swift music ... The futility of trying to understand popular culture is why one should not try. You are better off understanding the Thirty Years War or the Spanish & Austrian succession wars.
Made with AI
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Gray Connolly retweeted
I have zero problem with any of this.
Washington needs a good power washing top to bottom. Five things I would do today to end corruption in Washington across all three branches of government: 1. Ban all stock trading. 2. Ban all participation in prediction markets. 3. Mandatory retirement at 75 years old. 4. Mandatory blind trust for individuals with a net worth more than $1 million. 5. Ban all foreign gifts to public officials, including foreign investments in their businesses or other entities.
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Given historical and current events, will be starting this thread to post on Seapower, the oceans as our global commercial commons and most important strategic domain, and all ships, vessels, boats, etc, floating & submerged, that interest me. "Look always to your moat!"
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Praise is well deserved but even the greatest Navies face resourcing issues - and if your resources are stagnant but your missions increase, then strain occurs & even the best ships will break... Building ships & recruiting their crews is an enduring #Seapower task
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USS Harry S Truman, March 2008, Northern Persian Gulf ... on 1st anniversary of HMS Cornwall's boarding party being snatched by the IRGCN, the HST air group helpfully flew up & down the maritime boundary with Iran ... a #Seapower lesson as the IRGCN stayed home for days after
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Gray Connolly retweeted
This article is just poor journalism. It left out the most important detail and intentionally injected inaccurate hyperbole. 1. It correctly states that using 2024 data (the last available) the rate of attempted suicide in the US Navy is 106 attempts per 100,000, or 0.106%. 2. The eight attempts include the full strike group, aircraft carrier, airwing, and escorts. If so, we are looking at 6,000 to 7,000 Sailors, numbers reported in the article, so we’ll use those. If you are including the escorts assigned (and it would be helpful if they would), if it were four (three Aegis ships and an SSN), then the number would be north of 7,000. 3. That means the low end expected number of attempts in that spread would be between 6.36 and 7.42. 4. In the article, they quote an unnamed ‘US military official’ who said, “Eight attempted suicides is incredibly high.” 5. The author and his editor can do math. They know that 8, while higher than 7.42, is not “incredibly high.” In essence, this article is written as if it were penned by a staffer for Sen. Gillibrand who has decided to use this as a smear attack against our Navy….and it also reminds me why in 4QCY2001 in Bahrain we turned CNN off and switched to other news sources.
Eight US Navy personnel assigned to the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group attempted suicide during a period that included when the ships undertook combat operations against Iran and the carrier set a modern record for its time at sea, according to a letter from the service’s acting secretary, which was obtained by CNN. cnn.it/46KZD4f Editor's note: This story contains discussion of suicide. Help is available if you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or mental health matters. In the US, call or text 988 for help. The International Association for Suicide Prevention and Befrienders Worldwide have contact information for crisis centers around the world.
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I have always found it puzzling that the US has never properly celebrated the Eagle Squadron of American volunteers who served in the Battle of Britain. A story made for a miniseries. Great thread here⬇️
Before America entered WW2, hundreds of American pilots crossed the Atlantic to fight Hitler. They lost their American citizenship for it. They flew Spitfires for Britain. 77 of them never came home. This is the story of the Eagle Squadrons..🧵1/5
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I appreciate @AussieBenC bringing @UntoldWarFacts thread to my attention
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