{"id":96105,"date":"2025-06-14T03:00:46","date_gmt":"2025-06-14T07:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=96105"},"modified":"2025-06-13T14:28:51","modified_gmt":"2025-06-13T18:28:51","slug":"damian-pennys-diligent-recycling-efforts-pay-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2025\/06\/14\/damian-pennys-diligent-recycling-efforts-pay-off\/","title":{"rendered":"Damian Penny&#8217;s diligent recycling efforts pay off"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At <em>Rigid Thinking<\/em>, <a href=\"https:\/\/damianpenny.substack.com\/p\/if-i-had-a-nickel-for-every-time-c88\" target=\"_blank\">Damian Penny<\/a> has to be given top marks for recycling this week, although it&#8217;s not newspapers or plastic cartons he&#8217;s getting to do twice the work:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Israeli-attacks-on-Iran-20250612.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right; padding: 0px 0px 10px 25px\" src=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Israeli-attacks-on-Iran-20250612-480x363.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"363\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-96106\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Israeli-attacks-on-Iran-20250612-480x363.png 480w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Israeli-attacks-on-Iran-20250612-150x113.png 150w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Israeli-attacks-on-Iran-20250612-768x581.png 768w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Israeli-attacks-on-Iran-20250612.png 844w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Please keep psychotic Twitter accounts with animated-squirrel avatars in your thoughts and prayers this weekend. They&#8217;re going through a tough time right now.<\/p>\n<p>And, once again, <a href=\"https:\/\/damianpenny.substack.com\/p\/who-needs-ghost-of-kyiv-when-youve\" target=\"_blank\">the point I made last week<\/a> is proven:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><em>Did this operation really do as much damage as the <del datetime=\"2025-06-13T17:44:46+00:00\">Ukrainians<\/del> Israelis say? I dunno. I don&#8217;t begrudge the <del datetime=\"2025-06-13T17:44:46+00:00\">Ukrainians<\/del> Israelis their own propaganda weapons.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>(Plus, these are <del datetime=\"2025-06-13T17:44:46+00:00\"><strong>Russian<\/strong> planes<\/del> Shah-era jets for which getting parts is a massive pain in the ass, so there&#8217;s a good chance they might have just exploded on their own, like a Soviet television set left plugged in overnight.)<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>But the mere fact that <del datetime=\"2025-06-13T17:44:46+00:00\">Ukraine<\/del> Israel was able to pull this off at all, right under the <del datetime=\"2025-06-13T17:44:46+00:00\">Russians&#8217;<\/del> Iranians&#8217; noses, is a game changer. The message to <del datetime=\"2025-06-13T17:44:46+00:00\">Czar Vladimir<\/del> the Mullahs, that <strong>we can strike literally anywhere<\/strong>, couldn&#8217;t be more clear.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>We&#8217;ll get the whole story from the <del datetime=\"2025-06-13T17:44:46+00:00\">Ukrainian<\/del> Israeli side soon enough. What I&#8217;m chomping at the bit to see is what&#8217;s in the <del datetime=\"2025-06-13T17:44:46+00:00\"><em>Russian<\/em><\/del> <\/em><em>Iranian<\/em> archives someday, when <del datetime=\"2025-06-13T17:44:46+00:00\">Putin<\/del> the &#8220;Islamic Republic&#8221; is gone and McDonald&#8217;s has been restored to its rightful place in <del datetime=\"2025-06-13T17:44:46+00:00\">Red Square<\/del> Azadi Square.<\/p>\n<p><em>A few weeks after the Russian invasion, when it became clear that they were in for a much harder time than anticipated, I wrote about how what would appear to be an authoritarian government&#8217;s great advantage over liberal democracy &mdash; the ability for its leaders to just &#8220;get stuff done&#8221; instead of having to put up with the horse-trading and lobbying and arguing and mean tweets which make can make things so exhausting and frustrating for a more open society &mdash; eventually becomes a disadvantage.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>[&#8230;]<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>If the leader can do whatever he wants without any serious resistance, everyone else learns to keep their heads down and not do nor say anything which will make him angry.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Because you really, really wouldn&#8217;t like him when he&#8217;s angry.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>As a result, the guy in charge is surrounded by sycophants and yes-men who will nod along and feign enthusiasm for whatever he wants to do, even if they know it&#8217;s really risky and\/or really, really stupid.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>That filters down to the drones (the human kind) and proles, too. I&#8217;m not a betting man, but I&#8217;d bet my entire hoard of Hawk Tuah meme coins that <del datetime=\"2025-06-13T17:44:46+00:00\">Russian<\/del> Iranian intelligence services actually knew, or at least strongly suspected, that something like <del datetime=\"2025-06-13T17:44:46+00:00\">Operation Spiderweb<\/del> Operation Rising Lion was in the works.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Good for them. Now, you go and tell the <del datetime=\"2025-06-13T17:44:46+00:00\">Czar<\/del> Ayatollah that there are <del datetime=\"2025-06-13T17:44:46+00:00\">Ukrainian<\/del> Mossad operatives (and, at the risk of wishcasting, some <del datetime=\"2025-06-13T17:44:46+00:00\">Russians<\/del> Iranians brave enough to assist them) thousands of miles away from <del datetime=\"2025-06-13T17:44:46+00:00\">Ukraine<\/del> Israel, ready to take out much of the <del datetime=\"2025-06-13T17:44:46+00:00\">strategic bomber fleet<\/del> air defences.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><del datetime=\"2025-06-13T17:44:46+00:00\">Ukraine<\/del> Israel, by contrast, is an open enough society to learn from its mistakes, see what actually works, and adapt accordingly. <del datetime=\"2025-06-13T17:44:46+00:00\">Russia<\/del> Iran is a closed society which keeps doubling down on what it was already doing, and woe is you if you suggest a change of course.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>It doesn&#8217;t matter how much stronger you are in terms of weaponry, if your society and political system punishes anyone who might tell the leader he&#8217;s wrong.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Well, that was surprisingly easy to write about. Here&#8217;s hoping I don&#8217;t get lazy and get into the habit of throwing on old reruns, assuming you kids won&#8217;t know the difference.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At Rigid Thinking, Damian Penny has to be given top marks for recycling this week, although it&#8217;s not newspapers or plastic cartons he&#8217;s getting to do twice the work: Please keep psychotic Twitter accounts with animated-squirrel avatars in your thoughts and prayers this weekend. They&#8217;re going through a tough time right now. And, once again, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,370,5,663],"tags":[145,287,291,149],"class_list":["post-96105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-middle-east","category-military","category-weapons","tag-airforce","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-uav"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-p05","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96105"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96108,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96105\/revisions\/96108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}