iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Stephen England

Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 9h

Here’s LL Cool J trying to explain Clausewitz’s “remarkable trinity” to an uncomprehending Joe Rogan

Stephen England @stephenengland.bsky.social · 11h

My recollection is that Mussolini didn't exactly find even 1930s Africa to be a cakewalk, although he did pull out a victory in the end.

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Mary McNamara @marymcnamara.bsky.social · 12h

Kasey Musgraves, straight up Drogon'ed Kristi Noem. 🐲🔥

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Stephen England @stephenengland.bsky.social · 13h

The "rural America is REAL America" crowd getting basic facts of rural life wrong (because none of them actually live there) is one of my favorite genres of posting.

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Stephen England @stephenengland.bsky.social · 20h

Huh, yeah, Marco Rubio. I often wonder what he's up to these days.

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Mike J @mikejason.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

I laughed so hard I spit out my coffee. This is art. And 100% accurate from having to have suffered multiple AUSAs on HQDA staff.

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Stephen England @stephenengland.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

I keep an account open so I can message a handful of professional acquaintances who refuse to leave. Beyond that, I didn't engage with the site for years before the Musk takeover, and it's only become exponentially more toxic since.

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Stephen England @stephenengland.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Saw this on Schola Gladiatoria's page the other day. Matt had. . .thoughts.

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Stephen England @stephenengland.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

It really gives you a sense of what it must have been like to see a massed fleet of galleys in real life. Awe-inspiring, for sure.

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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Genoese naval tapestries. In the sixteenth-century Villa del Principe, for the Doria family, and quite astonishing.

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Paweł Wójcik 🦋🇵🇱🇪🇺 @saladinaldronni.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I am fairly certain the September-October period has had the most brutal outcome in the seven years long war between Islamic State and al-Qaeda in the Sahel. No way it doesn't influence some JNIM's calculations and it's clear Islamic State inadvertantly helped Mali regime. 🧵

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Stephen England @stephenengland.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

It's good to know that the shows are retaining the books' commitment to military authenticity. /sarc

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Stephen England @stephenengland.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Also, there were those in America's founding era who found Homer's hero myths anathema to the agrarian republic they were trying to establish. You could argue that they missed the point too, but it's another example of "Western civ" being a disjointed grab bag of things that don't go together.

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Stephen England @stephenengland.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

We went our separate ways permanently not long thereafter.

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Stephen England @stephenengland.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Slightly off-topic, but I had an acquaintance (young TradCath convert, shocking, I know) a while back who started to get real squirrelly after the Ukraine invasion. Big Russia fan, but claimed not to like Putin. Okay, so one day I finally pressed him on why: "Putin's a multiculturalist." 😆

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Patrick Wyman @patrickwyman.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Asked my daughter, age 7.5, what she’s learned in Mexico City. Her takeaway: “The Spanish are some of the biggest jerks in history.”

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Matthew Palmer @so3brocktree.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

My experiences from Kyiv, for those interested. bsky.app/profile/so3b...

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Yen-han Chen 陳彥翰 🇹🇼🇺🇸🇺🇦 @chen-yenhan.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Taiwan celebrating National Day not about defying Beijing. Taiwan exists on its own terms, not only by its relationship to its neighbors, much less China.

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Stephen England @stephenengland.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I made an observation re: Sohrab Ahmari a few years ago that applies here. . .listening to either man talk history is like listening to an oldies station. You're getting all the greatest hits and leaving without any understanding of the reality.

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Stephen England @stephenengland.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

On the other hand, Athens is a great place to learn about the dangers of oligarchy, demagoguery, and the dangers of picking a fight with Persia, so, as choices go. . .I suppose it's a bit on the nose.

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Stephen England @stephenengland.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

(As Rubio would know if he'd actually read the citations of Plutarch in the Federalist Papers he references, but I would wager he hasn't.)

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Stephen England @stephenengland.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

There are doubtless places you could go to make a reasonably coherent argument for "the unapologetic pursuit of national power," but Athens--a one-time regional hegemon led to catastrophic defeat by the hubris of leaders who failed to recognize the limits of their power--really isn't one of them.

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Stephen England @stephenengland.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

The death of Socrates, a pseudo-inspirational footnote for Rubio, was far more notable for the Founders, because unlike the Secretary of State, they'd stopped long enough to think about who and what killed him.

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Stephen England @stephenengland.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

His painfully superficial reading of Athens stands against the far deeper understanding of America's Founding Fathers, for whom Athenian democracy was a cautionary tale of all that could go wrong in man's quest for freedom.

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Stephen England @stephenengland.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Because the thing that stands out from what Marco Rubio had to say is that he understands just enough about the ancient world to fundamentally misunderstand its lessons.

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Stephen England @stephenengland.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

"A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again."

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Stephen England @stephenengland.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Reading the Secretary of State's speech in Athens, I'm reminded of a famous quote from Alexander Pope:

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Stephen England @stephenengland.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

An interesting counterpoint to Mahan, in many regards, giving the British view where Mahan speaks for the Americans. I'm not prepared to comment which one is "better," but I found value in their varying perspectives.

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Stephen England @stephenengland.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I'm not a naval guy either, just an interested observer, but I'd read Mahan a couple years back and came across Corbett in a very astute article on Hormuz earlier this year. His "Some Principles of Maritime Strategy," first published in 1911, repaid the time I spent reading it.

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Stephen England @stephenengland.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

The worst part of Amazon has always been that it's a lot easier to find books I know I'll like and not as easy to find books I didn't know I would like. This is that dialed up to the level of a horror show.

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James @gravitysra1nbow.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I genuinely mean this. I cannot imagine a more bleak dystopian notion than the idea of all art being turned into slop designed to coddle my exact perceived intentions. The point of literature, film, music, and art is to be exposed to the interior lives of others. Who are these people.

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Stephen England @stephenengland.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I have a list of people I would like to be voluntold for this mission.

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Stephen England @stephenengland.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Torpedoes weren't useless, but ultimately they became just another tool in the kit, not something that completely overhauled naval warfare and forced capital ships into obsolescence. I imagine that in 50-100 years, we'll say something similar about drones.

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Stephen England @stephenengland.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

I was reading Corbett earlier this year and he had some interesting observations re: the torpedo boat--at the time the new "swarm" tech promising to revolutionize naval warfare--likening it to the earlier fireship. Reading it, I couldn't help but make a mental analogy to the UAV discourse.

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Quinta Jurecic @qjurecic.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

The administration’s resort to increasingly horrific forms of state violence as Trump loses his grip on power doesn’t make me feel super great, I have to say

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Stephen England @stephenengland.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

As a teenager, I tried to read Pressfield's novel about Alcibiades and gave up in frustration, finding it confusing. Then I read the actual history as an adult and realized I might owe Pressfield an apology. . .the only right answer to what side Alcibiades was on at any given moment is "yes."

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Stephen England @stephenengland.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

'When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

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Stephen England @stephenengland.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

We've definitely fallen through the looking glass. 'When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

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Stephen England @stephenengland.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Tethers are really obnoxious to manage properly, and I'd imagine they were all the more challenging at the altitudes needed for good observation. Now that you've brought this up, I want to do some reading on the subject.

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Stephen England @stephenengland.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

As a hot air balloon crew chief, I find this hysterical.

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Shane Glackin @eltorosolo.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

The Philosophical Society in Trinity had rooms opposite the Long Library where the Book of Kells is. V. occasionally we'd get confused American tourists knocking on the door looking for it, and bring them out the (very big & impressive-looking, tbf) society minutes book and let them leaf through it.

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Dr. Holly Walters @manigarm.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

I had a friend, years ago, who convinced an entire summer camp of children that they didn't have Oreos in Ireland. Or butterflies. This went on for literal months. 😜

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In My Defense @inmydefense.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Not nearly confusing enough, we used to be a real country.

The simplest defense chart ever made about Afghanistan

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Daniel Bellingradt @dbellingradt.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Wrong answers only. My bet: thanks for all the fish.

Newspaper headline: Queen Elizabeth’s Final Diary Entry Contained Only Five Words.

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Stephen England @stephenengland.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Sounds like "Great Replacement" rhetoric to me.

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