@whsieh

Military historian. Once a diplomat and USNA professor. Now @UTCivics. RTs & links ≠ endorsements. Opinions expressed are my personal thoughts.

plaintivenumbers.substack.com/
Joined May 2009
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  • Following767
  • Followers3.5K
959Media
I still think Twitter remains the best source of breaking news, but I don't think I've ever been that great a fit for the medium (as seen in my follower account😂), so I'm moving most of my posts to Substack. 1/2 substack.com/@plaintivenumbe…
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TankerTrackers.com, Inc.
@TankerTrackersOct 25
Based on their past statements, CENTCOM’s current total of 1.5 billion barrels implies that 14.7 Mbpd has departed via the SoH over the past 17 days; which is up from 13.2 Mbpd during the previous 19 days.
U.S. Central Command
@CENTCOMOct 25

CENTCOM Commander Visits Strait of Hormuz during Milestone Week

Article · @CENTCOM
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Mon Key@mymoonovskiOct 25
Absolutely nobody: The Macedonian phalanx when the Persians attacked with chariots:
Џафа@5_do_12Oct 24
ништо нема да го надмине ова ремек-дело на македонската полиција:
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Dunder Mifflin
@DunderMifflinASOct 23
I’m genuinely addicted to the Japanese dub of The Office
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RT @lukeburgis: Many humanities profs/teachers on this platform are in total self-preservation/defensive mode, rather than seeing this as a…
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So I went to an event marking UT’s Harry Ransom Center acquiring Harold Bloom’s papers, and it made me feel *old*. 😂 The undergrads there for a class who got to learn something about a person they’d never heard of before, the uncs and boomers who remember the canon wars.. 1/2
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It reminded me of David Brion Davis telling me about debating Paul de Man when that was cool. Or when I was about to subscribe to the NYRB but just couldn’t when it required me to put an “I’m an intellectual” sticker on the subscription card. We truly are only young *once*. 2/2
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Tyler Austin Harper@Tyler_A_HarperOct 23
Humanists should be snobby about the fact that they are stewarding a tradition that stretches back thousands of years rather than doing busy work involving little technical puzzles. Instead they find dumb “research” niches to fill because STEM gave them an inferiority complex.
Jennifer A. Frey@jennfreyOct 22
Replying to @jennfrey
I'm convinced that the R1 model will always disfavor the humanities and liberal learning and that we need to be very savvy and strategic in how we understand ourselves and our place within that model. Very few humanists agree with me, I've found.
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eburke
@JamesWHankins1Oct 22
The humanities began outside the university and began entering it in the 1420s. The effect, over time, was to turn humane letters into philology. Maybe it's time to recover Petrarch's vision.
Robert P. George
@McCormickProfOct 21
It's no secret that there is a crisis in the humanities in U.S. higher education. The American Academy of Sciences and Letters has done a great service in diagnosing the crisis in this important new report by a team of scholars led by Josiah Ober of Stanford. academysciencesletters.org/w…
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Brendan Nyhan (@BrendanNyhan on 🟦☁️)@BrendanNyhanOct 21
Strongly endorse these Univ. of Chicago committee recs: -Device-free reading spaces -Limited-tech writing labs -Computerized, asynchronous no-AI testing facilities -Innovative class cadences and schedules incorporating these
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Now with the Eire quote all the academic Marxists are going to whine about being oppressed. 🙄
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I feel it does say something that Carlos Eire, a genteel Catholic mystic, has decided to “throw down” in the academic culture wars.
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Dan Szymborski
@DSzymborskiOct 20
MLB should take a page from fantasy leagues and design a "punishment" uniform for each last place team to have to wear as their primary uniform in the following year.
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My civilization is JSOC, STRATCOM, and la Légion étrangère. All the nihilist losers can read guys like Houellebecq. Society Must Be Defended, bro.
Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins
@daniel_dsj2110Oct 20
Fukuyama must be surprised by the new civics programs popping up around the United States: "In the various critiques I wrote concerning Huntington’s thesis, I noted that it was only in the Muslim world that anyone thinks in civilizational terms."
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I dunno—prior urban unrest in Paris related to immigration, the truly awful ISIS attacks at the height of its external attack capabilities, I just don’t see the French state somehow collapsing. Nothing Ever Happens until proven otherwise. 1/2
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Esp since the French police still look ready to rumble if needed. I don’t see any evidence the Foreign Legion has lost its ability to do its thing, and that org has shown that the modern state doesn’t actually need citizen soldiers as much as post Fr Rev ideology tells us. 2/2
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Military historians stand ready to restore order….
Craig Bruce Smith@craigbrucesmithOct 20
Prepare yourself for the most sternly worded public statement ever!!!
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Craig Bruce Smith@craigbrucesmithOct 20
Prepare yourself for the most sternly worded public statement ever!!!
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I wish another Lartéguy would emerge with novels about gendarmes crushing protests out of habit, and that being the actual postliberal civilization.
Geoff Shullenberger
@g_shullenbergerOct 19
Replying to @g_shullenberger
Houellebecq's dig at the left was to present them as irrelevant losers. The insult to the right was arguably more devastating, since he presented them as being outdone at their own project of civilizational renewal by their primary nemesis, Islam. xitter.cf/g_shullenberger/status…
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Wesley Yang
@wesyangOct 19
The frontier LLM's are godlike research assistants but they cannot write for shit. Engage seriously with them and in good faith on complicated questions for an hour and their irreparable limitations shine through. They don't have the same retarded tics as the earlier models -- but they are still absolutely empty calories for anything but summarizing other texts. While the obvious tics have improved, there has been no improvement along this dimension: I think there may never be any.
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Nadya Williams@NadyaWilliams81Oct 17
The last 10 minutes of every class period, I hand everyone a piece of paper and ask a reflection question that builds on the discussion we've been having that day. Students are allowed to refer to their book. The responses, wholly human authored, have repeatedly blown me away.
Patrick Schreiner ☧
@pj_schreinerOct 17
I would love to hear from teachers: What assignments have worked well for you in light of the rise of AI? I’ve been on sabbatical this Fall and return to teaching in the Spring. I typically have students write 2-page reflections on our readings (in the humanities), but I worry these are now too easy to complete with AI. I’ve considered handwritten or oral assignments, but I’m open to other ideas. What’s worked for you?
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