Science writer, novelist, and historian. Keeping account open for messages, but no longer posting: see mattbille on BSky social, FB, and Instagram. Stay safe.
Of Books and Beasts: A Cryptozoologist's Library is the first book of its kind: even-handed reviews of 400 books in cryptozoology, zoology, related sciences, and fiction! https://t.co/QYS4OwGPTD
@BestCryptids It's entirely based on what a half-drowned, exhausted, cold 14-year-old remembered seeing (somehow) in the dark - long after his rescue. He may believe it, but there's no reason to consider it solid evidence.
@PriyaReporting@SecWar@MSNOWNews Commenters have to make up their minds. Either the article is a pack of lies, OR the SecDef is NOT promoting based on merit.
@WadeMiller Has DoD produced any evidence proving that's what they were? Even if true you can't shoot unarmed men in the water: if we class them as criminals, US law forbids summary execution, and if we class them as enemy combatants, the Geneva Conventions protect them in that situation.
@JoeyMannarino The sole fact put forward to claim the military loves him is that enlistments are up. They are, and that's great. Now find me one person ever who enlisted because he liked the SecDef.
@CynicalPublius 1. Anyone can lecture others on their failures from a position of minimal knowledge and no experience. 2. Being decisive doesn't help if you make knee-jerk decisions without logic. Testosterone tests? 3. Iraq was a strategic success? Someone needs to tell the enemy.
@stavridisj Hegseth had never managed any kind of large organization and was too arrogant to learn. SecDef doesn't have to be career military if they're nonpolitical and know the issues plus leadership, delegation, and administration. Dark horse: Booz Allen Hamilton CEO Horacio Rozanski.
@infantrydort Demand for public execution, "no quarter" for unarmed men in the water, elevating one religion above all others in a diverse military, Signalgate, elimination of female and Black flag officers without any disclosed reason... doing PT with the troops doesn't erase that.
@EDGE_Science_ This one always puzzled me. No one competent at sea could mistake an orca for a sperm. Could it be a rare genetic abberation, or is there a subspecies now extinct?
@pensandpoison Why not both? Sure, I read some thrillers for fun that are about the pacing and action. But I also read books with greater depth, and they exist in every genre.
@JoyceCarolOates It always puzzled me that governments facing rising welfare costs and poverty have not put massive resources into making absent dads pay up. Surely that effort would pay for itself.
@infantrydort Most of us at some time bent to pressure, at least on non-consequential things. But the ideal is still what Captain Picard expressed: "The first duty of an officer is to the truth."