Bennett Murray
@bdmurray.bsky.social
Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy candidate at the Fletcher School. Previously reported in 🇺🇦. Was also once @dpa Vietnam bureau chief.
Current master's student here. Getting my degree will be cool I guess but I don't consider it a personal rite of passage (at best it's a professional one). And even if I did, I'm not a little kid with divorced parents who needs my dad to show up to remind me that he still loves me.
June 3, 2025 at 4:04 AM
Current master's student here. Getting my degree will be cool I guess but I don't consider it a personal rite of passage (at best it's a professional one). And even if I did, I'm not a little kid with divorced parents who needs my dad to show up to remind me that he still loves me.
From the game's website. jfc
May 28, 2025 at 5:12 AM
From the game's website. jfc
I don't think JKR did this intentionally, but the Wizarding World only makes sense if you understand them to be a luddite society. Their tech is composed entirely of enchanted muggle inventions but for some reason they'll enchant a sword but not a Kalashnikov.
May 19, 2025 at 3:56 AM
I don't think JKR did this intentionally, but the Wizarding World only makes sense if you understand them to be a luddite society. Their tech is composed entirely of enchanted muggle inventions but for some reason they'll enchant a sword but not a Kalashnikov.
IIRC Harry went into some detail explaining what a Playstation was in the letter. I think JKR realized several books in that she had failed to establish the historical setting she had envisioned so tried to settle the matter with a clunky tech reference.
May 18, 2025 at 3:09 PM
IIRC Harry went into some detail explaining what a Playstation was in the letter. I think JKR realized several books in that she had failed to establish the historical setting she had envisioned so tried to settle the matter with a clunky tech reference.
There's a moment in one of the books where Harry mentions in a letter to his Hogwarts friends that Dudley got so mad that he threw his Playstation at something, but the fact I remember that line suggests it may be the only example.
May 18, 2025 at 2:58 PM
There's a moment in one of the books where Harry mentions in a letter to his Hogwarts friends that Dudley got so mad that he threw his Playstation at something, but the fact I remember that line suggests it may be the only example.
🇺🇦🇦🇿 and 🇷🇺🇦🇲 are extremely common alignments in Ukraine and Russia respectively. Both tend to see Nagorno-Karabakh as equivalent to D/LPR, along with whatever that entails from their differing perspectives. Plenty of Russian mil bloggers have spent time in both.
May 8, 2025 at 2:37 AM
🇺🇦🇦🇿 and 🇷🇺🇦🇲 are extremely common alignments in Ukraine and Russia respectively. Both tend to see Nagorno-Karabakh as equivalent to D/LPR, along with whatever that entails from their differing perspectives. Plenty of Russian mil bloggers have spent time in both.
He's certainly been here long enough that his takes are counted in the American gross domestic take production.
April 28, 2025 at 6:18 PM
He's certainly been here long enough that his takes are counted in the American gross domestic take production.
Every Holocaust remembrance organization on the planet refers to the "deportation" of Jews to the death camps. I'd bet a high percentage of schoolchildren in this country learn the word for the first time in that context. There's nothing euphemistic about it.
April 28, 2025 at 2:31 PM
Every Holocaust remembrance organization on the planet refers to the "deportation" of Jews to the death camps. I'd bet a high percentage of schoolchildren in this country learn the word for the first time in that context. There's nothing euphemistic about it.
AI is great for digging up relevant sources on complex topics. I treat it as a research assistance with an amazing talent for finding me links to cite but who under no circumstances is allowed to go anywhere near the final product.
February 17, 2025 at 10:12 PM
AI is great for digging up relevant sources on complex topics. I treat it as a research assistance with an amazing talent for finding me links to cite but who under no circumstances is allowed to go anywhere near the final product.
I won't pretend to know, but whatever really is going on in the army (or in any institution) is more likely to be found in leaked internal documents than in whatever a PR social media account is blurting out.
February 15, 2025 at 7:36 AM
I won't pretend to know, but whatever really is going on in the army (or in any institution) is more likely to be found in leaked internal documents than in whatever a PR social media account is blurting out.
He'd also make an excellent fall guy, should Trump ever find himself in the market for one.
February 2, 2025 at 4:30 AM
He'd also make an excellent fall guy, should Trump ever find himself in the market for one.
There's also a real possibility that Trump will start hating Musk's face for whatever reason before all of this is over and he'll be left high and dry.
February 2, 2025 at 4:16 AM
There's also a real possibility that Trump will start hating Musk's face for whatever reason before all of this is over and he'll be left high and dry.
Trouble was that while the truth would have been bad enough to end a political career prior to 2016, Resist Libs couldn't help themselves but to push the envelope so far that nothing short of a shut-and-closed espionage case against Trump would have ever delivered what they promised.
January 31, 2025 at 4:32 PM
Trouble was that while the truth would have been bad enough to end a political career prior to 2016, Resist Libs couldn't help themselves but to push the envelope so far that nothing short of a shut-and-closed espionage case against Trump would have ever delivered what they promised.
We are in such weird territory that at this point, I'm wondering if solidly Democratic state governments might be the best ones to put up that fight. Those are actual power nodes still under Democratic control.
January 28, 2025 at 5:42 AM
We are in such weird territory that at this point, I'm wondering if solidly Democratic state governments might be the best ones to put up that fight. Those are actual power nodes still under Democratic control.
They unfortunately ran out of historically-themed rollercoasters to franchise. Maybe we can petition a Sherman's march through Georgia ride or, better yet, the Storm of Steel spaghetti coaster.
December 28, 2023 at 1:54 AM
They unfortunately ran out of historically-themed rollercoasters to franchise. Maybe we can petition a Sherman's march through Georgia ride or, better yet, the Storm of Steel spaghetti coaster.
I feel vaguely protective of this car, as if it was an innocent piglet made sentient by its cruel master and transmuted into metal to do its evil bidding.
December 28, 2023 at 1:36 AM
I feel vaguely protective of this car, as if it was an innocent piglet made sentient by its cruel master and transmuted into metal to do its evil bidding.
Yeah the Vietnam War comparisons only go so far.
November 29, 2023 at 10:19 PM
Yeah the Vietnam War comparisons only go so far.
Vietnam War wasn't ended by hippies waving NLF flags. It was ended, ironically, by the silent majority that by 1969 wanted to bring the boys home. In the depressingly unlikely chance a mass antiwar movement emerges in Russia, it'll likely look like that.
November 29, 2023 at 7:25 PM
Vietnam War wasn't ended by hippies waving NLF flags. It was ended, ironically, by the silent majority that by 1969 wanted to bring the boys home. In the depressingly unlikely chance a mass antiwar movement emerges in Russia, it'll likely look like that.
They took liberties with some of the facts of the battle but essentially stuck to the spirit of the source material. Not sure how much control Gibson exerted over the script, perhaps not a lot.
November 29, 2023 at 6:17 PM
They took liberties with some of the facts of the battle but essentially stuck to the spirit of the source material. Not sure how much control Gibson exerted over the script, perhaps not a lot.
I'd argue that there's a split. Some Russian liberals have just flat out decided that they support the Ukrainian war effort, while during the Vietnam War you had to look much further left for that sentiment.
November 29, 2023 at 4:14 PM
I'd argue that there's a split. Some Russian liberals have just flat out decided that they support the Ukrainian war effort, while during the Vietnam War you had to look much further left for that sentiment.
I mean, that was also the impetus behind antiwar protests becoming a mass social movement during the Vietnam War as well.
November 29, 2023 at 4:07 PM
I mean, that was also the impetus behind antiwar protests becoming a mass social movement during the Vietnam War as well.
All delivered by an actor recruited in Vietnam speaking in a northern Vietnamese dialect, too.
November 29, 2023 at 4:04 PM
All delivered by an actor recruited in Vietnam speaking in a northern Vietnamese dialect, too.
There was a split in the State Dept in 1945-46 between the Asia desk wanting to support Vietnamese independence and the Europe desk wanting to support France. Asia desk lost.
November 29, 2023 at 4:03 PM
There was a split in the State Dept in 1945-46 between the Asia desk wanting to support Vietnamese independence and the Europe desk wanting to support France. Asia desk lost.
Weirdly enough, We Were Soldiers is the best I've seen in that regard. I once showed the Vietnamese dialogue scenes to my Vietnamese teacher in Hanoi, and she assumed it was a Vietnamese production.
November 29, 2023 at 3:43 PM
Weirdly enough, We Were Soldiers is the best I've seen in that regard. I once showed the Vietnamese dialogue scenes to my Vietnamese teacher in Hanoi, and she assumed it was a Vietnamese production.