President Trump on Wednesday declined to say whether the United States is moving closer to a decision to strike Iranian nuclear facilities, after Iran's supreme leader warned the U.S. against an attack and rejected Trump's call to surrender.
"You don't seriously think I'm going to answer that question," Trump said when a reporter at the White House asked whether the U.S. would attack Iran. "I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I'm going to do..."
"We're the only ones that have the capability to do it — but that doesn't mean I'm going to do it," he told reporters in the Oval Office after an unrelated event. The president said he would be meeting in the Situation Room — which he also referred to as the "war room" — about the crisis...
This comes amid nearly a week of fighting between U.S. ally Israel and Iran, and amid signals from U.S. and Israeli officials that Trump could be considering an attack on Iran.
In a string of social media posts on Tuesday, Trump demanded Iran's "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER" and boasted, "We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran," raising speculation that U.S. forces were already more involved than previously acknowledged.
Khamenei responded to the demand in his address Wednesday, his second public appearance since Israel launched strikes on his country last week.
"This is a nation that will never surrender to any form of imposition," he said.
On Tuesday, Trump also issued a direct threat against Khamenei. "We know exactly where the so-called 'Supreme Leader' is hiding. He is an easy target, but is safe there – We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now."
Again, this could all be the bluster of an overgrown bully that we've seen from trump when he's trying to force a deal on others. However, trump is also impulsive, and currently irritable over how disastrous his birthday parade turned out. he's in a mood to hurt somebody, and dropping bombs on civilians over in the Middle East would seem too easy a move for him to make.
All of this impulsive, unfocused acts of a desperate man trying to pose as an elite Alpha Male on the global stage; with no consideration of the consequences and harm those acts imposed on our nation and whatever allies we have left. Most of this getting imposed on our nation by the only "ally" we are counting on in that region, as Israel - led by a genocidal schemer in Netanyahu who's trying to avoid getting kicked out of power again - is forcing the United States to commit to a military action that will honestly lead into another quagmire for us.
If trump thinks this can push Iran to the negotiating table to hammer out a no-nukes agreement to replace the one he blew up, he's wrong. It won't placate Netanyahu, and the escalation will continue to where we'll be back at the "bomb 'em all" brinksmanship only at a more extreme and irrational level.
This was never going to end well with trump in charge. None of you 77 million voters realized that? /headdesk
In an assault India dubbed "Operation Sindoor," the Indian military said it struck nine sites in "Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir from where terrorist attacks against India have been planned and directed."
The Indian Defense Ministry said the strikes were in response to a militant attack that killed 26 people in India-administered Kashmir last month.
Tensions have been on the rise between India and Pakistan since April 22, when gunmen killed at least 26 tourists and injured a dozen others in India-administered Kashmir. India accused Pakistan of having a connection to the attack — the worst aimed at Indian civilians in more than a decade...
The U.N. secretary-general's office called for "maximum military restraint" from both India and Pakistan, saying the world cannot afford a war between them.
---FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFfffffffffffffffffffffffffff (runs for the bomb shelter)
Okay, with all the chaos going on in the political world, are we the United States ready as a nation to handle a cultural moment like having two movies not compete but complement and co-exist with each other?
Because we're at that moment July 21 2023 where the Hollywood tradition of "counterprogramming" - where a movie release of obvious blockbuster proportions makes it difficult to release other films, except giving a smaller sometimes more artistic movie a chance to attract audiences that are not attuned to that blockbuster - offered us the movie Barbie - a comedic, lighthearted, brightly colored goofball type of movie based on "Intellectual Property" (IP) bringing in an established and fervent fanbase designed solely to entertain and make $500 million at the box office - versus Oppenheimer - a dramatic, darkly lit serious biographical epic focusing on the man most responsible for the atomic bomb and the world-shattering implications of such a weapon, and designed to be Oscar Awards bait - to be the highlights of a movie summer season.
Except something weird happened. The movie-going fanbases got into the "counterprogramming" effort - we are now as a species in a kind of post-modern awareness of tropes - and started complementing each other's films to where a contingent of filmgoers openly planned to watch both films as a double-header.
At a glance, the audience overlap isn’t clear. “Oppenheimer,” starring Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr. and Emily Blunt, is a somber character study about the theoretical physicist who led the development of the atomic bomb. “Barbie,” featuring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, is a neon-hued fantasy comedy about Barbie-Land expats who go on a quest for self-discovery in the real world. Visually, “Oppenheimer” is moody and intense, while “Barbie” is a physical manifestation of the color pink. Yet the contrast is the very thing that’s galvanizing film lovers.
“This could have been something dividing the masses, but instead it’s bringing everyone together,” says Nicole Boisseau, a 21-year-old Richmond, Va. student. Her dad, Jay Boisseau, who also has tickets to both films at Alamo Drafthouse on opening weekend, says that jokes aside, the mismatched scheduling works out for viewers. “Since they are so different, it’s not like you’re going to spend six hours watching the same thing,” he notes.
And as Rubin points out, as the fandoms got more into the idea of the double-feature, the situation got weirder as people noticed that the two films are going to be stunningly similar in archetypal ways:
But his daughter believes the movies have more in common than meets the eye. “They’re both questioning the nature of humanity.” (She’s serious. During one hilarious scene in the “Barbie” trailer, Margot Robbie’s life-size doll turns to her friends at a dance party to ask: “Do you guys ever think about dying?”)
That wham line from the trailer did indeed spark a new wave of discussions among the Barbie faithful, as more clues from other trailers and teasers pointed to that film sending their character on a Hero's Journey to find out what is wrong with herself (more specifically, what is wrong with the young girl that Barbie represents). The "something weird" got weirder... and more profound.
The audiences began realizing that instead of a cheap, fun, almost perfunctory piece of entertainment - like the animated Super Mario Bros movie released earlier this year that performed to box office expectations - they were getting a Barbie movie from a film auteur willing to explore the deeper ramifications of the doll's cultural impact since its introduction in 1959, alongside a bioepic film about the inventor of nuclear Armageddon from an equally imposing film auteur who knows how to stir emotional awe and enlightenment out of the darkness itself:
Some cinephiles believe it’s because the two filmmakers inspire a particular kind of loyalty in their fans. Nolan, who has delivered commercial winners like “The Dark Knight,” “Inception” and “Interstellar,” and Gerwig, the indie favorite behind “Lady Bird” and “Little Women,” are the rare directors who can draw audiences on their name alone.
“It comes down to the filmmakers, who are widely respected. They complement each other in a weird way,” says Meredith Loftus, 30, of Los Angeles. She compared the scheduling to an unusual double-header in 2008 of Nolan’s superhero epic “The Dark Knight” and the kitschy musical “Mamma Mia!,” which opened on the same day...
I'd discussed Nolan's Dark Knight before, when honoring Tiny Lister's passing, and how Nolan took an IP themed "product" - Batman - and crafted a noir-ish operatic epic that not only won the box office but wowed the film critics. I'd written elsewhere how The Dark Knight deserved Oscar love and yet got snubbed in such a way that the outrage reshaped the awards to accept more films for Best Picture (and opened the door for action thriller-type movies like Mad Max Fury Road to achieve the honor of getting nominated).
We're now facing a similar moment with Greta Gerwig taking an IP themed Barbie and turning it into an Oscar contender. Seriously, more than just the (deserved) Set Design and Costuming nods the film's likely to get (just the fact alone that the production used up every pink paint and dye on the planet should get the awards).
We're talking about a movie where the early reports about the plot - confronting the themes of Stepford Wives-ish suburban conformity, the gender roles that Barbie (and Ken) impart to the girls and boys who play with them (and reflect back onto themselves), the struggle between matriarchy and patriarchy as the fantasy of Barbies who can do everything - doctor, lawyer, President, mermaid - crash into the harsh real world where men are mostly in control and Barbies are treated as sex objects, even the fact that Barbie is an "Intellectual Property" of Mattel that the company (represented by Will Ferrell's CEO) insists on "keeping in a box" ("biting the hand" humor indeed) - that clearly makes the film more philosophical and wistful than a simple Product Placement movie is expected to be.
Anchoring all that are performances that fans are already expecting to be excellent. Margot Robbie arguably was born to play Barbie her whole life - naturally blond, dancer's legs, the slim body that the Barbie doll is (in)famous for - but with an expressive face that can convey incredible gravitas (and she's been Oscar nominated before, so unless Meryl Streep and Helen Mirren and Natalie Portman and Jennifer Lawrence and Angela Bassett all come out with jaw-dropping lead actress roles this autumn, Robbie should get her due). Ryan Gosling - he of the Photoshopped washboard abs - is also getting critical acclaim for his role as Ken, the "boyfriend" that culturally has been reduced to just another accessory for Barbie but whose exposure to the real-world "Alpha Male" movement threatens the stability of the fantasy Barbieland back home (Gosling has also received Oscar nominations before, so as long as Leo DeCaprio and Jamie Foxx and Timothee Chalamet and Andrew Garfield and Denzel Washington and Tom Hanks don't come out with serious lead actor roles this autumn, Gosling should get his due).
In the face of all that, the expectations for Oppenheimer are lower in terms of box office but higher in terms of critical acclaim: There is already Oscar talk for actor Cillian Murphy, and Nolan is bound to get another shot at Best Director. Given the A-list talent - Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr, Emily Blunt, Kenneth Branagh, Florence Pugh, Rami Malek - on-board other acting nominations are likely, and a lot of technical award nominations as well.
There's not much spoilers to what the audiences will know about the plot: We all know what happened July 16th 1945 when the Trinity Bomb test took place and the Atomic Age was no longer a product of Science Fiction. We all know there were serious debates among the physicists, military leaders, and politicians about the ramifications of weaponizing the atom. And we all endured the decades of Duck And Cover, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Doomsday Clock, Mutually Assured Destruction, "Shall We Play A Game?", and the post-Cold War nightmare of rogue nations carrying suitcase bombs.
Like all the other epic biographical films of before - Lawrence of Arabia, Gandhi, Weird: The Weird Al Story - Oppenheimer tries to delve into the background and motivations of a real-world figure whose personal life is still not well-known or understood. The general awareness is of a scientist who pushed during the Second World War for the creation of nuclear weapons before Nazi Germany could unleash them first, only to realize the dangers he himself brought to the world and later tried to atone for the damage he'd caused.
We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty, and to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.'
From all this, director Nolan is clearly creating a serious, almost bleak film that is going to be more adult, more frank about the human condition than Barbie ever could be. And yet, Nolan has a visual style - a desire to make things as realistic as possible, and yet as stunning as possible - that will also clearly dazzle the eye and leave audiences gasping. Look to his earlier stand-alone works like Inception or Interstellar: While based on Science Fiction/Fantasy, the visuals and technology on display were grounded in realism to where audiences could believe such things were possible. One of the fun facts of Interstellar was how Nolan's push to computer-generate an actual black hole (singularity) led to scientists discovering - and proving - previously unknown traits that black holes exhibit in real life.
The fact that Nolan is claiming his film contains no CGI - no computer animation to enhance images, implying he's somehow mocked-up a nuclear explosion using practical effects - is going to be a major draw for people wondering how he pulled that off.
And in this telling, Nolan is likely going to use the similar Hero's Journey framework - detailing Oppenheimer's path from a student of nuclear physics to Destroyer Of Worlds - that Barbie will follow, creating a compare-and-contrast of two major figures that affected the entire post-war world of the last-half of the 20th Century.
It's no wonder Barbieheimer (or Barbienheimer?) is a thing.
This will be a day long remembered by the geekdom:
The only remaining argument is "Which order to see both movies?" If you go see Barbie first, you want to get the frivolity and fun out of the way before dealing with the nuclear nightmares that Oppenheimer elicits, and coming to terms with death in a sober manner. If you see Oppenheimer first, it means you want to wrap up the day/evening with the floating party that is the Barbie life by seeing the movies and then dance the hidden pains away.
Go to it, America.
Today is the day.
Now I am become Death, the Destroyer of Barbie Worlds...
Update 7/23/23: I survived Barbieheimer. I went to Barbie first at 11:15 AM and then Oppenheimer at 1:40 PM.
Wait, why was Barbie more expensive than Oppenheimer? Barbie was the first showing, isn't that usually a cheaper deal?!
With all of the nonstop media coverage of Queen Elizabeth's funeral kind of drowning out all the other news, we need to pay attention to the change of fortunes going on in Ukraine as the defenders are earning major gains in their counteroffensive to retake the eastern half from Russia. Brief report from Digby first:
Ukrainian forces pushed deep into Russian-controlled territory Saturday, handing Kyiv some of the most strategically important towns and cities in the northeast of the country and delivering retreating Russian forces one of their biggest setbacks since the start of the war.
In a matter of days, Ukraine retook swaths of its Kharkiv region, where Russians had fought ferociously for months, spending lives and ammunition to take over cities, sometimes a building at a time.
In the weeks leading up to the offensive that Ukraine launched earlier this week, Kyiv’s forces used Western-made weapons, including High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or Himars, against Russian supply lines and front-line positions.
The growing success of Ukraine’s advance signals to Western backers the effectiveness of weapons the U.S. and Europe has given to Kyiv. It comes at a particularly critical time for Western powers, days after Moscow indefinitely suspended natural-gas flows to Europe, raising the prospect of energy rationing this winter.
Russia’s retreat from key cities is likely aimed at avoiding encirclement after Ukraine captured the town of Kupyansk, which sits on a rail and road hub, and severed the last artery that connected Russia with thousands of its front-line troops.
“It’s a complete collapse,” Phillips O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, said about the Russian pullout of forces between Kupyansk and Izyum. “In the battle of Donbas, they probably had more troops deployed there than anywhere and now they seem to be unable to hold anything.”
The Ukrainian military was incredibly busy today...
Also, the Russian military was busy too; running from the Ukrainian military...
Here’s the British MOD’s assessment for today. They did not post an updated map.
"Russian forces were likely taken by surprise... Ukrainian units are now threatening the town of Kupiansk; it's capture would be a significant blow to Russia because it sits on supply routes to the Donbas front line..."
Social media is flush with frontline video clips of Ukrainians finding abandoned tanks and personnel carriers still in working condition. Troop morale was reportedly low before this counterattack: By all evidence Russian morale is flat out gone.
There is just trash everywhere, no policing of debris, etc. Yes, war is hell and all that, but if you are in a set position for a while you maintain your AO for a variety of reasons, including just maintaining basic discipline.
Anyone who's been a solider, like Cole, will tell you discipline matters: It keeps you focused and on your game. It's a reality of war since the days of Sparta all the way through the Romans to the Revolutionary Army drilled by Von Steuben to the World Wars to today. Without that discipline, you're not an army.
From what I've read about the modern Russia army, it seems to have been lax about discipline because they relied on overwhelming numbers, advanced armor, artillery barrages out the wazoo, and bad weather to get them out of jams. They were riding on their reputations post-World War and on the fact they had relatively decent heavy armor to match the strength of Western (European/US) armor.
Their more recent invasions and incursions - including their seizing of Crimea back in 2014 when Ukraine rose up to overthrow their corrupt pro-Putin regime - focused on limited gains and minor bits of territory. This time around it was a massive nation-sized invasion... and all of their flaws - over-reliance on shock and awe, lack of logistics, poor leadership in charge of poor troops - got exposed in real time. Advancements in anti-tank weaponry turned dreaded Russian tanks into death traps and scrap bounty for Ukrainian farmers. As soon as Ukraine got upgraded artillery weapons from the West - HIMARs in particular - they were able to strike deeper into Russian-occupied locations to disrupt their supply chains. Everything built up to this past week's counterattack using Kershon as one front and opening up Kharkiv for a rout on a scale that hasn't been seen in decades.
The last time Russia felt a loss this bad, they were the Soviets and getting driven out of Afghanistan. But that was a loss that carried across nine years of bloody quagmire. This is a loss dragged along for five months - ever since they bogged down in April - and enacted over five days. We're talking hundreds of thousands of losses to KIA or POW. Half their armored might blown up or abandoned. Even if Putin panics and makes a call to conscript more cannon fodder to his war, it will take months to plan out another attack: Any hasty push and he's merely repeating the same mistakes to lose even more bodies and armor he can't afford to lose.
There’s RUMINT that Putin is preparing to order a general mobilization. And the sealing of of the center of Moscow is related to that. I doubt it. First, we haven’t seen any information come out that would indicate that anything is being done to prepare for a general mobilization. Secondly, I think it is more likely this was done preemptively to try to prevent mass protests as the news from Kharkiv and Kherson filters back into Russia despite Putin’s best efforts to completely control the Russian information space.
Frankly, ordering a general mobilization isn’t going to help Putin remove his tuchas from the the crack he’s wedged it in. A crack of his own making. Unless Putin has a fully equipped and properly trained army stashed somewhere that no one knows about, it’s only a matter of time. The question is what does he do at that point? Does he cause a meltdown at ZNPP? Does he use lower yield nukes and just wipes out Ukraine and every Ukrainian he can because he can’t have it? Does he decide that a world without Russia as a great power isn’t worth surviving and he fires all his nukes...?
It's a good question, and the big reason why NATO (especially Poland) hasn't escalated matters by sending in their own troops to give Ukraine more than enough trained personnel to beat Russia back to their border. The fear of nuclear retaliation is pretty much the only reason why a nation that's barely in the top 20 economies and clearly now with the worst ground army in the world - seriously, Iraqi troops in 2003 were better trained than this - can still command any fear.
However, unlike Silverman I can't imagine Putin or Russia getting angry or desperate enough to go nuclear on Ukraine. If Putin gives the order and drops a "Sore Loser" warhead on Kyiv, he becomes a global pariah for the rest of his short life. Instead of making opposing nations cower, it will terrify them into quarantining Russia with absolute sanctions and complete cutoff of travel, anything and everything to starve the oligarchs of their wealth and power. Every Russian embassy will be shut down and sent home. The United Nations would rebel at the broken nature of having Russia as a permanent member of the Security Council. And that's just the political fallout: LITERAL FALLOUT from even one nuke can very well cover Russia and cause backlash from Putin's own people.
Even with low-yield nukes - read up on Davy Crocketts sometime, that might scare you a little, and yes Russia has that type of yield on hand - you will see a backlash of global proportions. No other nation has used nukes since 1945: Ever since we've learned the consequences of such weapons, even the U.S. has refused to use them again. For Putin to be dangerous enough to use a nuke, it will be the last weapon he uses. The rest of the world would do everything in their power to make sure he doesn't use another.
What matters now is if Ukraine and solidify their defenses in Kharkiv, and bring in more troops to circle around and cut off Kershon and Crimea to regain all of that before winter sets in. It may be September now but even in this age of climate change the likelihood of bad weather swirling in fast is pretty high, and it won't favor either side when it does.
But right now, all the advantages favor Ukraine. Their troops are spirited and disciplined and winning. Russia is retreating in a way they haven't done since 1917.
Here's hoping Ukraine reclaims so much of their homeland that Putin can't lie to his own people anymore.
Also, I REALLY need to find out where to order Ukrainian "Russian Warship, Go Fuck Yourself" Stamps for Christmas time. I got a relative who's into stamp collecting...
