30 years ago today, Baby Gerald Samson has made his first appearance in the Season Five episode, Sweet Seymour Skinner's Baadasssss Song. Maggie was confirmed to have a rival appearance with Gerald as her official enemy. I love to say this, Gerald Samson is my main comfort Simpsons character. He’s always been my favorite since it all started this year.
“In any serious strategic calculus, the “Samson Option” refers not just to a last-resort spasm of pure national vengeance, but to a purposeful set of specific operational threats. When examined together with Israel’s still intentionally ambiguous nuclear strategy (a doctrine most commonly referred to as Israel’s “bomb in the basement”), it becomes evident that these carefully fashioned threat postures are designed to enhance Israeli nuclear deterrence. Indeed, any such enhancement would represent this unique doctrine’s most obvious raison d’être. But are there further steps that would enhance the Samson Option’s effectiveness in this context?
There is more. Because strategic crises in other parts of the world could sometime “spill over” into the ever-unpredictable Middle East, dedicated strategic planners in Tel Aviv should already begin their preparations to “think Samson.” This is especially the case wherever the possible “spill” could concern the threat or actual use of nuclear weapons.
(…)
Among other things, this means meticulously conceptualizing—or perhaps re-conceptualizing—the prospective role of any calculated Samson Option.
Whatever this option’s more precisely nuanced goals, its key objective must always remain exactly the same. That objective is to help keep Israel “alive.” In this duly considered objective, Israeli policy must very conspicuously deviate from the otherwise useful biblical metaphor—Samson, after all, lost his own life when he tore down the temple on his Philistine captors—drawn illustratively here from the book of Judges.
Ultimately, in relevant military nuclear matters, “Samson” must be about how to best manage certain urgent processes of strategic dissuasion. Here, the primary point of Israel’s nuclear forces must always be deterrence ex ante, not revenge ex post. For now, at least, Israel’s presumed nuclear strategy, while not yet articulated in any precise or publicly ascertainable fashion, is likely oriented toward nuclear war avoidance, not nuclear war fighting. From all potentially concerning standpoints, including even the well-being of Israel’s pertinent national adversaries, this is the indisputably correct orientation.
At its conceptual analytic core, the Samson Option references a deterrence doctrine based upon certain implicit threats of overwhelming nuclear retaliation or counter-retaliation—responses for more-or-less expected enemy aggressions. Any such doctrine could reasonably enter into force only where the responsible aggressions had first credibly threatened Israel’s physical existence. In other words, considered as a potentially optimal element of dissuasion, it would do Israel little good to proffer “Samson-based threats” in response to “ordinary” or manifestly less than massive forms of anticipated enemy aggression.
(…)
The bottom-line reasoning here is as follows: Exercising a Samson Option is not likely to deter any aggressions short of nuclear and/or massively large-scale conventional or biological first strikes.
All things considered, Samson’s overriding rationale must be to bring the following clear message to all identifiably potential attackers: “Israel may sometime have to accept mega-destructive attacks, but it surely won’t allow itself to ‘die with the Philistines’ or become the combatant country to suffer more dire consequences.” By emphasizing some overtly symmetrical exposure prospects to existential harms—”Israel won’t die alone”—the Samson Option could continuously serve Israel as a distinctly meaningful adjunct to nuclear deterrence and also to certain more-or-less corollary preemption options.
Significantly, the Samson Option could never protect Israel as a fully comprehensive nuclear strategy unto itself. This option must also never be confused with Israel’s more generalized, or “broad spectrum,” nuclear strategy, one which must always seek to maximize national deterrence at recognizably less apocalyptic levels of possible military engagement.
(…)
Concerning long-term Israeli nuclear deterrence, recognizable preparations for a Samson Option could help to best convince certain designated enemy states that massive aggressions against Israel would never be gainful. This stance could prove especially compelling if Israeli “Samson” weapons were (1) coupled with some level of nuclear disclosure (thereby effectively ending Israel’s longstanding posture of nuclear ambiguity); (2) to appear sufficiently invulnerable to enemy first strikes; and (3) plainly counter-city/counter-value in their declared mission function. Furthermore, in view of what nuclear strategists sometimes refer to as the “rationality of pretended irrationality,” Samson could more generally enhance Israeli nuclear deterrence by demonstrating an apparently tangible Israeli willingness to take various existential risks.
To a manifestly variable and possibly even bewildering extent, the nuclear deterrence benefits of “pretended irrationality” could sometime depend upon a prior enemy state awareness of Israel’s counter-city or counter-value targeting posture. Worth noting here is that such a posture had been expressly recommended more than fifteen years ago by the private “Project Daniel Group,” in its then confidential report to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. At present, it would appear plausible that this posture is also actual policy.
(…)
In those cases concerning Samson and Israeli nuclear deterrence, any recognizable last-resort nuclear preparations could enhance Israel’s preemption options by underscoring a singularly bold national willingness to take presumptively existential risks.
(…)
If left to themselves, neither deterred nor preempted, certain enemies of Israel (especially after any nuclear strike or exchange elsewhere on the planet) could convincingly threaten to bring the Jewish state face-to-face with the familiar torments of Dante’s Inferno, “Into the eternal darkness, into fire, into ice.” Such a portentous scenario has been made even more probable by the latest geostrategic strengthening of Iran in certain parts of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen. This strengthening is taking place despite the US president’s withdrawal from the July 2015 JCPOA, or perhaps even because of this unilateral American abrogation.
At some point, various ominous intersections between a US-North Korean war and an expanding Iran-Hezbollah offensive could create wholly unprecedented perils for Israel. All such intersections, moreover, would be taking place within the broadly uncertain context of a second Cold War.
In extremis atomicum, these synergistic hazards could sometime become so unique and formidable that employing a Samson Option would seemingly represent the best available strategic option for Israel. In a more carefully structured world order, Israel would have no need to augment or even maintain its arsenal of deterrent threat options—especially the most perilous nuclear components—but this more ideal reconfiguration of world politics is still a long way off. Nonetheless, at some point, Israel, together with other future-oriented states, will somehow have to collaborate toward the incremental replacement of Realpolitik (power-politics) or “Westphalian” dynamics of international interaction, an intellectual collaboration that would largely be based upon a too long-delayed awareness that our earth is best conceptualized as an organic whole.”
“Iranian security officials helped plan Hamas’s Saturday surprise attack on Israel and gave the green light for the assault at a meeting in Beirut last Monday, according to senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah, another Iran-backed militant group.
Officers of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had worked with Hamas since August to devise the air, land and sea incursions—the most significant breach of Israel’s borders since the 1973 Yom Kippur War—those people said.
Details of the operation were refined during several meetings in Beirut attended by IRGC officers and representatives of four Iran-backed militant groups, including Hamas, which holds power in Gaza, and Hezbollah, a Shiite militant group and political faction in Lebanon, they said.
(…)
A direct Iranian role would take Tehran’s long-running conflict with Israel out of the shadows, raising the risk of broader conflict in the Middle East. Senior Israeli security officials have pledged to strike at Iran’s leadership if Tehran is found responsible for killing Israelis.
The IRGC’s broader plan is to create a multi-front threat that can strangle Israel from all sides—Hezbollah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in the north and Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank, according to the senior Hamas and Hezbollah members and an Iranian official.
At least 700 Israelis are confirmed dead, and Saturday’s assault has punctured the country’s aura of invincibility and left Israelis questioning how their vaunted security forces could let this happen.
(…)
Iran has been setting aside other regional conflicts, such as its open feud with Saudi Arabia in Yemen, to devote the IRGC’s foreign resources toward coordinating, financing and arming militias antagonistic to Israel, including Hamas and Hezbollah, the senior Hamas and Hezbollah members said.
(…)
The strike was intended to hit Israel while it appeared distracted by internal political divisions over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. It was also aimed at disrupting accelerating U.S.-brokered talks to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel that Iran saw as threatening, the senior Hamas and Hezbollah members said.
Building on peace deals with Egypt and Jordan, expanding Israeli ties with Gulf Arab states could create a chain of American allies linking three key choke points of global trade—the Suez Canal, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Bab Al Mandeb connecting the Red Sea to the Arabian Sea, said Hussein Ibish, senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.
(…)
Iran has long backed Hamas but, as a Sunni Muslim group, it had been an outsider among Tehran’s Shia proxies until recent months, when cooperation among the groups accelerated.
Representatives of these groups have met with Quds Force leaders at least biweekly in Lebanon since August to discuss this weekend’s attack on Israel and what happens next, they said. Qaani has attended some of those meetings along with Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah, Islamic Jihad leader al-Nakhalah, and Saleh al-Arouri, Hamas’s military chief, the militant-group members said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian attended at least two of the meetings, they said.
(…)
Egypt, which is trying to mediate in the conflict, has warned Israeli officials that a ground invasion into Gaza would trigger a military response from Hezbollah, opening up a second battlefront, people familiar with the matter said. Israel and Hezbollah exchanged fire briefly on Sunday.
(…)
The Iranian official said that if Iran were attacked, it would respond with missile strikes on Israel from Lebanon, Yemen and Iran, and send Iranian fighters into Israel from Syria to attack cities in the north and east of Israel.
Iran’s backing of a coordinated group of Arab militias is ominous for Israel. In previous conflicts, the Soviet Union was the ultimate patron of Israel’s Arab enemies and was always able to pressure them to reach some type of accommodation or recognize a red line, said Bernard Hudson, a former counterterrorism chief for the Central Intelligence Agency.
“The Soviets never considered Israel a permanent foe,” he said. “Iran’s leadership clearly does.””
“US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Sunday he has ordered the Ford carrier strike group to sail to the Eastern Mediterranean to be ready to assist Israel after the attack by the Hamas terror group that has left more than 700 dead. Americans were reported to be among those killed and missing.
The USS Gerald R. Ford, the Navy’s newest and most advanced aircraft carrier, and its approximately 5,000 sailors and deck of warplanes will be accompanied by cruisers and destroyers in a show of force that is meant to be ready to respond to anything, including possibly interdicting additional weapons from reaching Hamas and conducting surveillance.
The large deployment, which also includes a host of other ships and warplanes, underscores the concern that the United States has in trying to deter the conflict from growing. Israel’s government formally declared war Sunday and gave the green light for “significant military steps” to retaliate against Hamas, a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said US President Joe Biden and other Western leaders had backed Israeli freedom of action to retaliate.
(…)
Along with the Ford, the US is sending the cruiser USS Normandy, destroyers USS Thomas Hudner, USS Ramage, USS Carney, and USS Roosevelt and the US is augmenting Air Force F-35, F-15, F-16, and A-10 fighter aircraft squadrons in the region.
(…)
In addition, the Biden administration “will be rapidly providing the Israel Defense Forces with additional equipment and resources, including munitions. The first security assistance will begin moving today and arriving in the coming days,” Austin said.
Congressional support for aid to Israel is up in the air amid chaos in the House of Representatives after speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted last week.”
❦ short dark hair with the sides shaved, long on top that usually gets styled back ❦ blue eyes normal ❦ will have glimmers of wine red eyes ❦ tattoos sleeves, over chest and back ❦
❦ owns 15 dogs ❦ 3 Great Danes named Draco, Nobs, and Chip ❦ 3 Dobermans named Samson, Nyx, and Dollie ❦ 1 Rottweiler named Koko ❦ 2 cane corso named Trouble and Brutus ❦ 1 Great Pyrenees named Casper ❦ 1 Saint Bernard named Gerald ❦ 1 Belgian malinois named Max ❦ 1 Akita named Jacks ❦ 1 Chow Chow named Bear ❦ 1 Xolo named Sisco ❦ and owns one goat named Fancy
Vector the Crocodile - Bruce Campbell, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Micheal B. Jordan, Seth rogen
Espio the Chameleon - Daisuke Tsuji, l.j. benet
Charmy Bee - Colleen o'Shaughnessey, Jacob Tremblay
Mighty The Armadillo - Micheal Mando, Micheal B. Jordan, Brady noon
Ray The flying squirrel - Tara Strong, Hudson Meek
Fang The Sniper - John Patrick Lowrie, Hugh Jackman, Karl Urban,
Bean The Dynamite - Aziz Ansari, Steven Ogg
Chief Pachacamac - Danny Trejo Sofía
Tikal the Echidna - Díana Bermudez, Ana de la Reguera, Selene Luna, Sofía Espinosa, Isabela Merced, Salma Hayek, Nisa Gunduz
E-102 Gamma - Corey Burton
Wendy Witchcart - Mia Goth, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Harriet Samson Harris
Battle Kukku XV - Nolan North
Speedy XVI - Maria Bakalova
Dr. Fukurokov - Mark Ivanar
Breezie The Hedgehog - Regina King, Janelle Monáe, Jena Malone, Pollyanna McIntosh
Vanilla The Rabbit - Maggie Robertson
Amy Rose - Kimiko Glenn, Anna kendrick
Big The Cat - Dave Fennoy, Patrick Warburton, Micheal B Jordan, Kevin Chamberlin
Cream the Rabbit - Melissa Hutchison, sabrina glow
Sticks the Badger - Margot Robbie, Paola Lázaro
Gerald Kintobor - Ron Perlman
Maria Kintobor - Mkeena Grace
Commander Abraham Tower - Frank Anthony Grillo
Subject Shadow The Hedgehog (Terios Kintobor) - (Paramount stated they want an A-list celebrity to voice Shadow) Keanu Reeves, Robert Pattinson, Pedro Pascal, Oscar Isaac, Micheal B Jordan
Rouge The Bat - Chloé Hollings, Marion Cotillard, Mélanie Laurent, Camille Cottin, Jordana Lajoie, Scarlett johansson
Tom Wachowski’s father - Bob Odinkirk, Dustin Hoffman, Bill Murray, Micheal Keaton, Kurt Russell, John Goodman
Metal Sonic - Ben Schwartz(robotic filter)
E-123 Omega - Micheal B Jordan, Terry Crews, Jon Bernthal
Hazard The Bio-Lizard (Marzanna Kintobor) - Ivana Miličević
Void TrapDark - Jude Law, Dane DeHaan, Gerald Way, Scott Williams, Freddie Highmore,
Barney Gumble TidBit: Barney is shown to have many depths throughout the series. One I'll cover now is his sobriety arc, from Season 11 to Season 15, where Barney sobered up and learned to pilot helicopters. He is shown to switch between sober and drunk appearances depending on episode. Unfortunately, they never figured out what they could do with Barney afterwards, and reverted him back.
Baby Gerald TidBit: Gerald was the antagonist in the short film, "The Longest Daycare", in which he is intent on squashing every bug that comes into sight including Maggie's caterpillar.
086 - Khef - The Way Station (The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger Part 2)
In this episode, Tiny and I continue our journey to The Dark Tower with a discussion of The Gunslinger chapter 2: The Way Station.
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Timestamps
Show Start – 00:40
Stephen King News/Check-ins - 05:50
Previously...on The Dark Tower - 38:08
Part 2: The Way Station - 40:05
Closing the Ep - 1:43:25
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Mike Flanagan Says His Dark Tower Adaptation Is Being Held Back By Previous Failures
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Stephen King's The Dark Tower: The Drawing of the Three Omnibus - Amazon Associate Link
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Tiny: Samson Q2U via USB in Google Meet
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IPL 2024: MI V RR Overall Head-to-head; When And Where To Watch
Winless Mumbai Indians: Winless Mumbai Indians (MI) face a challenging task when they host Rajasthan Royals (RR) in Match 14 of the IPL 2024 on Monday.
The two teams have met each other on 27 occasions in the tournament, with five-time champions MI holding the advantage over DC in their matchups.
MI v RR Head-to-Head 27:
Mumbai Indians - 15
Rajasthan Royals - 12
MI v RR Match time: The Match starts at 7:30 PM IST (2:00 PM GMT) with toss taking place half an hour prior to the match i.e., 7:00 PM (1:30 PM GMT)
MI v RR match venue: Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai
Live broadcast of MI v RR match on television in India: MI v RR match will be broadcast live via Star Sports Network.
Live stream in India: The live streaming of MI v RR will be available on JioCinema.
Squads:
Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma, Ishan Kishan(w), Naman Dhir, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya(c), Tim David, Romario Shepherd, Shams Mulani, Gerald Coetzee, Piyush Chawla, Jasprit Bumrah, Kwena Maphaka, Mohammad Nabi, Suryakumar Yadav, Shreyas Gopal, Luke Wood, Vishnu Vinod, Arjun Tendulkar, Nehal Wadhera, Kumar Kartikeya, Shivalik Sharma, Anshul Kamboj, Akash Madhwal, Nuwan Thushara, Dewald Brevis
Rajasthan Royals: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Jos Buttler, Sanju Samson(w/c), Riyan Parag, Ravichandran Ashwin, Dhruv Jurel, Shimron Hetmyer, Trent Boult, Yuzvendra Chahal, Sandeep Sharma, Avesh Khan, Nandre Burger, Navdeep Saini, Keshav Maharaj, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Rovman Powell, Tanush Kotian, Kuldeep Sen, Donovan Ferreira, Abid Mushtaq, Shubham Dubey, Kunal Singh Rathore
Read the full article
Indian squad captained by Suryakumar Yadav departs for a tour of South Africa
Senior players like Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, and captain Rohit Sharma will miss the white-ball phase of the all-format series.
On Tuesday night, the Indian cricket team left Bengaluru for their tour to South Africa. The Men in Blue, which included Mohammed Siraj, head coach Rahul Dravid, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shreyas Iyer, Ruturaj Gaikwad, and others, set out for the tour from Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru.
A three-match T20I series on December 10 will serve as the launchpad for the all-format tour of South Africa, which will last through December 14. The white-ball series’ ODI phase will begin on December 17 and run through September 21.
Senior players like Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, and captain Rohit Sharma will miss the white-ball phase of the all-format series. The top T20I batsman, Suryakumar Yadav, will captain the T20I team, while KL Rahul will captain the ODI team.
Call-ups for the ODI team have gone to young players like Rinku Singh, Tilak Varma, Sai Sudarshan, and Rajat Patidar.
Senior players will return for the two-match Test series, which will begin on December 26 in Centurion and conclude on January 3 in Cape Town. This red-ball leg of the series will be the most anticipated by Indian supporters because India has yet to win a Test series in South Africa.
Cricket South Africa (CSA) confirmed their selections for the multi-format series against India, which begins on December 10 at home.
Fast bowler Nandre Burger, batsman David Bedingham and Tristan Stubbs, and wicketkeeper Kyle Verreynne have all been called up to South Africa’s Test team for the India series.
The T20I and ODI squads will be led by Aiden Markram, while the Test team will be led by Temba Bavuma.
Bavuma and quick bowler Kagiso Rabada have been rested for the white-ball series. Anrich Nortje, who was ruled out of the World Cup owing to a lower back stress fracture, is out of the game in all formats and has no schedule for recuperation.
Stubbs has been named to the Test squad for the first time, along with batter David Bedingham and fast bowler Nandre Burger.
Thinking once again of St Pyr, the late fifth / early sixth century abbot Ynys Bŷr was named for.
Most of what we know comes from the life of St Samson, the son of Amon of Dyfed and Anna of Gwent, who was sent to be educated by Illtud Farchog at Llantwit Fawr. (This was like the school to get into at the time - all the richest holy kids were taught by Illtud.) Life at Llantwit just wasn’t harsh enough for Samson though, not even when the cellarer plotted with another Brother to poison him, presumably because of Samson’s insufferable goody-two-shoesness, as translated by Thomas Taylor (1925):
Ever bent on fasting and exercised in unceasing prayers, also very often immersed in searching and in learning the Holy Scriptures, without any pause he went on praying, according to the exhortation of the Apostle Paul, in cold and nakedness, all night long, through wintry frosts, subdued not by the winds of winter or by the oppressive heat of summer, mindful of the Apostle’s word when he says, “ the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”’
After this event Samson was sent to Pyr at Caldey. Gerald of Wales claimed Pyr actually owned the island, along with the castle of Maenor Pyrr (Manorbier) - his very own birthplace. Either way, Samson turned up and was pleased to have the freedom to spend all his time praying and fasting.
And there he was in such wise received by the same above-mentioned priest Piro, an old man already advanced in years, as if he had the appearance of an angel of God sent down from heaven. And leading, with untiring patience, a wonderful, isolated and above all a heavenly life, he ceased not, day or night, from prayer and communion with God. Spending the whole day in working with his hands and in prayer, and the whole night, more-over, in the mystical interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, he carried the lamp to his dwelling in order that, bent upon reading, he might either write something or exercise himself in spiritual contemplation; for although, as a man, he had need of rest for the sake of human weakness and reclined against the wall or anything hard for support, he never slept in a bed.
Indeed, he was so reluctant to rejoin the world that when Samson’s dad fell deathly ill and sent message he would only take communion from his son, Pyr basically had to force Samson to go. Even then Samson loitered around the abbey another two days until Pyr stumped up a boy deacon to accompany him on the trip. (An old woman nearly stabbed this poor kid on the journey, and supposedly Samson brought him back from the brink of death and so he became his greatest advocate.)
So, without Pyr, would there even be a St Samson? It was recovery from this illness that convinced Amon to place the family fortune at the church’s disposal, which would allow Samson to go travelling about founding monasteries and working his way up the ecclesiastical ladder... Whatevs. Samson certainly never thanked Pyr for it.
The Vita relates: Indeed not long afterwards an unexpected thing happened. One dark night the same Piro took a solitary stroll into the grounds of the monastery, and what is more serious, so it is said, owing to stupid intoxication, fell headlong into a deep pit. Uttering one piercing cry for help, he was dragged out of the hole by the brothers in a dying condition, and died in the night from his adventure.
And it came to pass when the bishop heard of it, he made all the brothers to remain just where they were and spend the night together; and then, having assembled a council, after Mattins, all the men of this monastery, with one accord, chose St. Samson to be abbot. And when he submitted (to be abbot), though not willingly, he trained the brothers gently to the proper rule.
And while he held the primacy in this place, which was not more than a year and a half, the brothers regarded him as a hermit rather than as a member of an order of monks. And consequently, amidst feasts of plenty and flowing bowls, he made a point of fasting always from food and drink. Of vigils there is no need to say anything, inasmuch, as I have already stated, he never at any time allowed his body to rest in bed.
To be honest, Samson sounds like the one completely unsuited to being abbot. He’s too busy with his own regime of praying and fasting to really lead the brothers. But, Samson went on to become a Bishop, found his own monasteries, and get his own Life written. Pyr, meanwhile, has just gone down in history as a pisshead who fell down a well...