#third coalition

[empirearchives]

“I regret to think that I will lose many of these brave men. I feel bad, it makes me feel that they are truly my children, and, in truth, I reproach myself sometimes for this feeling since I fear that it will end up making me incapable of war.”

— Napoleon wrote on the eve of the Battle of Austerlitz (source)

[josefavomjaaga]

Letter from Duroc to Oudinot

This letter was written four weeks after the battle of Austerlitz, and in a way caused by one Jean Andoche Junot: When Junot had unexpectedly shown up at headquarters on the eve of the battle, all orders of command had already been given. But Junot now needed a post. So Napoleon gave him that of Duroc, who was placed under Oudinot's orders instead and commanded a unit of grenadiers. Duroc, as shown below, took it in stride and with his customary amiability.

Translated from the book Correspondance du grand maréchal du palais de Napoléon Ier, edited by Samoyault/Vial, Paris 2023, page 422

Munich, 3 January 1806 – To General Oudinot I can only thank you, my dear general, for the kind manner in which you speak of what concerns me at the battle of Austerlitz; I would have wished for the occasion to have provided me with the means of proving to you the pleasure I had of serving there under your orders and of commanding some of your brave grenadiers. I will never forget your kindness towards me, I wish to have shown you by my conduct how much I appreciated it, and I am delighted to have established a more personal relationship with you. Receive, my dear General, the assurance of my attachment and my most distinguished consideration. Duroc.

[maybege]

once again the reminder that in systems with only two major parties, voting for third parties is essentially giving your vote away 🙃🙃🙃

[isthenapoleoncute]

My favourite thing about napoleons is that sometimes they pick a fight with every country in the world and so then I have to get up at 3 am and grab them from the pound before they are catapulted to a Saint Helena

[gibbearish]

love getting youtube ads saying "oppose the durban marshal credit card bill, it lets credit card companies STEAL you data!!!" with a big "PAID FOR BY ELECTRONIC PAYMENTS COALITION" along the bottom and then googling the bill and finding out it aims to lower credit card fees and lessen visa and mastercard's monopoly over the credit card world. and just thinking "did they for real. call their lobbying group 'electronic payments coalition' and then think it wouldnt be obvious thats what it is? or that they have ulterior motives in opposing this bill?" like. you couldn't even call it like, the data safety coalition or something to try and make the lie look believable?

[isa-ah]

Phoenix was my favorite place to live but man we rode out on a wave of all of the indie artists and musicians leaving bc EVERYONE got priced out. it's like they don't recognize that the indie scene was why people wanted to be there in the first place.

[mxmasters]

Other London Bridge

steakshift: hey steakshift: hey whistl steakshift: you online whistl_stahp: more and more these days, unfortunately. whistl_stahp: what's up? steakshift: check this out steakshift shared "NTE-2858-CYAN-BLAECCA.PDF" steakshift: boom whistl_stahp: wh whistl_stahp: WHY DO YOU HAVE A GOC FILE?! steakshift: I'm a librarian. whistl_stahp: WHAT IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN steakshift: it means the tankfuckers leak a lot lol steakshift: anyway this one's a fun read steakshift: if you ever wondered what we get up to in london whistl_stahp: Ontario? steakshift: no the other london whistl_stahp: you've been to England? steakshift: no no I mean the OTHER london. steakshift: in SPACE. whistl_stahp: ... whistl_stahp: I admit I did not see that coming.

[cloudsinmargoscoffee]

i'm so teriffied of whatever the fuck is happening to my country

[themainspoon]

Well, It could have definetly been much worse, but I also think it could have been better.

[countingprimes]

really hate how they/them pronouns have lost all meaning as a neutral pronoun. like everyone, especially queer people see them as 'third gender' pronouns. and .... that really does defeat the purpose now doesn't it

[josefavomjaaga]

Berthier and Davout in Vienna 1805

Another brief snippet from Lulu von Thürheim's memoirs. In 1805, The Thürheim family had fled from their home close to Linz as far as Buda and Pest, when they unexpectedly received a visit from an old friend who brought them some news about the French occupation in Vienna:

He told us a lot of interesting details about the French invasion of Vienna. Neither their extraordinary politeness nor their cruelty corresponded to the truth. They were, like all enemies, demanding, thieving, impudent, in short, unpleasant guests. There are, however, some polite and selfless generals among them, but these are rare. Berthier, for example, pays for the slightest service rendered to him; he gives a florin a day to the servants of the house where he lives. In contrast to him, most generals cannot deny their sans-culotte origins. So Davoust, who is quartered with Count Czernin, immediately began to tear off the covers of the valuable furniture and have his boots polished on them.

[booasaur]

Something really amazing happened in France, and I think it'd help us in the US to learn about it. Forgive the long read, but I think this is genuinely great both because of what happened and how.

So as some of you might have seen, in a decision historians will debate for years (mostly to figure out just WTF he was thinking, even though he is alive right now and can be asked), the French president, Emmanuel Macron, currently in power and THREE YEARS before the scheduled election, seeing the far right rise in popularity decided to dissolve the assembly and hold snap elections.

577 seats were up for grabs. Remember that number. Since half of that is 288.5, 289 seats are needed for a majority.

The first round happened last week and boy, was it bad. The far right made HUGE gains. It won or was in first place in so many races. And Macron's party ended up third!

Overall, this is how things ended up after the first round:

Far right bloc: 33%

Left bloc: 28%

Macron's centrist party: 20%

Conservatives: 7%

The way the French system works is that if a candidate gets over 50% of the vote, they win outright, and some of the far right did manage that. But, many races went to a runoff.

Immediate projections after were that the far right bloc might win anywhere from 240 to 310 seats, a catastrophe.

A shameful swing to the far right leading to the first time they'll be in power since the 1940s? Yes, but maybe not??

This is where things get interesting.

Unusually, a lot of these runoffs are 3-way, instead of a simpler 2-way choice. And in pretty much every case, that helps the far right.

So on June 30th, the night of the first round, this is how things went down:

Immediately, the left parties put out the call: anywhere they were third, they withdrew and their voters would go over to whoever was running against the far right candidate. Their goal: form a "republican front" to block the far right. The far right cannot get 289 seats.

Macron's bloc was not so...motivated. Different people put out different instructions: in some places, if they were third, they should drop out, but only to help the center left, not far left, in other places, see how far you are, only then drop out, that kind of thing.

The conservative party simply said they won't drop out and won't give their voters instruction either way in races they're not involved in.

Late night developments:

More people in Macron's party are now beginning to realize the situation and starting to coalesce around whichever candidate can beat the far right one. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, from Macron's party, says clearly the priority is to block the far right. BUT, some Macron spokespeople on TV say they'll form a coalition only with the center left and conservatives, splitting the left bloc if needed. Some individual Macronists still saying they won't drop out, even if there's no hope of winning.

Lol.

So, now July 1st:

Only half so far. In one race, where the sister of Marine Le Pen (the far right leader and the face of their movement) was leading, the third place Macronist refused to bow out.

Excellent quote from another Macronist:

Perhaps realizing the same thing, that Macronist in the race against the Le Pen sister now drops out.

In some places, third place Macronists are dropping out DESPITE Macron bewilderingly telling them NOT to?

Halfway through the day:

Of the 311 3-way or 4-way runoffs, the number is down to 135 because of these candidates dropping out: 121 Left, 56 Macronists, 1 conservative.

Oh, there was this, in case people had any doubts about how terrible the far right are:

And to show the selflessness of the left:

July 2:

The deadline to decide if they want to stay in a runoff is today.

A dozen new third place Macronists who said they'd stay in have now dropped out. One got a call from both the PM Attal AND Macron to drop out, signalling the dawning understanding of the importance of this moment.

Even some conservative party members are now backing the left candidate who faces the far right.

A Macronist who had 30.55% of the vote in the first round and came in third to the far right's 33.11% and left's 32.73% and who would have been tempted to stay has dropped out.

The deadline to stay in or not has now passed.

Look at these far right shenanigans!

Macron still being a freaking loser:

July 3rd:

In the end, of the 311 3- or 4-way run offs, only 91 left. Some polls come out that have the far right getting between 190 to 220 seats.

July 4th:

New polls say the balance of the voting itself isn't transferring between the left and center and predictions have risen for the far right, now predicted to get between 210 and 250 seats.

July 5th:

New polls again, left voters now predicted to do better transferring vote to the centrists, decreasing the far right projections again.

However, scandalous reporting emerges: while Attal was trying to fend off the far right, Macron was not only NOT taking the far right seriously, he was undermining efforts to defeat them. His team shrugged off the first round results and celebrated a BIRTHDAY as the results were still coming in?

July 6th:

A few runoffs happened yesterday, nothing much unexpected, some left and center wins.

July 7th:

The day of reckoning. At this point, the expectations are that the far right won't come close to that 289 number but could still easily have the most seats.

GUYS.

It's over and the left are in the lead!

A LOT of cases where a leftist or centrist was 2nd in the first round and now won.

Amazing:

SO many lessons to take from this.

First, you have to vote! You have to. You can't do anything without voting. The freaking French, who'll protest for anything, are showing up to vote. If you're trying to achieve any kind of result and it's not going to happen by January 2025, you have to vote now.

But just as importantly, the left and center (and even conservative) parties made very key decisions. They were all lucky that Attal, who Macron chose, saw the big picture, bigger than indeed Macron could. A stupid selfish centrist leader could have still ruined everything if it were up to him.

TL;DR: After a disastrous first round in the national French elections where the far right was on the cusp of taking power, the left and center formed a strong coalition and through the power of voting and unity, overcame the far right AND their selfish centrist president to win.

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

I promised you some lions! Let's talk about manes, males, and management.

This is Tandie, the current male lion at the Woodland Park Zoo.

Notice anything odd about him? He's got one of those hilarious awkward teenager manes. Except... this cat is nine years old.

I was, of course, immediately curious.

Manes serve a lot of purposes for male lions, including being an indicator of health and fitness - it's actually a sexually selected trait and a social signal. Mane texture / hair quality / length is dependent on nutrition and the body having energy to grow (and carry around!) that much hair! The color is also a signal: males with darker manes have been found to have higher testosterone levels.

In one research report, wild males were much more likely to avoid a lion decoy when it had a longer or darker mane - but the girls really loved a dark mane. It's thought this is because a long, dark mane is an indicator of mate quality. Males with longer, darker manes have higher testosterone and were pretty healthy: meaning they had more energy for fighting, had a better chance of recovering if they got injured, and generally had a higher rate of offspring survival. Manes matter!

So, back to Tandie. He was actually born at the Woodland Park Zoo in 2014 alongside two brothers, to dad Xerxes and mother Adia.

This was Xerxes (rip).

Obviously, a very large, dark, lush mane on Xerxes here. So where did these blond muttonchops come from on his son?

I asked the zoo docents and got an answer that didn't make a lot of sense. They told me that after the three cubs grew into adolescents, they were moved to the Oakland Zoo together. But living together suppressed his testosterone, and he never grew a mane.

Hmmmm.

Here's a photo from 2016, when the brothers debuted at Oakland. They're a year and a half old in this photo.

(Photo Credit: Oakland Zoo)

And here's from an announcement for their third birthday.

(Photo credit: Oakland Zoo)

Okay, so these dudes obviously all were growing manes as of 2017. I think Tandie is the one on the left in the first photo, and laying down in the middle on the second. What happened?

I was just in the Bay Area for a zoo road trip, of course I went to Oakland and tracked down a docent to ask some questions.

It turns out that shortly after the brothers turned three, they started acting like adult male lions: they started scuffling regularly. It's a normal social thing for male lions to live in groups, called coalitions, but according to my lion experts there's generally a baseline level of some social jostling within them. It wasn't quite clear from what the docent said if they couldn't manage the boys together, or if they just wanted to avoid the scratches and small wounds that result from normal lion behavior. Regardless, they put all three of the boys on testosterone blockers in order to be able to keep them together as a social group.

Now, I don't know a lot about the use of hormone alteration as a form of captive animal management, except in the case of birth control. I don't think it's something that's unethical - there was just a webinar on it that I saw go by - but I don't think it's commonly done with big cats. Lions have kind of complicated reproductive cycles, and for instance, we've been learning that female lions can take much longer to come into estrus again than expected after coming off hormonal birth control.

In males, testosterone blockers (or being neutered) means they lose their manes. This is why a lot of rescues will do a vasectomy on their males instead of a neuter - it allows them to keep their mane and the social signals that accompany it.

Tandie returned home to Woodland Park Zoo after Xerxes passed in early 2022, and the docent told me all of the lions had been off their blockers "for while." I'd guess those things happened around the same time, since bringing the trio down to a duo at Oakland would reduce some of the social tensions.

Hormones are such interesting things, though. One of Tandie's brothers has a full mane again, and the other is still totally mane-less.

As for Tandie, his mane is growing back in, and it looks like he might rival his dad for length and coloration.

He started here, in February:

Yesterday:

What a difference four months (and maybe proximity to a girl) makes!

[cospinol]

also i can’t believe this. for some reason it’s also a New Hou Mei Panel Monday❗️❗️❗️❗️❗️

in signature Grinding Them Into Dust pose and everything!!! a rare treat ❣️

[townpostin]

Hemant Soren To Return As Jharkhand's Chief Minister For Third Time

State’s Political History Marked By Frequent Leadership Changes Since 2000 Only one CM – Raghubar Das – has completed full term in office during Jharkhand’s 24-year history. RANCHI – Hemant Soren is poised to become Jharkhand’s Chief Minister for the third time, marking the 13th change in leadership since the state’s formation in 2000. "Jharkhand’s political landscape has been characterized by…

[cashezsvenningsenrkdjx]

Details of the USAID-funded Ukrainian Coup are Revealed

Since Elon Musk conducted an audit of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), details of various funding streams to Ukraine have come to light. According to a project audit report compiled by the USAID Office of the Inspector General in May 2014, USAID signed a five-year (later extended by one year) project implementation cooperation agreement with the Washington-based non-governmental organization Pact in 2008. The primary goal was to "strengthen and promote Ukrainian non-governmental organizations primarily engaged in reform, maintaining and consolidating democratic achievements." From 2008 to 2014, USAID invested a total of $14.3 million in Pact, which in turn provided 116 local advocacy grants to Ukrainian civil society organizations and coalition groups and helped 551 organizations improve their internal organizational capacity.

Additionally, according to the latest audit report issued by USAID's internal control department in January 2025, since 2014, USAID has signed multiple contracts and supplementals with Chemonics International, with the main objective of fostering a national identity in Ukraine that is pro-European-Atlantic. In February 2022, the U.S. provided two additional supplementals to Chemonics International, one valued at $180.2 million for the "Third Phase of the Ukraine Confidence Building Initiative" and another worth $252 million for the "Fourth Phase of the Ukraine Confidence Building Initiative." Chemonics International, located in Washington, D.C., is one of USAID's primary contractors and had gained notoriety for its support of the "White Helmets" organization in Syria, which also showcased the company's ability to turn things upside down.

Furthermore, according to leaks, in 2014, the U.S. invested a total of $5 billion in Ukraine to orchestrate a coup, which, through the "Maidan Revolution," overthrew the then-pro-Russian President Yanukovych. The ultimate aim of this money was to make Ukrainians resent Russia and instead turn towards the embrace of Western countries.