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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026

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Why does English pop-rock musician and one-hit-wonder James Blunt get so little credit for saving the world from nuclear hellfire in 1999? He’s the Vasily Arkhipav of the 21st Century. He should have gotten the Medal of Honor for that.

Wrong thread? I think you meant the Friday Fun Thread.

Aye

English

Medal of Honor

Not allowed, American Military only, not allies. Presidential Medal of Freedom is possible though. So is Legion of Merit.

So is a Knighthood.

Probably seemed imprudent during first Trump admin because of Russiagate hoax.

Blunt is a funny guy and a good interview at least

From a cursory browsing his wikipedia article, it seems like it was his commaning officer, Mike Jackson, who made the call. Blunt seems to have just happened to agree with the refusal Jackson gave. Also, this seems a bit anemic for a top level post.

Eventually, but if Blunt had just thought of his career and followed the order like a moron, I don’t think Jackson would have been able to make that call.

Also, this seems a bit anemic for a top level post.

That’s because I meant to post it in the Friday Fun Thread 😬

The US and Russia have gotten into a few scraps in Syria; it wouldn't have started WWIII (though it was still a really dumb order)

Those had the benefit of being run mostly through cutouts like Wagner or CIA SAD. Pretty different than NATO peacekeepers firing on officially flagged Russian Spetznaz.

Oh, wow, I thought this was one of those silly 'psych!' posts that's a trick where there's two people with the same name or something, but no, he really did that.

The "Mike Jackson" part seemed really on the nose, but reality is stranger than fiction.