Paul Sellers
Published on 20 Apr 2018Episode 1 will be released on Monday 23rd of April 2018
Paul shows how to make a pair of sawhorses using the method he first learnt when he was 16. They are very useful around the shop for resawing stock and a many others uses. The sawhorses make use of a compound housing joint that ensures a solid construction.
THE TOOLS YOU WILL NEED ARE:
Knife
Square
Combination gauge (or marking gauge)
Tape/Ruler (or both)
Sliding bevel
Chisel hammer
Chisels (at least 1″)
Smoothing plane (No 4)
Tenon saw
*Handsaw
Hand drill and screwdriver or drill driver* = optional
JOINTS LIST:
Compound housing jointFor more information on these topics, see https://paulsellers.com or https://woodworkingmasterclasses.com
April 21, 2018
How to Make Sawhorses Introduction | Paul Sellers
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That time Mossad ran a resort to rescue Sudanese refugees
Join Israel’s secret spy agency! Learn all the tricks of espionage! Run an exotic beachside resort! Wait, what?
“Arous on the Red Sea, a wonderful world apart,” the glossy brochure says, pronouncing it “the diving and desert recreation centre of Sudan”
Illustrated with pictures of putty-coloured chalets on a sun-drenched beach, a smiling couple in scuba gear, and varieties of exotic fish, the advertisement boasts of “some of the best, clearest water in the world”. As night falls – “after the landscape colours have paled” – there are, it says, “breathtaking views of the heavens, aflame with millions of stars”.
Arous Village, on the fringe of spectacular coral reefs and the odd shipwreck, appears to be a diving enthusiast’s dream.
[…]
The only thing was, unbeknown to the guests or the authorities, the Red Sea diving resort was entirely fake.
It was a front, set up and run for more than four years in the early 1980s by operatives from the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency.
They used it as a cover for an extraordinary humanitarian mission – to rescue thousands of beleaguered Ethiopian Jews stranded in refugee camps in Sudan and evacuate them to Israel. Sudan was an enemy Arab country, and it had to be done without anyone finding out, either there or at home.
“It was a state secret, nobody talked about it,” says Gad Shimron, one of the agents who served at the village. “Even my family didn’t know.”
“For us it was a godsend. If we could get hold of this place and do it up, we could say we’re running a diving village, which would give us a reason for being in Sudan and furthermore for roaming around near the beach.”
What happened next is the subject of a soon-to be released Hollywood film called Red Sea Diving Resort. Filmed in Namibia and South Africa, it tells the story of the operation and the village. Though while it is based on true events, some of the scenes are fictitious.
[…]
While seeing to their guests by day, every so often at night a squad would leave under cover of darkness and head to a rendezvous point 10km (six miles) south of Gedaref.
“We’d tell the staff we’re going to Khartoum for a few days, or to meet some Swedish nurses from the hospital in Kassala,” says Gad.
They would pick up groups of Ethiopian Jews, smuggled out of the camps by so-called Committee Men – a handful of Beta Israelis recruited for the job.
“The Ethiopian Jews were given no notice, as we could not risk word getting out,” says Gad. “They did not even know we were Israelis. We told them we were mercenaries.”
From there, a convoy of lorries carrying dozens of bewildered refugees drove a two-day – 800km – journey, evading detection at numerous checkpoints along the way by a combination of guile, bribery and occasionally ramming their way through.
At breaks, they would try to pacify the frightened passengers.
“When we let them sit in the driver’s cabin and touch the wheel, they were in seventh heaven,” Gad says, in his book Mossad Exodus. “It was amazing to see how happy they were at sharing a piece of chewing gum among 20 children. They looked at us as though we were creatures from outer space.”
When they got to the beach, north of the holiday village, Israeli navy special forces would come ashore on Zodiac dinghies, collect the refugees and transport them a further hour and a half to a waiting naval vessel, the INS Bat Galim.
The ship then took them to Israel.
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History Buffs: Rome Season One
History Buffs
Published on 18 Aug 2017Rome is a British-American-Italian historical drama television series created by John Milius, William J. MacDonald, and Bruno Heller. The show’s two seasons were broadcast on HBO, BBC Two, and RaiDue between 2005 and 2007. They were later released on DVD and Blu-ray. Rome is set in the 1st century BC, during Ancient Rome’s transition from Republic to Empire.
The series features a sprawling cast of characters, many of whom are based on real figures from historical records, but the lead protagonists are ultimately two soldiers named Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo, who find their lives intertwined with key historical events. Rome was a ratings success for HBO and the BBC. The series received much media attention from the start, and was honored with numerous awards and nominations in its two-series run. The series was filmed in various locations, but most notably in the Cinecittà studios in Italy.
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QotD: “Pitiless” globalism
Kathleen Parker rightly criticizes Republicans for becoming a party of angry, fear-lathered excluders (“The GOP is becoming the party of exclusion,” July 31). But when she laments “the pitiless evolutionary march of globalization” not only does she reveal her own misunderstanding of the economy, she gives aid and comfort both to GOP excluders and to Sandersnistas who suffer many of the same misunderstandings.
In what way is globalization “pitiless”? Is it because it creates an ever-growing abundance of new goods and services that consumers choose to buy? Is it in the fact that it lowers the prices of food, clothing, furniture, electronics, communications, and (for example, by expanding the sizes of pharmaceutical-companies’ markets) medicines?
Is globalization “pitiless” because it allows many desperately poor workers in the developing world to earn incomes that enable them and their families to live above subsistence? Or perhaps globalization is “pitiless” because it obliges entrepreneurs and workers in the developed world – nearly all of whom are multiple times richer (thanks to globalization!) than are the foreigners about whom they complain they must compete – to adjust their actions to the choices of the consumers whom they serve?
Globalization is no more or less pitiless than is economic competition generally and what Deirdre McCloskey calls “market-tested innovation” – the same competition and innovation that over the past few centuries crafted our current high standard of living. So unless Ms. Parker believes that it is gentle and just for rich first-world workers to prevent poor third-world workers from improving their lives – unless Ms. Parker thinks it humane for consumers to be forced to accept whatever products are offered, and at whatever prices are demanded, by existing producers rather than motivate producers to work hard and creatively to please consumers – she should not describe globalization as “pitiless.”
Donald J. Boudreaux, letter to the Washington Post, 2016-07-31.
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