The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered
Published on 23 Apr 2018The History Guy examines how the Cold War transformed Canada with the establishment of the U.S. Air Force’s distant early warning or dew line.
The History Guy uses images that are in the Public Domain. As photographs of actual events are often not available, I will sometimes use photographs of similar events or objects for illustration.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheHistoryGuy
The History Guy: Five Minutes of History is the place to find short snippets of forgotten history from five to fifteen minutes long. If you like history too, this is the channel for you.
September 22, 2018
The Distant Early Warning Line
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QotD: Epicurean influences on Marx
… what’s also interesting is that our friends the Marxists also thought Epicurus was a great philosopher. Marx himself did his doctoral dissertation on the differences between the atomism of Epicurus and his forerunner Democritus.
Most books on Epicureanism published in France in the 20th century were written by Marxists. (Well, I suppose you could say that of most books published in France on any topics in the 20th century…!) I have a booklet on Lucretius at home published in France in the 1950s in a collection called Les classiques du peuple – The classics of the people. In the Acknowledgement section, the author thanks all the Soviet specialists of Epicureanism and materialism for any original insight that might appear in the book.
Marx found in Epicureanism a materialist conception of nature that rejected all teleology and all religious conceptions of natural and social existence.
Martin Masse, “The Epicurean roots of some classical liberal and Misesian concepts“, speaking at the Austrian Scholars Conference, Auburn Alabama, 2005-03-18.
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September 21, 2018
Allied Breakthroughs In Palestine And Macedonia I THE GREAT WAR Week 217
The Great War
Published on 20 Sep 2018In a turbulent week of the First World War, the Allies break through at the Macedonian Front during the Battle of Vadar and in Palestine during the Battle for Palestine. At the same time, the Ottoman defeats the last defenders of Baku.
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Doug Ford is a bit like Trump in the way he gets his critics to froth and fizz on demand
For all the claims that Doug Ford would be “just like Trump”, they’re not all that similar, but one way the Ontario Premier does resemble the American President is the way that they both can send their opponents into rhetorical hysteria almost without effort:
Doug Ford at the 2014 Good Friday procession in East York, Canada.
Photo via Wikimedia Commons.
As much as Ford’s government has violated political norms, we shouldn’t want the remedy to do likewise — whether it’s the feds invoking Disallowance (as a majority of Toronto city councillors voted to support) or the Lieutenant-Governor refusing Bill 31 Royal Assent (as requested Tuesday by various petitioners led by former lefty Toronto mayor John Sewell), or a judge undermining provincial authority over municipalities on grounds that collapse in higher courts.
So now, perhaps, Toronto can return to reality — or as close as you can get during an election campaign.
No, there was no magic brand of fit Mayor John Tory or hypothetical mayor Jennifer Keesmaat or anyone else could have pitched that would have stopped Ford in his tracks. Torontonians’ fits are a feature for Ford, not a bug. In defending Bill 5 he has repeatedly namechecked various left-leaning allegedly do-nothing councillors. Their apoplexy sustains him. In his book about Rob Ford, councillor John Filion quoted Doug Ford on his plans for Tory after losing the 2014 mayoral election: “He’s going to take off the sheets in bed at night and find my teeth wrapped around his nuts.”
Note that Chris Selley is careful to include the “allegedly” there … no need to invite lawsuits for the National Post.
And no, there is no real hope of relief in the ongoing appeals process over Bill 5. Even if the Supreme Court were to side with Belobaba, it would only repudiate the way in which the province wielded its powers — i.e., in the middle of an election — not the powers themselves. Had the government waited four years, or even legislated a two-year council term at 47 wards to be followed by an election at 25, it would have been on plenty-thick ice. It could easily re-legislate a 25-ward Toronto after such a ruling, and without using the notwithstanding clause.
Toronto politicians are destined to be Doug Ford’s favourite punching bag at least until they stop reacting so hysterically every time he so much as looks in their direction. He may not be a Twitter troll of the same mastery as Donald Trump, but he doesn’t appear to need social media to get his critics all panty-bunched.
Similarly, while there is no telling how much Ford might meddle in Toronto’s affairs in the coming years, at every step along the way he will make the idea of meddling in Toronto affairs more toxic for future non-Conservative governments. All provincial governments have screwed over Toronto now and again; as of this summer, screwing over Toronto is Something Doug Ford Does. And no Liberal or New Democrat wants to be like Doug Ford.
When things die down a bit, the opposition parties will have to take a break from denouncing Ford and explain what they’ll do in future to strengthen Toronto’s democracy: restore control over its political boundaries, provide more taxation powers, allow road tolling, whatever. It would be Pollyannaish to suggest Ford has caused a political awakening in Toronto, but he has certainly made it more attractive for the other parties to take Toronto more seriously, and concurrently much more risky for them to be seen reneging on such promises in future.
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Declassified: The Old RAF Base Bringing Hollywood To Upper Heyford | Forces TV
Forces TV
Published on 30 Aug 2018Upper Heyford was one of the largest US Air Force bases in Europe, housing bombers that carried NATO’s intermediate-range nuclear weapons… now it’s attracting Hollywood A-listers…
Read more: https://www.forces.net/news/declassif…
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QotD: “Let us abandon Capitalism, and go back to Adam Smith”
An old friend of mine, among my bosses in late ’seventies Bangkok — Antoine van Agtmael, genuinely admired and loved — was the genius who invented the expression “emerging markets,” to replace that downer, “developing countries.” (Which in turn had been the euphemism for “backward countries.”) It was by such creative hocus-pocus that attitudes towards “Third World” investment were dramatically changed, in the era of Thatcher and Reagan. A man of indomitably good intentions; charitable, selfless, and a brilliant merchant banker; a little leftish in his social and cultural outlook — I give Antoine’s phrase as an example of the sort of poetry that changes the world. I took pride, once, in editing a book of his astute investment “case studies.”
Thirty-six years have passed, since in my youth and naiveté I was draughting a book of my own on what is still called “development economics.” (I was a business journalist in Asia then, who did a little teaching on the side.) It seemed to me that “free enterprise” should be encouraged; that “government intervention” should be discouraged; but that the aesthetic, moral, and spiritual order in one ancient “developing country” after another was being undermined by the success, as also by the frequent failures, not only of foreign but of domestic investors. This bugged me because, like my father before me (who had worked and taught westernizing subjects in this same Third World), my well-intended efforts on behalf of “progress” were ruining everything they touched; everything I loved.
My attempt to explain this, if only to myself, ended in abject failure to answer my central question: “Why does capitalist success make the world ugly and its people sad?”
Only now do I begin to glimpse an answer; and that part of it could be expressed in the imperative, “Let us abandon Capitalism, and go back to Adam Smith.”
David Warren, “In defence of economic backwardness”, Essays in Idleness, 2016-12-01.
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September 20, 2018
Mind Your Business Ep. 3: Public Safety from Private Security
Foundation for Economic Education
Published on 18 Sep 2018In Detroit, dependence on law enforcement has proved insufficient to keep people safe. Enter Dale Brown, a threat management professional who specializes in stopping violence and empowering individuals to protect themselves and their loved ones.
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Quantum Computing – The Foundation of Everything – Extra History – #1
Extra Credits
Published on 16 Sep 2018Is light a particle? Is light a wave? Let’s take a look at Thomas Young’s famous double-slit experiment — creating those really super funky interference patterns you might remember from your high school physics classes.
A tremendous thank-you to Alexander Tamas, the “mystery patron” who made this series possible. We finally found room in our busy production schedule to create and air this series alongside our regularly scheduled, patron-approved Extra History videos. A huge thank you to the multiple guest artists we got to work with, to Matt Krol for his skillful wrangling of the production schedule and keeping everyone happy, and to our Patreon supporters for your patience and support.
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Perhaps we need a “Veterans’ Day”, but that’s not what Remembrance Day is for
Ted Campbell on the desire of the Royal Canadian Legion and Veterans Affairs Canada to change Remembrance Day to focus on veterans, rather than the war dead:
… given its mandate and, indeed, its very name, Veterans Affairs Canada manages, again, to totally misrepresent Remembrance Day, according to a report by CBC News. I’m not concerned that “at least half the participants in the English sessions did not recognize In Flanders Fields, nor did any of the Montreal participants.” Perhaps it is only right and proper that we have stopped teaching a poem that was intended to challenge those who, over 100 years ago, could still join the fight.
But the ‘message’ that Veterans Affairs seems, to me, to be trying to propagate, again, is that Remembrance Day is, somehow, all about veterans … that’s arrant nonsense. We veterans, I guess I count as one although it is not how I define myself, are there, as we should be, only to honour those who died, those who never got a chance to become veterans because they were blown to bits or died in a burning aircraft or drowned at sea or lay for hours, in no-man’s-land, wracked with pain, waiting for the blessed relief of death. That’s why we go to the cenotaph, once a year: to remember the 100,000+ Canadian men and women who were killed in our wars, large and small, from South Africa in 1899 (arguably, from North West Canada in 1885) until today. But, today, there is a movement, spearheaded by civil servants and the Royal Canadian Legion, to change the focus to honour their clients: veterans, like me … even at the expense of remembering our dead.
[…]
For myself, no matter what anyone else decides, I will continue to observe Remembrance Day for what it is meant to be, not what the bureaucrats and the Legion’s management want it to become; and if we have a Veterans’ Day I will stay home … I don’t need anyone’s thanks for my service; you paid me well enough, as much as your elected representatives thought fair, anyway, and I always tried my best to be worthy of my hire.
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The Last Lee Enfield: the L42A1 Sniper
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 31 Aug 2018More info: https://www.forgottenweapons.com/the-…
http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
When the British military adopted the FAL (L1A1 SLR) in 1960, they adopted the 7.62x51mm NATO cartridge along with it. While the Bren guns were converted to the new cartridge, efforts at converting the Lee Enfield into a precision rifle were not successful at the time. However, civilian target shooters and the British NRA would work on perfecting that conversion for use in competition, and would ultimately produce very accurate 7.62mm rifles built on Lee Enfield actions – accurate enough that the military took notice. Copying the competition rifles, the British military would adopt the L42A1 in 1970, an Enfield action converted to 7.62mm NATO with a shortened and free-floated stock and hand guard and a heavy profile barrel. A total of 1,080 L42A1 rifles would be converted from existing No4 MkI(T) sniper rifles, and they would serve in the front lines of the British military until 1992, when they were replaced by the Accuracy International L96A1.
If you enjoy Forgotten Weapons, check out its sister channel, InRangeTV! http://www.youtube.com/InRangeTVShow
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QotD: Parenthood
What know I about 3 am feedings, Spongebob Squarepants, day care pickups or those special moments when one finds oneself on one’s knees, covered in vomit, as one’s darling child wails uncontrollably? I mean, it all sounds horrible, but I expect that it would be even worse to live it, fighting tears of exhaustion and a post-partum pouch.
[Incidentally, current parents should note that y’all are not doing a good job of selling this child-bearing thing to those of us who are as yet non-reproductive. You know, if you actually succeed in communicating all of the dreadfulness of your parental lives to us, as so many articles currently seem intent upon doing, your social security benefits are going to look pretty darn sad in thirty years or so. But I digress.]
Jane Galt, “Focus on the family”, Asymmetrical Information, 2005-02-18.
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September 19, 2018
The wisdom of Zim Tzu, post-tie edition
After each Minnesota Vikings game, head coach Mike Zimmer holds a press conference to discuss the details of the game and answer questions from the local and national press. Coach Zimmer is renowned for his plain-speaking, but this is actually a fantastically clever smokescreen — using what appear to be plain, ordinary, everyday words to encrypt his true meaning. This would normally leave the press and the fans lacking in wisdom and knowledge, but fortunately The Daily Norseman has an ace up their collective sleeve: they’ve got Ted Glover, 9th dan Black Belt in Zimmerology, to decrypt the essential truth and present it to us, the unwashed masses.
The Vikings warrior poet coach dispenses his words of wisdom
When a warrior poet heads out on the field of battle, he expects to win. But even the best of them fail, and come up short. When that happens, you retire, lick your wounds, and come out the next time, hungrier and more determined to win than ever.
But a stalemate…no one really expects those. A stalemate makes you feel like it was all for nothing. There was no glory in victory, there were no heroic last stands to the last man, no desperate, last ditch gambles that resulted in final victory that will cause other warrior poets to reverently speak of your deeds for all time. But there is some value in a stalemate, although it’s hard to understand at the time. You know you could have won, but you also realize you could have just as easily lost. Lessons are learned, plans are improved, and if you need to sacrifice someone to send a message, then by God that’s just what you’ll do.
Because you are Zim Tzu, The King In The North, Nightmare of Clan Fromage, Breaker Of Gold Fever, High Septon Of Eagan, Lord Commander Of The Iron Range And Twin Cities, Master Of Fortress TCO, Honorary Elder Of Mankato and Protector Of The Realm.
And when the Great Unwashed want to hear about how you won’t tolerate another stalemate, we swoop in as an intermediary* between you and them. We take what’s actually said, digest it,** then share the true meaning to the masses.***
* We should never be asked to be the go between for anyone over any dispute. Everyone would end up pissed, shots would be fired, and blood would probably be spilled.
** We do nothing of the sort. We completely make all of this up. Well, Zimmer actual press conference quotes are real. Nothing else is. Also you’re living in The Matrix.
*** There is about as much true meaning to this as there is in the image of Jesus in a piece of toast. With butter.
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Belgian Uniforms Of World War 1 I THE GREAT WAR Special
The Great War
Published on 17 Sep 2018Visit the IJser Museum: http://www.museumaandeijzer.be/ijzert…
Indy talks to Peter Verplancke from the Museum at the former Yser front about the Belgian uniforms and their evolution during the war.
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The Byzantine Empire should really be called the “Medieval Roman Empire”
Sean Gabb makes the case for the least well-known part of the Roman world that outlasted the western empire by a thousand years:
Properly considered, the history of what I will from now call not the Byzantine Empire, but the Mediaeval Roman Empire, is perhaps the most astonishing instance of how courage and determination can keep civilisation alive in the face of the most forbidding and apparently overpowering challenges. In setting out my argument, I hope you will forgive me if I begin with an introduction covering much that many of your will know at least as well as I do, but that may not be so familiar to those reading the text or watching the speech on YouTube.
If you look at the first of the maps that I have put on your tables, you will see the Roman Empire as it was in the year 395 AD. This shows the Empire at something close it its greatest extent. The conquests that Trajan made to the north of the Danube and east of the Euphrates have been given up. But it includes the whole of the Mediterranean World and its various hinterlands – an area stretching from the North of England to Upper Egypt, from Casablanca to Trebizond. In that year, however, nearly a century of political experiments is formally ended with the division of the Empire into two administrative zones. There is the Western or the red Empire, ruled by an Emperor in Rome or Milan or Ravenna. There is the Eastern or the purple Empire, ruled by an Emperor in Constantinople.
If you look at the second map, dated roughly 650 AD, you will see that the Western Empire has disappeared. Excepting North Africa and parts of Italy, now ruled from Constantinople, the whole of the Western Empire has disappeared – replaced by a set of barbarian kingdoms from which modern Europe takes its origin. The Eastern Empire itself has lost both Syria and Egypt to the Arabs.
If you look at the third map, dated roughly 867 AD, you will see that the Empire has suffered the further loss of Cyprus and North Africa and most of Sicily. Nevertheless, what we have in that year should undeniably be called the Mediaeval Roman Empire. It has weathered the storm of the Early Middle Ages. It is the richest and most powerful state in the Mediterranean World. Indeed, during the next few centuries, it will expand. It has already reconquered Greece. It will conquer the Bulgarian Kingdom and re-establish its ancient frontier on the Danube. It will even retake Antioch and make Egypt for a while its economic and diplomatic client.
After 1071, the Empire falls on evil days. In that year, the Turks deprive it of its Anatolian heartland. But this loss is stabilised and in part reversed by a skilful handling of the Crusades. There is another disaster in 1204, when the Venetians take and plunder Constantinople. But this is not the end. The Empire is restored in large parts in 1261; and, even if as little more than a city-state based around Constantinople, it continues to the final Turkish conquest of 1453. Indeed, the formal extinction of the Empire comes nearly a decade after 1453, with the annexation of its last territories in Southern Greece.
There was a time when school textbooks in England dated the fall of the Roman Empire to 476 AD. Its continued survival for a thousand years after then had to be explained, where admitted, by taking a contemptuous view of what was called the Byzantine Empire. See, for example, W.E.H. Lecky:
Of that Byzantine empire, the universal verdict of history is that it constitutes, without a single exception, the most thoroughly base and despicable form that civilization has yet assumed. There has been no other enduring civilization so absolutely destitute of all forms and elements of greatness, and none to which the epithet “mean” may be so emphatically applied… The history of the empire is a monotonous story of the intrigues of priests, eunuchs, and women, of poisonings, of conspiracies, of uniform ingratitude.
Lecky is one of my favourite historians. But, if you look even at the mediaeval Greek and Italian historians of the Empire, you will see that this is a bizarre judgement. Undoubtedly, these historians tended to focus on intrigues in and about the Imperial Palace. But they also record much else. They record the story of a rich and powerful empire, directed with high military and diplomatic ability – an empire in which slavery and the death penalty have been almost abolished, where people lived, and knew that they lived, under a set of divinely-ordained laws that protected life, liberty and property to a degree unknown in any other mediaeval state.
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Shop Work: How to build a French Cleat Lumber Rack
Fisher’s Shop
Published on 7 Aug 2017Please consider sharing this video with your friends, it helps out the channel more than you think! Thanks!
In this video I address my lumber storage problem. I made a french cleat lumber storage rack system out of construction-grade wood. Is it strong enough? Or does it all collapse in a hilarious, yet destructive, wooden tidal wave of doom?
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