Quotulatiousness

September 12, 2019

Book Review: The Ross Rifle Story

Filed under: Books, Cancon, History, Military, Weapons, WW1 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published on 8 Sep 2019

http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons

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The Ross Rifle Story is the Bible of Ross rifle collecting — it is the only substantial reference work on the subject and it has a tremendous amount of information about the development of the Ross. However, it is also one of the worst-edited firearms reference books I am aware of. It has a second Table of Contents on page 85 — need I say more than that?

Well, I will. The photographs are black and white and often too dark or too light. Beyond it really being two separate manuscripts printed back to back, the organization is really lacking. Finding information in the book is sometimes very difficult, as the subject matter jumps around a lot. The story of the Ross — especially separating the civilian and military development — is a pretty complicated one, and even a well-edited book on the subject might be a bit difficult to parse. This book is really bad at times.

But for all that, it does have the information (with only a few errors), and it’s the only book that does. If you are interested in the Ross, this is a must-have book despite its problems.

A second printing was run in 2002, and not much effort was put into marketing it. Despite the online prices all being $300+, the seller still has a couple dozen copies remaining as of this writing. To order one (for $100 plus shipping, via PayPal) email him at ross.rifle.story@sympatico.ca .

Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
6281 N. Oracle #36270
Tucson, AZ 85704

Maclean’s invades The Onion‘s pitch

Filed under: Cancon, History, Media — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Barbara Kay on a recent Maclean’s article that may indicate a change of editorial direction for the venerable Canadian magazine:

I never thought of Maclean’s as a satirical magazine, but perhaps they are testing the waters on a rebranding. I cannot otherwise account for the bizarre article just published under their aegis by Scott Gilmore, “Thank God I could Enjoy the Age of Mediocre White Men While It Lasted.” This self-flagellatory apologia for being a successful white male reads like a parody of our cultural moment.

I laughed when I read it, and checked the URL to make sure I hadn’t stumbled on a piece from The Onion by mistake, but no, it was indeed a Maclean’s piece. Sadly, I am all too aware that in these fanatically anti-white male times, a lot of identity-politics activists — including white men who pee sitting down to prove their wokeness — will not only take it seriously, they will applaud him.

Gilmore’s thesis is this in a nutshell: simply being white and male gives you such an advantage in life that for all of human history, other people, so dazzled by male whiteness that they are rendered oblivious both to white-male mediocrity and their own inherent superiority, willingly hand things over to you, things like their bodies, their possessions and their national sovereignty, and of course all the good careers. Your skin colour and sex are your ticket to ride. That state of affairs is now ending, Gilmore says, and this piece is effectively Gilmore’s thank-you note to history for allowing him to have benefited from this remarkable deal, and as well an expression of gratitude that white males are now headed to the dustbin of history, where they belong.

The first problem with the article is that Gilmore never defines “mediocre.” One dictionary definition is “of only moderate quality; not very good.” Let’s go with that. Let’s assume he means white men are dumber, lazier and of lesser character than all women and all non-white men. And yet, “being a white male has been the bee’s knees for about 2,000 years. We have been giving all the orders, taking all the credit, and pocketing all the money since Caesar told Cleopatra to pipe down. We wrote the history books and we built the empires (well, other people did the actual building, but we oversaw a lot of it from our sedan chairs). We drafted all the laws, and made sure to always stack the cards in our favour. And, for a truly impressive long time, we were able to keep all the fun to ourselves.”

Are Wooden Hand Screw Clamps Worth Anything?

Filed under: Tools, Woodworking — Tags: — Nicholas @ 02:00

Wood By Wright
Published on 1 Aug 2019

The humble wooden Hand Screw Clamp is not just a screw clamp from the past but an extremely useful tool for the shop of today. Not only for holding work while gluing but also for holding small pieces at the power tools and for detail work at the shop bench.

New Hand Screw Clamps I suggest: https://amzn.to/2LSVuUy

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QotD: Canadians and Europeans

Filed under: Britain, Cancon, Europe, Humour, Politics, Quotations, USA — Tags: — Nicholas @ 01:00

In the current issue of The Spectator, Niall Ferguson argues that the Anglo-American “special relationship” is doomed.

“The typical British family,” he writes, “looks much more like the typical German family than the typical American family. We eat Italian food. We watch Spanish soccer. We drive German cars. We work Belgian hours. And we buy second homes in France. Above all, we bow before central government as only true Europeans can.”

He has a point, though cultural similarities are not always determinative: Canadians eat American food, watch American sports, drive American cars, work American hours (more or less), and buy second homes in Florida. But they still bow down before central government as only true Europeans can.

Mark Steyn, Telegraph, originally posted to the old blog (no longer online), 2004-09-30.

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