Extra Credits
Published on 23 Sep 2019After killing 1000 men, Samson runs into more trouble with the Philistines. Samson is a Judge, but he may not be the best judge of romantic partners… When Delilah betrays Samson for silver, all hope seems lost. But Samson has one last favor to ask.
Arthur Chrenkoff on the far beyond pie-in-the-sky demands coming discordantly from the amorphous climate protest groups coalescing around poor Greta Thunberg and her “climate strike”:
Greta Thunberg at the EU Parliament, 16 April, 2019.
European Parliament photo via Wikimedia Commons.
Fighting “climate change” is a very broad umbrella. What does the Global Climate Strike actually stand for? Greta Thunberg’s (I jokingly referred to her as St Joan of Arc of the Children’s Crusade against Carbon, but the marchers in Paris did carry a poster of Thunberg as a saint) initiative does not offer any extensive manifestos or programs on its website, perhaps not unexpectedly for a child-centric project, but it does provide a brief answer to the question “What are you [as a participant asking for?”:
The climate crisis is an emergency – we want everyone to start acting like it. We demand climate justice for everyone. Our hotter planet is already hurting millions of people. If we don’t act now to transition fairly and swiftly away from fossil fuels to 100% renewable energy for all, the injustice of the climate crisis will only get worse. We need to act right now to stop burning fossil fuels and ensure a rapid energy revolution with equity, reparations and climate justice at its heart [emphasis in the original].
It’s not much, but already more than a great majority of those taking part are probably aware of they were striking for.
It doesn’t help that some of the more outrageous claims are clearly not true:
What of the other aspects of the Global Climate Strike’s five-sentence program? What exactly is “climate justice”? And what the hell are the “reparations” in this context?
The Strike site doesn’t provide answers, but “climate justice” in the last sentence hyperlinks to the website for The People’s Demands for Climate Justice, which explains itself as “Collectively shaped by people’s movements around the world, these demands are an international statement rooted in southern movements, and with input from numerous climate justice organizations and people’s movements around the world. The People’s Demands lays out a vision for a truly just international climate policy. We must ensure the demands of people, not the fossil fuel industry and other Big Polluters, is what is centered in the lead up to and during COP24 in Poland this December, 2018.” (a case here for updating your website.) While the Global Climate Strike is neither a “convening” nor an “endorsing” organisation among the 403 groups who are, by linking it clearly subscribes to the People’s Demands’ vision. Some of which includes:
Support global efforts for a just and equitable transition that enables energy democracy, creates new job opportunities, encourages distributed renewable energy, and protects workers and communities most affected by extractive economies …
Adopt a technology framework that recognizes the importance of endogenous and indigenous technologies and innovations in addressing climate change, and enables developing countries and communities to develop, access, and transfer environmentally sound, socially acceptable, gender responsive and equitable climate technologies.
Respect and enable non-corporate, community-led climate solutions that recognize the traditional knowledge, practices, wisdom, and resilience of indigenous peoples and local communities, and protect rights over their lands and territories …
Developed countries must make new concrete pledges of public climate finance accompanied by a definite timeline for delivery.
Commit to climate reparations to those most affected but least responsible for climate change.
In addition to fossil fuels, the People’s Demands are also against any market mechanisms to reduce emissions (like emission trading schemes), carbon offsets, carbon sequestration technologies, geoengineering and other “techno-fixes”, nuclear power, biofuels and use of biomass to generate energy, and large scale hydro projects – i.e. most of the potential solutions accepted by the serious mainstream climate change political-scientific consensus. This pretty much leaves only solar and wind, geothermal in a few lucky places (like Iceland, which is sitting on top of volcanoes) and small scale hydro to power the entire world post 2030. In other words, a complete fantasy world of green Luddites.
LMS4767
Published on 27 Mar 2019
The central problem of almost every society before about 1950 has been how to reconcile the great majority to distributions of property in which they are at a disadvantage. Only a minority has even been able to enjoy secure access to abundant food and good clothing and clean water and healthcare and education. Whether actually enslaved or formally free sellers of labour, the majority have always had to look up to a minority of the rich who are often legally privileged. How to keep them quiet?
Force can only ever be part of the answer. The poor have always been the majority, and sometimes the great majority. Armies of mercenaries to protect the rich have not always been available, and they have never by themselves been sufficient to compel obedience on all occasions in every respect.
Force, therefore, has always been joined by religious terrors. In Egypt, the king was a god, and the privileged system of which he was the head was part of a divine order that the common people were enjoined never to challenge. In the other monarchies of the near east, the king might not actually be a god. But all the priests taught that he was part of a divinely ordained order that it was blasphemy to challenge.
In the Greek city states until about a century before the birth of Epicurus, securing the obedience of the poor had not been a serious problem. There had been some class conflict, even in Athens. But most land was occupied by smallholders, and excess population could be decanted into the colonies of Italy and the western Mediterranean. There were rich citizens, but they were usually placed under heavy obligations to contribute to the defence and ornament of their cities.
Then a combination of commercial progress and the disruptions of the war between Athens and Sparta created a steadily widening gulf between rich and poor. There was also a growing problem of how to maintain large but unknown numbers of slaves in peaceful subjection.
The result was a class war that destabilised every Greek state. The sort of democracy seen in Athens could survive in a society where citizens were broadly equal. Once a small class of rich and a much larger class of the poor had emerged, there was a continual tendency for democratic assemblies to be led by demagogues into policies of levelling that could be ended only by the rise of a tyrant, who would secure the wealth of the majority — but who could secure it only so long as the poor could be terrified into submission. Once they could not be terrified by the threat of overwhelming force, they would rise up and dispossess the rich, until a new tyrant could emerge to subdue them again.
Unlike in the monarchies of the near east, no settled order could be maintained in Greece by religious terrors. During the sixth and fifth centuries, the Greek mind had experienced the first enlightenment of which we have record. There had been a growth of philosophy and science that revealed a world governed by laws that could be uncovered and understood by the unaided reason.
Now, enlightenments are always dangerous to an established religion. And the Greek religion was unusually weak as a counterweight to reason. The Greeks had no conception of a single, omnipotent God the Creator. Instead, they had a pantheon of supernatural beings who had not created the world, but were subject to many of its limitations. These were frequently at war with each other, and so they could be set against each other by their human worshippers with timely sacrifices and other bribes. They did not watch continually over human actions, and beyond the occasional punishment and reward to the living, they had no means of compelling observance of any code of human conduct.
And so, when the intellectual disturbance of philosophy and science spilled over into demands for a reconstruction of society in which property would be equalised, there was no religious establishment with the authority to stand by the side of the rich.
Sean Gabb, “Epicurus: Father of the Englightenment”, speaking to the 6/20 Club in London, 2007-09-06.
After a very disappointing result last week at Green Bay, the Vikings welcomed the Oakland Raiders to US Bank Stadium for a week three matchup. The Vikings came in to the game favoured by the bookies in Las Vegas, but last year at this time, the Vikings were in a similar situation, having played Green Bay the previous week (a tie) and facing a down-at-the-heels AFC franchise as heavy odds favourites at home. The Bills stampeded all over the Vikings in week three last year, flying back to Buffalo with an impressive 27-6 victory to their credit. Oakland was probably hoping history would repeat this year.
A view of the Minnesota Vikings’ new home stadium by “www78”
“Viking Stadium” by www78 is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
On a day for nostalgia, the Vikings won by playing old-fashioned Minnesota football.
With the Vikings holding the 50-year reunion of their first Super Bowl team, they won the 500th game in franchise history Sunday, defeating the Oakland Raiders 34-14 at U.S. Bank Stadium.
It was a victory similar to many from back in the old days. The Vikings utilized a strong running attack and played defense that made the “Purple People Eaters” proud. The legendary linemen gathered around the Gjallarhorn before the game, with Jim Marshall sounding it, and then were introduced at halftime along with teammates and coaches from the 1969 team.
The Vikings rushed for 211 yards, including 110 on 16 carries by Dalvin Cook. He became the first player in team history to run for 100 yards in the each of the first three games of a season.
Minnesota took a 21-0 lead in the second quarter and held the Raiders to just one touchdown until they scored a meaningless TD with 1:23 left in the game.
The Vikings bounced back from last week’s 21-16 loss at Green Bay, a game in which they trailed 21-0 early in the second quarter. They were determined to start fast on Sunday, and they did, scoring on their first possession on a 35-yard pass from Kirk Cousins to Adam Thielen.
Cousins bounced back after a disastrous performance against the Packers in which he completed just 14 of 32 passes while throwing two interceptions and losing a fumble. He was turnover free Sunday, completing 15 of 21 passes for 174 yards.
The Vikings won their 500th game on second try. They are 480-398-11 in the regular season and 20-29 in the playoffs for an overall record of 500-427-11.
If you thought the Oakland Raiders’ offseaon was bad, you should have seen their first two quarters on Sunday.
Before the smoke (not fire!) from the Minnesota Vikings’ dragon had cleared from pregame ceremonies, the Vikings were up by three scores. And the Raiders went out of their way to make each score as easy as possible for the Vikings.
On the opening play from scrimmage, quarterback Kirk Cousins heard a handful of boos from the crowd after tripping on an offensive lineman’s foot. Following a crushing loss to the Green Bay Packers last week, the possibility existed for Cousins to lose confidence out of the gate.
But the Raiders simply would not allow it.
The Vikings were shut down on their first drive on third-and-9 but Oakland committed a holding penalty, providing Cousins with a restart. Cousins quickly took advantage, hitting tight end Irv Smith with a 20-yard pass down the seam. Then Oakland showed that they didn’t bother to watch the Vikings’ loss in Green Bay as they bit hard on a play-action bootleg, leaving Adam Thielen wide open for a 35-yard touchdown.
At US Bank Stadium, seven point leads feel like double digits. The Raiders made it feel like even more than that with their first two drives of the game, in which they totaled 17 yards.
Oakland’s punting game — it’s only strength on Sunday — pinned the Vikings in their own zone on Minnesota’s third drive of the game but the Raiders promptly showed everyone that they are the Raiders with two 15-yard penalties, one late hit on Cousins by Arden Key and a facemask by cornerback Gareon Conley. Both infractions came on third down.
Over at the Daily Norseman, it seems that Ted Glover let his purple pen run wild for a paragraph before getting down to the traditional post-game Stock Market Report:
Today, like they did against Atlanta … and like they didn’t against Green Bay … Minnesota started fast, jumped out to a big lead, and then used a pummeling ground game to bludgeon and gash the Oakland Raiders like Jack The Ripper used to bludgeon and gash his East End London victims. Today, The Vikings had their blood up, US Bank Stadium transformed into Whitechapel for a few hours, and the Raiders were a smelly pirate hooker that stood no chance. For a skittish fan base that was ready to bolt and stampede, this was just what we needed…
And then the Buy/Sell recommendations:
Buy: Playing aggressively to open the game. In two games, the Vikings offense has started fast. Today, they went right down the field, scored, and once again, before you could really get settled Minnesota was up 21-0.
Sell: Playing aggressively to end the first half. During the off-season, head coach Mike Zimmer has talked about how important it is to try and score points before the half, and he’s right. Well, one of the things about the Zimmer era that has bugged the ever loving hell out of me is how rarely the Vikings, you know, actually score before the half. Today, they got the ball on their eight, with one timeout and 1:06 left on the clock. The odds of a touchdown were long there, but getting into field goal range seemed very doable. Especially after the first play, which was a Dalvin Cook draw that banged for 16 yards. Yet, with a 14 point lead, Minnesota just decided to eat the clock and call it a half. Offense was clicking, so I don’t understand why they wouldn’t at least try to get into field goal range.
Buy: You could probably call a penalty on almost every play in a typical NFL game. Look, being a referee is hard, I get it. On almost any play, if you wanted, you could call holding, or some other infraction. The game moves at a fast pace, and there is probably a technical violation of the rules committed by both sides on every play. Judgement is a big part of the job, and knowing the rules of the NFL is tough.
Sell: Calling a penalty on almost every play in this NFL game. But my God, quit throwing a flag on what seems like every play. It’s gotten so bad that no matter what, at the end of literally every play in an NFL game, no matter who is playing, I wait to see if there’s a penalty. The only thing that can kill the NFL is the NFL itself, and sometimes it really feels they’re intentionally trying to make their game unwatchable. Seriously, the only person that tunes in to watch the referee is either his wife or his Mom. No one else does, yet these guys get so much camera time they’re going to need to join the Screen Actor’s Guild and start paying union dues. Let the players play the damn game.
Buy: Eric Wilson, pass rusher guy. When the Vikings sent Wilson after Carr or had him spy him today, it was generally successful. He was credited with two sacks, and did a really good job.
Sell: Eric Wilson, pass cover guy. But as good as he generally was in run support and the pass rush, he struggled mightily in pass coverage. He was fooled badly on Oakland’s first touchdown, and on the next drive his guy was wide open, and the only reason the play failed was because of a poor throw by Carr. If Oakland completes that pass, they’re in business in Vikings territory, and it might have changed the momentum of the game.
Real Engineering
Published on 21 Sep 2019Watch over 2,400 documentaries for free for 30 days by signing up at http://www.CuriosityStream.com/realen… and using the code, “
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https://discord.gg/s8BhkmNThank you to AP Archive for access to their archival footage
The big “let’s all play hooky from school” event’s Toronto organizers have been getting positive coverage from some of the local media, because of course they have. Here’s Tanya Mok for BlogTO, listing the totally reasonable and not in any way unrealistic “demands” of the movement:
FridaysForFuture Demonstration, 25 January 2018 in Berlin.
Photo by C. Suthorn via Wikimedia Commons.
The coalition has made a list of seven demands, which “reflect the rallying cries of the intersectional movements” they belong to. Some of those demands include:
- Indigenous rights and sovereignty.
- The protection of forests, land, and water sources.
- A shift to publicly-owned renewable energy, and reducing national carbon emission by 65% by 203, reaching zero emissions by 2040.
- A $15 minimum wage for all, and higher taxation on the rich.
- Universal public services like health care and dental care, free university and college, housing as a human right, and free public transit.
- Justice for migrants and refugees, allowing status for all. That includes putting an end to deportations and allowing for the full access to public services.
There will be a concert at Queen’s Park after the rally, as well as a follow-up benefit concert at the Tranzac Club in the evening. A giant street mural project run by Greenpeace will also be taking place prior to the rally, around 10 a.m., at the southern point of Queen’s Park.
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 27 Jul 2019http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
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The Cody Firearms Museum has spent many months undergoing a complete renovation and rebuilding, and is now back fully open to the public. The new layout has not just improved visibility and put the guns in better display context, but it has actually increased the number of guns on display. When I last filmed at Cody, most of the really interesting unusual stuff was back in the vaults — but during filming this past week we had to take a remarkable number of guns out of displays to film. This is a great improvement — the Cody museum was always good, but this new design has made it the best firearms museum in the United States, in my opinion.
Visiting? The CFM is part of the 5-museum complex that is the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in beautiful Cody, Wyoming:
Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
PO Box 87647
Tucson, AZ 85754
… it got out of hand. The fella … the one that was in the White House after me never paid any attention to it, and it got out of hand. Why, they’ve got an organization over there in Virginia now that is practically the equal of the Pentagon in many ways. And I think I’ve told you, one Pentagon is one too many.
Now, as nearly as I can make out, those fellows in the CIA don’t just report on wars and the like, they go out and make their own, and there’s nobody to keep track of what they’re up to. They spend billions of dollars on stirring up trouble so they’ll have something to report on. They’ve become … it’s become a government all of its own and all secret. They don’t have to account to anybody.
That’s a very dangerous thing in a democratic society, and it’s got to be put a stop to. The people have got a right to know what those birds are up to. And if I was back in the White House, people would know. You see, the way a free government works, there’s got to be a housecleaning every now and again, and I don’t care what branch of the government is involved. Somebody has to keep an eye on things.
And when you can’t do any housecleaning because everything that goes on is a damn secret, why, then we’re on our way to something the Founding Fathers didn’t have in mind. Secrecy and a free, democratic government don’t mix. And if what happened at the Bay of Pigs doesn’t prove that, I don’t know what does. You have got to keep an eye on the military at all times, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s the birds in the Pentagon or the birds in the CIA.
Harry S. Truman, quoted by Jeff Deist, “Truman Was Right About the CIA”, Mises Wire, 2017-03-08.
Extra Credits
Published on 21 Sep 2019Join us on Patreon! http://bit.ly/EHPatreon
Atahualpa vs. Francisco Pizarro. The Incas had never seen horses before, and it wasn’t long before the Spanish had captured Atahualpa as a hostage for gold and silver. But Atahualpa had a plan. He found a way to use this situation to his own political advantage — and Pizarro eventually destroyed himself through his greed and violent carelessness that appalled the Spanish government, eventually allowing the Incas to thrive again.
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World War Two
Published on 21 Sep 2019The Battle of Britain continues as planes fight over the South-English shorelines and large parts of London are targeted during the Blitz. However, this week the ultimate goal of this air battle is postponed. The invasion of Britain, Operation Sea Lion, is called off. For now at least.
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Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sourcesWritten and Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Produced and Directed by: Spartacus Olsson and Astrid Deinhard
Executive Producers: Bodo Rittenauer, Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Indy Neidell
Edited by: Iryna Dulka
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– Mussolini colorized by Olga Shirnina, aka Klimbim
– German barge by WerWil on Wikimedia Commons
– IWM: CM3513, MH 6657, ZZZ 2070B, MISC 51237A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
Chris Selley on Prime Minister Blackface’s latest attempt to switch the voters’ attention away from his racist activities onto a more traditional target for Liberal vituperation … the NRA and scary black fully semi-automatic assault machinegun murder machines of death:
On Friday, amidst a force-nine crapstorm that (for now) makes SNC-Lavalin look like a spring shower, Justin Trudeau stood behind a podium in Toronto and announced his government would “ban all military-style assault rifles, including the AR-15.”
“You don’t need a military-grade assault weapon — one designed to take down the most amount of people in the shortest time — to take down a deer,” Trudeau intoned.
It was an utterly shameless, utterly formulaic attempt to change the narrative. Trudeau’s government spent much of its first term studying the need for new gun control measures and the result, Bill C-71, received royal assent exactly three short months ago. There was no ban on assault rifles or the AR-15. In fact, the government emphasized the importance of letting the RCMP’s gun boffins classify individual firearms. “It should not be politicized,” Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale told CBC last year.
Now, well, there’s an election on and the boss isn’t sure how many more photos might be out there of him in blackface. So to hell with all that. A lot of people in Toronto and other big cities will eat it up, after all.
This sort of approach long predated Trudeau, of course, and he has used it many times before. In so many ways, over the past four years, he has shown himself to be a conventional Liberal politician. But recent days have taken us miles past conventional.
If blacking up wasn’t spectacularly uncommon in the days of Trudeau’s youth, it must surely nevertheless be the case that the vast majority of Gen-Xers haven’t ever done it — if not because they thought it was racist or knew it could get them in trouble, then because who on earth has that much time to kill? Those costumes clearly took a ton of effort, and he made a habit of it!
Small Dead Animals has a video of Stefan Molyneux discussing PM Dressup’s latest set of embarrassing incidents.
Metatron
Published on 11 Feb 2017If the famous Gladius/rectangular Scutum combo had proven to be so effective for so many centuries why did the Late Empire Romans choose to abandon it in favour of a spatha/round shield combination? Here is what I think.
Gladius was one Latin word for sword, and is used to represent the primary sword of Ancient Roman foot soldiers.
A fully equipped Roman legionary after the reforms of Gaius Marius was armed with a shield (scutum), one or two javelins (pila), a sword (gladius), often a dagger (pugio), and, perhaps in the later Empire period, darts (plumbatae). Conventionally, soldiers threw javelins to disable the enemy’s shields and disrupt enemy formations before engaging in close combat, for which they drew the gladius. A soldier generally led with the shield and thrust with the sword. All gladius types appear to have been suitable for cutting and chopping as well as thrusting.
Gladius is a Latin masculine second declension noun. Its (nominative and vocative) plural is gladiī. However, gladius in Latin refers to any sword, not specifically the modern definition of a gladius. The word appears in literature as early as the plays of Plautus (Casina, Rudens).
Modern English words derived from gladius include gladiator (“swordsman”) and gladiolus (“little sword”, from the diminutive form of gladius), a flowering plant with sword-shaped leaves.
Gladii were two-edged for cutting and had a tapered point for stabbing during thrusting. A solid grip was provided by a knobbed hilt added on, possibly with ridges for the fingers. Blade strength was achieved by welding together strips, in which case the sword had a channel down the center, or by fashioning a single piece of high-carbon steel, rhomboidal in cross-section. The owner’s name was often engraved or punched on the blade.
She had the habit of reading, formed early, and could often be found lost in a book. To her mind literature was meant for an escape: from nursing, housework, and raising difficult children. So if the book was arduous, it was also useless. “You can’t be serious all the time,” she would say, “you have to take a break from it sometimes.” To which I would reply, “But surely you can be serious some of the time.” For I wasn’t only a viper. I was also a little jackass.
David Warren, “Summer reading”, Essays in Idleness, 2017-08-08.
The Tank Museum
Published on 20 Sep 2019Here we have a Tank Chat special from the commemorative XXX Corps convoy for Operation Market Garden 75. See David Willey discuss the a Sexton from the Historic Collection of the Royal Netherlands Army, on location in the Netherlands.
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