Quotulatiousness

February 20, 2020

Why the Nazis Weren’t Socialists – ‘The Good Hitler Years’ | BETWEEN 2 WARS I 1937 Part 2 of 2

Filed under: Economics, Germany, History — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

TimeGhost History
Published 19 Feb 2020

The Nazi economy appears to do well during the 1930s. But this is largely myth, as the German economy under Hitler is based on a self destructive, ideologically or selfishly fuelled irrationality driven by conquest and criminal practice.

Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory

Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Spartacus Olsson
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: Spartacus Olsson
Edited by: Daniel Weiss
Sound design: Marek Kaminski

Sources:
Bundesarchiv_Bild:
192-269, 183-T0706-503, 183-S68029, 183-S68014,
183-S38324, 183-S33516, 183-S07227, 183-R98364,
183-H29131, 183-H25824, 183-H01704, 183-H13192,
183-H06734, 183-H00455, 183-C12671, 183-86686-0008,
183-2008-0826-506, 183-2008-0826-502, 183-2006-1128-504,
183-2004-0729-507, 183-1989-0630-504, 183-1988-0113-500,
146-2005-0191, 146-1990-048-29A, 146-1990-023-06A,
146-1984-040-26, 146-1981-124-32A, 146-1972-025-10,
102-13533, 102-12733, 102-11649, 102-06795, 102-04640,
145_Bild-P046280, 145_Bild-020683,

Colorizations by:
Daniel Weiss

Soundtracks from Epidemic Sound:
– “Document This 1” – Peter Sandberg
– “March Of The Brave 10” – Rannar Sillard – Test
– “Ominous” – Philip Ayers
– “The Inspector 4” – Johannes Bornlöf
– “Disciples of Sun Tzu” – Christian Andersen
– “Guilty Shadows 4” – Andreas Jamsheree
– “Last Point of Safe Return” – Fabien Tell
– “Death And Glory 1” – Johannes Bornlöf
– “Easy Target” – Rannar Sillard
– “Split Decision” – Rannar Sillard
– “First Responders” – Skrya
– “The Charleston 3” – Håkan Eriksson

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

From the comments:

Spartacus Olsson
1 day ago
From an intellectual viewpoint, this is perhaps the most challenging episode I have written in this series. First of all it’s hard to make economic policy interesting, even when it’s about the Nazis. It tends to get, well … grey. Second of all it’s not that easy to simplify things without completely losing the essence of what was going on. Third of all, I’m fighting an uphill battle against a post truth, political talking point based on … let’s just call it less than ingenious purposes.

Obviously that’s the idea that the Nazis were Socialists. And perhaps that is not so far fetched when you think of the name of their party, the way they framed their anti-semitic rhetoric in a way that it would sound friendly to the working class, and their absolute disregard for telling the truth about anything, and everything. But although we have painstakingly showed you the facts, I am painfully aware that it won’t make a difference to stop the nonsense out there and in here — some pundits will religiously stick to their ideas, because if they don’t, they might have to face that some of the ideas they have are mutual with the people they so desperately want to distance themselves from. The same happened with the far left between the 1930s and 1970s, when they tried with cramped desperation to frame Stalinism as a right wing, Fascist movement — Red Fascism was the term — obviously as much nonsense as the alt-right idea that Naziism is Socialism.

And is it important? Well yes and no — the dumbos will probably get worn out at some point, it’s after all quite challenging to look for ways to distort the record over, and over again. I don’t really care if the extremists try to push their mutual garbage in each other’s lap — as a supporter of democracy and humanism, I have no regard for either end. I do however have an incredible amount of respect for conservatives, liberals, and progressives who are equally dedicated to democracy and human rights — and there is where it matters.

When the far left tries to frame Stalinism as right wing, and the far-right tries to frame Naziism is left-wing, they are trying to co-opt a position of less extremism. It’s an invasive attempt for Communists and (real) Socialists to just look like regular Progressives, and Fascists and Nazis to just look like regular Conservatives. And that my friends is dangerous, to all of us, regardless of our nationality, creed, political affiliation, or opinion — because it is specifically our individual rights and democracy that is at stake in this game. That’s what they want to take away, or in some places stop from developing.

So that’s why John Cabot got hired!

Filed under: Britain, History, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Anton Howes explains something that I’d wondered about in the latest edition of his Age of Invention newsletter:

Route of John Cabot’s 1497 voyage on the Matthew of Bristol posited by Jones and Condon: Evan T. Jones and Margaret M. Condon, Cabot and Bristol’s Age of Discovery: The Bristol Discovery Voyages 1480-1508 (University of Bristol, Nov. 2016), fig. 8, p. 43.
Wikimedia Commons.

… in 1550 the English were still struggling with latitude. Their inability to find it, unlike their Spanish and Portuguese rivals, was one of the main things holding them back from voyages of exploration.

The replica of John Cabot’s ship Matthew in Bristol harbour, adjacent to the SS Great Britain.
Photo by Chris McKenna via Wikimedia Commons.

The traditional method of navigation for English pilots was to simply learn the age-old routes. They were trained through repetition and accrued experience, learning to recognise particular landmarks and using a lead and line – just a thin rope weighted with some lead – to determine their location from the depth of the water. Cover the lead with something sticky, and you might bring up some sediment from the sea floor to double-check: a pilot would learn the kinds of sand and pebbles from to expect from different areas. And when they travelled out to sea, away from the coastline, they used a basic system of dead reckoning, taking their compass bearings from a known location, estimating their speed, and keeping in a particular direction for long enough. Or at least hoping to. They might keep track of their progress on a wooden traverse table, inserting pegs to indicate how far they had sailed, but it was ultimately a matter of rough estimation. Should they make any mistake — in terms of their speed, heading, or point of departure — they might easily get lost. But it was still a matter of trying to follow an already-known route. And English mariners of the 1550s did not even know that many routes.

For a voyage of exploration, by contrast, landmarks and sediment from the sea floor would be seen for the first time rather than recalled. By definition, there was no route to follow. So to launch their own voyages of discovery, the English needed to learn a new skill. They needed to look to the heavens.

Celestial navigation — measuring the altitude of heavenly bodies and then using geometry to determine one’s latitude on the earth’s surface — was by the 1550s already hundreds of years old. It had primarily been used to cross the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East — seas of sand, in which there might also be no landmarks from which to take bearings — and to navigate the Indian Ocean. Thus, while pilots in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean stuck to dead reckoning and soundings, Islamic navigators had for centuries used quadrants and astrolabes to take their bearings at sea. By the mid-fifteenth century, these instruments and techniques had found their way to Europe, where they were put to use especially by Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian explorers, along with additional instruments such as the cross-staff.

[…]

So for decades, English explorations relied on foreigners who either knew the routes that the English pilots didn’t, or who at least possessed the skill of mathematical, celestial navigation. The Italian explorer John Cabot (Zuan Chabotto), when he sailed to Newfoundland from Bristol in the late 1490s, was able to take latitude readings (he may even have been familiar with the older Islamic navigational practices, as he claimed to have visited Mecca). When Cabot died, the English expeditions that set out from Bristol in 1501-3 relied on Portuguese pilots from the mid-Atlantic islands of the Azores. And John Cabot’s son, Sebastian Cabot, who was involved in a few English expeditions, was so expert in mathematical navigation that he was eventually appointed pilot major for the entire Spanish Empire, making him responsible for the training and licensing of all its pilots — a position he held for three decades. When he led a voyage of exploration on behalf of Spain in 1526-30, a few English merchants became investors so that they could justify sending with him an English mariner, Roger Barlow, to secretly learn the Spanish routes across the Atlantic and have immediate knowledge if an onward route to Asia was discovered (as it turned out, South America got in the way).

Make a big leg vise from pine

Filed under: Tools, Woodworking — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Rex Krueger
Published 19 Feb 2020

Make a strong and sturdy bench vise with an inexpensive screw and wood from the big-box store.

More video and exclusive content: http://www.patreon.com/rexkrueger
Get the Big Leg Vise Plans: https://www.rexkrueger.com/store/xngn...

Tools in this Video (affiliate):
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Irwin 1 1/4″ Spade Bit: https://amzn.to/2SQ8ueA

Nicholson Super Shear: https://www.rsci.com/super-shear
(This is a new production item I have not been able to test. I own only older models.)

My Other Vise Build: https://youtu.be/XeDSqFDahlo
Jay Bates’ fantastic leg vise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sjecd…

Wood Work for Humans Tool List (affiliate):
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Metal File: https://amzn.to/2CM985y (I don’t own this one, but it looks good and gets good reviews. DOESN’T NEED A HANDLE)
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A Neil Peart tribute from an unexpected source

Filed under: Media, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Neil Peart, lyricist and percussionist for legendary Canadian band Rush, is remembered by Pershing’s Own, the United States Army Band:

When legendary Rush drummer Neil Peart died last January, I wanted to write about the significance of his life, but couldn’t. His death was a blow that surpassed the passing of any other stranger.

Of course, Peart was no stranger to millions of fans. We were his long-awaited friends. We grew up on Peart’s lyrics, and we grew old with them.

I also didn’t write because others were already saying everything that could be said. You cannot overstate the role that Peart played shaping a generation of liberty-inclined thought. Others covered his influence on music and drumming. You don’t need me for that.

Let’s fix the record on one point. Rush was not rock by nerds for nerds, as Bret Stephens mistakenly wrote. Not in my hometown. Rush fans were the cool tough kids, young boys bearing arms on Pennsylvania’s state holiday – the opening of deer season. Rush fans had a proud swagger wearing their raglan Rush shirts in the schoolyard the morning after the concert. A real Rush fan in my hometown was more likely to pop the “treasurer of the math club,” than be the treasurer, as Stephens described the typical fan.

But now comes a tribute to Neil Peart that captures what no other tribute quite captured. Pershing’s Own, the United States Army Band, has this touching arrangement of, fittingly, “Time Stand Still” from 1987’s Hold Your Fire. If you thought Rush was all loud progressive rock with glass-cracking vocals, you haven’t heard “Time Stand Still”, originally backed by Aimee Mann.

The U.S. Army Arrangement by Sgt. First Class Tim Whalen distills out the most beautiful elements of the 1987 track. The arrangement is sparse, and all percussion is notably absent. It is a song about time, and lives, and experiences passing.

    Summers going fast, nights growing colder, children growing up, old friends growing older

When the song was released in 1987, I was all of nineteen. Hearing it then on crisp September nights, I knew I wasn’t entitled to those lyrics. But one day, if I was blessed, I would be.

H/T to Blazing Cat Fur for the link.

An American .30-06 MG-42, and GPMGs after WWII

Filed under: Germany, History, Military, USA, Weapons, WW2 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 31 Oct 2019

http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons

Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.bbtv.com/collections/forg…

The perk for $100 Patrons is choosing a gun they would like me to find and film, and one such Patron (Mark) expressed a curiosity about US testing and lack of adoption of an MG-42 in .30-06 caliber. So, today we will discuss that (the trials gun was designated the T24) as well as why it took so long for the FN MAG to be developed and adopted.

For the full T24 trials report and photos, go here:
https://www.forgottenweapons.com/ligh…

Resources for this video included:

MG34-MG42: German Universal Machine Guns (https://amzn.to/2VtY314)
German Universal Machine Guns, Vol II: MG08-MG3 (https://amzn.to/2M2f67t)
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The Browning Machine Gun, Vol I (https://amzn.to/2M4KgeA)
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The Machine Gun, Vol I (https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/…)

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QotD: Preventing bureaucratic mission creep

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Business, Government, Humour, Quotations — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

The mission creep that is the effect of those not slumbering in meetings and thus adding another bright idea to the tasks the organization attempts is not restricted to the public sector.

Private companies are just as vulnerable. However in that private sector we have a mechanism by which the seemingly inevitable bureaucratization is dealt with. Once it happens, the organization goes bankrupt and is removed from the scene. What we need is a similar system to deal with this process in the public sphere.

I don’t, given the above, find it at all remarkable that the WTO is regarded as succumbing to these forces, nor the UN, Amnesty, the European Union or even our own domestic governments (just how did the interstate commerce clause become a justification for Congress to restrict something that is not interstate and is not commerce?). I think it inevitable.

Various solutions appear to be available, the French one might be an example. Put up with it for 50 years then have a revolution and start again. Perhaps the answer is never to allow the public bodies to have much power in the first place, a solution that hasn’t really been tried anywhere. The Italian one? Let the system carry on adding ever more layers but ignore it? Stalin’s? Every 15 years or so shoot the bureaucrats?

All such methods have their attractions and their faults but a solution we do need to find. For one of the lessons I take from the history of the 20th century is that we don’t actually want to be ruled by those who stay awake in committee meetings.

Tim Worstall, “‘Any Organization Will, In the End, Be Run By Those Who Stay Awake in Committee'”, Ideas in Action, 2005-06-23.

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