Quotulatiousness

April 17, 2021

Can you build a Starter Set Model Kit using ONLY the included paints and glue?

Filed under: Military, Randomness, WW2 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Model Minutes
Published 10 Dec 2020

Quite often I get asked if you can build a Starter Set Model Kit using ONLY the included paints and glue? Well, why not? What would it actually look like? I feel like there might be a bit of a CHALLENGE coming on …

Join me in this video as I build (and review) the Airfix Messerschmitt Bf109E-3 plastic model kit in 1/72 scale which comes as part of a starter set — with glue, paint and brush included. I will be building this kit with only these products to see how it turns out.

Unboxing review of this kit:
https://youtu.be/NWHsWtxot_c

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This video is intended for adult scale model enthusiasts.

Model Minutes holds no responsibility for any accidents, damage or injury that could occur as a result of attempting to replicate any steps depicted in this video.

All music used from the YouTube Audio Library.

#Airfix #Model #Modelkit #starterset #scale #bf109

From the comments:

Model Minutes
4 days ago
Before you leave a comment about thinning the paint or using extra tools/products, read this:

I don’t think a lot of people watching this one quite “got” what I was going for here. My aim (if it wasn’t clear) was to see how good I could make this model kit using only the included products and a knife. I gave myself really strict rules to follow in an attempt to get a “best case” model out of a “worst case” situation.

Many people seem to think that beginners would instantly know that they are supposed to thin their paints, sand the plastic, fill the gaps, use extra brushes … and if, as a beginner you knew that, then you were so fortunate!

But this video is for those of us (me included) who knew nothing about model building, had no one to help us and nothing to look to for reference. When I started, YouTube didn’t exist (the internet wasn’t really a thing for me growing up either) and if I wanted to read up about modelling it meant buying magazines and looking for the information.

My build in this video is a throwback to my early days, where I built what I wanted, how I wanted, and usually with only what I had, could borrow, recycle or afford with my small amount of pocket money.

Ultimately though, I think the point of this build and video has been missed by some.

It’s meant to be fun, a light and entertaining look at our hobby. After all, isn’t this hobby supposed to be fun anyway?

I’d also like to think that some beginners out there see this one and realise that you don’t have to build a model kit with all these extra things that so many youtubers use these days. Although it’s good to have aspirations I think it’s unrealistic and can put newcomers off. If my video encourages just one new person to start building, then that’s a success right? We should be encouraging new members to the hobby because it’s in our interest too! If you agree, send someone this video and encourage them to start!

TLDR: I made this video for entertainment. It’s not a tutorial. I added extra restrictions because otherwise it wouldn’t be a “challenge” — it would be a normal build video.

QotD: Erasing the Maldives from the atlas

Filed under: Asia, Books, Britain, Environment, Humour, Quotations — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

Maldivian media outlets this morning published as fact a satirical Telegraph news blog citing “unconfirmed rumours” that the 14th edition of the Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World will omit the Maldives, Tuvalu, “and major parts of Bangladesh” as a statement on global warming.

The blog post, written by climate change skeptic James Delingpole who describes himself as “a writer, journalist and broadcaster who is right about everything”, features comments by a “Times Atlas spokesman” David Rose.

In a UK press scandal this year, “David Rose” was found to be a psuedonym used by left-wing Independent journalist and climate change writer Johaan Hari to edit his own Wikipedia entry, advocate his own position and attack his critics.

Rose, who in Delingpole’s article holds “a doctorate in Cambridge in Climate Change and Sinking Islands Studies so I know what I’m talking about, and if you don’t believe me, ask my friend Johaan Hari who taught me everything I know”, acknowledges that it “may not be strictly geographically accurate to say the Maldives and Tuvalu will definitely have disappeared in about ten years time when our next edition appears.”

“But did you see that picture of the Maldives cabinet holding a meeting underwater? If the Maldives government says the Maldives are drowning, they must be drowning. And frankly I think it’s despicable, all those deniers who are saying it was just a publicity stunt, cooked up by green activist Mark Lynas, to blackmail the international community into giving the Maldives more aid money while simultaneously trying to lure green Trustafarians to come and spend £1500 a night in houses on stilts with gold-plated organic recyclable eco-toilets made of rare earth minerals from China. Why would a government lie about something as serious as climate change?”

Rose goes on to state that “I’m pleased to say that this is a view of the world shared by my colleagues at Times Comprehensive Atlas Of The World. They understand that maps based on accurately recorded geographical features belong in the Victorian age of child chimney sweeps. What we need now is maps that change the world, transforming into something which it isn’t actually yet but might be one day if we don’t act NOW!”

“Delingpole Satire Dupes Maldives Media”, The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF), 2011-09-21.

April 16, 2021

Following Bienville: The Founding of New Orleans

Filed under: France, History, Humour, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

Atun-Shei Films
Published 15 Apr 2021

The origin story of New Orleans is a tale of rampant corruption, unchecked greed, fiendish vice, and gross incompetence – not much has changed!

Join me on an epic journey of discovery as I trace the route of the first French explorers to this area by paddling down Bayou St. John and walking overland to the French Quarter, exploring the geography and history of the city along the way.

Support Atun-Shei Films on Patreon ► https://www.patreon.com/atunsheifilms​

Leave a Tip via Paypal ► https://www.paypal.me/atunsheifilms​

Buy Merch ► teespring.com/stores/atun-shei-films​

#NewOrleans​ #Louisiana​ #History​

Maps by Carl Churchill ► https://twitter.com/Cchurchili​
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~REFERENCES~

[1] B.F. French. Historical Collections of Louisiana and Florida, Including Translations of Original Manuscripts Relating to Their Discovery and Settlement (1875). Albert Mason, Page 24-25

[2] Lawrence N. Powell. The Accidental City: Improvising New Orleans (2012). Harvard University Press, Page 11-15

[3] Philomena Hauck. Bienville: Father of Louisiana (1998). Center for Louisiana Studies, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Page 12-13

[4] Richard Campanella. “Link to the Past: From French Colonists to the Beginnings of Jazz, Spanish Fort Traces its History Across Three Centuries” (2019). Times Picayune/New Orleans Advocate https://richcampanella.com/wp-content…​

[5] Hauck, Page 23-25

[6] Hauck, Page 6

[7] Hauck, Page 44-57

[8] Powell, Page 25-32

[9] Richard Campanella. Bienville’s Dilemma: A Historical Geography of New Orleans (2008). Center for Louisiana Studies, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Page 109-110

[10] Campanella, Page 77-78

[11] Andrea P. White. “Archaeology of the New Orleans Area.” 64Parishes https://64parishes.org/entry/archaeol…​

[12] Campanella, Page 111

[13] Powell, Page 43-51

[14] Powell, Page 68-73

[15] Karen Ordahl Kupperman. A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados by Richard Ligon (2011). Hackett Publishing Company, Page 19

[16] Hauck, Page 89

[17] Powell, Page 56-58

“Students will find in Shakespeare absolutely no moral compass”

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

Sky Gilbert responds more than adequately to a demand to “Cancel Shakespeare” that also appeared in The Line recently:

This was long thought to be the only portrait of William Shakespeare that had any claim to have been painted from life, until another possible life portrait, the Cobbe portrait, was revealed in 2009. The portrait is known as the “Chandos portrait” after a previous owner, James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos. It was the first portrait to be acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in 1856. The artist may be by a painter called John Taylor who was an important member of the Painter-Stainers’ Company.
National Portrait Gallery image via Wikimedia Commons.

Allan thinks that Shakespeare’s language is difficult and old fashioned, and that students today find analyzing the complexities of his old-fashioned rhetoric boring and irrelevant. Yes, Shakespeare essentially writes in another language (early modern English). And reading or even viewing his work can be a tough slog. Not only did he invent at least 1,700 words (some of which are now forgotten today), he favoured a befuddling periodic syntax in which the subject does not appear until the end of a sentence.

But a study of Shakespeare’s rhetoric is important in 2021. There is one — and only one — exceedingly relevant idea that can be lifted from Shakespeare’s congested imagery, his complex, sometimes confusing metaphors — one jewel that can be dragged out of his ubiquitous references to OVID and Greek myth (references which were obviously effortless for him, but for most of us, only confound). And this idea is very relevant today. Especially in the era of “alternate facts” and “fake news.”

This idea is the only one Shakespeare undoubtedly believed. I say this because he returns to it over and over. Trevor McNeely articulated this notion clearly and succinctly when he said that Shakespeare was constantly warning us the human mind “can build a perfectly satisfactory reality on thin air, and never think to question it.” Shakespeare is always speaking — in one way or another — about his suspicion that the bewitching power of rhetoric — indeed the very beauty of poetry itself — is both enchanting and dangerous.

Shakespeare lived at the nexus of a culture war. The Western world was gradually rejecting the ancient rhetorical notion that “truth is anything I can persuade you to believe in poetry” for “truth is whatever can be proved best by logic and science.” Shakespeare was fully capable of persuading us of anything (he often does). But his habit is to subsequently go back and undo what he has just said. He does this so that we might learn to fundamentally question the manipulations of philosophy and rhetoric — to question what were his very own manipulations. Shakespeare loved the beautiful hypnotizing language of poetry, but was also painfully aware that it could be dangerous as hell.

In fact, Shakespeare’s work is very dangerous for all of us. That’s why students should — and must — read it. Undergraduates today hotly debate whether The Merchant of Venice is anti-Semitic, or whether Prospero’s Caliban is a victim of colonial oppression. Education Week reported that “in 2016, students at Yale University petitioned the school to ‘decolonize’ its reading lists, including by removing its Shakespeare requirement.”

It’s true that Shakespeare is perhaps one of the oldest and whitest writers we know. (And sometimes he’s pretty sexist too — Taming of the Shrew, anyone?). But after digging systematically into Shakespeare’s work even the dullest student will discover that for every Kate bowing in obedience to her husband, there is a fierce Lucrece — not only standing up to a man, but permanently and eloquently dressing him down. (And too, the “colonialist” Prospero will prove to be just as flawed as the “indigenous” Caliban.) William Hazlitt said: Shakespeare’s mind “has no particular bias about anything” and Harold Bloom said: “his politics, like his religion, evades me, but I think he was too wary to have any.”

The Bataan Death March Begins – WAH 032 – April 1942, Pt. 1

Filed under: Britain, Europe, Germany, History, Japan, Military, Pacific, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 15 Apr 2021

Malta and British cities are victim to German bombs, while the Japanese advance in Burma causes a refugee crisis. In the Philippines, 80,000 Allied POWs walk the Bataan Death March.

Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Or join The TimeGhost Army directly at: https://timeghost.tv

Follow WW2 day by day on Instagram @ww2_day_by_day – https://www.instagram.com/ww2_day_by_day
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sources

Hosted by: Spartacus Olsson
Written by: Spartacus Olsson and Joram Appel
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Joram Appel
Edited by: Miki Cackowski
Sound design: Marek Kamiński
Map animations: Miki Cackowski and Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory​)

Colorizations by:
Mikołaj Uchman
Election1960 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi…​

Sources:
IWM C 4743, CL 2377
Bundesarchiv
From the Noun Project: Watchtower by Eliricon

Soundtracks from the Epidemic Sound:
Johan Hynynen – “Dark Beginning”
Fabien Tell – “Weapon of Choice”
Wendel Scherer – “Defeated”
Philip Ayers – “Trapped in a Maze”
Cobby Costa – “From the Past”
Cobby Costa – “Flight Path”
Wendel Scherer – “Growing Doubt”
Jon Bjork – “For the Many”

Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com​.

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

From the comments:

World War Two
3 days ago (edited)
Under our previous episode I told you about how YouTube has been age restricting these videos, effectively censoring them and turning the format into an echo chamber that doesn’t reach beyond the viewers who already know about it. As I explained we feel that it’s a great disservice to education and remembrance, and it has affected me deeply personally making me question why we do this. Two things happened:

1. You collectively gave us the most amazing reception and reminded us of how important the work we do is. I can’t thank you enough for the amazing comments, many of them where kind, supportive, and motivating far beyond what I feel we deserve. You lifted my spirits and brought me out of the slump I was in, cementing, and confirming that what we do matters. In the name of the entire team: thank you so much, it is an immense honor to have you all with us.

2. YouTube did not age restrict the video, and even cleared it for monetization, leading to that it once again reached a viewership like before the string of age restrictions we were struck with. We haven’t heard any explanation from YouTube and we won’t. Furthermore, I am painfully aware that these decisions depend completely on the whims of the individuals at Google who review the videos. We also know that these individuals are different for every video, so I fear that that this state of affairs will not remain. Already, this video was judged as “not suitable for all advertisers” and will therefore be recommended to viewers less often in YouTube’s system. Hence, although it pains us, and is against the principles we stand for, we have also prepared a version of this video with all images documenting the atrocities we expose blurred out – we can only hope that we don’t need it.

I’d like to end with an anecdote out of my motivation to create this series. Many, many moons ago, when I was in senior high at boarding school in Sweden, Elie Wiesel – author, chronicler of the Holocaust, and survivor of Auschwitz and Buchenwald came to our school. It was in 1986, the same year that he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work, and if I remember correctly he had connected a lecture tour to his reception of the award.

In any case — I had the privilege of speaking to Mr. Wiesel in a small group. He explained something that has stayed with me ever since. To him, his experiences were not defeating, the entire Holocaust was not a defeat, not only had humanity been victorious in the end, but he and others had survived to tell the tale — which to him was a special kind of victory that came with the responsibility of sharing and educating.

Mr. Wiesel, a kind, warm hearted man, full of humor and life despite the horrors he had lived, passed five years ago. It is for him, for the other survivors of every ethnicity faced by any kind or terror, and for those who didn’t make it through that we do this — to celebrate their life and continue turning their suffering from defeat into victory by remembering even after they are gone.

Yours,
Spartacus

The continued evolution of the Marxist class struggle – “Goodbye the working class, hello to the wokeing class”

Filed under: History, Politics — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Arthur Chrenkoff provides some background on the evolution of Marxist thought as they abandon efforts to rouse the working classes of the west against their capitalist oppressors and switch to attempting to rouse the “wokeing class” against their deplorable racist, homophobic, transphobic, sexist white male cisgendered oppressors:

In developing his philosophy, Karl Marx posited human history as a struggle of two sections of society: the minority who hold the all power and the powerless majority. In Marx’s time, the minority was termed the capitalist class, the bourgeoisie, or simply The Capital, those controlling (owning and benefitting from) the means of production, while the majority was called the working class, or the proletariat, the masses who sell their labour, and whose collective toil makes the capitalists rich. The essential dynamic of a society is one of power: who has it and who doesn’t, and how it’s exercised (or as Lenin said, “who whom?”). It’s a zero sum equation: all or nothing, the one or the other, the powerful and the powerless, the oppressors and the oppressed. There is a moral dimension to this dichotomy: the former, by virtue of their position, are the villains, the latter the virtuous. It’s also absolutist: the individual doesn’t matter and individuality is an irrelevant illusion; you are the class to which you belong.

One of the most important aspects of this group dynamic is that the dominant class uses its position and power to shape the society in accordance with its needs. Thus, all the institutions, laws, traditions and phenomena reflect the interests of the ruling class; they are designed to benefit them and only them and keep their power entrenched. And what benefits one class invariably harms the other: the masses. You can thus say that in a capitalist society everything’s classist.

The twentieth century dashed the hopes of Marx’s disciples that the proletariat would revolt against and overthrow their capitalist oppressors. The working class was bought off with better working conditions and rising incomes: a house, a car, and a football game. While elsewhere communism triumphed through coups and foreign invasions, in the Western world genuine revolutions did not happen; capitalism is still around. While the working class might have disappointed and let down Marxists, the basic Marxist thinking has not changed: the society is divided into two mutually hostile groups, the oppressors and the oppressed. Now we just need to find the different oppressed and we’ll have another crack at destroying capitalism and creating our socialist utopia. Out with the purely economic divisions, in with racial, gender and sexual ones. Goodbye the working class, hello to the wokeing class.

Fast forward to 2021, and the neo-Marxist struggle continues to gather wind in its sail. On the one side the power-holders: white, male, straight; on the other the powerless: women, people of colour, other sexualities. The actors might have been changed but the essential drama remains the same: the struggle of the virtuous but powerless oppressed majority against their dastardly rulers and the system created for their benefit and everyone else’s disadvantage. Just as in the past every aspect of society was biased against and harmful to the proletariat, so now it is against the proletariat 2.0: everything’s racist – and sexist, and homophobic and transphobic. This is also why the activists describe racism as “systemic”; not because there are still Jim Crow laws in existence, and legal segregation and discrimination, but because the system created by the “white” society by its very nature must be oppressive and hostile to anyone non-white. Piecemeal fixing problems and gradual reforms are useless; the only solution is a radical societal transformation that elevates the oppressed and casts down the oppressors.

Shakespeare Summarized: King Lear

Filed under: History, Humour, Media — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 22 Jul 2014

Sorry it’s been a while. Summer vacation plays merry hell with both my work ethic and my voice. *discreetly hacks up a lung*

King Lear! He’s not a very good king, and he’s not a very good father! Good thing that, by the end, he’s neither of those things.

QotD: “Declaring passionate belief in freedom of speech”

Filed under: Books, Britain, Media, Quotations — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

One of the phrases in the mouth of managers or bureaucrats that indicates almost unfailingly that they are about to commit an act of betrayal is, “We believe passionately in.”

The only thing that most managers or bureaucrats believe in passionately is their career, in the broad sense of that term: for they are quite willing to abandon or sacrifice a career completely in the narrow sense if it is in the interest of their career in a broader sense.

I learned this in the hospitals in which I worked. As soon as a hospital manager said “I believe passionately in the work that Department X has been doing,” I knew that Department X was about to be closed down by that very same manager.

Thus, when I read that a publisher claimed that “We believe passionately in freedom of speech,” I knew at once that the publisher was about to withdraw a book from publication that it had previously advertised for publication.

Theodore Dalrymple, “‘Passionate’ Belief in Freedom of Speech and Multiplying Orthodoxies”, New English Review, 2020-12-22.

April 15, 2021

Woodworking with very few clamps (maybe only 5)

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

Rex Krueger
Published 14 Apr 2021

How many clamps does it take to hold your woodwork? Turns out … not many.

More video and exclusive content: http://www.patreon.com/rexkrueger​
Get my Five Essential Clamps (Links Below)

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Amazon affiliate links for my Five Essential Clamps:

Pipe Clamp for ½” Pipe: https://amzn.to/3uCVwSy​

Here’s the pipe just for reference: https://amzn.to/2PNZs4g​
(I recommend you just buy it locally.)

Medium Bar Clamps: https://amzn.to/39YeWJJ​

Twin Screw Clamp: https://amzn.to/2QbcVCU​
(This one isn’t cheap, but it’s very good. I’ve also had good luck with cheaper ones, even Harbor Freight versions.)

Metal Spring Clamps: https://amzn.to/3mF9LDJ​

Nylon Spring Clamps: https://amzn.to/3dJ3jri​
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Sign up for Fabrication First, my FREE newsletter: http://eepurl.com/gRhEVT​

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More Workholding:

Make a big leg vise:
Video: https://youtu.be/eiwtBs-9Dco​
Plans: https://www.rexkrueger.com/store/xngn…​

Learn about woodworking vises:
Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLR…​

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Build your own Early American Cupboard
Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLR…​
Plans: https://www.rexkrueger.com/store/earl…​
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Learn more about the Dominy family: http://dominycollections.winterthur.org/​ Also this book: https://amzn.to/33lwBYH​ (It’s out of print and I paid a lot for my copy. Hopefully it will get a re-print soon.)

Steve Ramsey’s video on clamps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArRlY…

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Wood Work for Humans Tool List (affiliate):
*Cutting*
Gyokucho Ryoba Saw: https://amzn.to/2Z5Wmda
Dewalt Panel Saw: https://amzn.to/2HJqGmO
Suizan Dozuki Handsaw: https://amzn.to/3abRyXB
(Winner of the affordable dovetail-saw shootout.)
Spear and Jackson Tenon Saw: https://amzn.to/2zykhs6
(Needs tune-up to work well.)
Crown Tenon Saw: https://amzn.to/3l89Dut
(Works out of the box)
Carving Knife: https://amzn.to/2DkbsnM
Narex True Imperial Chisels: https://amzn.to/2EX4xls
(My favorite affordable new chisels.)
Blue-Handled Marples Chisels: https://amzn.to/2tVJARY
(I use these to make the DIY specialty planes, but I also like them for general work.)

*Sharpening*
Honing Guide: https://amzn.to/2TaJEZM
Norton Coarse/Fine Oil Stone: https://amzn.to/36seh2m
Natural Arkansas Fine Oil Stone: https://amzn.to/3irDQmq
Green buffing compound: https://amzn.to/2XuUBE2

*Marking and Measuring*
Stockman Knife: https://amzn.to/2Pp4bWP
(For marking and the built-in awl).
Speed Square: https://amzn.to/3gSi6jK
Stanley Marking Knife: https://amzn.to/2Ewrxo3
(Excellent, inexpensive marking knife.)
Blue Kreg measuring jig: https://amzn.to/2QTnKYd
Round-head Protractor: https://amzn.to/37fJ6oz

*Drilling*
Forstner Bits: https://amzn.to/3jpBgPl
Spade Bits: https://amzn.to/2U5kvML

*Work-Holding*
Orange F Clamps: https://amzn.to/2u3tp4X
Screw Clamp: https://amzn.to/3gCa5i8

Get my woodturning book: http://www.rexkrueger.com/book

Follow me on Instagram: @rexkrueger

Eichmann in Budapest

Filed under: Europe, Germany, History, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Alexander Faludy outlines the horrific “success” of Adolf Eichmann’s activities in Hungary in 1944:

SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann (1906–1962), head of Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA, Reich Security Central Office) Department IV B4 (Jewish affairs), who organized the deportation of Jews to the Auschwitz concentration camp in German-occupied Poland during the Holocaust. Taken in or around 1942, this appears to have been Eichmann’s official RSHA ID photograph.
Photographer unknown, public domain image via Wikimedia Commons.

SS Obersturmbannführer (Lt. Col.) Adolf Eichmann, head of Reich Security Main Office IV.B.4 (Jewish Affairs), arrived at Budapest’s Keleti railway station together with 19 subordinates on 21 March 1944. Just 48 hours had passed since German troops had marched into the country, and a car was waiting to take Eichmann to the city’s Astoria Hotel close to the Pest riverbank. From these incongruously elegant surroundings Eichmann would commence the most feverous episode in the Final Solution of the Jewish question in Europe: the destruction of the Jews of Hungary, the only chapter in its history he was to supervise in person and in full.

For speed and scale the deportations went unmatched: 424,000 people were despatched by train in just 52 days, from 14 May to 9 July. In this fleeting window Hungarian Jews became the single largest group gassed at Auschwitz. The crematoria couldn’t cope with such “over-supply”, and Commandant Rudolf Höß ordered special fire pits dug — filling the camp with noxious smoke. According to Primo Levi, “there were weeks when only Hungarian was heard in Auschwitz”.

Physical annihilation was undergirded by Eichmann’s elaborate psychological strategy. Sophisticated Budapest Jews who might escape or resist were pacified by newspaper reports that only “ost Juden” from Hungary’s nether regions were being removed as “undesirables”. Many only saw through the lie, if at all, when deportations reached Budapest’s outer suburbs in early July — just before Admiral Miklós Horthy, Hungary’s Head of State, halted them under diplomatic pressure from the Western Allies and neutrals.

Throughout the deportations, and across Hungary’s length, Eichmann deluged Jews with ever more complex regulations covering the minutiae of daily life. These instilled a false sense of permanence which inhibited hiding or escape: “why would the authorities go to all this trouble if they were just going to get rid of us?”

Even as deportations rolled on, Eichmann conducted elaborate negotiations for fanciful “rescue schemes” including, but not limited to, the infamous “Blood for Trucks” project involving Rudolf Kastner — the proposed barter of one million Jewish lives for 10,000 Western motor vehicles for use on the Eastern front against the USSR. The aim, Eichmann later acknowledged, was not just to split Western powers from the Soviets, but also to distract Hungary’s Jewish leaders from counter-organising: keeping minds busy and hopes alive.

All the while Eichmann treated Jewish leaders in Budapest to flashes of menace. One day he promised them a return to normality “after the war”, the next he would snarl “Do you know who I am? I am a bloodhound!” With studied cruelty Eichmann arranged the ghettoisation of Hungary’s Jews to begin on Sunday, 16 April: the first day of Passover, 1944.

Eichmann did many things in Hungary; the one thing he did not do was simply “obey orders” — indeed over time he defied them with gathering frequency. That autumn as inevitable defeat became ever more apparent Eichmann, helped by local enthusiasts, intensified his efforts, instigating newly inventive means of eliminating Jews in Hungary and the Balkans through “death marches” and localised killing sprees. In doing so, Eichmann subverted instructions from Himmler who ordered cessation as part of a delusional plan to negotiate with the allies.

This “Eichmann in Budapest” should be recalled while contemplating the later Eichmann in Jerusalem.

Britain Goes From Trainer to Competition: the No 8 Mk I

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, Weapons — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 18 Jun 2018

http://www.forgottenweapons.com/brita…

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Initially intended to be used only by the British Army (the Land Service), in 1950 the No8 rifle’s role was expanded to cover all three services. Unlike the other trainers made up to this point, the No8 MkI was designed as a target and competition rifle, instead of a service rifle reduced in caliber. It has a heavy barrel, a nice trigger converter to cock on open, and a heavy competition type stock. Adopted in 1948 or 1949 (sources differ), a whopping 76,000 were ordered and manufactured by BSA and Fazackerly — they remained in service until finally declared obsolescent by the British in 2014.

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QotD: The “evil” of profits

Filed under: Business, Economics, Germany, Government, Quotations, Russia, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

The slogan into which the Nazis condensed their economic philosophy, viz., Gemeinnutz geht vor Eigennutz (i.e., the commonweal ranks above private profit), is likewise the idea underlying the American New Deal and the Soviet management of economic affairs. It implies that profit-seeking business harms the vital interests of the immense majority, and that it is the sacred duty of popular government to prevent the emergence of profits by public control of production and distribution.

Ludwig von Mises, Planned Chaos, 1947.

April 14, 2021

War Stories We Didn’t Get to Tell – WW2 – Reading Comments

Filed under: Cancon, Europe, History, Military, Russia, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 13 Apr 2021

Another edition of Across the Airwaves, where Indy, Sparty, and Astrid look at interesting and unique comments from our videos. In this episode, some amazing war stories that we didn’t get to tell.

Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Or join The TimeGhost Army directly at: https://timeghost.tv

Follow WW2 day by day on Instagram @ww2_day_by_day – https://www.instagram.com/ww2_day_by_day
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sources

Hosted by: Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, and Astrid Deinhard
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Edited by: Karolina Dołęga
Sound design: Marek Kamiński
Map animations: Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory​), Karolina Dołęga

Sources:
– Bundesarchiv
– Library of Congress
– Australian War Memorial
– Icons from the Noun Project: Boat by Richard Cordero, captain by Gan Khoon Lay, Mine Ship by Luke Anthony Firth, Wrench by Gregor Cresnar
– Explosion animation by Ignisium from YouTube
– Uboat.net, picture of SS Oklahoma courtesy of Texaco Archives

Soundtracks from Epidemic Sounds:
– “Other Sides of Glory” – Fabien Tell
– “London” – Howard Harper-Barnes
– “Deflection” – Reynard Seidel
– “The Inspector 4” – Johannes Bornlöf
– “What Happens in the Park” – Claude Signet

Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com​.

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

From the comments:

World War Two
2 hours ago (edited)
Day in day out, we review thousands of comments from people across the world. It’s always heartening to come across the ones that are particularly interesting, educational, touching, or even funny. This format, “Across the Airwaves”, is a great way for us to interact directly with our community and in this episode, Indy, Sparty and Astrid mainly look at comments from people offering extra details and analysis that we didn’t have the chance to include in our regular content.

Hope you enjoy hearing them. A big thanks to our community, especially our TimeGhost Army members.

Schrödinger’s photo ID requirements

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Government, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Mark Steyn notes the odd inconsistency of US authorities insisting on or ignoring the need for photo ID for different demographics. So much for equal treatment in the United States.

“TSA Checkpoint” by phidauex is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Whenever you fly anywhere in America, you require picture ID — so that, when you get to the head of the great endless security line, the TSA agent can get out his jeweler’s loupe and examine how the ink lies on the paper. And, when he’s finished doing that, he can fish out his UV light to study the watermark on your ID.

Which is all bollocks even by the standards of American security-state bureaucracy. Why bother going to all the tedious trouble of fake ID when real ID is so easy to acquire? On September 11th 2001, four of the terrorists boarded the flight with genuine, valid picture ID issued by the state of Virginia and obtained through the illegal-immigrant day-workers’ network run out of the parking lot of the 7-Eleven in Falls Church.

If that didn’t get Americans mad about the cosseting of the undocumented, I doubt they’ll care a fig about this latest privilege. But I thought it worth mentioning anyway: While you’re stuck with the Loupe & Light guy poring over your ID, the federal government announced last week that migrants crossing the southern border will be permitted to fly within the United States without any valid ID. You’re on orange alert now and forever, they’re in the express check-in.

This is where selective enforcement of the laws always leads — to a broader contempt for all law, and an end to equality before the law. In 2021 no developed nation needs mass unskilled immigration. Some have it for historical reasons — a hangover of empire, as in Britain and France; some have it for sentimentalist pseudo-humanitarian reasons, as in Sweden and Norway. But neither of these rationales account for what the laughably misnamed Department of Homeland Security is doing at America’s southern border.

Tank Chat #103 | Laird Centaur | The Tank Museum

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, Weapons — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

The Tank Museum
Published 15 May 2020

David Fletcher looks at this curiosity from the 1970’s, a Land Rover with tracks. Currently housed in The Tank Museum’s Vehicle Conservation Centre.

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