Quotulatiousness

June 30, 2021

Questions the dying media daren’t ask Biden

Filed under: Government, Media, Military, Politics, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Kurt Schlichter offers a few questions that an American media with any credibility would already have been asking after Biden’s ramble about F-15 aircraft and nuclear weapons:

“2-35 Infantry Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division” by The U.S. Army is licensed under CC BY 2.0

“Are you saying that you would use bombers like F-15s against Americans? Would you ever use nuclear weapons against Americans?”

That seems like an important coule of threshold queries. Say “No” and you look like a fool. Say “Yes” and you’re a fool and a psycho.

“Mr. President, since using force against American citizens is on the table, can you tell us how many BCTs the American military has currently deployable within the United States? Do you know how many troops are in a brigade combat team? Do you understand the logistical needs of a BCT and its vulnerabilities in an insurgency environment?”

A “BCT” is a brigade combat team, 4,000-5,000 troops and the basic ground combat unit. Now, if you are going to pick a fight with 165 million Americans, specifically the half who like America and who own a whole bunch of those accursed AR-15s, you might wanna know how many dudes you have on your side first (I estimate about 80 active and reserve BCTs and equivalents in the whole active and reserve force, including the Marines). One might also want to understand why you would have problems using them here at home.

“How many BCTs do you think you would need to secure an urban area the size of Los Angeles. Didn’t it take three divisions, about 12 brigades, to secure it during the Riots? How long could you logistically support that?”

It did take three divisions (approximately 12 BCTs) to quell the riot in LA in 1992. I was there. Now, that was largely idiots burning and looting. What if the next time it is guys shooting back with evil AR-15s? And America is a zillion times bigger than Los Angeles. How do you hold all that ground? You don’t.

“Have your generals staffed exactly how many American military personnel they could count on to attack American citizens if you ordered it? What percentage do you believe would comply and why?”

Oh, awkward. I was informed – by them, the geniuses in the Pentagon – that “extremists in the ranks” are our gravest threat (except for the weather, of course), so I assume they will have analyzed the number of “extremists” in the ranks who would be averse to killing their own friends and family at the behest of coastal elitists and who would desert or go full Niedermeyer on the guys urging them to wage war on the American people. This would be a good number to have as a planning factor, since when 50% of his troops go *poof* overnight, it would mean a significant reduction in the *’s combat power.

“You mentioned F-15s. How many bombers of all types does the United States have deployable within the continental US? How many are operational? How many sorties could the military fly a day against American citizens? Can you explain how you would employ bombers to hold territory, like a city?”

Bombers are nice. But if they were decisive, you could walk around Kabul without a dozen guys with AKs keeping your Schumer safe. We bombed Afghanistan back into the Stone Age – albeit, it was not much of a trip, but the point remains. You control dirt by having a guy with a rifle standing on it, not plinking at targets from 30,000 feet. And speaking of targeting …

The Red Orchestra – The Nazi-Soviet Spy Dance – WW2 – Spies & Ties 04

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

World War Two
Published 29 Jun 2021

An extensive network of spies and radio operators are gathering intelligence and sending it to Moscow from Western Europe. They are a colourful group of people who go by the name of Die Rote Kapelle, or Red Orchestra.
(more…)

“We’re having a heat wave/A tropical heat wave …”

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

Jay Currie is apparently melting in the heat somewhere out on the left coast of Canada:

As my readers know I live on Vancouver Island right by the ocean. Normally, it is too cool to be comfortable having the evening g&t on the deck. Well, yesterday and today and very possibly tomorrow it will be way too hot.

The thing about heat waves is that they bring out the climatistas ready to ascribe weather to climate change. On #bcpoli Twitter it is a dead heat between the unscientific “I will wear a mask until there is no COVID anywhere on Earth” people and the people who insist that the present heat wave “proves” global warming. Well it doesn’t.

What we are in the grips of is a jet stream excursion. A big loop of hot air is sitting on top of us. It is practically the definition of “weather”. Three weeks ago Victoria set an all time record for coldest June day in the middle of a series of anomalously cold days. This too was “weather”.

The warmists are not deterred. “Well, over all the ‘weather’ is getting hotter because of climate change.” “The jet stream is behaving eccentrically because the Arctic is getting warmer and that’s climate change.” And then they add their policy prescription d’jour – Save Old Growth, Raise the carbon tax, Stop LNG exports and so on.

The brutal narcissism of the climate crusaders is touching. The problem and its solution are all about them. Other than the Pacific North West, the rest of the world is normal to cold. The Eastern US has been wet and cool, South America is freezing, Australia and New Zealand are experiencing an early ferociously cold winter, summer snow is falling in Scandinavia. The fact the major factor in the northern and jet stream’s preignitions is the level of solar activity is borne out by the general coolness of 2021. Guess what, the Sun is very quiet at the moment which is historically linked to cooling rather than warming.

But, for fun, let’s propose that the climate change fanatics are right and there is a direct link between CO2 and the present heat wave – not one of their favoured solutions will make the slightest difference. We could all walk to hug the trees and it would not matter.

Here’s why […]

Tank Chats #113 | Ferret Scout Car | The Tank Museum

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

The Tank Museum
Published 11 Dec 2020

Tank museum Historian David Fletcher discusses the Ferret Armoured Car, also commonly known as the Ferret Scout Car. Built between 1952 and 1972 by Daimler, the Ferret was pressed into service in a reconnaissance role and saw service with the British Army, RAF and multiple commonwealth countries throughout its service life.

Support the work of The Tank Museum on Patreon: ► https://www.patreon.com/tankmuseum
Visit The Tank Museum SHOP & become a Friend: ► tankmuseumshop.org

Twitter: ► https://twitter.com/TankMuseum
Instagram: ► https://www.instagram.com/tankmuseum/
#tankmuseum #tanks

QotD: The Yorkist pretenders

Filed under: Britain, History, Humour, Quotations — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

English History has always been subject to Waves of Pretenders. These have usually come in small waves of about two — an Old Pretender and a Young Pretender, their object being to sow dissension in the realm, and if possible to contuse the Royal issue by pretending to be heirs to the throne.

Two Pretenders who now arose were Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck, and they succeeded in confusing the issue absolutely by being so similar that some historians suggest they were really the same person (i.e. the Earl of Warbeck).

Lambert Simnel (the Young Pretender) was really (probably) himself, but cleverly pretended to be the Earl of Warbeck. Henry VII therefore ordered him to be led through the streets of London to prove that he really was.

Perkin Warbeck (the Older and more confusing Pretender) insisted that he was himself, thus causing complete dissension till Henry VII had him led through the streets of London to prove that he was really Lambert Simnel.

The punishment of these memorable Pretenders was justly similar, since Perkin Warmnel was compelled to become a blot on the King’s skitchen, while Perbeck was made an escullion. Wimneck, however, subsequently began pretending again. This time he pretended that he had been smothered in early youth and buried under a stair-rod while pretending to be one of the Little Princes in the Tower. In order to prove that he had not been murdered before, Henry was reluctantly compelled to have him really executed.

Even after his execution many people believed that he was only pretending to have been beheaded, while others declared that it was not Warmneck at all but Lamkin, and that Permnel had been dead all the time really, like Queen Anne.

W.C. Sellar & R.J. Yeatman, 1066 And All That, 1930.

June 29, 2021

History Summarized: Rise of Islam

Filed under: History, Humour, Middle East, Religion — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 16 Nov 2016

Note to viewers: This video contains images of the *Blue Mosque* in Istanbul, which is Not the Hagia Sophia. The Hagia Sophia was a church, later converted into a mosque, but the Blue Mosque, which, to be fair, looks fairly similar to the Hagia Sophia, is a totally different building, and was built by the Ottomans.

HE LIVES! … by at least a few medical metrics. Blue went on a huge training montage for the entirety of Autumn and is back to talk about the history of Islam!

If you have any questions about anything in the video and would like to learn more, leave them in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer!

MERCH LINKS:
Shirts – https://overlysarcasticproducts.threa…​
All the other stuff – http://www.cafepress.com/OverlySarcas…

Follow us on Twitter @OSPYouTube!

QotD: Carrier dive bombers in the early Pacific war

Filed under: History, Japan, Military, Pacific, Quotations, USA, Weapons, WW2 — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 01:00

The Japanese Nakajima B5N “Kate” (235mph, 1 x 7.7mmm mg, 1760lbs torpedo or bombs, 1,075 mile range) torpedo bomber had been introduced in 1941, and was the mainstay of the early years of the wartime Japanese carrier operations. It had good range, was reliable, and had a good payload. But it still lacked armour or self-sealing fuel tanks. As a result it was desperately vulnerable to daytime operations against reasonable fighter opposition.

Almost exactly the same could be said for the American Douglas Dauntless dive bomber (255mph, 2 x 0.5 and 2 x 0.3 mg, 1,200lbs bombs, 1,115 mile range). Arrived at the same time, same strengths, similar weaknesses. Like all American aircraft it could absorb considerably more damage than any Japanese plane, but like all daylight attack aircraft, its top speed made it a sitting duck against organized fighter defenses. The greatest success of the Dauntless was at Midway, where the sacrificial run of the TBD Devastator torpedo bombers fortuitously arrived just far enough in advance to pull the entire Japanese fighter cover away and allow the Dauntlesses exactly the sort of unopposed attacks that the theoretically inferior Japanese “Val” dive bombers had enjoyed at Ceylon and Coral Sea. The increased success of the Dauntless later in the war was in direct parallel to the increased ability of American fighters to clear a path. By the time of the sinking of the Yamato in 1945, Dauntless formations always had almost completely unopposed runs. (Perhaps that is why it continued in operation when every other contemporary aircraft had been replaced?)

Nigel Davies, “Comparing naval aircraft of World War II”, rethinking history, 2010-12-20.

June 28, 2021

Pounds, shillings, and pence: a history of English coinage

Filed under: Britain, Economics, History — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Lindybeige
Published 18 Dec 2020

I talk for a bit the history of English coinage, and the problems of maintaining a good currency. Once or twice I might stray off topic, but I end with an explanation of why the system worked so well.

Picture credits:
40 librae weight
Martinvl, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/…, via Wikimedia Commons

Sceat K series, and others
By Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. http://www.cngcoins.com, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index…

William I penny, and Charles II crown
The Portable Antiquities Scheme/ The Trustees of the British Museum, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/…, via Wikimedia Commons

Bust of Charlemagne
By Beckstet – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index…

Edward VI crown
By CNG – http://www.cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?Coi…, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index…

Charles II guinea
Gregory Edmund, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/…, via Wikimedia Commons

Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Lindybeige

Buy the music – the music played at the end of my videos is now available here: https://lindybeige.bandcamp.com/track…

Buy tat (merch):
https://outloudmerch.com/collections/…

Lindybeige: a channel of archaeology, ancient and medieval warfare, rants, swing dance, travelogues, evolution, and whatever else occurs to me to make.

▼ Follow me…

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Lindybeige I may have some drivel to contribute to the Twittersphere, plus you get notice of uploads.

My website:
http://www.LloydianAspects.co.uk

Warren’s terminal law of progress

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

David Warren considers the sudden rash of “revelations” about UFOs we’re getting in the dying media:

Yeah, I know: wrong UFO

This is a demonstration of Warren’s terminal law of progress. As it extends towards “infinity”, all technical progress becomes terminally boring. This also applies to more modest attainments. A civilization that has merely made itself comfortable, and remained so for too long, must find a pretext to demolish itself. Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and the various more advanced “human rights” campaigns, simply expand in a vacuum of irreparable ennui. Their revolutionary demands can only be answered with wilful destruction — until the offending society is erased.

It follows that everything on this planet, made with human hands, however beautifully, must eventually come to a bad end, even though the majority of its inhabitants have good intentions, and are simply trying to get on with their lives, and would if the aggressive would leave them alone.

For instance, the Portland, Oregon police estimate it took only 200 insurrectionists to turn that city into a revolutionary hell-hole.

Perhaps our alien visitors came to discover the secret of our self-destruction. Or they were bored with the place they came from, but decided to leave before they were tempted to destroy it.

Colt R75A: The Last Commercial BAR (With Shooting)

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

Forgotten Weapons
Published 2 Mar 2018

The R75A was the last version of Colt’s commercial BAR, with 832 made between August and December of 1942 for the Netherlands Purchasing Commission. It was a derivative of the commercial R75 BAR, with a pistol grip, magazine well cover, and ejection port cover. The R75A added on a folding bipod and a detachable barrel functionality, albeit not of the most elegant sort. To remove the barrel, one first used the lever under the muzzle to detach the gas block from the barrel by sliding it rearwards. Then a tool or cartridge tip was used to pry open the barrel locking lever at the front of the receiver, which then allowed the barrel to be rotated about 60 degrees to unlock its interrupted threads and remove it.

http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons

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

If you enjoy Forgotten Weapons, check out its sister channel, InRangeTV! http://www.youtube.com/InRangeTVShow

QotD: Urbanization

Filed under: Economics, Education, India, Liberty, Quotations — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

The environmentalist aesthetic is to love villages and despise cities. My mind got changed on the subject a few years ago by an Indian acquaintance who told me that in Indian villages the women obeyed their husbands and family elders, pounded grain, and sang. But, the acquaintance explained, when Indian women immigrated to cities, they got jobs, started businesses, and demanded their children be educated. They became more independent, as they became less fundamentalist in their religious beliefs. Urbanization is the most massive and sudden shift of humanity in its history.

Stewart Brand, “Environmental Heresies”, Technology Review, 2005-05

June 27, 2021

Fall Blau Starts … or Does it? – WW2 – 148 – June 27, 1942

World War Two
Published 26 Jun 2021

Fall Blau, the huge Axis summer offensive in the Soviet Union, is supposed to being this, but is postponed to next. The smaller Operation Fridericus II does begin though, and what does Josef Stalin make of that and the intelligence he’s received? Meanwhile in North Africa, after the fall of Tobruk, the British 8th Army gets a leadership change, but Erwin Rommel is still on the move eastward into Egypt. Where will the Allies try to hold him? Half the world away, the Allies begin to establish a base at Milne Bay, New Guinea. It’s a start, a small one, but a start.
(more…)

“Apologies are just a subset of performance art for Trudeau, not actual admissions of failure and expressions of regret”

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Military — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

From The Line‘s weekend wrap-up post, a reminder that the top leadership of the Canadian Armed Forces and the government are still embroiled in scandal:

Canadian Defence Minister (at least for the moment) Harjit Sajjan during his pre-ministerial career.

In other news, your Line editors continue to think that not enough of you are tuned in to the sexual misconduct scandal still roiling the Canadian Armed Forces. Yes, yes, we know the military is this weird, complicated thing that no one really pays much attention to in this country. But you really ought to be.

You all know the basic outline already: sexual harassment and assault is a major problem in the armed forces. In 2015, former Supreme Court justice Marie Deschamps completed a major report into the issue, and recommended sweeping changes. A few of the changes were made, but the report was mostly immediately assigned dust-collector status and forgotten. That would be bad enough, but what really gave this life was that the Trudeau government — specifically, National Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan — was given a heads-up that Gen. Jonathan Vance, the country’s top military officer, was himself accused of misconduct. And the PMO found a way to bend the nature of the space-time continuum as they contorted and twisted their way out of having to do anything about it.

It’s a horrific look for a government that considers itself feminist, especially when the guy at the top has some baggage of his own. The Liberals did what Liberals do — said they should have done better and circled the wagons. Accountability is for chumps, after all. This week, Gregory Lick, the ombudsman for the Canadian Armed Forces — a position that exists to give serving members of the armed forces a place to go with complaints within their chains of command — took aim at his own chain of command — Minister Sajjan, saying that his reporting structure has to be changed because Sajjan, frankly, ain’t interested in hearing about problems that the Liberals find awkward.

Here’s Lick:

    The collective actions or, in some cases, the inaction of senior political, military and civilian leadership within the government have eroded trust within the defence community … When leaders turn a blind eye to our recommendations and concerns in order to advance political interests and their own self-preservation or career advancement, it is the members of the defence community that suffer the consequences … It is clear that inaction is rewarded far more than action. In the four months since the most recent outbreak of multiple accusations of sexual misconduct, the actions of the minister of National Defence, senior government and military officials have bitterly proved this point. The erratic behaviour of leadership defies common sense or reason. The concept of ministerial accountability has been absent.

Folks, trust us when we tell you that by the standard of Ottawa bureaucratese, that statement is blistering. Lick is directly targeting Sajjan with that last sentence. Translated into normal Canadian English, Lick is accusing Sajjan of inaction in the face of obvious problems.

[…]

What was it that Lick said about ministerial accountability again? About inaction? Oh dear, it’s totally slipped our little ole minds. Probably nothing important!

More seriously: We don’t expect much to come from this. From any of it, or from all of it. Firing Sajjan would require Trudeau to admit he’d fell short, and, well, we all know this guy is way more comfortable apologizing for stuff that happened a century before he was born than he ever is admitting he himself screwed up. Apologies are just a subset of performance art for Trudeau, not actual admissions of failure and expressions of regret. But let’s not mistake what has happened here. A slew of senior military officers have quit or been removed. The PMO has been singed. Sajjan has been directly called out, and his own assistant implicated.

There is no mystery here. Canadians have been told there is rot in the government, and that our men and women in uniform are suffering for it while Trudeau looks the other way. And you’ll have to get used to that, too.

The Tragic End of HMS Barham – 25 November, 1941

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

The Northern Historian
Published 5 Mar 2021

On the 25th of November 1941, the Royal Navy’s 1st Battle Squadron consisting of HMS Queen Elizabeth, HMS Valiant and HMS Barham along with eight destroyers were on a hunt in the central Mediterranean looking for Italian convoys.
Also on the hunt was a German U-Boat and their paths were on a collision course. A collision that would send HMS Barham to the floor of the Mediterranean Sea along with over 800 of her crew.

HMS Barham had begun her service with the Royal Navy during World War 1 and played a role during the Battle of Jutland.

Following World War 1, HMS Barham had several refits and operated in the Atlantic Fleet and the Mediterranean Fleet during the inter-war years.

During World War 2, HMS Barham took part in the the Battle of Dakar before taking part in escort convoys in the Mediterranean.

In November of 1941, during an escort mission, HMS Barham was attacked by U Boat U-331 under the command of Hans-Diedrich von Tiesenhausen.

The attack caused a huge explosion in her magazine and rapidly sank, killing over 800 men.

QotD: Being right at the wrong time

Filed under: History, Politics, Quotations, Russia — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

There is a curious phenomenon in Western intellectual life, namely that of being right at the wrong time. To be right at the wrong time is far, far worse than having been wrong for decades on end. In the estimation of many intellectuals, to be right at the wrong time is the worst possible social faux pas; like telling an off-colour joke at the throning of a bishop. In short, it is in unforgivable bad taste.

There was never a good time, for example, to be anti-communist. Those who early warned of the dangers of bolshevism were regarded as lacking in compassion for the suffering of the masses under tsarism, as well as lacking the necessary imagination to “build” a better world. Then came the phase of denial of the crimes of communism, when to base one’s anti-communism on such phenomena as organised famine and the murder of millions was regarded as the malicious acceptance of ideologically-inspired lies and calumnies. When finally the catastrophic failure of communism could no longer be disguised, and all the supposed lies were acknowledged to have been true, to be anti-communist became tasteless in a different way: it was harping on pointlessly about what everyone had always known to be the case. The only good anti-communist was a mute anti-communist.

Anthony Daniels, “Authoritarianism in Cement and Steel”, Quadrant, 2018-11-04.

Older Posts »

Powered by WordPress