Quotulatiousness

October 16, 2021

City Minutes: Indigenous America

Filed under: Americas, Architecture, History, Humour — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 15 Oct 2021

As we look at four pre-Columbian American cities, I don’t know whether to be more impressed with the the architecture or the landscaping. Probably both.

More Indigenous Myths & History:
The Five Suns (https://youtu.be/dfupAlon_8k)
Quetzalcoatl (https://youtu.be/451jzIesWoU)
Huitzilopotchli (https://youtu.be/Zj-jDOjBets)
El-Dorado (https://youtu.be/UHzkGueRz3g)
Pele (https://youtu.be/q1z19p48lZU)
Hawaii (https://youtu.be/xYouQESFE2A)

Teotihuacan shirt: https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/903…

Timestamps:
0:00 – 1:03 — Teotihuacan
1:03 – 2:04 — Tikal
2:04 – 3:00 — Tenochtitlan
3:00 – 4:08 — Cusco
4:08 – 5:20 — Conclusion

SOURCES & Further Reading: The Great Cities in History by John Julius Norwich, The Great Courses lectures “The Great City of Teotihuacan” and “Tikal – Aspiring Capital of the Maya World” and “The Aztec Capital of Tenochtitlan” from lecture series Maya to Aztec: Ancient Mesoamerica Revealed by Edwin Barnhart, and “Machu Picchu and the Sacred Valley” and “The Inca – From Raiders to Empire” from lecture series The Lost Worlds of South America by Edwin Barnhart.

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Alberta’s Equalization referendum is “political theatre, and it’s poorly timed political theatre at that”

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

The province of Alberta is unhappy with the current federal-provincial equalization arrangement. This is not new … it’s been the case off-and-on for most of my life, but this year the province is undertaking a formal referendum on the issue, as Jen Gerson explains in The Line:

Let’s start with all the usual but necessary rigmarole about the Alberta referendum on equalization: a “yes” vote won’t peel equalization from the constitution; even a resounding victory may not actually force the federal government to sit with the province of Alberta to discuss the matter. I mean, it might: this was Ted Morton’s idea, and his argument. That Alberta can force Ottawa and the provinces to engage in some kind of open-hearted exchange by piggybacking on the Quebec Secession Reference is not totally impossible, I guess.

As this Fraser Institute bulletin by Rainer Knopff points out, that reference is specific to questions of, well, secession and probably can’t be re-applied willy nilly to any old provincial grievance. However, Knopff goes on to note that the referendum is necessary to create a provincial legislative resolution on the matter, which would allegedly trigger some kind of duty to negotiate — although certainly no duty to come to an agreement that Alberta would find acceptable.

Most credible individuals begin to handwave furiously when asked to nail the technical legal details about how we’re going to make Ottawa cede a damn thing. Even Morton had to point out that the referendum’s greatest power lies in granting Alberta “moral force” on the question.

In other words, it’s political theatre, and it’s poorly timed political theatre at that.

Equalization is a perennial complaint in Alberta, and not one totally without merit. Although the province doesn’t cut Ottawa some kind of novelty-sized equalization cheque at tax time, we are a comparatively wealthy province, which means the province traditionally sends more money to the federal government through its income and business tax remittances than it receives in rebates and services. There is a sense of injustice, here, which notes that equalization-receiving provinces offer services like cheap daycare, and are now racking up rainy day funds as Alberta falls ever deeper into debt. Meanwhile, we can’t seem to get a pipeline built to transport the very product that provides so much of this national bounty and wealth because other provinces oppose them.

W.A.R. – the Winchester Automatic Rifle

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

Forgotten Weapons
Published 1 Aug 2016

http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons

With the failure of the G30M and G30R to lead to any military orders (American or otherwise), the Winchester company took the advice of the Ordnance Department to scale the design up to an automatic rifle. The BAR had a number of known shortcomings in WWII, and the military was interested in replacing it. The Winchester Automatic Rifle (WAR) offered the same basic set of features with a lighter weight and lower cost.

The WAR used a 2-lug rotating bolt like the Garand’s, in combination with a Williams short stroke gas tappet action. Chambered for the standard .30-06 cartridge and using 20-round magazines, the WAR could be used as a semiautomatic rifle or in full automatic with a rate of fire of approximately 600 rpm (slightly more or less depending on whether a muzzle device was used).

The WAR passed initial Ordnance inspection with flying colors, and a contract for 10 was placed, for more extensive testing. It passed these tests well, but they took place in the summer of 1945. By the time a major contract was a real possibility, World War II had ended, and the budget for new arms development was slashed. Had the war continued, the WAR likely would have begun to replace the BAR in US military service.

QotD: Social security

Filed under: Government, Quotations, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

[F]rom a pure policy perspective, Social Security makes little sense except as a modest welfare program. There is, after all, no earthly reason why most middle class or wealthy citizens need the government to garnish their wages for decades and then provide a retirement benefit later: People are generally perfectly capable of saving for their own retirements. Those who want to paint the program as indispensable are fond of pointing to the large numbers of retirees who rely almost wholly on Social Security for their incomes. But then, when you take a hefty 12.4 percent bite out of people’s paychecks — leaving them with less to save — and tell them they can rely on a government benefit later, it’s not exactly shocking that many people don’t save and rely on a government benefit later.

Julian Sanchez, “Social Security’s Progressive Paradox: Retirement ‘insurance’ as a Rube Goldberg machine”, Reason, 2005-05-02.

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