Less happy is the story of France. The Germans realized that the Vichy French were attached to assimilated French Jews, so they started by demanding only those foreign Jews who had come to France as refugees. There were a hundred thousand of these, and Marshal Petain of France said that they had “always been a problem” and he was glad to have “an opportunity to get rid of them” (in his defense, he was under the impression that Jews sent to Germany would be “resettled in the East”). After this had been going on for a while, Eichmann figured that the French were on his side, and asked for permission to take the native French Jews as well. The French, having sent tens of thousands of stateless Jews to the concentration camps, were suddenly outraged that the Nazis would dare lift a finger against French Jews, and shut down the entire deportation program. I am sure the French count this as a moral victory nowadays, though it’s a very selective sort of morality.
Scott Alexander, “Book review: Eichmann in Jerusalem”, Slate Star Codex, 2017-01-30.
March 24, 2019
QotD: France and the Nazi Final Solution
March 23, 2019
“[T]he Withdrawal Agreement … resembles the surrender terms that might be offered to a vanquished enemy”
Alex Noble isn’t a fan of the surrender document Withdrawal Agreement:
Let’s be clear – The Withdrawal Agreement is poorly-named.
It does not involve withdrawing from the EU in any meaningful sense, but instead commits us to Remaining within the EU and strips the UK of any future self-determination. It removes from the UK control of any future departure from the EU, and places it in the hands of those who reside in the building in Brussels with the statute of Europa outside – a woman riding a bull, keen students of the Book of Revelation may notice.
To this extent, the Withdrawal Agreement is actually a treaty for staying in the EU – it resembles quite closely the surrender terms that might be offered to a vanquished enemy, or the document that might be initially given to a small country wishing to join the EU.
Like say, Scotland.
One wonders if the EU wrote it in the run-up to the independence vote of 2014, threw it on a shelf when the Scots voted to stay in the UK, and then Angela Merkel simply tossed it across the desk at her puppet Theresa May at their meeting the day before it was announced at Chequers?
If the EU was a lending institution, this would not be a lengthy mortgage offered at a very low fixed rate, to a woman of considerable status, means and integrity (as might be expected of a deal offered to the fifth-largest economy in the world, the second-largest in Europe and the EU’s biggest customer), but is instead deeply punitive, almost insulting, perhaps comparable to a payday loan.
The Withdrawal Agreement is actually The Wonga Agreement.
And this is to be expected of course, because while Britain leaving the EU would be a disaster, Britain leaving the EU and thriving would mean the end of the generational attempt at reviving communism at the heart of Europe – many other countries (and the richer ones at that) would all suddenly be demanding the same terms and the EUSSR would fracture irreparably.
And at that point, all the ex-communists currently gorging at the trough in Brussels would have to accept the death of their dream.
If Britain left and thrived.
So the EUSSR can only survive Britain’s departure if it is made into a disaster for the UK.
Which meant they simply could not offer us a good deal, even if they had wanted to.
17 Million F*ck Offs – A Song About Brexit
Dominic Frisby
Published on Mar 5, 2019Please help take this song to number one by buying a copy of the single at iTunes/Amazon etc
Amazon – https://www.amazon.co.uk/17-Million-F… ITunes (ignore Apple Music and go to the iTunes store) – https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/17-…I’ll put in other links as and when they come in.
Written and performed by Dominic Frisby
Music composed and played by Martin Wheatley (based on a traditional Devon folk song)
Video directed by anon
Audio mixed and recorded by Wayne McIntyre
Assistant director Mark “Yeti” CribbsLyrics
On the 23rd of June, 2016
The people of the United Kingdom – and Gibraltar – went to vote
On an issue that for some had been burning for years
The question in full – and unaltered – was – I quoteShould the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union
or leave the European Union?It was the greatest democratic turnout in British history, I do not scoff
And when the time came to speak the British said f*ck off.
F*ck off.Campaigning had gone on for many a month
With debate and discussion on many a front
They’d argued they’d fought they’d smeared and pulled stunts
There was David Cameron. Theresa May. George Osborne.
Tony Blair. John Major. The BBC.
The British told them to f*ck off. The British told them to f*ck off.If you vote to leave, you’ll lose your job
Vote to leave, you’ll lose your home.
The ensuing recession will last for years
Said David Cameron. Theresa May. George Osborne.
And the Treasury. Tony Blair. John Major. The BBC.
The Bank of England. Mark Carney. The EU. The IMF. The US president. Saint Obama. Back of the queue. Loads of celebrities. Gary Lineker. JK Rowling. Benedict Cumbertwat. Lord Adonis. Who the fuck’s he anyway?
The British told them to f*ck off. Seventeen million f*ck offs.They wheeled in the experts to tell us what’s right
They gave us the benefit of their foresight
To leave is calamitous, that’s definite.
Food shortages. No medicine. Planes grounded. House price crash. ½ a million jobs lost. Cost of £4,300 to every home. Stock market collapse. Riots. No sandwiches.
There’d be an outbreak of super gonorrhea. They seriously said that. Donald Tusk at the EU said it would be the end of Western civilization as we know it. I’m not joking. And one more thing. If you vote to leave, that makes you racist.
The British told them to f*ck off. Seventeen million f*ck offs.The vote is final, there’s no going back
Although now they want to go back and re-vote
I think we know what the answer will be
To Gary Lineker. Alastair Campbell. Dominic Grieve. Chuka Umana. Keir Starma. Vince Cable. Anna Soubry (not a Nazi). Rory Bremner. Armando Ianucci. Delia Smith. Steve Coogan. David Lammy. Lord Adonis. Who the fuck’s he anyway?
The British will tell them f*ck off. 17 million f*cks offs.ISRC#: TCAED1904492
The NHS, Britain’s “national treasure”, gets panned by other EU patients who’ve experienced non-NHS care
In The Conversation, Chris Moreh, Athina Vlachantoni, and Derek McGhee report that — contrary to British myth-making — the National Health Service isn’t the envy of the civilized world:
Britain’s National Health Service is often described as a “national treasure”. And it is a sentiment those on the left and the right of the political divide agree on. The British public are so proud of the NHS, they made it the central theme of the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympic Games.
But this pride has also been coupled with fears that the universal healthcare provided by the NHS might be taken advantage of by patients from outside the UK. A few months after the Olympics, the then health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, felt the need to clarify that “we are a national health service, not an international health service”. The 2015 election-winning manifesto of the Conservative party made this point even clearer when it pledged to “tackle health tourism” and “recover up to £500m from migrants who use the NHS”.
But our research shows that while the NHS may be a national treasure to British people, EU migrants would rather be treated in their countries of origin. As a 38-year-old woman from Germany put it: “Sorry, NHS? No thanks.” And the reasons for rejecting the NHS? A 25-year-old man from the Netherlands says it’s because the “NHS is slow and the medical care mediocre”. Or, at least, it “is rather poor compared to healthcare in my country,” says a 45-year-old woman from Germany.
But why should British people worry about what EU migrants think of their health service? What EU migrants think and choose is important because they are familiar with at least two European healthcare systems. They have the information and personal experience that most British citizens do not. There is a lot to be learnt from them.
March 21, 2019
Theodore Dalrymple reviews a new Jeremy Corbyn biography
It certainly doesn’t paint a pleasant picture of the man:
Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party speaking at a Rally in Hayfield, Peak District, UK on 25th July 2018 in support of Ruth George MP.
Photo by Sophie Brown via Wikimedia Commons.
In normal circumstances, no one would dream of writing a biography of so dreary a man as Jeremy Corbyn; but political correctness has so eviscerated the exercise of wit that dreariness is no obstacle to political advancement and may even be of advantage to it. The dreary, alas, are inheriting the earth.
Tom Bower is a biographer of eminent living persons whose books tend to emphasise the discreditable — of which he usually finds more than enough to satisfy most people’s taste for salacity. His books are not well-written but they are readable; one sometimes dislikes oneself for enjoying them. So Bower’s latest book Dangerous Hero: Corbyn’s Ruthless Plot for Power, is a bit of a surprise.
Jeremy Corbyn is not a natural subject for Bower because he, Corbyn, is not at all flamboyant and has even managed to make his private life, which has been far from straightforward, uninteresting. Corbyn, indeed, could make murder dull; his voice is flat and his diction poor, he possesses no eloquence, he dresses badly, he has no wit or even humour, he cannot think on his feet, and in general has negative charisma. His main assets are his tolerable good looks, attractiveness to women, and an ability to hold his temper, though he seems to be growing somewhat more irritable with age.
Bower has written a book that is very much a case for the prosecution. If he has discovered in Corbyn no great propensity to vice as it is normally understood, neither has he discovered any great propensity to virtue as it is normally understood, for example personal kindness. His concern for others has a strongly, even chillingly abstract or ideological flavour to it; he is the Mrs. Jellyby de nos jours, but with the granite hardness of the ideologue added to Mrs. Jellyby’s insouciance and incompetence.
[…]
His probity, cruelty or stupidity, might appeal to monomaniacs, but it presages terrible suffering for millions if ever he were to achieve real power: for no merely empirical evidence, no quantity of suffering, would ever be able to persuade him that a policy was wrong or misguided if it were in accord with his abstract principle. This explains his continued loyalty to the memory of Hugo Chavez and to his successor. What happens to Venezuelans in practice is of no interest to him whatsoever, any more than the fate of Mrs. Jellyby’s children were of no interest to her. For Corbyn, the purity of his ideals are all-in-all and their consequences of no consequence.
From a relatively privileged background, he formed his opinions early and has never allowed any personal experience or historical reading to affect them. On any case, according to Bower, he reads not at all: in this respect, he is a kind of Trump of the left. He has remained what he was from an early age, a late 1960s and 70s student radical of the third rank.
His outlook on life is narrow, joyless and dreary. He is the kind of man who looks at beauty and sees injustice. He has no interests other than politics: not in art, literature, science, music, the theatre, cinema — not even in food or drink. For him, indeed, food is but fuel: the fuel necessary to keep him going while he endlessly attends Cuban, Venezuelan, or Palestinian solidarity meetings. He is one of those who thinks that, because he is virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale.
Tank Chats #44 T14 and A33 (Excelsior) Assault Tanks | The Tank Museum
The Tank Museum
Published on 13 Jan 2018The Second World War American T14 and British A33 (Excelsior) Assault tanks were made to the same specification as one another, neither ever went in to service and only one of each were made. They both survive at The Tank Museum.
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QotD: Pie language
Even in their early days, pies served different purposes for the rich and poor: as show-off delicacies for the former and portable food for the latter. So while wealthy feasts might include pies containing anything from game birds to mussels, the less well-off used simpler pies as a way to have food while doing outdoor work or travelling – the crust both carried and preserved the tasty filling.
Take, for example, the Bedfordshire Clanger: a British classic which cleverly combines main course and dessert, with savoury ingredients like pork at one end and sweet ingredients like pear at the other. The name comes from a local slang word, “clang”, which means to eat voraciously. However, cramming two courses into a pie makes a clanger rather unwieldy – and all too easy to drop, inspiring the English phrase “dropping a clanger” for a careless mistake.
Pies have been adding rich flavour to the English language for centuries. Even Shakespeare got in on the act, writing in his 1613 play Henry VIII that “No man’s pie is freed from his ambitious finger”, giving English the phrase “a finger in every pie”.
Meanwhile, the description of a drunken state as “pie-eyed” likely takes its cue from someone who, thanks to having over-imbibed, has eyes as wide and blank as the top of a pie. “As easy as pie” – first recorded as “like eating pie” in the horse-racing newspaper Sporting Life in 1886 – springs from pies’ historical role as convenience food.
“Eating humble pie”, meanwhile, comes from medieval deer hunting, when meat from a successful hunt was shared out on the basis of social status. While the finest cuts of venison went to the rich and powerful, the lower orders made do with the “nombles“: a Norman French word for deer offal. Anglicisation saw “nombles” pie become “humble” pie.
Norman Miller, “How a pocket-sized snack changed the English language”, BBC Travel, 2017-03-29.
March 20, 2019
Over-Analyzing The Iconic Duel in The Princess Bride: How Accurate is It?
Skallagrim
Published on 16 Feb 2019Support My Channel! Download Free ⚔️ Vikings War Of Clans Here
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And Get 200 💰 Gold, And a ⛨ Protective Shield for FREEHave you ever wondered what Inigo Montoya and Westley chatter about while dueling with swords? What is Bonetti’s Defense? Does Thibault really cancel out Capo Ferro? And how realistic is the fighting overall?
You’ll find out in this video.
From the comments:
Skallagrim
2 days agoYes, you caught me… Should have said Thibault’s treatise was published in 1630. He did not write it after his death…
Although that would be pretty badass. Imagine you’re so dedicated to the art of fencing that you become a lich just to finish your work.
March 19, 2019
The Russian Civil War in Early 1919 I THE GREAT WAR
The Great War
Published on 18 Mar 2019Check out The Great War Miniatures Game: http://bit.ly/BattlefrontMiniatures
Use “greatwarchannel1” for 25% off of the Great War Game Book
Use “greatwarchannel2” for 10% off of any Army Deal plus free shipping worldwide.The biggest conflict, or rather series of conflicts, that had their roots in the First World War are today known as the Russian Civil War. After the October Revolution the Bolsheviks under Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky fought all across the former Russian Empire to consolidate their power.
» SUPPORT THE CHANNEL
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Merchandise: https://shop.spreadshirt.de/thegreatwar/» SOURCES
Figes, Orlando. A People’s Tragedy. The Russian Revolution (London: The Bodley Head, 2017 [1996]).Mawdsley, Evan. The Russian Civil War (New York: Pegasus Books, 2005).
Robert Gerwarth, The Vanquished. Why the First World War Failed to End, 1917-1923 (Penguin, 2017)
Gattrell, Peter. Russia’s First World War (Pearson, 2005).
Leonhard, Jörn. Der überforderte Frieden. Versailles und die Welt 1918-1923 (CH Beck, 2018).
Lloyd George, David. The Truth About the Peace Treaties, vol 1, (London: Victor Glocancz, 1938).
Mawdsley, Evan. “International Responses to the Russian Civil War,” in 1914-1918 online.
International Encyclopedia of the First World War. https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online…Peeling, Siobhan. “War Communism,” in 1914-1918 online.
International Encyclopedia of the First World War. https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online…Smele, Jonathan. The ‘Russian’ Civil Wars 1916-1926 (London: Hurst, 2015).
Sumpf, Alexandre. “Russian Civil War,” in 1914-1918 online.
International Encyclopedia of the First World War. https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online…Volkov, Evgenii. “Czech Legions,” in 1914-1918 online.
International Encyclopedia of the First World War. https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online…» SOCIAL MEDIA
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Last German Panzer Battle – Six Day War 1967
Mark Felton Productions
Published on 9 Feb 2019WW2-era German Panzers last saw combat during the Six Day War in 1967, when Syria used them against Israel on the Golan Heights. Discover how Syria was able to acquire so many WW2 German vehicles and how they fared in combat against IDF Shermans and Centurions.
Credits: Bukvoed, Mark Felton Productions, YouTube Creative Commons, Google Commons, Panzers in the Golan Heights – wwiiafterwwii
March 18, 2019
The Phoney War: Actually Not Phoney
Historigraph
Published on 16 Mar 2019Join us in #WarThunder for free using this link and get a premium tank or aircraft and three days of premium time as a bonus: http://v2.xyz/WarThunderWithHistorigraph
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6 Worst British Rulers – Anglophenia Ep 8
Anglophenia
Published on 15 Jul 2014Britain has had a number of great kings and queens, but also some truly terrible ones. Siobhan Thompson looks at the worst of the worst.
March 17, 2019
Irish Potato Famine – The Young and the Old – Extra History – #5
Extra Credits
Published on 16 Mar 2019Irish leaders entered the picture when the 1847 Poor Laws backfired, leading landowners to mass-evict their starving tenants. Daniel O’Connell tried to maintain an alliance with the Whigs, and failed. The Young Irelanders split off from the Repeal Association, and as a result, both the rebellious and the moderate minds of the country lost significant traction, unable to fight the famine alone.
The Soviets Finish a Costly Winter War – WW2 – 029 – March 16 1940
World War Two
Published on 16 Mar 2019The Winter War is over. The Allies tried to stall the Finns for as long as possible to justify their invasion of Norway, but the Finns have had it and don’t trust the British and French to come to their aid. This week, the Finns sign a peace agreement with the Soviet in Moscow.
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Edited by: Iryna Dulka
Map animations: EastoryPhotos of the Winter War are mostly from the Finnish Wartime Photograph Archive (SA-Kuva).
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Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.comA TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
Brexit delayed is Brexit denied
At Spiked, Mick Hume looks at the likely outcome of yet another Brexit betrayal by parliamentary remainers:
The vote to delay / bugger Brexit is a betrayal of the major parties’ promises, but not of their principles. This, after all, is what the overwhelming Remainer majority of MPs wanted all along. Behind all the divisions and parties-within-parties revealed by this week’s parliamentary shenanigans, there remains a clear anti-Brexit majority among MPs, aided and abetted by conniving Speaker John Bercow, and bugger whether their constituents backed it or not.
The final resolution remains uncertain. All options are still technically on the table; the UK remains legally committed to leaving on 29 March unless and until the law is changed. However, things look grim for a meaningful exit; some Tory Brexiteers and the DUP are making vague noises about using Article 62 of the Vienna Convention (oh yes, that old chestnut!) as an excuse for backing May’s deal next week, while Labour’s arch-Remainer buzzards are circling.
But however its planned betrayal of Brexit pans out, the political class cannot delay its own day of reckoning forever. The naked contempt politicians have displayed for voters and popular democracy will not go unrewarded. The Leave revolt has let the democratic genie out of the bottle, and it will not easily be shoved back in.
If Remainers get their long extension, for a start, it should mean that the UK has to hold Euro elections in May. See Brendan O’Neill’s podcast interview with Nigel Farage for a hint at the fun the latter’s newly registered Brexit Party could have with those.
The chaos surrounding this week’s vote to delay and betray Brexit is a microcosm of the dire state of official UK politics. It confirms that both major zombie parties are deeply divided, and that May’s government does not have authority within its own cabinet room, never mind in the country at large. The old political order is falling apart under the pressures of trying to contain the democratic revolt for Brexit.
Amid all this rancour and uncertainty, one thing remains clear: how right Leave voters were to vote to take back control from the demos-loathing EU elites and their allies in the UK’s ‘Bugger Brexit’ alliance.
