Quotulatiousness

June 8, 2019

Blue’s Top Five Domes!

Filed under: Architecture, Europe, History, Humour, Italy, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published on 7 Jun 2019

There are questions any self-respecting YouTube Historian must ask: “How do you balance entertainment and educational value?”, “What’s the split between your area of expertise and more foreign topics?”, and, of course, the most important of all: “Which Dome is the best dome?”

Today, Overly Sarcastic Productions takes a stand on this critical issue — and proceeds to shitpost about it.

PATREON: https://www.Patreon.com/OSP

OUR WEBSITE: https://www.OverlySarcasticProduction…

Find us on Twitter @OSPYouTube!

Tank Chats #48 Centaur Dozer | The Funnies | The Tank Museum

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

The Tank Museum
Published on 9 Mar 2018

A Centaur tank converted into a dozer, part of the Tank Chat Funnies specials. The design had been worked out by 79th Armoured Division in Belgium in autumn 1944. In early 1945, the first conversions were issued to 87th Assault Dozer Squadron, 6th Assault Regiment Royal Engineers; a few saw action in Germany. Some were deployed during the Korean War and the intervention around the Suez Canal in 1956.

Support the work of The Tank Museum on Patreon: ► https://www.patreon.com/tankmuseum
Or donate http://tankmuseum.org/support-us/donate

Visit The Tank Museum SHOP: ►https://tankmuseumshop.org/

Twitter: ► https://twitter.com/TankMuseum
Tiger Tank Blog: ► http://blog.tiger-tank.com/
Tank 100 First World War Centenary Blog: ► http://tank100.com/ #tankmuseum #tanks

QotD: Labour’s celebration at Thatcher’s death

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

A few hours after Margaret Thatcher’s death on Monday, the snarling deadbeats of the British underclass were gleefully rampaging through the streets of Brixton in South London, scaling the marquee of the local fleapit and hanging a banner announcing “THE BITCH IS DEAD”. Amazingly, they managed to spell all four words correctly. By Friday, “Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead”, from The Wizard of Oz, was the Number One download at Amazon UK.

Mrs Thatcher would have enjoyed all this. Her former speechwriter John O’Sullivan recalls how, some years after leaving office, she arrived to address a small group at an English seaside resort to be greeted by enraged lefties chanting “Thatcher Thatcher Thatcher! Fascist fascist fascist!” She turned to her aide and cooed, “Oh, doesn’t it make you feel nostalgic?” She was said to be delighted to hear that a concession stand at last year’s Trades Union Congress was doing a brisk business in “Thatcher Death Party Packs” – almost a quarter-century after her departure from office.

Of course, it would have been asking too much of Britain’s torpid left to rouse themselves to do anything more than sing a few songs and smash a few windows. In The Wizard of Oz, the witch is struck down at the height of her powers by Dorothy’s shack descending from Kansas to relieve the Munchkins of their torments. By comparison, Britain’s Moochkins were unable to bring the house down: Mrs Thatcher died in her bed at the Ritz at a grand old age. Useless as they are, British socialists were at one point capable of writing their own anti-Thatcher singalongs rather than lazily appropriating Judy Garland blockbusters from MGM’s back catalogue. I recall in the late Eighties being at the National Theatre in London and watching the crowd go wild over Adrian Mitchell’s showstopper, “F**k-Off Friday”, a song about union workers getting their redundancy notices at the end of the week, culminating with the lines:

    I can’t wait for That great day when F**k-Off Friday
    Comes to Number Ten.

You should have heard the cheers.

Mark Steyn, “The Uncowardly Lioness”, SteynOnline.com, 2019-05-05.

June 7, 2019

“A Ghost in the Trenches” – Francis Pegahmagabow – Sabaton History 018 [Official]

Filed under: Cancon, History, Media, Military, WW1 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Sabaton History
Published on 6 Jun 2019

As a ghost he roamed the trenches, effectively taking out his enemies one by one. He was the deadliest sniper of The Great War, with over 300 confirmed kills on his name. He is Canadian soldier Francis Pegahmagabow, born in an indigenous First Nations family, and the The Sabaton Song “A Ghost in the Trenches” is about his life and adventures.

Support Sabaton History on Patreon (and possibly get a History Channel special edition): https://www.patreon.com/sabatonhistory

Pre-order The Great War here: https://www.sabaton.net/pre-order-of-…

Check out the trailer for Sabaton’s new album The Great War right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCZP1…

Watch more videos on the Sabaton YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Sabaton?…
Listen to Sabaton on Spotify: http://smarturl.it/SabatonSpotify
Official Sabaton Merchandise Shop: http://bit.ly/SabatonOfficialShop

Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Markus Linke and Indy Neidell
Directed by: Astrid Deinhard and Wieke Kapteijns
Produced by: Pär Sundström, Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Executive Producers: Pär Sundström, Joakim Broden, Tomas Sunmo, Indy Neidell, Astrid Deinhard, and Spartacus Olsson
Maps by: Eastory
Edited by: Iryna Dulka
Sound Editing by: Marek Kaminski

Archive by: Reuters/Screenocean https://www.screenocean.com
Music by Sabaton.

Sources:
– IWM: Q 454, Q 17730, Q 50690, IWM 255, IWM 778, Q 17780, Q 745, IWM 466, IWM 208, Q 53538, E(AUS) 1497, E (AUS) 4677, E(AUS) 2078, Q 70213, Q 5977, Q 108213, Q 50553, Q 53637, Q 2638, Q 65444, Q 11668, Q 79508, Q 23706, Q 88121, Q 50638, IWM 207, Q 4135, Q 80267, Q 29027
– National Library of Scotland (NLS)
– Library and Archives Canada: Canadians advancing east of Arras.
– Auckland War Memorial Museum: AM 2016.26.1-3
– Canadian War Museum: George Metcalf Archival Collection, CWM 19940003-459, CWM 19920085-006, CWM 19920085-595, CWM 19920085-018, CWM 19940003-370, CWM 20040035-006

An OnLion Entertainment GmbH and Raging Beaver Publishing AB co-Production.

© Raging Beaver Publishing AB, 2019 – all rights reserved.

From the comments:

Sabaton History
1 day ago
Many of you have been analysing the tracklist for the upcoming Sabaton Album The Great War. While the subjects of some of the songs are quite easy to guess, the exact topic of “A Ghost in the Trenches” was a mystery for many – although some did predict it correctly. The song is about the Canadian (and indigenous First Nations) soldier Francis Pegahmagabow, the deadliest sniper of the First World War. Indy – having researched and hosted the The Great War YouTube channel for the duration of the war, knows as much as there is to know about the subject, and is the most suitable person to tell you the story behind the song.

Enjoy and Cheers!

The almost-forgotten 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion on D-Day

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

Colby Cosh reminds us that Canadian troops landed in Normandy in at least one other location than on Juno Beach:

From left to right, Regimental Sergeant-Major “Knobby” Clark, Company Sergeant-Major Norbert Joseph and Company Sergeant-Major Outhwaite of the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion getting ready to leave Carter Barracks for their D-Day transit camp, May 1944.
Canada. Dept. of National Defence / Library and Archives Canada / e002852749

Col. C.P. Stacey’s 1946 history of 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion in Normandy describes the expectations of high command chillingly. For the purposes of the invasion, the Canadians operated as a component of the British 6th Airborne Division, assigned to blow up bridges, seize crossroads and establish advance observation posts deep in enemy territory. The War Office estimated, Stacey wrote, “that the wastage for the first month would be at the double intense rate, i.e., 50 per cent of War Establishment for officers and 40 per cent for other ranks.”

With regard to the Canadian airborne, this accounting proved largely accurate: 541 men from the battalion left England to be dropped into the battle of Normandy, the enumerated casualties for June 6 alone were two “presumed killed,” 18 dead, six wounded, and 81 taken prisoner. The unit lost no more to capture after the first day, but by June 17, when the battalion was removed from the front line for the first time, the other categories had swelled to 48 killed and 113 wounded. Stacey’s calculation of the actual “wastage” rate is that it was 59 per cent for officers and 39 per cent for other ranks.

If you have read about the paras, it is perhaps not the casualty figures that strike you so much as the unique Gothic horror of their particular experience of D-Day. The Americans’ use of parachute attacks in Sicily had taught planners that putting soldiers right on the intended drop zone never went as well as in training. Pilots who were comfortable flying slow and at suitable height over Fort Benning inevitably found themselves less cool over enemy terrain dotted with anti-aircraft guns and small arms.

In some cases evasive manoeuvres flung the airborne infantry out of the hatch without warning. Meanwhile, flat areas that had looked like green fields in photos turned out to be algae-covered swamps, some intentionally flooded by the Germans. Anyone who had volunteered for the paratroops in the hope of avoiding drowning could be in for a dreadful surprise. The historian Dan Hartigan, son of a 1st Battalion vet of the same name, describes a close shave for Sgt. W.R. Kelly, later killed in the Battle of the Bulge. “One man found Sergeant Kelly hanging upside down with his head in the water, from a huge deadwood tree. … The canopy had caught on a limb and suspended Kelly so he was submerged from the top of his head to his neck.” Kelly was rescued by a nearby comrade, but some soldiers in similar predicaments dropped alone and were not so lucky. In darkness and confusion, others landed badly, broke limbs, and were out of action at once.

Bren Gun at the Range

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

Forgotten Weapons
Published on 23 Aug 2011

We take a 1940 Bren gun to the range to demonstrate function, disassembly, and shooting from a variety of positions. For more information, check out http://www.ForgottenWeapons.com .

QotD: Ruling France

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

From the French Revolution in 1789 to the ascension of Charles de Gaulle in 1958, France had an absolute monarchy, three constitutional monarchies, a directory, a consulate, two empires with one restoration, four republics, two provisional governments, a government in exile, and the hobnailed jackboot of Nazi occupation: 17 distinct regimes in 169 years.

De Gaulle, with his Fifth Republic, appeared to have settled the ancient argument between the monarchists and the republicans by creating a monarchy and calling it a republic. But the presidents of that republic — de Gaulle, Pompidou, Giscard d’Estaing, Mitterand, Chirac, Sarkozy, Hollande — have been a downward sequence. Each was at least slightly, and sometimes sharply, less talented than his predecessor.

In 2017, in utter exasperation, France embraced a 39-year old former banker and senior financial civil servant who had no more sought elective office than had Donald Trump before running for president, Emmanuel Macron. He achieved the office not by gaining control of a political party; French political parties are very fluid and rise and disappear and change their names every few years, but by standing as an independent and setting up a new party of rank political amateurs as legislators. It was magnificent in the country of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and other triumphant theorists. It ran on a euphoric platform: a green revolution, lower taxes, a better social benefit system, completed unification of Europe, stronger armed forces, everything that was desirable and the quick elimination of all that was not.

The predictable happened and Macron is now diminished by the incoherent rioting every weekend of mobs of angry bourgeois crabbing about taxes, reinforced by outright hooligans, all wearing the silly yellow vests all French drivers are required to have in their automobiles so they can put them on to signify an emergency. It is that splendid French combination of the perfect goal and the absurd result.

Conrad Black, “What’s the Matter With Europe?”, New English Review, 2019-05-06.

June 6, 2019

On D-Day what did the Germans know?

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

Military History Visualized
Published on 28 May 2019

When it comes to D-Day and the German perspective there are a few bits out there, but the sources are sometimes lacking. So, for this, we will be looking at some proper sources namely, the situation report of Operations Staff of the Wehrmacht and the war diary of the 7th German Army.

Cover design by vonKickass.

»» SUPPORT MHV ««
» paypal donation – https://paypal.me/mhvis
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» SOURCES «

Mehner, Kurt (Hrsg.): Die geheimen Tagesberichte der Deutschen Wehrmachtführung im Zweiten Weltkrieg 1939-1945. Band 10: 1. März 1944 – 31. August 1944, Biblio Verlag: Osnabrück, 1985.

Schramm, Percy E.: (Hrsg.): Kriegstagebuch des OKW 1944-1945. Teilband I. Eine Dokumentation. Bechtermünz: 2005.

Lieb, Peter: Unternehmen Overlord. Die Invasion in der Normandie und die Befreiung Westeuropas. C.H. Beck: München, 2014.

Horst Boog, Gerhard Krebs, Detlef Vogel: Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg. Band 7. Das Deutsche Reich in der Defensive – Strategischer Luftkrieg in Europa, Krieg im Westen und in Ostasien 1943 bis 1944/45, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 2001.

Germany and the Second World War. Volume 7. The Strategic Air War in Europe and the War in the West and East Asia 1943–1944/5. 2006.

Citino, Robert M.: The Wehrmacht’s Last Stand. The German Campaigns of 1944-1945. University Press of Kansas: USA, 2017.

Fennell, Jonathan: Fighting the People’s War. The British and Commonwealth Armies and the Second World War. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK, 2019

Harrison, Gordon A.: Cross-Channel Attack. United States army in World War II. Center of Military History, United States Army, Washington D.C., 1993

Blumenson, Martin: Breakout and Pursuit. United States army in World War II. Center of Military History, United States Army, Washington D.C., 1993

Messenger, Charles: The D-Day Atlas. Anatomy of the Normandy Campaign, Thames & Hudson: London, 2014 (2004).

Penrose, Jane (ed.): The D-Day Companion. Leading Historians explore history’s greatest amphibious assault. Osprey Publishing: Oxford 2009 (2004).

Töppel, Roman: Kursk 1943. The Greatest Battle of the Second World War. Helion: Warwick, UK: 2018.

Document for June 6th: D-day statement to soldiers, sailor, and airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force, 6/44 https://www.archives.gov/global-pages…

The Invasion of France, June 6, 1944, House of Commons https://winstonchurchill.org/resource…

Bloody Normandy: Juno Beach and Beyond – Part 1

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

canmildoc
Published on 17 Sep 2011

Part 1 of 5

Documentary “Stories from the Second World War: Bloody Normany”.

Juno or Juno Beach was one of five sectors of the Allied invasion of German-occupied France in the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944, during the Second World War. The sector spanned from Saint-Aubin, a village just east of the British Gold sector, to Courseulles, just west of the British Sword sector. The Juno landings were judged necessary to provide flanking support to the British drive on Caen from Sword, as well as to capture the German airfield at Carpiquet west of Caen. Taking Juno was the responsibility of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division and commandos of the Royal Marines, with support from Naval Force J, the Juno contingent of the invasion fleet, including ships of the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN). The beach was defended by two battalions of the German 716th Infantry Division, with elements of the 21st Panzer Division held in reserve near Caen.

The invasion plan called for two brigades of the 3rd Canadian Division to land in two subsectors — Mike and Nan — focusing on Courseulles, Bernières, and Saint-Aubin. It was hoped that preliminary naval and air bombardment would soften up the beach defences and destroy coastal strongpoints. Close support on the beaches was to be provided by amphibious tanks of the 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade. Once the landing zones were secured, the plan called for the 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade to land reserve battalions and deploy inland, the Royal Marine commandos to establish contact with the British 3rd Infantry Division on Sword, and the 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade to link up with the British 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division on Gold. The 3rd Canadian Division’s D-Day objectives were to capture Carpiquet Airfield and reach the Caen-Bayeux railway line by nightfall.

The landings initially encountered heavy resistance from the German 716th Division; the preliminary bombardment proved less effective than had been hoped, and rough weather forced the first wave to be delayed until 07:35. Several assault companies — notably those of the Royal Winnipeg Rifles and The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada — took heavy casualties in the opening minutes of the first wave. Strength of numbers, as well as coordinated fire support from artillery and armoured squadrons, cleared most of the coastal defences within two hours of landing. The reserves of the 7th and 8th brigades began deploying at 08:30 (along with the Royal Marines), while the 9th Brigade began its deployment at 11:40.

The subsequent push inland towards Carpiquet and the Caen-Bayeux railway line achieved mixed results. The sheer numbers of men and vehicles on the beaches created lengthy delays between the landing of the 9th Brigade and the beginning of substantive attacks to the south. The 7th Brigade encountered heavy initial opposition before pushing south and making contact with the 50th Infantry Division at Creully. The 8th Brigade encountered heavy resistance from a battalion of the 716th at Tailleville, while the 9th Brigade deployed towards Carpiquet early in the evening. Resistance in Saint-Aubin prevented the Royal Marines from establishing contact with the British 3rd Division on Sword. When all operations on the Anglo-Canadian front were ordered to halt at 21:00, only one unit had reached its D-Day objective, but the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division had succeeded in pushing farther inland than any other landing force on D-Day. – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juno_beach

QotD: Reviewing Saving Private Ryan

Filed under: History, Media, Military, Quotations, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

When Saving Private Ryan was released in America, I made a mild observation to the effect that its premise was a lot of hooey, and received in response several indignant letters pointing out that it was “based on a true story”, that of the Sullivan brothers. Er, not quite. The Sullivans’ story is stirringly told in The Fighting Sullivans (1942, directed by 42nd Street’s Lloyd Bacon): after Pearl Harbor, all five brothers enlist — and all five die aboard the [cruiser] Juneau at Guadalcanal. As a result, to avoid the recurrence of such a freakish tragedy, the United States changed its policy on family members serving together. Steven Spielberg’s film is not “based” on the Sullivans, except insofar as General George C. Marshall, the US Army’s chief of staff, mentions their fate to explain his decision.

Rather, the film is a kind of extension of the thinking behind the policy change: when three out of four Ryan brothers are killed in action, General Marshall orders a rescue mission to retrieve the sole surviving sibling, whose general whereabouts are somewhere behind enemy lines in Normandy — and all this a couple of days after D-Day. No such incident took place: no Allied commander would have thought it worth the risk in lives to assuage one distraught mother’s potential further bereavement.

Spielberg’s mistake is that, as one of the last remaining hardcore Clinton groupies, he’s thinking in Clintonian terms — about publicity, image, spin: the death of another Ryan brother would not “look good”. When Spielberg has General Marshall read out a letter from Lincoln to a mother whose sons all died in the Civil War, we’re certainly meant to find his consoling words — that they gave their lives in a great and noble cause — inadequate. It’s a measure of the gulf between 1944 and 1998 that The Fighting Sullivans was released during the war because it was thought the supreme sacrifice of one family would be inspiring. Alas, not to baby boomers.

So much has been written about the unprecedented “realism” of this film’s war scenes that the equally unprecedented unrealism of its thinking has passed virtually unnoticed. You’ve probably seen a zillion articles about the film’s prologue — a recreation of D-Day which lasts almost as long and doubtless cost a lot more — so I’ll say only this: yes, it’s impressive; yes, every shot of blood and tissue and body parts is underlined by adroit effects; yes, every moment is a testament to Spielberg’s command of cinematic technique; but that’s the problem — you react to it as technique, as showmanship. There’s one perfect shot after another: the silence underwater, with its dangerous illusion of respite; the pitterpatter of rain on leaves gradually blurring into rifle fire. The whole thing is oddly pointless: you’re not engaged by the predicament of the troops because you’re so busy admiring the great film-maker behind them. A film cannot really be “authentic” if all you notice is the authenticity.

Mark Steyn, The Spectator, 1998-09-12 (linked from SteynOnline).

June 5, 2019

Battle of Ad Decimum 533 Roman – Vandalic War Documentary

Filed under: Africa, History, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Kings and Generals
Published on 12 Nov 2017

Although Belisarius, the best general of the Roman Emperor Justinian, had earned a significant victory over the Sassanids at the battle of Dara in 530, the restoration of the empire was just starting. The empire’s western lands were under Vandalic control and Justinian was eager to get them back. He sent Belisarius to Africa to deal with the Vandals. Two battles – Ad Decimum and Tricamarum – were central in this campaign.

Previous video within this series – Battle of Dara 530: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GR_V…

Support us on Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/KingsandGenerals or Paypal: http://paypal.me/kingsandgenerals

We are grateful to our patrons, who made this video possible: Koopinator, Daisho, Łukasz Maliszewski, Nicolas Quinones, William Fluit, Juan Camilo Rodriguez, Murray Dubs, Dimitris Valurdos, Félix Gagné-Dion, Fahri Dashwali, Kyle Hooton, Dan Mullen, Mohamed Thair, Pablo Aparicio Martínez, Iulian Margeloiu, Chet, Nick Nasad, Jeyares, Amir Eppel, Thomas Bloch, Uri Sternfeld, Juha Mäkelä, Georgi Kirilov, Moe Mia, Daniel Yifrach, Brian Crane, Muramasa, Gerald Tnay, Hassan Ali, Richie Thierry, David O’Hare, Christopher Commins, Chris Glantzis and Mike.

The script was developed by our friend DismountedCentaur. His help with the research was essential for this documentary.

This video was narrated by good friend Officially Devin. Check out his channel for some kick-ass Let’s Plays. https://www.youtube.com/user/Official…

The Machinimas for this video are created by one more friend – Malay Archer. Check out his channel, he has some of the best Total War machinimas ever created: https://www.youtube.com/user/Mathemed…

The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls

Filed under: Cancon, History, Law — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

In the National Post, Chris Selley points out some odd blindspots in the final report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls:

“The violence the National Inquiry heard amounts to a race-based genocide of Indigenous Peoples, including First Nations, Inuit and Métis, which especially targets women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people,” the report declares. Among the first headlines was one noting that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “avoided” using the G-word in his remarks on its findings, settling for “shameful” and “unacceptable.”

The inquiry’s legal analysis concedes it is a novel deployment of the term. It seems far more comfortable alleging a historical genocide against “Indigenous Peoples” that involved specific targeting of women — for example through forced sterilization, which is acknowledged as a genocidal technique in the 1948 UN convention — than it does a genocide against Indigenous women and girls specifically. But the insistence upon the term speaks volumes about this peculiar inquiry’s tortured birth, and about some of its more perplexing recommendations.

Indigenous women have certainly been targets for violence and discrimination in particular ways throughout Canada’s history. Today they suffer disproportionately from violent crime, relative to Indigenous men, in a way that non-Indigenous women do not. The rate of self-reported sexual assault among Indigenous women in the 2014 General Social Survey (GSS) was more than triple that of non-Indigenous women. An astonishing 61 per cent of Indigenous women aged 15-25 reported violent victimization in the previous 12 months — nearly six times the rate for Indigenous men the same age.

But if Indigenous victims of violence even today can be said to be casualties of colonialist genocide, then the subset who are by far the most “especially targeted” — which is to say dead — are men. Between 2014 and 2017, Statistics Canada reports there were 139 Indigenous female homicide victims, and 428 Indigenous male victims — three times as many. (Similarly, non-Indigenous men were murdered two-and-a-half times more often than non-Indigenous women.)

[…]

But the obsession with half the Indigenous population leads to some bewildering recommendations, especially on the justice file. On the one hand the report inveighs against mandatory minimum sentences as a cause of Indigenous overrepresentation in the prison system, and calls for more robust applications of Gladue principles for all Indigenous offenders, which is to say more alternatives to incarceration; on the other hand it supports legislation that would require judges to punish violent offences more harshly if the victim is an Indigenous woman, and to automatically classify homicides occurring after “a pattern of intimate partner violence and abuse” as first-degree murder. This would almost certainly have the effect of increasing the incarceration rates of Indigenous men and women alike.

WWII Field Kitchen Overview

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

Tri-State Living History Association
Published on 15 Dec 2018

The GI Field Kitchen during WWII was part of the Company HQ, designed to serve 150-180 men. They intended to serve 2 hot meals per day: Breakfast & Supper, with Dinner (Lunch) as a combat ration. They were equipped with stoves, water heaters and mermite cans to deliver the hot food to the troops.

While sound in theory, often times in reality the kitchens had to make do with less equipment and were forced to adapt to the situations in which they were forced to operate. Despite this, mess staff did their best to keep the fighting man’s body and morale fed.

Filmed at Rockford WWII Days 2018

Special thanks to Nick Yi Photography: https://www.nickyi.com/

Website: https://www.tslha.org/

Print Sources:

TM 10-405 (Apr 24, 1942) – The Army Cook

TM 10-406 (Nov 22, 1943) – Cooking Dehydrated Foods

TM 10-400 (Nov, 1944) – Stoves, Ranges, Ovens, and Cooking Outfits

TM 10-701 (Dec, 1945) – Range, Field M-1937

T/O 7-17 (Sept 1, 1942): http://www.hardscrabblefarm.com/ww2/

Footage Sources:

The Battle of San Pietro – John Huston (1945)

TF 10-1237 – Rations in the Combat Zone Part 1 – Fighting Food

TF 10-1215 – Rations in the Combat Zone Part 2 – Unit Messing

TF 10-2454 – Unit Messing in the Field

TF 10-1202 – Baking in the Field Part 1 – The M1942 Field Baking Unit

MISC 1282 – Quartermaster Activities in the European Theater

Picture Sources: 185th Field Artillery, 34th ID from the H. Smith collection: http://34thinfantry.com/photos.html

QotD: The almost unknown economic good news since 1800

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

Ordinary people, and some economists, and even a few economic historians, don’t know it. Hans Rosling, the late, great Swedish professor of public health, emphasized how little most people, even very well-informed people, know about the overwhelmingly good news 1800 to the present, or even 1960 to the present (e.g., falling birth rates, falling infant death rates, rising literacy). He surveyed people, in his various audiences to the number of 20,000. They were embarrassingly less accurate on the whole than monkeys would be throwing darts at the multiple choice possibilities. And the human experts, with ordinary citizens, were always biased in a pessimistic, anti-modern direction. Consider Kenneth Pomeranz, in his fine book with Steven Topik, The World That Trade Created. Pomeranz and Topik tell many interesting and accurate stories about the bad side of creative destruction (which comes from any human progress, not as is often said on the left from “neo-liberalism”). But they never acknowledge the gigantic improvements coming from it for ordinary people. Not once.

Dierdre McCloskey, “How Growth Happens: Liberalism, Innovism, and the Great Enrichment (Preliminary version)” [PDF], 2018-11-29.

June 4, 2019

Railroad Town

Filed under: Cancon, History, Railways — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

NFB
Published on 7 Aug 2017

This short documentary is a delightful trip back to an era in which railroad was king.

Directed by Don Haldane

About the NFB
The National Film Board of Canada produces and distributes documentary films, animation, web documentaries and fiction. Our stories explore the world we live in from a Canadian point of view.

Watch over 3,000 films for free on NFB.ca – http://bit.ly/YThpNFB
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