exurb1a
Published on 28 Apr 2019Illegitimi non carborundum, yo.
So.
The original line was, “If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.” As far as I can tell it’s Juan Ramón Jiménez’s.I am also now painfully aware I’ve written a half as ‘2/1’. Sorry maths.
Please note that this wasn’t intended to be a diatribe against critics or experts. They obviously play an important role. It was more directed at the recreational cynicism one comes across in daily life from time to time, generally pointed at young artists. I have had the privilege to meet plenty of people 1000x more talented than me, who are simultaneously doubting their abilities because of some stupid comment made by an unpleasant teacher or jaded family member.
If you are that artist, I really just wanted to say: You’re in good company; the Greats doubted themselves too. Don’t let the bastards get you down and I hope you make all manner of interesting and fantastic things.
The music is the 3rd movement of Big Baus Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D Major: https://youtu.be/Ev45Knhdlp8
I like that piece lots. I hope you do too.
Again, all the very best of luck in your projects.
April 30, 2019
You Will Never Do Anything Remarkable
April 19, 2019
“Saboteurs” – Norwegian Heavy Water Sabotage – Sabaton History 011
Sabaton History
Published on 18 Apr 2019As the scientific masterminds of the early 1940’s discover the destructive capabilities of splitting atoms, some of them try to weaponise it. One special product is important in the creation of such a weapon: heavy water. The Norwegians have a plant that produces heavy water at Vemork. The Allies, desperate to slow down the German progress towards the development of a nuclear weapon, decide to sabotage it. The Sabaton song “Saboteurs” from the Coat Of Arms album is about the dangerous mission that is conducted by the British and Norwegians in the winter of 1940 to sabotage the Norwegian Heavy Water production for the Nazis.
Support Sabaton History on Patreon (and possibly get a special edition of The Great War): https://www.patreon.com/sabatonhistory
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/SabatonOfficialShopHosted 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 KaminskiEastory YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEly…
Archive by: Reuters/Screenocean https://www.screenocean.com
Music by Sabaton.An OnLion Entertainment GmbH and Raging Beaver Publishing AB co-Production.
© Raging Beaver Publishing AB, 2019 – all rights reserved.
March 31, 2019
Allies Plan to Hit the Nazis Where it Hurts – WW2 – 031 – March 30 1940
World War Two
Published on 30 Mar 2019Newly appointed French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud and his British counterpart Neville Chamberlain spend the week looking for ways to harm the Germans. Not just by targeting their direct opponent directly, but also by exploring the idea of expanding the war into much bigger territory. In the meantime, the French prepare for the expected invasion and the Allies are laying the foundations of what might one time become a weapon of mass destruction.
Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Or join The TimeGhost Army directly at: https://timeghost.tvFollow WW2 day by day on Instagram @World_war_two_realtime https://www.instagram.com/world_war_t…
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sourcesWritten and Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Produced and Directed by: Spartacus Olsson and Astrid Deinhard
Executive Producers: Bodo Rittenauer, Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Research by: Indy Neidell
Edited by: Iryna Dulka
Map animations: EastoryColorisations by Norman Stewart
Eastory’s channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEly…
Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.comA TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
From the comments:
World War Two
9 hours ago (edited)
If the Allies and the Germans follow through with all their plans, the phoney war will surely soon come to a close. But who knows what will happen. If one thing is certain, it is that they all have made plans before that never made it into reality.A community member of ours set up a new Discord Channel. Come over to discuss the war, say hi to the community or share some memes. You can join right here: https://discord.gg/D6D2aYN
January 29, 2019
history of japan
bill wurtz
Published on 2 Feb 2016patreon: http://patreon.com/billwurtz
spotify: https://play.spotify.com/artist/78cT0…
itunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/bil…
twitter: http://twitter.com/billwurtz
vine: http://vine.co/billwurtz
donate: http://paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=…
January 13, 2019
Canada’s role in India’s nuclear weapons development program
Canadian nuclear technology was critical to India for helping them develop their first nuclear weapons (although the Canadian reactor was supposed to be used only for civilian purposes):
Maybe you have heard the story of how India got the Bomb with Canada’s inadvertent help. We sold India a nuclear reactor called CIRUS in 1954 on an explicit promise that the facility would only be used for peaceful purposes. When India astonished the world with its first nuke test in May 1974, having upgraded the fuel output from CIRUS, it duly announced that it had successfully created a Peaceful Nuclear Explosive. The permanent consequence was, for better or worse, a nuclear-armed Subcontinent.
This is old news to enthusiasts of Cold War history. Here’s the new news: it almost happened twice. Canadian technology was almost used by another country to break into the nuclear club.
In November, historians David Albright and Andrea Stricker published a new book called Taiwan’s Former Nuclear Weapons Program: Nuclear Weapons On-Demand. The book pulls together the previously sketchy story of Nationalist China’s covert nuclear research, which had its roots in the postwar exodus of Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang party (KMT). Albright and Stricker describe decades of effort by the offshore Republic of China on Taiwan to play a double game with nuclear weapons.
At first Taiwan engaged in sneaky nuclear research — it turns out that if you research nuclear safety you learn a lot about nuclear explosions — and it tried to create a plutonium stockpile on the sly. But their scientists left too many clues: a plutonium-based nuke requires processed plutonium metal, and that is hard to make without raising suspicions. The Indian test of 1974 was an important wake-up call to the world, and the nonproliferation establishment and the U.S. Department of State started to get nervous about Taiwan.
After a 1977 confrontation with American officials, who could hardly be ignored by the vulnerable Republic of China, the KMT deep state tried subtler methods to create the “on-demand” weapon described in the title. Taiwan committed formally to nonproliferation and full U.S. inspections of their facilities, but sought to be able to make low-yield nukes within three to six months in the event of a Communist invasion from the mainland.
December 3, 2018
Eric Swalwell’s Kinsley gaffe
If you haven’t encountered it, a “Kinsley gaffe” is where a politician accidentally tells the truth (Wikipedia). Newly elected US member of the House of Representatives Eric Swalwell committed a classic Kinsley gaffe in an online discussion on social media, as Jeff Fullerton explains:
Democratic representative Eric Swalwell made a really provocative statement this week according to an article from Hot Air. Pretty much serving notice that: If we confiscate your guns and you fight back, we will nuke you.
Representative Swalwell sort of gives a disclaimer that he he was not actually advocating nuking Texas or some other disobedient red state or region — but merely trying to make a point in the fashion of the Borg from Star Trek; that resistance is futile and it is the lot of us all to be assimilated — against our will if necessary. The author of the article from Hot Air points out something that my friend and mentor Bruce the Historian pointed out long ago; that there are an awful lot weapons in the hands of private citizens capable of making it hell on earth for any federal troops deployed to disarm the population or engage in the collectivization of property and resources in a martial law scenario. Or forced relocation of people. That’s the real reason they want everyone disarmed. They know from experiences in Vietnam and the “Forever War” in the Middle East; that cracking down with overwhelming force has its limits and once they put off a nuke to burn a town in Texas they might have to burn every square mile of the nation to put an end to the uprising.
Talk about excessive force!
That they’d even talk at all about using a nuclear weapon to put down an internal insurrection proves beyond the shadow of doubt that power hungry politicians are a far deadlier existential threat to us all than any crazed mass shooter or terrorist could ever hope to be!
This congress creature bases his argument on a fallacy which is common assumption among the political class: that because the federal government is capable of mustering overwhelming force — the Second Amendment is obsolete anyway. He already contradicts himself for if we the people are impotent against the overwhelming fire and manpower of the Army and the bombs and missiles of the Air Force — then why are people like him so adamant about disarming the average Joe? I think I already answered that one. […]
There is also the issue of the military itself that the political class ought to take into consideration. It may be less monolithic than assumed. Many of them still believe in the validity of the Constitution and would side with the resistance while others among the loyalist factions would have problems of conscience when it comes to mass slaughter of fellow Americans. Still others might be fearful of the consequences of being held accountable for atrocities or even treason if they end up on the losing side of things. To attack and kill your own people who you swore to serve and protect is a grievous betrayal. It is treason of the highest order and the punishment for that is death. So if you choose such a course of action and loose the fight; you go down in historic infamy to be remembered like the Nazi war criminals who stood before the Nuremberg tribunals. And you will probably [be] shot or hanged in a public execution!
November 3, 2018
Freedom’s Fighters with Tim Worstall
Adam Smith
Published on 1 Nov 2018Every month the Adam Smith Institute hails one of those who have fought the good fight for freedom over the decades. In this month’s Dr Madsen Pirie interviewed our blog maestro Tim Worstall, who visited the UK from his rather sunnier climes in Portugal.
April 28, 2018
QotD: Nixon’s final days in the White House
The sudden, hellish reality of a nuclear war with either Russia or China or both was probably the only thing that could have salvaged Nixon’s presidency after the Supreme Court ruled that he had to yield up the incriminating tapes that he knew would finish him off. Would the action-starved generals at the Strategic Air Command Headquarters have ignored an emergency order from their commander-in-chief? And how long would it have taken Pat Buchanan or General Haig to realize that “The Boss” had finally flipped? Nixon spent so much time alone that nobody else in the White House would have given his absence a second thought until he failed to show up for dinner, and by that time he could have made enough phone calls to start wars all over the world.
A four-star general commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps with three wars and 35 years of fanatical devotion to duty, honor and country in his system would hack off his own feet and eat them rather than refuse to obey a direct order from the president of the United States – even if he thought the president was crazy.
The key to all military thinking is a concept that nobody who ever wore a uniform with even one stripe on it will ever forget: “You don’t salute the man, you salute the uniform.” Once you’ve learned that, you’re a soldier – and soldiers don’t disobey orders from people they have to salute. If Nixon’s tortured mind had bent far enough to let him think he could save himself by ordering a full-bore Marine/Airborne invasion of Cuba, he would not have given the Boom-Boom order to some closet-pacifist general who might be inclined to delay the invasion long enough to call Henry Kissinger for official reassurance that the president was not insane.
No West Pointer with four stars on his hat would take that kind of risk anyway. By the time word got back to the White House, or to Kissinger, that Nixon had given the order to invade Cuba, the whole Caribbean would be a sea of fire; Fidel Castro would be in a submarine on his way to Russia, and the sky above the Atlantic would be streaked from one horizon to the other with the vapor trails of a hundred panic-launched missiles.
***
Right. But it was mainly a matter of luck that Nixon’s mental disintegration was so obvious and so crippling that by the time he came face to face with his final option, he was no longer able to even recognize it. When the going got tough, the politician who worshiped toughness above all else turned into a whimpering, gin-soaked vegetable……. But it is still worth wondering how long it would have taken Haig and Kissinger to convince all those SAC generals out in Omaha to disregard a Doomsday phone call from the president of the United States because a handful of civilians in the White House said he was crazy.
Hunter S. Thompson, “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’76: Third-rate romance, low-rent rendezvous — hanging with Ted Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, and a bottle of Wild Turkey”, Rolling Stone, 1976-06-03.
March 3, 2018
Cuban Missile Crisis – Black Saturday – Extra History – #3
Extra Credits
Published on 1 Mar 2018*Sponsored by DomiNations: https://smarturl.it/CubanMissile1
With simultaneous nuclear tests by both the US and Russia, and tense miscommunications among troops on the ground, in the air, and on the water, the doomsday clock ticked to 11:59 PM for one fateful day.
February 23, 2018
Cuban Missile Crisis – Eyeball to Eyeball – Extra History – #2
Extra Credits
Published on 22 Feb 2018Sponsored by DomiNations: https://smarturl.it/CubanMissile1
After President Kennedy’s television address, tensions are rising. Fidel Castro is getting annoyed at the US and Soviet Union alike, and everyone else has their own ideas on what retaliation looks like.
February 17, 2018
Cuban Missile Crisis – I: The Failed Checkmate – Extra History
Extra Credits
Published on 15 Feb 2018An eye for an eye, a missile for a missile — that’s how the saying goes, right? So thought the Soviet Union and the United States in the early fall of 1962, kicking off a 13-day staring contest that scared the world.
January 30, 2018
DicKtionary – A is for Air Force – Curtis LeMay
TimeGhost
Published on 17 Jan 2018A is for Air Force, you know that of course
And we turn to the states to look at the dates
When the man in command, that some couldn’t stand
Is our hero today, General Curtis LeMay.Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Like TimeGhost on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TimeGhostHistory/
Written and Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Based on a concept by Astrid Deinhard and Indy Neidell
Produced by: Spartacus Olsson and Astrid Deinhard
Executive Producers: Bodo Rittenauer, Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson
Camera and Edit by: Spartacus Olsson
January 28, 2018
Day 13 Cuban Missile Crisis – The End to End All Things and Almost Everything
TimeGhost
Published on 21 Dec 2017On Sunday, 28 October, 1962 the Cuban Missile Crisis is supposed to end, but there are still two nuclear armed Soviet submarines in the waters around the island hunted by the US Navy. And what about Fidel Castro?
January 27, 2018
Day 12 Cuban Missile Crisis – Black Saturday, nuclear war on autopilot…
TimeGhost
Published on 7 Dec 2017On October 27, 1962 a deal to resolve the Cuban Missile Crisis is ever so close, but then almost everything that can go wrong, goes wrong. Political confusion between the leaders, lost and shot down airplanes, errant nuclear armed submarines and exhaustion takes its toll. For those immediately involved it will go down in memory as the Black Saturday.
January 26, 2018
Day 11 Cuban Missile Crisis – Will President Kennedy invade Cuba after all?
TimeGhost
Published on 30 Nov 2017On 26 October 1962, USSR Premier Nikita Khrushchev is preparing to offer the US an olive branch. Meanwhile US President John F Kennedy continue to plan an invasion of Cuba. While the politicians make new plans, their previous military plans take on a life of their own
