PRIVATE SEARCH ENGINE
SCROLL DOWN
It’s Not Pizza in the Pizza Box
You start with french fries, add protein, and a combination of sauces with more on the side if you want. It can be shared or eaten solo (if you’re a selfish pig).
And then there are onion rings.
If you’re overweight it makes you harder to kidnap. Just offering some hope… When people make fun of you, remind them of that indisputable fact…and have another onion ring after you dip it.
For Riverrider
Identify the Helicopter
You know what it means
When one safe is full, you’re going to need another safe. And when that one is full, rinse, repeat. And you’ll need a few for the ammo.
I was reading where some prog journalist complained that a US citizen had 10,000 rounds. I thought to myself, only 10K, wow. That guy needs to stock up. A Minigun (7.62 mm, multi-barrel heavy machine gun) will fire 6,000 rounds per minute, employing Gatling-style rotating barrels with an external power source. So 10K won’t even get you two minutes of continuous fire. (Yes, I know that you burst it.)
Yes, a mini-gun can seem wasteful unless you need to put ordnance on target. Then it doesn’t seem like that.
An M-2 firing .50 BMG (12.7x99mm NATO) has a much slower rate of fire – 500 RPM with maybe 800 RPM if you’re shooting AN/M2 or 1,000 RPM for AN/M3), but at $5+ per round… you do the math. Though there is something satisfying about API rounds striking a target even at 500 rounds-per-minute.
The Bitter Woman
I read an article wherein Michelle Obama (the shadow first lady now – casting a much LARGER shadow with an 80 lbs weight gain since she was officially in the White House) is still on it about how she’s been treated badly because she’s black. It has something to do with the new presidential library and monument that just broke ground in Chicago. I don’t quite understand the drama, but then again, I didn’t have to suffer living in the White House for eight years with all those servants, and frequent trips to exotic destinations at taxpayer expense.
Chamber pot with a print of Royal Navy Captain Basil Hal, 1830
If you recall the chamber pot with Napoleon’s likeness at the bottom, you’ll know that this type of chamber pot was very popular to express displeasure with certain people. Especially popular at the time of the Napoleonic Wars were Royal Navy officers and Napoleon himself (what a surprise). This chamber pot, however, comes from America and was probably brought onto the market around the 1830s. But what had this rather unknown captain done that caused the Americans to want to piss on him?
Basil Hall was born in 1788 and joined the Royal Navy in 1802. He saw action in various expeditionary missions in Asian and South American waters. He even had an interview with Napoleon on St Helena in 1817. He retired from the Navy in 1823 and began traveling. Among that was a voyage to North America and Canada in 1827/28.
As he published his voyage report, the Americans hoped that he would report positively on the new nation. But he insulted everyone as uneducated idiots, to put it kindly. He blaggarded the colonies from one side to the other and suggested that giving them up was the best thing that the King had done. Hall made most of it up and spread a lot of half-truths in his report and thus ensured that fewer visitors came and the American reputation was tarnished among the British. Even new transcripts with some corrections on his part did not make the whole thing any better and negative voices were raised against him, it was even rumored that he did this deliberately to turn the British against the Americans.
Whether he did all this out of pure malice or imagination is hard to say, because Hall himself was admitted to the Royal Hospital Haslar in Portsmouth in 1840 and died there in 1844 at the age of 55. It is assumed that he only wrote his travelogue in the way he did due to his mental illness.
This brings us up to this moment in time and possible business opportunities to create chamber pots for sale with faces of people who deserve their place in the pot – and in that part of history.
On the heels of Columbus Day
The Jupiter/Earth graphic isn’t a map really
Language
Not quite density – but it speaks to culture
Carnivores have more fun…
Camela Harris under fire?
Critics again took to social media to mock Harris over the video, with some comparing it to the hit HBO show “Veep,” which depicts an incompetent vice president and her hapless political team.
KAMALA HARRIS MOCKED OVER SCIENCE VIDEO FOR KIDS
“Stop it. I just heard the children in the cringe-worthy video with Kamala Harris were child actors. Everything in the Biden admin is fake,” wrote one critic, while another suggested Harris was “faker than Hillary Clinton.”
I felt sorry. for the kids until I learned they were making union scale and were on the clock for take after take until the producers were happy with the finished product. It will make for a powerful campaign ad against the Ho should she run for office again.
And it’s October
Winter is Coming
Rimmed with canyon walls dotted by saguaro cactus, aptly named Saguaro Lake is located about 40 miles east of Phoenix.
Sometimes it is cold enough to see significant snow on Four Peaks from the lake.
1099
After the relative success of the First Crusade led by Peter-the-Hermit, Godfrey of Bouillon was named Defender of the Holy Sepulcher. The kings and princes offered him the crown, but he refused “to be named a king in a city where Christ wore a crown of thorns.”
Among his peers, Godfrey was widely regarded as the ideal ruler, a capable military commander, and a pious crusader.
Biden Voter
h/t Claudio
FREEDOM FLYERS
(link) What do you want to bet that they are now on the FBI’s domestic terrorist list now?
According to its website, US Freedom Flyers is a group of “transportation industry employees who have come together to fight federal and state mandates which aim to strip Citizens of their right to medical freedom.”
AMTRAK is having similar issues
People are showing a little spine. The government is not your friend and they do NOT have your best interests at heart.
Meme-of-the-Day
Parting Shot
Johnson M1941 Automatic rifle
Designed by Captain Melvin Johnson Jr. in the late 1930′s along with his semi-automatic rifle, manufactured by Johnson Automatic Manufacturing Co. c.1941-45 .30-06 30-round single-stack removable box magazine, short-recoil select fire.
_________
Johnson M1944 Automatic rifle
The same, but cobbled together from pipes during WW2. The Johnson light machine gun was born from one of the attempts by Johnson to replace the M1 Garand in US service, none of them succeeding at that. This design however was adopted as a slightly lighter alternative to the BAR by both the US Army and Marine Corps.
Because it’s Tuesday
Southwest Airlines
Cold Left-Over Pizza for Breakfast?
My vote is YES. I am NOT recommending sofa-pizza, though. If you have to lift a cushion to find it, no, just no.
Because it’s Hispanic Heritage Month
There are different definitions of organized crime. In China, if three people agree to cooperate in the commission of a crime, they call it “organized crime”.
In most organized crime, there is a political element that benefits from the ongoing criminal activity.
States that California prohibits state-funded or state-sponsored travel due to “discriminatory laws”, per Assembly Bill 1887
There are more than 2,500 active and dormant volcanoes in the world
I don’t know how this shameless self-promotion made its way into the blog…but, whenever you think volcano, how can you not think about Red Mist?
Percent of people employed by government across the US and the EU. (2016-2018 data)
Wrecks
I like diving shipwrecks. I haven’t done it for a decade – mainly because I’m just getting older. They are very dangerous to explore but it’s a lot like going through a very exclusive museum (or tomb). Wrecks like that of the Kyrenia are a different matter.
The shipwreck of the Kyrenia was first discovered in 1965 by Andreas Cariolou. When Cariolou was diving for sponges, he came across a hill of 80 amphorae less than a mile from Kyrenia on the north coast of Cyprus. In 1967 Cariolou contacted Michael and Susan Katzev and led them to the wreck, which was 90 feet below the surface.
The excavation of the wreck took place over two summers from 1968 to 1969 and involved the recovery of cargo, dining wares, tools, the rigging of the ship and even four bone eyelets from the sandals of a sailor. The ship itself was a Greek merchant vessel and had a cargo of up to 500 amphorae belonging to ten different shape types. Most of the amphorae were of rhodian origin and date from the last third of the 4th century.
A large part of the hull was preserved. The remaining hull was lifted, preserved and reconstructed. The reconstructed hull was 14 m long and 4.2 m wide. The conservation of the lifted artifacts took place between 1969 and 1974.
Identify the Aircraft
New Tech?
The Solution to yesterday’s IDENTIFY THE AFV question:
Martin took off for Africa, so I was able to pull one off!
The Pizarro infantry fighting vehicle evolved from the ASCOD (Austrian-Spanish Cooperative Development) program. The Pizarro was developed for the Spanish Army alongside the Ulan IFV for the Austrian Army.
The Spanish Army operates a total of 293 Pizarro IFVs, plus its variants optimized for different battlefield roles.
Unlike the Austrian Ulan, the Pizarro also features a limited amount of SABBLIR reactive armor, which significantly increases armor protection. You can see it more clearly in the photo above than in yesterday’s photo. It’s one of the features that separates it from the Austrian model.
The frontal armor of the Pizarro provides protection against 14.5 mm rounds, while all-around protection is against 7.62 mm rounds. This means that a .50 BMG AP/API can take one out if fired at the (slab) side or rear. It would penetrate, bounce around inside and generate spall, disabling the crew.
Southwest Airlines
Announcing the vax mandate. “I encourage all Southwest employees to meet the federal directive, as quickly as possible, since we value every individual and want to ensure job security for all.”
The pilots union, which said it did not oppose vaccination, had warned that enforcement of such a mandate could lead to labor shortages and flight disruptions. The union is suing the airline for taking a series of “unilateral actions,” including the vaccination requirement.
SW Airlines was unable to account for over 1000 flight cancelations while at the same time other airlines flew… they blamed the weather. Well, that dog don’t hunt, Southwest. Call it for what it is.
I would have hoped that a Texas-based airline would have shown more spine to the progs. Apparently, an employee sick-out kept the jets on the tarmac. I have no intention to fly SW Airlines until they get that sorted out, but I’m just one passenger.
Norse Explorations
Until now it was believed that the Azores island group was discovered by Portuguese sailors in the 15th century. However, a new study shows Norse explorers had brought animals to the islands 700 years earlier. Furthermore, the Norsemen burned and engineered the wild wooded landscape to better suit cattle grazing. More here
Fine – Until — somebody rips past in a speedboat
Identify the AFV/Tank
This is a much harder one than I’ve tossed out in the past. Yes, mass-produced and currently in service, but not easy.
27.2mm Panzer-Wurfkörper 42 L
Sturmpistole Z
Manufactured by either Erma or Walther during WW2 by adapting Mod.34 ‘Heer’ army flare pistols. ~27mm caliber smoothbore barrel with rifled insert, firing explosive projectiles of all sorts. They featured Panzerfaust-type sights, MG13 / GrB39 style of stock with cushioned shoulder pad. Top break-action, single shot.
This is the basic flare pistol (above).
The Adaptation (above and below).
The Kampfpistole Z was designed to provide better urban combat weapons to the German army around 1942. Allegedly inspired by a German soldier firing a grenade stuck to a flare from a standard signal pistol out of desperation, killing several enemy soldiers and breaking his arm, it was meant to fight off lightly-armored vehicles with shaped-charge projectiles and otherwise use the variety of specialized cartridges developed for its predecessor. These included message canisters, smoke bombs, grenades, and of course regular flares. The Kampfpistole obviously had a strong recoil, and it was very soon issued in the Sturmpistole configuration with better sights and a welcome stock.
Smoke cartridges
If you complain about the economy, or the price of food, fuel, and building materials, you must be one of those Trump supporters who recalls how good things were before the rigged election and the onset of the political plague.
You just don’t understand how good you have it now under Jo/Ho as they “build back better”. Wear your obedience mask and get your booster shot because this isn’t going to end anytime soon.
The votive Fauci prayer candle is lit while you pray. It is common practice that you start your prayer and light your candle with the first words of your prayer. You can extinguish the match or lighter while you continue to pray if you’d like to. It’s up to you.
In every state, the median age of death due to plague exceeded the average lifespan. Isn’t that interesting?
“All in all, it’s just a brick in the Wall”
Making Music
A different sort of musician.
Spanish Treasure Ships
Columbus Day Rant–continued
A gold bar recovered from the Nuestra Señora de Atocha, a Spanish treasure ship that sunk in 1622. Note the marks for weight and hallmarks from the Spanish crown.
Studying the effect of so much wealth derived from the New World and deposited in Spain is a statement more about the nature of mankind and nation-states than anything else. Spain has never recovered.
What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his own soul?
From C. S. Lewis
“We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.”
I wonder how much treasure the People’s Liberation Army cached for him offshore? There is no telling – and those anonymous havens continue to exist for the benefit of traitors, politicians, tax cheats, and drug lords. Of that crew, the most honest are the drug lords & tax cheats.
It works – not really.
Identify the Tank
The End is Near!
After being told in 1970 that the whole established Earth would be frozen by 1980, and told in 1980 that the world would starve in 1990, then told in 1990 that we had enough food after all but the world would boil like a poached egg by 2000, then in 2000 by 2010, then in 2010 by 2020, and now there is a plague and murder hornets, and there may be a comet in the Oort Cloud with our name on it…but… it seems that the alarmists may be running out of alarms to ring.
First, we were stridently warned that the world would soon die of overpopulation and now there are concerns throughout the developed world of underpopulation and the burning need to import uneducated, unskilled, and diseased masses from the third world to keep us from an “existential crisis”.
When the Aztecs decided the world would end, they had a little more imagination. Maybe it is to these people who the Europeans looted that we should turn.
Based on Aztec lore, ours is the Fifth World and is destined to be destroyed by vast earthquakes. (They didn’t read Red Mist or Loki’s Fire, but they can be forgiven for that faux pas)
The Fourth World ended by flood, the sole survivors being a man and wife. who transformed themselves into fish.
The Third World was ended by rains of fire, the sole survivors transformed into birds who flew above the clouds. (no further details were offered by the Aztecs)
The Second World was ended by hurricanes, the sole survivors transformed to monkeys who clung to the trees, while the rest of mankind was flung by winds to their doom.
The First World, when men were giants, was ended when all were eaten by jaguars, with no survivors.
The woke, Green community needs to hire new fabulists in order to be able to spin more gripping (and interesting) fables! Imagine a million women marching, with endless lesbians screaming about the coming apocalypse of jaguars, demanding socialist world-government in order to wipe out all hunting cats while displaying pictures and paper mache representations of their vaginas as talismans to avert doom.
They are entertaining in their lunacy.
And they’re more fun than the FBI rounding up parents (now branded as terrorists) who demand accountability by their locally elected school boards.
It’s Columbus Day, but is it more than just a day for government workers to take off? For me, where I live, it means that the deer hunters who work for the government, or the banks, or someplace else that offers the furlough (with pay) are enjoying the White Tail Season will remain. in the area for one more day in large numbers.
I refer you first to our fellow blogger, Ed B.and his radio program, Your American Heritage. Ed’s guests are interesting and insightful each week. In this case, his interview: A discussion with Bill Federer: Who was Christopher Columbus and why do we care? is very much on point.
Bill Federer’s point is that the angst toward Columbus is “a case of misplaced blame”.
All those blaming Columbus for sailing west must turn one chapter back in the history books to find that it had been an Islamic jihad that disrupted the traditional caravan land routes from Europe to India and China that resulted in Columbus looking for a sea route.
Mr. Federer has written books on the subject and while I diverge from his thesis slightly, he does solid research.
The European conquest of the Americas, I argue, was inevitable. The disruption in the silk trade was motivation enough, but technology and motivation had arrived at the point where Europeans had the capacity to send large numbers of people who were in search of “free land”.
In what became British North America, the king forced himself and his taxes on people who fancied themselves as “free” and “equal”. The notion of common people placing themselves on par with their sovereign was odious to the king – who only had subjects.
And it’s running full circle, isn’t it? Are we subjects of Beltway Oligarchs or do we send representatives who are servants of the people?
But I digress…
(h/t WSF) Ancient Documents... suggest that there was a general understanding that there was “something” big out there if you sailed west. They didn’t know how far they needed to travel, but they had a very general sense of ocean current circulation, etc. The Vikings didn’t have the social momentum to settle in sufficient numbers AT THAT DISTANCE (when France and Britian were closer at hand) and to kill the locals in sufficient numbers.
Regardless though, Chiesa states, Cronica universalis “brings unprecedented evidence to the speculation that news about the American continent, derived from Nordic sources, circulated in Italy one and half centuries before Columbus.”
He adds: “What makes the passage (about Marckalada) exceptional is its geographical provenance: not the Nordic area, as in the case of the other mentions, but northern Italy.
“The Marckalada described by Galvaneus is ‘rich in trees’, not unlike the wooded Markland of the Grœnlendinga Saga, and animals live there.
What the Nordic people may have lacked in terms of social momentum, the Spanish and other Europeans did not. Stories of “Cities of Gold” turned out to be true, and they looted the place three ways from Sunday and brought it back home.
________________________
The question that we might all ask ourselves is whether we (assuming that this blog’s readership was all of the “exploring age” in our lives) would embark on rough and unknown oceans to seek new, strange, and exotic land and treasures had we the opportunity.
You can each as yourselves that question but I expect that most of you would say, “yes!!”
Thus when people are unkind to the memory of Columbus, I feel that the revisionist history that they spew is just wrong. The Incas, Aztecs, Toltecs, Olmecs, Cherokee Confederation, and so forth in the New World were no less kind in their own efforts at empire building than the Europeans were.
The cult has its own hymns now. Your. children or grandchildren will be singing them proudly at their school’s assembly as they graduate onward to even greater acts of devotion.
Democrat governors are mobilizing military forces to perform civilian functions in private institutions. This is the actual definition of facism. If you don’t like it, you’re a domestic terrorist. Sorry, but the IRS will need to freeze your bank account.
Imagine having a Trump picture in your school?
Thoughts from the past week:
I spoke to a Marxist this past week, who glorified his faith in Marxist tyranny. Isn’t it interesting that Marxists just want to change the color of the chains, not remove them?
The enemy of my enemy is not my friend – likely just another guy who might wish to stab me in my sleep.
‘Attorney General Garland is weaponizing the DOJ by using the FBI to pursue concerned parents and silence them through intimidation,’ DeSantis tweeted.
In 1900, 99% of all scientists agreed that dirt caused/spread malaria. There were only two doctors who didn’t. Walter Reed and George Goethals thought that mosquitos were the culprits. They were right and everyone else was wrong.
Nuremberg Code: Article 6, Section 3 – No government can mandate or force medical treatment without individual consent.
And this…
Chester Cathedral, England
The Consistory Courts?
The justice system in medieval England was similar to the modern one in that there were different types of courts for different types of cases. On the one hand, there were the royal or secular courts. On the other, there were the consistory courts which were presided over by an ecclesiastical judge from the local diocese. The jurisdiction of the church courts broadly incorporated cases to do with sinfulness (including medieval sexual acts like fornication or adultery), or with the sacraments (including marriage) and cases involving members of the clergy.
There were two main types of cases the consistory courts dealt with, the first being “criminal” offense cases, in which someone confessed to or was accused of an offense against morality or church canon law. The second type was similar to civil suits, in which plaintiffs could bring a suit for reasons such as to enforce marriage contracts, seek restitution for defamation, or compensation for violation of a contract. Sexual misconduct could be brought to the courts as either an offense or a civil suit, or it could also be dealt with in the secular courts depending on the nature of the individual case.
While was socially unacceptable for an unmarried woman to have sex, as her honor and value were defined by her sexual repute, men were expected to undertake a certain amount of pre-marital sex. Sexual conquest improved a man’s status and reputation rather than damaging it. However, pre-marital sex was still not the worst crime against morality one could commit – adultery, incest, and sex with a nun were considered more sinful, particularly incest between blood relatives or relatives through marriage.
Sex between clerics or men of the church and their parishioners was also considered a grave offense, as men of the church were defined by canon laws as “fathers” of their spiritual flock and therefore shared “spiritual kinship” with members of their spiritual community. In these cases, the definition of incest also included spiritual kin.
The age of consent was also different in the Middle Ages. While sex with a minor under the age of 16 is illegal in most modern Western societies, children as young as 7 were legally able to give preliminary consent in the medieval period. The age of full consent was 14, but girls of 12 years or older could legally give their consent in the case of a marriage contract. It was uncommon for most girls to marry that young though unless they belonged to the aristocracy or ruling classes.
Married people in the Middle Ages were obligated to have sex with their spouse whenever he or she requested it, and this concept was known as the “marriage debt” because of the idea that spouses “owed” each other sexual intercourse. The church taught that sex should be considered purely a means to the end of conceiving children, but allowed a certain amount of liberty in the ways people could have sex that was still considered to be acceptable within the moral code of Christianity.
Theologians and church philosophers of the medieval era generally agreed that sexual pleasure was necessary for both men and women in order to conceive a child, as it was thought that women ejaculated during sex in a similar manner to men. There was therefore an expectation that both partners would seek to satisfy the other during a medieval sexual encounter. There were limits, however, to how this pleasure could be achieved. Certain acts were considered sinful even when performed between a married couple, and so were deemed to be “fornication”.
If a man was incapable of having sex with his wife and thus unable to procreate with her, it was legally acceptable for the woman to file for a divorce, such as in the case of Alice Barbour vs William Barbour in London, 1490. Alice, the plaintiff, claimed that her husband William was impotent and sought to have the marriage annulled. William, nevertheless, refuted the claim, saying he was capable of the act but simply did not desire his wife even though she “diligently demanded it”.
To settle the case, a similar process to that of other secular medieval courts was used whereby a “jury of matrons” (usually married women in their 40s and 50s) was tasked with inspecting the man’s penis to determine whether or not he was impotent. In poor William’s case, it seems Alice’s claims of impotence were decidedly true. One witness, a certain Alice Nores, testified the following:
“William is unable to know Alice carnally or procreate a child with her or with any other woman, because as she says his penis is black, that is, swart and blue, and she believes that his penis was burned and that he lost the back part of his penis. And she says that at the time of the inspection of the penis, it was scarcely the length of a penis of a two-year-old boy.”
The jury of matrons all agreed that William couldn’t perform his marital obligations. Alice Bawdwyn testified that “he is impotent in her judgment because it is not of a length of two inches and that part of it was [ text missing ] and it appeared to her that he had lost part of his penis by fire.” Two other witnesses, whose testimony is incomplete on the records, agreed with Alice’s statement. Although the outcome of this particular case is not recorded, by law Alice Barbour would have been entitled to the divorce she sought and it is very likely that it was granted by the court.
In some circumstances, of course, the spouse of an impotent man may not have been able to seek divorce. Bringing a case before the consistory courts required a lot of resources. The process was an expensive venture and also required extensive knowledge of the law and legal processes. For a woman who did not possess the means to file for divorce, more illicit solutions needed to be found.
And now the meme-of-the-day
How many attachments?
Only as many as you need/want.
How should I close the Sermonette? Maybe with a thought of those some chose to represent the nation.
Who REALLY is Public Enemy #1?
It’s important to be able to define it.
____________
The Pieper ‘Eclipse Co.’ double gun, manufactured by Henri Pieper in Liège, Belgium for American export under the name Eclipse Company c.1900-1914. 10 gauge break action shotgun, 18″ twin barrels. A mainstay of American firearm retailers before the Great War, firing big black powder OO Buck cartridges. Lots of smoke, an ounce and a half of lead (or more), and designed not for fowling or big game, but for self-defense. It’s not an M-1 Thompson, a trench gun, or a monitor, but they were incredibly reliable and if you were the target, the business end of those 10 ga barrels looked like train tunnels.
Memes
It will fit
Before Musk & SpaceX, it was just sci-fi
Skull-for-Space Shuttle-Swap (only in Russia)
Link to the article (h/t Claudio)
Excerpt: Musa, however, does not simply want to give the vehicle back to Russia. In September, reports emerged that he would only return Burya to Russia in exchange for the skull of the last Kazakh Khan, a man named Kenesary Kasymov. He has emerged as a hero in modern-day Kazakhstan for leading a 10-year struggle opposing the Russian Empire’s attempts to colonize the region during the 1840s. A rival ultimately beheaded Kenesary Kasymov in 1847 and sent his head to Russia.
Rigid Frames
The picture is cool, right? I’ve ridden rigid frame Harley Davidsons and I will tell you that if you’re going any distance, they are a very rough ride. The Softail offered a solution that kept some of the looks with making the ride and vibration a bit less brutal. People who see me on my Ducati Diavel may feel that I don’t have a place in my heart for the old hogs and that wouldn’t be the case.
Maps
The political scale with one side fascist and the other side communist makes no sense to me. Totalitarianism is on one side of the scale (in whatever form including theocracies like Iran) and free is on the other. The map is just here for your reference.
Will Europe go for the Bill Gates, vat-grown, simulated meat?
Women, Wear your Masks!
2300 years ago, long before Islam, Arabs discovered that forcing people to cover their noses and mouths, broke their will and individuality, and depersonalized them. It made them submissive. That’s why they imposed on every woman the mandatory use of fabric over her face.
Then Islam turned it into the woman’s symbol of submission to Allah, the man owner of the Harem, and the King.
And in Red China
There is a tendency for smugness and self-delusion among all human beings, but the Chinese made it an art form over the past twenty years. (ZeroHedge)
It’s strange that so many smart investment quants were suckered by the communists – believing the groupthink. This is an excerpt. from the larger article linked above. Maybe worth a read?
Quantifying this dire scenario, Goldman envisions a China where new property starts tumble 30%, completions drop 10% alongside sales volumes and ASPs. If this scenario comes to pass it would also wipe out at least 4% of China’s 2022 GDP, potentially resulting in a full-year contraction at the second-largest economy in the world, an outcome that would have catastrophic implications for the rest of the world…
With that preamble in mind, we bring readers’ attention to a little-noticed report in Shanghai Securities News, citing China Real Estate Information Corp. research (link), which revealed that more than 90% of China’s top 100 property developers’ sales declined in September by an average of 36% from the same period last year…
We had to do a double-take when we saw this because these are absolutely terrifying numbers and are, to put it bluntly, scarier than Goldman’s “worst-case scenario“; what’s worse this sudden collapse in China’s property market is taking place before Evergrande has defaulted, an event which would lead to a glacial freeze in the property market as potential buyers hold off expecting liquidation firesales from the property giant in hopes of getting bargains. The problem is that in addition to being the world’s largest asset, China’s property market is also the world’s largest Ponzi scheme, and without the constant inflow of new capital it would implode, especially when factoring in the 90 million vacant apartments which just sit inert and which would promptly be dumped by anxious owners, flooding the market with excess inventory and sending prices crashing.
It didn’t take long for the market to notice what is going on and otherwise healthy property developers, which are in far better financial health than Evergrande, promptly collapsed: China Jinmao Holdings plunged as much as 10%, China Overseas Grand Oceans Group tumbled -7.9%, Sunac -3.7%, Country Garden Holdings -3%, Agile Group -2.8%, and so on.
Identify the Tank (there has to be a tank)
October Memes
This is one of the reasons that I don’t have a housecat.
Identify the Tank(s)
2 tanks above – 1 below
I saw this and said – “yeah”
It’s not about the vaccination. It’s about the forced nature of the vaccination and the fact that whether or not you’ve had it, you still must wear an obedience mask.
Revolver
Manufactured c.1597 by Hans Stopler in the Imperial free city of Nuremberg, later passed into the possession of a Norwegian general.
.30 caliber black powder revolver, 8-shot manually indexed cylinder, snaplock mechanism. One of the very first revolver designs we can account for, more than two hundred years before Samuel Colt invented the single action. This firelock pistol had a large cylinder rotating around a brass collar, holding eight chambers each with its own flash pan for priming powder, covered by eight spring-loaded brass pan covers.
The use of brass was probably to avoid sparks from setting off any chain reaction. This meant for each shot, the person firing the gun had to half-cock the gun, index the cylinder, open the flash pan, pull down the frizzen, cock the gun fully, and then fire. This increased the fire rate mostly by negating the need to reload until after all eight shots were fired.
C-130
Cruising the Neighborhood
Baked Apple Cider Donuts
They’re full of vitamins and dipping them into the hot cider only makes them better. It’s not unlike dunking toast into hot chocolate. Or sinking a fresh hot biscuit into gravy — there is something primally delicious in the thing.
Why Exempt “Our Betters”?
An American Tradition
Above: The Burning of the Peggy Stewart, by Francis Blackwell Mayer 1896
In October 1774, Annapolis, Maryland experienced its own “tea party,” reminiscent of the uprising that occurred the year before in Boston Harbor. When the brigantine Peggy Stewart arrived at the port of Annapolis on 14 October, laden with a cargo of tea, its contents were subject to a highly controversial tax imposed by Britain on goods imported to America.
When the owner of the Peggy Stewart, Anthony Stewart, paid the “tea tax,” he violated the non-importation resolution implemented by the colonists in protest.
By Wednesday, 19 October, a crowd had gathered in Annapolis threatening Stewart’s life if he did not destroy the ship and its cargo. Unwilling to accept Stewart’s offer to destroy the tea, the crowd demanded that the vessel be burned. Fearing the mob might attack his home where his wife lay ill, Stewart gave in to their demands.
Maybe a lesson for our time?
Identify the tank
$600 Trigger
You’ve probably heard about the latest proposal that financial institutions be REQUIRED to turn over and report ALL bank or brokerage accounts to the IRS where the yearly transactions total more than $600. Assuming the account holder isn’t deceased, that would probably include every financial account in the USA held by every person or taxpaying entity.
This seems ludicrous and wastefully expensive when the supposed purpose of the bill is to ferret out unreported taxable income and capital gains of the “wealthy”. Apparently, someone at the IRS seems to think wealthy tax-evaders are hiding their assets in accounts where the yearly activity might hover just above $600.
The cost of this reporting wasn’t really explored in the proposal, and the privacy issues were actively scoffed at in public interviews of the Treasury Secretary and other administration folks.
Just trying to locate this particular provision is difficult because it is buried in the 107-page Dept. of the Treasury proposal which encompasses a broad variety of reforms and new proposals including a new top tier tax bracket and corporate tax percentages, “green energy” incentives, etc.
Most of the proposal seems to hover between leftist fluff and idiotic.
It is an example of the clustering of items that each deserve separate examination, public debate, and separate votes in Congress. Instead, we get a package which only the most steadfast tax-nerd could read through and understand or leastwise not fall asleep. If you would like to try to wade through it, here is the link.
Identify the Tanks
In Seattle
354 police personnel have refused to submit vaccination records by SPD’s deadline of October 5.
Interim Seattle police chief, Adrian Diaz, gave the department a deadline of October 5 to submit vaccination records. That timeline has now come and gone. The final date to submit records to the city is October 18; however, these stats provide a close estimate as to how many officers the Seattle Police Department is predicted to lose.
This comes on the heels of a record-breaking number of officers – about 300 — leaving the agency last year in response to the Democrat “defund the police” movement, which destroyed morale and facilitated horrific treatment from the Seattle City Council. Moreover, they’ve lost another 100 so far in 2021, according to the Post Millennial. What’s another 350? I’m sure that the citizens won’t care.
FFG 62 is Coming
The U.S. Navy’s future Constellation-class frigates will differ from the Italian design from which they are derived. A core feature of this acquisition program, originally known as FFG(X), was the selection of a ship based on an existing, in-production warship in order to help keep costs and risks of delays low. It is now known that the Constellations will be longer and wider and displace hundreds of tons more than their “parent” design, among other changes in the hull form, superstructure, and internal configuration.
The Italian subvariant of the Fregata Europea Multi-Missione (FREMM), or European Multi-Mission Frigate. FREMM began as a Franco-Italian program that produced a different subvariant for each country. Additional examples are now in service with the Egyptian and Moroccan navies. The US Navy selected the FREMM-derived design, which will be built by Wisconsin-based Marinette Marine, a wholly-owned Fincantieri subsidiary in the United States.
Painting: George Washington rallies the troops at Princeton
Historical Interlude
During the French siege of Acre, in 1799, the French were hamstrung by woeful logistics, especially in regards to artillery ammunition. Napoleon, knowing the nature of his men, offered cash rewards to men who dug up enemy artillery shot that had been fired at them.
Granted, this only really worked with the British ammunition, fired from three ships of the line out in the Mediterranean off the coast of the ancient city. (Ottoman cannon were of such varying calibers that their rounds were only very rarely reusable. Not to mention Ottoman casting processes and efficiency were well below that of the French or the British.)
However, as the siege dragged on, the French soldiers, eager to earn at least a promissory note from General Headquarters guaranteeing them a future payout, decided that the English weren’t shooting at them nearly often enough for their capital ventures.
The French began digging false works and trench lines closer to the ocean shore. The British, thinking a new series of works was being erected, happily obliged the eager French by blasting away at these works with great fury and thunderous barrages.
The works, built in soft sand, were easily repaired, and the enemy shot, the solid shot that is, were fairly easy and quick to dig up, wash off, and reuse.
Napoleon himself couldn’t help but chuckle at the enterprising nature of his men. Even the British had a good laugh, afterward, when the story was revealed to them once the siege had been concluded.
Memes
The Whale Shark
He doesn’t know or care what sort of day you’re having.
Turkish Naval Doctrine
In a nutshell, the doctrine is “seize resources even if they don’t belong to you”. However, that doesn’t make for much of a blog post, no matter how true it is.
From the point where Turkey became an Islamic sultanate, imperial expansion into Syria, Libya, Cyprus, and the Mediterranean, in general, became the goal. Reaching back into hallowed antiquity, the Turks want to re-build the Ottoman Empire. Nice work if you can pull it off, right?
CIMSEC has a good article on the subject and you can access it here. (h/t Claudio) I don’t want to re-hash the article completely but it is a long one so I’ll summarize with an excerpt, below (not unlike my summary above)
According to its main proponent, retired Admiral Cem Gürdeniz, Turkey’s concept of mavi vatan represents an idea, a symbol, and a doctrine. As an idea, mavi vatan encompasses Turkey’s maritime interests; as a symbol, Turkey’s eponymous military exercise in 2019 demonstrated its maritime jurisdiction claims and the potential of the Turkish Navy and Turkey’s maritime capabilities; and, as a doctrine, mavi vatan guides the defense of Turkish sovereignty at sea, including the control of Turkey’s continental shelf and exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Mavi vatan has increasingly gained prominence both domestically and as a component of Turkey’s foreign policy, which in the last half-decade has become increasingly aggressive and securitized, with an anti-Western, anti-U.S. outlook as a central organizing principle.
The Greek Navy is arming itself to be able to defend itself in the Mediterranean from its NATO partner, Turkey. And while you say to yourself, that shouldn’t be happening, Turkey has been an ally of convenience at best. If it works for the Turks, they’re your ally until they aren’t. There is nothing new there.
Spain wants to sell what amounts to a small aircraft carrier (SPS San Carlos) (STOVL) to Turkey (above and below). Wow, thanks Spain. The Turks won’t use the ship to attack NATO allies, will they?
Greek Corruption
I have worked in Greece, so the fact that their submarine procurement involved bribery doesn’t come as much of a surprise. MARINE FORCE INTERNATIONAL LLP the JV entity between Ferrostaal AG and ThyssenKrupp Marine Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft (HDW) German Shipbuilding Company bribed Greek Government officials in order to obtain building contracts for a new submarine fleet for the Greek Navy almost twenty years ago and the legal maneuvers are still underway. (more here if you care)
Greek Naval Response
Since there are only two kinds of ships: submarines and targets it would stand to reason that the Greek Navy would go big into submarines to counter the threat from Turkey. The four Papanikolis class boats in their fleet (constructed in Germany post-scandal) fit into that niche.
Lockheed inked an agreement to upgrade the Hellenic Navy (in response to Turkish ambitions) last month. There is more here. I feel a little sorry for the Greeks because American Beltway Bandits…may give them some of what they need, but they’re bandits. Note the photo below – they’re all wearing masks.
As the Turkish Navy expands and its influence spreads, it becomes more likely that it will end up in a shooting war at some point.
Communist China
As this infographic using Global Energy Monitor data shows, Red China has been especially active in Indonesia where $15,671 million worth of coal power projects have been financed, equating to total plant capacity of 9,724 megawatts.
What If
Could the USS Texas have participated in the Battle of Jutland? If she was in England? What would the political implications have been? Would she have the speed, the armor, the guns to be effective in the line?
USS Texas was comparable to most of the battleships and battlecruisers of the German High Seas Fleet. Her crew had won several marksmanship awards the previous year so they were some of the most accurate of the fleet. Her 14-inch guns would easily pierce the armor of the German battlecruisers and a lot of their battleships. The German’s strategy at the time was about delivering a higher rate of fire accurately with smaller rounds. That strategy changed after this battle when it became clear it did not equate to sinking more of the enemy ships.
However, like all US Dreadnoughts, Texas was slower than the Germans and British. Their average top speed was about 25-26 knots compared to her 21 knots. This could hinder her since the Germans were in the position to choose the range at Jutland.
The US was neutral and isolationist at the time. The US Navy kept most (if not all) of its fleet in home waters. Most of the population really didn’t give WWI much though at the beginning, seeing it as just another war the Europeans were fighting.
The major reason the US did eventually join was to insure the Triple Entente (ie England, France, and Russia) were able to repay their war debts to the US. The sinking of Lusitania was used an excuse by the US government to get involved.
If the US fleet had been with the British Navy at the time, the US would have joined the war and not remained neutral. Texas and the US BatDiv would have sortied with the British Fleet as it did in 1918.
If she was in a British port and the US was still neutral, I doubt she would have joined them. Being neutral, she would not engage in any fleet action. Likely she would not have remained in their ports for long.
Visa
We need to have a party…
Yes, it’s time for porn
October 5, 1214 – Alfonso VIII, King of Castile, “entered upon the way of all flesh.”
Alfonso was a primary commander at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212, where the combined Spanish kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, and Navarre crushed the Almohads at the most decisive battle of the Crusades in the Iberian Peninsula.
The victory broke the power of the Almohad Caliph al-Nasir and marked a decisive decline of Moorish strength in Spain. From then on, the Christians were on the offensive.
Alfonso was the founder of the first Spanish university, a studium generale at Palencia. His court also served as an important instrument for Spanish cultural achievement. Alfonso and his wife Eleanor of England were the first to make the Alcázar of Segovia (below) their residence when this fortress was still at its early stages.
Charles Martel gets a lot of credit, but he wasn’t the only one to tame Muslim expansion.
And on October 5, 2021, China is still the world’s largest polluter.
Still Cooking on October 5
A strange dent in Earth’s magnetic field doses orbiting craft with high levels of radiation. It’s caused everything from periodic glitches to total mission failure.
South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) regularly exposes orbiting spacecraft to high levels of dangerous particles.
Over the years, the SAA has been responsible for several spacecraft failures and even dictates when astronauts can and can’t perform spacewalks. As the space around Earth becomes filled with an increasing number of spacecraft, what does the SAA mean for the future of spaceflight?
In Memorium
Sergeant First Class Jerry M. Shriver
Missing in Action 24 April 1969.
In 1974, the Secretary of the Army gave Shriver a ‘Presumptive Finding of Death,’ He was posthumously awarded a second Silver Star and promoted to Master Sergeant.
While he had some American friends, he spent most of his time with his Montagnards. He was the only American at CCS (Command and Control, South) who lived in the Montagnard barracks. He’d routinely eat with them and drink from the communal pot of Rượu cần, a type of alcoholic fermented wine.
Did you run into him, MIKE-W?
Cause and Effect
In January 1991, Somalian President Mohammed Siad Barre was overthrown by a coalition of opposing clans, precipitating the Somali Civil War. In September 1991, severe fighting broke out in Mogadishu, which continued in the following months and spread throughout the country, with over 20,000 people killed or injured by the end of the year.
These wars led to the destruction of Somalia’s agriculture, which in turn led to starvation in large parts of the country. The international community began to send food supplies to halt the starvation, but vast amounts of food were hijacked and brought to local clan leaders, who routinely exchanged it with other countries for weapons. An estimated 80 percent of the food was stolen. These factors led to even more starvation, from which an estimated 300,000 people died and another 1.5 million people suffered between 1991 and 1992.
Operation Provide Relief began in August 1992, when U.S. President George H. W. Bush announced that U.S. military transports would support the multinational U.N. relief effort in Somalia. The U.S delivered 48,000 tons of food and medical supplies in six months to international humanitarian organizations trying to help Somalia’s more than three million starving people.
US Delta Force Operators in Somalia
When this proved inadequate to stop the massive death and displacement of the Somali people (500,000 dead and 1.5 million refugees or displaced), the U.S. launched a major coalition operation to assist and protect humanitarian activities in December 1992. Operation Restore Hope.
The Battle of Mogadishu. A part of Operation Gothic Serpent, took place on 3 – 4 October 1993, (this date in history, 28 years ago) in Mogadishu, Somalia, between forces of the United States and Somali militiamen loyal to the self-proclaimed president-to-be Mohamed Farrah Aidid.
The initial U.S. Joint Special Operations force, Task Force Ranger, was a collaboration of various elite special forces units such as U.S. Army Rangers, 1st SFOD-D “Delta Force”, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment; Air Force Combat Controllers, Air Force Pararescuemen, and Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU).
Task Force Ranger was dispatched to seize two of Aidid’s high-ranking lieutenants during a meeting in the city. The goal of the operation was achieved, but initially only intended to last an hour. The operation spiraled into an overnight standoff and rescue operation extending into the daylight hours of 4 October.
U.S forces saw 18 men killed in action, with an additional 73 wounded. Somali forces saw 500 men killed in action, and an additional 800 wounded.
What started as a well-intentioned move to help Somali’s starving people ended up as a mess. It’s not a new scenario to American involvement in civil wars. But the mess doesn’t end there and therein is the problem.
American largess extended to allowing the immigration of Somali people (through the mid-1990’s), who were settled in various locations in the country. That disbursal notwithstanding, they coalesced in Minnesota and formed an enclave/voting block such that they were able to elect their own representatives to Congress. And the nation ended up with the despicable Ilhan Omar (D-MN), who married her brother and whose criminal conduct was aided and abetted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (of course).
Is there any wonder that the Biden Regime (Jo/Ho) are pushing for the wholesale migration of hundreds of thousands of Haitians to the US? It’s a proven strategy. When I lay the strategy at the feet of senile old Joe, it’s almost a metaphor because he couldn’t strategize a ham sandwich. He finds eating an ice cream cone to be a challenge. The ‘handlers’ and oligarchs who pull creepy old Joe’s strings are the people I refer to.
Hell on Water- Prison Hulks
They were introduced in the early 1770s, when attempts were made to get rid of overcrowded prisons by switching to floating prisons, thus preventing the construction of expensive new prisons on land.
Convicts being rowed out to a prison hulk, by WH Harriot, 18th century
The prison hulks were decommissioned warships from which masts, rigging, and sails were removed. They housed all those who had more than 7 years to serve and were therefore allowed to be deported according to the law of 1718. In 1775, however, the outbreak of the American Revolution stopped the transport of serious criminals to the American colonies. As a result, the convicts were replaced by prisoners of war and sent back to prisons. One year later, when the prisons were overcrowded, the Criminal Justice Act – also known as the “Hulks Act” – was passed. Condemned men who were now (since 1787) awaiting transport to Australia were now assigned to hard labor on the banks of the Thames and reinstated in the Hulks.
Prison Hulk ca.1810, by unkown
They were moored along the Thames and the Medway estuary as well as in Portsmouth, Bermuda, Australia, and Gibraltar. In these places, the work of the convicts increased the efficiency of the dockyards. The shipyards were in a constant state of development and had to keep up with the latest technologies, such as the advent of steam power and iron-hulled ships. The convicts provided cheap and efficient labor, and instead of building new barracks to house the men, prison hulls could be purchased at low cost and towed from place to place.
Life on board was not easy, many called it “hell on water”. Just like the prisons on land, the hulks were quickly overcrowded. In general, there were on average 300 prisoners and 20 officers on a ship. It had been calculated that in 1776 and 1795, nearly 2000 out of almost 6000 convicts serving their sentence on board the hulks died. One reason for this was the rapid spread of diseases like typhoid and cholera. Another reason for this high death toll was poor nutrition. One inmate received ox-cheek, either boiled or made into soup, peas, bread, or biscuit, daily. Often the food was rotten, vegetables were very rare and even if they were, they were only scrap from the local dockyards.
But also the hardest work up to 12 hours a day did its part. In the end, there was no reasonable accommodation on board. The men wore the same clothes every day and were put in irons.
They slept in a bunk bed if they were lucky, if not then on the bare floor. Sick people simply lay between the healthy ones, only later they were separated and were also allowed to lie in a bed or on straw mattresses.
The use of the hulks was considered a temporary measure and was therefore only approved by parliament for two years. But despite the concerns of some members who complained about its inhumanity, the law of 1776, lasted 80 years. It was regularly renewed and its scope was extended “for the more severe and effective punishment of cruel and daring offenders”.
When the Act of 1776, 1779 was renewed, prison reformer John Howard (inspirer of the Howard League for Penal Reform) began a long campaign against the Hulks, but despite all his efforts and support, there was no end to them.
The era of the hulks was finally brought to a close after the hulk Defense burned off Woolwich Docks in 1857. The new jails followed a version of the colonial labor regimes and the transportation system was changed to incorporate the notion of exile. From then on, prisoners would serve a probationary period in one of the new jails before they were pardoned on the condition of being deported.
