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Size Isn’t Everything
The Lineage of Grendel
Grendel was the name of this grim demon
Haunting the marches, marauding round the heath
And the desolate fens; he had dwelt for a time
In misery among the banished monsters,
Cain’s clan, whom the creator had outlawed
And condemned as outcasts. For the killing of Abel
The Eternal Lord had exacted a price:
Cain got no good from committing that murder
Because the Almighty made him anathema
And out of the curse of his exile there sprang
Ogres and elves and evil phantoms
And the giants too, who strove with God
Time and again until He gave them their reward.
– Beowulf, Seamus Heaney (trans.) Lines 102-114
RIP Tina
Dead at 83 after a prolonged illness. She was a little larger than life but nobody could say that she had an easy ride. All glory is fleeting.
In Ukraine
(RFE/RL) Yevgeny Prigozhin, the chief of Russia’s Wagner private mercenary group, says his troops will leave the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut between May 25 and June 1. Prigozhin recently claimed his troops had taken Bakhmut after the longest and bloodiest battle since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, while Kyiv denied the city had fallen. In a May 22 audio report on Telegram, Prigozhin reiterated his previous statement that the ruined city will be handed over to the regular Russian military, adding that the Defense Ministry should create “a platoon of generals” to hold Russian positions in Bakhmut.
Wagner Group
(RFE/RL) …In a video released around the time Russia was marking the May 9 Victory Day holiday, Prigozhin stood in front of a pile of corpses he said were those of Wagner fighters and accused senior Russian military leaders of causing their deaths through incompetence. Prigozhin has been particularly cutting in his criticism of the chief of the General Staff, General Valery Gerasimov, and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who has long been considered one of Putin’s closest advisers.
Russian Private Military Companies
(RFE/RL) It’s not just Wagner Group anymore.
From The Guardian
Vladimir Putin wanted Russia to join Nato but did not want his country to have to go through the usual application process and stand in line “with a lot of countries that don’t matter”, according to a former secretary general of the transatlantic alliance.
George Robertson, a former Labour defense secretary who led Nato between 1999 and 2003, said Putin made it clear at their first meeting that he wanted Russia to be part of Western Europe. “They wanted to be part of that secure, stable prosperous west that Russia was out of at the time,” he said. “Putin said: ‘When are you going to invite us to join Nato?’ And [Robertson] said: ‘Well, we don’t invite people to join Nato, they apply to join Nato.’ And he said: ‘Well, we’re not standing in line with a lot of countries that don’t matter.’”
The account chimes with what Putin told the late David Frost in a BBC interview shortly before he was first inaugurated as Russian president more than 21 years ago. Putin told Frost he would not rule out joining Nato “if and when Russia’s views are taken into account as those of an equal partner”.
He told Frost it was hard for him to visualize Nato as an enemy. “Russia is part of the European culture. And I cannot imagine my own country in isolation from Europe and what we often call the civilized world.”
The article is behind a paywall but I excerpted it here for you.
Identify the Aircraft – try to be specific
This one may be a little more difficult, Beans. ID this aircraft too.
ID the Tank
Meme of the Day
Bullet Points:
** How to professionally say, “Fuck around and find out.” — “Please test that assumption and take note of the results.”
** The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which is funded through a mandatory tax on those watching live television on penalty of fine or imprisonment, announced that its news division will feature a new team designed to dispel disinformation dubbed “BBC Verify”.
** Until this week, Sam Brinton, formerly hailed as the first “non-binary” senior federal official as head of nuclear waste management has avoided jail or prison, despite two guilty pleas for luggage theft at airports in Las Vegas and Minneapolis. But with his arrest as a fugitive accused of a third luggage theft at Reagan National Airport in Washington, he is about to experience life as a jailbird. Marjorie Hernandez of the New York Post reports.
** The reparations-for-grievances industry is falling on hard times.
** Pride Month at Target? Any customer who chooses not to shop at Target because its product line does not match their values, is somehow violent, a domestic terrorist, all the things Pedo Joe’s administration claims are the “real” threat to America.
Now that customers have learned the power of their boycott — for example, in the case of Bud Light, which featured an ad by a transgender activist whose schtick is mocking women as flimsy 1950s-style ditzes — they very well may be ready to act again to send the same message to Target, and Target now knows it.
A Target insider said there were “emergency” calls on Friday and that some managers and district senior directors were told to tamp down the Pride sections immediately.
“We were given 36 hours, told to take all of our Pride stuff, the entire section, and move it into a section that’s a third the size. From the front of the store to the back of the store, you can’t have anything on mannequins and no large signage,” the Target insider said.
** Student Debt – “President Biden is simply transferring the debt from borrowers who willingly took out student loans to hardworking taxpayers who did not. This is no insignificant portion of the population: in fact, eighty-seven percent of Americans did not take out loans. This number includes those who did not go to college, who worked to avoid loans, or who had the grit to pay their loans back.”
For Mike_C
It’s difficult to find true love
Fidel had a big cigar…
Irregular Apocalypse
Head on a Stake
My first reaction was that ancient Vikings knew how to deal with politicians who didn’t serve the interests of the people…
Some 8,000 years ago, the skull of a Scandinavian man in his 50s was impaled on a wooden stake in Sweden. Now, a new facial reconstruction by Swedish forensic artist Oscar Nilsson allows modern viewers to envision this mysterious individual’s prominent cheekbones, blue eyes and brown hair, reports Kristin Romey for National Geographic.
Archaeologists found the man’s cranium—as well as the skulls of eight other adults and one infant—in the boggy sediment of the Kanaljorden excavation site in Motala, Sweden, in 2012. The discovery marked the first archaeological evidence of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers mounting human skulls on stakes.
The Age
The Viking Age in Ireland began in the late 8th century when Norse seafarers started raiding monastic sites along the coast. These attacks escalated into more extensive invasions, leading to the establishment of several key settlements.
The Vikings significantly influenced Irish society, both economically and culturally. They facilitated the growth of towns into important trading centers, introducing new trade networks and commodities, including slaves.
By the 11th century, many Vikings had assimilated into Irish society. Their influence persisted in the form of urban development, trade expansion, and cultural amalgamation. This period also saw the introduction of coinage into Ireland.
While conflicts persisted throughout this time, the Vikings and the Irish began to coexist in certain areas as they intermarried and began to exchange customs and languages.
The intermingling of Norse and Irish traditions, although intricate and complex, gave rise to a new ethnic identity known as Gall-Gaidhel, or ‘Foreign-Irish’ (a foreshadowing of the Anglo-Normans who in later centuries would be absorbed into Irish culture only to become “more Irish than the Irish themselves”).
The Viking Age in Ireland ended with the expulsion of the Norsemen by King Brian Boru after defeating them at the Battle of Clontarf, in 1014.
Over the course of more than two centuries, the Vikings left a lasting mark on the social, political, and even physical landscape of the island which is still evident in the names of islands, towns, cities, and even counties and provinces to this day.
Ancient Bioweapons
(more here) A surprisingly wide variety of bioweapons were available in the ancient world. After all, arrows and spears technically became bioweapons the moment their tips were dipped into poison, excrement, or even simple, microbe-rich dirt. Infected and putrefying corpses, whether animal or human, were readymade bioweapons when dumped into an enemy’s water supply or launched over a city wall, bringing dismay as well as disease.
Not a B-17, a PB-1W
Size Matters?
Condition One
Flexible Demeanor
Leadership
The level of professionalism is astounding, isn’t it? At least he didn’t show up all sweaty and having stolen someone’s gym bag. To get around the rules governing decorum on the senate floor, he stands at the door of the Senate chamber and shouts out his vote when prompted to do so by a handler.
Embracing the Hate Industry
“The “anti-hate” hate industry creates the tribalism it claims to fight, and the only beneficiary of all the hate it creates is the hate industry itself.”
“In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, when establishment politicians started to make common use of the term “homeland,” they told us the most dangerous threat to Americans was foreign terrorists.
But today, we are instructed to fear the enemy within. A new iconic date, January 6, 2021, is inscribed on our collective consciousness.
From coast to coast, Americans are being herded into two camps. There are the “white supremacists,” those bad people who purportedly hate good people. And then there is everyone else, good people who are encouraged to hate the bad people. The common thread, to state the obvious, is hate.
The hate industry is a vast agglomeration of lucrative hustles, now institutionalized and expanded into multiple and overlapping sectors.
There is the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) sector; the equity, social, and governance (ESG) sector; the activist sector comprising countless groups, including Black Lives Matter and Antifa; the corporate, academic, and government sectors; the media sector; the politicians; and the pundits. All of these sectors have spawned scores of thousands of well-paying jobs.
If these institutions weren’t able to point to rising levels of hatred in America, then their specialty, the business of hate, would no longer be a growth industry. Where there is no hate, they must manufacture it. Where hatred has diminished, they must discover new forms of hate, often so subtle that we foolishly fail to recognize it without their assistance.”
*
This Week in History
This week is the anniversary of what is usually considered to be the first battle of the Wars of the Roses, fought on 22nd May 1455 in St. Albans.
As the Earl of Warwick’s troops rained arrows down on them, and the Duke of York’s men advanced from the opposite direction, King Henry VI was ‘hurte in the necke wythe an arrowe’ as he found himself exposed in the center of the Yorkist assault at St. Albans.
Behind him the Duke of Buckingham was wounded ‘with an arrowe in the vysage’, as were others of the king’s entourage; ‘the Lord of Stafford in the hond, with an arowe; the Lord of Dorsette, sore hurt that he myght not go, but he was caryede hom in a cart; and Wenlok, Knyght, in lyke wyse in a carte sore hurt; and other diverse knyghtes and squyers sore hurt.’ (Paston Letters)
Arrows, propelled by the English longbows were particularly vexing. Companies of journeymen archers sold their talents to the highest bidder or the most likely to succeed.
Although famously a most unwarlike king, Gregory’s chronicle records that at St. Albans ‘Kyng Harry was in harnys [full suit of armor] hys owne propyr person’. The same account also says that the Earl of Wiltshire ‘sette the kyngys baner agayne an howse ende and fought manly with the helys (heels)’ – in other words, he ran away, an action he repeated at the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross six years later.
*
Identify the Aircraft
Bullet Points:
** Shifty wants the Senate Seat – Already impaired by widely-reported mental decline, Senator Dianne Feinstein returned to the Senate two weeks ago after a nearly three-month absence as she battled shingles. Last week, in a Capitol Hill encounter with reporters, Feinstein appeared to be unaware that she’d been gone from the Senate, declaring, “No, I’ve been here. I’ve been voting.” Mental decline, whether it’s Feinstein (D-CA), Fetterman (D-PA), or even Pedo Joe himself, would seem to be a feature of modern DC. There is no more corrupt vermin on the planet than Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) so he’s a shoo-in for an appointment from Gov. Newsom.
** Speaking of modern times, there is always the American Naval Fleet, which looks distressingly like the old Soviet fleet did back when there was the Soviet Union.
The Arleigh Burke-class Flight IIA guided missile destroyer USS James E. Williams (DDG 95) as it departed Toulon, France yesterday, May 22, 2023. It’s the US flagship. Inspiring, striking fear, etc. More from CDR SAL. She symbolizes a nation in decline.
** John Kerry (climate czar) targets farmers. We can’t win the war on the weather until all farmers are destroyed…or words to that effect. Kerry hasn’t told us what he plans to have for dinner or how he plans to get the food. I expect that his chauffer will drive his chef to the market to buy something to prepare.
** The effort to drench the federal workforce in DEI is nothing less than an effort to humiliate or — as they said in Mao’s day — “struggle” the high-performing members of the permanent bureaucracy and weaken you by forcing you to agree to woke Marxist nonsense.
The Latest in Camping
Meme-of-the-Month
For all of you who wonder who sets the Facebook community standards.
Jaundiced Outlook
Meme of the Day
For Jim…
Identify the Aircraft
Make your own niche…
Bullet Points:
** A sad day with the passing of Ray Stevenson at age 58, famous for his role as Pullo in the series Rome.
** “Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.” ~ Adam Smith
** California is revealing new information to the public that shows that the eco-friendly state is dumping tons of toxic waste in other states every year. Since 2010, California has dumped nearly half of its hazardous waste out of state—mostly in Utah, Arizona, and Nevada—according to the state’s latest figures (pdf). Thirteen more states also have received California’s toxic waste but in much lower quantities. In the past 13 years, the state has dumped 3.7 million tons of hazardous waste in Utah, more than 2.9 million tons in Arizona, and nearly 2.3 million tons in Nevada. – Hypocrisy on display.
** Earlier this week, photos emerged of a protest that male students at Lakeridge High School in Oregon made against the state’s “Menstrual Dignity Act” or 2021’s HB 3294, which required public schools to put female hygiene dispensers in all bathrooms, including the boy’s bathrooms.
** Col. Edward Shames, RIP (h/t Claudio)
** To understand the attitudes of the Russian Federation and Russian peoples towards what they perceive as the antagonism of the West you must go back in history.
After the invasion of Napoleon Bonaparte, the destruction of Moscow, Napoleon’s subsequent defeat, and hundreds of years of conflict with the Ottomans, the Russians believed they were the supreme protectors of Orthodox Christianity against the Protestants, Catholics, and the Muslims with whom they were in almost constant contention. The British and French were more than happy to assist the declining Ottomans in order to contain Russia as a power in Slavic territories in Southeastern Europe and against historic Russian designs on the Bosphorus.
In the middle of the Nineteenth Century, these contentions erupted in the Crimean War. The echoes of that conflict resound in today’s conflict in the region, although now we must add in the modern spirit of independent Ukrainian nationalism which has no affinity for the repressive Communist rule centered in Moscow that caused the untold millions of Ukrainian deaths before WWII.
QBZ-191 (h/t Claudio)
Funny, It Worked Last Time…
Culture
Observation
Identify the Aircraft
1
2
Bullet Points:
** Homelessness is increasing by all accounts. There is a simple reason it has gotten worse. The governments and communities affected refuse to face the facts about the true causes of homelessness, misdiagnose the problem, and refuse to apply the necessary measures to reduce the problem.
** (Free Beacon) Pedo Joe began working to replenish the 180 million barrels he sold last year from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in December. Nearly six months later, he still has zero barrels to show for it. I have no idea what he netted but we do know that the formula is 10% for “the Big Guy”.
** Does waking up early have anything to do with white supremacy? The author is Anthony Bernardi who is Caucasian, but I suspect he has hated “morning people” all his life and now wants to accuse them of racism as well. It is almost impossible to believe his article is not a parody à la Jonathan Swift, but it is not: he is serious. As one commentator noted in his article, “… early to bed, early to rise was because daylight hours is when most work could be done. Can’t till, plant, harvest in the dark. Solar clothes dryers work better during daylight hours. Traveling was best done in the daylight lest one rides off a freaking cliff. sigh… And back then so few people owned slaves it really had nothing to do with slaves. Finally, the slave traders on the African continent were the ones who started the “lazy” thing… There is still prejudice and racism there based on melanin count. And they still practice slavery. That dingbat (the author) has completely disregarded every piece of legislation that has dismantled the inequities. And in fact, created inequities in college admissions and job prospects for those of Asian and European ancestry.”
** House Republicans took to the podium on May 17 to condemn the Biden administration’s negotiation of global pandemic agreements that they say will grant additional power to the World Health Organization (WHO) and centralize authority in an organization they say failed the American public during the COVID pandemic.
Shortly thereafter, on May 19, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus issued a report to member nations stating that, while the “re-emergence of epidemic-prone diseases continues to accelerate,” the WHO’s mandate regarding “health emergencies” must extend beyond pandemics to include hunger, poverty, ecological degradation, climate change, and social and economic inequalities.
The WHO has done such a poor job in the past and shown themselves to be bribable, gullible, shamelessly corrupt, and incompetent, that the thought of giving them any legal or regulatory authority is beyond ridiculous and pushes into the realm of the utterly incomprehensible.
It would work
Identify the Tank (the flag is a tell)
So Much For Subtlety
Culture – Creepy Death Whistles
When odd, skull-shaped grave items were found by archaeologists decades ago at an Aztec temple in Mexico, they thought they were mere ornaments. However, years later, experts discovered they were creepy ‘death whistles’ that made piercing noises resembling human screams.
All is well and good. They’re collectible, aren’t they? The question in my mind is who’d make them in the first place. You have to admit that the Aztec’s view of culture was somewhat prescient of the culture that the world’s elite would like to establish (nothing is ever lost in history).
If the whistles were worn around the necks of Aztec warriors and then used to shock their enemies at the beginning of battles, the psychological effect on an enemy of a hundred death whistles screaming in unison might have been great, unhinging and undermining their resolve. Nobody really knows why they were made or how they were used – but they’re clearly collectible.
This came over the transom from a former co-worker
Said co-worker was a friend of Jerry Quarry. I met Jerry many years ago briefly at a wedding when he had been billed as “the great white hope”.
JERRY AND MIKE QUARRY……FROM BOXER’S HEAVEN. Hi, I am Jerry Quarry. Remember me? I hope you do. I was voted the most popular boxer in the world from 1968 to 1971. Now I live at Shafter Memorial Cemetery, a pretty place filled with lots of big trees about 20 miles northwest of Bakersfield. And It just got better here Saturday when they brought the ashes of my kid brother Mike, who had been the top-rated light heavyweight contender in the world. We’re together again and will be forever here by the railroad tracks.
I was bright, good-looking, and had my whole future ahead of me. I turned pro in 1965 after blasting out every National Amateur Title in the USA. I even knocked everybody out I faced in the National Golden Glove tournament in 1965. A record that still holds to this day. Within a short time after I turned pro I was being called “The Bellflower Bomber.” I was being chased by Hollywood, T.V. producers, Boxing Promoters, and women. Everybody kept telling me how good-looking I was and being “Irish” I had the hope of a Nation behind me, I could not fail! That I had to win it all for “THEM” and how I was a “cinch” to become the next Heavyweight Champion of the World…They told me I’d have tons of money, fame, and everything I’d ever wanted… that they’d be there with me every step of the way… I became the World’s Number One Rated Contender for years and one of the most feared heavyweights in the world. I took on anybody and everybody, feared no one in nor outta the ring! I took on Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier twice a piece! And was even begging George Foreman for a title shot in 74′, who later admitted not wanting anything to do with me in a boxing ring! I whipped Former Champion Floyd Patterson, undefeated Mac Foster, Buster Mathis, the terror from Denver Ron Lyle, and Thad Spencer and blasted out Knockout King Earnie Shavers to pieces in a matter of two minutes of the first round..but within a short time after my boxing career ended, I couldn’t remember how to spell my name nor tie my shoes.
At the end of my life my oldest brother Jimmy, who had been the only one to kick my ass when I was a kid, was now helping me walk to the bathroom, helping me to eat, shave and explain to people who I was because I had no memory. Before I died I was asked to give an interview regarding my career but I didn’t because I couldn’t remember it. They kept telling me to quit boxing because my brain was melting quicker than sugar in a water bottle but I thought I was invincible and that they were full of shit. I believed this couldn’t ever happen to me…Those same people that cheered me on now treated me like I was a circus freak show and looked away from my direction when I was in sight…There is no quit in a Quarry but I wished I hadn’t ever boxed, nor had my brother as I believe we’d both be still alive and well today.
I wish Muhammad Ali hadn’t boxed for so long. He wouldn’t have gotten Pugilistic Parkinson’s and lost his ability to speak so early in life. I had to watch my former opponent and old buddy Floyd Patterson die of Alzheimer’s disease. The same went for Jimmy Ellis. It was also too late for paralyzed Greg Page, a once large and fast heavyweight champion who was critically injured at the age of 41 while fighting in a dump that lacked proper medical equipment, and died a few years later. I pray it’s not too late for my youngest brother Bobby, who didn’t fight nearly as long as the guys above but still have suffered nerve damage in his brain. That’s probably why he was in prison when he was given a special one-day pass to come to visit Mike’s memorial service.
As bad as it is maybe we are the lucky ones. Lots of guys soon died after being carried from the ring. Luther McCarty, Sam Baroudi, Jimmy Doyle, Duk-Koo Kim, Johnny Owens, Frankie Campbell, Ernie Schaaf, Benny “Kid” Paret, and Willie Classen are the more publicized having fought top contenders for the championship. We don’t hear from the pugs that get killed in filthy halls in front of howling intoxicated punks who don’t even have the guts to remotely get into a boxing ring. The intelligent ones will state there are many deaths in Auto Racing and Football. I don’t know much about that but I do know that in boxing the objective is to destroy the other person’s brain. So don’t shovel any crap to explain how boxing is strictly a sport. Nobody comes to watch two people fight defensively…
I like the way my brother Jimmy explained it years later… You know Jimmy, the oldest brother that kicked my ass when I was a kid and then later in life became my caregiver. He summed up boxing, he said “We won’t let dogs fight, we won’t let chickens fight, because we care about the animals. But we’ll let two men get in the ring and beat each others’ brains out.” –Jerry Quarry and Michael Quarry.
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Identify the Aircraft
Bullet Points:
** (h/t Claudio) A small space technology company, Rhea Space Activity, says that it has a plan to resurrect the Spitzer Space Observatory. Last week the firm said it won a $250,000 grant from the US Space Force to continue studying a robotic rescue mission for the spacecraft, which is now about two astronomical units—or twice the distance of Earth from the Sun—away.
The plan is rather audacious, but it has some serious backers, including the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Blue Sun Enterprises, and Lockheed Martin.
“When it comes to robotic space servicing, this would be the most ambitious thing ever done,” said Shawn Usman, an astrophysicist who is the founder and chief executive of Rhea Space Activity, in an interview with Ars. “I mean, it is literally sending a satellite to the other side of the Sun to resurrect the last Great Observatory. So I think it would be pretty ambitious, but it’d be really great if we could pull it off.”
** MATAMOROS, Tamaulipas — Texas National Guardsmen and Department of Public Safety troopers set up barbed wire along the northern bank of the Rio Grande creating a barrier to physically keep migrants from climbing out of the Rio Grande. Governor Greg Abbott deployed the Texas Border Force earlier this week to help stop or deter migrant crossings as part of Operation Lone Star.
** Don’t ask me for my pronouns, ask me for a blood test that shows DNA. That’s all you need to know.
City By The Bay
“Office values in San Francisco have plunged 75% on a per-square-foot basis compared to sales from just before the pandemic, the Hoover Institution said.
The Hoover report was authored by Lee Ohanian a senior fellow at the institution.
The report’s finding noted the former Union Bank building, located in the center of the San Francisco financial district, was auctioned off last week for $65 million — 75% less on a per-square-foot basis than comparable building sales just prior to the pandemic.
Ohanian called it “devastating news” for the city since the auction price provides a new market-rate benchmark for setting the price for other downtown commercial buildings.
The report noted San Francisco’s downtown vacancy rate has jumped from about 4% in 2019 to almost 30% now, as companies abandon the city for friendly taxe locales.
“The continuing losses of San Francisco’s economic base are a symptom of a city that has become politically dysfunctional and is perceived by people and businesses to be dangerous and unworkable,” the report said.
“And these losses will continue until those who govern San Francisco make different choices regarding the related issues of drug abuse, homelessness, and crime.””
Sentient Roomba
Identify the Aircraft – 3 views to aid you.
An Interesting Comparison
Ottoman Arrowheads
Bullet Points:
** Why is there a job description called “transgender influencer”?
** Even if every person in the US, not just the rich, gave 100% of their money to the government in taxes since we started going into debt, that would come nowhere near paying off 30 trillion dollars.
Trade
Shocking
What are the Civilian Applications?
It’s Sunday – let us open with a prayer.
Ethiopia – diverse faiths
The Newest Chinese Island
Dominica is a mountainous Caribbean island nation with natural hot springs and tropical rainforests. Morne Trois Pitons National Park is home to the volcanically heated, steam-covered Boiling Lake. The park also encompasses sulfur vents, the 65m-tall Trafalgar Falls, and the narrow Titou Gorge. To the west is Dominica’s capital, Roseau, with colorful timber houses and botanic gardens.
That sounds inviting, doesn’t it? Dominica sits in a strategic location in the Caribbean and it’s now a wholly owned subsidiary of the People’s Republic of China. I suspect that you didn’t hear about it on the news – but the news today isn’t what it once was. It’s a propaganda machine for the administrative state/swamp and it supports the aims and goals of the Party (Democrat Party’s National Committee).
Over 60,000 Chinese now live in Dominica and they’re displacing the natives financially, who move to other islands or they immigrate across the open border into the United States where they receive a generous $3K/mo subsidy and free ObamaPhone.
Dominica is serviced by two airports: Douglas-Charles (DOM), formerly known as Melville Hall and Canefield (DCF) Airports. Most visitors to Dominica will arrive through Douglas-Charles, the larger of the two airports. Chinese military aircraft, defensive and offensive missile systems, and a garrison suitable to protect their interests have not yet arrived, but it’s only a matter of time. Meanwhile, a heavy construction services company, China Railway No. 5 Engineering Group Co. Ltd., has been recently awarded the contract to construct Dominica’s first international airport spearheaded by MMC Development Ltd., the developing firm of Dubai-based company Montreal Management Consultants.
To be fair, I didn’t understand the full extent of Chinese involvement in Dominica until I learned in conjunction with my business that they “stashed” a high-value asset on the island, secretly. My initial response to the placement of the asset was to simply snatch it since possession is nine points of the law (an expression meaning that ownership is easier to maintain if one has possession of something, or difficult to enforce if one does not). The Chinese understand the concept clearly. Ok, so a little more digging and the People’s Liberation Army has a special forces battalion (Leishen Thundergod Commando Airborne BN) in Mufti that is “training” on the island. It changed the calculus.
The Monroe Doctrine is no longer alive and well in Washington DC. China pays to play.
Time to take a break from blogging. Who doesn’t like a shrimp cocktail before the Sunday meal?
Bullet Points:
** The Third Time’s a Charm! Sam Brinton, the “non-binary” former head of nuclear waste management entrusted with that awesome responsibility by the Biden administration, has so far escaped jail time for the two previously-reported thefts of luggage he has been found guilty of, at Las Vegas and Minneapolis airports. Will a judge buy into the same leniency if he is convicted (or pleads guilty) in a third incident for which he was just arrested? Thomas Catenacci of Fox News reports:
Sam Brinton, the embattled former senior Department of Energy (DOE) official, was arrested as a “fugitive from justice” by Maryland police late Wednesday.
Can’t the police give a girl a break? Sam only wants to improve his wardrobe and the $200K per year government job didn’t allow him to buy couture to the extent necessary.
** (Fox News) The IRS has removed the “entire investigative team” from its multi-year tax fraud investigation of Hunter Biden, and a whistleblower who raised concerns about the handling of the case is claiming the move was “clearly retaliatory,” according to a Monday report. Per The New York Post, the whistleblower’s attorneys told Congress that the removal was on the order of the Department of Justice.
** (NY Post) Lee said that a number of people received emails with the wrong pronoun.
** 
Identify the Tank
Park your tank elsewhere
Rasputitsa…
Just Read the Instructions
More Culture
The official music video can be found here. Another American band addressing the human condition.
My life’s a bit more colderDead wife is what I told herBrass knife sinks into my shoulderOh babe, don’t know what I’m gonna do
Culture is Rampant at VM
Bullet Points:
** Vladimir Putin doesn’t have a lot of great days. He’s 70. Maybe he has ten more years left in him but he’s not well. It shows in recent photos. There are no hearses with luggage racks.
** Depp’s new film, Jeanne du Barry – (Rolling Stone) “He’s a walking waxwork statue here, a movie star who’s somehow reduced to being a meat puppet in old-fashioned dandy-fop cosplay. It’s not just that he may have aged less gracefully than others; Depp is not a 22-year-old actor, and it seems ridiculous to speculate about any reasons for his appearance. What strikes you when you watch him in Jeanne du Barry is that the camera, which once swooned whenever he stepped in front of it, doesn’t seem to love Johnny Depp anymore. Every ounce of his screen presence, his charisma, that singular magical factor that always made you unable to look away from him, no matter what the role or the film — it feels like it’s just been sucked away. His King Louis shuffles from scene to scene, in what is supposed to be an underplayed performance that registers as inert. Even when he’s mugging at Jeanne through a two-way mirror while receiving guests, there still feels like there’s no life happening up there. You can’t even call what he’s doing a compelling car wreck. You’d have to wait for the press conference the next day for that.” – Apparently Rolling Stone didn’t think much of his performance. I wasn’t planning to view the film before the review.
** I’m going to let God fix it because if I fix it, I’ll go to jail.
** Ancient DNA – Make of it what you will – But despite appearances, the Gravettians were not a single people. New DNA evidence, published today in Nature, shows Gravettians in France and Spain were genetically distinct from groups living in what is now the Czech Republic and Italy. “What we thought was one homogenous thing in Europe 30,000 years ago is actually two distinct groups,” says Mateja Hajdinjak, a molecular biologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology who was not part of the new study.
** (Manhattan Contrarian Blog) “From his first days in office, President Biden has promised — threatened — to activate the administrative state at every level to address and solve the “climate crisis.”
In the orthodoxy of the Biden/Democrat climate cult, this is to be accomplished by reducing U.S. carbon emissions into the atmosphere.
Now, even if you believe that a little more CO2 in the atmosphere is some kind of a problem (it isn’t), there is nothing that the United States can do to have any meaningful impact on that situation, given that countries with populations a large multiple of ours (China, India, Africa) are building coal-fired power plants as fast as they can… (more at the link)
** “Raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated.” Those words from the Durham Report summed up one of the most damning investigations in the Justice Department’s history. In the 305-page report released Monday, special counsel John Durham concluded that the Trump-Russia investigation was launched without a required minimal level of evidence and shattered a host of departmental standards. Let that sink in: The Justice Department — as well as the media that covered it — effectively shut down a duly elected presidency, based on what turned out to be a politically engineered hoax.
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Soon, it will be razorblades
Identify the Aircraft
Don’t content yourself with the NATO designation alone.
I Blame Your Mother
Here Comes the Weekend
Bullet Points:
** BRM points out how England handles road repair. If it works, it works. I’m not judging the British.
** Two Chicago racial interest groups that are major allies of Mayor Brandon Johnson published Wednesday what they want Johnson to pursue new taxes: a city income tax, a wealth tax, a “head tax” assessed per worker on employers, a digital ad tax, a jump in the tax on jet fuel used at Chicago’s airports, a progressive increase on real estate transaction fees on sales over $1 million. The new taxes would total $6.8 billion according to the plan and would be coupled with supposed savings of $5.1 billion that would be redirected to other spending, totaling nearly $12 billion. That would provide for reparations to be directed to a wide range of sexual and racial groups with grievances.
The proposal is co-written by Saqib Bhatti, a member of Johnson’s transition team and co-executive director of ACRE, one of the report sponsors. “I think it’s appropriate to hold [Johnson] accountable for the promises he’s made,” Bhatti told Crain’s. “Mayor Johnson ran on a platform that actually included some of these things.”
Chicago’s business will look back fondly on the days when Lori (Beetlejuice) Lightfoot ran the city.
** Superversive literature is discussed here.
** America’s elite portrays itself as progressive, but their underlying ethos can’t be rooted in Marx. Marx isn’t merely hypocrisy but a cover, a cloak. From their actions, redistribution of their wealth and a classless society where they have no more power and influence than the common man is the last thing they want.
**.”Illinois is forecasting that its program to provide healthcare to undocumented immigrants will cost the state $1 billion in 2024 – far more than the $2 million that Illinoisans were promised it would cost at the program’s inception, according to Wirepoints.
In May 2020, Illinois became the first state to offer Medicaid for undocumented immigrants over the age of 65.
Now-Congresswoman Delia Ramirez, then an Illinois state representative, sponsored the bill and claimed the program would cost just $2 million per year.
Unfortunately, this estimate was completely uninformed, with the program exceeding that in its first month.
At the time, she said the coverage will save the state money in the long run, and the cost of $2 million, “is nothing to a $2 billion Medicaid bill,” The State Journal-Register reported.”
—or we could simply deport them.
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From the Days of Fighting Sail
Wads for guns, before 1718
Wadding was part of a cannon charge, with one wad in front and one behind the projectile (often a cannonball). This served to trap the gases as the lit gunpowder burned, increasing the energy produced when the cannon fired.
The front plug stabilized the projectile as it traveled down the barrel of the cannon. In 1627 wads were made of oakum, old clouts, or straw, and from the 18th century, they became old rope, hay, and other materials assembled by the gunner.
The wads here were made from coiled rope or textiles found at Queen Anne’s Revenge and have survived in the bores of the loaded guns.
Identify the Aircraft
Another view
Not Invented Here
Post-it-Notes
Culture
Beethoven, 9th Symphony, Ode to Joy
Alinsky Rules – Criminalize your opposition
This regime aims to criminalize political dissent, and that will require demonizing and stigmatizing fully half of the electorate. It is increasingly clear that when Biden claims that white supremacists are the biggest terror threat the nation faces, he means ordinary Americans who have never broken any law but who oppose his agenda. If everyone who opposes him is a white supremacist terrorist, then the nation has over a hundred million of them.
President Calvin Coolidge on Bureaucracies
“Of all forms of government, those administered by bureaus are about the least satisfactory to an enlightened and progressive people. Being irresponsible they become autocratic, and being autocratic they resist all development. Unless bureaucracy is constantly resisted it breaks down representative government and overwhelms democracy. It is the one element in our institutions that sets up the pretense of having authority over everybody and being responsible to nobody.”
The Bureau
“The FBI offered to pay Christopher Steele, the author of the infamous anti-Trump “dossier,” up to $1 million for evidence linking Donald Trump to Russia and paid Steele’s primary sub-source hundreds of thousands of dollars even after the source was unable to provide evidence for any of his claims, according to a report from Special Counsel John Durham.
Embattled FBI agent Brian Auten traveled to Rome to meet with Steele on October 3, 2016, and made the offer despite knowing that his dossier relied primarily on one person, or “sub source.”
The Bureau then paid that “sub source,” Igor Danchenko, $220,000 even after Danchenko was unable to provide evidence for a single one of his claims.”
Do they award Pulitzers for works of fiction? If they did, Steele’s dossier would be the winner of the decade.
The Woke
“Woke” means that you are enlightened enough to see and reject the hidden sources of all the injustices of the world. These injustices spring from a world-spirit or zeitgeist the ancients called the demiurge and the moderns variously call capitalism, patriarchy, whiteness, white supremacy, and cis-heteronormativity.
To become enlightened, one need pass no test, shed no blood, work no miracles, donate to no charity. One need only recite the bromides, whatever happens, to be fashionable, among the other members of the conformist mob of the Woke. To fail to do so invites ostracization, called cancellation and de-platforming.
No merit makes one Elect. Indeed, a lack of merit is an advantage.
The fact that you lack any virtue, any value to self or others, means you are a victim of the world-spirit, which proves your worth to yourself. The fact that you are a victim means you are secretly a king: the fact that you are a loser proves you are a winner.
The reasoning here is that of a paranoid megalomaniac: the Woke regards himself as worthy of the persecution of the world, for the same reason prophets and messiahs are persecuted, because of their exceptional exceptionalness.
Jho Low
How do you steal $4.5 billion (unless you’re the government)?
Low Taek Jho (born 4 November 1981), often called Jho Low (or Jay-Lo), is a Malaysian fugitive businessman, wanted by authorities internationally in connection with the 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal (1MDB scandal). He has been named the mastermind of the massive fraud, which prosecutors allege was a scheme to siphon US$4.5 billion from 1MDB into Low’s personal accounts.
Despite denials from the Worker’s Paradise, he’s in the PRC and they decline to extradite him. I expect that he’ll end up in a koi pond, face down, eventually if he’s not already there…once they’re sure that they’ve emptied him.
From The Bee
(Link) ATLANTA – In what many are calling a long-overdue act of democracy, justice, and equity, Sports Illustrated has honored Stacey Abrams as this year’s Swimsuit Edition cover model.
“Despite decades of unfair Abrams-suppression measures, we have finally ascended the pinnacle of what our institution represents: beautiful governors ignoring haters, racists, and meanies,” said Sports Illustrated managing editor Gob Dibbons to the press at yesterday’s unveiling event for the highly-anticipated magazine issue. Amid cheers for Abrams finally being recognized as a beautiful, powerful governor, several members of the press fainted when Dibbons drew back the black felt curtain to reveal the cover depicting the bombshell Democrat supermodel.
The Washington Post saved money by cribbing their 2020 article “The Power Of Stacey Abrams,” which had heaped breathless praise on Abrams: “Pandemonium ensues as she walks…like a runway supermodel, stops on a dime, poses, tilts her head slightly and smiles…Abrams is summoning her inner actress, and she is both enjoying the moment and getting through it to get to the conversation…” Sources confirmed that more of the article couldn’t be quoted, as it was causing too many readers to become flushed and out of breath.
Reporters from Fox News claim that Abrams lost the 2018 Georgia Governor’s election and is not, in fact, a beautiful governor, but they have had their press passes revoked for spreading hurtful disinformation.
At publishing time, Al Gore had also been honored as People’s “Sexiest President Alive,” which many are calling a crescendo of long-overdue democracy, justice, and equity.
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The Creative Vaults of Disney
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From the Days of Fighting Sail
Jack Crawford (1775-1831) was the hero of the battle of Camperdown on 11 October 1797. Crawford was serving on the flagship HMS Venerable during the battle between the English and Dutch fleets. Despite heavy gunfire, he climbed the mast to nail the Admiral’s flag back into place after it had been shot away. The lowering of the flag (colors) was a signal of surrender. After more fighting, the British fleet eventually won. (The artist has mistakenly shown the Union Jack, not the Admiral’s flag. It is also the Union flag design from after 1801, well after Jack’s heroic achievement.)
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Identify this Aircraft (hint: Yellow Peril)
I Thought that He was with You
Meme-of-the-Day (h/t Frank)
The Republicans (unfortunately) are just as much part of the Swamp as the democrats. One uses a donkey and the other an elephant but they both bleed green. Waiting for the Republicans to become American patriots en masse means you’ll resemble the meme. There are stand-outs who are not sell-outs, but they’re a token, left in place to lull us into a false sense of hope.
The Long March
The “Long March through the Institutions” was a phrase attributed to the Italian communist Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) and then coined as a succinct mission statement by Marxist student activist Rudi Dutschke in the 1960s.
The phrase is used to describe the intellectual takeover of a society without the need to resort to a military conflict. Instead, the strategy focuses on slowly winning over the chief institutions that determine the direction of culture and thereby creating a soft revolution from within those institutions. So, the focus was on the universities, then the unions, the arts, the K-12 schools, the media, then corporations, and finally the society as a whole.
Titanic
Tour a Char B1
The US Economy
(Spectator) The celebrated and prestigious chicken sexer Paul Krugman is not worried about the U.S. economy; he is worried about what people think about the U.S. economy. In his latest article, he asserts that the American economic situation is “remarkably strong” and yet “the public remains very negative on the economy.”
A Frank Exchange of Views
Finland 1944
Sisu – is now in theaters
In late 1944, during the Lapland War, prospector Aatami Korpi lives alone with only his horse and his faithful dog in the remote wilderness of Lapland. Aatami spends his days panning and mining in search of gold. After uncovering a rich deposit, he collects a hefty amount of gold nuggets and mounts his horse, heading for the nearest town with his dog in tow.
The movie provides an object lesson. Leave old men alone. The lesson is usually ignored…
Bullet Points:
** I’m being ostracised for nonconsensual mindreading. What is the world coming to?
** A Woke Pest – Seven University of Wyoming sorority sisters publicly revealed in an exclusive interview Monday a giant transgender student is sexually preying on them and making their lives a nightmare. Artemis Langford, who is referred to under the male pseudonym Terry Smith in the suit according to the New York Post, has been living outside the women’s sorority house.
** LGBTQIA2SC+ Observers and conservative voices in Japan are increasingly uncomfortable with President Joe Biden’s ambassador to the country, Rahm Emanuel, inserting himself in domestic politics, particularly pressuring Japan’s legislature to pass a law against LGBT discrimination. The Japanese understand what a sexual degenerate is.
** London – Before Covid arrived on the scene, there were four types of pneumonia which when added together amounted to the highest cause of death in the UK. And according to a Director of End-of-Life Care, the newly implemented Medical Examiner System to certify deaths during the alleged pandemic meant Medical Examiners were falsely certifying these pneumonia deaths as Covid-19 deaths. And by doing so they were creating the illusion of a deadly pandemic in the public eye. – shocking. Where are the public floggings, the hangings, the deaths by slow torture to explain to all that this bullshit shouldn’t happen ever again?
** In Arizona – Lake’s legal counsel said that there were more than 274,000 ballots that were approved in less than three seconds apiece.
** Prince Harry Car Chase – Meghan probably was banking on a “crash” that killed off Harry so she could spend the rest of her life as a Professional Widow to fund her flamboyant Hollywood lifestyle and affairs.
** SiG discusses Artemis – It’s expensive, but the Swamp kicks back to politicians so nothing is TOO expensive. “The most recent Federal budget I found a record of (article from 2012) was in 2009.”
** Nothing to see here… A railcar loaded with 30 tons of ammonium nitrate (fertilizer/explosive) left Cheyenne, Wyoming, on April 12. The car was found to be empty after it arrived two weeks later at a rail stop in the Mojave Desert, according to a short incident report from the explosives firm that made the shipment.
** Adidas has launched a new women’s swimwear range for the brand’s ‘Pride Collection’ featuring male models wearing sports bras and women’s swimsuits. Here is a video advertising their new women’s collection 👙⬇️💬 pic.twitter.com/3tKgNbwDKP
Identify the Aircraft
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That’s Easy for you to Say
Post-it-Notes
Culture
From CDR Sal
The EU is simply the modern iteration of the eternal battle between and goals of Charlemagne’s grandsons. Very focused on European power and concerns. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a global view, but it is mostly focused on consolidating European power first.
Combined with an ever-present mercantilist caucus that is driven by the same incentives that brought many EU nations so entwined with Russia prior to the Russo-Ukrainian War, you have a certain dynamic at work.
Culling the Herd
The white cisgender patriarchy in the military has to go in favor of a more compliant, more grievance-friendly group with a more flexible moral compass.
“Cut off the head, and the body dies,” as the maxim goes. Leaders who are willing to buck the system are being removed – there is no place for toxic masculinity in the queen berets.
Rome faced many external threats, whether from the Huns, the Visigoths, the Vandals, or any number of groups who wanted to take down the Roman Empire. But those groups were never able to take Rome when it was strong. It was not until Rome had weakened from a thousand self-inflicted cuts that it was defeated once and for all.
Selective Prosecution
(link) In 2017 the the FBI raided the offices and intercepted the communications of Chi Ping “Patrick” Ho, a Chinese national suspected of espionage who was a business partner with Hunter and Jimmy Biden. Patrick Ho was later put on trial and found guilty of bribing government officials around the world to advance the interests of the Chinese Communist Party.
The crooked Department of Justice hid Hunter Biden’s connections with Patrick Ho during his trial and even redacted Hunter Biden’s name from the evidence documents.
Oh, Come on Now
Post-it-Notes
Culture
The Spoon Lady
Abby Roach (October 29, 1981) was born in Wichita, Kansas, United States. She had an abusive husband who knocked her teeth out. The state took her children, and she began to ride the rails. Today she is a percussionist, spoon player, and American storyteller, considered one of the best-known street performers of recent times. After learning to play the spoons while touring the United States by train, Abby began her career performing country-style and folk songs in Nashville. When she settled in Asheville in 2013, she met the band man, Chris Rodrigues, who has been her musical partner since then.
Durham’s Report
“Based on the review of Crossfire Hurricane and related intelligence activities, we concluded the Department and the FBI failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law in connection with certain events and activities described in this report,” Durham wrote.
“The FBI personnel also repeatedly disregarded important requirements when they continued to seek renewals of that FISA surveillance while acknowledging — both then and in hindsight — that they did not genuinely believe there was probable cause to believe that the target was knowingly engaged in clandestine intelligence activities on behalf of a foreign power.”
Cleo
Netflix’s “docudrama” Queen Cleopatra launched two weeks ago and now looks to have earned the unenviable plaudit of drawing the worst audience score in TV history. from Breitbart News https://ift.tt/fplQh9W
Gaslighting Gas Stoves
New York is virtue signaling. Those fools in New York! California did the same thing over a year ago. So, you’re NOT the first! No one can out-left and out-woke California. They lead the nation in dumb-shit ideas that will and have cost average Californians thousands of dollars in energy expenses every year. https://thehill.com/…/3663271-what-does-a-ban-on…/
Popular Science
Inner Space -The project, called Proteus, would be a marine analog to the International Space Station, and would primarily accommodate aquanauts, the equivalent of an astronaut in the ocean. It’s an idea that has been bubbling for some time now. But it could start taking shape relatively soon. Proteus Ocean Group, a private company that would operate and run Proteus, has recently signed an engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contract with a firm that has expertise in creating hyperbaric and pressure vessels in the ocean environment. Much of what Proteus is doing in terms of the technology they’re exploring is similar to space technology.
The first unit will be installed off of Curaçao, an island north of Venezuela, in a marine protected area around 60 feet deep. The team is looking into additional locations across Europe and the US for future stations— their goal is to create a network of them. They’ve already completed 3D mapping of the seafloor around the general area where Proteus will be located.
Norse (Viking) Expansion
Identify the Aircraft
Open Forum
The floor is yours to discuss whatever you’d like. As usual, I’ll throw out a few bullet points for your consideration.
Bullet Points:
** Sex Cults – Sabatean Frankists? Make of it what you will.
** A week after Ukraine claimed it shot down a Russian hypersonic missile with a Patriot system, the United States is confirming it. More so, the hypersonic weapon was targeting the Patriot missile system that shot it down.
** The California Budget Deficit – buying the black vote has been expensive.
** Reparations – Rumors that California is going to offer 25% off coupons at Applebee’s instead of 7-figure payouts cannot currently be confirmed….
“California Democratic state Sen. Steven Bradford is warning Afro-Americans not to get dem hopes up for massive reparations payments from the state.
Bradford’s message comes after the California Reparations Task Force recommended over the weekend that the state pays up to $1.2 million in reparations to each eligible negro or. partial-negro resident.
The state lawmaker, who served on the task force, claimed that it’s possible that Black residents could receive cash payments “if the money’s there,” but argued that receiving million dollar checks in repayment for historical discrimination is “not happening.”
It’s “bait-n-switch”; they ask for something (mucho cash) that is impossible (and they know it) in hopes of “compromising” for something less (preferential treatment) instead of nothing at all. If they get anything, it will open the door for Native Americans, Chinese, and others who have suffered historical ills.
But the bottom line is that is not really about slavery at all; individuals who were never slaves are seeking money from those who never owned slaves and from a government that never sanctioned slavery.
Identify the Aircraft
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Some History
Bullet Points:
** The end of election fraud or elections? (American Thinker)
Voter registration time-series data shows the active intercession of governmental election commissions altering data, illegally changing voter rolls, and giving non-government, leftist actors illegal access to voter rolls during elections — thus rigging elections.
Current technology employed by Trump and the RNC cannot see any of it — as we proved in the Kari Lake election.
Our team found active voter commission interference in the data in Arizona and Wisconsin elections. Both swing states.
** When you allow Marxists to state that “Spanish” is a race (instead of a language), except when they need to prove ” whiteness is a problem”. (more from American Thinker)
Maps
The Italians are everywhere (Claudio)… Percentage of the population of Italian descent in Brazil and Argentina.
Ravaillac
A historical view of one particular regicide
Before the guillotine made French people equal, and before the abolition of capital punishment altogether made them equal and also not dead, tradition dictated that commoners be hanged and nobles beheaded. Two crimes however warranted a special kind of execution, being heresy with the condemned burnt at the stake and in this case regicide, which specifically demanded quartering for some reason.
François Ravaillac was the product of the French Wars of Religion, a series of conflicts during the Protestant Reformation that tore France apart, only ending when the leader of the Calvinist Huguenots Henri III de Bourbon, king of Navarre and issued from a cadet branch of the royal dynasty of France, succeeded to Henri III de Valois, king of France.
The condition of his coronation was for him to convert to Catholicism, which he did, being quoted as saying “Paris is well worth a mass”. Ravaillac was born in a staunchly catholic family, being raised by his two uncles, both canons in the local cathedral, to bear a fervent hatred of Huguenots. His unstable mind led him to quit a well-off situation working as a clerk to try and join a monastic order, of which he was kicked out after only a few weeks. Now penniless and aimless, he started experiencing visions and confessed multiple times over the years of having committed “homicide through intent”, growing more and more resentful of the king whom he saw as the Antichrist ready to wage war on his people and move the Holy See from Rome to Paris.
After stealing a knife from an inn, he eventually graduated to “homicide through actual homicide” after stalking the royal carriage all the way to one of the traffic jams Paris is famous for, giving him the opportunity to stab the king twice in the chest when it stopped.
Execution warrant for François Ravaillac from the Parisian parliament headed with the name of King Louis XIII and bearing the later archival stamps of both the French Empire and the French Republic. It describes the murder as a parricide, the murder of a relative, as the king was seen as a literal father figure to all his subjects.
After being held in protective custody in a private hotel, then transferred to the Conciergerie prison and tortured/tried for ten days, Ravaillac was sentenced to death on the 27th of May 1610. His regicide was ruled to be the act of a lone religious fanatic without any accomplice. The same day, he was taken to the place de Grêve in front of Paris’ town hall, where public executions had traditionally been held for at least 300 years. All according to his execution warrant, Ravaillac’s chest, arms, thighs, and calves were pulled apart with tongs; his right hand which had held the knife was cut off and thrown onto burning sulfur; his wounds were covered in molten lead, boiling oil, pitch, wax, and sulfur; finally, his limbs were attached to four horses, pulling them from their sockets – allegedly with some help from an axe – completing the quartering proper.
Unfortunately for him and in a striking karmic twist, some insult was added to Ravaillac’s supplice, as his legacy was to cement Henri IV’s own as the Good King Henry. The king’s martyr at the hand of a madman garnered sympathy and dispelled his previous image of a Bourbon usurper with Catholics and of relapse with Protestants, working wonders to unify the two under the new monarchy. Henri’s progeny would not only rule France for another 182 years without interruption, but Spain, Luxembourg, and other holdings in Italy.
From the Days of Fighting Sail
The Midshipman
The path could be very long and thorny at times and many hurdles had to be overcome. One of these hurdles was finding a supporter. This supporter had to help a young man to get an apprenticeship on a ship. In the beginning, it didn’t matter what kind of skills he had, how he applied, or if he had passed an aptitude test. They only needed someone who was authorized to fill such an apprenticeship and they could take whoever they wanted. This led to the so-called protection system. This meant that you could get advantages in every possible way as long as you returned the favor. And so it could be that a rich man who found that his son should go to sea gave the captain a large sum of money, and then took the boy in.
This, unfortunately, led to the fact that many supposed talents found their way onto a ship, while true talents first tried their hand on a trading ship. But there was also the so-called Kings letter. This was a specific letter issued by the admiralty that forced the captain to take the boy in. But this happened very rarely.
A Portrait of a Midshipman, by Sir Martin Archer Shee (1769-1850)
If a young gentleman found an apprenticeship, he was between 11 (later it was raised to 12) and 16 years old. There he started as Captain’s Servant – from 1794 it became the Volunteer first class. But not without his parents or a guardian paying for him. Servants were a source of income for the Captain. For example, the young man had to pay an annual fee, an extra allowance, and pocket money, and his parents had to pay for his uniform, etc. In addition, there was a supply subsidy which had to be paid for 30 to 40 pounds for boys under 15 years and 70 to 100 for boys from 15 years on. 2- 3 years after learning the basics a servant was allowed to call himself a midshipman after confirmation of the captain.
Midshipman Blockhead, Fitting out Mastr Willm Blockhead HM Ship Hellfire West India Station, by Captain Frederick Marryat, 1820
After 1678 it was necessary for a midshipman to take an exam to become a lieutenant. This meant that a good education was necessary. A lieutenancy in this context required a minimum service of six years on an HM ship (at least two of those years as a midshipman).
The Academy
Influenced by the three great naval academies in France, the Naval College at Portsmouth was finally opened in 1733. It was intended to provide young men with a sound basic education and thus make Servant service superfluous. Unfortunately, this met with only moderate success. The academy also taught: writing, arithmetic, drawing, navigation, gunnery, fortification, other useful parts of mathematics, French, dancing, fencing, and the exercise of firelocks. However, many of them relied on the old system and the academy only took in 40 students per year, although there was capacity for more. It closed its doors again in 1837. In the second half of the 18th century, the second college opened in Gosport, and since 1873 it was referred to as the Royal Naval College in Greenwich.
The Royal Navy College in Greenwich
On board, the older officers and the captain took over the teaching. If the ship was large enough, there was also a schoolmaster from 1702. If there was not a chaplain, he took over the general education while the nautical instruction remained with the officers.
The exams
As already mentioned, a midshipman had to pass an exam to continue as a lieutenant. This meant that he had to have been at sea for at least 6 years. Unfortunately, there were cases where a boy was entered into the ship’s logbooks at baby age to give him a better career and early payment. Of course, it was forbidden but many of them were related and knew what was going on. Nothing was done about it. The exam itself was taken in London, later also in other large home ports and overseas on the orders of an admiral present there, but if he was not there the gentlemen had to wait until the admiral was present again. Because only he was allowed to choose three captains who took the examination. At this time the applicant had to be at least 20, from 1806 on 19 was enough. In 1790 a catalog of 30 questions was compiled, but here too, nepotism was a factor, because if the uncle, cousin, or old family friend was sitting there, then it was often a very simple, almost ridiculous question.
Midshipmen studying for their Lieutenant’s examination aboard HMS Pallas. Sketch by Lt. Gabriel Bray, 1774
It is astonishing that useful officers came out of the system. But since every failure is down to the officer (usually a lieutenant who had at least one midshipman under his protection) and the captain, they wanted their protégés to learn something useful. Therefore they were given tasks early on, such as hoisting signals and commanding a boat and the older ones even got the command of a small prize. This usually meant a lot of practice and knowledge.
Besides the boys, deserving sailors could earn themselves the post of a Midshipman, so that it was possible to have children at the age of 11, and adult men in their 40s. This was also possible if the midshipman did not pass the exam or there was no job for him. Because not everyone who passed the exam was promoted to lieutenant. Then he had not passed the gentleman’s examination and was therefore only a passed midshipman waiting for a job. From 1804 this was called sublieutenant.
Life on board
The boys were accommodated in the very narrow midshipmen berth. The oldest midshipman was in command of his comrades in the Berth, which often led to mobbing and group formation. The very young were mothered a little by the Gunner and his wife – the only one legally on board.
‘Master B finding things not exactly what he expected, the midshipman arrives on board ship; study for an illustration to ‘The Life of a Midshipman’ by Captain Frederick Marryat, 1820
The boys were punished by other officers but never by the crew. Most of the time they were mastheaded, tied in the shrouds, or put over the cannon to be spanked with a cane. The food was the same as the crew, but sometimes the captain, when eating with his lieutenants, would give the excess food to the boys. All in all this time was not very easy, but at the same time, it was a great adventure. Many had only good things to report when they came across a good captain with capable officers.
Consider This
Post-it-Notes
The Nodding Donkey
The most pliable of Hitler’s lackeys in the Wehrmacht, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel. Nicknamed “The Nodding Donkey” for his sycophancy. He was Chief of the OKW and essentially the Nazi minister of war from 1938-1945.
History criticizes the people that Hitler surrounded himself with but the US has our own General Mark Milley, outgoing US Army Chief of Staff and Chairman of the JCS, who cut his own deal. with China.
Who Dresses them?
Hand in the Fortune Cookie Jar
The Hong Kong corporation that allegedly wired funds to Hunter Biden’s business in 2017 was controlled by a Shanghai firm run by members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), some of whom had previously served in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), according to business documents and congressional reports reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
On June 30, 2017, Shanghai Huaxin Group (Hong Kong) Ltd. wired $10 million to the Delaware-based company CEFC Infrastructure, which then wired $100,000 to Hunter Biden’s “professional corporation,” Owasco P.C., on August 4, 2017, a House Oversight Committee memo revealed Wednesday, alleging the transfers were part of an influence-peddling scheme.
However, at the time of the 2017 wire transfer, 100% of Shanghai Huaxin Group (Hong Kong) Ltd.’s shares were held by a company called CEFC Shanghai International Group Ltd., which was run by multiple members of the CCP, according to a 2017 Shanghai stock exchange filing.
Old Hog
Thought of the Day
There were no feminists on the Titanic.
Homeless Vets replaced by Illegal Aliens
NY Post (h/t Claudio) Nearly two dozen struggling homeless veterans have been booted from upstate hotels to make room for migrants, says a nonprofit group that works with the vets. The ex-military — including a 24-year-old man in desperate need of help after serving in Afghanistan — were told by the hotels at the beginning of the week that their temporary housing was getting pulled out from under them at the establishments and that they’d have to move on to another spot, according to the group and a sickened local pol.
I guess some NY politician figured that they didn’t vote democrat.
From the Days of Fighting Sail
Service aboard was not standardized. Men who were pressed usually only saw land again when the ship was back and if they were lucky then maybe only one or two years. If they were unlucky, it could be 5-10 years if they were on blockade duty. Volunteers only signed up for one ship, and depending on the assignment, it could be over in as little as 6 months. And so they had to apply for a new ship.
In 1811, HMS Centurion was in the West Indies for 11 years. HMS Rattlesnake made it 14 years that year, returning with only one man from the original crew, the fever having accounted for the rest. HMS Fox, however, added another year, making it 15 years and not a single penny was paid to the crew during the entire duration of this long deployment.
A temporary arrangement with the prospect of an end was introduced in 1835, so volunteers signed up for 5 years of service, which could be extended to 7. Before signing up for a new period, however, they could not be sure of being taken/pressed.
Carcass
“America is a corpse being consumed by maggots. Liberals are rooting for the maggots. Conservatives are rooting for the corpse.” — Anonymous
New Netflix Documentary?
Elon Musk is one of my favorite African-Americans. Yes, Peter Grand and Charlize Theron are too.
Identify the Aircraft
Not Quite All of the News
Maybe he’ll be Replaced?
Belarusian dictator, Alexander Lukashenko checked into a hospital near Minsk, according to Belarusian publication Euroradio and watchdog Belarusian Hajun. They reported that Lukashenko’s convoy arrived at the hospital at around 7 p.m., during which time access to the clinic was closed off and the roads to it were guarded by armed enforcers.
Polonium-210 is an isotope of polonium. It undergoes alpha decay to stable ²⁰⁶Pb with a half-life of 138.376 days, the longest half-life of all naturally occurring polonium isotopes…
All War is Based on Deception (Sun Tzu)
Russian State Media is claiming that the 4 Russian Military Aircraft which were Shot Down over the Bryansk Region were “Ambushed” by Ukrainian Air Defenses in the Chernihiv Region of Northeastern Ukraine in what was called a “Carefully Planned Operation.”
Bullet Points:
** May thy knife chip and shatter – Dune 2 Trailer: A boy becomes the Messiah of nomads on a desert planet that has giant worms that protect a commodity called Spice. Spice changes people into travelers, mystics and madmen. What price will he pay to become the new ruler of their universe?
** The Indian Republic Day Parade – I have worked with the Indian Army and their Intelligence Service (R&AW) in the past. Sometimes people in the West discount India, but I do not. China, with a population similar to that of India to its south, remains concerned about the potential of India to engage China directly in kinetic warfare.
Respect to India.
** No Brown People in da Hood – Cartels taking a more hands-on approach to trafficking in Chicago and the black people are not happy about it.
** It won the West.
** Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) pulled to a stop at a traffic light next to a very pretty lady, also stopped at the light. He smiled at her and lowered his window. She looked at him and lowered her window too. Fetterman asked, “Have you farted as well?”
** Trivia – Sean Bean, actor in the Sharpe series, playing the title role, is holding a weapon. Can you name it?
** Re-crafted, re-imagined, Toyota FJ-40 with a bed. I don’t know that it’s practical, but it’s awesome. Nobody ever accused an FJ-40 of being a soft, smooth ride, but where it counts they definitely deliver.
** RFE/RL Afghanistan on May 13 reported its first polio case this year after a 4-year-old child was diagnosed with the crippling disease. Kamal Shah, the head of the communications department of the UNICEF Polio Eradication Program in Afghanistan, told RFE/RL the case was recorded in the Bati-Kot district of the eastern province of Nangarhar. Two cases were recorded last year. Afghanistan and Pakistan are the only countries in the world where wild polio is still endemic. The viral disease can only be prevented by vaccination. Islamic militants often target polio-vaccination teams, falsely claiming the vaccination campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children. To read the original story by RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi, click here.
** Over the top with bayonets fixed through wire, into modern artillery and Maxim guns.
Film: “My Boy Jack”, depicts the Irish Guards taking part in an attack during the second day of the battle of Loos. The officer, played by Daniel Radcliffe, is John Kipling, the only son of the author Rudyard Kipling. John Kipling was killed in this action, and his body was never identified.
** Fun with armor…
** The Star Wars Original Trilogy is peak fiction because they took a fairy tale and set it in space, then they gave the princess in distress a laser gun. But even better they gave her a sharp tongue and the power of revolution. They made the “dragon” a depressed cyborg father with asthma who doesn’t understand his own emotions and does murders because of it. And they made the knight a blond Barbie boy. And then they said, Oh yeah they’re all related btw. All the galaxy’s problems are this one family’s fault. Hope this helps.
** New Chinese Espionage Law (h/t Claudio) The newly approved law also expanded the Chinese government’s possibility of using legal excuses to arrest foreigners in the country.
** The Woke Declare their Divinity – Conveniently for the Woke, enlightenment requires no effort. No actual enlightenment is required, and no standard needs to be met. They are not elected by the people, crowned by the Pope, nor anointed by the prophet Samuel.
They merely anoint themselves on their own authority: for they are god. They are god because they say that they are. None may gainsay god.
Identify the Tank
Happy Mother’s Day
Photo of me with my mother – I think that was snapped after I returned from deployment to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait on Desert Shield/Storm/Saber.
Pain
There are at least seven answers to “the problem of pain” or “how to be happy”.
The Buddhist answer. Existence is pain. Happiness is an illusion. Blessedness comes from the cessation of existence.
The Pantheist answer. Division – existence as a separate being – is pain. Happiness is found by becoming one with everything – cessation of existence as an individual being.
The Hedonist answer. Existence is pointless suffering and happiness is a lie. Existence can be rendered more tolerable by the maximization of pleasure and minimization of pain.
The Stoic answer. Existence is suffering. The self-commanded man can become happy by disregarding pleasure & pain, becoming indifferent to the travails of the world, and being motivated only by his sovereign will.
The Gnostic/Bolshevik answer. The current state of existence is a lie designed to entrap and disenfranchise men by an evil and arbitrary authority. The internalization of this evil system by men produces suffering. Happiness can be found if the current order is destroyed; thus, for salvation to be accomplished, both the current state of existence and the nature of man must be changed. This change can only be accomplished by transgression and destruction. The new order of salvation will arise once sufficient transgression and destruction have been accomplished, bringing happiness.
The Theistic answer. Suffering is brought about by transgression of the Law, given by God. Salvation comes through following the Law. If you are saved, God will make you happy. This understanding is fundamentally transactional; pay undeserved suffering & obedience, and receive happiness.
The Christian answer. For man, suffering, and death came with the Fall. God blessed and hallowed suffering and death by Himself choosing to suffer and die – so He does not ask of us anything He has not done Himself.
Boy band…white stripes.
Retro Blogger Photo
Famous blogger and author wearing a CIA ball cap and standing next to “The She-Devil”.
Deathwish
Hot/Not
1600 people were polled where the most and least attractive people in the country are from, 2013. So all we really know is where they were 10 years ago.
Stretch before you exercise.
I think that she’s in California…