Well, that didn't work out quite like our government planned. I guess Guantanamera doesn't sound cool in rap time. As well, Cuba is just too damned hot for break dancing.
The CIA needs to get together with USAID and rethink, to seek a rilly rilly creative idea .
... Hey! I know! Let's put some itching powder in Fidel's wet suit.
Showing posts with label Historic assholery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Historic assholery. Show all posts
Dec 11, 2014
Dec 6, 2014
A Most Organic Loophole
A pretty fair bargain, a classy bullet for the M1 Carbine and zippy little loads for the 94 lever gun.
At 11 cents per, I'd have bought them regardless. but the deal was instantly sealed when the seller warranted that every grain was certified gluten free. My continued good health is assured.
(Courtesy of a Facebook friend I learn that Whole Foods sells only gluten-free body lotions.)
And then there was a a fin* frittered away on the very rewarding...
No one needed to tell me this would be cage-free history. Benny has proven to me over many volumes that when he lays an egg it won't plop gently on to a padded and computer controlled conveyor belt. You need to kick through the farm yard to find it. Bennie (All his closest friends call himHef Benny. ) billed himself as a "social historian."
If that has any meaning at all, I guess he was. While he frames his histories with fact, he adds all sorts of little pastels about why the characters do what they do. He's pretty good at it, but I suppose that just means I usually agree with him. For instance, while he goes easy on individual Mormons, you should read his nuclear attack on Mormonism.
(It fits logically into his bigger purpose, 1846 as a crucial year. Polk steals huge tracts of northern Mexico because whipping Santa Anna was a lock; Polk chickens out of 54-40 or fight and meekly settles for 49 degrees because he wasn't sure we could whip Britain; The Mormons move slowly and incompetently to Deseret; John C. Fremont again proves himself a Great American Dumbass. And so forth.)
I recommend DeVoto. Keenly.
Yeah, it came from a home equipped with a large economy size Baldor grinder, but it cost almost nothing. Navy, RH Pal, 36. Mk 1. I bought it partially to remind me to remind you that the "R-H" stands for "Remington - Hunting" and that it was retained by PAL when it gobbled up Remington Cutlery.
... also to make sure my advice would be correct as to tightening up the dried-out leather rings which had shrunk enough for a quarter-inch of end play. You boil the handle for a few minutes, then oil it with SAE 5. This also removes all traces of deadly gluten.
---
*fin = $5 in old-time hipster talk
At 11 cents per, I'd have bought them regardless. but the deal was instantly sealed when the seller warranted that every grain was certified gluten free. My continued good health is assured.
(Courtesy of a Facebook friend I learn that Whole Foods sells only gluten-free body lotions.)
And then there was a a fin* frittered away on the very rewarding...
No one needed to tell me this would be cage-free history. Benny has proven to me over many volumes that when he lays an egg it won't plop gently on to a padded and computer controlled conveyor belt. You need to kick through the farm yard to find it. Bennie (All his closest friends call him
If that has any meaning at all, I guess he was. While he frames his histories with fact, he adds all sorts of little pastels about why the characters do what they do. He's pretty good at it, but I suppose that just means I usually agree with him. For instance, while he goes easy on individual Mormons, you should read his nuclear attack on Mormonism.
(It fits logically into his bigger purpose, 1846 as a crucial year. Polk steals huge tracts of northern Mexico because whipping Santa Anna was a lock; Polk chickens out of 54-40 or fight and meekly settles for 49 degrees because he wasn't sure we could whip Britain; The Mormons move slowly and incompetently to Deseret; John C. Fremont again proves himself a Great American Dumbass. And so forth.)
I recommend DeVoto. Keenly.
Yeah, it came from a home equipped with a large economy size Baldor grinder, but it cost almost nothing. Navy, RH Pal, 36. Mk 1. I bought it partially to remind me to remind you that the "R-H" stands for "Remington - Hunting" and that it was retained by PAL when it gobbled up Remington Cutlery.
... also to make sure my advice would be correct as to tightening up the dried-out leather rings which had shrunk enough for a quarter-inch of end play. You boil the handle for a few minutes, then oil it with SAE 5. This also removes all traces of deadly gluten.
---
*fin = $5 in old-time hipster talk
Sep 23, 2014
There's nothing new about mulish tyranny
In late autumn, 510 years ago, seaman Christopher Columbus was in a painful bed in his rented house near Seville. After four voyages of discovery he was still "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" by royal decree of Ferdinand and the dying Isabella, but the title was becoming hollow.
The exhausted, gouty old Italian sailor was ending his days at the mercy of conspirators at the Spanish court, sitting that winter in Segovia, nearly 400 miles of barely passable roads and ruts to his north. He needed to get there to plead in person for what he had been promised in 1492.
Three possibilities existed. One was a coach, for some reason not available to him. Another was the high-stepping Spanish horse, too fidgety for his racked old body. Finally, the mule.
And here we get to the parallel ideas of 1504 and 2014, crony capitalism department. Samuel Eliot Morison explains:
Columbus' remaining six months of life are interesting, perhaps poignant, but beyond the point here, which is that government was, then as now, in the hands of the greedy market perverts who will, for a price, decide who can sell what to whom and for how much.
It has become a little more subtle these days. Who can doubt the mule-ban followed direct bribes from horse breeders to someone privileged to whisper into royal ears. In our democratic times, the bribe takes another form, and the political payoff comes in votes. Voting blocs, actually. For the thoughtless greens there is Solyndra, for instance. For the war hawk industry there are Halliburton and Blackwater, for instance. For general welfare-statist lobby there is Acorn, for instance.
I guess that is one reason I rarely give full voice to the contempt I have for the Obama clique and all its predecessors back though Wilson, at least. The enemy is not so much the men and women of the statist left and the statist right. It is the corrupted idea they serve.
These elected royals didn't invent oligarchy, crony capitalism. They are simply its latter-day minions, tools of the thoughtless notion that they -- like all politicians -- have the right to dictate your every decision and reap the rewards from grateful winners in a government-controlled marketplace..
Jackasses, you might say. Not totally responsible for their actions, but surely in need of the greatest discipline.
---
The quoted passage is in the one-volume edition of Morison's "Admiral of the Ocean Sea," the Little-Brown 1942 edition, p. 664.
The exhausted, gouty old Italian sailor was ending his days at the mercy of conspirators at the Spanish court, sitting that winter in Segovia, nearly 400 miles of barely passable roads and ruts to his north. He needed to get there to plead in person for what he had been promised in 1492.
Three possibilities existed. One was a coach, for some reason not available to him. Another was the high-stepping Spanish horse, too fidgety for his racked old body. Finally, the mule.
And here we get to the parallel ideas of 1504 and 2014, crony capitalism department. Samuel Eliot Morison explains:
Columbus ... requested royal permission to ride a mule. The Andalusian horse-raising interests, it appears, had become so alarmed at the increasing employment of mules as saddle animals that a law had been passed forbidding their use for such a purpose. Columbus believed he could endure the gentle gaits of a mule but not the somewhat jittery paces of an Andalusian horse; so he applied to the King for a mule permit, and it was granted. (emphasis mine).
Columbus' remaining six months of life are interesting, perhaps poignant, but beyond the point here, which is that government was, then as now, in the hands of the greedy market perverts who will, for a price, decide who can sell what to whom and for how much.
It has become a little more subtle these days. Who can doubt the mule-ban followed direct bribes from horse breeders to someone privileged to whisper into royal ears. In our democratic times, the bribe takes another form, and the political payoff comes in votes. Voting blocs, actually. For the thoughtless greens there is Solyndra, for instance. For the war hawk industry there are Halliburton and Blackwater, for instance. For general welfare-statist lobby there is Acorn, for instance.
I guess that is one reason I rarely give full voice to the contempt I have for the Obama clique and all its predecessors back though Wilson, at least. The enemy is not so much the men and women of the statist left and the statist right. It is the corrupted idea they serve.
These elected royals didn't invent oligarchy, crony capitalism. They are simply its latter-day minions, tools of the thoughtless notion that they -- like all politicians -- have the right to dictate your every decision and reap the rewards from grateful winners in a government-controlled marketplace..
Jackasses, you might say. Not totally responsible for their actions, but surely in need of the greatest discipline.
---
The quoted passage is in the one-volume edition of Morison's "Admiral of the Ocean Sea," the Little-Brown 1942 edition, p. 664.
May 15, 2014
Excuse me. I've been spending my time lately with a bunch of Jews, whatever sect was responsible for squirreling away the Qumran scrolls by the Dead Sea somewhere around 2,000 years ago.
How can anyone be anti-Semitic? Those poor guys suffered under the same drippy rulers and laws we waspy Gentiles endure to this day..
"Whoever lays down and sleeps in the general meeting shall be expelled for 30 days and suffer reduced rations ten days."*
Suggesting that their rulers were capable of long, boring, meaningless assemblages not surpassed until New England Congregationalists got going 17 centuries later. Or, a little further along yet, about any U.S. congressional committee you care to name.
The sex laws are pretty interesting, too, but, after all, this is a family oriented blog. I limit myself to noting that if you married a woman whom you discovered to be unchaste, you were required to keep your mouth shut about it.
---
*It's 4Q66, Fragment 10, quoted p.76, "The Dead Sea Scrolls," Michael
Wise et al, 2005, ISBN 978-0-06-07662-7
How can anyone be anti-Semitic? Those poor guys suffered under the same drippy rulers and laws we waspy Gentiles endure to this day..
"Whoever lays down and sleeps in the general meeting shall be expelled for 30 days and suffer reduced rations ten days."*
Suggesting that their rulers were capable of long, boring, meaningless assemblages not surpassed until New England Congregationalists got going 17 centuries later. Or, a little further along yet, about any U.S. congressional committee you care to name.
The sex laws are pretty interesting, too, but, after all, this is a family oriented blog. I limit myself to noting that if you married a woman whom you discovered to be unchaste, you were required to keep your mouth shut about it.
---
*It's 4Q66, Fragment 10, quoted p.76, "The Dead Sea Scrolls," Michael
Wise et al, 2005, ISBN 978-0-06-07662-7
Mar 11, 2014
Beer for the warriors; no REMFs need apply
By late October, 1944, all was foretold on the great battlefields of Europe. The death of the Nazi was a matter of when, not if.
But Winston Churchill was still a busy man, overseeing Montgomery on the left and Alexander down in the Mediterranean. Not to mention fighting the opening skirmishes of World War III, telling Stalin, "No. You may not have Greece and Poland and Istria, (etc.)."
So an old grunt develops a certain affection for the guy facing all that who still finds time for:
Prime Minister to Secretary of State for War 23 Oct. 44
A serious appeal was made to me by General Alexander for more beer for the troops in Italy. The Americans are said to get four bottles a week, and the British rarely get one. You should make an immediate effort and come to me for support in case other departments are involved. Let me have a plan, with time schedule, for this beer. ... The priority issue is to go to the fighting troops at the front..."
Properly exercised power can be a wonderful thing.
Prime Minister to Secretary of State for War 20 Nov. 44
Good. Press on. Make sure that the beer -- four pints a week -- goes to the troops under fire of the enemy before any of the parties to the rear get a drop.
Nine months later the voters sent him packing. No wonder we call it the place where Great Britain used to be.
---
Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, H/M BCE, 1953, pp. 705, 709.
But Winston Churchill was still a busy man, overseeing Montgomery on the left and Alexander down in the Mediterranean. Not to mention fighting the opening skirmishes of World War III, telling Stalin, "No. You may not have Greece and Poland and Istria, (etc.)."
So an old grunt develops a certain affection for the guy facing all that who still finds time for:
Prime Minister to Secretary of State for War 23 Oct. 44
A serious appeal was made to me by General Alexander for more beer for the troops in Italy. The Americans are said to get four bottles a week, and the British rarely get one. You should make an immediate effort and come to me for support in case other departments are involved. Let me have a plan, with time schedule, for this beer. ... The priority issue is to go to the fighting troops at the front..."
Properly exercised power can be a wonderful thing.
Prime Minister to Secretary of State for War 20 Nov. 44
Good. Press on. Make sure that the beer -- four pints a week -- goes to the troops under fire of the enemy before any of the parties to the rear get a drop.
Nine months later the voters sent him packing. No wonder we call it the place where Great Britain used to be.
---
Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, H/M BCE, 1953, pp. 705, 709.
Mar 8, 2014
The demigods among us
On May 27, 1944, just ten days before Overlord, he found time for:
Prime Minister to Minister of Fuel and Power
"I hope you will put a stop to nonsense like this. (Reports in the Yorkshire Post that that a householder was fined one pound, with two guineas cost, for having borrowed coal from a neighbor.) Nothing makes departments so unpopular as these acts of petty bureaucratic folly which come to light from time to time and are, I fear, only typical of of a vast amount of silly wrongdoing by small officials or committees. You should make an example of of the people concerned with this."
Winston Churchill in Closing the Ring, H/M 1951 BCE, p. 714
On second thought, this is of merely historical interest here in 21st Century America where we have entirely disposed of petty satrapy.
---
I'm somewhat embarassed about linking Overlord to Wiki, but who knows when a dedicated member of the National Education Association might stumble across the post?
Prime Minister to Minister of Fuel and Power
"I hope you will put a stop to nonsense like this. (Reports in the Yorkshire Post that that a householder was fined one pound, with two guineas cost, for having borrowed coal from a neighbor.) Nothing makes departments so unpopular as these acts of petty bureaucratic folly which come to light from time to time and are, I fear, only typical of of a vast amount of silly wrongdoing by small officials or committees. You should make an example of of the people concerned with this."
Winston Churchill in Closing the Ring, H/M 1951 BCE, p. 714
On second thought, this is of merely historical interest here in 21st Century America where we have entirely disposed of petty satrapy.
---
I'm somewhat embarassed about linking Overlord to Wiki, but who knows when a dedicated member of the National Education Association might stumble across the post?
Feb 23, 2014
Scatter shots; Indian Country
Somebody loved those four shot-dead Paiutes up in the high desert of backwater California, 200 miles or more from the nearest Starbucks. The accused, a bully, probably also had her admirers, perhaps even as many friends as tattoos.
The universe of this chaos is small, 35 members of a federally recognized tribe in and around Alturas and Cedarville, California. Together they own a 26-acre reservation, a "rancheria" in local lingo.
Ms. Cherie Lash Rhoades was chief of the tribe until it fired her as the FBI investigated missing tribal funds, about $50,000.
Money. If it isn't sex, it is money, isn't it? Cherchez la femme or her man; that petering out, cherchez l'argent.
L'argent here is $1.1 million in one year, 2012. At its source, the figure is much higher, allowing for normal government overhead. First you -- and I mean you -- must earn it; the IRS must extract it from you; the money must be trundled from Treasury to the Department of the Interior to its Bureau of Indian Affairs and finally to whom ever handles the net tribal take -- the $1.1 million -- for 35 souls. All along the twisty route beady little eyes dart about as greedy little fingers dip and dip and dip.
Of course you just fingered your little calculator and said "wow!" That amounts to $31,428.57 per Paiute. Assuming they family-up at roughly the national all-races average, you multiply by 3-plus for something like $95,000-plus per family. They could afford a Starbucks and professional aromatherapists.
---
This is not totally fair. The AP reports that about half the money goes for roads.
Or maybe it is. The little tribe also gets a few dollars from the Indian-casino industry, a federally protected activity. There's income from cheap (because untaxed) smokes. One assumes that Jerry Brown's California also contributes, assuaging its guilt for what we did en route to our Manifest Destiny.
---
Guilt is justified to one degree or another, but as time passes it should moderate.* We White Eyes murdered our last Redskins in job-lot quantities more than 124 years ago, on the banks of Wounded Knee Creek. We killed about 150, many or most with Hotchkiss guns, a weapon notorious for non-discrimination among braves, little old grandmas, and babes-in-arms.
But over that five or six generations, amends have been made, or attempted, however misguided and inept. The results are mixed, at best, and on average probably well illustrated by the grief among the 31 surviving Paiutes of Alturas, a grief rooted in the outcome of condeming a race to permanent wardship.
I wonder what would happen if we decided to end it over next two generations with what once was fashionably called "tough love."
"Here is the school. It's free. It is your gateway to the pride of self-sufficiency. Don't fuck it up."
---
Humility requires a qualification of everything above. Maybe the killer was just crazy as Hell and would have run amok in any society in which she found herself.
And finally, it might be suggested that she would have created less tragedy had she been confronted with counterforce the second she displayed one of her two pistols. Unfortunately it happened in California where practical counterforce is reckoned to be calling the cleanup service, available through 911.
---
*If not, I am personally entitled to vast sums from Her Majesty's exchequer in recompense for my family's Annaly estates, stolen at gunpoint by English thugs c. 1400-1700.
The universe of this chaos is small, 35 members of a federally recognized tribe in and around Alturas and Cedarville, California. Together they own a 26-acre reservation, a "rancheria" in local lingo.
Ms. Cherie Lash Rhoades was chief of the tribe until it fired her as the FBI investigated missing tribal funds, about $50,000.
Money. If it isn't sex, it is money, isn't it? Cherchez la femme or her man; that petering out, cherchez l'argent.
L'argent here is $1.1 million in one year, 2012. At its source, the figure is much higher, allowing for normal government overhead. First you -- and I mean you -- must earn it; the IRS must extract it from you; the money must be trundled from Treasury to the Department of the Interior to its Bureau of Indian Affairs and finally to whom ever handles the net tribal take -- the $1.1 million -- for 35 souls. All along the twisty route beady little eyes dart about as greedy little fingers dip and dip and dip.
Of course you just fingered your little calculator and said "wow!" That amounts to $31,428.57 per Paiute. Assuming they family-up at roughly the national all-races average, you multiply by 3-plus for something like $95,000-plus per family. They could afford a Starbucks and professional aromatherapists.
---
This is not totally fair. The AP reports that about half the money goes for roads.
Or maybe it is. The little tribe also gets a few dollars from the Indian-casino industry, a federally protected activity. There's income from cheap (because untaxed) smokes. One assumes that Jerry Brown's California also contributes, assuaging its guilt for what we did en route to our Manifest Destiny.
---
Guilt is justified to one degree or another, but as time passes it should moderate.* We White Eyes murdered our last Redskins in job-lot quantities more than 124 years ago, on the banks of Wounded Knee Creek. We killed about 150, many or most with Hotchkiss guns, a weapon notorious for non-discrimination among braves, little old grandmas, and babes-in-arms.
But over that five or six generations, amends have been made, or attempted, however misguided and inept. The results are mixed, at best, and on average probably well illustrated by the grief among the 31 surviving Paiutes of Alturas, a grief rooted in the outcome of condeming a race to permanent wardship.
I wonder what would happen if we decided to end it over next two generations with what once was fashionably called "tough love."
"Here is the school. It's free. It is your gateway to the pride of self-sufficiency. Don't fuck it up."
---
Humility requires a qualification of everything above. Maybe the killer was just crazy as Hell and would have run amok in any society in which she found herself.
And finally, it might be suggested that she would have created less tragedy had she been confronted with counterforce the second she displayed one of her two pistols. Unfortunately it happened in California where practical counterforce is reckoned to be calling the cleanup service, available through 911.
---
*If not, I am personally entitled to vast sums from Her Majesty's exchequer in recompense for my family's Annaly estates, stolen at gunpoint by English thugs c. 1400-1700.
Nov 17, 2013
The National Grieving
It has already begun, the annual Niagara of tears for the loss of our Great Leader, a grieving this year made more significant by one of the magic-number anniversaries. It happened fifty years ago come Friday.
I am prepared, handkerchiefs laundered and stacked at the ready. My screen glows with multiple Windex treatments so I miss no detail of the video tributes to the man who illuminated the planet and would have saved it but for the mischance of death.
Already written and on the blog queue is a finely detailed account, some nine thousand words after the most brutal editing and condensation. It explains to a breathlessly awaiting world exactly where I was and what I was thinking on that tragic Day the Music Died.
It is most somber.
November 22, 1963, the death of Aldous Huxley.
C.S. Lewis, too.
I am prepared, handkerchiefs laundered and stacked at the ready. My screen glows with multiple Windex treatments so I miss no detail of the video tributes to the man who illuminated the planet and would have saved it but for the mischance of death.
Already written and on the blog queue is a finely detailed account, some nine thousand words after the most brutal editing and condensation. It explains to a breathlessly awaiting world exactly where I was and what I was thinking on that tragic Day the Music Died.
It is most somber.
November 22, 1963, the death of Aldous Huxley.
C.S. Lewis, too.
Aug 27, 2013
Squeaky's 1911
Other than the locals reporting that I'll be hot today, only three electric teevee news flashes stirred my parts this morning. Miley's undies, of course, followed by Team Obama's decision to Cruise missilize those Syrian Islamists whom we currently dislike. War is fun, so let's make something go bang.
Like -- and this is story three -- Squeaky Fromme. Thirty-eight years ago she tried and failed to kill Jerry Ford in a pique of annoyance that he was polluting things and killing all the redwood trees.
Poor little Squeaky idiot, no better at making guns discharge than anything else in her incompetent life. "Fromme managed to say a few sentences to the on-scene cameras, emphasizing that the gun "didn't go off." That often happens when would-be assassins neglect to chamber a round.
Now, to quickly dispose of the moral issues, a guy shouldn't pollute or chop down redwoods unless he needs to make some nice patio furniture or something like that. And, in general, one should avoid pointing pistols at people, even politicians.
Forget all that. Assuming that this is the actual Fromme pistol,* "Gee, what a nice piece."
It appears to be an honest 1911, unbubbaed, unarsenaled, never converted to to A1. Grips, mainspring housing, grip safety, and long trigger point to an as-issued 1911, issued to (and quite possibly stolen by) a Yank officer who went Over There in 1917. The magazine catch looks newer, but that could be an honest repair
The Colt has lived actively and shows bluing wear and freckles. Nevertheless, it would be a pricey item without any historical significance at all. Given that Lynette Fromme made it famous, I wonder if it might be the world's most valuable 1911? When I finish my new kitchen window treatment, I think I'll scrabble around for its provenance since 1975.
Edit to add: Nothing complicated on provenance. The prosecutors gave it to the Ford library where it is still on display.
---
*Historiography note: To claim the pictured gun is the actual Fromme weapon puts a certain amount of faith in a number of people and agencies -- cops, Secret Service, the news and image archive industries, and Wikipedia. It rings true to me, but I leave open the chance that some frenzied breaking-news editor screamed to his staff, "Hey, I need a picture of an Army gun!", and things just went on from there.
Like -- and this is story three -- Squeaky Fromme. Thirty-eight years ago she tried and failed to kill Jerry Ford in a pique of annoyance that he was polluting things and killing all the redwood trees.
Poor little Squeaky idiot, no better at making guns discharge than anything else in her incompetent life. "Fromme managed to say a few sentences to the on-scene cameras, emphasizing that the gun "didn't go off." That often happens when would-be assassins neglect to chamber a round.
Now, to quickly dispose of the moral issues, a guy shouldn't pollute or chop down redwoods unless he needs to make some nice patio furniture or something like that. And, in general, one should avoid pointing pistols at people, even politicians.
Forget all that. Assuming that this is the actual Fromme pistol,* "Gee, what a nice piece."
It appears to be an honest 1911, unbubbaed, unarsenaled, never converted to to A1. Grips, mainspring housing, grip safety, and long trigger point to an as-issued 1911, issued to (and quite possibly stolen by) a Yank officer who went Over There in 1917. The magazine catch looks newer, but that could be an honest repair
The Colt has lived actively and shows bluing wear and freckles. Nevertheless, it would be a pricey item without any historical significance at all. Given that Lynette Fromme made it famous, I wonder if it might be the world's most valuable 1911? When I finish my new kitchen window treatment, I think I'll scrabble around for its provenance since 1975.
Edit to add: Nothing complicated on provenance. The prosecutors gave it to the Ford library where it is still on display.
---
*Historiography note: To claim the pictured gun is the actual Fromme weapon puts a certain amount of faith in a number of people and agencies -- cops, Secret Service, the news and image archive industries, and Wikipedia. It rings true to me, but I leave open the chance that some frenzied breaking-news editor screamed to his staff, "Hey, I need a picture of an Army gun!", and things just went on from there.
Aug 16, 2013
A Pound, a Pound, My Kingdom for a Pound
Things are tough in Merrye Olde Theme Parke these days, and at first I thought this was a made-up deal -- Parliament looking for ways to stimulate the economy, specifically the enterprises of barristers, solicitors, Her Majesty's royal judges, and, probably only indirectly, the powdered wig industry.
It occurs that I was wrong, or mostly so, because the English have discovered an avid interest and much controversy in the dug-up bones of Richard III.
I dunno, but probably, if you had asked him, he was sufficiently content to continue resting under the Leicester church (later a parking lot) for 538 years, until some busybodies (busier than his, anyway) dug him up for a DNA swab. Yes, it was White Rose himself. That settled, it was time to replantegenet him, and here the issue got thorny.
His relatives, including a -- get this -- 17th great-grand-nephew* demand he be sent to York for his final resting place; or maybe just semi-final given the English propensity to seize any excuse to relieve boredom.
The issue went to a judge who said the relatives could, in fact, sue, but he really wished they wouldn't. He asked them to get together over a nice cup of tea and work it out to avoid a trail which would be, shudder, "unseemly, undignified and unedifying...".
Just so. And there it stands for the moment, bearing in mind that we have not yet addressed the question of why Leicester wants so badly to keep the majestic bones. AP to the final-paragraph rescue:
Leicester is hoping for a tourism boost from its association with the king, and is building a 4 million-pound ($6.3 million) visitor center near the spot where his remains were found.
Gee, so it is about money. In which case may your American cousin, suggest something? Thank you.
Stuff him. Put him on a flatcar and roll him around the countryside, charging a few pence a peek. Every week you can count the take; dole out a little here, a little there. You know, something like Jumbo.
The issue went to a judge who said the relatives could, in fact, sue, but he really wished they wouldn't. He asked them to get together over a nice cup of tea and work it out to avoid a trail which would be, shudder, "unseemly, undignified and unedifying...".
Just so. And there it stands for the moment, bearing in mind that we have not yet addressed the question of why Leicester wants so badly to keep the majestic bones. AP to the final-paragraph rescue:
Leicester is hoping for a tourism boost from its association with the king, and is building a 4 million-pound ($6.3 million) visitor center near the spot where his remains were found.
Gee, so it is about money. In which case may your American cousin, suggest something? Thank you.
Stuff him. Put him on a flatcar and roll him around the countryside, charging a few pence a peek. Every week you can count the take; dole out a little here, a little there. You know, something like Jumbo.
Jun 12, 2013
Calling Paul Wolfowitz
...and all the other neocons to whom God spake about His Divine Plan for a world in the image of Peoria, Illinois:
Isn't it about time you guys started agitating to arm the Turkish rebels? Or at least declare Ankara a no-fly zone?
With the promised wind-down of Afghanistan adventuring, the prospect of minding our own business portends a period of boredom, and we could use the stimulation of training a fresh batch of American kids to get themselves shot while adjudicating tribal and cult snit-fits in the Stans.
i understand that this one gets a little complicated. We love the boss poltician, but the kids in the square seem to favor preserving a pretty workable constitution and not tinkering with a culture which tries to temper Islamist excess.
So what? A nice fresh little war always reminds foreigners how cool we can be about projecting our power.
Besides, it is a great way to give American teevee something to report instead of all this blather about the IRS cheating and NSA spying and Eric Holder running guns and eyeballing reporters, right down to their indictable skivvies.
i understand that this one gets a little complicated. We love the boss poltician, but the kids in the square seem to favor preserving a pretty workable constitution and not tinkering with a culture which tries to temper Islamist excess.
So what? A nice fresh little war always reminds foreigners how cool we can be about projecting our power.
Besides, it is a great way to give American teevee something to report instead of all this blather about the IRS cheating and NSA spying and Eric Holder running guns and eyeballing reporters, right down to their indictable skivvies.
May 31, 2012
How Many Poles Does it Take...
Okay, it was the dumbass move of the month, this "Polish death camp" line our dim president threw out. It wasn't a mere "gaffe." He read it from his teleprompter, meaning it was written by experts in demagoguery, edited by even greater authorities on the art of bullshitting voters, and, finally, approved by the handful of high courtiers allowed to walk into the Obama Oval Office without knocking.
None of them, not even His Ineptness himself, had a neuron jiggled by the inherent dangers of an adjective, in this case "Polish."
Politics being the street brawl that it is, Romneyites are within their rights to kick the Obama campaign wedding tackle. True, the mouthpieces of the left are going blue in the face screaming that the GOP should retire to a neutral corner while the Obama seconds sponge him off and apply styptic powder. Wouldn't they just.
It will all die down, leaving His Ineptness with fewer Ski votes this fall. And leaving some of us slack-jawed in amazement at the things the American electorate and its media find crucial.
---
Here's what happened, Bunkie: About 73 years ago a country called Germany, led by a guy called Hitler, had a friend called Russia. Together, they raped a country called Poland. A domestic dispute occurred and Germany wound up running things in Poland. Among the innovations there were "death camps," conceived and operated of the Germans, by the Germans, and for the Germans. The camps wrecked unbelievable horror on millions of innocents who happened to have the wrong religion or the wrong genes or the wrong profession.
Hence "Polish death camps" -- a central event in the defining years of the 20th Century. It was universally understood that the term referred to German evil which, as a matter of Nazi convenience, was perpetrated across its border with Poland. It was simply more efficient to put ovens and torture chambers close to the target demographic.
By 1944 or '45 German guilt was in all the papers. No one qualified to appear in public without a minder thought otherwise. Even many dues-paying members of the teachers' unions knew it and taught it.
Times change. History gets muddled, as do educationists, journalists, and grasping parasites of the political class. And so a great international debate flares over what, not much more than generation ago, would have been a phrase objectionable only to the most anal grammarian at Miss Porter's Country Day School.
Meanwhile, Rome-on-Potomac burns because math is a lot harder than squalling about ethnic insensitivity. (cf: fiat money, debt)
This is not to let His Ineptness off the hook. He has one and only one profession, the politics of power. He and his elite panderers to public opinion of the moment are rewarded beyond Midas dreams to appear Christly at all times to even the looniest understandings held by blocs of the voting public. It's Propaganda 101, Mr. President. You flunked.
Now, as a practical matter, guys nicknamed Ski don't constitute the most important part of your electoral base. But, out of pure human kindness, may I suggest that you don't repeat the error.
For instance, if one of your crack speech writers gives you a draft containing "Negro lynchings," you might want to rephrase.
None of them, not even His Ineptness himself, had a neuron jiggled by the inherent dangers of an adjective, in this case "Polish."
Politics being the street brawl that it is, Romneyites are within their rights to kick the Obama campaign wedding tackle. True, the mouthpieces of the left are going blue in the face screaming that the GOP should retire to a neutral corner while the Obama seconds sponge him off and apply styptic powder. Wouldn't they just.
It will all die down, leaving His Ineptness with fewer Ski votes this fall. And leaving some of us slack-jawed in amazement at the things the American electorate and its media find crucial.
---
Here's what happened, Bunkie: About 73 years ago a country called Germany, led by a guy called Hitler, had a friend called Russia. Together, they raped a country called Poland. A domestic dispute occurred and Germany wound up running things in Poland. Among the innovations there were "death camps," conceived and operated of the Germans, by the Germans, and for the Germans. The camps wrecked unbelievable horror on millions of innocents who happened to have the wrong religion or the wrong genes or the wrong profession.
Hence "Polish death camps" -- a central event in the defining years of the 20th Century. It was universally understood that the term referred to German evil which, as a matter of Nazi convenience, was perpetrated across its border with Poland. It was simply more efficient to put ovens and torture chambers close to the target demographic.
By 1944 or '45 German guilt was in all the papers. No one qualified to appear in public without a minder thought otherwise. Even many dues-paying members of the teachers' unions knew it and taught it.
Times change. History gets muddled, as do educationists, journalists, and grasping parasites of the political class. And so a great international debate flares over what, not much more than generation ago, would have been a phrase objectionable only to the most anal grammarian at Miss Porter's Country Day School.
Meanwhile, Rome-on-Potomac burns because math is a lot harder than squalling about ethnic insensitivity. (cf: fiat money, debt)
This is not to let His Ineptness off the hook. He has one and only one profession, the politics of power. He and his elite panderers to public opinion of the moment are rewarded beyond Midas dreams to appear Christly at all times to even the looniest understandings held by blocs of the voting public. It's Propaganda 101, Mr. President. You flunked.
Now, as a practical matter, guys nicknamed Ski don't constitute the most important part of your electoral base. But, out of pure human kindness, may I suggest that you don't repeat the error.
For instance, if one of your crack speech writers gives you a draft containing "Negro lynchings," you might want to rephrase.
Mar 6, 2012
Have you heard the one about squawberry shortcake?
Every time this claptrap about offensive place names hits the press I recall a jingle in one of the old Boy Scout handbooks. How to make a fire:
"First you get your tinder, dry as can be,
"Then a little squaw wood, dead but from a tree...".
As far as I know this did not lead to widespread disrespect for female Indians, or Native Americans, or if you must, indigenous people of the American continents. If it had any implication at all beyond simple bush craft, it taught scouts an anthropological fact. In many tribes, men hunted and made war. Women cooked and kept wigwam.
"Squaw wood" was the term for firewood light enough to be handled by women. I know of no case in which a lad, upon hearing it, was carried off into perverted reveries about primitive females' private parts or had even heard that "squaw" is a vulgar synonym for the v-word. (Which it probably isn't.)
That came later when white (mostly) America became rich enough to afford to pay idlers to point out and rectify the moral failures of our fathers in naming the new places they ran across. It continues to this day.
And so it is that the board (of Geographic Place Names) , which tends to listen to what locals want, has slowly set about scrubbing the word from the landscape. Late last year, for example, Squaw Peak in California’s Inyo National Forest became Wunupu Peak, a Paiute name for “tall pine” or “pine-nut tree area” ... and Squaw Creek in Montana became Two Moons Creek, in honor of a Cheyenne leader of the 1870s.
"Wanupu?" Say it out loud and think thoughts of wholesome purity.
"Two Moons?" If I were a Cheyenne I'd be less than thrilled about a place named for a turncoat who -- after helping lead his band in a couple of victories against the white eyes -- became a turncoat and spent most of the rest of his life as a lackey for paleface General Bear Coat Miles.
I was pleased to see the term "niggerhead" (a rock awash) disappear from United States nautical charts, but beyond that sort of thing this preoccupation with titivating the language of our fathers strikes me as expensive, time-wasting, history-denying bullshit.
And if that ain't the Taku-Wakan's own sweet truth I'll kiss your arse in the shadow of the Grand Tetons and give you three sleeps to gather the tribes.
"First you get your tinder, dry as can be,
"Then a little squaw wood, dead but from a tree...".
As far as I know this did not lead to widespread disrespect for female Indians, or Native Americans, or if you must, indigenous people of the American continents. If it had any implication at all beyond simple bush craft, it taught scouts an anthropological fact. In many tribes, men hunted and made war. Women cooked and kept wigwam.
"Squaw wood" was the term for firewood light enough to be handled by women. I know of no case in which a lad, upon hearing it, was carried off into perverted reveries about primitive females' private parts or had even heard that "squaw" is a vulgar synonym for the v-word. (Which it probably isn't.)
That came later when white (mostly) America became rich enough to afford to pay idlers to point out and rectify the moral failures of our fathers in naming the new places they ran across. It continues to this day.
And so it is that the board (of Geographic Place Names) , which tends to listen to what locals want, has slowly set about scrubbing the word from the landscape. Late last year, for example, Squaw Peak in California’s Inyo National Forest became Wunupu Peak, a Paiute name for “tall pine” or “pine-nut tree area” ... and Squaw Creek in Montana became Two Moons Creek, in honor of a Cheyenne leader of the 1870s.
"Wanupu?" Say it out loud and think thoughts of wholesome purity.
"Two Moons?" If I were a Cheyenne I'd be less than thrilled about a place named for a turncoat who -- after helping lead his band in a couple of victories against the white eyes -- became a turncoat and spent most of the rest of his life as a lackey for paleface General Bear Coat Miles.
I was pleased to see the term "niggerhead" (a rock awash) disappear from United States nautical charts, but beyond that sort of thing this preoccupation with titivating the language of our fathers strikes me as expensive, time-wasting, history-denying bullshit.
And if that ain't the Taku-Wakan's own sweet truth I'll kiss your arse in the shadow of the Grand Tetons and give you three sleeps to gather the tribes.
Mar 1, 2012
Iowa Stand-Your-Ground Bill
The text of the bill as passed by the house last evening is here.
It goes to the senate. I can't offer a confident prophecy on its chances there. Comments in the previous Constitutional amendment note also apply here.
---
The best argument the opponents could dream up seems to be that we're turning gentle, agrarian Iowa into the "Wild, Wild West."
That's nonsense. But even if it were true, so what?
Wander though the Boot Hills of Deadwood, Tombstone and the like and two things will stand out. (1) They're pretty small places. (2) In even the toughest towns of frontier legend, moving to the local grave yard courtesy of a gunslinger's bullet was a remote danger compared to, say, the fatal results of untreated acne.
The point being, Ladies and Gentlemen of the statist left, Clint Eastwood westerns are tales written to entertain, not exhaustively researched narratives of the norm in the 19th Century American West.
It goes to the senate. I can't offer a confident prophecy on its chances there. Comments in the previous Constitutional amendment note also apply here.
---
The best argument the opponents could dream up seems to be that we're turning gentle, agrarian Iowa into the "Wild, Wild West."
That's nonsense. But even if it were true, so what?
Wander though the Boot Hills of Deadwood, Tombstone and the like and two things will stand out. (1) They're pretty small places. (2) In even the toughest towns of frontier legend, moving to the local grave yard courtesy of a gunslinger's bullet was a remote danger compared to, say, the fatal results of untreated acne.
The point being, Ladies and Gentlemen of the statist left, Clint Eastwood westerns are tales written to entertain, not exhaustively researched narratives of the norm in the 19th Century American West.
Jan 7, 2012
The Messiah Oliver North
Produced by the College Young Republicans and rescued from a trash can at the Eisenhower Center, home of the Republican National Committee, late in the Reagan years, in the era when Lt. Col. North was getting somewhere with his argument that, no, the Constitution of the United States of American really wasn't meant to be taken all that seriously.
Nov 8, 2011
Hello, Abdul
On November 8, 1942, Yanks and Brits launched Operation Torch. The avowed enemies were Rommel and the Italians
But first we needed to whip some French. It didn't take long, and they turned out to be a minor annoyance in the grand scheme of things.
Rommel was tougher, and the green American army carried its butt in its hands in the aftermath of the Kasserine Pass adventure. Eventually all was righted, and six months after the invasion North Africa was no longer Nazi country.
Three significant developments followed the victory in Tunisia:
1. The blimp-scale ego of Bernard Law Montgomery
2. Ditto George F. Patton
3. The war in Sicily where (1) and (2) above, opposed one another in the race for Messina. There was collateral damage, of course; that is, some Nazis got killed.
But first we needed to whip some French. It didn't take long, and they turned out to be a minor annoyance in the grand scheme of things.
Rommel was tougher, and the green American army carried its butt in its hands in the aftermath of the Kasserine Pass adventure. Eventually all was righted, and six months after the invasion North Africa was no longer Nazi country.
Three significant developments followed the victory in Tunisia:
1. The blimp-scale ego of Bernard Law Montgomery
2. Ditto George F. Patton
3. The war in Sicily where (1) and (2) above, opposed one another in the race for Messina. There was collateral damage, of course; that is, some Nazis got killed.
Oct 28, 2011
The GOP follies, hog lot editon; Iowa Caucuses 2012
It's all set, gang. Florida and Nevada hang their heads in repentant shame, meaning the Iowa Caucuses will not be held on Christmas Eve: The schedule:
January 3 -- Iowa caucuses
January 10 -- Hew Hampshire primary
January 21 -- South Carolina primary
January 31 -- Florida primary
February 4 -- Nevada caucuses
---
Those of you with a bent for history will wish to note that Iowans caucus on the anniversary of Martin Luther's excommunication by Pope Leo X, leading directly to development of of the church basement dinner and, ultimately, invention of the crock pot.
In New Hampshire, Republicans will vote on the date of Thomas Paine's publication of "Common Sense." They will choose Mitt Romney, proving that Paine's literary effort ultimately came to nought.
The South Carolina vote celebrates the birthday of John M. Browning, PBUH. He deserves better.
The Florida geezers will interfere with what should be a solemn commemoration. On January 31, 1606, the English executed Guy Fawkes and his buddies for trying to blow up King and Parliament. C'mon, Your Lordships. Should have been noll prossed or, at worst, tried as a simple misdemeanor.
The Nevada caucuses occur on the date Benjamin Palmer patented the artificial leg. This is politically important, leading as it did to a Chicago development where Democrats were inspired to patent the artificial vote.
January 3 -- Iowa caucuses
January 10 -- Hew Hampshire primary
January 21 -- South Carolina primary
January 31 -- Florida primary
February 4 -- Nevada caucuses
---
Those of you with a bent for history will wish to note that Iowans caucus on the anniversary of Martin Luther's excommunication by Pope Leo X, leading directly to development of of the church basement dinner and, ultimately, invention of the crock pot.
In New Hampshire, Republicans will vote on the date of Thomas Paine's publication of "Common Sense." They will choose Mitt Romney, proving that Paine's literary effort ultimately came to nought.
The South Carolina vote celebrates the birthday of John M. Browning, PBUH. He deserves better.
The Florida geezers will interfere with what should be a solemn commemoration. On January 31, 1606, the English executed Guy Fawkes and his buddies for trying to blow up King and Parliament. C'mon, Your Lordships. Should have been noll prossed or, at worst, tried as a simple misdemeanor.
The Nevada caucuses occur on the date Benjamin Palmer patented the artificial leg. This is politically important, leading as it did to a Chicago development where Democrats were inspired to patent the artificial vote.
Aug 19, 2011
Back to the future
No political party holds the patent on absolute brain-dead goofiness. Michele offers us two-dollar gasoline, details not quite worked out yet.
In 1972, candidate George McGovern offered every citizen of the Republic $1,000 cash money, details not quite worked out. 'course, George had an excuse. Backing Tom Eagleton 1,000 per cent ate up a lot of his time.
In 1972, candidate George McGovern offered every citizen of the Republic $1,000 cash money, details not quite worked out. 'course, George had an excuse. Backing Tom Eagleton 1,000 per cent ate up a lot of his time.
Aug 18, 2011
Hey guys, let's all go build another nation
If there's a marching club dedicated to chanting anti-Assad slogans, sign me up. He's a brutal tyrant who murders his subjects, and someone should shoot back. That someone ought to be a Syrian.
The new U.S.."sanctions" against Syria won't work very well. When have they ever, anywhere?
So we can assume Hillary's mouthing of Obama's latest contribution to Mid-East warfare this morning are warnings that we're gassing up a Seal team, a squadron of Cobra's, and an MEU or two. The background message is: "Leave or die, President Assad, because you shoot down your own people."
If nothing else, this fails the fairness test. After all, I don't recall the ruling Assad family demanding the resignation of American presidents for shooting down their subjects. (cf. Bush I/Ruby Ridge and Clinton/Waco).
No, no moral equivalence is suggested, but it's an interesting thing to keep in mind as the U.S. foreign policy apparatus ratchets up the possibility that we'll find ourselves bombing wogs in still another sandy country.
Or:
Oceania has always been at war with Mideastasia.
The new U.S.."sanctions" against Syria won't work very well. When have they ever, anywhere?
So we can assume Hillary's mouthing of Obama's latest contribution to Mid-East warfare this morning are warnings that we're gassing up a Seal team, a squadron of Cobra's, and an MEU or two. The background message is: "Leave or die, President Assad, because you shoot down your own people."
If nothing else, this fails the fairness test. After all, I don't recall the ruling Assad family demanding the resignation of American presidents for shooting down their subjects. (cf. Bush I/Ruby Ridge and Clinton/Waco).
No, no moral equivalence is suggested, but it's an interesting thing to keep in mind as the U.S. foreign policy apparatus ratchets up the possibility that we'll find ourselves bombing wogs in still another sandy country.
Or:
Oceania has always been at war with Mideastasia.
Mar 21, 2011
Speaking of the CIA and Muslim leaders...
From our Oldies but Goodies file, William F.Buckley in 1957:
The attempted assassination of Sukarno last week had all the earmarks of a CIA operation. Everyone in the room was killed except Sukarno.
.
The attempted assassination of Sukarno last week had all the earmarks of a CIA operation. Everyone in the room was killed except Sukarno.
.
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