So, when the government'crats figure out that maybe 60-70% of the old farts and health care workers are actually getting vaccinated, will they say, hey, let's open up the next 2-3 hours of "shot day" to first come first serve or what
As a reminder, the pneumonia vaccine tops out around 70% of old people vaccinated, and pneumonia is responsible for about 6% of old people's deaths, year in, year out.
Do you think we'll get above 70% in old people with the 'Rona Vaccine? I'll take the under on that bet.
So let me know when us young people can get our shot. just sayin.
Nick speaking to Jay Gatsby the last time he saw Gatsby alive "They're a rotten crowd. Your're worth the whole damn bunch put together." Nick shares with the reader - "I've always been glad I said that. It was the only compliment I ever gave him, because I disapproved of him from beginning to end."
DJT had serious shortcomings (IMO), but his enemies and antagonists are (IMO) a rotten crowd.
DJT will be reviled by all mainstream historians. But I believe there is an American masterpiece waiting to be written tying DJT to American history.A 21st century GG.
Achilles - The point is we are a nation of laws. Or a least we used to be. lol to your notion that Biden would actually be found guilty or spend time in Jail. Perhaps Joe can sit next to Hillary in pretend jail.
The corrupt powers that be will save Biden and Biden's family corruption. Too many other democrat families do the same shit.
Watching English Premier League soccer (football) as I do on the weekend.
Huge 'Black Live Matter' banner covering an entire section of the stadium placed so it will be on-camera a lot.
The funnier thing is, both captains are wearing rainbow arm bands to celebrate gay pride. I think the corner flags are rainbow flags too (they were in a previous game).
It's hilarious because Arsenal is sponsored by Emirates Airline and there is an Emirates logo prominently on the front of the jerseys.
Homosexuality is illegal there. The libs favorite Wiki entry states:
"Punishments (in the UAR) may include jail time, floggings, death, fines, and deportation."
Anyone interested in the insane freakout and de-personing of a guest editorialist at the WSJ calling on Jill Biden to stop insisting as being addressed as "Dr. Jill Biden"? For Chrissakes, she has an Ed.D., a sham degree conferred to bump teachers up the salary ladder to the next pay level in teacher contracts (Bill Cosby has one as well). Even Ph.D. holders in America that insist on being called "Dr." are mocked, even though in Europe the degree is exalted ahead of an M.D. Jill and her coterie insisting that it's an insult not to be called "Dr." indicates a deeply insecure and cosseted person.
DJT will be reviled by all mainstream historians. But I believe there is an American masterpiece waiting to be written tying DJT to American history.A 21st century GG.
I agree but historians have gone far left. It has taken 90 years to get a fair Coolidge biography.
Blogger Gilbert Pinfold said... Anyone interested in the insane freakout and de-personing of a guest editorialist at the WSJ calling on Jill Biden to stop insisting as being addressed as "Dr. Jill Biden"?
Northwestern faculty member Bernadine Dorhn could have been reached for comment but wasn't. She has retired to the faculty from her terrorism career.
"Northwestern faculty member Bernadine Dorhn could have been reached for comment but wasn't. She has retired to the faculty from her terrorism career."
Along with the cunt, Angela Davis.
Those lefties sure love them some domestic terrorism.
---Nick shares with the reader - "I've always been glad I said that. It was the only compliment I ever gave him, because I disapproved of him from beginning to end."
Interesting quotes, since Jay Gatsby was a bootlegger and a crook, closely allied to the gambler reputed (in the book) to have fixed the 1919 World Series. Gatsby is a bond flimflammer, and his money comes entirely from illegal endeavors. Nick disapproves of him but spends as much time as possible hanging around with him; Nick also dates the golf cheat Jordan Baker for a while. Birds of a feather seem to be flocking together, is my impression. Nick's moral vision was pretty impaired.
The thing about Gatsby that fires Nick's imagination is Gatsby's obsession with Daisy Buchanan. Because, of course, Fitzgerald had had such an obsession with Zelda, and indeed after some defeats, he redeemed himself in Zelda's eyes and won her love. So Gatsby is in part the romantic egoist referenced in Fitzgerald's first book, heroic despite his utter absence of ethics or morals. He does commit one positive deed. PLOT SPOILER COMING!
He takes the rap for Daisy in a terrible traffic accident which leads to his own fatal end. Morally, The Great Gatsby is a confused novel, IMO. What I really like in it now is the ruminative ending as Nick slowly works his way midwesternward, back toward home. His thoughts on the trains, his reflections back on what he had just lived through, and some other memories, take on a mellow glow that appealed to me, the last time I read the novel.
...... But I assume only illegitimate "If Justice Kelly wins, it will cement the conservative majority’s ability to block future Democratic efforts to change the state’s strict voting laws"
For those of you who like to read biographies, I'd like to seek your input on the following subjects, the biographies of whom I have read/am reading in the past couple of months: Peter the Great: His Life and World by Robert K. Massie
Nicholas and Alexandra: The Classic Account by Robert K. Massie
Wellington: The Iron Duke by Richard Holmes
American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur by William Manchester.
I usually read several books about each subject to get a balanced view but so far I've only read the one book about each and wonder if it's worthwhile reading more in a couple of cases. This is nothing about the merits of the subject, just about the interest factor.
My take so far on these individuals: Peter the Great was great, literally. Amazingly versatile and highly skilled working with his hands as well as fighting battles. I'm tempted to read another bio or two but almost hate to risk losing the fascination I found in his unusual and exciting life.
Nicholas was a good man with personal courage but weak and indecisive. Not sure he could have prevented the takeover of the Bolsheviks but he could have taken better counsel than that of his wife and Rasputin. Well-written bio but the subject was boring as hell and there's nothing more I want to know about him.
Wellington: For all his military successes, I failed to find anything interesting about him. Would another biography change my mind?
MacArthur: Only partway through this one. All set to despise him from everything I've ever heard or read about him from history but this biography, while not a panegyric by any means, is so well written and the subject so vital it's hard not to at least admire the man. So what other biographies are worth reading?
He takes the rap for Daisy in a terrible traffic accident which leads to his own fatal end. Morally, The Great Gatsby is a confused novel, IMO. What I really like in it now is the ruminative ending
Fitzgerald was an awful drunk. Read about the Murphys who had him to their place on the Riviera and he was drunk most of the time. Way back, when I was in college, I think, I read everything he wrote. His novel, "Tender is the Night" was supposed to be based on their lives but they denied it vigorously and most agree with them. I got interested in the Murphys when I saw the movie, "D'Lovely" in which they are portrayed. After that, I read everything I could find about them. They were much more interesting people than Fitzgerald.
If you like any of Massie's books, read "Dreadnaught" I have read it twice and am thinking of reading it again. It is the best thing I have found on the origins of WWI. I have another book on WWI that is very good and a bit off the usual track. It is called , "The Sleepwalkers."
Wait a minute? You mean, they made a novel of The Great Gatsby ? I can't say that i care for that. You have a good movie, but (for marketing reasons) decide to make a novel out of it... Seldom works out well
Look at the terrible job that Jane Austin did trying to novelize the movie Clueless
the great gatsby was largely based on an infamous murder case, of the era, the latest version has carroway relating the story as a journal, the previous version had robert redford, we discussed how he was wrong for the role, maybe tim matheson, or at least one other actor was closer in age and build, and then there was one in 1949, with alan ladd sr, I have never seen that one,
I can't compare it to books I haven't read, but I found Europe's Last Summer: Who Started the Great War in 1914? by David Fromkin to be very good, fairly short as well, as it was adapted from a lecture series iirc. SPOILER: It was Germany.
And Churchill's The World Crisis, of course, the first volume of which is now available as a free ebook due to the copyright clock having finally restarted.
Michael K said... If you like any of Massie's books, read "Dreadnaught" I have read it twice and am thinking of reading it again. It is the best thing I have found on the origins of WWI. I have another book on WWI that is very good and a bit off the usual track. It is called , "The Sleepwalkers." ******************** By far the best *I've* come across on the events leading to WWI is "Thunder at Twilight: Vienna 1913/1914" by Frederic Morton. Here's the blurb at Amazon:
"Thunder at Twilight is a landmark historical vision, drawing on hitherto untapped sources to illuminate two crucial years in the life of the extraordinary city of Vienna-and in the life of the twentieth century.
It was during the carnival of 1913 that a young Stalin arrived in Vienna on a mission that would launch him into the upper echelon of Russian revolutionaries, and it was here that he first collided with Trotsky. It was in Vienna that the failed artist Adolf Hitler kept daubing watercolors and spouting tirades at fellow drifters in a flophouse. Here Archduke Franz Ferdinand had a troubled audience with Emperor Franz Joseph-and soon the bullet that killed the Archduke would set off the Great War that would kill ten million more.
With luminous prose that has twice made him a finalist for the National Book Award, Frederic Morton evokes the opulent, elegant, incomparable sunset metropolis-Vienna on the brink of cataclysm."
I began reading this on my way to Prague for a short vaycay with the wife. She was a bit irritated that she had to drag me off to see the sights when I kept poking my nose into the book in the hotel room. It's that good.
Wholelottasplainin: Thanks for the tip. It sounds very good and I'll add it to my list. I usually plow through a whole subject in a year so maybe this will be my WWI year. Admittedly, other than peripherally, I've never read a good deal about WWI because I always considered it a stupid and pointless war but it is certainly a milestone in history and should make good reading. Most of my readings have been about the players and not the play so the perspectives have been biased.
If you need something light and enjoy science fiction, allow me to highly recommend a series by Leo Frankoswki. "The Cross Time Engineer", "The High Tech Knight", "The Radiant Warrior", "The Flying Warlord", "Lord Conrad's Lady", "Conrad's Quest For Rubber" and a couple of new recent books since then I've picked up but haven't read yet.
Polish engineer (from the '80's, I think) gets accidentally sent back in time by the Time Police to Poland ten years before the Mongol Invasions. He has nothing with him except packets of seeds. By the time the invasion comes, he's got biplanes.
Exceedingly fun, and if you like the idea of figuring out how you could build decent technology with no resources beyond what's available in 13th Century Europe, you're in for a treat.
An interesting theory about WWI, supported a bit by one of those books, is that the Boer War was really the cause. The Jameson Raid and the discovery of gold in the Boer's land had dire consequences. Even Churchill while wanting to be there, was not enthusiastic about the war.
The Boers were sympathetic to all but the British. The Germans were especially sympathetic and tried to send armaments. The British stopped the German ships and confiscated the contents. German did not have a High Seas fleet and the Kaiser decided to build one so Germany would not again be humiliated. Germany and England were natural allies. England and the French were natural enemies.
The numeral "6" can be drawn as a vertical stick with small circle attached at bottom right, or it can drawn much like the numeral "8" but with a small bite taken at the two o'clock position.
The numeral "9" can be drawn as a vertical stick with small circle attached at top left, or it can be drawn much like the numeral "8" but with a small bite taken at the eight o'clock position.
Web page and forms designers seem to favor fonts which most confound "6" and "9" with ""8"?
Those same designers also often favor thick, heavy numerals, with minimal cut-out and center space, further obscuring the differentiation of the aforesaid?
Text blocks on forms and web pages are often presented in medium gray characters on a light gray background? (Is this to save money on display monitor "toner?")
And didja ever notice that the most confounding renditions of "6" "8" and "9" are on the forms, reports, and web pages of financial institutions such as banks, insurance, and credit card companies?
Multiple top international news outlets confirm that a list of 1.95 million Chinese Communist Party members has been leaked, and in it are the names of potentially thousands of individuals who live and work in the West, including at major financial institutions, medical research and pharmaceutical companies, and foreign governments.
A document containing 1.95 million names of CCP members was provided to The Daily Mail in the United Kingdom, The Australian in Australia, De Standaard in Belgium, and a yet unnamed Swedish editor, who apparently has not published the story. Inside the list are potentially thousands of names of CCP members who have infiltrated top corporations and high levels of government across the West.
According to The Australian journalist Sharri Markson, “Some of its members – who swear a solemn oath to ‘guard Party secrets, be loyal to the Party, work hard, fight for communism throughout my life…and never betray the Party’ – are understood to have secured jobs in British consulates.”
Alarmingly, Markson also says Pfizer and AstraZeneca – both currently producing large numbers of COVID-19 vaccine doses – have “employed a total of 123 party loyalists.”
Here is an interesting piece from the Courier-Journal about the historic Seelbach Hotel in downtown Louisville where F. Scott Fitzgerald got his inspiration for Daisy's wedding in the classic novel "The Great Gatsby." at least that's what a lot of Louisvillians believe and there's this too "In the Roaring '20s, that room at the historic Seelbach Hotel in downtown Louisville and the hidden passageway inside it were likely havens for famed mobster Al Capone and his men."
Like other leftist groups, CVI and VPC took advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to transform America’s election system into a vote-by-mail nightmare. Besides turning Election Day into Election Month, the flood of millions of mail-in ballots opened the door to unprecedented fraud. There’s a reason a Jimmy Carter–led bipartisan commission in 2005 called mailed-in absentee ballots the “largest source of potential voter fraud” and that most countries in the European Union have banned “postal voting” over the same concerns.
For to believe his grandson it would mean that George Shultz was duped by a con artist who anyone with a lick of street smarts would have known was a con artist.
I've read Dreadnought twice and actually owned two copies of it, paperback and hardback. Also good, is the sequel, Castles of Steel, about WWI operations.
Grant by Ron Chernow along with Grant's memoirs are great books.
The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors by James Hornfischer is a tale of bravery of American sailors in escort carriers, escort destroyers and light cruisers vs. Japanese battleships, cruisers and destroyers. The Americans are defending MacArthur's Leyte landing beaches. Americans win and send the Japanese fleeing.
Blogger mockturtle said... Thanks Qwinn but I don't like science fiction. I pretty much stick to history and seldom read anything else.
If you like historical fiction, I have a series of novels by a British author to recommend. His name is Andrew Wareham and there are several long series. He has one about the nBritish Navy that resembles CS Forrester. He has an excellent series about WWI aviation and the RFC. This is the first of that series. Lots of detail. He has two series underway, one about WWI and the other about the RAF in WWII.
I liked science fiction as a kid but no more. My favorite, which will date me, was Hal Clement's "Needle." Clement was an astronomer who ended up teaching high school. The exact same fate as Cliff Stoll, who wrote "The Cuckoo's Egg.
Note that both books are still in print.
Wareham has a long series about the Industrial Revolution in England that I may have recommended before.
Reason I suggested those books in a context of history is that it uses the story to draw a very rich tapestry of what life was actually like and the political and national concerns of 13th century Poland.
One other great book is Nothing Like It in the World by Stephen Ambrose. The building of the Transcontinental Railroad, 1863-1869. It was built all by hand, a steam shovel used in just one section. The demobilized Civil War armies, both Union and Confederate, supplied the manpower for the Union Pacific while White and Chinese laborers supplied the workforce for the Central Pacific. The construction companies adapted the Civil War armies structure to organize the effort.
Just a suggestion re Gatsby: Redford would actually have been better cast as Buchanan. Buchanan is the man with all the karma and self assurance bordering on arrogance. For Gatsby, have someone with a few rough edges like DeNiro or George Raft, someone who fits in one world but not quite in the world he aspires to. They always make Buchanan a diminished person in comparison to Gatsby, but if you give him some allure, not just Daisy's decision but the way the world works makes a lot more sense.
Sometime back I read Elizabeth Longford's two volume history of Welling. Longford married into the Pakenham family that Wellington had married into, She had access to Wellington's love letters such as they were. The first volume, as I remember, was very good and well worth reading. It was definitely gives you a woman's perspective on Wellington's marriage. There was a kind of Gatsby or Jane Austen vibe to it. Wellington was the younger son of a minor noble. He wooed one of the great beauties of one of the great families in Ireland. Not her but her family turned him down. Disappointed in love, he went to India as a soldier in an unfashionable regiment but went on to win fame and a great fortune. Tye girl, Catherine, waited for him. She unfortunately contracted smallpox. Her looks were marred. Despite that, when he came back he asked her hand in marriage. "My God, she's ugly" he was said to have said to one of his friends, but he married her. England expects every man to do his duty. Wellington never met an Italian opera singer he didn't like, but it was as such things go, a reasonably successful marriage. It's kind of a love story, but not quite as romantic as the Austen or Fitgerald version.
yes I read michener's book on south africa, it extends from the original dutch settlers to the 1970, it goes into some detail about the jameson raid, the brits treatment of the boers, and their subsequent sympathy to the germans, in the pre war period, even though jan smuts was decidedly pro British, if further goes into the twisted logic behind apartheid, which is too similar to german 'blood and soil' movements,
Blogger Mike of Snoqualmie said... One other great book is Nothing Like It in the World by Stephen Ambrose.
Got it. Andrew Wareham also has a series of novels about life in the British Army in 1800. His books are always well researched and Wellington is a character in them. I also like the novels of Bernard Cornwell. He has several series, as well. I had audio versions to listen to when I was still commuting to Phoenix. The India series of the "Sharpe's" adventures in India, with several places where Wellington appears, were great but the readers were so good with accents that I had trouble understanding them. One would go from Scottish, to Indian, to English accents without a pause.
Cornwell's nonfiction book on Waterloo was excellent and a good guide When we were there.
"Alarmingly, Markson also says Pfizer and AstraZeneca – both currently producing large numbers of COVID-19 vaccine doses – have “employed a total of 123 party loyalists.”"
Its only right: "The Party Deals It, Then the Party Heals It!"
dreams said... George Shultz is 100 years old today, born December 13, 1920. *************
When I went to school and worked in DC years ago, George Shultz and I collided as he raced out of the Old Senate Office Building while I was walking up its front stairs. Our briefcases went sailing, but we managed to keep our feet. Mutual apologies, and off he went, doubtless to do glorious battle for Nixon as head of the OMB.
Justice Dallett makes an interesting point. She implies that, since Trump didn't sue over improprieties in the 2016 election, which he won, he has no business suing now. This is an argument which would certainly appeal to the average 10-year-old. Of course, had he sued in 2016, she would have asked why he was suing, when he won the election. This is Igna-level obtuseness, but perhaps more importantly, it is legally irrelevant. She is using her position on the court to harass the attorney unfortunate enough to find himself addressing her. To say that she lacks judicial temperament is like saying that she lacks the wings to fly.
Germany and England were natural allies. England and the French were natural enemies.
@Dr. Michael K., with respect sir, since circa 1700 the British policy towards the continent has been 100% consistent: seek balance by an alliance with the second-strongest power on the continent against the strongest. Some argue thst this policy goes all the way back to the Hundred Years War.
All anyone of those illustrious board members needed to do was ask a nurse what happens when you stick a needle through too much skin (like your fingertip) and try to get a real measurement of something like, say, potassium.
The second I told my mom about this Theranos idea she snorted and called bullshit.
I come here for the news. I did not know about Le Carre. RIP. A truly great writer, that transformed a genre. Too bad he went off the rails at the end.
The best miniseries I've ever seen was the BBC version of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. It's now on YouTube for free, if anyone has time to kill. Slow but wonderful.
Reading the Smiley trilogy as a young adult reminded me of reading Lord of the Rings as a teen. Mesmerized, and immersed in a new world.
The first novel of his I read was for high school. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. (Caps may be wrong, don't judge me.) The ending blew me away completely. It was like an epiphany of good storytelling.
He was a leftist, which is tragic. But I do remember a line from Smiley's People, in which a character said that every time he was at the Berlin Wall, he understood the undeniable superiority of the West, with all its faults.
Le Carre could have written a good book based on the Russia collusion hoax. But for some reason he couldn't see through it, or at least had nothing to say about it, which still surprises me. The Democrat's activities, and the media's propaganda operation, were straight out of one of his novels.
Niall Ferguson's The Pity of War is a good re-view of WW I. John Keegan called it a very wicked book, which is high praise IMO. Less a narrative history than an analytical one, with some original insights. Keegan's book on that war is one of his lesser efforts.
Holger Herwig's book on First Marne and the one on Germany and Austria during that war are also good, but assume a lot of background knowledge. (He makes an odd hash of some of the artillery stats in the Marne book but otherwise very good.)
Hew Strachan's multi-volume synthesis is a great work, but not a great read. His edited single volume WWI: A History is much more approachable.
If you have a taste for culchah, try Modris Eckstein's Rites of Spring.
Massie is usually pretty solid--he certainly cranked them out. Peter is fascinating, but his great opponent Karl XII of Sweden ought to have a better English bio than Ragnhild Hatton's, which is too academic. Sebag Montefiore's collective bio of the so-called Romanovs is excellent, as is everything of his that I've read.
The full two-volume Wellington bio by Longford is good; I would think Holmes too army-oriented to do justice to the times, but that may be unfair.
Raberts's bio of Napoleon is fair. Alessandro Barbaro's The Battle (about Waterloo) and Rory Muir's book about the KGL at La Haye Sainte show there's still life in old fights. Muir also has some studies of Wellington that I haven't read.
Amazon delivered John Lukacs The Legacy of the Second World War to me this afternoon; I always encourage people to read Lukacs. He makes a point that is germane here, to paraphrase: historians can and will argue over responsibilities for 1914, but the cause of war in 1939 was Hitler. Full stop.
Michael K ...https://amgreatness.com/2020/12/11/michigan-ag-and-sec-of-state-block-results-of-forensic-audit-of-22-dominion-machines-in-antrim-county/ Who remembers when democrats rooted out corruption? Well, it was along time ago, and Soros wasn't paying their freight back then. Then there's this.."According to estimates by The National Institute for Literacy, roughly 47 percent of adults in Detroit, Michigan -- 200,000 total -- are 'functionally illiterate,' meaning they have trouble with reading, speaking, writing and computational skills.
Sgt Carter was one of about 20 men - there may have been more - who, when I was a kid, were at the same time someone you saw on 60s TV getting paid to make people laugh and someone who shipped out from the West Coast to fight the Japanese Empire just 20 or 25 years before that, or from the East Coast for the equally dangerous prospect of fighting against the rest of the Axis.
Some people might think about some of them "well they did not really see action" - but my opinion is that if you were in the Navy, Marines, or Army, and you left San Diego or Treasure Bay or Norfolk or Manhattan on the way to fight for the USA against the Axis powers in the 40s, it does not matter if you actually saw action, you should still get full credit for being willing to see action.
That being said, most of them did wind up getting shot at in one way or another. I know Tennessee Tuxedo (Agent Maxwell Smart to you kids) and the rest of his unit that was almost completely annihilated when they stormed a Jap-held Pacific island certainly did, although I have to say I am not a comprehensive historian, and I am not sure if Cholmondely did or not.
Narr, I found "Peter the Great" by Massie to be, for all intents and purposes, a biography of Charles XII as well. Another fascinating warrior.
I guess my point about Wellington is that, from my [admittedly limited] reading, he was a brilliant general but a rather dull man. Almost the antithesis of MacArthur in management style, Wellington was a compulsive micromanager and MacArthur delegated authority unstintingly, at least early in his military career [I'm not even halfway through this biography].
historians can and will argue over responsibilities for 1914, but the cause of war in 1939 was Hitler. Full stop.
No, it was WWI or the Versailles Treaty which Lloyd George and Clemenceau took Wilson to the cleaners on. The Germans were largely right about Versailles even if the "stab in the back" was a lie. Stanley Baldwin had a lot to do with it, too.
A couple weeks ago I defined “mathematically possible” by telling a friend that it was still mathematically possible for Washington to win the Super Bowl. They had just lost back to back games to the Giants and were 1-7. And now they’re leading the NFC East and have beaten the Steelers (!) and 49ers. They actually could win the division and then —well, they have shown that they can beat good teams, so they really might get to the Super Bowl. Wow.
“If I could have a front man, and I had an earpiece, while sitting in my basement in sweats and just feeding him the lines. I’d be ok with a 3rd term” ~ Obama
The massive data-file [Download Here w/ Caution] was offered to all major international journalists and media organizations. All of the major U.S. media outlets did not want the data. As a consequence, media outlets within Australia and the U.K. are leading the release.
NOTE: At the same time U.S. media were refusing the leaked information they were simultaneously criticizing a U.S. executive order blocking CCP members from visas’ longer than one month in duration, by claiming no-one had any way to know who was a CCP member. In essence, the U.S. corporate media did not want to know.
That guy should be making the case before SCOTUS. But he's right: We each need to contact our state AGs and ask them to use this simple exercise to determine if ballots are fraudulent. I can't think of a single reason [other than complicity] why they would demur.
Amazon delivered John Lukacs The Legacy of the Second World War to me this afternoon; I always encourage people to read Lukacs. He makes a point that is germane here, to paraphrase: historians can and will argue over responsibilities for 1914, but the cause of war in 1939 was Hitler. Full stop.
20 years of France stomping on the German people started the WWII train rolling down the tracks.
In the war genre, Antony Beevor's "Stalingrad" is a must-read, especially for Americans. The sheer brutality of combat, the soldier and civilian life among the ruins, puts our fathers' (and Hollywood's) images of WWII in perspective. Germans v. Russians, at least in Europe, was the main event. Harrowing, but well written.
20 years of France stomping on the German people started the WWII train rolling down the tracks.
Germany got a good deal compared to what they planned if they won, see the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. I'd be more inclined to blame Ludendorff and his inability to accept that he lost the damn war. Losing WWI was a shock to a German people suffused with the conviction of their superiority. One of the takeaways I got from the Farm Hall recordings was the surprise of some of the interned German scientists that non-German scientists could produce an atomic bomb where they failed.
WWII was Hitler's plan to redo WWI right, and if he had been a bit smarter he might have pulled it off.
is there a codified standard for 'acceptable' levels of vote fraud taken into consideration during election certification similar to the FDA allowing certain levels of contaminates in food?
are most elections certified with this manner?
per @realDonaldTrump · Swing States that have found massive VOTER FRAUD, which is all of them, CANNOT LEGALLY CERTIFY these votes as complete & correct without committing a severely punishable crime. Everybody knows that dead people, below age people, illegal immigrants, fake signatures, prisoners,....
could loose parameters allow for upsets in close races?
You can blame or thank conrad stark, he was a decent physicist but he thought only aryan scientists need apply, and hence sldrove a generation of talent
After watching a lot of the recent previews on Netflix and Amazon (they play before the feature), I have concluded that for the foreseeable future, all entertainment will feature women, minorities, or gays. Or a combination of the aforementioned.
Robother: Most people have no idea what tribulations the Russians endured in WWII--and after the war, although Solzhenitsyn spoke to the latter in Gulag.
I read a lot of history. The only two that I can think of that kept me up turning the pages were the Massie bio of Peter The Great and the Shirer book on the Third Reich...There are many worthy histories, but those were the only two books that had some of the narrative drive of a great novel....Alan Bullock's dual biography "Hitler and Stalin" is a fine, scholarly work, but I liked Edward Radzinsky's bio of Stalin much better. It was pulpy and sensational. It seems to me that when writing about a fucked up mass murderer the pulpy approach is better suited than the aloof Oxonian style.
I just saw "Mank" on Netflix. It took me three tries, but I got through it. I got the vague sense it was a load of crap. I don't know that much about Herman Mankiewicz or Upton Sinclair, but the story seemed tilted and stilted....I looked up Herman on IMDB. He had some impressive credits and it could be said that he was one of Hollywood's founding fathers. He was the one who recruited guys like Ben Hecht to work as screenwriters. He produced some of the Marx brothers pictures and wrote some of the script for the Wizard of Oz.....All the while he was doing this, he was openly contemptuous of Hollywood and the pictures they made. Back then, real art was produced on Broadway, not in Hollywood....The Mank film makes him out to be some kind of heroic drunk who spoke truth to power. My guess is that he was a self loathing alcoholic whose taste for self abasement fell not only on himself but on the people within his orbit. He had a talent, but it wasn't for politics or truth.
Sure thing guys. Everybody was responsible except Hitler.
Twenty years of the French stomping the German people? You sound like Jupiter, Achilles!
Name a serious historian who blames the outbreak of war -in 1939- on Versailles, or on some supposed stomping by the French. I'll check back tomorrow.
A list of grievances, real or imagined, is not the same as a decision to plunge the world into war.
Geoffrey Perret's bio of MacArthur is better IMO than Manchester's, but then Perret's books are often better than better-known authors' books. Just as Lukacs's are.
No one man causes a war. Conditions have to be ripe as well as other factors being in alignment. Of course Hitler was clearly to blame for triggering the war through his lebensraum adventures. If no one had resisted, there would have been no war. Thank God for Churchill!
Beatrice Webb was one of the founders of Britain's Labor Party. She went to the Soviet Union to witness the digging of the White Sea Canal in 1933. Stalin sent Soviet citizens with a suspect or just middle class background out to dig that canal. They wore street clothes during the Russian winter and used garden instruments for their labors. Thousands of them died. Beatrice witnessed this and remarked what a grand undertaking it was and how happy the Soviet citizens were to redeem their past and join in this great adventure. How far must your head be up your ass to be able to smell flowers in such a situation....I mention this because I think that's the kind of Socialist Upton Sinclair was. In the movie Mank they make Sinclair out to be some kind of hope for the working man and Hearst and Mayer to be some kind of devious con artists out to delude the working man into not recognizing his true interests....Someday I'd like to see a movie where radical left wing politics are depicted as a character flaw instead of an example of flawed character's inner nobility.....Anyway it was interesting to note that the movie claims that Hollywood and the press manipulated stories and newsreels to insure the defeat of Upton Sinclair. I guess they can only do that to defeat leftist candidates. When leftist candidates win, it has nothing to do with slanted media coverage.
There is a subtext to that post world war 2 drama with james sturgis where alfred molina plays a fmr foreign office honcho who voted down any intervention againsf tbe reich which might have encouraged some officials in the general staff.
Hitler was a man of surpassing evil. On the plus side, visionary intellectuals didn't visit concentration camps and remark on what a great leap forward for humanity they presented to the onlooker.
"After watching a lot of the recent previews on Netflix and Amazon (they play before the feature), I have concluded that for the foreseeable future, all entertainment will feature women, minorities, or gays. Or a combination of the aforementioned."
Oh, and the handicapped...just saw a promo for a show about a deaf drummer...
Only the coen bros hail caesar came close on that score. There is also andy garcias the lost city, which painted che in all his villainy (they painted some batista officials with a dark brush too) and his for the glory with ruben blades crushing the cristeros.
Here’s How We Handle People Who Refuse to Get COVID Vaccines
“vaccine passports”; simple, standardized documents, digital or printed, that enable society and the economy to get back to semi-normal without waiting for every anti-vaxxer to see the light. This is what freedom looks like."
Old corrupt Joe and his nasty Ho will never run my life. Little ol island in the middle of nowhere I salute you President Trump. Thanks for the link to the Meagan movie AA!
IIRC, he also knew Sacco and Vanzetti were guilty, he met their lawyer in a Denver hotel and asked him. Yet he built a case for American injustice on their conviction. Ah, here it is.
Blogger wild chicken said... “Oof. Team Trump didn't present evidence?”
12/13/20, 8:18 PM
Oof indeed. Trump’s own appointee Judge heard the case, allowed evidence and none was presented, then he made a ruling based on the merits. Yet the deluded remain deluded. Sounds like a cult.
Much like 'hands up dont shoot' in the current ethos, although probably the whole wesley cook sham was close, thats mumia abu jamal, also the sad tale of the itinerant shepherds at gitmo.
Harvard Med Postgraduate and Continuing Education @HMSPostgradCE · Globally, ethnic minority pregnant and birthing people suffer worse outcomes and experiences during and after pregnancy and childbirth. These inequities have been further highlighted by #COVID19. Watch this panel discussion on #MaternalJustice. https://buff.ly/2I3vJ3r
The webinar panelists used the term "birthing person" to include those who identify as non-binary or transgender because not all who give birth identify as "women" or "girls." We understand the reactions to this terminology and in no way meant for it to erase or dehumanize women.
“The lack of a significant claim was especially noteworthy because the campaign’s claims for relief were, Ludwig said, “extraordinary” (emphasis in original). The Trump team was asking the court to declare that 50,000 ballots were “likely” tainted (a comedown from the 100,000 counsel touted in public statements). More eye-poppingly, the campaign was asking the court to invalidate the popular vote (i.e., disenfranchise 3.3 million voters) and remand the case to the state legislature (GOP-controlled) to appoint electors (i.e., to seat the Trump rather than Biden slate to cast the state’s 10 electoral votes) — even though state officials had already certified Biden’s victory in the manner prescribed by state law.
It has become an article of faith among ardent Trump followers that the election was stolen. The president continues to insist that this is the case, and these flames were further fanned by 19 Republican-controlled state governments, along with 126 Republican members of Congress, who joined the meritless Texas lawsuit, tossed out by the Supreme Court on Friday. The rationalization behind that stunt was that the president has been denied his day in court. But every time a court offers him an opportunity to establish by proof what he is promoting by Twitter, Team Trump folds. Why is that?“
Because Trump and the Trumpist Party need to keep his cult following. The cult wants, nay, they demand to believe that it was impossible for Trump to be so despised that a candidate such as Biden could beat him by 7 million votes. Trumpists stay busy keeping the fantasy alive, Trump bat shit crazy and trying to stay out of jail and the Trumpist Party is playing his cult followers for fools to hang on to power.
Inga said... Blogger wild chicken said... “Oof. Team Trump didn't present evidence?”
12/13/20, 8:18 PM
Oof indeed. Trump’s own appointee Judge heard the case, allowed evidence and none was presented, then he made a ruling based on the merits. Yet the deluded remain deluded. Sounds like a cult. *************
You IDIOTS.
No judge "heard" any "case". The complaints didn't offer "evidence", they offered grounds for a "cause of action." That's how it works.
When you file a complaint you make claims stating a legal "cause of action." A judge will look at those claims, and if he/she determines that **IF** THEY ARE TRUE, THEN the complainant has a "case" that should be heard.
THEN the process of "discovery" begins, with each party offering information that they believe supports/denies the cause of action. THAT's when we're talking about "evidence".
IOW you don't need to "prove" your case with "evidence" when you file a complaint!!
You mean like the 'Hands up, don't shoot,' 'I can't breathe,' 'Black live matter,' 'Hunter is the smartest person I know,' 'Trump is a Russian agent,' 'Wiped it clean, like with a cloth?,' 'Benghazi was because of an internet video,' 'Hunter's laptop is Russian disinformation' cult?
I would have to get a lobotomy to go through life as dumb as you are.
I could spot you 40 IQ points and still be ahead by 20.
Narr said... "Twenty years of the French stomping the German people? You sound like Jupiter, Achilles!
Name a serious historian who blames the outbreak of war -in 1939- on Versailles, or on some supposed stomping by the French. I'll check back tomorrow."
Ahem. You rang, Sir? If you mean that the French did not invade Germany in 1939, I agree. It might well have gone better if they had, but the Great War had exhausted them. But if you mean, name a "serious" historian who believes the seeds of WWII were planted at Versailles, well, name one who does not.
What are you suggesting? That WWII was a bit of one-off helter-skelter that Hitler cooked up, while the rest of the World was having itself a Love-In at the park? If you're going to occupy the Rhineland, Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.
Million voters do not, this is a travesty of a mockery of a sham
Diversity breeds adversity, but this was more than a color judgment, with precedents. Jew... White privilege. Social justice, I suppose.
foreign nationals at gitmo get standing and rights that 75 voters who cast votes legally do not
Democratsy has a Pro-Choice or "ethical" orientation.
Now that Biden has been outed, I wonder if the Democrat-fronted Russian collusion hoax over 16 trimesters was not a Chinese envisioned, with Obama/Biden/Clinton collusion, plot to stoke conflict between America and Russia, America and Israel, America and Mexico, Canada, etc. Trump posed a clear and progressive risk to the special and peculiar interests that place Americans second, and third, normalize immigration reform (and Planned Parenthood) in lieu of emigration reform (the Mexican president is not so green), diversity and exclusion (e.g. Asian color band), indulge Green shifting/obfuscation for renewable profits and marginal service, etc.
Yeah–SCOTUS punted on this one. But there are other cases headed their way so maybe they will find standing yet. Somebody better, whether its state or federal, legislative, judicial or executive.
Someone has to give standing to the 80 million Americans who re-elected the President in a landslide because, frankly, it feels like we’re again drifting into a Fort Sumter-moment of National Disaster.
Dred Scot Democrats once said the black man had no rights they were bound to respect. Now, Dominion Democrats claim Trump voters have no rights they’re bound to respect. If the System ratifies this industrial-scale election theft, Democrats and Swamp RINOs will never again relinquish that power without blows.
We already don’t agree that we’re One Nation Under God. We don’t agree what a man is or what a woman is. We don’t agree on what a marriage is or what a baby is. We don’t agree any longer on Free Speech or Censorship or the Bill of Rights. We don’t agree on the News, or Sports or the Weather or Medicine. We don’t agree that we should have Borders. And we don’t agree on Law and Order, Two-Tiered Justice and whether the CIA and FBI should spy on our opponents.
And now we’re not even going to agree on the very way we settle these issues peacefully? We don’t agree that we should have honest elections.
Do Americans have to find their own standing? Someone in authority had damn well better find standing for the American People and soon, or they may find themselves without any standing--or authority-- themselves. As President Lincoln put it:
“Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it.”
Hitler had a goal, he spelled it out on his book. But without the clemenceau dominated 14 points that took the skin of a defeated people, the hyperinflatio. Thatarose from the reparations, the inept behavior of the allied control commission, he wouldnt have succeeded
Germany got a good deal compared to what they planned if they won, see the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. I'd be more inclined to blame Ludendorff and his inability to accept that he lost the damn war. Losing WWI was a shock to a German people suffused with the conviction of their superiority.
One interesting take, from who I can't recall: Germany lost the war, but they lost it in France.
That is, Germany was never invaded, and the Germans at home never realized how bad things were on the lines.
You know ive been less convinced of the efficacy of modern warfare on practical grounds not so much moral ones what have qw accomplished in our two expeditions in near east and south asia in 19 years.
Massie is a great writer and his books are the results of massive historical research. I have read his "Nicholas and Alexandra " and " Catherine the Great". Fascinating reads. Catherine - a German princess came to Russia at 16 and ended up ruling Russia for 34 years. Handled reforms, arts, wars and multiple lovers. "Peter" is on my to read list. Peter and Catherine were the most impressive tzars in Russian history...
Under pressure from the insane dumbasses who find the nickname "Indian" offense to native Americans who are not Indian at all, the MLB Cleveland Indians will drop the name "Indians."
Next to be renamed is the state of Ohio, which is from the Seneca language and roughly means "stream or creek." As The Last Resort - I humbly suggest that Ohio should become "Paradise" the team could be the "Goodbye Kisses." Don Henley would approve.
DJT will be reviled by all mainstream historians. But I believe there is an American masterpiece waiting to be written tying DJT to American history.A 21st century GG.
I think this is true, though the course of events over the next few years will determine how truly game changing he was. For now, though, I think Trump's most important contribution by far was winning first the GOP primary and then the 2016 general election. He made a populist appeal to white working class Americans, took a hardline stance on immigration, criticized free trade deals, and expressed skepticism about endless military adventurism. This was all 180 degrees from what GOP "strategists" had been counseling for almost 20 years.
Paradoxically, even the current 2020 election results vindicate Trump. He obliterated the ridiculous "white supremacy" argument by increasing his share of the black and Latino vote. Democrats seriously underperformed in Congressional races, and an affirmative action proposition was rejected by voters in California. Remember, the establishment's aim was not to merely to defeat Trump but to obliterate Trumpism as a political movement. It failed.
Unfortunately, Trump does not understand Trumpism. It was never a coherent worldview on his part but rather a set of policies he cobbled together in an ad hoc way. Still, Trump's campaign and victory revived the strain of populist nationalism that had been dormant in the country since at least the defeat of Ross Perot. Nourishing that revival within the GOP is paramount. But if you want Kushnerism, by all means listen to Trump.
If you like any of Massie's books, read "Dreadnaught" I have read it twice and am thinking of reading it again. It is the best thing I have found on the origins of WWI. I have another book on WWI that is very good and a bit off the usual track. It is called , "The Sleepwalkers."
I haven't read Dreadnought, but I did read Clarke's book. I thought it did an excellent job laying out the historical background of the conflict, but he's sleepwalking thesis was totally untenable. Clarke is only able to advance it by either glossing over or completely ignoring important points.
If the origins of WWI is a topic that interests you, I'd recommend investing in Luigi Albertini's three-volume The Origins of the War of 1914. If you do decide to, I'd also recommend getting The origins of the First World War: Diplomatic and military documents. Albertini's work is dense and takes time to get through, but it provides an incomparable understanding of the events that transpired during the July crisis.
Kindle recently had on sale a book by John Yoo " Defender in Chief: Trump's fight for presidential power". Description says "a Constitutional scholar John Yoo makes a provocative case that Trump isn't shredding the Constitution - he is its' greatest defender" . Published this year. Got it to read. Not many reviews yet.
It was a good night for Geminids in Florida. I went outside around 1:45 a.m., stayed out for about twenty minutes and saw about 15 meteors along with a few more maybes. I saw two in the sky at once right around 2 a.m. It was a pleasant 64 degrees and no mosquitoes.
So, at the risk of being judgemental... IF you are SO STUPID, that you can't tell the difference between WW ONE and WW TWO... Are you SO STUPID, that you'd be a Gadfly?
If all Trump voters downed tools, with the single demand that a real court case be started. Get to discovery - do your job! - and we’ll do our jobs. Till then, get by with what’s left at Whole Foods.
Hoping Bide'n takes the unprecedented step and nominates his wife, Dr. Jill Bide'n, as Surgeon General. Or noted medical expert (and virus specialist) Bill Gates. This pandemic thingy could be solved in a heartbeat, so to speak.
It wasn't WWI that caused WWII, it was the way WWI ended Even More so, it was the way the idiots of the 1930's let Germany rebuild and reform
There's an interesting argument that Pershing's true intent was not unconditional surrender of Germany. Rather, he believed that Wilson's armistice agreements would be far too lax and hoped that by demanding an unconditional surrender, he would pressure Wilson into supporting a harsher armistice.
While I think it is undisputable that Germany bears primary responsibility for the war, the behavior at Paris in 1919 was a disgrace, as various participants sought to divide up the spoils of war. Wilson was consistently outmaneuvered and ineffectual and undermined by Colonel House. Wilson's dragging of the US into WWI remains one of the all time great blunders and ensures Wilson's top spot as all time worst president. In so many ways, it was at Paris in 1919 and 1920 that the contemporary world was made.
Wilson is in the bottom ten, but Buchanan was the worst.
Ehh. Buchanan was certainly an uninspiring leader and a flawed president, particularly around his duplicity over the Dred Scott decision, but I think the harsh critique of Buchanan is a little over-the-top. It is true that he was unsuccessful at easing sectional tensions, but Buchanan was out of the country serving his ambassadorship to Great Britain when the Kansas-Nebraska Act was debated and signed into law.
gadfly said... "Blogger Churchy LaFemme: said... One interesting take, from who I can't recall: Germany lost the war, but they lost it in France.
That is, Germany was never invaded, and the Germans at home never realized how bad things were on the lines.
Check out Wiki and a General by the name of George S. Patton.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Allied_invasion_of_Germany" He's talking about WW1. Keep up.
Qwinn. You might be interested in a Youtube series of videos about the Antikythera device. It's called,"Click Spring" by an Aussie horologist.( That's a maker of time pieces to you knuckleheads.) He tries to recreate it using, as much as possible, the same techniques that might have been in use at the time.
W's presidency was much worse than Obama's. His launching of the "global war on terror" was a calamitous blunder that we have yet to extricate ourselves from. Also, when Bush took office, the US had free trade agreements with three countries: Canada, Mexico, and Israel. When he left office, it was 17 countries. Bush's first visit to a foreign country was to Mexico, with which he had pledged to form a "special relationship." He spent nearly all of his presidency pushing for legislation that would provide essentially unfettered movement of cheap Mexican labor into the US.
I agree with Farmer on GW Bush and the War on Terror. That along with the 'weapons of mass destruction' lies and the Iraq war cost us dearly in lives and treasure, the ties between the Bush family and the Saudi royals and W's father with his educational policies that pretty much destroyed our schools. While the Democrats are more identifiably malevolent, the NeoComs are more subtly so and equally dangerous.
But the policies you are criticizing can be reversed. They were at least enacted by the normal political process, in the open.
Obama secretly weaponized every government office against conservatives, particularly the Tea Party. He planted partisan hacks willing to participate in that weaponization in the military, in the DOJ, FBI, the works. He spied on his successor using false FISA warrants. He jailed journalists. He ran guns to Mexico in an attempt to create a wedge by which to undermine the second amendment (thankfully this one was discovered, and failed).
Those are not just bad policy. They are flat out illegal acts injecting acid through the entire system. That sort of thing cannot be easily reversed. And we're seeing the results now with this massive election theft. Nothing Bush did compares.
Oh, and oh yes, overseeing and approving the ascendancy of groups like BLM to split the country along racial lines based on complete bullshit like Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, etc. all being little angels cut down in their prime, rather than incredibly violent thugs who earned every bit of what befell them.
Did anything Bush did (and I don't disagree much with your criticisms) cause as much damage, burn down our cities, rip the social fabric apart? No.
A Michigan judge has ordered the release of the Antrim County Dominion Voting machines forensic audit, which partisan hack Democrat judges have up until now ordered *not* be released to the public or in court.
No plausible or legitimate reason given for why they weren't allowing that audit to be released. And why should they? They have buried every other piece of evidence of fraud without consequence.
So now we get to see that the claim that Antrim switched 6000 votes from Trump to Biden wasn't "human error" or a "glitch". It was deliberate.
Those are not just bad policy. They are flat out illegal acts injecting acid through the entire system. That sort of thing cannot be easily reversed. And we're seeing the results now with this massive election theft. Nothing Bush did compares.
I agree that the Obama presidency was marked by a great deal of lawlessness, the trend of accumulating unchecked power within the executive has been ongoing for at least the last several decades under the so called "imperial presidency." The most striking difference was that while major media outlets feigned concern during the Bush administration but went silent during Obama's. Just as they treated the antiwar movement. People like Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill were notable exceptions.
And recall that it was Bush who oversaw a massive expansion of the national security state and its surveillance powers and covert activities and inaugurated America as a permanent warfare state. The 2001 AUMF has been stretcher\d beyond any credible reading. The real culprit here is Congress, which essentially abdicates a good deal of its role in checking the executive largely on the basis of party affiliation.
Did anything Bush did (and I don't disagree much with your criticisms) cause as much damage, burn down our cities, rip the social fabric apart? No.
Race riots are not a new phenomenon. In fact, they've been a rather regular feature of American history. The real game changer, in addition to demographic disruption, is the smart phone and social media. Twenty-eight years ago a surreptitious vide recording of police beating Rodney King sparked the L.A. riots. Today nearly everyone is walking around with a camcorder in their pocket connected to a global information-sharing platform.
I think the harsh critique of Buchanan is a little over-the-top. It is true that he was unsuccessful at easing sectional tensions
But he did a pretty good job of moving arms to armories in southern states where the Confederacy could grab them.
Bush was more sinned against than sinner in Afghanistan. Read "Jawbreaker" about how the CIA and Special Forces had cleaned up most of the Osama people but then ""Big Army" arrived and told the SF guys "To shave and get in uniform." It reminds me of nothing so much as the FBI arriving in "Die Hard." Twenty years later Big Army is still there and refuses to leave. They were waiting for Biden to flip the light from red to green.
As for Iraq, it is still a mystery to me why Bush allowed Bremer to take over. Tommy Franks and Rumsfeld wanted to get out and let the Iraqis sort it out. The worst mistake was the armistice after GWI by Schwartzkopf.
If Biden makes any move to ban fracking, he will restore our dependence on the Saudis and we will be back in 1992.
Twenty-eight years ago a surreptitious vide recording of police beating Rodney King sparked the L.A. riots.
More importantly, they provided the narrative. It took Bill Clinton and double jeopardy to convict those cops. The fact that they saved King's life was never mentioned. You are right about the video, though.
His launching of the "global war on terror" was a calamitous blunder
Oh? So you like those al Qaeda folks killing Americans just because they’re Americans? Good to know. As far as I’m concerned Bush’s blunder was in not demanding that Saudi Arabia reimburse us about $10 billion for every person killed on 9/11 — double for children — or we’d invade their filthy country, pump their deserts dry of oil, and use Mecca and Medina for nuclear test sites. Also do gunpoint conversions of the royal family and all their citizens to Christianity. He was way too kind to the House of Saud.
that we have yet to extricate ourselves from.
Not that Obama tried very hard. And Trump’s efforts to extricate US troops were deliberately undercut by the Deep State. After the election Pentagon officials bragged about lying to Trump about troop counts so they could keep troops in Syria.
The significant thing was ksm the master planner was apprehended. Al suri was no slouch but not that level of strategists, his top deputy headed ahram shams.
Bush was more sinned against than sinner in Afghanistan. Read "Jawbreaker" about how the CIA and Special Forces had cleaned up most of the Osama people but then ""Big Army" arrived and told the SF guys "To shave and get in uniform." It reminds me of nothing so much as the FBI arriving in "Die Hard." Twenty years later Big Army is still there and refuses to leave. They were waiting for Biden to flip the light from red to green.
Berntsen's book was quite good, and he does a good job of describing how personal animosities, bureaucratic squabbling, and turf wars among senior officials hampered effective ground operations. But it's still a version of the "thousands of tactical errors" argument. It doesn't address the fundamental problem of how once you've removed the Taliban from power, what will go in its place and for where will it derive legitimacy. This problem continues to haunt Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and very nearly Syria.
So the MI forensic audit of the Dominion voting systems shows an error rate of 68%.
68% error rate.
The FEC limits the acceptable error rate to 0.08%.
And in all previous elections, the voting systems produced an adjudication log, showing every time that a vote was adjudicated. In 2020, no adjudication log.
Let's hear now why this doesn't count as evidence of fraud.
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२४५ टिप्पण्या:
245 पैकी 1 – 200 नवीन› नवीनतम»This is a democrat "Judge" on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
This is how fucking stupid the whole democrat argument is.
I can see why Ann doesn't want to deal with this.
And the "Judge" went on to Call Trump's lawsuit racist.
Of course.
I’m more interested in the UW Law grad Justice Jill Karofsky. If she was an Althouse student, she didn’t learn a damn thing. Total political hack.
She called the lawsuit racist.
Calling the lawsuit racist is a tactic.
Rocks are known diversitists. Some are even rabid.
Time to call in a special counsel on Hunter and Joe Biden: Goodwin
why not? Is there a reason democrats are above the law?
So, when the government'crats figure out that maybe 60-70% of the old farts and health care workers are actually getting vaccinated, will they say, hey, let's open up the next 2-3 hours of "shot day" to first come first serve or what
As a reminder, the pneumonia vaccine tops out around 70% of old people vaccinated, and pneumonia is responsible for about 6% of old people's deaths, year in, year out.
Do you think we'll get above 70% in old people with the 'Rona Vaccine? I'll take the under on that bet.
So let me know when us young people can get our shot.
just sayin.
"Calling the lawsuit racist is a tactic."
It's an evil tactic.
And the UN calls on all world leaders to declare Climate Change an emergency.
And only the US will comply with any of the regulations.
It is magic.
Charges of racism should be mocked and the person making the charge mocked even more.
Mockery is a tactic.
BidenFamilyTaxPayerFundedCrackPipe said...
Time to call in a special counsel on Hunter and Joe Biden: Goodwin
why not? Is there a reason democrats are above the law?
Why?
What purpose is served by throwing Biden in jail?
"Charges of racism should be mocked and the person making the charge mocked even more."
But they don't get mocked. They get celebrated.
Dallet lives in Whiteman’s Bay. Less than 2% black.
She is a racist.
Dallet’s husband is White. He is a partner at a Big White Law Firm.
Racists.
Dallet refuses to resign her seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court and support a black candidate.
Racist.
China's military: a paper tiger?
Nick speaking to Jay Gatsby the last time he saw Gatsby alive "They're a rotten crowd. Your're worth the whole damn bunch put together."
Nick shares with the reader - "I've always been glad I said that. It was the only compliment I ever gave him, because I disapproved of him from beginning to end."
DJT had serious shortcomings (IMO), but his enemies and antagonists are (IMO) a rotten crowd.
DJT will be reviled by all mainstream historians. But I believe there is an American masterpiece waiting to be written tying DJT to American history.A 21st century GG.
Achilles - The point is we are a nation of laws. Or a least we used to be.
lol to your notion that Biden would actually be found guilty or spend time in Jail. Perhaps Joe can sit next to Hillary in pretend jail.
The corrupt powers that be will save Biden and Biden's family corruption. Too many other democrat families do the same shit.
The point of a special prosecutor - is to look into Biden family corruption.
which is real and not a Russian conspiracy made in the lab.
If we were a nation of laws, the Constitution would not have given the president the pardon power.
Thanks Lawrence Person. Very interesting blog and video.
Watching English Premier League soccer (football) as I do on the weekend.
Huge 'Black Live Matter' banner covering an entire section of the stadium placed so it will be on-camera a lot.
The funnier thing is, both captains are wearing rainbow arm bands to celebrate gay pride. I think the corner flags are rainbow flags too (they were in a previous game).
It's hilarious because Arsenal is sponsored by Emirates Airline and there is an Emirates logo prominently on the front of the jerseys.
Homosexuality is illegal there. The libs favorite Wiki entry states:
"Punishments (in the UAR) may include jail time, floggings, death, fines, and deportation."
Hilarity ensues...England is fucked up.
Anyone interested in the insane freakout and de-personing of a guest editorialist at the WSJ calling on Jill Biden to stop insisting as being addressed as "Dr. Jill Biden"? For Chrissakes, she has an Ed.D., a sham degree conferred to bump teachers up the salary ladder to the next pay level in teacher contracts (Bill Cosby has one as well). Even Ph.D. holders in America that insist on being called "Dr." are mocked, even though in Europe the degree is exalted ahead of an M.D. Jill and her coterie insisting that it's an insult not to be called "Dr." indicates a deeply insecure and cosseted person.
DJT will be reviled by all mainstream historians. But I believe there is an American masterpiece waiting to be written tying DJT to American history.A 21st century GG.
I agree but historians have gone far left. It has taken 90 years to get a fair Coolidge biography.
Blogger Gilbert Pinfold said...
Anyone interested in the insane freakout and de-personing of a guest editorialist at the WSJ calling on Jill Biden to stop insisting as being addressed as "Dr. Jill Biden"?
Northwestern faculty member Bernadine Dorhn could have been reached for comment but wasn't. She has retired to the faculty from her terrorism career.
"Northwestern faculty member Bernadine Dorhn could have been reached for comment but wasn't. She has retired to the faculty from her terrorism career."
Along with the cunt, Angela Davis.
Those lefties sure love them some domestic terrorism.
Historians are the only ones who read other historians.
History is another Narrative.
---Nick shares with the reader - "I've always been glad I said that. It was the only compliment I ever gave him, because I disapproved of him from beginning to end."
Interesting quotes, since Jay Gatsby was a bootlegger and a crook, closely allied to the gambler reputed (in the book) to have fixed the 1919 World Series. Gatsby is a bond flimflammer, and his money comes entirely from illegal endeavors. Nick disapproves of him but spends as much time as possible hanging around with him; Nick also dates the golf cheat Jordan Baker for a while. Birds of a feather seem to be flocking together, is my impression. Nick's moral vision was pretty impaired.
The thing about Gatsby that fires Nick's imagination is Gatsby's obsession with Daisy Buchanan. Because, of course, Fitzgerald had had such an obsession with Zelda, and indeed after some defeats, he redeemed himself in Zelda's eyes and won her love. So Gatsby is in part the romantic egoist referenced in Fitzgerald's first book, heroic despite his utter absence of ethics or morals. He does commit one positive deed. PLOT SPOILER COMING!
He takes the rap for Daisy in a terrible traffic accident which leads to his own fatal end. Morally, The Great Gatsby is a confused novel, IMO. What I really like in it now is the ruminative ending as Nick slowly works his way midwesternward, back toward home. His thoughts on the trains, his reflections back on what he had just lived through, and some other memories, take on a mellow glow that appealed to me, the last time I read the novel.
I’m more interested in the UW Law grad Justice Jill Karofsky. If she was an Althouse student, she didn’t learn a damn thing. Total political hack.
According to the New York Times, she was elected in "An election almost certain to be tarred as illegitimate."
...... But I assume only illegitimate "If Justice Kelly wins, it will cement the conservative majority’s ability to block future Democratic efforts to change the state’s strict voting laws"
For those of you who like to read biographies, I'd like to seek your input on the following subjects, the biographies of whom I have read/am reading in the past couple of months:
Peter the Great: His Life and World by Robert K. Massie
Nicholas and Alexandra: The Classic Account by Robert K. Massie
Wellington: The Iron Duke by Richard Holmes
American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur by William Manchester.
I usually read several books about each subject to get a balanced view but so far I've only read the one book about each and wonder if it's worthwhile reading more in a couple of cases. This is nothing about the merits of the subject, just about the interest factor.
My take so far on these individuals: Peter the Great was great, literally. Amazingly versatile and highly skilled working with his hands as well as fighting battles. I'm tempted to read another bio or two but almost hate to risk losing the fascination I found in his unusual and exciting life.
Nicholas was a good man with personal courage but weak and indecisive. Not sure he could have prevented the takeover of the Bolsheviks but he could have taken better counsel than that of his wife and Rasputin. Well-written bio but the subject was boring as hell and there's nothing more I want to know about him.
Wellington: For all his military successes, I failed to find anything interesting about him. Would another biography change my mind?
MacArthur: Only partway through this one. All set to despise him from everything I've ever heard or read about him from history but this biography, while not a panegyric by any means, is so well written and the subject so vital it's hard not to at least admire the man. So what other biographies are worth reading?
Roughcoat, I'd especially welcome your thoughts.
He takes the rap for Daisy in a terrible traffic accident which leads to his own fatal end. Morally, The Great Gatsby is a confused novel, IMO. What I really like in it now is the ruminative ending
Fitzgerald was an awful drunk. Read about the Murphys who had him to their place on the Riviera and he was drunk most of the time. Way back, when I was in college, I think, I read everything he wrote. His novel, "Tender is the Night" was supposed to be based on their lives but they denied it vigorously and most agree with them. I got interested in the Murphys when I saw the movie, "D'Lovely" in which they are portrayed. After that, I read everything I could find about them. They were much more interesting people than Fitzgerald.
If you like any of Massie's books, read "Dreadnaught" I have read it twice and am thinking of reading it again. It is the best thing I have found on the origins of WWI. I have another book on WWI that is very good and a bit off the usual track. It is called , "The Sleepwalkers."
The Great Gatsby is a confused novel
Wait a minute? You mean, they made a novel of The Great Gatsby ?
I can't say that i care for that. You have a good movie, but (for marketing reasons) decide to make a novel out of it... Seldom works out well
Look at the terrible job that Jane Austin did trying to novelize the movie Clueless
Nick Carraway is a confused narrator. He has some moral insights, learns a bit about himself, but then retreats into his idealism of the Midwest.
the great gatsby was largely based on an infamous murder case, of the era, the latest version has carroway relating the story as a journal, the previous version had robert redford, we discussed how he was wrong for the role, maybe tim matheson, or at least one other actor was closer in age and build, and then there was one in 1949, with alan ladd sr, I have never seen that one,
I can't compare it to books I haven't read, but I found
Europe's Last Summer: Who Started the Great War in 1914? by David Fromkin to be very good, fairly short as well, as it was adapted from a lecture series iirc. SPOILER: It was Germany.
And Churchill's The World Crisis, of course, the first volume of which is now available as a free ebook due to the copyright clock having finally restarted.
Michael K said...
If you like any of Massie's books, read "Dreadnaught" I have read it twice and am thinking of reading it again. It is the best thing I have found on the origins of WWI. I have another book on WWI that is very good and a bit off the usual track. It is called , "The Sleepwalkers."
********************
By far the best *I've* come across on the events leading to WWI is "Thunder at Twilight: Vienna 1913/1914" by Frederic Morton. Here's the blurb at Amazon:
"Thunder at Twilight is a landmark historical vision, drawing on hitherto untapped sources to illuminate two crucial years in the life of the extraordinary city of Vienna-and in the life of the twentieth century.
It was during the carnival of 1913 that a young Stalin arrived in Vienna on a mission that would launch him into the upper echelon of Russian revolutionaries, and it was here that he first collided with Trotsky. It was in Vienna that the failed artist Adolf Hitler kept daubing watercolors and spouting tirades at fellow drifters in a flophouse. Here Archduke Franz Ferdinand had a troubled audience with Emperor Franz Joseph-and soon the bullet that killed the Archduke would set off the Great War that would kill ten million more.
With luminous prose that has twice made him a finalist for the National Book Award, Frederic Morton evokes the opulent, elegant, incomparable sunset metropolis-Vienna on the brink of cataclysm."
I began reading this on my way to Prague for a short vaycay with the wife. She was a bit irritated that she had to drag me off to see the sights when I kept poking my nose into the book in the hotel room. It's that good.
Thanks, Michael K! I'd thought about Dreadnought and your recommendation clinches it.
Thank you, Churchy. I'll investigate those, as well. [Yes, Germany. They were hot to trot].
Wholelottasplainin: Thanks for the tip. It sounds very good and I'll add it to my list. I usually plow through a whole subject in a year so maybe this will be my WWI year. Admittedly, other than peripherally, I've never read a good deal about WWI because I always considered it a stupid and pointless war but it is certainly a milestone in history and should make good reading. Most of my readings have been about the players and not the play so the perspectives have been biased.
If you need something light and enjoy science fiction, allow me to highly recommend a series by Leo Frankoswki. "The Cross Time Engineer", "The High Tech Knight", "The Radiant Warrior", "The Flying Warlord", "Lord Conrad's Lady", "Conrad's Quest For Rubber" and a couple of new recent books since then I've picked up but haven't read yet.
Polish engineer (from the '80's, I think) gets accidentally sent back in time by the Time Police to Poland ten years before the Mongol Invasions. He has nothing with him except packets of seeds. By the time the invasion comes, he's got biplanes.
Exceedingly fun, and if you like the idea of figuring out how you could build decent technology with no resources beyond what's available in 13th Century Europe, you're in for a treat.
An interesting theory about WWI, supported a bit by one of those books, is that the Boer War was really the cause. The Jameson Raid and the discovery of gold in the Boer's land had dire consequences. Even Churchill while wanting to be there, was not enthusiastic about the war.
The Boers were sympathetic to all but the British. The Germans were especially sympathetic and tried to send armaments. The British stopped the German ships and confiscated the contents. German did not have a High Seas fleet and the Kaiser decided to build one so Germany would not again be humiliated. Germany and England were natural allies. England and the French were natural enemies.
The rest is history, or one version of it.
Thanks Qwinn but I don't like science fiction. I pretty much stick to history and seldom read anything else.
I like that kind of stuff, Qwinn. Thanks.
Churchill while wanting to be there [Boer War], was not enthusiastic about the war.
Yes, he was there to gain experience as a war correspondent and he gained perhaps a little more experience than he bargained for. Great story, though.
George Shultz is 100 years old today, born December 13, 1920.
Shultz is an arrogant prick.
Didja ever notice that -
The numeral "6" can be drawn as a vertical stick with small circle attached at bottom right, or it can drawn much like the numeral "8" but with a small bite taken at the two o'clock position.
The numeral "9" can be drawn as a vertical stick with small circle attached at top left, or it can be drawn much like the numeral "8" but with a small bite taken at the eight o'clock position.
Web page and forms designers seem to favor fonts which most confound "6" and "9" with ""8"?
Those same designers also often favor thick, heavy numerals, with minimal cut-out and center space, further obscuring the differentiation of the aforesaid?
Text blocks on forms and web pages are often presented in medium gray characters on a light gray background? (Is this to save money on display monitor "toner?")
And didja ever notice that the most confounding renditions of "6" "8" and "9" are on the forms, reports, and web pages of financial institutions such as banks, insurance, and credit card companies?
LEAK CONFIRMED: Chinese Communists have Infiltrated Top Companies, Governments In US, UK, Australia
Multiple media outlets confirm that potentially thousands of Chinese Communist Party members have infiltrated the West
Multiple top international news outlets confirm that a list of 1.95 million Chinese Communist Party members has been leaked, and in it are the names of potentially thousands of individuals who live and work in the West, including at major financial institutions, medical research and pharmaceutical companies, and foreign governments.
A document containing 1.95 million names of CCP members was provided to The Daily Mail in the United Kingdom, The Australian in Australia, De Standaard in Belgium, and a yet unnamed Swedish editor, who apparently has not published the story. Inside the list are potentially thousands of names of CCP members who have infiltrated top corporations and high levels of government across the West.
According to The Australian journalist Sharri Markson, “Some of its members – who swear a solemn oath to ‘guard Party secrets, be loyal to the Party, work hard, fight for communism throughout my life…and never betray the Party’ – are understood to have secured jobs in British consulates.”
Alarmingly, Markson also says Pfizer and AstraZeneca – both currently producing large numbers of COVID-19 vaccine doses – have “employed a total of 123 party loyalists.”
Here is an interesting piece from the Courier-Journal about the historic Seelbach Hotel in downtown Louisville where F. Scott Fitzgerald got his inspiration for Daisy's wedding in the classic novel "The Great Gatsby." at least that's what a lot of Louisvillians believe and there's this too "In the Roaring '20s, that room at the historic Seelbach Hotel in downtown Louisville and the hidden passageway inside it were likely havens for famed mobster Al Capone and his men."
https://www.courier-journal.com/story/money/louisville-city-living/2020/01/14/revisiting-roaring-20-s-louisville-seelbach-hotel/2799280001/
Blogger mccullough said...
Shultz is an arrogant prick.
Another Theranos Board Member. It was his grandson who finally blew the whistle on them.
And for vote fraud aficionados, the ballots and requests for ballots are still rolling in.
Like other leftist groups, CVI and VPC took advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to transform America’s election system into a vote-by-mail nightmare. Besides turning Election Day into Election Month, the flood of millions of mail-in ballots opened the door to unprecedented fraud. There’s a reason a Jimmy Carter–led bipartisan commission in 2005 called mailed-in absentee ballots the “largest source of potential voter fraud” and that most countries in the European Union have banned “postal voting” over the same concerns.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Shultz didn’t believe his grandson.
For to believe his grandson it would mean that George Shultz was duped by a con artist who anyone with a lick of street smarts would have known was a con artist.
The Best and The Brightest.
Shultz also was a proponent of the preemptive Iraq War.
Michael K:
I've read Dreadnought twice and actually owned two copies of it, paperback and hardback. Also good, is the sequel, Castles of Steel, about WWI operations.
Grant by Ron Chernow along with Grant's memoirs are great books.
The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors by James Hornfischer is a tale of bravery of American sailors in escort carriers, escort destroyers and light cruisers vs. Japanese battleships, cruisers and destroyers. The Americans are defending MacArthur's Leyte landing beaches. Americans win and send the Japanese fleeing.
Blogger mockturtle said...
Thanks Qwinn but I don't like science fiction. I pretty much stick to history and seldom read anything else.
If you like historical fiction, I have a series of novels by a British author to recommend. His name is Andrew Wareham and there are several long series. He has one about the nBritish Navy that resembles CS Forrester. He has an excellent series about WWI aviation and the RFC. This is the first of that series. Lots of detail. He has two series underway, one about WWI and the other about the RAF in WWII.
I liked science fiction as a kid but no more. My favorite, which will date me, was Hal Clement's "Needle." Clement was an astronomer who ended up teaching high school. The exact same fate as Cliff Stoll, who wrote "The Cuckoo's Egg.
Note that both books are still in print.
Wareham has a long series about the Industrial Revolution in England that I may have recommended before.
Mike of Snoqualmie, I've got them all and have read most more than once.
Reason I suggested those books in a context of history is that it uses the story to draw a very rich tapestry of what life was actually like and the political and national concerns of 13th century Poland.
James Michener is a favorite author of mine for similar historical fiction. His book "Poland" was likewise awesome and might fit your tastes better.
Clement's other classic is Mission Of Gravity about an alien sailor on a very high gravity planet and his encounter with a stranded human. Fun stuff.
One other great book is Nothing Like It in the World by Stephen Ambrose. The building of the Transcontinental Railroad, 1863-1869. It was built all by hand, a steam shovel used in just one section. The demobilized Civil War armies, both Union and Confederate, supplied the manpower for the Union Pacific while White and Chinese laborers supplied the workforce for the Central Pacific. The construction companies adapted the Civil War armies structure to organize the effort.
Just a suggestion re Gatsby: Redford would actually have been better cast as Buchanan. Buchanan is the man with all the karma and self assurance bordering on arrogance. For Gatsby, have someone with a few rough edges like DeNiro or George Raft, someone who fits in one world but not quite in the world he aspires to. They always make Buchanan a diminished person in comparison to Gatsby, but if you give him some allure, not just Daisy's decision but the way the world works makes a lot more sense.
Gatsby: Arnold Rothstein
John LE Carree. Dead at 89. RIP
Sometime back I read Elizabeth Longford's two volume history of Welling. Longford married into the Pakenham family that Wellington had married into, She had access to Wellington's love letters such as they were. The first volume, as I remember, was very good and well worth reading. It was definitely gives you a woman's perspective on Wellington's marriage. There was a kind of Gatsby or Jane Austen vibe to it. Wellington was the younger son of a minor noble. He wooed one of the great beauties of one of the great families in Ireland. Not her but her family turned him down. Disappointed in love, he went to India as a soldier in an unfashionable regiment but went on to win fame and a great fortune. Tye girl, Catherine, waited for him. She unfortunately contracted smallpox. Her looks were marred. Despite that, when he came back he asked her hand in marriage. "My God, she's ugly" he was said to have said to one of his friends, but he married her. England expects every man to do his duty. Wellington never met an Italian opera singer he didn't like, but it was as such things go, a reasonably successful marriage. It's kind of a love story, but not quite as romantic as the Austen or Fitgerald version.
yes I read michener's book on south africa, it extends from the original dutch settlers to the 1970, it goes into some detail about the jameson raid, the brits treatment of the boers, and their subsequent sympathy to the germans, in the pre war period, even though jan smuts was decidedly pro British, if further goes into the twisted logic behind apartheid, which is too similar to german 'blood and soil' movements,
Surprise, surprise, surprise.
Watching Gunsmoke and there is a guest star playing a dumb hick called the village clown. And guess who it is??
Nope. Not Gomer.
It's Sgt. Carter!
the case that inspired gatsby in the first few pages here,
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1188&context=etdarchive#:~:text=The%20other%20part%2C%20which%20this%20thesis%20treats%2C%20is,Through%20this%20is%20it%20my%20intention%20to%20elucidate
Blogger Mike of Snoqualmie said...
One other great book is Nothing Like It in the World by Stephen Ambrose.
Got it. Andrew Wareham also has a series of novels about life in the British Army in 1800. His books are always well researched and Wellington is a character in them. I also like the novels of Bernard Cornwell. He has several series, as well. I had audio versions to listen to when I was still commuting to Phoenix. The India series of the "Sharpe's" adventures in India, with several places where Wellington appears, were great but the readers were so good with accents that I had trouble understanding them. One would go from Scottish, to Indian, to English accents without a pause.
Cornwell's nonfiction book on Waterloo was excellent and a good guide When we were there.
"Alarmingly, Markson also says Pfizer and AstraZeneca – both currently producing large numbers of COVID-19 vaccine doses – have “employed a total of 123 party loyalists.”"
Its only right: "The Party Deals It, Then the Party Heals It!"
What are some good titles for trenches reading?
dreams said...
George Shultz is 100 years old today, born December 13, 1920.
*************
When I went to school and worked in DC years ago, George Shultz and I collided as he raced out of the Old Senate Office Building while I was walking up its front stairs. Our briefcases went sailing, but we managed to keep our feet. Mutual apologies, and off he went, doubtless to do glorious battle for Nixon as head of the OMB.
"John LE Carree. Dead at 89. RIP"
He was a great writer but a vehemently anti-American elitist/globalist who, ironically, believed in censorship...
the Gipper observes: Its only right: "The Party Deals It, Then the Party Heals It!"
Yes. Rather like the computer anti-virus companies that created computer viruses to boost the market.
Justice Dallett makes an interesting point. She implies that, since Trump didn't sue over improprieties in the 2016 election, which he won, he has no business suing now. This is an argument which would certainly appeal to the average 10-year-old. Of course, had he sued in 2016, she would have asked why he was suing, when he won the election. This is Igna-level obtuseness, but perhaps more importantly, it is legally irrelevant. She is using her position on the court to harass the attorney unfortunate enough to find himself addressing her. To say that she lacks judicial temperament is like saying that she lacks the wings to fly.
Germany and England were natural allies. England and the French were natural enemies.
@Dr. Michael K., with respect sir, since circa 1700 the British policy towards the continent has been 100% consistent: seek balance by an alliance with the second-strongest power on the continent against the strongest. Some argue thst this policy goes all the way back to the Hundred Years War.
Heh. Theranos.
All anyone of those illustrious board members needed to do was ask a nurse what happens when you stick a needle through too much skin (like your fingertip) and try to get a real measurement of something like, say, potassium.
The second I told my mom about this Theranos idea she snorted and called bullshit.
Best and the brightest.
Too stupid to know even what questions to ask.
tech expert determines fake ballots in seconds
if a ballot has no "kinematic artifact", was it ever mailed?
video
Jupiter. I agree. She seemed a bit in over her head. Which is a separate question from her politics.
Trump didn’t sue after that the 2016 election because ... he won.
ICTA @ 7:03PM Wow! Just wow!!!!
I come here for the news. I did not know about Le Carre. RIP. A truly great writer, that transformed a genre. Too bad he went off the rails at the end.
The best miniseries I've ever seen was the BBC version of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. It's now on YouTube for free, if anyone has time to kill. Slow but wonderful.
Reading the Smiley trilogy as a young adult reminded me of reading Lord of the Rings as a teen. Mesmerized, and immersed in a new world.
The first novel of his I read was for high school. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. (Caps may be wrong, don't judge me.) The ending blew me away completely. It was like an epiphany of good storytelling.
He was a leftist, which is tragic. But I do remember a line from Smiley's People, in which a character said that every time he was at the Berlin Wall, he understood the undeniable superiority of the West, with all its faults.
Le Carre could have written a good book based on the Russia collusion hoax. But for some reason he couldn't see through it, or at least had nothing to say about it, which still surprises me. The Democrat's activities, and the media's propaganda operation, were straight out of one of his novels.
Sad to see him go.
Niall Ferguson's The Pity of War is a good re-view of WW I. John Keegan called it a very wicked book, which is high praise IMO. Less a narrative history than an analytical one, with some original insights. Keegan's book on that war is one of his lesser efforts.
Holger Herwig's book on First Marne and the one on Germany and Austria during that war are also good, but assume a lot of background knowledge. (He makes an odd hash of some of the artillery stats in the Marne book but otherwise very good.)
Hew Strachan's multi-volume synthesis is a great work, but not a great read. His edited single volume WWI: A History is much more approachable.
If you have a taste for culchah, try Modris Eckstein's Rites of Spring.
Massie is usually pretty solid--he certainly cranked them out. Peter is fascinating, but his great opponent Karl XII of Sweden ought to have a better English bio than Ragnhild Hatton's, which is too academic. Sebag Montefiore's collective bio of the so-called Romanovs is excellent, as is everything of his that I've read.
The full two-volume Wellington bio by Longford is good; I would think Holmes too army-oriented to do justice to the times, but that may be unfair.
Raberts's bio of Napoleon is fair. Alessandro Barbaro's The Battle (about Waterloo) and
Rory Muir's book about the KGL at La Haye Sainte show there's still life in old fights.
Muir also has some studies of Wellington that I haven't read.
Amazon delivered John Lukacs The Legacy of the Second World War to me this afternoon; I always encourage people to read Lukacs. He makes a point that is germane here, to paraphrase: historians can and will argue over responsibilities for 1914, but the cause of war in 1939 was Hitler. Full stop.
Narr
Plenty of good books to read
Michael K ...https://amgreatness.com/2020/12/11/michigan-ag-and-sec-of-state-block-results-of-forensic-audit-of-22-dominion-machines-in-antrim-county/
Who remembers when democrats rooted out corruption? Well, it was along time ago, and Soros wasn't paying their freight back then. Then there's this.."According to estimates by The National Institute for Literacy, roughly 47 percent of adults in Detroit, Michigan -- 200,000 total -- are 'functionally illiterate,' meaning they have trouble with reading, speaking, writing and computational skills.
Sgt Carter was one of about 20 men - there may have been more - who, when I was a kid, were at the same time someone you saw on 60s TV getting paid to make people laugh and someone who shipped out from the West Coast to fight the Japanese Empire just 20 or 25 years before that, or from the East Coast for the equally dangerous prospect of fighting against the rest of the Axis.
Some people might think about some of them "well they did not really see action" - but my opinion is that if you were in the Navy, Marines, or Army, and you left San Diego or Treasure Bay or Norfolk or Manhattan on the way to fight for the USA against the Axis powers in the 40s, it does not matter if you actually saw action, you should still get full credit for being willing to see action.
That being said, most of them did wind up getting shot at in one way or another. I know Tennessee Tuxedo (Agent Maxwell Smart to you kids) and the rest of his unit that was almost completely annihilated when they stormed a Jap-held Pacific island certainly did, although I have to say I am not a comprehensive historian, and I am not sure if Cholmondely did or not.
Niall Ferguson's narrative history if A World Undone. I haven't read it.
Narr
Too many books to read
Narr, I found "Peter the Great" by Massie to be, for all intents and purposes, a biography of Charles XII as well. Another fascinating warrior.
I guess my point about Wellington is that, from my [admittedly limited] reading, he was a brilliant general but a rather dull man. Almost the antithesis of MacArthur in management style, Wellington was a compulsive micromanager and MacArthur delegated authority unstintingly, at least early in his military career [I'm not even halfway through this biography].
historians can and will argue over responsibilities for 1914, but the cause of war in 1939 was Hitler. Full stop.
No, it was WWI or the Versailles Treaty which Lloyd George and Clemenceau took Wilson to the cleaners on. The Germans were largely right about Versailles even if the "stab in the back" was a lie. Stanley Baldwin had a lot to do with it, too.
A couple weeks ago I defined “mathematically possible” by telling a friend that it was still mathematically possible for Washington to win the Super Bowl. They had just lost back to back games to the Giants and were 1-7. And now they’re leading the NFC East and have beaten the Steelers (!) and 49ers. They actually could win the division and then —well, they have shown that they can beat good teams, so they really might get to the Super Bowl. Wow.
Andrew, I agree completely. I was a big fan. Alec Guiness had his finest roles in the TV series, not Star Wars.
I agree, Michael K. The Versailles Treaty created the Petri dish, Hitler only supplied the bacteria.
“If I could have a front man, and I had an earpiece, while sitting in my basement in sweats and just feeding him the lines. I’d be ok with a 3rd term” ~ Obama
video
Big Mike, much as I'd like to see my Cardinals in the SB, I suspect the final two will be the Chiefs and the Rams.
2nd the 7:03 wow.
Interesting news today about the CCP and the Biden backers.
US media not interested.
The massive data-file [Download Here w/ Caution] was offered to all major international journalists and media organizations. All of the major U.S. media outlets did not want the data. As a consequence, media outlets within Australia and the U.K. are leading the release.
NOTE: At the same time U.S. media were refusing the leaked information they were simultaneously criticizing a U.S. executive order blocking CCP members from visas’ longer than one month in duration, by claiming no-one had any way to know who was a CCP member. In essence, the U.S. corporate media did not want to know.
2nd the 7:03 wow.
That guy should be making the case before SCOTUS. But he's right: We each need to contact our state AGs and ask them to use this simple exercise to determine if ballots are fraudulent. I can't think of a single reason [other than complicity] why they would demur.
if Potus moves on EO re:
Foreign Interference & order martial law to clean up election,
but media want people to believe Trump is attempting a military coup,
...will the Average Joe know the difference?
No wonder Pfisa Pharmaceuticals tried to stab the President.
No wonder the NIH gave grants to 400 Chinese spies.
No wonder Dr. Franken-Fauci funded the Wuhan Bat-Lab.
No wonder Gov. Kemp went to the now-shuttered Houston Embassy spy's nest and bought Dominion Cheatware over Peking Prawns.
No wonder Swallwell got on the Intel Committee.
No wonder Hunter was partners with their spy chief.
Donald Trump wasn't running against Vice-President B.--he was running against that nice President Xi.
And he still is.
25th amendment time then.
Narr said...
Amazon delivered John Lukacs The Legacy of the Second World War to me this afternoon; I always encourage people to read Lukacs. He makes a point that is germane here, to paraphrase: historians can and will argue over responsibilities for 1914, but the cause of war in 1939 was Hitler. Full stop.
20 years of France stomping on the German people started the WWII train rolling down the tracks.
Hitler merely jumped on the train.
Much like Trump and the one that comes after him.
"All of the major U.S. media outlets did not want the data."
This refusal to perform the most basic function of a news organization is dangerous. i don't think treasonous is too strong a word.
Its all shirts and no skins
https://mobile.twitter.com/CodeMonkeyZ/status/1338271044667248640
Oof. Team Trump didn't present evidence?
Thats lamar alexander with the deputy premier of china le qiang two years ago
The lawsuits were all a sham.
This is some kinda hustle!
Sure whats another six months of shutdowns
https://mobile.twitter.com/alimhaider/status/1338295702120755200
"Sure whats another six months of shutdowns"
To be fair, not all restaurants will be closed. After all, nobody expects mayors and governors to fix their own meals at home, do they?
"Too bad he went off the rails at the end."
At the end?
Blogger Readering said...
25th amendment time then.
Do you need help? Not making much sense but then...
In the war genre, Antony Beevor's "Stalingrad" is a must-read, especially for Americans. The sheer brutality of combat, the soldier and civilian life among the ruins, puts our fathers' (and Hollywood's) images of WWII in perspective. Germans v. Russians, at least in Europe, was the main event. Harrowing, but well written.
20 years of France stomping on the German people started the WWII train rolling down the tracks.
Germany got a good deal compared to what they planned if they won, see the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. I'd be more inclined to blame Ludendorff and his inability to accept that he lost the damn war. Losing WWI was a shock to a German people suffused with the conviction of their superiority. One of the takeaways I got from the Farm Hall recordings was the surprise of some of the interned German scientists that non-German scientists could produce an atomic bomb where they failed.
WWII was Hitler's plan to redo WWI right, and if he had been a bit smarter he might have pulled it off.
'This refusal to perform the most basic function of a news organization is dangerous. i don't think treasonous is too strong a word.'
Our #ProfessionalLiars are actually subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.
is there a codified standard for 'acceptable' levels of vote fraud
taken into consideration during election certification similar
to the FDA allowing certain levels of contaminates in food?
are most elections certified with this manner?
per @realDonaldTrump
·
Swing States that have found massive VOTER FRAUD, which is all of them, CANNOT LEGALLY CERTIFY these votes as complete & correct without committing a severely punishable crime. Everybody knows that dead people, below age people, illegal immigrants, fake signatures, prisoners,....
could loose parameters allow for upsets in close races?
You can blame or thank conrad stark, he was a decent physicist but he thought only aryan scientists need apply, and hence sldrove a generation of talent
https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2020/12/13/whoops-sounds-like-obama-admitted-the-quiet-part-out-loud-n293895
After watching a lot of the recent previews on Netflix and Amazon (they play before the feature), I have concluded that for the foreseeable future, all entertainment will feature women, minorities, or gays. Or a combination of the aforementioned.
the surprise of some of the interned German scientists that non-German scientists could produce an atomic bomb where they failed.
In particular, a Jewish scientist [Oppenheimer].
Fermi szilard teller einstein yes they lost the match before the starting bell.
Robother: Most people have no idea what tribulations the Russians endured in WWII--and after the war, although Solzhenitsyn spoke to the latter in Gulag.
Michael k thanks for continued loyalty to my comments.
Probably the war and piece of the period
https://www.nyrb.com/products/stalingrad?variant=9488902225972
I read a lot of history. The only two that I can think of that kept me up turning the pages were the Massie bio of Peter The Great and the Shirer book on the Third Reich...There are many worthy histories, but those were the only two books that had some of the narrative drive of a great novel....Alan Bullock's dual biography "Hitler and Stalin" is a fine, scholarly work, but I liked Edward Radzinsky's bio of Stalin much better. It was pulpy and sensational. It seems to me that when writing about a fucked up mass murderer the pulpy approach is better suited than the aloof Oxonian style.
I just saw "Mank" on Netflix. It took me three tries, but I got through it. I got the vague sense it was a load of crap. I don't know that much about Herman Mankiewicz or Upton Sinclair, but the story seemed tilted and stilted....I looked up Herman on IMDB. He had some impressive credits and it could be said that he was one of Hollywood's founding fathers. He was the one who recruited guys like Ben Hecht to work as screenwriters. He produced some of the Marx brothers pictures and wrote some of the script for the Wizard of Oz.....All the while he was doing this, he was openly contemptuous of Hollywood and the pictures they made. Back then, real art was produced on Broadway, not in Hollywood....The Mank film makes him out to be some kind of heroic drunk who spoke truth to power. My guess is that he was a self loathing alcoholic whose taste for self abasement fell not only on himself but on the people within his orbit. He had a talent, but it wasn't for politics or truth.
Sure thing guys. Everybody was responsible except Hitler.
Twenty years of the French stomping the German people? You sound like Jupiter, Achilles!
Name a serious historian who blames the outbreak of war -in 1939- on Versailles, or on some supposed stomping by the French. I'll check back tomorrow.
A list of grievances, real or imagined, is not the same as a decision to plunge the world into war.
Geoffrey Perret's bio of MacArthur is better IMO than Manchester's, but then Perret's books are often better than better-known authors' books. Just as Lukacs's are.
Narr
Sad!
The russians were behind col apis whi headed the black hand who directed ths assasination of prince ferdinand right, the germans had their own ideas.
It's Sgt. Carter!
He effectively played a bunch of thug/goon roles in the old "Naked City" series.
No one man causes a war. Conditions have to be ripe as well as other factors being in alignment. Of course Hitler was clearly to blame for triggering the war through his lebensraum adventures. If no one had resisted, there would have been no war. Thank God for Churchill!
Fake but accurate
https://www.google.com/amp/s/slate.com/culture/2020/11/mank-movie-accuracy-david-fincher-upton-sinclair-netflix.amp
Beatrice Webb was one of the founders of Britain's Labor Party. She went to the Soviet Union to witness the digging of the White Sea Canal in 1933. Stalin sent Soviet citizens with a suspect or just middle class background out to dig that canal. They wore street clothes during the Russian winter and used garden instruments for their labors. Thousands of them died. Beatrice witnessed this and remarked what a grand undertaking it was and how happy the Soviet citizens were to redeem their past and join in this great adventure. How far must your head be up your ass to be able to smell flowers in such a situation....I mention this because I think that's the kind of Socialist Upton Sinclair was. In the movie Mank they make Sinclair out to be some kind of hope for the working man and Hearst and Mayer to be some kind of devious con artists out to delude the working man into not recognizing his true interests....Someday I'd like to see a movie where radical left wing politics are depicted as a character flaw instead of an example of flawed character's inner nobility.....Anyway it was interesting to note that the movie claims that Hollywood and the press manipulated stories and newsreels to insure the defeat of Upton Sinclair. I guess they can only do that to defeat leftist candidates. When leftist candidates win, it has nothing to do with slanted media coverage.
There is a subtext to that post world war 2 drama with james sturgis where alfred molina plays a fmr foreign office honcho who voted down any intervention againsf tbe reich which might have encouraged some officials in the general staff.
Hitler was a man of surpassing evil. On the plus side, visionary intellectuals didn't visit concentration camps and remark on what a great leap forward for humanity they presented to the onlooker.
Ivermectin completely destroys transmission of Covid-19.
You people are being held hostage by a scam.
Covid-19 is a scam. It was easily treatable. People in power have been blocking treatments on purpose to control people.
"After watching a lot of the recent previews on Netflix and Amazon (they play before the feature), I have concluded that for the foreseeable future, all entertainment will feature women, minorities, or gays. Or a combination of the aforementioned."
Oh, and the handicapped...just saw a promo for a show about a deaf drummer...
Only the coen bros hail caesar came close on that score. There is also andy garcias the lost city, which painted che in all his villainy (they painted some batista officials with a dark brush too) and his for the glory with ruben blades crushing the cristeros.
Oh, and the handicapped...just saw a promo for a show about a deaf drummer...
We've become saturated with insanity.
"We've become saturated with insanity."
The world has gone truly mad...never thought it would get this bad.
The expanse seems interesting maybe patriot but the new stuff bleh
Here’s How We Handle People Who Refuse to Get COVID Vaccines
“vaccine passports”; simple, standardized documents, digital or printed, that enable society and the economy to get back to semi-normal without waiting for every anti-vaxxer to see the light.
This is what freedom looks like."
https://www.thedailybeast.com/heres-how-we-handle-people-who-refuse-to-get-covid-vaccines
Old corrupt Joe and his nasty Ho will never run my life. Little ol island in the middle of nowhere I salute you President Trump.
Thanks for the link to the Meagan movie AA!
Herr schwab doesnt even need the stick up their backside.
the kind of Socialist Upton Sinclair was
IIRC, he also knew Sacco and Vanzetti were guilty, he met their lawyer in a Denver hotel and asked him. Yet he built a case for American injustice on their conviction. Ah, here it is.
Blogger wild chicken said...
“Oof. Team Trump didn't present evidence?”
12/13/20, 8:18 PM
Oof indeed. Trump’s own appointee Judge heard the case, allowed evidence and none was presented, then he made a ruling based on the merits. Yet the deluded remain deluded. Sounds like a cult.
Much like 'hands up dont shoot' in the current ethos, although probably the whole wesley cook sham was close, thats mumia abu jamal, also the sad tale of the itinerant shepherds at gitmo.
Harvard Med Postgraduate and Continuing Education
@HMSPostgradCE
·
Globally, ethnic minority pregnant and birthing people suffer worse outcomes and experiences during and after pregnancy and childbirth. These inequities have been further highlighted by #COVID19. Watch this panel discussion on #MaternalJustice. https://buff.ly/2I3vJ3r
The webinar panelists used the term "birthing person" to include those who identify as non-binary or transgender because not all who give birth identify as "women" or "girls." We understand the reactions to this terminology and in no way meant for it to erase or dehumanize women.
From Andy McCarthy’s article.
“The lack of a significant claim was especially noteworthy because the campaign’s claims for relief were, Ludwig said, “extraordinary” (emphasis in original). The Trump team was asking the court to declare that 50,000 ballots were “likely” tainted (a comedown from the 100,000 counsel touted in public statements). More eye-poppingly, the campaign was asking the court to invalidate the popular vote (i.e., disenfranchise 3.3 million voters) and remand the case to the state legislature (GOP-controlled) to appoint electors (i.e., to seat the Trump rather than Biden slate to cast the state’s 10 electoral votes) — even though state officials had already certified Biden’s victory in the manner prescribed by state law.
It has become an article of faith among ardent Trump followers that the election was stolen. The president continues to insist that this is the case, and these flames were further fanned by 19 Republican-controlled state governments, along with 126 Republican members of Congress, who joined the meritless Texas lawsuit, tossed out by the Supreme Court on Friday. The rationalization behind that stunt was that the president has been denied his day in court. But every time a court offers him an opportunity to establish by proof what he is promoting by Twitter, Team Trump folds. Why is that?“
Because Trump and the Trumpist Party need to keep his cult following. The cult wants, nay, they demand to believe that it was impossible for Trump to be so despised that a candidate such as Biden could beat him by 7 million votes. Trumpists stay busy keeping the fantasy alive, Trump bat shit crazy and trying to stay out of jail and the Trumpist Party is playing his cult followers for fools to hang on to power.
Inga said...
Blogger wild chicken said...
“Oof. Team Trump didn't present evidence?”
12/13/20, 8:18 PM
Oof indeed. Trump’s own appointee Judge heard the case, allowed evidence and none was presented, then he made a ruling based on the merits. Yet the deluded remain deluded. Sounds like a cult.
*************
You IDIOTS.
No judge "heard" any "case". The complaints didn't offer "evidence", they offered grounds for a "cause of action." That's how it works.
When you file a complaint you make claims stating a legal "cause of action." A judge will look at those claims, and if he/she determines that **IF** THEY ARE TRUE, THEN the complainant has a "case" that should be heard.
THEN the process of "discovery" begins, with each party offering information that they believe supports/denies the cause of action. THAT's when we're talking about "evidence".
IOW you don't need to "prove" your case with "evidence" when you file a complaint!!
Its like law and order finally got around to doing a weinstein story, yet made him a temperamemtal brit, they havent come withina parsec of epstein.
Now shoes like the blacklist and the departed blindspot has painted an accurate if jaundiced view of our security services.
Seen on this very thread
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/our-bender-of-political-instability-shows-no-signs-of-stopping
As pointed out by tom fitton, foreign nationals at gitmo get standing and rights that 75 voters who cast votes legally do no.
Million voters do not, this is a travesty of a mockery of a sham
But pointing out that warnock invited fidel to his church, thats below the belt.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Cam_Cawthorne/status/1338310991885557761
"Sounds like a cult."
You mean like the 'Hands up, don't shoot,' 'I can't breathe,' 'Black live matter,' 'Hunter is the smartest person I know,' 'Trump is a Russian agent,' 'Wiped it clean, like with a cloth?,' 'Benghazi was because of an internet video,' 'Hunter's laptop is Russian disinformation' cult?
I would have to get a lobotomy to go through life as dumb as you are.
I could spot you 40 IQ points and still be ahead by 20.
Jesus.
Narr said...
"Twenty years of the French stomping the German people? You sound like Jupiter, Achilles!
Name a serious historian who blames the outbreak of war -in 1939- on Versailles, or on some supposed stomping by the French. I'll check back tomorrow."
Ahem. You rang, Sir?
If you mean that the French did not invade Germany in 1939, I agree. It might well have gone better if they had, but the Great War had exhausted them. But if you mean, name a "serious" historian who believes the seeds of WWII were planted at Versailles, well, name one who does not.
What are you suggesting? That WWII was a bit of one-off helter-skelter that Hitler cooked up, while the rest of the World was having itself a Love-In at the park? If you're going to occupy the Rhineland, Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.
Million voters do not, this is a travesty of a mockery of a sham
Diversity breeds adversity, but this was more than a color judgment, with precedents. Jew... White privilege. Social justice, I suppose.
foreign nationals at gitmo get standing and rights that 75 voters who cast votes legally do not
Democratsy has a Pro-Choice or "ethical" orientation.
Now that Biden has been outed, I wonder if the Democrat-fronted Russian collusion hoax over 16 trimesters was not a Chinese envisioned, with Obama/Biden/Clinton collusion, plot to stoke conflict between America and Russia, America and Israel, America and Mexico, Canada, etc. Trump posed a clear and progressive risk to the special and peculiar interests that place Americans second, and third, normalize immigration reform (and Planned Parenthood) in lieu of emigration reform (the Mexican president is not so green), diversity and exclusion (e.g. Asian color band), indulge Green shifting/obfuscation for renewable profits and marginal service, etc.
Yeah–SCOTUS punted on this one. But there are other cases headed their way so maybe they will find standing yet. Somebody better, whether its state or federal, legislative, judicial or executive.
Someone has to give standing to the 80 million Americans who re-elected the President in a landslide because, frankly, it feels like we’re again drifting into a Fort Sumter-moment of National Disaster.
Dred Scot Democrats once said the black man had no rights they were bound to respect. Now, Dominion Democrats claim Trump voters have no rights they’re bound to respect. If the System ratifies this industrial-scale election theft, Democrats and Swamp RINOs will never again relinquish that power without blows.
We already don’t agree that we’re One Nation Under God. We don’t agree what a man is or what a woman is. We don’t agree on what a marriage is or what a baby is. We don’t agree any longer on Free Speech or Censorship or the Bill of Rights. We don’t agree on the News, or Sports or the Weather or Medicine. We don’t agree that we should have Borders. And we don’t agree on Law and Order, Two-Tiered Justice and whether the CIA and FBI should spy on our opponents.
And now we’re not even going to agree on the very way we settle these issues peacefully? We don’t agree that we should have honest elections.
Do Americans have to find their own standing? Someone in authority had damn well better find standing for the American People and soon, or they may find themselves without any standing--or authority-- themselves. As President Lincoln put it:
“Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it.”
Don’t ask him how he knows.
Just agree that he has the standing to say so.
Can we at least get a 2021 Fang Fang calendar?
Hitler had a goal, he spelled it out on his book. But without the clemenceau dominated 14 points that took the skin of a defeated people, the hyperinflatio. Thatarose from the reparations, the inept behavior of the allied control commission, he wouldnt have succeeded
The german general staff should have brought the brunt of the impact, asmuch for the schlieffem plan as sending lenin to Russia
Heck the french (nivelle foch) and british counterparts (haig hamilton french ) were nearly as culpable.
I meanwhat was the point. The germans wanted to recover whar they lost in 1870, what they came close to in agadair a decade earlier.
Germany got a good deal compared to what they planned if they won, see the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. I'd be more inclined to blame Ludendorff and his inability to accept that he lost the damn war. Losing WWI was a shock to a German people suffused with the conviction of their superiority.
One interesting take, from who I can't recall: Germany lost the war, but they lost it in France.
That is, Germany was never invaded, and the Germans at home never realized how bad things were on the lines.
You know ive been less convinced of the efficacy of modern warfare on practical grounds not so much moral ones what have qw accomplished in our two expeditions in near east and south asia in 19 years.
Massie is a great writer and his books are the results of massive historical research. I have read his "Nicholas and Alexandra " and " Catherine the Great". Fascinating reads. Catherine - a German princess came to Russia at 16 and ended up ruling Russia for 34 years. Handled reforms, arts, wars and multiple lovers.
"Peter" is on my to read list. Peter and Catherine were the most impressive tzars in Russian history...
Under pressure from the insane dumbasses who find the nickname "Indian" offense to native Americans who are not Indian at all, the MLB Cleveland Indians will drop the name "Indians."
Next to be renamed is the state of Ohio, which is from the Seneca language and roughly means "stream or creek." As The Last Resort - I humbly suggest that Ohio should become "Paradise" the team could be the "Goodbye Kisses." Don Henley would approve.
Blogger Churchy LaFemme: said...
One interesting take, from who I can't recall: Germany lost the war, but they lost it in France.
That is, Germany was never invaded, and the Germans at home never realized how bad things were on the lines.
Check out Wiki and a General by the name of George S. Patton.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Allied_invasion_of_Germany
@poltiical junkie:
DJT will be reviled by all mainstream historians. But I believe there is an American masterpiece waiting to be written tying DJT to American history.A 21st century GG.
I think this is true, though the course of events over the next few years will determine how truly game changing he was. For now, though, I think Trump's most important contribution by far was winning first the GOP primary and then the 2016 general election. He made a populist appeal to white working class Americans, took a hardline stance on immigration, criticized free trade deals, and expressed skepticism about endless military adventurism. This was all 180 degrees from what GOP "strategists" had been counseling for almost 20 years.
Paradoxically, even the current 2020 election results vindicate Trump. He obliterated the ridiculous "white supremacy" argument by increasing his share of the black and Latino vote. Democrats seriously underperformed in Congressional races, and an affirmative action proposition was rejected by voters in California. Remember, the establishment's aim was not to merely to defeat Trump but to obliterate Trumpism as a political movement. It failed.
Unfortunately, Trump does not understand Trumpism. It was never a coherent worldview on his part but rather a set of policies he cobbled together in an ad hoc way. Still, Trump's campaign and victory revived the strain of populist nationalism that had been dormant in the country since at least the defeat of Ross Perot. Nourishing that revival within the GOP is paramount. But if you want Kushnerism, by all means listen to Trump.
@Michael K:
If you like any of Massie's books, read "Dreadnaught" I have read it twice and am thinking of reading it again. It is the best thing I have found on the origins of WWI. I have another book on WWI that is very good and a bit off the usual track. It is called , "The Sleepwalkers."
I haven't read Dreadnought, but I did read Clarke's book. I thought it did an excellent job laying out the historical background of the conflict, but he's sleepwalking thesis was totally untenable. Clarke is only able to advance it by either glossing over or completely ignoring important points.
If the origins of WWI is a topic that interests you, I'd recommend investing in Luigi Albertini's three-volume The Origins of the War of 1914. If you do decide to, I'd also recommend getting The origins of the First World War: Diplomatic and military documents. Albertini's work is dense and takes time to get through, but it provides an incomparable understanding of the events that transpired during the July crisis.
""Twenty years of the French stomping the German people? You sound like Jupiter, Achilles!"
Why are the streets of Paris lined with trees?
So German soldiers can always march in the shade.
Kindle recently had on sale a book by John Yoo
" Defender in Chief: Trump's fight for presidential power". Description says "a Constitutional scholar John Yoo makes a provocative case that Trump isn't shredding the Constitution - he is its' greatest defender" . Published this year. Got it to read. Not many reviews yet.
It was a good night for Geminids in Florida. I went outside around 1:45 a.m., stayed out for about twenty minutes and saw about 15 meteors along with a few more maybes. I saw two in the sky at once right around 2 a.m. It was a pleasant 64 degrees and no mosquitoes.
So, at the risk of being judgemental...
IF you are SO STUPID, that you can't tell the difference between WW ONE and WW TWO...
Are you SO STUPID, that you'd be a Gadfly?
Germany was never invaded, and the Germans at home never realized how bad things were on the lines
General (BlackJack) Pershing TOLD them that! He said ...
By agreeing to an armistice under the present favorable military situation of the Allies and accepting the principle of a negotiated peace rather than a dictated peace, the Allies would jeopardize the moral position they now hold and possibly lose the chance actually to secure world peace on terms that would insure its permanence.
It wasn't WWI that caused WWII, it was the way WWI ended
Even More so, it was the way the idiots of the 1930's let Germany rebuild and reform
Could a general strike do it?
If all Trump voters downed tools, with the single demand that a real court case be started. Get to discovery - do your job! - and we’ll do our jobs. Till then, get by with what’s left at Whole Foods.
Trump himself could call the strike.
JSM
Inga discovered Andy McCarthy
Great now do RUSSIA!
Of course she won't. Because she doesnt understand any of her links.
Hoping Bide'n takes the unprecedented step and nominates his wife, Dr. Jill Bide'n, as Surgeon General. Or noted medical expert (and virus specialist) Bill Gates. This pandemic thingy could be solved in a heartbeat, so to speak.
@gilbar:
It wasn't WWI that caused WWII, it was the way WWI ended
Even More so, it was the way the idiots of the 1930's let Germany rebuild and reform
There's an interesting argument that Pershing's true intent was not unconditional surrender of Germany. Rather, he believed that Wilson's armistice agreements would be far too lax and hoped that by demanding an unconditional surrender, he would pressure Wilson into supporting a harsher armistice.
While I think it is undisputable that Germany bears primary responsibility for the war, the behavior at Paris in 1919 was a disgrace, as various participants sought to divide up the spoils of war. Wilson was consistently outmaneuvered and ineffectual and undermined by Colonel House. Wilson's dragging of the US into WWI remains one of the all time great blunders and ensures Wilson's top spot as all time worst president. In so many ways, it was at Paris in 1919 and 1920 that the contemporary world was made.
Wilson's top spot as all time worst president.
Wilson is in the bottom ten, but Buchanan was the worst.
@Gahrie:
Wilson is in the bottom ten, but Buchanan was the worst.
Ehh. Buchanan was certainly an uninspiring leader and a flawed president, particularly around his duplicity over the Dred Scott decision, but I think the harsh critique of Buchanan is a little over-the-top. It is true that he was unsuccessful at easing sectional tensions, but Buchanan was out of the country serving his ambassadorship to Great Britain when the Kansas-Nebraska Act was debated and signed into law.
gadfly said...
"Blogger Churchy LaFemme: said...
One interesting take, from who I can't recall: Germany lost the war, but they lost it in France.
That is, Germany was never invaded, and the Germans at home never realized how bad things were on the lines.
Check out Wiki and a General by the name of George S. Patton.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Allied_invasion_of_Germany"
He's talking about WW1.
Keep up.
Qwinn.
You might be interested in a Youtube series of videos about the Antikythera device. It's called,"Click Spring" by an Aussie horologist.( That's a maker of time pieces to you knuckleheads.) He tries to recreate it using, as much as possible, the same techniques that might have been in use at the time.
On this I will agree with Farmer. Wilson easily has the worst of the worst spot.
Until 2007 anyway.
Until 2007 anyway.
W's presidency was much worse than Obama's. His launching of the "global war on terror" was a calamitous blunder that we have yet to extricate ourselves from. Also, when Bush took office, the US had free trade agreements with three countries: Canada, Mexico, and Israel. When he left office, it was 17 countries. Bush's first visit to a foreign country was to Mexico, with which he had pledged to form a "special relationship." He spent nearly all of his presidency pushing for legislation that would provide essentially unfettered movement of cheap Mexican labor into the US.
I agree with Farmer on GW Bush and the War on Terror. That along with the 'weapons of mass destruction' lies and the Iraq war cost us dearly in lives and treasure, the ties between the Bush family and the Saudi royals and W's father with his educational policies that pretty much destroyed our schools. While the Democrats are more identifiably malevolent, the NeoComs are more subtly so and equally dangerous.
I have no problem putting W in the worst 5.
But the policies you are criticizing can be reversed. They were at least enacted by the normal political process, in the open.
Obama secretly weaponized every government office against conservatives, particularly the Tea Party. He planted partisan hacks willing to participate in that weaponization in the military, in the DOJ, FBI, the works. He spied on his successor using false FISA warrants. He jailed journalists. He ran guns to Mexico in an attempt to create a wedge by which to undermine the second amendment (thankfully this one was discovered, and failed).
Those are not just bad policy. They are flat out illegal acts injecting acid through the entire system. That sort of thing cannot be easily reversed. And we're seeing the results now with this massive election theft. Nothing Bush did compares.
Oh, and oh yes, overseeing and approving the ascendancy of groups like BLM to split the country along racial lines based on complete bullshit like Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, etc. all being little angels cut down in their prime, rather than incredibly violent thugs who earned every bit of what befell them.
Did anything Bush did (and I don't disagree much with your criticisms) cause as much damage, burn down our cities, rip the social fabric apart? No.
GOOD NEWS!
A Michigan judge has ordered the release of the Antrim County Dominion Voting machines forensic audit, which partisan hack Democrat judges have up until now ordered *not* be released to the public or in court.
No plausible or legitimate reason given for why they weren't allowing that audit to be released. And why should they? They have buried every other piece of evidence of fraud without consequence.
So now we get to see that the claim that Antrim switched 6000 votes from Trump to Biden wasn't "human error" or a "glitch". It was deliberate.
Get ready for more cries of "no evidence"!
@Qwinn:
Those are not just bad policy. They are flat out illegal acts injecting acid through the entire system. That sort of thing cannot be easily reversed. And we're seeing the results now with this massive election theft. Nothing Bush did compares.
I agree that the Obama presidency was marked by a great deal of lawlessness, the trend of accumulating unchecked power within the executive has been ongoing for at least the last several decades under the so called "imperial presidency." The most striking difference was that while major media outlets feigned concern during the Bush administration but went silent during Obama's. Just as they treated the antiwar movement. People like Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill were notable exceptions.
And recall that it was Bush who oversaw a massive expansion of the national security state and its surveillance powers and covert activities and inaugurated America as a permanent warfare state. The 2001 AUMF has been stretcher\d beyond any credible reading. The real culprit here is Congress, which essentially abdicates a good deal of its role in checking the executive largely on the basis of party affiliation.
Did anything Bush did (and I don't disagree much with your criticisms) cause as much damage, burn down our cities, rip the social fabric apart? No.
Race riots are not a new phenomenon. In fact, they've been a rather regular feature of American history. The real game changer, in addition to demographic disruption, is the smart phone and social media. Twenty-eight years ago a surreptitious vide recording of police beating Rodney King sparked the L.A. riots. Today nearly everyone is walking around with a camcorder in their pocket connected to a global information-sharing platform.
I think the harsh critique of Buchanan is a little over-the-top. It is true that he was unsuccessful at easing sectional tensions
But he did a pretty good job of moving arms to armories in southern states where the Confederacy could grab them.
Bush was more sinned against than sinner in Afghanistan. Read "Jawbreaker" about how the CIA and Special Forces had cleaned up most of the Osama people but then ""Big Army" arrived and told the SF guys "To shave and get in uniform." It reminds me of nothing so much as the FBI arriving in "Die Hard." Twenty years later Big Army is still there and refuses to leave. They were waiting for Biden to flip the light from red to green.
As for Iraq, it is still a mystery to me why Bush allowed Bremer to take over. Tommy Franks and Rumsfeld wanted to get out and let the Iraqis sort it out. The worst mistake was the armistice after GWI by Schwartzkopf.
If Biden makes any move to ban fracking, he will restore our dependence on the Saudis and we will be back in 1992.
Same with vietnam we had a small advisory force if they hadnt killed diem there would have been no reason to go long.
Twenty-eight years ago a surreptitious vide recording of police beating Rodney King sparked the L.A. riots.
More importantly, they provided the narrative. It took Bill Clinton and double jeopardy to convict those cops. The fact that they saved King's life was never mentioned. You are right about the video, though.
LA had to be destroyed like Milwaukee Portland in this cycle.
It was part of the narrative along with 'rge worst economy in 50 years'
https://www.scribd.com/document/488080093/Antrim-Michigan-Forensics-Report-121320-PRELIMINARY?secret_password=6tgofj7cUYx1kQwElves#from_embed
Blogger narciso said...
Same with vietnam we had a small advisory force if they hadnt killed diem there would have been no reason to go long.
This why Kennedy would not have left as the myth makers allege. Kennedy ordered the killing of Diem.
W's presidency was much worse than Obama's.
No it wasn’t.
His launching of the "global war on terror" was a calamitous blunder
Oh? So you like those al Qaeda folks killing Americans just because they’re Americans? Good to know. As far as I’m concerned Bush’s blunder was in not demanding that Saudi Arabia reimburse us about $10 billion for every person killed on 9/11 — double for children — or we’d invade their filthy country, pump their deserts dry of oil, and use Mecca and Medina for nuclear test sites. Also do gunpoint conversions of the royal family and all their citizens to Christianity. He was way too kind to the House of Saud.
that we have yet to extricate ourselves from.
Not that Obama tried very hard. And Trump’s efforts to extricate US troops were deliberately undercut by the Deep State. After the election Pentagon officials bragged about lying to Trump about troop counts so they could keep troops in Syria.
The plan luttwak suggested a quarter century before, of course you couldnt go to war in the birthplace of islam for reasons that should be obvious.
The significant thing was ksm the master planner was apprehended. Al suri was no slouch but not that level of strategists, his top deputy headed ahram shams.
@Michael K:
Bush was more sinned against than sinner in Afghanistan. Read "Jawbreaker" about how the CIA and Special Forces had cleaned up most of the Osama people but then ""Big Army" arrived and told the SF guys "To shave and get in uniform." It reminds me of nothing so much as the FBI arriving in "Die Hard." Twenty years later Big Army is still there and refuses to leave. They were waiting for Biden to flip the light from red to green.
Berntsen's book was quite good, and he does a good job of describing how personal animosities, bureaucratic squabbling, and turf wars among senior officials hampered effective ground operations. But it's still a version of the "thousands of tactical errors" argument. It doesn't address the fundamental problem of how once you've removed the Taliban from power, what will go in its place and for where will it derive legitimacy. This problem continues to haunt Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and very nearly Syria.
So the MI forensic audit of the Dominion voting systems shows an error rate of 68%.
68% error rate.
The FEC limits the acceptable error rate to 0.08%.
And in all previous elections, the voting systems produced an adjudication log, showing every time that a vote was adjudicated. In 2020, no adjudication log.
Let's hear now why this doesn't count as evidence of fraud.
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