Showing posts with label Food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Food. Show all posts

Sunday, March 3, 2024

Monday, March 3, 1924. End of the Caliphate.

The Turkish National Assembly ended the Ottoman Caliphate.  It had been in existence for 407 years and claimed religious sovereignty over Islam.  The Assembly also ordered that Abdulmejid II and his harem were to be deported by March 15.  The official deposing of Abdulmejid would come at 2:00 a.m. on March 4.

He did not welcome the news and warned that the ending of the caliphate would cause the rise of extremism in Islam, which his role as the religion's leader of Muslims tempered.  He proved to be correct.  He lived the rest of his life in Europe, at first in Switzerland, and then in Paris, where he died in 1944.  His exile was not an easy one at first, and he was disappointed that Muslims did not demand the restoration of his office.

The Teapot Dome investigation continued.


And the local Piggly Wiggly was robbed.  That location is now a tattoo parlor.

Last prior:

Saturday, March 1, 1924. The Nixon Nitration Works Disaster.

Friday, February 9, 2024

The worst immigration argument

Victory Farm Volunteers registering in Lane County. Oregon.  Lovina Wilson, farm labor assistant, routes the first three children, and that is what they are, to register during the Mobilization Day program at the Frances Willard School in Eugene. The enrollees in the photo are, left to right, facing table front row: Glenn Cash,13; Howard Cash, 11; and Don Mickelwait, 13.  This photo was taken in 1946, right after World War Two, demonstrating that wartime manpower shortages were ongoing.  This would be, quite frankly, more than a bit much today, as these individuals are way to young to seriously work on a farm, unless they are working on their family farm, and they were frankly way too young then.  Note the boys are wearing white t-shirts, with nothing emblazoned on them, and that girls are in the crowd as well.

There are a lot of varieties of this argument I keep seeing:

If you’re out here talking sht about immigrants but still going to the grocery store to feed yourself, that’s clown sht of the highest order. 

Stop being lazy & get your hands in the dirt or shut the fck up.

From, of course, Twitter.

This is baloney.

To distill the argument, it is that the US must dare not get control of its border with Mexico, or at least not a fair degree of control, as the US is dependent upon those illegally crossiong for food production.

That argument is first and foremost baloney, as it somehow makes the assumption that the huge number of immigrants arriving from Central and South America are in fact arriving in order to work on farms. That isn't happening.  They want to work, no doubt, but the migrant farm system is well established, and they aren't seeking to get jobs in cabbage fields this summer and then go back home.

In reality, most are economic migrants or migrants from Central and South American failed states.  The US is racing towards becoming a failed state itself right now.  Our government isn't working, and we're about to elect an imagined Caudillo who will have to turn on migrants like a health inspector turns on expired milk.  

But economically, the farm sector isn't employing them.

Lots of other things are, such as the construction industry, local small businesses, and back door employment, which explains who we got in this mess.  Democrats imagined, wrongly, that all future migrants are Democratic voters.*  Republicans imagined them all as somebody who was going to mow their lawn for cheap.  Turns out that they are none of those things.**

In reality, they take entry level manual labor jobs which, frankly, would go to Americans who need them, but for the price depression impact this has.

Which gets to the next thing.

The "agriculture depends on migrants" argument is, really, that American agriculture is habituated to cheap farm labor because the Federal Government, with apocalyptic visions of the future after World War Two, created a cheap food policy.

Frightened that Depression Era conditions would return after World War Two, and then frightened that conditions were going to go into the waste bin due to the Cold War, from 1945 on the government has done everything it can to keep foods as cheap as possible.  Americans bitch about food prices, but they spend about 9% of their budget on food, and it generally keeps going down.  The U.S. Government has tracked food prices since 1929, and it's the lowest ever, generally.  From 1929 to 1952 Americans spending on food consumed generally above 20% of a family's income.  In 1932, it was 22%.  In 2008, in contrast, it was 5.6%.

That's great, for family budgets, and it has ancillary impacts on a lot of industries.  Cheap food means that people can go to good restaurants (where you are actually a lot more likely to run into an illegal alien than in a cabbage patch) and have a really good dinner for pretty cheap, and then sit there over dinner and bitch about food prices.  This hasn't always been the case.  When Americans "ate out" well into the 1970s, they probably meant that they went to a diner for lunch.  Growing up, trips to restaurants for dinner were so rare that they only occured, normally, when it was some sort of special occasion, like a birthday or anniversary.  To take a date to a restaurant was a big deal, even when I was a college student.  You were trying to really impress a girl if you took her out for a meal, and later you assessed the damage to your finances that had ensued.

Even fast food joints to some extent expressed this.  We would often hit the burger joints on the weekends, but not daily.  By the time my son was in high school, however, high schoolers hit the nearby fast food joints every day.  Indeed, when I was in high school I ate in the cafeteria, the first time I'd eaten routinely at school.  I didn't particularly like it, but that's what there was.  When our high school cafeteria was condemned during my first year of high school, and prior to their building a new one, I briefly ate downtown, but it was too expensive, and I took up just brining a bad sandwich I'd made myself at home and sitting in the football stadium to eat it.

Glory Days indeed.

Now, fast food fare is absurdly cheap.  Quite a few people I know hit Dirty Ron's Steakhouse every morning for a couple of Egg McMuffins and a cup of Joe on the way in to work, and frankly, they're not bad (and no, that nickname aside, that establishment is not dirty at all).  And I've met working adults, including professionals, who go to Subway, or whatever, every day for lunch.  "Value Meals" and the like are incredibly cheap.  All of this because of a "cheap food" policy.  Part of that policy is related to legal farm migrants, but they are not flooding across the Rio Grande or the desert and claiming asylum.

Nor, frankly, is an ongoing "cheap food" policy a good thing.

The cheap food policy has helped make Americans increasingly fat while driving smaller agricultural entities out of business.  It's contributed to the concentration of everything, and not in a good way.  It's made food prices unrealistically low, while divorcing Americans from the reality of the actual cost of things.  It should end.

Part of that would be, quite frankly, to end the modern version of the Bracero program that has depressed the value of farm labor.  When it came in, in 1943, it made a little bit of sense, maybe, perhaps.  But eighty years later, it doesn't.  Americans will work any job, contrary to what is claimed about them, but at wages that are realistic.  Immigrant farm labor wages won't attract them, as the wages are too low.

In an era in which thousands of Americans are out on the streets without jobs, and in which there are rural areas that are basically depopulated save for the injured and left behind in smaller towns, lying between the consolidated farms, and in which we have urban areas and reservations that are hardcore reservoirs of poverty, if people were paid real wages, there's a ready-made source of labor.  Sure, they aren't the best jobs in the world in some ways, but they are jobs.  And they're also jobs for middle class younger people, who have a demonstrated interest in topics of the soil.

The numbers involved are not small. The US takes in 3,000,000 migrant farmworkers per year.  Ending a program such as this would result in a big impact to farm production, and it'd jump food prices for sure as the positions were, and they ultimately would be, filled with American residents.  It'd frankly also spur mechanization, which I'm not particularly keen on, as right now there are very expensive agricultural implements that are not employed as migrant farm labor is cheaper.

But ultimately, the principal of subsidiarity should come into play here for lots of reasons.

None of the reasons involve the thousands crossing the US Southern border, who are people facing an existential crisis that must be addressed.  They aren't the migrant farmworkers however.  That's a completely different topic.

Footnotes:

*Democrats have long assumed that Hispanic immigrants are natural Democratic voters, without learning the lessons of demographics or history.  

Immigrants tend to be Democratic voters early in their demographic's migration history.  Irish immigrants were.  Italian immigrants were.  This frankly had a lot to do with patronage.  But as they became established, this became much less the case.  To declare yourself "Irish" today doesn't mean that somebody should automatically assume you are a Democrat.

And that's true even if you have 100% Hibernian heritage, or to take the Italian example, if you can trace your lineage back to Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus' third cousin, once removed.  Truth be known, in a species in which Joe Cro Magnon pretty quickly asked Lucy Neanderthal out on a date, those straight lines of lineage don't last very long.  To declare yourself "Irish" today, in the US, might merely mean that you think the Irish drink green Budweiser with corned beef sandwiches on St. Patrick's Day.

Moreover, Hispanics in the US have and retain (although they are rapidly losing it) a very distinct culture which is existentially Catholic and conservative.  This is so much the case that the radicals of the Mexican Revolution, in the form of the Constitutionalist, sought to stamp it out, much like their semi fellow travelers the Bolsheviks went after Orthodoxy in Russia after 1917.  And they had a similar success rate, which means lots of Mexican Hispanics, which is what most Hispanics in the US are often only semi observant, but culturally Catholic still.  Given that, the darling issues of the Democratic Greenwich Village set, which forms the central corps of Democratic thought, are deeply at odds with what most Hispanics believe. And this only becomes more the case when Hispanics from outside of Northern Mexican ancestry are considered.  So, not too surprisingly, they're turning Republican.

They are also due to the border crisis itself.  Hispanics along the border whose ancestors settled there two hundred years ago, or in the wake of the Mexican Revolution, or even in earlier recent migrant waves, are not really of the same culture, no matter how dimwitted Americans are about it, as those now crossing and the flood is wrecking their communities.  Americans may see Hondurans and Guatemalans, as well as Venezuelans, as being the same as people from Chihuahua, but people from Chihuahua who live in Eagle Pass do not.

**And they are people, which oddly seems forgotten, except as an argument over the crisis.  Democrats thinking they were mindless sheep who could be herded into the voting booths and Republicans thinking they were something akin to slaves is inexcusible.

Wednesday, January 3, 2024

Super size it.

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, January 1, 1924. Receiving the New Year.:  




When I put this up on January 1, I also posted this calendar image on Reddit's 100 Years Ago sub.  Somebody came by and remarked on how tiny the glass the young woman is holding was.

And indeed it was.

Coca-Cola for years came in a 6.5 oz bottle, not 12.  It's interesting to reflect on as it really says something about proportions.

Coke's iconic bottle was a 6.5 oz bottle until 1955.  

Its competitor Pepsi started using 12 oz bottles in 1934.  In fact, that as one of its marketing devices, as it came in a 12 oz bottle, having a jingle that went
Pepsi-Cola hits the spot
Twelve full ounces, that's a lot!
Twice as much for a nickel, too
Pepsi-Cola is the drink for you.

It says something about the quality of Coke, or at least the original recipe of it, that people would in fact pay the same amount for half of what they'd get if they'd bought Pepsi instead.  It also says something about soda in general that it's so cheap to make, the added 6 oz of product really doesn't do anything to the economic bottom line.

In 1955, Coke switched to 10 oz bottles and 12 oz bottles and offered a  "Family" sized bottle of 26 oz.  The move was not without internal company controversy, however.  One company executive stated that  “bringing out another bottle was like being unfaithful to your wife.”

But that 55 10 or 12 oz bottle isn't gigantic.

When I was growing up in the 60s and 70s, when you went to a fast food restaurant and got a soda, large was a 12 oz serving with ice.  Starting in the 80s, somehow, that doubled, with stores, particularly convenience stores, advertising what was essentially double that.  

24 oz of Coke is a lot.

And it went on from there.

McDonald's, when it was first getting up and running, served Coke in 7 oz cups. After Coke switched, it started serving it in 16 oz cups.  In 1980, 7-11 introduced the "Big Gulp" which weighed in at an absurd 32 oz.  In 86, 7-11 introduced the 44 oz Super Big Gulp, and everyone went down that road thereafter.

Indeed, now, getting a small or medium soda draught is really what a person should do, and on the rare occasions when I get fast food, I try to get that.  But most people don't.  Even little kids get the 55 gallon size soda drink.

And that's really not good for you.

Thursday, December 14, 2023

Tuesday, December 14, 1943. The Death of Captain Waskow.

 

Captain Henry T. Waskow, who became the subject of Ernie Pyle's most famous column, and who was the inspiration for the protagonist in The Story of GI Joe, was killed in action in the Battle of San Pietro.

The French Committee of National Liberation granted French citizenship to Algerians classified as "Moslem elites", those being the ability to fluently read and write French.  It was expected that this would enfranchise between 20,000 to 30,000 Algerians.

This also abandoned a prior requirement that those obtaining French citizenship abandon Islam.

This would have been a huge move had it come in the 30s, but now, it would prove to be too little, too late.

The Germans raided Nantua, France, in reprisal for resistance activities.

Allied aircraft raided Luftwaffe airfields near Athens at Eleusis, Kalamaki and Tatoi, as well as the harbor facilities at Piraeus in the heaviest raid on Greece to date.

Sarah Sundin's blog, reports that:

Today in World War II History—December 14, 1943: US Army Air Force decides to stop using camouflage paint on planes, with the exception of night fighters and transports, to increase speed and range.

The reason I've always been told that this was done was to save weight.  You wouldn't think that this would make much of a difference, but if you consider the overall surface area of an airplane, it's a fair amount.  Less weight means fuel savings and increased speed.

The Red Army took Cherkasy.

John Harvey Kellogg, creator of cornflakes (1878) and founder of the Battle Creek Sanitarium ain Battle Creek, Michigan, died at age 91.

Sunday, December 10, 2023

Monday, December 10, 1923. Mexican rebels and cheese empires advance.

The Equal Rights Amendment to the United States Constitution, which has not been ratified, was first introduced in Congress.


At the time, many suffragettes opposed it out of fear that it would eliminate statutory protection of female laborers, which it likely would have.


Rebels were advancing on Mexico City.

Coolidge was encouraging commercial aviation, and running for reelection.

The National Dairy Products Corporation was founded by a merger of Thomas H. McInerney's Hydrox Corporation and Edward E. Rieck's Rieck—McJunkin Dairy Company. In 1930, it would acquire Kraft-Phenix Cheese Company, and then rebrand itself in 1969 as Kraftco Corporation and then Kraft, Inc.

It is now Kraft Heinz as of this very year.

Kraft cheese is, in my opinion, hideous.

The U.S. Supreme Court held in Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co. that only it, in appropriate Federal questions, could review state supreme court decisions.

The Italian parliament was prorogued, i.e., dissolved, by King Victor Emmanuel III at the request of Benito Mussolini.

Turkey and Albania signed a treat of friendship.

Tuesday, November 21, 2023

Subsidiarity Economics. The times more or less locally, Part XV. The 2% solution?

 August 9, 2023

3%

That is what inflation has fallen to.

The target rate is nonsensically 2%, which still robs workers of their wages.  Given the recent inflation, a more sensical target would be at or about 0%, or better yet a slight deflationary rate of 1%.

That's the core inflationary rate, by the way. Real inflation is at about 4.1%.

The US is banning private equity investment in China and investment in some Chinese technology companies.

August 12, 2023

The EPA estimates that by 2055 most petroleum fueled vehicles will have attrited off the road.

August 16, 2023

From the Oil City News:
CASPER, Wyo. — Rocky Mountain Power, the state’s largest electric utility, is proposing to raise its energy rates by 29.2%.
August 24, 2023

Before more consolidation of everything is just what we needed:

Subway sandwich chain sells itself to Dunkin’ owner Roark Capital

August 27, 2023

France will spend €200 million to destroy excess wine in hopes of shoring up the struggling wine industry.  Wine consumption in Europe has been falling, while production increasing.

September 7, 2023

Chinese exports, upon which that nation depends, have decreased every month of 2023.  China's economy is dependent upon exports and there is serious discussion on the country going into a recession.

September 11, 2023

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez faced severe criticism from her constituents, after sharing a video on Instagram from the Kiwi left-wing Aotearoa Liberation League that accredited rising prices solely to corporations and described the discussion surrounding inflation as propaganda.

When I read the headline, I actually wondered if she'd reposted something of Robert Reich's. . . 

The bloom has really been off AoC's rose in recent months.

Trump has been heard at campaign dinners indicating that if re elected he will cut taxes, which are too low to start with, and use tariffs as a trade weapon.

September 15, 2023

The United Auto Workers are out on strike.


September 20, 2023

Ford Motors in Canada reached a deal with is union to avoid a strike there.

Republican infighting kept two budget bills from advancing there.

Cont:  

A drought in Spain has caused a 50% increase in the price of olive oil, which in turn is causing a spike in olive oil theft.

September 27, 2023

The Writers Guild of America has reached an accommodation with the entertainment industry and has ended its strike.

U.S. regulators and seventeen states have sued Amazon on Tuesday over allegations it uses its position in the economy to inflate prices.

The Senate has drafted a stopgap funding bill it will likely pass, but there's no certainty the dysfunctional House of Representatives will.

September 28, 2023

Kevin McCarthy, prisoner of GOP populists, will not take up the Senate bill to fund the government, making a shutdown impossible to avoid.

The House of Representatives is, quite frankly, dysfunctional.

And given this, we will close out this edition of Subsidiarity Economics, even though its barely gone, and start one focused on that theme.

But not before noting that the U.S. economy recently grew 2.1%.

October 1, 2023.

Crisis postponed. 

The following crisis that is:

Subsidiarity Economics. The Shutdown edition.

September 28, 2023


Kevin McCarthy, prisoner of GOP populists, will not take up the Senate bill to fund the government, making a shutdown impossible to avoid.

The House of Representatives is, quite frankly, dysfunctional.

And given this, we will close out this edition of Subsidiarity Economics, even though its barely gone, and start one focused on that theme.

Kevin McCarthy should hang his head in shame.

What all will close, assuming that the House doesn't get its act together today, isn't clear. Some things will, but "vital" things apparently will not.  Some Federal employees will be asked to work without pay, which is interesting, as working without pay is involuntary servitude, and was banned by a post Civil War constitutional amendment.

Congress, oddly, will get paid. 

The mail will continue to be delivered, as the U.S. Post Office funds itself.

Arizona and Utah have voted to spend state funds to keep their National Parks open.  Senator John Barrasso asked the Secretary of the Interior to use park entry fees to do the same.

Fat Bear Week is off due to the dysfunctional House of Representatives having been taken hostage by populists.

Government contracts and modifications to contracts will not be issued.

Medicaid will continue to be paid. Medicare will continue on.

The FHA will have limited staff and loans it processes will be delayed.

The SBA will shut down.

The ATF might not process background checks, which may lead to a complete halt on the sale of firearms by licensed firearm's dealers.

The latter is the thing that Wyomingites are likely to complain about right away.  People in industries supported by tourism are likely to notice the closure of the parks rapidly.

All of this, of course, is because this will be a managed shut down, which is really a limited shutdown or a slow-down.  If things continue for some time, and this time they might, a real shutdown may creep in, which Wyomingites, in spite of apparently disdaining the Federal Government, would really feel.  A closure of the airports, for example, could be expected at some point, And a cessation of petroleum production on Federal lands due to a lack of Federal oversight.  Perhaps a cessation of grazing on the Federal domain for the same reason.  And a lack of highway funds.

None of that will happen rapidly, of course.  Or maybe at all.

September 30, 2023.

We’re likely to avert a shutdown, but the clown show continues

Let the grousing now being.

Not from Reich, with whom I obviously have a love/hate relationship, but from the MAGA far right out in the hinterlands, who will be outraged, outraged I tell you, and they'll tell you on their way from the television to the refirgerator for a Coors Lite (can't touch that Bud, of course) who would, they'll say, have enjoyed the shutdown. . .right up until they didn't, and then somehow, it would have been the Democrats fault.Congress passed a 45-day stopgap spending bill yesterday.  In doing so, Speaker McCarthy noted:

We’re going to be adults in the room. And we’re going to keep government open.
Well now he has 45 days to see if he can do that.

The bill omitted funding for Ukraine.  President Biden noted that in his address regarding the stopgap bill.
Tonight, bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate voted to keep the government open, preventing an unnecessary crisis that would have inflicted needless pain on millions of hardworking Americans. This bill ensures that active-duty troops will continue to get paid, travelers will be spared airport delays, millions of women and children will continue to have access to vital nutrition assistance, and so much more. This is good news for the American people.
 
But I want to be clear: we should never have been in this position in the first place. Just a few months ago, Speaker McCarthy and I reached a budget agreement to avoid precisely this type of manufactured crisis. For weeks, extreme House Republicans tried to walk away from that deal by demanding drastic cuts that would have been devastating for millions of Americans. They failed.
 
While the Speaker and the overwhelming majority of Congress have been steadfast in their support for Ukraine, there is no new funding in this agreement to continue that support. We cannot under any circumstances allow American support for Ukraine to be interrupted. I fully expect the Speaker will keep his commitment to the people of Ukraine and secure passage of the support needed to help Ukraine at this critical moment.

McCarthy had to rely on Democrats to pass the bill, and will now surely face an effort aimed at his removal by his hard right. 

October 4, 2023

Facebook's parent company Meta is laying off 11,000 employees.

October 5, 2023

75,000 Kaiser Permanente employees went on strike Wednesday. Staffing levels are an issue.

October 8, 2023

California has put into effect a law requiring  requires public and private US businesses with revenues greater than $1 billion operating in California to report their emissions comprehensively.

October 9, 2023

Workers for Mack Truck are going out on a UAW strike.

October 11, 2023

The UAW's strike has expanded to include a Ford plant in Kentucky.

October 15, 2023

The price of oil has jumped 6% since April.

October 24, 2023

Icelandic women are on strike for wage equality.

October 27, 2023

The economy grew by 4.9% last quarter.

October 28, 2023

Governor Gordon sounded climate alarm bells in a speech at Harvard this past week, noting that Wyoming needed to decarbonize. This caused the Wyoming Freedom Caucus to freak out.

October 31, 2023
Robert Reich.

November 2, 2023

Headline:

Union sets its sights on Tesla

November 5, 2023

Voters in Maine are voting on a referendum to replace the state's two electric companies with consumer-owned Pine Tree Power Company.

The proposal goes to the polls on Tuesday.  It states:
















November 9, 2023

The Air Force wants Congress to restrict the placement of wind farms near nuclear missle silos.

November 10, 2023

Moody’s Investors Service is revising the outlook on the U.S. government’s ratings to negative from stable but affirming the long-term issuer and senior unsecured rating at AAA.

Lest anyone doubt, this is bad for the economy and reflects a years long inability to get the deficit under control.

November 21, 2023

Ontario Knife Co. was sold to Blue Ridge Knives and all 56 employees at its Frankliville, New  York plant lost their jobs as a result.  Blue Ridge owns 800 brand names.

Last prior edition:


Wednesday, November 1, 2023

Monday, November 1, 1943. Landings on Bougainville.

14,000 U.S. Marines of the 3d Marine Division landed on Bougainville in the Solomons in the oddly named Operation Goodtime as well as the smaller Operation Cherryblossom.

The major operation would ultimately involve 144,000 US troops of the Marine Corps and the Army and 30,000 Australian troops.  Japanese defenses were initially overrun, the defending force consisting of only 200 men, but the island had 40,000 Japanese troops on it.  Operations would not cease until the end of the war, as the Japanese forces remained fighting up until that time.

Bougainville is a very large island that the Germans colonized starting in 1899.  It passed to Australian by way of a League of Nations mandate following World War One.

Internees at the Tule Lake Segregation Center surrounded the administration building during a visit by War Location Director Dillon S. Myer. 

Between 5,000 to 10,000 internees surrounded the building upon learning of Myer's unannounced visit until he consented to see a negotiating committee regarding grievances they held.

The USS Borie and the German submarine U-405 fought in the North Atlantic, with the result that both ships had to be scuttled.

President Roosevelt orders the Solid Fuels Administration to take over the operation of the nation's coal mines.

He also addressed Congress on the nation's food program.

The Moscow Conference issued its declaration on atrocities.

Moscow Declaration on Atrocities

by President Roosevelt, Mr. Winston Churchill and Marshal Stalin, issued on

November 1, 1943

The United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet Union have received from many quarters evidence of atrocities, massacres and cold-blooded mass executions which are being perpetrated by the Hitlerite forces in many of the countries they have overrun and from which they are now being steadily expelled. The brutalities of Hitlerite domination are no new thing and all people or territories in their grip have suffered from the worst form of Government by terror. What is new is that many of these territories are now being redeemed by the advancing armies of the liberating Powers and that, in their desperation, the recoiling Hitlerite Huns are redoubling their ruthless cruelties. This is now evidenced with particular clearness by the monstrous crimes of the Hitlerites on the territory of the Soviet Union which is being liberated from the Hitlerites and on French and Italian territory.

Accordingly the aforesaid three Allied Powers, speaking in the interests of the 32 United Nations, hereby solemnly declare and give full warning of their declaration as follows: At the time of the granting of any armistice to any Government which may be set up in Germany, those German officers and men and members of the Nazi party who have been responsible for or have taken a consenting part in the above atrocities, massacres and executions will be sent back to the countries in which their abominable deeds were done in order that they may be judged and punished according to the laws of these liberated countries and of the Free Governments which will be erected therein. Lists will be compiled in all possible detail from all these countries having regard especially to the invaded parts of the Soviet Union, to Poland and Czechoslovakia, to Yugoslavia and Greece including Crete and other islands, to Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France and Italy.

Thus, Germans who take part in wholesale shootings of Italian officers or in the execution of French, Dutch, Belgian or Norwegian hostages or of Cretan peasants, or who have shared in the slaughters inflicted on the people of Poland or in the territories of the Soviet Union which are now being swept clear of the enemy, will know that they will be brought back to the scene of their crimes and judged on the spot by the peoples whom they have outraged. Let those who have hitherto not imbued their hands with innocent blood beware lest they join the ranks of the guilty, for most assuredly the three Allied Powers will pursue them to the uttermost ends of the earth and will deliver them to the accusers in order that justice may be done.

The above declaration is without prejudice to the case of the major criminals whose offences have no particular geographical location and who will be punished by a joint decision of the Governments of the

Allies.

Saturday, October 28, 2023

Well that's odd.

Venison meatball day?

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Saturday, September 16, 2023

Going Feral: Fishing season is over, and hunting season has begun.

Fishing season is over, and hunting season has begun.

I am, by vocation, a hunter.  A hunter of wildlife and fish.  And I'm not exaggerating.

This isn't a hobby with me.  I'm stuck in a feral past, or perhaps a more feral future, but lving in the present.  

And I'm more of a hunter than a fisherman, in contrast with my father, who was the other way around

The first two seasons of the year open on September 1.  Like most years, due to my occupation (which most people, at least who are professionals, would claim as their vocation, although I'd wager that it is with less than half, very conservatively), I worked.  Opening weekend for me, therefore, is usually when I first get out, and I first get out for the greatest of the wild grouse, Blue Grouse.

They are, I'd note, delicious.


This is a somewhat complicated story, but because of the route I take in, I need permission to cross, which is always forthcoming but I didn't hear back in time this year. That meant that I needed to drive into a location a good two miles further from my normal jumping off point.


And the road, due to the heavy rains this year, and the winter snow, was eroded to impassable. So the walk was further than expected.


But still very pretty, in the morning light.

Because of the very long hike, and my recent surgery, I armed myself with a kids model 20 gauge and buttoned my shirt up to my neck.  Because my old M1911 campaign hat was a casualty of a rattlesnake event two years ago, I wore a replacement United States Park Service campaign hat.  I don't like it nearly as much as my old M1911.

I will say that those wearing synthetic hats are, well, missing the point, and the boat.


The entire trip involves some mountain climbing for the dog.


The dog won't eat in the morning (poodles and doodles are strange about this) due to excitement, so I packed his uneaten breakfast with me. When we hit the high country, he was by that time hungry, in spite of his excitement.


Those boots?  White's smoke jumpers.  Best boots ever.


We hike a fair amount. The dog drank out of a few streams, but I also carry a canteen and he's learned to drink out of a canteen cup.



We found and bagged two young grouse.




And ate them one that evening.  I fried both, that night, and had the second one, reheated the second evening.
 

Friday, September 15, 2023

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Brisket

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Brisket: When I start in on cutting a cow the first thing I go for is the brisket. It's handy to get to and it opens the front quarter to other p...

Tuesday, September 12, 2023

Wars and Rumors of War, 2023, Part VIII. The high cost of freedom.


September 3, 2023

Russo Ukrainian War

President Zelenskyy has replaced the Ukrainian Minister of Defense.

Russian drones hit the Danube River port infrastructure in Ukraine.

September 6, 2023

Russo Ukrainian War

Ukraine has designates PepsiCo and the Mars candy company as :international war sponsors" due to their continued operations, and continued tax payments in and to Russia since the start of the Russo Ukrainian War.

PepiCo has operated in Russia, if you consider the USSR its predecessor, since 1974, as opposed to Coca-Cola which did not until 1985.  It has nineteen plants in the company and employs 20,000 people directly, and 40,000 agricultural employees indirectly.  It's Russia' fourth-largest food and beverage company.  Since the war started, its net profits have increased by 333%.

Mars profits have increased 59% since the start of the war.

To give an illustration of the absurd nature of consolidation and market domination in corporate capitalism, PepsiCo trademarks (brands) include the following (list courtesy of Wikipedia):

  • Agousha (Russia)
  • Alvalle (Spain)[3]
  • AMP Energy
  • Aquafina
  • Aquafina Flavorsplash
  • Aunt Jemima/Pearl Milling Company
  • Baconzitos (Brazil)
  • Cap'n Crunch
  • Cheetos
  • Chester's
  • Chipsy (Egypt, Serbia)
  • Chudo
  • Cracker Jack
  • Crunchy
  • Diet Mountain Dew
  • Diet Mug
  • Diet Pepsi
  • Diet 7UP (only outside of the United States)
  • Diet Sierra Mist
  • Domik v Derevne (Russia)
  • Doritos
  • Duyvis (Netherlands)
  • Elma Chips (Brazil)
  • Emperador (Mexico)
  • Evervess (Russia)
  • Fandangos (Brazil)
  • Frito-Lay
  • Fritos
  • Fruktoviy Sad (Russia)
  • Frustyle (Russia)
  • G2
  • Gatorade
  • Gatorade Zero
  • Grandma's
  • Imunele (Russia)
  • Izze
  • Ivi (Albania, Greece, Cyprus, Serbia)
  • Kas
  • KhrusTeam (Russia)
  • Kurkure (Bangladesh, India, Pakistan)
  • Lay's
  • Life
  • Lifewater
  • Lubimy (Russia)
  • Manzanita Sol
  • Marias Gamesa
  • Matutano (Spain, Portugal)
  • Marbo (Serbia)
  • Mirinda
  • Miss Vickie's
  • Mountain Dew
  • Mountain Dew Code Red
  • Mountain Dew Game Fuel
  • Mountain Dew Kickstart
  • Mug
  • Munchies
  • Naked (naked?)
  • Near East
  • O.N.E.
  • Paso de los Toros (Uruguay)
  • Pasta Roni
  • Pepsi
  • Pepsi Max
  • Pepsi Next
  • Pepsi Zero Sugar
  • Pioneer Foods
  • Propel
  • Quaker
  • Quaker Chewy
  • Rice-A-Roni
  • Rold Gold
  • Rosquinhas Mabel (Brazil)
  • Ruffles
  • Russkiy Dar (Russia)
  • Sabritas
  • Sakata (Australia)
  • Saladitas
  • Sandora (Ukraine)
  • Santitas
  • 7UP (only outside of the United States)
  • 7UP Free (only outside of the United States)
  • Sierra Mist
  • Simba (Southern Africa)
  • Smartfood
  • Smith's (Australia)
  • Snack a Jacks
  • SoBe
  • SoBe Lifewater
  • SoBe V Water
  • Sonric’s
  • Stacy’s
  • Star
  • Starry
  • Stiksy (Brazil)
  • Sting
  • SunChips
  • Tonus
  • Tostitos
  • Trop 50
  • Tropicana
  • Tropicana Farmstand
  • Tropicana Pure Premium
  • Tropicana Twister
  • Twisties (Oceania Region)
  • Vesely Molochnik
  • Walkers (United Kingdom)
  • Ya (Russia)
  • Yedigün (Turkey)
Hopefully that list will help reduce their profits.

Mars, which also owns Wrigley, is also gigantic, and its brands are:

  • 3 Musketeers
  • Ben's Original
  • Bounty
  • Celebrations
  • Cirku
  • CocoaVia
  • Combos
  • Dolmio
  • Dove
  • Ebly
  • Ethel M
  • FLAVIA
  • Fling
  • Flyte
  • Forever Yours
  • Galaxy
  • Galaxy Bubbles
  • Galaxy Minstrels
  • A Twix bar
  • M-Azing
  • M&M's
  • Maltesers
  • Marathon
  • Mars
  • Masterfoods
  • Milky Way
  • Munch
  • Promite
  • Revels
  • Seeds of Change
  • Snickers
  • Topic
  • Tracker
  • Treets
  • Twix
  • 5 gum cobalt packaging
  • 5 (gum)
  • Airwaves
  • Alpine
  • Altoids
  • Big Red
  • Bubble Tape
  • Doublemint
  • Eclipse
  • Eclipse Ice
  • Excel
  • Extra
  • Freedent
  • Hubba Bubba
  • Juicy Fruit
  • Life Savers
  • Lockets
  • Orbit
  • Ouch!
  • Rondo
  • Skittles
  • Spearmint
  • Starburst
  • Surpass
  • Tunes
  • Winterfresh
  • Wrigley's
Mars also manufactures products for pets, including:
  • Pedigree dry dog food
  • ADVANCE (Australia and New Zealand only)
  • Aquarium Pharmaceuticals
  • Buckeye Nutrition
  • Cesar
  • Chappi
  • Crave
  • Dreamies/Catisfactions
  • Dine (Australia and New Zealand version of Sheba)
  • Exelcat
  • Eukanuba
  • Exelpet
  • Frolic
  • The Goodlife Recipe
  • Good-o
  • Greenies
  • Iams
  • James Wellbeloved
  • Kit-e-Kat
  • My Dog
  • Natura
  • Natusan
  • Nutro Products
  • Optimum
  • Pedigree
  • Pill Pockets
  • Royal Canin
  • Schmackos
  • Sheba
  • Teasers
  • Techni-Cal
  • Temptations
  • Trill
  • Whiskas
  • Winergy
Obviously, the two companies are hard to avoid, and people can make their own judgements, but even from an economic social justice standpoint, this is absurd.

September 7, 2023

Armenia

The United States will participate in military exercises with Armenia next week.  Russia has voiced concerns.

Syrian Civil War

By Thespoondragon - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=82968413


The Syrian Democratic Forces captured Diban.  The alliance of anti-government Syrian rebels is the army of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, which controls approximately 1/4 of the country.

ISW reports that protests against the government have been increasing.

Russo Ukrainian War

Ukrainian forces continue to advance in the south, with there being indications that some Ukrainian elements have advanced past prepared Russian positions.

September 8, 2023

North Korea

North Korea has announced that it has launched a nuclear attack submarine. Assuming this is true, this is a massive upgrade in its nuclear warfare capabilities and may very well be one that makes it invulnerable, as a practical matter, to being attacked. 

September 9, 2023

Russo Ukrainian War
Russian forces have reportedly made notable changes to their command and control (C2) in Ukraine to protect command infrastructure and improve information sharing, although Russian force deployments are likely still exacerbating issues with horizontal integration. Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) Deputy Director of Analysis Magarita Konaev and CSET Fellow Owen Daniels stated on September 6 that Russian forces moved headquarters out of range of most Ukrainian strike systems and have placed forward command posts further underground and behind heavily defended positions.[1] It is unclear if Russian forces have employed this more protected command infrastructure throughout Ukraine and to what degree these defensive efforts have impeded Ukraine’s ongoing interdiction campaign.[2] Konaev and Daniels stated that Russian forces have improved communications between command posts and units at the front by laying field cables and using safer radio communications.[3] The Royal United Services Insitute (RUSI) stated on September 4 that Russian forces are also trying to improve signals through the wider use of application-based C2 services that require less training.[4] Konaev and Daniels noted that signals at the battalion level downward are still often unencrypted and that Russian personnel still frequently communicate sensitive information through unsecure channels.[5]

The Russians, the same ISW report notes, are changing their artillery tactics to emphasize accuracy over mass fire, a change that was long ago implemented in Western armies but comes about here due to ammunition shortages.

These changes, it should be noted, if successful, would amount to improvements in Russian capabilities.

North Korea

The Old Salt's Blog, which is linked in at the side, reports that there are reasons to doubt the capabilities of North Korea's new, and diesel, powered submarine.

September 12, 2023

Russo Ukrainian War

Kim Jong Un has traveled to Russia to meet with Putin.  He traveled by armored train, an anachronism if ever there was one.

The Russo Ukrainian War has served to make Kim relevant in ways he was not before, one of the ways being that, given the fall of the Warsaw Pact following the end of the Cold War, it's one of the few countries in the world manufacturing the old Soviet patter munitions that Russia is consuming which will also export to Russia.

South Korea, for its part, has became an arms supplier as well, shipping armor to Ukraine and Poland, and artillery to Ukraine.

Ukrainian forces advanced near Bakhmut and in western Zaporizhia Oblast.

Last edition:

Wars and Rumors of War, 2023, Part 7. Summer.