Thursday, May 8, 1975. The last to get out.

550 occupants of the French Embassy in Phnom Penh crossed into Thailand. They included 300 Khmer Muslims.

The People's Republic of China and the European Community agreed to establish trade and diplomatic relations.

Last edition:

Wednesday, May 7, 1975. End of the Vietnam War Era.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, Being in college in the 1980s, Being in the military in the 1980s, Cartoons, Growing up in the 1970s, Growing up in the 1980s, Military, Vietnam War, World War Two

Saturday, May 3, 1975. End of the Cultural Revolution.

Chinese Communist Party, Chairman Mao Zedong spoke out against the Cultural Revolution and the Gang of Four in his last speech to the Politburo.

All former South Vietnamese military personnel and government officials were ordered to register with the new government.  This was the first step to sending them to reeducation camps.

The city of Jerusalem was hit by missiles for the first time, after two Czechoslovakian made Katyusha rockets struck 500 meters from the Knesset parliament building.  They were fired by Arab guerillas.

New edition:

Friday, May 2, 1975. Hold outs.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, Animals, Army, Army of the Republic of Vietnam, Battle of Long Xuyên, Bears, National Zoo, Saigon Vietnam, South Vietnam, The Fall of Saigon, United States Forest Service, Vietnam War, Zoos

Poster Saturday. Comrade, get up and exercise.

 

Comrade, get up and exercise.

In my experience, waking up sleepy people is hazardous.

Friday, April 11, 1975. The looming end for Cambodia and the NVA takes the Spratlys.

North Vietnam took control of the Spratly Islands, which had been controlled by the Republic of Vietnam. The landing forces consisted of NVA special forces, but the islands were lightly defended. Interestingly, Communist Vietnam today still recognizes a South Vietnamese defense of the islands against China, which are also claimed by China, as heroic.

While portrayed in Vietnamese propaganda as a great victory, the operation was only a success due to the extreme distress that South Vietnam was then in, and the fact that the U.S. Navy didn't intervene. Additionally, and importantly, the islands had no strategic value to the ongoing offensive, but with South Vietnam collapsing, the North Vietnamese no doubt correctly guessed that if they did not take the islands, China would.

I should note that this is somewhat confusing, as there are numerous small islands in the chain, and not all of them are occupied by the Vietnamese.

Some tourism of the islands takes place today.

A White House conversation took place regarding Operation Eagle Pull.

President: I would like to be brought up to date on where we are and what we are going to do. We will restrict ourselves to Cambodia. I am optimistic and I think we will make it.

Schlesinger: “Eagle Pull” will commence at 0900 local. They will be on the ground one hour and 20 minutes total. It will be completed by 11:30 p.m. our time if all goes well.

There’ll be 33 helicopters, including three for search and rescue. The first twelve will hold 346 Marines.

President: Will Long Boret go?

Kissinger: “Eagle Pull” will collapse the Government. Even if Long Boret doesn’t, enough of his people will go that it will collapse.

President: Do we know if there will be much fighting? There will be a crowd gathering, but there is a better than 50% chance of getting out without fighting.

Brown: There will be air cover but it will only return fire if fire is directed on the evacuation and only to protect the evacuation. The helicopters will come in a stream from the Carrier Ubon and peel off from hold points. We can do it all in one lift unless there are too many Khmer.

Schlesinger: We must do it all in one lift.

Brown: The Khmer have quite a lift capability of their own.

Kissinger: Do the Khmer think it is over or is this an American decision?

Brown: It is a U.S. decision. Our intelligence thinks tomorrow will be the last day, but probably it would come on the 13th, an auspicious time.

President: There will be air cover?

Buchen: Yes. They will be under positive control all the time and under FAC.

President: By what authority is this being done?

Schlesinger: The rescue operation is to protect American lives, any fire is to protect American lives and Khmer evacuation is incidental to the American evacuation.

Buchen: Yes. The Khmer evacuation is incidental.

Marsh: We would use the same force anyway, wouldn’t we?

Schlesinger: If we had gotten it down to 50 Americans, we would have used a much smaller force and got them out in 10 minutes.

Kissinger: I think we should say we are stretching the law so we don’t run counter to the President’s request of last night.2

Rumsfeld: Don’t use “incidental”—because there are five times as many Khmers and it will be seen as a subterfuge.

Schlesinger: The original list contained 50 Khmer. That has swollen to 1,100. It is there we might be vulnerable.

President: I would think there would be a crowd gathered.

Schlesinger: We can use Red Cross agents. And they have C130’s.

Buchen: Why do we take them out then?

Schlesinger: Ask State.

Kissinger: It was assumed that the airfield would be unusable. We didn’t want to pull the plug by talking to them about evacuation.

[The statements to be read and given to Congress were reviewed.]

President: There is no connection between this and the Vietnam evacuation. There is no connection at all. This is a unique situation.

Brown: Unless we give orders, the Marine Commander may load up with Khmer and leave the Marines, thus necessitating a second flight.

President: I agree. The Commander should be told that all Americans must be aboard the last chopper.

 The ARVN put up still resistance at Xuan Loc.

April 11, 1975: The J.P. Parisé Game

A unique flight:

11 April 1975

Last edition:

Thursday, April 10, 1975. A request, and a denial, for aid.

Labels: 94th Congress, Cambodia, Ethnicities, Gerald Ford, Golf, India, Kingdom of Sikkim, Kingdom of Sikkum, Operation Eagle Pull, South Vietnam, Vietnam, Vietnam War

Wednesday, March 19, 1975. Abandoning Huế.

South Vietnamese President Thieu ordered the area around Huế to be evacuated, putting thousands of additional refugees on the roads headed towards Saigon.

The People's Republic of China granted amnesty for 290 Nationalist Chinese convicted of "war crimes" including 219 military officers, 21 government officials and 50 secret agents.

Last edition:

Tuesday, March 18, 1975. An Lộc abandoned.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, Army of the Republic of Vietnam, Native Americans, New Mexico, Rhodesia, South Vietnam, Vietnam War, Zambia

Friday, January 17, 1975. Chinese political turnover, French infanticide.

Zhou Enlai (周恩来) was re-elected as Prime Minister of the People's Republic of China. Deng Xiaoping (邓小平) was elected as a Vice-Premier and Vice-Chairman of the party, ending an eight year period of political exile. 

France legalized infanticide during the first ten weeks of pregnancy. 

Last edition:

Wednesday, January 15, 1975. Independence for Angola.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, Angola, Colonialism, Portugal, Portuguese Empire

Subsidiarity Economics 2024. The Times more or less locally, Part 4. A return to Pre Covid status

US incomes have returned to their 2019 level, adjusted for inflation.

The adjusted rate of inflation was 2.9%.

While people will continue to complain, this is pretty close to being back to the economic status of 2019.

Oil dropped yesterday to $69/bbl.

September 25, 2024

Delta To Pull Out Of Casper Airport, Last Flight Is Dec. 3

Delta To Pull Out Of Casper Airport, Last Flight Is Dec. 3

November 17, 2024

Boeing is commencing layoffs.

November 26, 2024

In a monumentally bad idea, President-elect Donald Trump said Monday he will issue executive orders imposing new tariffs on all imported goods from China, Mexico and Canada. with the rates being 25 percent tariffs would be imposed on Mexican and Canadian merchandise and 10 percent on Chinese goods.  This was tied, oddly, to his immigration goals.

December 2, 2024

President Elect Trump threatened 100% tariffs against Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. 

Turkey, Azerbaijan and Malaysia if they act to block the US Dollar ast he global reserve currency.

December 3, 2024

From a Fox News broadcast:

We are told that when Trudeau told President-elect Trump that new tariffs would kill the Canadian economy, Trump joked to him that if Canada can't survive without ripping off the U.S. the tune of one hundred billion dollars a year, then maybe Canada should become the 51st state and Trudeau could become its governor.

Apparently this was said by Trump in jest by our boorish embarrassment of a President Elect. 

December 11, 2024

$24B merger between grocery giants Kroger, Albertsons blocked by federal judge

Continuous arabica coffee futures on the ICE rose 4.1% to $3.44 a pound beating a record set in 1977 even before it is adjusted for inflation.

December 12, 2024

An Ontario message to Donald Trump from Ontario Premier Doug Ford.

We need to be ready to fight [on] January the 20th. We will go to the extent of cutting off their energy, going down to Michigan, going down to New York State and over to Wisconsin. I don't want this to happen, but my number one job is to protect Ontario, Ontarians and Canadians as a whole since we're the largest province. Let's see what happens as we move forward. But we'll use every tool in our toolbox, including cutting them off energy that we're sending down there.

Frankly, a lot of New York will freeze in the dark without Canadian hydroelectric.

On groceries, the item that a lot of Trump voters naively believed Trump could make the price of "go down":

It's hard to bring things down once they're up. You know, it's very hard.

Donald Trump.

D'uh. 

There was no earthly way that Trump was ever going to be able to get the price of groceries to go down and a person would have had to have been bereft of economic knowledge to have believed that.  Unfortunately, a lot of Americans are in fact bereft of economic knowledge.  As we've noted here before, that would require deflation, and deflation if prolonged, causes a Depression.

Trump back on November 4, 2024: “A vote for Trump means your groceries will be cheaper.”

Nope, they won't be.

So, now that he's been elected, this promise joins the one to end the war in Ukraine 24 hours after he's elected.  I.e., it'll be broken.

December 13, 2024

Pope Francis.

Forgive us our trespasses: grant us your peace

I. Listening to the plea of an endangered humanity

1. At the dawn of this New Year given to us by our heavenly Father, a year of Jubilee in the spirit of hope, I offer heartfelt good wishes of peace to every man and woman. I think especially of those who feel downtrodden, burdened by their past mistakes, oppressed by the judgment of others and incapable of perceiving even a glimmer of hope for their own lives. Upon everyone I invoke hope and peace, for this is a Year of Grace born of the Heart of the Redeemer!

2. Throughout this year, the Catholic Church celebrates the Jubilee, an event that fills hearts with hope. The “jubilee” recalls an ancient Jewish practice, when, every forty-ninth year, the sound of a ram’s horn (in Hebrew, jobel) would proclaim a year of forgiveness and freedom for the entire people (cf. Lev 25:10). This solemn proclamation was meant to echo throughout the land (cf. Lev 25:9) and to restore God’s justice in every aspect of life: in the use of the land, in the possession of goods and in relationships with others, above all the poor and the dispossessed. The blowing of the horn reminded the entire people, rich and poor alike, that no one comes into this world doomed to oppression: all of us are brothers and sisters, sons and daughters of the same Father, born to live in freedom, in accordance with the Lord’s will (cf. Lev 25:17, 25, 43, 46, 55).

3. In our day too, the Jubilee is an event that inspires us to seek to establish the liberating justice of God in our world. In place of the ram’s horn, at the start of this Year of Grace we wish to hear the “desperate plea for help” [1] that, like the cry of the blood of Abel (cf. Gen 4:10), rises up from so many parts of our world – a plea that God never fails to hear. We for our part feel bound to cry out and denounce the many situations in which the earth is exploited and our neighbours oppressed. [2] These injustices can appear at times in the form of what Saint John Paul II called “structures of sin”, [3] that arise not only from injustice on the part of some but are also consolidated and maintained by a network of complicity.

4. Each of us must feel in some way responsible for the devastation to which the earth, our common home, has been subjected, beginning with those actions that, albeit only indirectly, fuel the conflicts that presently plague our human family. Systemic challenges, distinct yet interconnected, are thus created and together cause havoc in our world. [4] I think, in particular, of all manner of disparities, the inhuman treatment meted out to migrants, environmental decay, the confusion willfully created by disinformation, the refusal to engage in any form of dialogue and the immense resources spent on the industry of war. All these, taken together, represent a threat to the existence of humanity as a whole. At the beginning of this year, then, we desire to heed the plea of suffering humankind in order to feel called, together and as individuals, to break the bonds of injustice and to proclaim God’s justice. Sporadic acts of philanthropy are not enough. Cultural and structural changes are necessary, so that enduring change may come about. [5]

II. A cultural change: all of us are debtors

5. The celebration of the Jubilee spurs us to make a number of changes in order to confront the present state of injustice and inequality by reminding ourselves that the goods of the earth are meant not for a privileged few, but for everyone. [6] We do well to recall the words of Saint Basil of Caesarea: “Tell me, what things belong to you? Where did you find them to make them part of your life? … Did you not come forth naked from the womb of your mother? Will you not return naked to the ground? Where did your property come from? If you say that it comes to you naturally by luck, you would deny God by not recognizing the Creator and being grateful to the Giver”. [7] Without gratitude, we are unable to recognize God’s gifts. Yet in his infinite mercy the Lord does not abandon sinful humanity, but instead reaffirms his gift of life by the saving forgiveness offered to all through Jesus Christ. That is why, in teaching us the “Our Father”, Jesus told us to pray: “Forgive us our trespasses” ( Mt 6:12).

6. Once we lose sight of our relationship to the Father, we begin to cherish the illusion that our relationships with others can be governed by a logic of exploitation and oppression, where might makes right. [8] Like the elites at the time of Jesus, who profited from the suffering of the poor, so today, in our interconnected global village, [9] the international system, unless it is inspired by a spirit of solidarity and interdependence, gives rise to injustices, aggravated by corruption, which leave the poorer countries trapped. A mentality that exploits the indebted can serve as a shorthand description of the present “debt crisis” that weighs upon a number of countries, above all in the global South.

7. I have repeatedly stated that foreign debt has become a means of control whereby certain governments and private financial institutions of the richer countries unscrupulously and indiscriminately exploit the human and natural resources of poorer countries, simply to satisfy the demands of their own markets. [10] In addition, different peoples, already burdened by international debt, find themselves also forced to bear the burden of the “ecological debt” incurred by the more developed countries. [11] Foreign debt and ecological debt are two sides of the same coin, namely the mindset of exploitation that has culminated in the debt crisis. [12] In the spirit of this Jubilee Year, I urge the international community to work towards forgiving foreign debt in recognition of the ecological debt existing between the North and the South of this world. This is an appeal for solidarity, but above all for justice. [13]

8. The cultural and structural change needed to surmount this crisis will come about when we finally recognize that we are all sons and daughters of the one Father, that we are all in his debt but also that we need one another, in a spirit of shared and diversified responsibility. We will be able to “rediscover once for all that we need one another” and are indebted one to another. [14]

III. A journey of hope: three proposals

9. If we take to heart these much-needed changes, the Jubilee Year of Grace can serve to set each of us on a renewed journey of hope, born of the experience of God’s unlimited mercy. [15]

God owes nothing to anyone, yet he constantly bestows his grace and mercy upon all. As Isaac of Nineveh, a seventh-century Father of the Eastern Church, put it in one of his prayers: “Your love, Lord, is greater than my trespasses. The waves of the sea are nothing with respect to the multitude of my sins, but placed on a scale and weighed against your love, they vanish like a speck of dust”. [16] God does not weigh up the evils we commit; rather, he is immensely “rich in mercy, for the great love with which he loved us” ( Eph 2:4). Yet he also hears the plea of the poor and the cry of the earth. We would do well simply to stop for a moment, at the beginning of this year, to think of the mercy with which he constantly forgives our sins and forgives our every debt, so that our hearts may overflow with hope and peace.

10. In teaching us to pray the “Our Father”, Jesus begins by asking the Father to forgive our trespasses, but passes immediately to the challenging words: “as we forgive those who trespass against us” (cf. Mt 6:12). In order to forgive others their trespasses and to offer them hope, we need for our own lives to be filled with that same hope, the fruit of our experience of God’s mercy. Hope overflows in generosity; it is free of calculation, makes no hidden demands, is unconcerned with gain, but aims at one thing alone: to raise up those who have fallen, to heal hearts that are broken and to set us free from every kind of bondage.

11. Consequently, at the beginning of this Year of Grace, I would like to offer three proposals capable of restoring dignity to the lives of entire peoples and enabling them to set them out anew on the journey of hope. In this way, the debt crisis can be overcome and all of us can once more realize that we are debtors whose debts have been forgiven.

First, I renew the appeal launched by Saint John Paul II on the occasion of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 to consider “reducing substantially, if not cancelling outright, the international debt which seriously threatens the future of many nations”. [17] In recognition of their ecological debt, the more prosperous countries ought to feel called to do everything possible to forgive the debts of those countries that are in no condition to repay the amount they owe. Naturally, lest this prove merely an isolated act of charity that simply reboots the vicious cycle of financing and indebtedness, a new financial framework must be devised, leading to the creation of a global financial Charter based on solidarity and harmony between peoples.

I also ask for a firm commitment to respect for the dignity of human life from conception to natural death, so that each person can cherish his or her own life and all may look with hope to a future of prosperity and happiness for themselves and for their children. Without hope for the future, it becomes hard for the young to look forward to bringing new lives into the world. Here I would like once more to propose a concrete gesture that can help foster the culture of life, namely the elimination of the death penalty in all nations. This penalty not only compromises the inviolability of life but eliminates every human hope of forgiveness and rehabilitation. [18]

In addition, following in the footsteps of Saint Paul VI and Benedict XVI, [19] I do not hesitate to make yet another appeal, for the sake of future generations. In this time marked by wars, let us use at least a fixed percentage of the money earmarked for armaments to establish a global Fund to eradicate hunger and facilitate in the poorer countries educational activities aimed at promoting sustainable development and combating climate change. [20] We need to work at eliminating every pretext that encourages young people to regard their future as hopeless or dominated by the thirst to avenge the blood of their dear ones. The future is a gift meant to enable us to go beyond past failures and to pave new paths of peace.

IV. The goal of peace

12. Those who take up these proposals and set out on the journey of hope will surely glimpse the dawn of the greatly desired goal of peace. The Psalmist promises us that “steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss” ( Ps 85:10). When I divest myself of the weapon of credit and restore the path of hope to one of my brothers or sisters, I contribute to the restoration of God’s justice on this earth and, with that person, I advance towards the goal of peace. As Saint John XXIII observed, true peace can be born only from a heart “disarmed” of anxiety and the fear of war. [21]

13. May 2025 be a year in which peace flourishes! A true and lasting peace that goes beyond quibbling over the details of agreements and human compromises. [22] May we seek the true peace that is granted by God to hearts disarmed: hearts not set on calculating what is mine and what is yours; hearts that turn selfishness into readiness to reach out to others; hearts that see themselves as indebted to God and thus prepared to forgive the debts that oppress others; hearts that replace anxiety about the future with the hope that every individual can be a resource for the building of a better world.

14. Disarming hearts is a job for everyone, great and small, rich and poor alike. At times, something quite simple will do, such as “a smile, a small gesture of friendship, a kind look, a ready ear, a good deed”. [23] With such gestures, we progress towards the goal of peace. We will arrive all the more quickly if, in the course of journeying alongside our brothers and sisters, we discover that we have changed from the time we first set out. Peace does not only come with the end of wars but with the dawn of a new world, a world in which we realize that we are different, closer and more fraternal than we ever thought possible.

15. Lord, grant us your peace! This is my prayer to God as I now offer my cordial good wishes for the New Year to the Heads of State and Government, to the leaders of International Organizations, to the leaders of the various religions and to every person of good will.

Forgive us our trespasses, Lord,

as we forgive those who trespass against us.

In this cycle of forgiveness, grant us your peace,

the peace that you alone can give

to those who let themselves be disarmed in heart,

to those who choose in hope to forgive the debts of their brothers and sisters,

to those who are unafraid to confess their debt to you,

and to those who do not close their ears to the cry of the poor.

From the Vatican, 8 December 2024

December 17, 2024

Canada's Finance Minister resigned.

This of course gave the chance for our bratty twelve year old president elect to make another one of his snotty tweets.

The Great State of Canada is stunned as the Finance Minister resigns, or was fired, from her position by Governor Justin Trudeau. Her behavior was totally toxic, and not at all conducive to making deals which are good for the very unhappy citizens of Canada. She will not be missed!!!

Where this conduct comes from, and why its tolerated is another question.

December 18, 2024

Elon Musk is campaigning against the bill that would provide stop gap funding until the next Congress convenes.

December 19, 2024

The Fed is cutting interests rates.

December 20, 2024

After tanking one continuing budget resolution, following his super wealthy "DOGE" appointees, Trump supported a second, which tanked last night.

And here we enter interesting territory.  In spite of widespread public belief to the contrary, Trump was set to inherit a strong economy.  Now he's tanking it.

EMERGENCY VIDEO! SHUTDOWN??

December 21, 2024

A CR passed but House Republicans defied a Trump request to raise the debt ceiling.

Why would Trump want to raise the debt ceiling if he intends to be true to the spirit of his campaign?

And now Trump is threatening the EU with tariffs if they don't up oil and gas imports, which are already at capacity.

Related threads:

September 10, 2024. Pearls Before Swine.

Last edition:

Subsidiarity Economics 2024. The times more or less locally, Part 3. The Decarbonizing the West and Electronic eartags Edition.

Labels: 2020s, 2024, Agriculture, Alcohol, Canada, Cattle, Climate Change, Coal, Computers, Disease, Economics, Health, Internet, Labor unrest, Railroads, technology, Unions, Wyoming's boom and bust economy

Getting the Economic Dope Slap

The law of unintended consequences is a frightful thing.

It's possible, with things lining up the way they are, that Wyoming populists are about to get the biggest economic dope slap in the state's history.

Of course, the rest of us will get it too.

Wyomingites drank the populist kool aid and went back for more bucket sized additional helpings.  Shoot, the average Wyoming voter was practically drunk on the stuff, having started imbibing about a decade ago.  In going for Trump, they were voting for a return to an imaginary 1950s, sort of, combined with an imaginary 1930s, combined with an imaginary 1960s.  Full employment for all "real" Americans, none of these Spanish speaking brown folks, a uniting of our economic extractive needs with a concept of science as we want it, not as it is, and the sexual morays of the mid 1970s, really.

Average Wyoming candidate on campaign trail.

Wyomingites don't really want to go back to the past as it really was, particularly on some of the things the way I feel they should be.  Divorce isn't going to be hard to get, for example, and there's not going to be a criminal penalty for screwing around.    No hyperinflation either, and no economic depressions.

Well. . . 

The past so many envision, and there's some truth to the depictions,  and what we imagine we want again, except with tattoos and only the laws we actually like and think we remember.

Donald Trump, fresh from his political recovery thanks to a Democratic Party that couldn't get a clue and the rise of malevolent populism is threatening to throw a 25% tariff on goods imported from Canada and Mexico and a 10% one on goods imported from China.  Apparently we can p.o. the Chinese, but not as much as we can Mexico and Canada, safely.

Or maybe not p.o. the Chinese at all. During the campaign Trump talked about 60% tariffs on China.  10% on China combined with 25% on Mexico and Canada actually conveys a trading advantage on  China, while raising the costs of prices at home.

The United States is the largest goods importer of goods in the world.  China was the top supplier of goods imported into the United States, followed by Mexico ($454.8 billion), Canada ($436.6 billion), Japan ($148.1 billion), and Germany ($146.6 billion).

The United States is the world's second largest goods exporter in the world, behind only China.  Canada is the largest purchaser of U.S. goods, around 17%.

That's probably about to change.

What do we import?  Well, darned nearly everything, even food from Mexico.

What do we expert, darned near everything, including even petroleum.

We're going to be paying more for everything, and we're going to be exporting less of everything, as we get hit with retaliatory tariffs.

And that's assuming our neighbors are nice.  They might not be.  If I was the P.M. of Canada, I'd tell Americans living in Canada to pack up and go home.  A lot of them are up there on business.  And I'd end cooperation with the US on defense.

And oil?  Well, the Saudis are seriously threatening to drop the price per barrel to $49.00, which would wipe out most U.S. production.  Again, if I were the Canadians, and the Mexicans, both of which produce a lot of oil, I'd join them.  They probably won't, but that's what I'd do.

So, Wyoming populists, even without retaliation, you are going to pay more for absolutely everything. We all are.

And a lot fewer of you are going to have jobs. Same for us all.

Well, at least you can be happy about deportation. . . and a lot of you will, at long last, be deporting yourselves to your own states.  You'll have to. There won't be any work here.

Blog Mirror: Will China Rise and the US Retreat?

 

Will China Rise and the US Retreat?

Sunday, November 2, 1924. Huang Fu became the acting President of the Republic of China.

Huang Fu became the acting President of the Republic of China.

Flying boats, Culebra, Puerto Rico, November 2, 1924.

Last edition

Saturday, November 1, 1924. Political, and real, warfare.

Labels: 1920s, 1924, 1924 Election, Art, Crime, Disease, Ireland, J. F. Kernan, Ku Klux Klan, Oklahoma, Personalities, police, Politics, Royal Air Force, Ulster, United Arab Emirates, Weather

Friday, May 31, 1974. The Golan Heights.

The Agreement on Disengagement between Israel and Syria was signed in Geneva.  Artillery fire stopped at 1:15 p.m.  The United Nations Disengagement Force was created by UN Security Council Resolution 350.  Israel was left with the Golan Heights.

The British Home Office announced the end of the "bread and water" diet as a prison punishment.

Malaysia and China established diplomatic relations.

Vietnam Veterans marched from Boulder to Denver in protest over the war, which the US had of course withdrawn from, and for amnesty for draft evaders and deserters.

Last prior edition:

Monday, May 27, 1974. Memorial Day and Los Seis de Boulder.

Sunday, February 24, 1974. Advent of Fireforce, getting mad at Confucious.

The Fireforce vertical envelopment tactic was used by the 1st Battalion of the Rhodesian Light Infantry in the first example of its use.  The tactic was developed as Rhodesian Aérospatiale Alouette III had a limited carrying capacity in comparison to the very large helicopters used by the US in similar roles.

Rhodesian Alouette III.

The use of aircraft outside of their original intended roles was fairly common in African wars of the 60s, 70s and 80s.

The People's Republic of China began a a nationwide campaign to discredit Confucius and Lin Biao as "reactionaries who tried to turn back the wheel of history" which was certainly cutting a pretty wide swath given that Confucius died in 479 BC, and Lin Biao in 1971.

Last prior:

Wednesday, February 14, 1974. Solzhenitsyn expelled.

Seriously?

Think of President Xi. Central casting, brilliant guy...He runs 1.4 billion people with an iron fist. Smart, brilliant everything perfect.

Donald Trump.

And people are thinking of voting for this guy?

Saturday, January 19, 1974. The Battle of the Paracel Islands.

The People's Republic of China and the Republic of South Vietnam engaged in combat, mostly naval, but some ground, over the Paracel Islands. The events had been preceded by maneuvers and landings the prior few days after South Vietnam found the Chinese had landed on an island and had armed vessels nearby.

The following day, January 20, the Chinese would prevail.

The South Vietnamese defeat would later be regarded as a Vietnamese one in general as North Vietnam also did not welcome the Chinese incursion and would, post Vietnam War, demand that the Chinese depart, which they have not.  North Vietnam, upon taking over the entire country, praised the efforts of the South Vietnamese troops who attempted to defend the islands.

The People's Republic of China, Republic of China (Taiwan) and Vietnam, all claim the islands

The French government floated the franc, which would continue for six months, in order to maintain its value.

Wednesday, January 2, 1974. 55 MPH.

The National Maximum Speed Law reduced the speed limit on the nation's highways to 55 mph.

While ultimately hated, the law had an immediate impact in reducing highway deaths, which of course was not its actual intent.  Reducing the consumption of petroleum was.

The first Supplemental Security Income (SSI) checks were mailed in a program designed to address those disabled but unable to qualify for Social Security. The law allowing for this to occur had come into effect the prior day.

The People's Republic of China announced that eight senior military figures were being reassigned in an apparent attempt to disrupt their ability to form a base of power.

Early country music pioneer and actor Tex Ritter died at age 68 of what was believed to be a heart attack.  His son, John Ritter, would die in 2003 at age 54 of aortic dissection and its likely that this was actually the cause of his father's death.

Tuesday, June 12, 1923. Trouble in China.

The remaining eight hostages taken by train bandits in what became known as the Linceng Outrage were freed.  The payment of ransom by Shanghai mobster Du Yuesheng to Sun Meiyao of the Shandong Outlaws resulted in the final freedom of what originally had been 300 such hostages.

Du Yuesheng, who controlled the Shanghai opium trade, would become a significant supporter of Chiang Kai Shek, and has been honored with a memorial in Taiwan, where he died.

Sun Meiyao would be executed by the Chinese Army in December.

On the same day, Chinese general Feng Yuxiang issued an ultimatum to Chinese President Li Yuanhong to resign.  He himself would go on to briefly lead the country, and then support the Nationalist as well, before becoming, in later years, a critic of it.  While a Christian, he was comfortable with the Communist regime and was honored by it when he died in 1953.

Juneau Alaska, June 12, 1923.