Of note, Sweden. . .

population 10.23M, had more COVID 19 infections than New York State, population 19.45M, but far fewer deaths from the disease.

There's some sort of lesson in there, but probably not one that people are drawing.

Synchronicity

Just about  three or four days ago my son and I were joking about Julian Assange.

More specifically, we were finding it amusing that he was probably a really annoying house guest for the Ecuadorian Embassy in the UK.

Turns out he really was. Basically, he was a spoiled child and a titanic a*****e.

A couple of additional observations.

He was wanted in Sweden for a charge of rape, but the accusations against him in the US would only subject him to five years in the pen, assuming he got the full sentence.  The charge in Sweden has expired due to some oddball interview deadline that Swedish law has, but after spending seven years in the Equadorian Embassy, which is not large, he's exposed to five in the US.

You have to wonder about the wisdom of his decision there.

Secondly, Pamela Anderson. . . you know, the girl from Bay Watch (which I've never seen) and the early years of Home Improvement, is Assange's girl friend.

Anderson is a pathetic case in her own right.  She went to being cute, with minimal talents, to being plastic and in my view creepy. Assange is also creepy.

Well one more item of weirdness to be featured in the papers, in the Age of Weirdness.

All electric?

Anderson Electric Car, on promotional tour from Seattle to Mt. Ranier, i 1919.

Volvo, whom we associate with Sweden, but which is now owned by Chinese interests, will no longer introduce new models of car with internal combustion engines after 2019.  

That doesn't mean it'll be out of the gas and diesel engine business.  I don't know if this announcement applies to its diesel heavy engines at all, I doubt it, but it'll keep making internal combustion engines for existing models after 2019.  It's just that its stating that its new cars will be all electric.

Industry analysts claim that this isn't that big of deal, but if Volvo holds to it, it is for two reasons.  For one, a major manufacturer simply stopping introducing new models of car with gasoline and diesel engines is a big deal. We're likely to see other manufacturers follow suit.  This would seem to show a trend towards the end of the internal combustion engine in some applications.

Secondly, while this comes from Volvo, Volvo is Chinese owned. That's remarkable in and of itself, but that a Chinese company is getting out in front this way says something as well.

Swedish Cattle Call

Hmm, not appropriate dress for cow work.



Probably more like it.

Friday, February 14, 1914. Concerned farmers.

Protesting Swedish peasants.

Concerned Swedish farmers gathered in the courtyard of Stockholm Place to demand higher defense spending.  There were 32,000 of them.  King Gustaf declared to them that he shared their concerns, violating the Swedish constitution by taking an issue in a partisan matter. Conservatives supported higher defense spending and had organized the protest against the sitting Liberal government.  The resulting controversy resulted in the downfall of the leadership of the Swedish government and the appointment of a government approved of by the King.

Gustav was king from 1907 until his death in 1950.  Up until World War One he still held significant power in the country, and was highly influential in the Swedish government during the war. After the war, parliamentary actions would end up stripping the crown of them.  He was the last Swedish monarch to exercise royal prerogatives, and 1974 constitutional changes ended them.

Gustav was pro German and anti Communist during the war and after.  During World War Two, he had to be stopped by the Swedish prime minister from sending a congratulatory letter to Hitler for invading the Soviet Union.  He nonetheless on behalf of tennis Davis Cup stars Jean Borotra of France and his personal trainer and friend Baron Gottfried von Cramm of Germany for better treatment by the Nazis, the latter of which had been imprisoned on the charge of a homosexual relationship with a Jew.  Gustav himself was an ardent tennis player.

Saturday, April 10, 1909 Finnish, Métis Tragedy, and Arctic Tragedy.

Czar Nicholas II approved a recommendation that "laws of general Imperial interest concerning Finland" be enacted by the Duma, in which Finland had a single representative, rather than its own legislative assemble.  It was part of the process of Russification of the country which had commenced in 1899, reversing the original imperial policy put in place in 1808 when Sweden had lost Finland to Russia.

The Finn's have inhabited Finland since at least 9,000 BC, and probably longer.  The first references to it as an entity come from Catholic sources in the 12th Century as the Church began to Christianize the country, but it had no real political organization.  It came under the control of Sweden the following century, with Sweden losing it to Russia in the Finnish War of 1808-1809.  The Russification policy, something the Russians have exhibited ever since the 19th Century wherever it has control, and which effectively continues to the present day, would result in the Finnish independence movement.

Canada opened up the Métis lands in Alberta to homesteaders.  250 claims by French Canadians were registered on the first day.

Professor Ross G. Marvin of Cornell became Admiral Peary's Eighth Arctic Expedition's only fatality when he drowned, maybe.

His body was found floating and appeared to have gone through thin ice, as reported by Inuit guide Kudlookto.  However, in 1926 Kudlookto claimed he had shot and killed Marvin, either because Marvin had started acting irrationally, or because Marvin refused to let Kudlookto's cousin, another member of the expedition, rest.  Peary's daughter (as you'll recall his sons were by his native mistress and were left up in the Arctic in the abandoned care of their mother), discounted the story, although how she would know what happened in reality is another matter. Presumably from information supplied by her father.

It's hard to imagine why Kudlookto would make the story of killing Marvin up, although people do odd things.

Peary's account.

He had been on a prior expedition.  He was 29 years old at the time of his death.

Cipriano Castoro, the former President of Venezuela, was forcibly ejected from Martinique by the French.

Jonesboro, Tenn, April 10, 1909.

Last prior edition:

Friday, April 9, 1909. Establishing Mother's Day.

Location: South Dakota, USA