Monday, September 2, 2024

Saturday, September 2, 1944. Finland calls it quits.

This was the 5th anniversary of the start of the Second World War in Europe.

This means, fwiw, that a fair number of combatants had been in their early to mid teen years when the war started, and were now fighting in it.

Finnish Prime Minister Antii Hackzell announced that Finland was breaking diplomatic relations with Germany and demanded that all German troops leave the country.  Fighting concluded two days later.

Finland had lost about 63,000 men in what it termed the Continuation War, over twice as many men as it had lost in the much briefer Winter War.  In the war to regain territory lost during the first war it regained what it had lost, but would lose it again.  Fought as a separate war, the Finns had ceased advancing once they took what they'd lost.

On the same day, two Soviet defectors crash landed a Yak 9 inside of Finnish lines.

At this point, Italy had switched sides, as had Romania and Bulgaria was begging the Soviets to honor its neutrality. Hungary was trying to get out of the war. As noted below, the British had entered Belgium.  The Germans should have realized they were doomed.

Lt. Jr. Gr George Bush, later President of the United States, found his aircraft badly damaged after completing a bombing run over Chichijima and ordered the crew of this TBM Avenger to bail out.  Only one other man made it out of the plane, and his parachute didn't open, making Bush the only survivor.


He'd be at sea for four hours before being rescued by he USS Finback, with which he'd remain for the rest of the month.

FWIW, the President at the time, Franklin Roosevelt, had never been in the service, but he had been Assistant Secretary of the Navy.  The next one, Truman, had been an artillery captain during World War One.  Eisenhower of course was in the service in 1944.  Kennedy was in the Navy in 1944.  So was Nixon, and Ford.  Carter did not serve in World War Two, but was an Annapolis graduate.  Reagan served in World War Two, but not in a combat role. Then Bush.  Clinton was the first to break the trend.

Konstantin Muraviev became Prime Ministers of a now desperate Bulgaria.

The First Canadian Army took Saint-Valery-en-Caux and reached the Somme.

The FFI executed six French young men they found guilty of treason in Grenoble.

The British 21st Army Group entered Belgium.

German troops murdered 450 Poles at Lipniak-Majorat, Poland in reprisal for actions by the Home Army.

The U-394 was sunk by the Royal Navy off of Jan Mayen.

Last edition:

Friday, September 1, 1944. Lone Tree Hill

Tuesday, September 2, 1924. Glazman kills himself.

Mikhail Glazman, one of Leon Trotsky’s closest advisers during the Russian Civil War, killed himself after being expelled from the Communist Party by Stalin.

Often not put in real context, something that's commonly missed about the Communists coming into power was the unending sea of blood associated with it.  The rise of the Communists was bloody, the Russian Civil War was bloody, the Communist in power, even before they fully seized power was bloody, and before that quit flowing the Reds turned on other Reds, and on members of their own party.  Included in the bloody pool was the blood of people like Glazman, who killed themselves for any number of reasons, some just to avoid being killed by others.

Last edition:

Monday, September 1, 1924. The Dawes Plan goes into effect.

Friday, September 2, 1774. Near revolution.

Bands of militiamen descended upon Cambridge, Massachusetts following news of Gage's removal of gun powder from the Somerville Powder House. the day prior.  Gage's troops had left and nothing occurred.  The militia had not been mustered by colonial authorities but was acting under its own volition.

But for the British departure, the Revolution may well have commenced a year prior to when it did.

Last prior edition:

Thursday, September 1, 1774. The Massachusetts Powder Alarm.

Sunday, September 1, 2024

Whisky - Scotland's Water of Life

Friday, September 1, 1944. Lone Tree Hill

The First Canadian Army captured Dieppe.

The Red Army took Călărași, Romania and reached the Bulgarian frontier.  The Soviet Union asked for  permission for the Red Army to enter Bulgarian territory.   The Bulgarian prime minister, Ivan Bagrianov, resigned and. Constantine Muraviev took his place.

The Battle of Lone Tree Hill, in Dutch New Guinea, ended in American victory.

The battle had been fought since May 17.

Lone Tree Hill.  Not One Tree Hill.  The latter was the name of a horrifically bad television series that featured, for some weird reason, basketball as the center of the universe.

The U-247 was sunk in the English  Channel by the Canadian Navy.

Native Melanesian of New Caledonia, wearing the uniform of a French sailor, stands guard before French Navy Hq. in Noumea, largest town in New Caledonia.

Arsenic and Old Lace premiered.

Last edition:

Thursday, August 31, 1944. Montgomery promoted. The Red Army in Bucharest. The Mad Gasser in Mattoon, Illinois.

Moday, September 1, 1924. The Dawes Plan goes into effect.

The Dawes Plan went into effect.

The Russian All-Military Union, comprised of the remaining members of the White Russian Army, was founded in Yugoslavia by General Pyotr Wrangel in the Serbian town of Sremski Karlovci.  It was supposed to be an aid origination for White veterans.

П.Н.ВРАНГЕЛЬ, митрополит Антоний (Храповицкий) и другие гости и постояльцы в «Здравнице имени генерала Врангеля» в Белграде на Дединье. Надпись на фотографии: "В первый день святой Пасхи в здравнице в Топчидере 11/24 апреля 1927 года" 15,5 х 24 см. на картоне. владельческая запись на оборотной стороне, указывающая персонажей. подклейка прозрачным скотчем. очень редкое фото. Санаторий (здравницу) для больных русских военных в Белграде устроила жена полководца баронесса О.М.Врангель (1883-1968). В первом ряду сидят (слева направо): Сергей Николаевич Палеолог (бывший русский посланник в Сербии), генерал Пётр Николаевич Врангель, митрополит Антоний (Храповицкий), архиепископ Анастасий (Грибановский), Ольга Михайловна Врангель протоиерей Пётр Беловидов доктор Николай Александрович Терещенко (начальник «Здравницы»).

Amazingly, it still exists.

Joe Boyer was fatally injured  at the infamous Altoona Speedway in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

Last edition:

Saturday, August 30, 1924. Late summer scenes.


Thursday, September 1, 1774. The Massachusetts Powder Alarm.

General Gage sent troops to Charlestown (Somerville) to retrieve the stock of gunpowder sparking a reaction that resulted in the mustering of Massachusetts militia.

Last edition:

Sunday, August 28, 1774. Mother Seton.

Best Posts of the Week of August 25, 2024.

The best posts of the week of August 25, 2024.

Second and Third mortgages.





Saturday, August 31, 2024

Thursday, August 31, 1944. Montgomery promoted. The Red Army in Bucharest. The Mad Gasser in Mattoon, Illinois.

The Red Army entered a Bucharest already cleared of German troops by the Romanian Army.  Crowds cheered the arrival of the Red Army.

Romania would be one of the tragic examples of the Red Army not leaving where it appeared following the war. It would take a revolution in the USSR, more or less, and definitely in Romania, to restore Romanian sovereignty and establish Romanian democracy.

Bernard Law Montgomery was promoted to Field Marshal.


Almost slandered by American historians since the war, Montgomery was a great man and a strategic genius who had mastered the ability to fight with an economy of resources.  Born in England, but raised in Australia (his father was an Episcopal Bishop), he was truly one of the greatest Allied commanders of the war.

The 5th Army crossed the Arno.

Slovene partisans rescued 105 Allied POWs in the Raid at Ožbalt.

The US prevailed in the Battle of Sansapor.

Task Force 38.4 attacked Japanese positions on Iwo Jima and Chichi Jima.

The first of the Mad Gasser of Mattoon incidents in Mattoon, Illinois.

Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World has a good episode on this really weird event.

Last edition:

Wednesday, August 30, 1944. End of Operation Overlord.

Sunday, August 31, 1924. Back in North America.

The around the world flyers landed at Indian Harbour, Labrador (which was not yet part of Canada), thereby having arrived again in North America.

United with Newfoundland, Labrador would not become part of Canada until 1949.

Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich of Russia proclaimed himself heir to the Russian throne.

Wine was released, which featured Clara Bow in her first leading role.

Last edition:

Saturday, August 30, 1924. Late summer scenes.

Going Feral: Destruction of the wild.

Going Feral: Destruction of the wild.:   

Destruction of the wild.

 

Not-so Muddy Mountain Road

Great.

Making a formerly pretty wild area an effective city park.

This is just the kind of bullshit that ruins everything.

I hope the 4x4s coming off the muddy roads rip this newly paved road to shreds as soon as possible.

Clearly a bitter post on my part.

I"ve gone up the existing Muddy Mountain Road since I was a child.  I've hiked up the one that preceded it as well numerous times when the current road was closed, something that's declined in enjoyment as the motorized ATV crowd goes up and down the same road getting to listen to the racket their vehicles make (you can literally hear them for miles).

There's a lot about this that's flat out wrong.  One of those things is the absolute hypocrisy of Wyomingites, or in this case Natrona County residents, who loudly proclaim that the government shouldn't spend money on this or that, and then turn right around and subsidize the paving of a road for no reason, other than to allow people to flood the back country more easily, and with less effort.  The road literally serves no purpose other than recreation, that's it, and makes it easier for people to get there with no real effort.

Indeed, the existing road was a good one, and had I been around when it was put in, I probably would be p.o.ed as well.  

Meanwhile, in the winter, the same department that put in this road, if we have snow, won't be able to plow out the county roads that service the oilfield and ranches.

Friday, August 30, 2024

What on Earth does the Republican Party stand for?

Ronald Reagan was the first President that I was able to vote for, or against (I voted for) in my lifetime.

The GOP of that era was far from perfect, but I knew what it stood for.  

It was pro life, pro defense, tough on crime, pro fiscal responsibility, and overall conservative.

People have claimed that for the Trumpist GOP, but what of it?

1.  Pro life?

The GOP went into this election cycle claiming responsibility, which it had every right to do, for the repeal of Roe v. Wade, which returned the abortion issue to the states.  Not surprisingly, however, a controversial issue remains controversial.  Now the GOP is running from the issue as quickly as it can.  It took its pro life plank out of its platform, where it's been for decades.  And now we have Trump, who has flip flopped on the issue for decades, stating this, in regard to a proposed six week provision in Florida:

I think the six week is too short, there has to be more time

This is really a simple issue.  Either you believe that life starts at conception, or aren't sure when a human is a human and therefore you err on the side of life, or you think killing only matters at some arbitrary point in time in which you can't stomach it.

At best, the Republicans here can claim to support State's Rights, but pro life?  Donald isn't.

Added to that is this, which gets also into the next topic.

I am announcing today that under the Trump administration, your government will pay for or your insurance company will be mandated to pay for all costs associated with IVF treatment.

We want more babies!

IVF means the creation of large numbers of embryos that are later killed, and in Catholic theology, IVF  is regarded as a moral evil.  

It's notable that Vance, who is a Catholic convert, has made some statements now generally supporting IVF as he runs towards Trump and away from his Faith.

2.  Fiscal Responsibility?

Trump added 8T to the federal debt in his term in office.

And he proposed, prior to Harris, cutting income taxes on tips, which has no logical defense.  Income is income.

Trump has stood for tax cuts, which have amounted to tax cuts for the wealthy.  People, including the wealthy like Elon Musk, have noted the country is going bankrupt.  Well, this is a big part of the reason why.

Back to the above, the GOP whined endlessly about Obamacare, and now proposes to expand government support for an insurance payment. What the crud?

3. Pro defense?

The Republican willingness in many quarters to abandon Ukraine says all you need to know about this. Added to it, Trump has a weird relationship with Russia that has never been explained.

Much of the current GOP wants to return to isolationism, which worked oh so well during the 1930s.

4.  Tough on crime?

Running Trump says all you really need to know on that.

This party, in spite of what its supporters believe, stands only for reelecting Donald Trump, and nothing else.

Mind you, there were signs of this happening for some time.  The entire spectacle of Evangelical Christians lashing themselves to the decks of the Trump serial polygamy ship was never easy to fathom.  National Conservatives came on board in a calculated fashion, thinking that when Trump shuffled off his mortal coil they'd be in charge, only to see the less popular portions of their beliefs mocked and categorized as "weird".  The Hawk Tuah girl was embraced by the Lynyrd Skynyrd branch of the populist whose Christianity is rather thin and not hardly of the Mike Johnson New Apostolic Reformation variety.

So what does that do to the populist movement in the GOP and the GOP in general?  Well, quite a few real Republicans are abandoning ship, particularly those cultural conservatives who were never really Trumpites, but believed there was a moral obligation to support the GOP due to its cultural conservative positions.  The American Solidarity Party is suddenly getting a lot of attention because its actually prolife.  But a lot of the Trumpites now stand for nothing but Trump and will go down with him like stormtroopers in Berlin on May 2, 1945.  Locally those politicians who have arisen in the Populist Freedom Caucus will keep on saying the same things they've been saying, even as their leader is saying the opposite.

Populism always gets co-opted in the end.  Here, it already has been.  Conservatism, for its part, was simply killed in the party.

Wednesday, August 30, 1944. End of Operation Overlord.

Operation Overlord officially concluded.

A French government was operating again in Paris and massive parts of the country had been cleared of the Germans.

The Red Army took Polesti, the oil refining center of Romania.  Most of the Romanian oilfields had already been taken by the Soviets.

The 8th Army commenced assaults on the Gothic Line.

Three soldiers from 7th Regt., 3rd Div. on patrol north of Montelimar. 30 August, 1944.

Filipino writer and guerilla Manuel Estabillo Arguilla was beheaded by the Japanese.

Last edition:

Tuesday, August 29, 1944. Marching in Paris, crossing the Foglia, the Slovaks rebell.

Saturday, August 30, 1924. Late summer scenes.

The Dawes Plan went into effect.

Germany replaced paper marks with a coin, due to hyperinflation.

Clashes with the Ku Klux Klan resulted in six deaths in Herrin Illinois.

The French High Commission of the Levant created Lebanese citizenship.

Edwards, Prince of Wales, met with Calvin Coolidge.

Saturday magazines were out.




Last edition:



Sunday, August 30, 1874. The return to The Girl I Left Behind me and the Battle of Red River.

The Black Hills Expedition returned to Ft. Abraham Lincoln after covering nearly 1,200 miles over lasting sixty days.

The Sixth Cavalry and Fifth Infantry under the command of Colonel Nelson A. Miles attacked a large group of Southern Cheyenne near the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River in Texas in what became the day long Battle of Red River..  Though armed with Gatling guns and a 10-pounder Parrott rifle, the Cheyenne were able to hold them the Army long enough to escape up Tule Canyon into the Staked Plains.

Last edition:

Wednesday, August 26, 1874. Lynching black suspects and violating the Second Amendment.

Friday Farming: At 84, Lander horseman still makes hay the old-fashioned way

 

At 84, Lander horseman still makes hay the old-fashioned way

Thursday, August 29, 2024

Odds

A prediction, or rather an estimate based on odds.


I think there's a 55% chance that Donald Trump will not be the Republican candidate by November, or even by mid October.

No, I don't think that some random wacko is going to assassinate him.  

Rather, I'm going back to what I always thought, that one of the two candidates would depart due to the impact of time and mortality, and add to it.

On mortality, Trump really doesn't look well, when you see him as he actually looks, which is rarely.  Most of the time we see him in a baggy blue suit with his strange orange spray on tan and back comb over in evidence, a look we're so used to that we have come to regard it as normal, which it is not.  But if you see him golfing, which we do occasionally, you see him as he really is. A fat old pasty man.  He looks his age and doesn't look great.  If a guy looking like that died tomorrow, you wouldn't be surprised.

Added to that, however, is the growing evidence of mental decline.

Trump is under an enormous amount of stress.  If you've ever been familiar with somebody entering dementia, routine can keep them going for a long time.  Trump has had a surprisingly consistent routine since 2020.  The election was stolen has been his mantra.  Joe Biden is a crook and the worst President of all time.  He repeats it over and over, and he still is.

Now, however, Biden has mounted up and is fading into the sunset.  Trump, in turn, has entered the part of the map labeled "here there be dragons" and doesn't know where he is. It's showing in his behavior, which has become increasingly odd.

Indeed, his behavior is now so odd we're completely acclimated to it and pay it little regard.  In more or less controlled scripted moments, which seem to occur during the day time, he delivers a routine rambling speech, often with a flat affect.  He tends to go badly off script into the bizarre.  In interviews he can go way off script.

When he does, odd things show up again and again.  He's really smart, he tells us. . . a lot.  He draws big crowds, bigger than his opponents. . . 

It's weird.

At night, now, he seems to have taken to Twitter and the tweets are often really weird.

I'm not a psychiatrist but it looks to me like the stress an anxiety of the race are getting to him, and organically.

Hence my added prediction.  I don't think this nearly 80 year old who has avoided exercise his entire life can keep this up.  It'll kill him, or it'll render his mid mush to the point it can't be ignored.

And it'll happen before the end of October.

I'm not saying any of this, I'd note, as some sort of wish.  I've seen more than my share of death, and I've seen dementia.  We all die, but dementia isn't something we all endure and I don't wish that on anyone.

Tuesday, August 29, 1944. Marching in Paris, crossing the Foglia, the Slovaks rebell.

15,000 U.S. troops of the 28th Infantry division marched down the Champs Elysees in Paris.

The Battle of Marseille ended in an Allied victory.

The British 8th Army crossed the Foglia.

The Slovak National Uprising began.


At the time, with Romania having changed sides, the Red Army actually in East Prussia, and Hungary attempting to get out of the war, it looked as if the collapse of Germany was eminent.

It should be noted that the Warsaw Uprising was still going on.

The Jassy–Kishinev Offensive, Lvov–Sandomierz Offensive and Šiauliai Offensive all ended in Soviet victories.  The Red Army took the Black Sea port of Constanta and the Romanian city of Buzau.

The Soviets rejected the Bulgarian proclamation of neutrality.

The British government proclaimed the Polish Home Army was a de jure belligerent force.  The US also did.

Operation Goodwood, the Royal Navy effort to sink the Tirptiz, concluded as a failure.

Dumbarton Oaks concluded.

Last edition:

Monday, August 28, 1944. Hungarians reconsider.