Semi scary, nearly Nazi like, WPA poster.
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
At war with ISIL
FA-18Es of the U.S. Navy launch from the USS George H. W. Bush yesterday, for airstrikes against ISIL U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Robert Burck.
We are now in a full scale war with the Islamic State. It is, for us, an air war. On the ground, the troops will be natives of the region. Iraqi Arabs and Kurds, and Syrians fighting their government and the Islamic State. As a practical matter, while we do not wish to admit it, many of the ground troops that will be fighting the Islamic State in Syria, and who knows, perhaps in Iraq as well, will be Syrian regulars. That's the practical reality of it.
It's popular to claim that airwars can't be won, but they can be and have been, if there's a substantial element on the ground, and here there is. It isn't the best set of ground forces in the world, but then IS doesn't have a well trained army itself. Compared to the Syrian army it's definitely a second string outfit, and it probably is compared to the Peshmerga, save for the fact that the Peshmerga is more attuned to fighting as a guerrilla army with light weapons, and IS is semi mechanized.
F-35s of the U.S. Air Force, Florida. This effort will undoubtedly provide the first combat deployment of the F-35. Official U. S. Air Force photograph.
The Islamic State controls the roads, but that's about it. It draws its support from vast stretches of territory it sort of influences beyond the roads, but the roads and the cities and towns attached to the roads are what it actually occupies for the most part. And a road dependent army can be degraded by raids.
The French army in Indochina was road dependent, and the Viet Minh controlled the countryside. It took vast effort by the French Army to push out into the country, and they never lost their dependence on the roads. In this war, IS is the French Army, and we're the Viet Minh. Able to strike at any time day or night, there's not too many places for IS to hide.
At some point, the war will go back to being a terrorist campaign by IS, which it was when IS was Al Queda in Iraq, its name before it rebranded itself in recognition of its nearly correct belief that it could establish an Islamic state on the Arab frontier, and make it a Caliphate, right now. In that it nearly succeeded, but through the clever strategy of taking only the roads and major population centers. That battle is probably over now and IS will go on the defensive.
What will emerge is key. To make this really successful, we must destroy ISIL. Destroy it, not merely remove it from the population centers and roads. And we have to plan for what comes after. The Kurds have made it plain enough that what they don't want, really, is to have to rely on the anemic Shiia dominated Iraqi parliament. The Sunnis Arabs don't either, which is a lot of the reason ISIL has been so successful in this war, as Arab tribes united with it. Those same tribes will now abandon it, but that doesn't mean they want the Iraqi central government back. Chaldean and Assyrian populations have also indicated that they feel they need their own state, as the lesson has now been fully learned what occurs to them when the winds shift suddenly over that Sunni sea.
The Big Speech: Socrates on Youth
Young people nowadays love luxury; they have bad manners and contempt for authority. They show disrespect for old people and love silly talk in place of exercise. They no longer stand up when older people enter the room; they contradict their parents, talk constantly in front of company, gobble their food and tyrannize their teachers
Monday, September 22, 2014
Tuesday, September 22, 1914. A big day for the German Navy.
The U-9 sank three British armored cruisers in the North Sea. The SMS Emden bombarded Madras, India. The SMS Scharnhorst and Gneisenau entered the port of Papeete, Tahiti, and sank the French gunboat Zélée and freighter Walkure.
Royal Naval Air Service No. 3 Squadron based at Antwerp, Belgium, attacked German airship hangars at Cologne and Düsseldorf, Germany. No serious damages was inflicted. It was the first British air raid on Germany.
Last edition:
Monday, September 21, 1914. Edges of the war.
Sunday, September 21, 2014
Monday, September 21, 1914. Edges of the war.
German forces in German New Guinea surrendered to the Australians.
The Germans laid siege to Osowiec Fortress in Poland.
The French took Ukoko in Neukamerun (now Gabon) in a naval landing.
Last edition:
Sunday, September 20, 1914. The Irish Nationalist Volunteers.
Saturday, September 20, 2014
Lex Anteinternet: Pabst, Schlitz and Colt 45 to get Russian owner - ...
Lex Anteinternet: Pabst, Schlitz and Colt 45 to get Russian owner - ...: Pabst, Schlitz and Colt 45 to get Russian owner - MarketWatch The Russians owning Pabst? What is the world coming to?
While I posted my first entry in jest, this does bring back to mind an earlier post, which mentioned how many local breweries there used to be. In short, there were vast numbers. And there are starting to be vast numbers again. Denver Colorado and the surrounding region seems to introduce a new brewery per week. Seriously, there's something like well over 100 small breweries in Colorado now, just in the Denver region.
But there were also a lot of large breweries making regional nor nationally distributed brews in the late 19th and for most of the 20th Centuries. Budweiser is the best known example, but Pabst was another, having a major market share in its day.
Well, through the process of globalization and consolidation, the number of these companies has grown smaller. Their brand names are still there in many (but certainly not all) cases. Budweiser, Pabst, etc., are still around. But they're part of bigger outfits. Budweiser belongs to a Belgian alcohol concern. Pabst will now belong to a Russian one.
This is simple, and global, economics, but it also brings to mind our earlier discussion on distributist economics. Here, however, local breweries exhibiting the principle of subsidarity are plentiful, and some of them have grown in size themselves, repeating the original histories of Pabst and Budweiser.
While I posted my first entry in jest, this does bring back to mind an earlier post, which mentioned how many local breweries there used to be. In short, there were vast numbers. And there are starting to be vast numbers again. Denver Colorado and the surrounding region seems to introduce a new brewery per week. Seriously, there's something like well over 100 small breweries in Colorado now, just in the Denver region.
But there were also a lot of large breweries making regional nor nationally distributed brews in the late 19th and for most of the 20th Centuries. Budweiser is the best known example, but Pabst was another, having a major market share in its day.
Well, through the process of globalization and consolidation, the number of these companies has grown smaller. Their brand names are still there in many (but certainly not all) cases. Budweiser, Pabst, etc., are still around. But they're part of bigger outfits. Budweiser belongs to a Belgian alcohol concern. Pabst will now belong to a Russian one.
This is simple, and global, economics, but it also brings to mind our earlier discussion on distributist economics. Here, however, local breweries exhibiting the principle of subsidarity are plentiful, and some of them have grown in size themselves, repeating the original histories of Pabst and Budweiser.
Sunday, September 20, 1914. The Irish Nationalist Volunteers.
John Redmond called on the Irish Republican Irish Volunteers to volunteer for British service, which most did.
Irish enlistment in the British Army in the Great War was large-scale, as it would prove to be again in World War Two. Enlistees in the British forces received little recognition after the war, however, as the Anglo Irish War and following independence tainted it.
Ottoman general Essad Pasha Toptani organized an armed force of 10,000 men to invade Albania, having received the support from Serbia and Italy to do so.
The German cruiser SMS Königsberg sank the British cruiser HMS Pegasus at the Battle of Zanzibar.
Last edition:
Friday, September 18, 1914. The Irish government and two acts.
Friday, September 19, 2014
Pabst, Schlitz and Colt 45 to get Russian owner - MarketWatch
Pabst, Schlitz and Colt 45 to get Russian owner - MarketWatch
The Russians owning Pabst?
What is the world coming to?
The Russians owning Pabst?
What is the world coming to?
Wyoming Brand Lard
10646787_442244832582818_2981191216607897998_n.jpg (JPEG Image, 960 × 720 pixels)
A lard can, depicting lard that was packed at my family's packing house in Casper Wyoming, before we owned it.
This must have been a brand name that the prior owner used, probably in the 1930s, maybe in the 1920s.
Interesting to see this. I don't even think of lard being packed by a local company, and of course they sold regionally so it wasn't really local, but still, interesting glimpse into history, both regional and personal.
A lard can, depicting lard that was packed at my family's packing house in Casper Wyoming, before we owned it.
This must have been a brand name that the prior owner used, probably in the 1930s, maybe in the 1920s.
Interesting to see this. I don't even think of lard being packed by a local company, and of course they sold regionally so it wasn't really local, but still, interesting glimpse into history, both regional and personal.
Scotland votes No.
The United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will continue to be. As was really self evident, a "Yes" vote for independence would have meant the end of the United Kingdom, leaving it effectively the country of England with two much smaller nationalities appended to it.
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