Books, movies, politics, and whatever I want

Monday Book Pick: The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

Monday, March 18th, 2024

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare by Damien Lewis

Going from adventures in the “Unreal” to adventures in the very real. This book is about creation and evolution of British Special Warfare troops in WWII. The focus is on the creation of the SOE (Special Operations Executive) by Winston Churchill and its eventual merger with the SAS/SBS operating the North African and Mediterranean theaters, including action in Greece and Italy. These were very unconventional warriors conducting very unconventional warfare, which made them much more effective in their ability to tie down or defeat much larger units of German and Italian conventional troops. Adventure in literature is often described as someone else in a lot of trouble, far away. Keep in mind, this book is non-fiction. The collection British, Danish, American, and Greek soldiers put themselves in incredible danger, and didn’t always get away to fight another day. Guy Richie is putting a movie soon based on this book, which I’m expecting to be well done, but do yourself a favor and read the book, including the official descriptions of the actions that won them multiple medals for valor in combat.

Monday Book Pick Archive

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Monday Book Pick: The Hunter Killers

Monday, February 4th, 2019

The Hunter Killers by Dan Hampton
A well researched look at the creation of the “Wild Weasel” program by the US Air Force during the Vietnam war. The effective SAM (Surface to Air Missile) was a new thing, and the Russians were providing them to the communists in North Vietnam. So the Air Force put radar tracking equipment in planes, along with an Electronic Warfare Officer (EWO), to track down the SAM sites and take them out before they could take out the attacking aircraft.

Monday Book Pick Archive

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Monday Book Pick: 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi

Tuesday, September 11th, 2018

13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi by Mitchell Zuckoff and the Annex Security Team
Since today is 9/11, six years after the terrorist attacks against Americans in Benghazi (killing four American, including the US Ambassador to Libya), I’m repeating my pick from May 2, 2016
Mitchell is a journalism professor at Boston University. This is not a political book. It is a detailed account of what happened on September 11, 2012 in Benghazi. It details what the security arrangement were, including the use of local militia groups, who was where during each of the multiple attacks, who died, who was wounded, and what the responses by the State Department, and the rest of the US government, were at the time.

Monday Book Pick Archive

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Monday Book Pick: The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783-1789

Tuesday, July 31st, 2018

The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783-1789 by Edward J. Larson
A well researched book on the period of George Washington’s life between the end of the Revolutionary War and when he became President. What he did during his ‘retirement’ from government service, and how we was drawn in to leading the effort to come up with a replacement for the failing Articles of Confederation. Good insight into the process of compromise that went into coming up with a working constition that both the large and small states could agree on.

Monday Book Pick Archive

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On this day in 1776…

Monday, July 2nd, 2018

On July 2, 1776 the Continental Congress voted for Independence from Great Britain. An effort lead by John Adams of Massachusetts.

Two days later, they started signing the Declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson of Virginia.

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Happy Lenin’s Birthday!

Sunday, April 22nd, 2018

Yup, it’s time for the annual Lenin’s Birthday post!

For those of you coming in late to the party, Earth Day” is on Lenin’s Birthday.  Not a coincidence, given that the “founder” of Earth Day was much more a “Watermelon” than an actual environmentalist. Watermelon: Thin layer of green of the outside, red to the core.

Let’s review the predictions from the very first so called “Earth Day” back in 1970.

“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.” — George Wald, Harvard Biologist

“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.” — Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“By…[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.” — Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“It is already too late to avoid mass starvation,” — Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day

“Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.” — Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University

“Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….” — Life Magazine, January 1970

“At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.” — Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

“Air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.” — Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

Ok, Ehrlich was sorta right on this, if you restrict his predictions to modern Communist China, where they are showing the typical communist/socialist contempt for the environment.

“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’” — Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

Now we get to my personal favorite, although probably not Al Gore‘s…
“The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years,” he declared. “If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.” — Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

2014 Update: Wired Magazine publishes this article: Renewables Aren’t Enough. Clean Coal Is the Future

It wouldn’t be Lenin’s Birthday with out this clip of the late George Carlin discussing “Saving the Planet.”

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Monday Book Pick: American Gun A History of the U.S. in Ten Firearms

Monday, January 15th, 2018

American Gun: A History of the U.S. in Ten Firearms by Chris Kyle with William Doyle
An interesting look at American history through the lens of ten historic firearms that helped shape the nation, and the people who used them. These include a Revolutionary War sniper using a highly accurate American Long Rifle, and Theodore Roosevelt. It was Roosevelt’s experience on San Juan Hill which lead to the development and adoption of the 1903 Springfield Rifle. While the technological aspect of the firearms is examined, who used them and how they were used is explored.

Monday Book Pick Archive

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Monday Book Pick: Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates

Monday, January 4th, 2016

Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates: The Forgotten War That Changed American History by Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger

This book covers an important piece of American history, the first foreign war fought by the United States. The Barbary nations associated with the Ottoman Empire practiced piracy and enslaved captured crews of any Nation that could not defend its merchant fleet or could not afford the “tributes” the leaders of the Barbary Coast nations demanded as the price to not have ships, cargos, and crews captured and sold. It was President Jefferson (the third President) who decided that continuing to pay foreign nations who held US citizens for ransom (while forcing them to perform hard labor as slaves), and continuing to raid US flagged merchant vessels, was bad policy. President Jefferson persuaded Congress to fund new Naval construction and personnel to take the fight to the Barbary pirate nations. This well researched book details the diplomatic front, as well as the battles fought by the US Navy and Marines.

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Monday Book Pick: George Washington’s Secret Six

Monday, February 16th, 2015

George Washington’s Secret Six by Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger

This well researched book looks into one of the first American spy rings. A group of Patriot spies operating in New York City and Long Island during the British occupation. These spies were key in multiple American victories, as well as foiling several British plots against the Patriot forces. These include foiling Benedict Arnold’s plan to hand West Point to the British, and the American victory at Yorktown

Monday Book Pick Archive

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A shining example of a modern progressive congressional democrat

Monday, August 11th, 2014

As reported recently,  democrat congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee stated, on the floor of the House, that the democrats never tried to impeach President G. W Bush, despite her being a co-sponsor a bill the democrat controlled House passed to impeach President Bush.

The staff of democrat congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee then not only refused to answer a reporter’s questions about her claim and her sponsorship of the bill, they threatened him with an IRS audit. Not exactly what you expect from a member of the “Peoples’ House” dedicated to Constitutional principles, like the First Amendment. Pretty typical for a modern, so called “progressive” democrat though.

On the other hand, you can understand why her staff is so protective of their meal ticket. SJL appears to be out to unseat current Vice-President Joe “Plugs” Biden as the gaffe master of Washington, D.C..

Her previous deviations from reality include: While observing images from a Mars Rover at the JPL, asking if the rover would pass by where Neil Armstrong planted the American flag; and giving an impassioned speech on the House floor describing how North and South Vietnam are able to work together and how that should be an inspiration to us as well.

For that Mars/Luna mix up, she was voting on the NASA budget at the time. No wonder we have to outsource getting our Astronauts in and out orbit to the Russians.

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