Backroom Errata

[Montmorency]

A properly Lovecraftian story out of Merrie Olde Englande.

Related to military history!

Human remains have been discovered at the former home of a military historian who was jailed for stalking and for possessing an arsenal of illegal weaponry.

For the past four days there has been a heavy police presence at the former home of Kenneth Ward. Ward, 72, was jailed in December 2011 for indecent exposure and weapons offences after police found a huge haul of weapons including a loaded Luger pistol under his pillow and the cockpit of a second world war fighter plane with working machine guns at his remote cottage.

On Tuesday up to six officers began digging up a plot at Appletree Cottage in Chop Gate on the edge of the North York Moors national park. Police said they were working with a forensic archaeologist, after the discovery of suspected human bones. It is understood the cottage is now in the hands of new owners, but was previously owned by Ward’s family for more than 300 years.

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A spokesman for North Yorkshire police said: “Although it is too early to say precisely how old these bones are, current forensic investigations suggest they are not recent and are likely to be several decades old. Specialists are being used to recover and examine them.

“We’d ask people not to speculate online about the nature of the bones while this process is under way.”

Ward’s neighbour Mandy Dunford said police arrived three days ago and there had been a lot of activity ever since. “They are searching the property and people in the Dale have been told that human remains have been found,” she said. “It’s very concerning.”

Dunford, 59, suffered a nine-year campaign of intimidation from Ward, who would creep around her property naked, sometimes dressed only in military boots, shouldering a rifle.

She revealed her ordeal in 2015 after Ward was released from prison and tried to move back to his home – but was prevented from doing so after intervention from the current chancellor, Rishi Sunak, Dunford’s MP.

Dunford said of Ward: “That man put me through hell, and even though he was prevented from coming back here I can’t seem to shake off his memory.”

Ward, an eccentric military expert, was arrested after police discovered a huge cache of bombs and live weaponry at his cottage. RAF bomb squad officers were brought in to carry out controlled explosions on the moorland above his isolated home.

Ward was subsequently jailed at Teesside crown court after admitting 11 counts of exposure, three charges of possessing a prohibited firearm and seven other firearms offences.

At the time Dunford, a retired police officer, said Ward’s behaviour became increasingly erratic after the death of his brother, Brian, in 2002.

She said: “He first started exposing himself to me around 2002 and would peer in through my windows with his wild staring eyes. He would run around the house at night, shouting and tapping on the windows. When I was working during the day he would come right up to me and follow me around wearing nothing but boots and socks.

“Sometimes he would climb a ladder and expose himself over the wall of his cottage, and once he confronted me on the lane and aimed a rifle at me. I turned and ran and heard five shots go off behind me, I was terrified.

“He had a favourite stone on the lane next to my house where he used to stand to watch me with his pants down and shirt pulled up. He would stand there for hours and hours every day. Terrorising me became the only focus of his life. I went to the police to report him but their response was hopeless.”

Five North Yorkshire police officers were subsequently reprimanded after an internal disciplinary inquiry concluded they failed to meet “appropriate investigatory standards”.

[Montmorency]

Gilrandir, do you have any thoughts about the Ukrainian IMF-alignment land/banking reform?

Original coronavirus testing joke: Clinicians have taken to carving ищи вирус сука onto their testing kits.

[Gilrandir]

Gilrandir, do you have any thoughts about the Ukrainian IMF-alignment land/banking reform?

Original coronavirus testing joke: Clinicians have taken to carving ищи вирус сука onto their testing kits.

These are two different reforms that have only one thing in common: they are insisted upon by the IMF to give us a loan.

As for the land reform, I believe land should be for sale (and I'm sure it already is, only illegaly). The problem is with the conditions on which people will buy it. The most wide spread fear is that oligarchs and foreigners will buy it while Ukrainian farmers won't have money to do it. Or that Russians will buy it. I didn't get too deep into the said conditions stipulated by the law, but I know that at first (till 2024) one person can buy up to 100 hectars and no Russians are allowed to do it. Sounds fine, but as is always the case with Ukraine, map is not territory, so one can never tell wheter the law will function as it is supposed to and no infringements will be attempted.

The banking reform is not much of a reform. The essence of the bill is to forbid Kolomoisky from getting compensation for Privat bank (a huge sum) which was saved by the state form bankruptcy by nationalizing it a couple of years ago. Kolomoisky holds way over a large portion of the president's party and faction in the parliament so he puts up a prodigious resistence. The bill was adopted in the first reading and one more is needed for it to become a law, but Kolomoisky's minions offered about 13 000 amendments to postpone the final law adoption and many deputies complain of threats they get texted on their phones, so the fight is far from being over.

[Montmorency]

US Navy Fleet Size (WWII) - Visualization. (Like this, but more visually engaging.)

https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/1946485/

Wowee.

[Greyblades]

You think the Duplex Drive equipped Shermans were counted among the AMPHIB?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

You think the Duplex Drive equipped Shermans were counted among the AMPHIB?

They were rated to handle 0.5m waves....

So Amphibious, yes, for certain values of amphibious.

At Normandy, of course, seas were running 1-2m, hence the preponderance of late launches or sinkings.

[Crandar]

This evil image managed to trigger the entirety of Greek media and twitter. Our local experts concluded that the persons depicted represent the countries, so they interpreted tiny, little Greece holding the hand of mom Turkey as a diplomatic insult.

[Montmorency]

Jesus Christ, another irreparably damaged country.
https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/...pponents-again

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

After three weeks of negotiations, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and leading opposition figure Benny Gantz agreed to form a national unity government last week. While the idea of a unity government between Netanyau’s right-wing Likud party and Gantz’s centrist Blue and White bloc had been discussed on both sides over the past year, what finally broke the logjam after three inconclusive elections since April 2019 was the public health crisis and economic recession caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Gantz, facing the difficult choice of breaking his core campaign promise to not serve alongside Netanyahu or taking Israel to a costly fourth election amid a national emergency, chose the former.

Gantz’s explosively controversial move has rippled through the Knesset, Israel’s 120-seat legislature, drastically altering the political landscape. First, the announcement of the unity government precipitated the breakup of Blue and White and its four-member leadership team, known in Israel as the “cockpit.” Gantz and co-chief Gabi Ashkenazi, both former heads of the Israel Defense Forces, pursued talks with Netanyahu, while the two other Blue and White leaders, former Finance Minister Yair Lapid and former Defense Minister and IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Ya’alon, established themselves as the largest opposition party by merging their previous parties, Yesh Atid and Telem.

Even within smaller factions, Gantz’s decision caused churn. The left-wing Labor-Meretz alliance has broken up, with Labor electing to join Gantz in the government and Meretz remaining in the opposition. But Labor’s remaining lawmakers in the Knesset—now only three—were split over the decision of whether or not to enter the government. Meanwhile, Ya’alon’s two Telem acolytes are leaving him to establish their own two-man party in order to break away from Gantz.

The unity government agreement may have ended Israel’s seemingly never-ending election cycle, but it puts Israel’s normal governing structures on hold. While Israeli governments have a default term of 48 months, the coalition agreement establishes a 36-month term, with Netanyahu staying on as prime minister for the first 18 months and Gantz taking over for the other half. It also creates a new position of alternate prime minister, which will be filled first by Gantz, then by Netanyahu. The purpose of this is ostensibly to avoid having to swear in a new government after the first 18 months, but the true purpose is to allow Netanyahu to maintain all of the trappings and privileges of the office after he steps down.

More importantly, Netanyahu is set to stand trial soon on multiple charges of corruption in three separate cases. Staying in power means he won’t be subject to the Israeli law that mandates the immediate resignation of any minister other than the prime minister upon being indicted. And even if convicted, he wouldn’t be required to step down until all pathways to appeal have been exhausted.

The Netanyahu-Gantz deal also establishes an emergency government for the first six months in order to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 200 Israelis and sickened over 15,000. No significant legislation other than that pertaining to COVID-19 can be introduced during that timeframe. There is, however, one glaring exception to this rule: Israeli annexation of territory in the West Bank, a key campaign promise of Netanyahu. The coalition agreement sets a date of July 1 for the government to begin annexing the West Bank and applying Israeli sovereignty to settlements, subject to coordination with President Donald Trump’s administration and according to the parameters laid out in the American peace plan that Trump unveiled in January.

Gantz had previously demanded veto power over plans for annexation of the West Bank, and that it be conditioned on the assent of the Jordanian government and the international community. But the deal he signed with Netanyahu cedes both of those points, putting the decision solely in Netanyahu’s hands and prohibiting any delay tactics from ministers or legislators. Given the singular prominence granted to the issue in the agreement and the fact that the Trump administration has repeatedly claimed that the political deadlock in Israel is hampering implementation of its “deal of the century,” the most significant and lasting aspect of the unity agreement may be that it enables annexation to be carried out.

For Netanyahu, the deal is an unquestionable win. He remains prime minister despite facing the stiffest electoral challenge to his leadership so far over the past year, and will reap the benefits of remaining in office while facing legal proceedings. His victory was made possible by the political opposition, which dropped its primary campaign issue of not serving under an indicted prime minister in order to join him, destroying its own internal cohesion and structure in the process. In addition, Netanyahu secured a high-profile policy victory on annexation, and also secured a veto over the appointment of officials who will have a say in his legal fate, including the next attorney general and state attorney.

Gantz also secured some clear accomplishments. He becomes defense minister with a clear path and timeframe to becoming prime minister, and secured parity for his party with Netanyahu’s camp in the number of Cabinet ministers and committee chairpersons. He also avoids a fourth election, which, after the schism that resulted from his decision to seek a government with Netanyahu, would have decimated his party and reduced his political relevance.

But Gantz has suffered in the Israeli public’s eyes by conceding every principle and red line that he had previously voiced—from refusing to serve under Netanyahu to safeguarding legal and judicial institutions to preventing annexation of the West Bank. There are also some trapdoors for Gantz built into the agreement. Under the terms of the deal, the government will collapse if he and his party vote against one of Netanyahu’s budgets or do not maintain coalition discipline on annexation.

Even if he complies with the deal to its last letter, Gantz’s political future is murky. Less than a third of the Israeli public believes that Netanyahu will honor the deal and hand over the premiership to Gantz in 18 months. While the agreement appears on its face to be a political exit plan for Netanyahu, it may turn out to be the foundation of his next act.

This is like the fable of the king and the donkey.

Once upon a time, there was a king who had a donkey. He wanted him to speak.

So, the king ordered Juha to teach the donkey to speak, and if Juha could not do that then the king would kill him.

Juha agreed to teach the donkey to speak on the condition that the king would give him 20 years to do that.

The king agreed.

Then Juha went home to his wife and told her what the king had ordered him to do.

His wife was worried about him and she said, ‘Have you ever seen a donkey that speaks? Do you want to be killed?’

Juha laughed and said, ‘Don’t worry. I have 20 years to do this. During these 20 years, either the donkey will die, or I will die, or the king will die!’

This evil image managed to trigger the entirety of Greek media and twitter. Our local experts concluded that the persons depicted represent the countries, so they interpreted tiny, little Greece holding the hand of mom Turkey as a diplomatic insult.

I can kind of see it. Greece as Turkey and China's child. Should have put Chinese in the kid's mouth instead.

[Montmorency]

General Electric Wants To Keep America's B-52s In The Air Until 2097 (At Least)

General Electric is trying to convince the Air Force and congressional bean counters that its re-engining program could extend the lifespan of the B-52 platform more than seventy years into the future. The Air Force has already planned to keep the planes in the air through the 2040s even as the new B-21 Raider stealth bomber comes into service as well, but General Electric thinks the B-52 has a little more life left in it to give. Nearly sixty more years worth, to be exact.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

There is nothing quite like the BUFF...

[Montmorency]

China forces through Hong Kong Patriot Act


Germany has a mixed record with fascist lustration, but this seems welcome.

Germany Disbands Special Forces Group Tainted by Far-Right Extremists

Germany’s defense minister announced Wednesday that she would partially disband the most elite and highly trained special forces in the country, saying it had been infiltrated by far-right extremism. The defense minister, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, said one of four fighting companies inside the special forces had become so infested with far-right extremism that it would be dissolved. The rest of the special forces unit, known by its German acronym, KSK, has until the end of October to overhaul its recruitment, training and leadership practices before being allowed to rejoin any international military exercises or missions... The announcement came six weeks after investigators discovered a trove of Nazi memorabilia and an extensive arsenal of stolen ammunition and explosives on the property of a sergeant major who had served in the KSK since 2001.

A committee was formed to report back on far-right extremism in the special forces and to propose measures to combat it. New legislation was passed to make it easier to fire far-right soldiers. And, crucially, the KSK and the rest of the military has been ordered to account for missing weapons and ammunition. Some 48,000 rounds of ammunition and 62 kilograms worth of explosives have gone missing from the special forces, said Gen. Eberhard Zorn, inspector general of the armed forces and co-author of the report on the special forces that was presented on Wednesday. The missing weapons and ammunition have added to concerns that the recent raid was only the tip of the iceberg... “Do we have terrorist cells inside our military? I never thought I would ask that question, but we have to,” said Patrick Sensburg, a conservative lawmaker on the intelligence oversight committee and president of the reservist association. The commander of the KSK, Gen. Markus Kreitmayr, wrote a three-page letter to his troops after the recent raid, in which he addressed far-right soldiers directly: “You don’t deserve our camaraderie!” he wrote, urging them to leave the unit on their own. “If you don’t, you will realize that we will find you and get rid of you!”

A couple of studies (one just-published) on the concepts of electoral manipulation or interference. I have not read them but they sound interesting, the first one the most so as it is open-access and research-based.

When the Great Power Gets a Vote: The Effects of Great Power Electoral Interventions on Election Results

What are the electoral consequences of attempts by great powers to intervene in a partisan manner in another country’s elections? Great powers frequently deploy partisan electoral interventions as a major foreign policy tool. For example, the U.S. and the USSR/Russia have intervened in one of every nine competitive national level executive elections between 1946 and 2000. However, scant scholarly research has been conducted about their effects on the election results in the target. I argue that such interventions usually significantly increase the electoral chances of the aided candidate and that overt interventions are more effective than covert interventions. I then test these hypotheses utilizing a new, original dataset of all U.S. and USSR/Russian partisan electoral interventions between 1946 and 2000. I find strong support for both arguments.

On the concept of political manipulation

Much liberal-democratic thought has concerned itself primarily – even exclusively – with coercive interference in citizens’ lives. But political actors do things – they engage in influential speech, they offer incentives, they mislead other actors, they disrupt the expected functioning of decision-making mechanisms etc. – that fall short of coercion, yet may nonetheless call for normative evaluation and public justification, precisely because they serve to purposively alter citizens’ beliefs, intentions and behaviour. With this article, I explicate a conception of political manipulation to capture this sort of interference, and to distinguish individual manipulation from the manipulation of nonindividual agents like committees, institutions and states. The account, beyond being necessary for further work on the ethics of political manipulation, should prove useful to both normative thinkers interested in power, justice and the ethics of democratic decision-making, and empirical scholars in search of a conceptual apparatus to sharpen their investigations into the exercise of subtle forms of political power.

There is nothing quite like the BUFF...

A weapon platform that will outlive everyone who ever crewed it in its prime. Maybe in celebration of 100 years of Major Kong, we can have a world war.

[Montmorency]

Another one of these:

A 37-year-old Ohio man who claimed the coronavirus pandemic was just 'hype' and repeatedly refused to wear a face mask has died from COVID-19.

Richard Rose, a staunch supporter of Donald Trump, wrote on Facebook on July 1 that he was experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, and went to get tested.

The U.S. Army veteran, who served for nine years and did two tours of Iraq and Afghanistan, tested positive.

He died from the virus at his home in Port Clinton, Ohio, on July 4.

Apparently Q-Anon is big everywhere these days. This scene from Germany is incredible stage design by the writing team (scan closely).

[Papewaio]

Another one of these:





Apparently Q-Anon is big everywhere these days. This scene from Germany is incredible stage design by the writing team (scan closely).

Does that count as a Darwin Award?

[CrossLOPER]

Does that count as a Darwin Award?

Well maybe he didn't die from COVID-19. Maybe he died from something else. There should be an investigation into the statistics.

[Hooahguy]

Attempted murder on a judge in New Jersey.

The judge wasn't injured, but her husband was shot and her son was killed. Very tragic.

What makes this interesting is that Judge Salas was assigned to the case suing Deutsche Bank over relations to Jeffrey Epstein only four days ago. And the guy was in a Fedex uniform. Forgive me for being a bit conspiratorial, but this really seems to have been a hit.

Edit- apparently it was a mens rights activist: https://people.com/crime/anti-femini...e-son-killing/

[Montmorency]

I didn't think this would prove so appropriate.




This one might have a deeper meaning.

[Pannonian]

I didn't think this would prove so appropriate.




This one might have a deeper meaning.

As a matter of interest, the lady in the Airplane clip was the lady who did this commercial, which was referenced by the film. And it was she who suggested that this scene, originally written with just Nielsen, be extended to include ever more ridiculous proponents of violence.

Another coffee scene referenced by Airplane. One can't help but fill in the missing line.

[Montmorency]

Map of 1945 incendiary attacks on Japanese cities, with estimated damage level, from a 1945 Army report. You'll hear about the numbers here and there, but I didn't know there was a map done.

[Pannonian]

Map of 1945 incendiary attacks on Japanese cities, with estimated damage level, from a 1945 Army report. You'll hear about the numbers here and there, but I didn't know there was a map done.

Is there any truth to the story I've heard that a Japanophile in the US hierarchy specifically barred Kyoto from attack for its history?

[ReluctantSamurai]

Not taking any government crap here in Michigan:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-lake-michigan

....now if we could just train them to remove DHS agents....

[Montmorency]

Is there any truth to the story I've heard that a Japanophile in the US hierarchy specifically barred Kyoto from attack for its history?

Henry Stimson, Secretary of War, honeymooned in Kyoto and liked it. He was one of the architects/overseers of the Manhattan Project, and a prominent advocate of the use of nuclear weapons against Japan, as well as of MAD.

[Pannonian]

Henry Stimson, Secretary of War, honeymooned in Kyoto and liked it. He was one of the architects/overseers of the Manhattan Project, and a prominent advocate of the use of nuclear weapons against Japan, as well as of MAD.

So I didn't misremember the story. According to this, Stimson, who effectively had a veto whenever he chose to exercise it, wasn't a fan of mass bombing, and insistent on Kyoto being left alone.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

So I didn't misremember the story. According to this, Stimson, who effectively had a veto whenever he chose to exercise it, wasn't a fan of mass bombing, and insistent on Kyoto being left alone.

As I recall, there was some concern that firebombing Kyoto would end up killing the Emperor -- and they were NOT sure if that would help or hinder. After the island campaigns of 1942, 1943, and the first part of 1944, there was not a lot of "happy happy joy joy" about invading the home islands. We wanted a surrender.

[Montmorency]

Of course Nuclear Secrecy is the first stop on Hiroshima/Nagasaki historiography. I actually lifted the map above from one of the posts.

Wellerstein's collations are especially useful for the insights they offer on leadership psychology and epistemology. I wonder what Truman's awareness of the toll of the Korean War was.

[Strike For The South]

The Atomic bomb gets so much attention because it is not dozens of sorties with hundereds of planes dropping thousands of pounds of ordinance. It is one trip, one plane, and one bomb. It is much easier for the human mind to digest that kind of single snapshot of destruction rather than the logistical enormity that was the USAA in the final two years of the war.

The more depressing thing should be that the war machine kept rolling and that guys like LeMay and Macarthur advocated nukes in order to save lives.

[Hooahguy]

Something people often forget when discussing the atomic bombs is the fact that carpet bombing cities was the norm for the war and only much later did that sort of bombing raid become taboo. As my favorite history podcaster put it, it was logical insanity.

[Montmorency]

To be fair, carpet bombing was not a norm just like that, and strategic or terror bombing was pretty much universally condemned at the outset of the war. It developed over the course of the war in a series of accumulated escalations and path dependencies. The carpet bombing we know and love wasn't really mature until at least 1943. The systematic demolition of Japanese cities had hardly begun by the time Germany surrendered. The British and American air forces had some kind of unprecedented autonomy to sort things out for themselves during this war - and they had that institutional incentive to interpose their branch - and there may not have been much political oversight or understanding of what was actually happening, let alone popular consciousness of the issues.

[Pannonian]

To be fair, carpet bombing was not a norm just like that, and strategic or terror bombing was pretty much universally condemned at the outset of the war. It developed over the course of the war in a series of accumulated escalations and path dependencies. The carpet bombing we know and love wasn't really mature until at least 1943. The systematic demolition of Japanese cities had hardly begun by the time Germany surrendered. The British and American air forces had some kind of unprecedented autonomy to sort things out for themselves during this war - and they had that institutional incentive to interpose their branch - and there may not have been much political oversight or understanding of what was actually happening, let alone popular consciousness of the issues.

Strategic bombing was initially the only way of taking the war to Germany other than in peripheral theatres. You either left Germany alone to do whatever they liked. Or if you wanted to put a spoke in their wheels, then the only way was to use strategic bombers. Then Germany surrendered, and you had a huge strategic bomber force with nothing to do.

[Hooahguy]

To be fair, carpet bombing was not a norm just like that, and strategic or terror bombing was pretty much universally condemned at the outset of the war. It developed over the course of the war in a series of accumulated escalations and path dependencies. The carpet bombing we know and love wasn't really mature until at least 1943. The systematic demolition of Japanese cities had hardly begun by the time Germany surrendered. The British and American air forces had some kind of unprecedented autonomy to sort things out for themselves during this war - and they had that institutional incentive to interpose their branch - and there may not have been much political oversight or understanding of what was actually happening, let alone popular consciousness of the issues.

You're right, I should have clarified that it was the norm by the end of the war, and you are right that it was an escalating tit-for-tat game which ended in the firebombing of cities to the ground. I think there was some consciousness about it (see Churchill's alleged "are we beasts?" remark) but I honestly think people just didnt care all that much. I find it hard to believe that a population inundated with racist anti-Japanese propaganda is going to also care about firebombing their cities. I also admit I havent researched this specific topic all too much.

[Pannonian]

You're right, I should have clarified that it was the norm by the end of the war, and you are right that it was an escalating tit-for-tat game which ended in the firebombing of cities to the ground. I think there was some consciousness about it (see Churchill's alleged "are we beasts?" remark) but I honestly think people just didnt care all that much. I find it hard to believe that a population inundated with racist anti-Japanese propaganda is going to also care about firebombing their cities. I also admit I havent researched this specific topic all too much.

Racist anti-Japanese propaganda may have had some effect on attitudes on the ground, with a marked difference in approach between the European and Pacific theatres (but then, Japanese behaviour rather encouraged this too). However, I see little difference in attitudes towards Germany and Japan in the air war. The resources and strategies for the immensely destructive air war on Japan were developed for use on Germany.