Andreas Achenbach, Whitewater in a Norwegian Forest, 1852

 

Imagine my surprise. The term "War Baby" now means the child of a parent who was part of an occupying force. The mother is assumed to be either a collaborator or a rape victim. And it's "War Children" now. More syllables, so more better.

War baby used to mean kids who were intentionally conceived before daddy went off to World War II. It was a big cohort at the time. After the war came the "Baby Boom". It was sort of cool, being a war baby. Still is, we get to criticize the boomers from the far side of the bell curve. Makes me authentic. Or something.

Food rationing, manual transmission cars with a choke on the dash, paper drives, the housing shortage, victory gardens; for them it was all just antique stuff from someone else's past. As were war babies. And that's my complaint for today.

Well gang, a bit of an abbreviated Woodpile Report this time. It's been a demanding week here at Woodpile Report Global Headquarters and Jiffy Screen Door Repair. I've cut corners everywhere I could to get it out at all. Captions, comments, mainly.

Next

The quote for this week comes from an essay, The Two Faces of American Exceptionalism, at Black Pigeon Speaks:

During the Civil War, ... biblical parallels were superimposed upon the Northern perspective: the war came to be viewed as necessary to attain redemption for indulging in the sin of enslavement, the fratricidal element was seen as following the steps of Cain and Abel and the death of President Lincoln was him being martyred for the restoration of the relationship between America and the Grand Architect.

I submit that this interpretation of events saw the American narrative transform from espousing Enlightenment ideals into a civil religion.

Next

Oleg Volk at Live Journal tells anti-gun fanatics to have a care:

"When Germans came into Poland, Poles made no more sporting shotguns.They made Sten clones. When Russians went into Chechniya, Chechens made no sporting shotguns, either. They made various submachine guns.

Should US anti-gun creatures succeed in driving regular rifles and shotguns out of legal circulation, they will see more submachine guns as well. American anti-gun activists don't understand just how simple open-bolt weapons really are".

Next

Found this on the 'net. If genuine, and it's widely accepted as such, it's evidence students didn't organize the anti-gun rally, much less to memorialize the murdered students of the Parkland school. Further, reputable sources say only ten per cent of the marchers were 18 or under, and the average age of the rest was 49.

Next

Malcom at Motus Mentis offers his thoughts on the "ever-deepening totalitarianism". An excerpt:

When we have an opinion that might run afoul of Cathedral orthodoxy, and we aren’t sure that we are in safe company, we are increasingly afraid, for fear of serious consequences, to say anything at all.

That is what’s happening now all over the West. Europe and Canada, who are aggressively criminalizing dissent, are farther down this road than we are; in the U.S. the penalties for heresy are still, for now, limited to boycotts, media hate-frenzies, loss of employment, and social expulsion.

 

1947. Western Electric ad

 

 

Remus's notebook

 

Shooter's Log - Remington Outdoor Company Surrendered to Creditors ... "America's oldest gunmaker"

Don Surber - Laura Ingraham is too weak ... said Baby Hitler David Hogg "whines", offended people who do not watch her show, she apologized. Idiot.

The Drive - Lockheed Martin Now Has a Patent For Its Potentially World Changing Fusion Reactor ... could have a working prototype as early as 2019

Lockheed Martin - Compact fusion

Ars Technica - NOAA just prevented SpaceX from showing its rocket in orbit ... "SpaceX will be intentionally ending live video coverage of the 2nd stage"

Market-Ticker - Trump's Gun Control (And Other Broken Promises): PA

WSB-TV Atlanta - DeKalb teacher faces murder charges in 2016 gang retaliation killings ... fifth grade teacher shoots two kids, 11 and 15, in home invasion

Daily Mail - Chanting protesters crash Sacramento council meeting ... also blocked fans from entering the NBA arena

Fox Twitter - Listen: 6th grade teacher caught in anti-Trump rant to students 0m 49s

Fox News - How hackers could turn a 'smart city' into a house of cards ... major hack could shut down city

YouTube - Chapter Jackson - It's Free Swipe Yo EBT (Explicit), video 4m 36s

It never gets old

Market Ticker - The Real Issue With Self-Driving Cars ... what is the vehicle's "prime directive"?

Western Journal - Delta Gave Free Airfare to Hundreds of Anti-Gun Activists ... when Delta severed its connection with the NRA, it said that neutrality would be its watchword

Gateway Pundit - Anti-Gun Activist David Hogg Raises Some Eyebrows After Recent Interview

"Hogg initially told the media he was in his AP Environmental Science class when he heard a “pop” sound and immediately recognized it as a gunshot. The 17-year-old student describes being huddled in a hot closet with other students during the shooting; he even filmed himself with a camera cell phone.

In a new CBS documentary about the Parkland students called “39 Days,” which aired on Saturday, Hogg says on the day of the shooting he grabbed his camera and quickly rode his bike 3 miles from his house to the school to get interviews."

Gateway Pundit - Al Sharpton’s Brother Charged in Shooting Murder One Day After Participating in Anti-Gun March

Daily Mail - London murder rate is higher than New York's for the first time ever ... London's rate has grown by nearly 40 per cent in just three years

Automatic Earth - The Core ... economic wealth and power is used to expand political power, further extracting the wealth of the Periphery to maintain the lifestyle of the Core

A bit overwrought and wordy, but probably the most original thinking posted on the net this week

City Journal - Reject the Diversity Mandate ... treating people the same way regardless of their race or sex used to be considered the definition of fairness; now it is understood to be vicious and intolerable

Business Insider - Dozens of local TV news anchors were forced to recite a speech about ‘false news’ controlling ‘exactly what people think’ ... excerpt:

"The irony went unnoticed – or at least unstopped – at Sinclair Broadcast Group, which over the last few days has required dozens of new anchors on its roughly 200 local TV stations in the US to read a dark message about “members of the media [who] use their platforms to push their own personal bias and agenda to control ‘exactly what people think’.” The message goes on to warn, “This is extremely dangerous to a democracy.”"

YouTube - This is extremely dangerous to our democracy! Video, 1m 36s ... a chorus of hand puppets

Those Who Can See - The Progressive Project: Re-Colonizing Africa ... the further colonialism recedes into the past, the more desperate Africa's situation becomes

Seeker - Earth Likely Had Water Prior to Moon-Forming Collision ... retention of as much as 70-95 percent

Natural News - New, little-seen report warns the nation’s power infrastructure is increasingly vulnerable to physical attacks ... U.S. electric grid is increasingly vulnerable

BBC - Never Again: Is gun control movement too white? ... why didn't they turn out for the Black Lives Matter movement

Campus Reform - Students earn credit for attending White Privilege Conference ... up to 3 academic credits through a course that requires them to attend the annual White Privilege Conference

Military Times - The atomic bomb that faded into South Carolina history ... the TNT trigger for the bomb blew a crater in Walter Gregg’s garden some 24 feet deep and 50 feet wide [photos]

Preparedness Advice - Sleeping Dry While Camping in the Rain ... no way is your tent waterproof, even with the rainfly if there’s enough rain

 

Stuff you may want to think about
Synopsis with links

 

Selco, Organic Prepper - The Dirty Truth About Water and Sanitation When the SHTF ... The biggest concerns in any long-term emergency are water and sanitation because the lack of these things can cause serious illness or even death. Because water and sanitation aren’t nearly as glamorous as guns and gadgets, they’re often overlooked in a preparedness plan. I asked Selco some questions about these important issues in this interview. The truth about it is dirty, unpleasant, and something for which you absolutely must plan.

 

Neanderthals, Ancient Origins - There is conclusive evidence that Neanderthals bred with modern humans (Homo sapiens). The first complete mapping of a Neanderthal genome took place about five years ago - supporting the human-Neanderthal hook-up and also showing that Neanderthal DNA in humans is a thing. One study showed that non-African people have approximately 1 to 4 percent Neanderthal DNA. Two more studies show that the Neanderthal DNA percentage in modern humans today is about 20%. Neanderthal DNA is completely absent from some parts of non-African genomes but rampant in others. Genes which have lived on are mostly the advantageous ones

Aeon - In to Asia ... new evidence about the ancient humans who occupied Asia is cascading in

 

Guns, Burning Platform - Here’s the deal – everything the liberals say about guns is a lie. It’s a lie when they scream that you can hit the Guns-2-Go drive-thru and buy yourself a fully semi-automatic assault machine gun. It’s a lie when they say an armed citizenry would be powerless in the face of a leftist government equipped with tanks and artillery and bombers. It’s a lie when they say they only want to have a “conversation” and seek only “bipartisan compromise.” They want us disarmed because they want us disenfranchised, discouraged, and no longer disobedient. They want us broken.

 

Uncivil society, Taki's Magazine - There have probably always been transsexuals, however, a full-scale ideological movement has grown up that will not be satisfied until the rest of society accedes to its demands. As a result of the supine acceptance of the ideology, it seems that full-scale experiments are being conducted on children, such as the use of puberty-blocking drugs, by doctors without any clear idea of the long-term outcome—experiments only somewhat ethically superior to those of Dr. Mengele. It's astonishing that an insignificant proportion of the population has been able to create an atmosphere in which well-meaning, honest, and respectable people, including experts, are unwilling for fear of reprisal to express dissenting views.

 

Hyper-liberal, Times Literary Supplement - What has happened in higher education is not that liberalism has been supplanted by some other ruling philosophy. Instead, a hyper-liberal ideology has developed that aims to purge society of any trace of other views of the world. Liberals who rail at populist movements are adamant that voters who support them are deluded or deceived. The possibility that these movements are exploiting needs that highly individualist societies cannot satisfy is not seriously considered. Some of the strongest evidence against the liberal belief that we learn from our errors and follies comes from the behaviour of liberals themselves.

 

1937. Minot, North Dakota

 

Minot is a small city of about 49,000 in the northwest quadrant of North Dakota. Population in 1937 was 16,500. Minot began as a tent city at Great Northern's "end of track" for the year's construction. The town took its name from railroad financier Henry Minot.

The sign tells us Minot Vulcanizing also offered glass for all cars, fenders made like new, starters and generators repaired.

 

More stuff you may want to think about
Synopsis with links

 

Exoplanet camera, Next Big Future - A mission to the focal area of the solar gravitational lens could deliver direct megapixel imaging and high-resolution spectroscopy of a habitable Earth-like exoplanet orbiting a host star at a distance of up to 30 parsec [98 light years]. The telescope will take photometric data of the Einstein ring around the Sun formed by the light from the exoplanet and will process the data to reconstruct the image of the exoplanet with a few km-scale resolution of its surface, enough to see its surface features and signs of habitability.

 

Hockey stick, Principia Scientific - Curiously, the corrupt and error-ridden data contributing to Arctic 2k dataset seemed to go in one direction and one direction only: they cooled the past and warmed the present. As suggested, the reason why the “hockey stick” blade was added to the partially corrected “global” PAGES 2k record was to visually persuade readers that the modern period is anomalous and unusual. But if we look at the presented data from all 7 regions in PAGES 2k from another angle, a distinct pattern emerges that identifies the modern temperatures as the norm, and the mid-1300s to early 1900s cooling period as the exception. The 20th century warmth is merely a return to the normal temperatures that characterized most of the Late Holocene.

 

Oxygen, Universe Today - By the Paleoproterozoic Era (2.5–1.6 billion years ago), a dramatic change occurred where oxygen began to be introduced to the atmosphere – known as the Great Oxidation Event. Until recently, scientists were not sure if this event – which was the result of photosynthetic bacteria altering the atmosphere – occurred rapidly or not. However, according to a recent study this event was much more rapid than previously thought. Based on newly-discovered geological evidence, the team concluded that the introduction of oxygen to our atmosphere was “more like a fire hose” than a trickle.

 

Demerit, Unz Review - When the best-person-for-the-job ethos gives way to racial and gender window-dressing and to the enforcement of politically pleasing perspectives; things start to fall apart. A spanking new bridge collapses, new trains on maiden trips derail, Navy ships keep colliding, police and FBI failure and bad faith become endemic, and the protocols put in place by a government “for the people” protect offending public servants who’ve acted against the people. The U.S. government hasn’t had an entrance test since 1982. Universities run a “dual admissions system”—“one admissions pool for white applicants and another, far less competitive, pool for minorities.”

 

1937. Hagerstown Maryland

 

 

Even more stuff you may want to think about
Synopsis with links

 

Equality, Campus Reform - The University of Rochester student government is now requiring all “gender-specific” student groups, such as fraternities annually apply for permission from the Students’ Association to continue excluding the opposite sex and produce evidence that they provide all of their members with educational programming on LGBTQ issues.

 

Hardest Course in the Humanities, Chronicle of Higher Education - It’s modeled on Auden’s 1941 course, with a few changes. When enrollment opened last semester, the unexpected happened. The course filled up within minutes. Harper had already warned his students, "This is the hardest class you will ever take." The syllabus was posted online in advance, so that students knew exactly what they were getting into. To accommodate the unexpected demand, the class was expanded from 22 to 30 students, the maximum number that the assigned classroom could hold. The Auden-based course at Oklahoma is a small but significant instance of how it may be done.

 

DC, Sultan Knish - It’s hard to think of three worse choices to discuss income inequality and oligarchy than three millionaires with more than a dozen homes between them who treat their employees like garbage. But Sanders, Warren and Moore aren’t just random rich people. They’re poverty pimps who got rich by pretending that they had something to say about the plight of working class people in America. Washington D.C. is full of poverty pimps. The one thing that they have in common is that they get rich by keeping the poor where they are. What leftists are really peddling is a revolution that will leave them even more on top than they already are.

 

Nuclear fusion, American Thinker - If environmentalists are so concerned about population growth, why do they seem to unanimously support the use of wind and solar power? The answer is because these forms of energy are more expensive than fossil fuels, which means it's unlikely they could soon catalyze population growth in the same way nuclear fusion could. For example, solar power is three times more expensive than power generated from existing natural gas or nuclear plants. If nuclear fusion becomes the world's most important power source in the twenty-first century, you can expect the climate change crisis to quickly evaporate. In its place, the "Population Bomb" will again rear its horrifying head.

 

D-Day, History Net - Death and destruction were widespread in Normandy, but as many as 156 Canadians killed by the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend in the aftermath of the Allied invasion were not combat casualties—they were murder victims. Hailing from Nova Scotia’s isolated and impoverished mining and farming towns, the Canadians were killed while trying to surrender or executed well after their capture. The spate of murders committed by young fanatics of the Hitlerjugend constitutes one of the most savage war crimes committed during the Allied campaign in northwestern Europe.

 

1945. Berlin Germany

 

A Soviet ISU-122 self-propelled gun greets captured defenders of Berlin on a dismal day in May of 1945. Some of these infantrymen were drafted, outfitted, handed a rifle, sent against the Soviets and were captured all within a couple of weeks. Ahead lies Stalin's camps, and for those who survive, years of abuse and hard labor before release.

The ISU-122 was a 122mm artillery piece mounted on the IS-2 heavy tank hull. It was mainly used against German tanks but was often used as mobile artillery in support of the infantry.

This is number
523

3 Apr 2018