Chain of Command

I posted before about how my Son-In-Law the Chief has been deployed on the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt.  Those of you who have been in the military or its orbit know what this means to his wife and kids.  Military families are in a basic sense the core of our armed forces, and knowing that their families are doing okay is as important to our military as it was to Centurion Macrinus in the Roman Legions.

But it's hard for those left at home.  It's juggling school and work and (yes) a lot of military stuff - military families look out for their own.  My step-daughter is in nursing school with all of this and was turned down for base day care for her young kids.

But then the Chain Of Command kicked in.  My S-I-L the Chief went to the U.S.S. TR's Command Master Chief and explained the problem.  The Base Command Master Chief got a phone call from the TR, and then the Base Day Care organization got a call from the Base Command Master Chief.  Suddenly, the problem was addressed.  The military looks after their own and the Chain Of Command worked brilliantly.  

This time.

Aesop talks about how the Chain Of Command has broken down.  Go, read.  That Chain of Command is broken, from the top.  It's not always this way.  I posted this video years ago, a graduation speech from the Air Force Academy; a lesson on the Chain of Command taking care of what needs taken care of. It's particularly important around 40:15.  

(You should really watch the whole thing which is entirely excellent, but at least watch it to 41:30)

That's a chain of command that's worth a damn.  But that was then, and this is now.  My Son-In-Law saw what needed to be done, and his chain of command supported him.  It's a damn good thing that he didn't need to route this request through this Congress of Clowns in the Pentagon E-Ring.  What a pathetic bunch of losers.  No doubt they will all end up with cushy positions on the Board of Directors of some Defense Contractor.

Like I said, go read Aesop.  He says it differently, but he says it well.

Dad Joke XI

What's blue and smells like red paint?

Blue paint.

Busy

Nothing like 2 levels of management above you leave the company to give new meaning to the word "busy".  I'm hopping like the one legged waitress at the iHop ... 

Dad Joke X

My wife does a great job ironing.  I'm completely impressed. 

(ducks)

Dad Joke IX

Dad, your jokes are hilarious.  I think I have your sense of humor. 

Well, you need to give it back.  Fill up the tank first.

Donald Trump's legacy

Adam Piggott says something that I have been thinking for a while:

Trump was here to draw aside the curtain and calmly show us that everything that we thought was true and good was only a pile of lies. From government, to the media, to world organisations, to modern thinking and philosophies, to everyday people that you meet on the street, all has been revealed for what it is. The purpose of this time is not to return you to a comfortable life. It is to wake you up and force you to make a decision of whether you will continue to be woken up or if you will willingly crawl in bed with those of the grave. You know it’s not steak but it just tastes so damn good.

In regards to this burden Trump has been spectacularly successful. For a few of us, there is no putting the lid back on this box. The force of Trump has forced people to pick a side. Among your own family, friends and colleagues, you now know where they stand. You even know where complete strangers stand; driving alone in your car wearing a mask anyone?

The reference to the steak, of course, is from the iconic film The Matrix.  I have been thinking for a while that Donald Trump has "Red Pilled" millions of Americans.  The Red Pill reference, of course, if from the film The Matrix:

Back in 2014 I wrote about the "Red Pill/Blue Pill" comparison as it applies to government :

The Dark Enlightenment is a topic that is getting more and more attention, even from mainstream publications.  I've touched on it here ("Barack Obama is a communist" is perhaps the best opening line to a post I've ever written), but an old post from Isegoria (you do read him every day, don't you?) gives the best introduction to the topic, phrased in explicitly "Blue Pill"/"Red Pill" terminology:

The nature of the state

• The state is established by citizens to serve their needs. Its actions are generally righteous.
• The state is just another giant corporation. Its actions generally advance its own interests. Sometimes these interests coincide with ours, sometimes they don’t.

The power structure of the West

• Power in the West is held by the people, who have to guard it closely against corrupt politicians and corporations.
• Power in the West is held by the civil service, that is, the permanent employees of the state. In any struggle between the civil service and politicians or corporations, the civil service wins.

The extent of the state

• The state consists of elected officials and their appointees.
• The state consists of all those whose interests are aligned with the state. This includes NGOs, universities, and the press, all of whose employees are effectively civil servants, and side with the civil service in almost all conflicts.

The last one in particular is a concise description of what is called the "Cathedral" - social institutions not directly subject to the Throne but which work in explicit or implicit ways to support it.

You should click through the link to Isegoria's post which discusses ten specific comparisons.  Isegoria picked these up from Mencious Moldbug, who is typically wordy:

Have you ever considered the possibility that democracy is bunk?

I grew up believing in democracy. I’ll bet you did too. I spent 20 years of my life in democratic schools. I’ll bet you did too.

Suppose you were a Catholic in 16th-century Spain. Imagine how hard it would be for you to stop believing in Catholicism.

You are a Catholic. Your parents were Catholics. You were educated by Catholics. You are governed by Catholics. All your friends are Catholics. All the books you’ve ever read were written by Catholics.

Sure, you’re aware that not everyone in the world is a Catholic.You’re also aware that this is the cause of all the violence, death and destruction in the world.

Look at what Protestants do when they get into power. They nail genitals to the city gates. They behead their own wives. Crazy stuff!And let’s not even start on the Turks…

Now suppose you’re you. But you have a time machine that lets you talk to this 16th-century Spanish Catholic version of you.

How do you convince this guy or gal that the answer to all the world’s problems is not “more Catholicism”? How do you say, um, dude, this Trinity thing—the virgin birth—transsubstantiation… ya know…

So you see how hard it is to explain that democracy is bunk.

And along came Donald Trump and showed millions of Americans what is going on behind the curtain.  That toothpaste isn't going back in the tube.  I expect that's why they hate him so much.

Dad Joke VIII

What do you call an iguana in a snowstorm?  A blizzard. 

And watch out!  They may be falling.

Dad Joke VII

Some people think my Dad Jokes are childish, which is crazy.  They are obviously full groan jokes.

Juvat, you wanted me to schedule a daily groan for you ...

Cale Moon - She's Got My Heart

If you like real country music - as opposed to the current country "Bro Pop" nonsense - then Cale Moon may be just the guy for you.  I ran across him by accident: he was giving a street concert as I was walking Wolfgang.  He's good.

He also likes Wolfgang (I assume his "Hello, beautiful" was aimed at Wolfgang, not me).   

It's hard to find much information about his music (not sure if he writes his own music, and I can't find lyrics).  But like I said if you like country music like George Straight serves it up, you'll like Moon.

The Queen Of The World suggested this song, and because she's got my heart it's today's musical selection.  Enjoy.

Dad Joke VI

I used to be addicted to the Hokey-Pokey but I turned myself around.

Slouching towards the abyss

The Political Class combines cluelessness and rapaciousness in a way that would have 18th Century French aristocrats scribbling notes:

For decades now, across the board, nearly every policy that’s been pushed by the establishment here in the US and in most other industrial nations has benefited the middle classes at the expense of the working classes. That’s why we’ve gone from the situation in 1960, when one working class income could support a family comfortably, to the situation in 2020, when one working class income won’t keep a family off the street.  Those changes weren’t accidental, nor were they inevitable; they were the results of readily identifiable policies pushed by a bipartisan consensus, and defended by government, corporate, and media flacks with a disingenuousness that borders on the pathological.

The difficulty we’re in now, of course, is that a very large number of people are aware of this, and they’re far from happy about it. Here in the United States, a vast number of citizens—quite probably a majority—believe that they live under a senile kleptocracy propped up by rigged elections and breathtakingly dishonest media, in which their votes do not count and their needs will not be addressed by those in power. What’s more, they have more than a little evidence to support these beliefs, and strange to say, another round of patronizing putdowns by the mouthpieces of the well-to-do is unlikely to change their minds. The resulting crisis of legitimacy has become a political fact of immense importance.

A few years back, my fellow blogger and more than occasional debating partner Dmitry Orlov wrote a series of essays (later collected into his book Reinventing Collapse) pointing out that the United States is vulnerable to the same sort of sudden political implosion that overtook the Warsaw Pact nations of eastern Europe in 1989 and the Soviet Union in 1991. His point has lost none of its sharpness since then. When political theorists of an earlier generation noted that governments exist by the consent of the governed, they were stating a simple fact, not proposing an ideal; a government, any government, survives solely because most of the people it rules play along, obeying its laws and edicts no matter how absurd those happen to be.  If they withdraw that consent, the existing order of things comes tumbling down.

As we saw some thirty years ago, the most effective way to get people to withdraw their consent from the government that claims to rule them is to show them, over and over again, that their needs and concerns are of no interest to a self-aggrandizing elite, and that they have nothing to hope for from the continuation of the present system and nothing to lose if it falls. A very substantial share of Americans, and a significant number of people in other Western industrial countries, have already had that experience and come to those conclusions—and the enthusiasm displayed by the comfortable classes for shoving off the costs of change on the impoverished majority while seizing the benefits for themselves has played a huge role in that state of affairs.

As a result, it’s entirely possible that at some point in the near future, when next the United States faces a serious crisis, most Americans will shrug and let it fall, as most Soviet citizens did when the Soviet Union hit its final crisis in 1991. Keep in mind that the vast majority of active duty US police and military personnel—the final bulwark of any regime in crisis—voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020, and might not be in any hurry to come to the rescue of a system that treats them with the same casual contempt it turns on everyone outside the circles of privilege. It’s entirely possible, in other words, that ten years from now people will talk about the former United States the way they talk about the former Soviet Union.

A number of folks have pointed out that most cops and military will follow orders, because of the paycheck.  History shows that unpopular orders are followed without enthusiasm, and often without rigor.  We'll see.  But there's very little doubt that there's a Bad Moon rising, and political leadership to slow this is in very short supply.

Dad Joke V

What did the windmill say when it met the celebrity?

"OMG, I'm such a big fan!"

Dura lex, sed lex.

As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see "the River Tiber foaming with much blood."

- Enoch Powell MP, quoting Virgil in "The Rivers of Blood" speech

Enoch Powell was one of the first politicians to be de-platformed.  As with most of these sorts of innovations, this happened in the Old World in the 1960s.  I posted about this seven years ago, although Google can no longer find this; DuckDuckGo can, though (and that tells you everything you need to know about search engines):

45 years ago last month, British MP Enoch Powell gave a stunning speech.  In it, he looked on the immigration of foreign peoples into the Kingdom and the way that this was changing the UK's culture.  It was widely criticized by all Right Thinking People® but at the same time was wildly popular with working class Britons.  Indeed, a thousand dockworkers marched on Parliament in protest when Powell was sacked from his positions of leadership.

Dockworkers marching in support of a Tory politician.

The most famous line in his speech is where he quoted Virgil:

As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see 'the River Tiber foaming with much blood'.

He was roundly damned for his "inflammatory" and "racist" remarks.  And so the British Political Class went back to sleep - indeed, the last Labour government intentionally accelerated immigration to make the UK "less British".

Today we saw the occupation of the Capitol building by people "annoyed" by what they (and many others) see as the theft of a Presidential election.  The protesters chased off first the Capitol Hill police and then the Congress itself.  It looks like one women lost her life, shot by a cop.  We'll have to see - early news is notoriously unreliable.

But looking at this, I thought of Virgil.  He of course, did not make up the Aeneid out of whole cloth; Virgil wrote propaganda for the first Roman Emperor, Augustus.  The Aeneid was propaganda, but what propaganda.  It made Caesar Augustus' family history into legend.  Because it was propaganda, it was exaggeration, but it was useful exaggeration to Augustus who while not related to the Great Leaders of the previous century was able to deftly exploit those leaders' exploits to his own advantage.

The most important leader at the beginning of the end of the Roman Republic was Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus,  He was the guy who noticed that while the Roman Republic had swept all foreign enemies before it, the working class had suffered despite the great riches of empire.  Tiberius Gracchus decided to run for public office despite his great family wealth, and to put forth his formidable political skills to benefit the Roman Working Joe.  He failed, because the Roman political establishment buried their traditional political differences in the face of Gracchus' challenge, and in fact had him killed.    

In short, the Roman Deep State closed ranks to block needed reform.  It was the beginning of the end of the Roman Republic as long cherished political norms (Mos Maiorum) were cast aside.  And so two generations of the Roman political elite were exterminated in a civil war so profound that what was left of the exhausted Republican Elite welcomed the first Imperator with open arms because he ended the civil wars.

Throughout this whole period in Roman History, the Law was supreme.  Of course, the Law bent to the prevailing political winds.  As the Roman said, "The Law is harsh, but it is the Law".  Dura Lex, sed Lex.

Donald Trump is the Tiberius Gracchus of our day.  He is the guy who noticed that while the American Republic had swept all foreign enemies before it, the working class had suffered despite the great riches of empire.  Donald Trump decided to run for public office despite his great family wealth, and to put forth his formidable political skills to benefit the American Working Joe.  He failed, because the American political establishment buried their traditional political differences in the face of Trump's challenge, and in fact had him [well, we'll have to see if they let him live free, or jail him, or kill him].

But Tiberius Gracchus had many supporters, who didn't let the Roman political elite rest easy.  Likewise with Donald Trump, as we saw today:

Some of Gracchus' supporters were killed, as we saw today.  Looking forward, I am filled with foreboding.  Like the Roman, I seem to see the river Potomac foaming with much blood.  We're already started, it seems.  The only questions really remaining is who is to play the part of Augustus Caesar, and how many of the elite families (and, it must be said, other families) must die before a grateful Republic reaches for their savior Emperor?

But the Founding Fathers knew about the failings of the Roman Republic.  They strived to avoid them in their Republic.  As a student of history I must say that they avoided the Roman pitfalls for 200 years.  Not bad at all.

Never mind that the Romans avoided these for almost 500 years.  God Save this Honorable Republic.

The European Union's winners and losers

Why did the Deutsche Bank give up their beloved Deutsche Mark and join the Eurozone?  It was good business for Germany:

A 2019 German think tank report, entitled ‘20 Years of the Euro; Winners and Losers’, costed the single currency’s impact on individual states. From 1999 to 2017, only Germany and the Netherlands were serious winners with the former gaining a huge € 1.9 trillion, or around €23,000 per inhabitant. 
In all other states analysed the Euro has provoked a drop in prosperity, with France losing a massive €3.6 trillion and Italy €4.3 trillion. French losses amount to €56,000 per capita and for Italians €74,000.

 Those are big numbers.  You could do the same analysis here looking at Rust Belt vs. Coastal enclaves and I suspect you would see the same sort of thing.  The proof point for that is how working class incomes rose under the Trump administration for the first time in decades.  No doubt the Biden administration will get to work on that.

I really struggle to understand how The Powers That Be in both Brussels and Washington don't see the revolutionary implications in this.  Didn't they read Marx?

Hat tip: Samizdata.

Dad Joke IV

"Hey Dad, are you coming to the baby shower?"

"I'd prefer a full sized shower, thanks." 

OPSEC for COMSEC

There have been a number of questions and comments about yesterday's post regarding COMSEC for the new year.  These seem to me to be related to OPSEC - Operational Security which as I mentioned is very hard to pull off flawlessly.  But it's terribly important and so I'd like to talk at least briefly about them.

Toirdhealbheach Beucail mentioned that TOR is difficult to use, which is God's Own Truth.  This makes it easy to screw up, which can expose bread crumbs that can lead the Federales back to you.  Use of a VPN and a privacy enhanced browser (like Brave which I recommend) are Very Good Things Indeed, but a VPN will also shine the light of suspicion on you.  Also, you have to ask yourself just how much you trust your VPN provider not to, say, comply with warrants and National Security Letters and such.  In short, a healthy paranoia is worthwhile and VPN won't replace what I was talking about yesterday.

Chuck Pergiel mentioned that Ross Ulbricht (the Dread Pirate Roberts who ran The Silk Road) was caught because a one-time user account only needed for the initial setup of something leaked out and let the Feds trace back to him.  Ross was said to be particularly good about OPSEC and this still happened.  Basically, he had to be perfect every single time he was online and the Feds only needed a single screw up.  I'll post tomorrow about an OS-on-a-stick and how to use it securely, but the important thing is that you can't use anything from your public OS on the private one, and vice-versa.

Jonathan H mentioned Eschelon which was a blast from the past.  He also mentioned using fax with handwritten messages.  I'm not so sure here, for a couple reasons.  Firstly, optical character recognition is advancing every year and this seems like an area where machine learning may end up able to read even doctor's handwriting, and secondly the public fax services may save copies of your transmissions.  There are lots of questions here.

Stefan points us to Pixelknot for Android.  Android is a problem, for a couple of reasons.  Google is the funder of Android and while it is Open Source, there are millions and millions of lines of code.  Google's revenue model is based on collecting data on users and I just don't trust the OS not to do that to me.  Also, if you run this on a mobile phone there will be geolocation data added to user data that is collected.  No bueno.

Paranoia runs deep - at least it should.

COMSEC for 2021

A lot of folks are wondering what happens if things get spicy.  Big Country has been posting tactical tips, as did Aesop last year (it doesn't look like he has a blog post tag for these so you'll have to dig).  Other folks are posting, and they have an expertise there that I simply don't.

On the other hand, I do have a (professional) background in COMSEC - Communications Security.  This post is how to pull off a level of COMSEC and OPSEC that will make it harder for you to end up on The Powers That Be's radar.  Note that I said harder, not impossible.  Ross Ulbricht messed up OPSEC, and he was very good at it.  A professional grade level of paranoia is not just desirable, it's probably mandatory.

One thing that I keep seeing repeated is the phrase "Be the Gray Man".  That's the primary objective here.  That will limit the sorts of communications that you will be able to (hopefully) keep off TPTB's radar.  And so what I'm going to write about here is not useful for voice or email protection (mostly), and won't help with GPS geolocation tracking.  It's purely a thought experiment on how to transmit decently large quantities of information without TPTB being likely to understand the content, or even know that information is likely being transmitted at all.

That last point is the key.  Traffic Analysis is pretty terrifying, at least to those in the know, and was by far the biggest issue in the whole Snowden/NSA brouhaha.  I'm not sure that this solves that problem, but it takes some steps in that direction.  Remember, your mileage may vary, void where prohibited, do not remove tag under penalty of law.

The first thing we need to look at is how to hide data in a way that doesn't make people think that there's any hidden data.  XKCD captured the problem for the would-be crypto nerd:

This is actually called the Rubber Hose Attack, and it's considered generally effective.  So encrypting your hard disk is A Bad Thing, because it tells anyone who looks that the data is encrypted.  More to the point, encrypting your data communications is A Bad Thing for exactly the same reason.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Using TOR is the absolute opposite of being The Gray Man.  Ignore the widespread reports of state compromised entry or exit nodes, just the use of the TOR network protocols puts you on the list of "People who think they have Very Important Data that might be worth monitoring".  It's the express lane to Fed.Gov snoops.

OK, so no encryption.  How do you keep communications confidential from prying eyes, and ideally make traffic analysis less likely?  This is Borepatch, and so that means that we'll start with a history lesson.

People have been trying to keep secrets secret for pretty much as long as there have been people.  Growing up, there was a pretty interesting book in the Borepatch household library, Hidden Images.  It gave a number of historical examples of how people hid images of things that were considered double plus ungood, typically via distorting perspective or some such.

This was a picture of (IIRC) English King Charles I who had been beheaded by Parliament.  It was dangerous for people to have images of the dead King, and so you had to use a reflective cylinder to make the distorted image of the Sovereign comprehensible.  The problem is that you need the cylinder, and you have a pretty suspicious distorted picture.  Either of these if discovered in a search might result in a Rubber Hose Attack.  We'd like to have our data in a normal image (I'll get to how to hide the "cylinder" in a bit).

There's a modern tool available to do this, called Steganography.  It relies on the fact that many of the data formats in common use today are "lossy" - you can remove a lot of the original data bits without degrading the message.  Jpeg image format is one example, MP3 is another.  Stego uses this to introduce loss into the picture without degrading the picture (or into an MP3 without degrading the audio).  The "loss" introduced is your secret message, which can be text, image, audio, or whatever you'd like.  I did this once here:

Crash the Wundercat contains a secret message (well, the picture of Crash does; work with me here).  You need a tool that does Stego to embed the message/data, and the person who wants to extract the message/data needs a Stego tool.  Windows users can use OpenPuff which will embed your data in images, audio, video, and Flash.  It will even encrypt the data and add white noise to make it even harder to detect.  It's free and open source.  Steghide is perhaps your best bet for Linux.



And now we have to peel the onion: how do you get your message distributed?  The answer here is to use your regular methods.  You shouldn't use email, as it's pretty direct (you sent it to someone, which is interesting in an of itself).  Social Media is a much bigger haystack to hide in - Facebook, blogs (hello!), Reddit, Flickr - all of these excel as "dead drop" locations for seemingly innocuous pictures of your cat.  The people you want to read your secret message have to know what password you're using in your stego, but there are a lot of ways to do that - for example, everyone has a copy of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and uses the 11th word on the page as the password.  Each day, use the next page.

Sure, NSA will see that people are looking at Reddit, but it's an extra layer of indirection that they're looking at what you posted to Reddit.  It's potentially a very large haystack indeed.  By now you should see why this isn't any good for voice communications or email.  

And so now to the last layer of the onion - reducing the chance of a rubber hose attack.

Remember the mirrored cylinder that was used to view the picture of King Charles?  That was a give away.  Well, so are steganography tools.  If it comes to an investigation and someone finds that you've, say, installed the Ubuntu version of Steghide, there will likely be a lot of questions.  So how do you hide your stego tools?  I think that the best way is via the Purloined Letter approach - hide them in plain sight.

This is a USB drive.  It will hold a ton of data.  Unfortunately, everyone knows that it's a USB drive, including Mr. Fed.  Should the day come where The Man swoops down to investigate your electronic breadcrumbs, they'll look for stuff like this.  What we want are the electronic guts of the drive, in an innocent looking exterior.  Maybe something like this:

This is a Lego toy.  Actually, it was a Lego toy until someone took a box cutter, Dremel, and some manual labor to cut it open and embed a USB drive in it:

You can have a whole Operating System with Stego tools on it.  Boot from it when you need to encode/decode, copy the resulting image/MP3/etc to a different (maybe disposable) USB drive to load onto your regular computer for posting to Reddit/etc.  Just keep it with a bunch of other similar figurines in a bucket of toys in the basement in case someone comes snooping around.

Or you could just buy a Lego brick USB drive.  Remember to keep it with your other Lego.

Now it's important to point out here that nothing is foolproof.  NSA will be collecting traffic data showing that you're uploading to Reddit and Facebook.  They will see that other people check Facebook and Reddit.  They will build maps of relationships - maps showing who knows who.  Someone might take a look at your Facebook page.  If they really want to spend the time with the right people analyzing your pictures (or podcasts, or youtube vids) they might very well sniff something fishy. But they'll have to work a lot harder, and the work will be much less automated.  That means that it will be expensive, and there will be a lot less of that sort of thing going on.

And this will give you a close to "Professional Grade" level of paranoia which is a Very Good Thing.  If I seem that way myself, please remember that I was trained to be that way by the finest minds in the Free World. 

This is an updated version of a post from 2013, but the information is as needed now as then.

Dad Joke II

 Bad puns, that's how the eyes roll.

Looney Tunes - A Corny Concerto

The Queen Of The World and I like to watch MeTV for the old reruns (Andy Griffith, Hogan's Heroes, that sort of thing).  They're advertising that they'd going to start running Looney Tunes cartoons in the morning.  That got me thinking about classical music (yes it did - stick with me here) and that led to today's musical selection.

Walt Disney released Fantasia in 1940 which was a very high brow introduction to classical music, albeit aimed at kids.  Three years later Warner Brothers released a spoof, A Corny Concerto which mimicked Fantasia but in not at all a high brow manner.  Quite the reverse, actually.

We've seen Fantasia here, several times before (some of these links suffer from bit rot as Youtube plays copyright whack-a-mole but a quick search there will find the composition).  All of these posts here were presented in a High Brow fashion.  In my defense, I've also posted about classical music in Bugs Bunny before.  That one was also written by Carl Stalling who wrote a score a week for twenty years for Warner Brothers cartoons.

If you're looking for high brow, you might want to pass this one by, but if you enjoy low brow, then enjoy away.

Dad Joke

For Christmas, The Queen Of The World got me one of those desk calendar thingies where you tear off a new page each day.  It's Dad Jokes, and since I'm a sharing kind of guy here you go.  Remember to thank the Queen Of The World for these because I'll post one each day in 2021 (and you thought 2020 was bad ...)

Dad Joke for January 2 (yeah, I was busy yesterday):

My New Year's Resolution for 2021?  1080p.

And it's a twofer: there were two Dad jokes on the page (Hopefully this makes up for missing yesterday:

Q: Do you know what the leading cause of dry skin is?

A: Towels.

I'm here all week.  Try the veal.

Top posts of 2020

The new Blogger interface is something that took a while to get used to, but does have some nice additions.  It used to be difficult to get a list of the top posts in a year, but now it's easy as pie.  It also tells me that there were a little over a million page views here in 2020, and all y'all left 3,830 comments (!).

The top posts of the year (by page views) were:

The data I'm not seeing reported on the Chinese Flu (April 5) 

Cognitive Dissonance (March 1)

The Outlaws - Ghost Riders In The Sky (a post from March 27, 2010 - google's my bitch)

You are 43 times more likely to be killed by Corona virus if you have a gun in the house (March 8 - this was one of my favorite posts of last year)

The dog that hasn't barked (December 9)

At last - some actual Coronavirus data (March 17)

Amplify the Signal (August 2)

Any firearms in the vehicle, sir? (November 19)

Normal? Not Yet, Not Until The N95 Index Goes Green Again (April 20)

The shutdown is not about protecting people's health (April 23)

Many thanks to the top referrers to this blog:

The Feral Irishman

Raconteur Report

Google (did I mention that Google is my bitch?)

Gun Blog Black List

The Silicon Graybeard

Captain Capitalism

Bing

Gorges Smythe

Facebook

The coolest blog related thing that happened last year was the Southwest Florida blogshoot.  It was a ton of fun and was great to meet people in meatspace.  Remember, we have one coming up on February 20.

But most of all, thank you Gentle Reader.  It's you stopping around here regularly that keeps doing this thing fun.

Music for New Year's Eve

I ran across this song a year ago.  It is not only traditional for New Year's Eve (according to no less than Robert Burns who wrote Auld Lang Syne)  but is also traditional as a farewell song to the dearly departed.  My Mom and ASM826's Dad both passed this last year, and so this beautiful cover by the Face Vocal Band is a fitting end to 2020.

Mom and Dad loved light classical music, and I picked up that same affinity.  Last year I (quite by accident) found this delightful piece by Ernest Tomlinson, Fantasia on Auld Lang Syne for Orchestra.  It weaves not just Burns' magnum opus but snippets of 152 other songs as well.  

To all our readers, we wish you a happy and prosperous New Year.

February Southwest Florida Blogshoot

Apologies for the lack of posting - The Queen Of The World and I had a houseguest from the Camp Borepatch days, and while it was great fun it pretty much filled the days.

But folks are asking about the February blogshoot so let me poll the readership.  Leave a comment if you can be in the area for a blogshoot on February 20.  Also say whether you know of a range that could handle the crowd (we had over 20 for the first).  

I'm pretty sure I can get the private range at the gun club this far out (and will make sure that the wires won't get crossed again - we will have both a 25 yard pistol range and a 200 yard rifle range).  If we do it here again The Queen Of The World says she'll cater it again but some people couldn't make the trip and I'm happy to travel if there's another range.

Raise up your voice

Go ahead and sing along.  Christ Jesus was sent to redeem us all, even those who sing off key.

 This needs to be watched in full screen mode and with the volume up.

Huron Carol/Twas in the Moon of Wintertime

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

Philippians 2:5-8

We all know the story, that's the problem.  We know it so well that we don't think about the story, and what it means.  It helps to put the story in a different setting to make us think on the meaning again.

Huron Carol is the oldest Christmas Carol from Canada, and perhaps from the New World.  It was written in 1642 by Jean de Brébeuf, a Jesuit missionary to the Huron tribes.  It tells the story of the nativity in terms that were familiar to the Huron: instead of a stable, the baby was born in a lodge of broken bark.  Instead of three wise men there were three chiefs from far off tribes.  Instead of frankincense and myrrh there were gifts of fox and beaver pelts.  He wrote in their native language, as necessity called for.  If you would tell a tale, you must use words the listener will understand.

Tomorrow is the feast of the Redeemer.  Amidst the holiday cheer, gifts, and yes, feasting, think on the familiar meaning as explained in a different tongue, a tale made new again.

Huron

The original words of the carol in the Wyandot language (Huron).

Ehstehn yayau deh tsaun we yisus ahattonnia
O na wateh wado:kwi nonnwa 'ndasqua entai
ehnau sherskwa trivota nonnwa 'ndi yaun rashata
Iesus Ahattonnia, Ahattonnia, Iesus Ahattonnia.

Ayoki onki hm-ashe eran yayeh raunnaun
yauntaun kanntatya hm-deh 'ndyaun sehnsatoa ronnyaun
Waria hnawakweh tond Yosehf sataunn haronnyaun
Iesus Ahattonnia, Ahattonnia, Iesus Ahattonnia.

Asheh kaunnta horraskwa deh ha tirri gwames
Tishyaun ayau ha'ndeh ta aun hwa ashya a ha trreh
aundata:kwa Tishyaun yayaun yaun n-dehta
Iesus Ahattonnia, Ahattonnia, Iesus Ahattonnia.

Dau yishyeh sta atyaun errdautau 'ndi Yisus
avwa tateh dn-deh Tishyaun stanshi teya wennyau
aha yaunna torrehntehn yataun katsyaun skehnn
Iesus Ahattonnia, Ahattonnia, Iesus Ahattonnia.

Eyeh kwata tehnaunnte aheh kwashyehn ayehn
kiyeh kwanaun aukwayaun dehtsaun we 'ndeh adeh
tarrya diskwann aunkwe yishyehr eya ke naun sta
Iesus Ahattonnia, Ahattonnia, Iesus Ahattonnia.

English

The 1926 English version by Jesse Edgar Middleton.

'Twas in the moon of winter-time
When all the birds had fled,
That mighty Gitchi Manitou
Sent angel choirs instead;
Before their light the stars grew dim,
And wandering hunters heard the hymn:
"Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born,
In excelsis gloria."

Within a lodge of broken bark
The tender Babe was found,
A ragged robe of rabbit skin
Enwrapp'd His beauty round;
But as the hunter braves drew nigh,
The angel song rang loud and high...
"Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born,
In excelsis gloria."

The earliest moon of wintertime
Is not so round and fair
As was the ring of glory
On the helpless infant there.
The chiefs from far before him knelt
With gifts of fox and beaver pelt.
Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born,
In excelsis gloria.

O children of the forest free,
O sons of Manitou,
The Holy Child of earth and heaven
Is born today for you.
Come kneel before the radiant Boy
Who brings you beauty, peace and joy.
"Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born,
In excelsis gloria."

 

The Christmas Truce

The opening weeks of The War To End Wars were nothing like what we think.  In many ways it was worse for the men on the ground, which only makes the spontaneous outbreak of peace even more amazing.  The bitterness that the soldiers of both sides must have felt would have burned bright, and yet the feelings of the season overcame all that.

When we think of that war, we think of trenches, barbed wire, and machine guns.  That's quite a good description of the western front, but not until 2 or 3 months into the conflict.  Initially instead of a slog over No Man's Land, it was a war of movement, with massive armies covering hundreds of miles.  August and September 1914 saw men pushed to their limits because they had to march 15 miles and then fight the enemy, and then wake up and do it all over again.  And again.  And again.

The losses were unbelievable.  The first six weeks saw the following killed, wounded, and missing: 300,000 (France), 300,000 (Germany), 300,000 (Austria-Hungary), 250,000 (Russia), 200,000 (Serbia), 15,000 (Britain).  That last seems out of place with the rivers of blood from the other combatants, but Britain's army in 1914 was not a mass of draftees - rather, it was a small force of professional veterans.  15,000 was a quarter of the entire force.

October followed up these million and a half with the Kindermord, the "slaughter of the children".  The generals were horrified at the losses, not so much because of the incredible human loss but because their forces were so rapidly depleted.  Trainees were rushed from basic training straight to the front.  At the First Battle of Ypres 60,000 of these kids were mowed down as they marched, singing, into the rifles of the Cold Stream Guards.

The German artist Käthe Kollwitz made a sculpture in remembrance of her son, Peter, killed in the Kindermord.  He, like most of his comrades, was 18.  You can see it if you go to the Vladslo German cemetery in Diksmuid, Belgum.  The grief and bitterness is captured in stone.

Only then did it settle down to trenches, barbed wire, and No Man's Land.  So if anyone was justified in holding a grudge, it was everyone in a trench on the Western Front on December 24, 1914.  And yet, this happened instead.
 

Image from the Illustrated London News, 9 Jan 1915

The Generals were less than amused, and cracked down in following years.  Captain Sir Iain Colquhoun was Court-marshalled for his participation.  After they convicted him someone recalled that he was related to the British Prime Minister, and so they swept it all under the carpet.

Historians now occupy the field of battle because all the eye witnesses are now long dead.  All that we have are stories from those who remember those witnesses. But we know that December 1914 saw something unique in trench warfare: Christmas showed that the human heart still beat on the front lines.  This song from 1984 was back when some of those men still lived, and John McCutcheon tells of how some of them came to his concert because they heard the song on the radio:

All our lives, our family our friends told us we were crazy.  Couldn't possibly have happened to us.  Then we heard your song on the radio and said "See? See? We were there."

Christmas In The Trenches (Songwriter: John McCutcheon)

My name is Francis Tolliver. I come from Liverpool.
Two years ago the war was waiting for me after school.
To Belgium and to Flanders, to Germany to here,
I fought for King and country I love dear.

It was Christmas in the trenches where the frost so bitter hung.
The frozen field of France were still, no Christmas song was sung.
Our families back in England were toasting us that day,
their brave and glorious lads so far away.

I was lyin' with my mess-mates on the cold and rocky ground
when across the lines of battle came a most peculiar sound.
Says I "Now listen up me boys", each soldier strained to hear
as one young German voice sang out so clear.

"He's singin' bloddy well you know", my partner says to me.
Soon one by one each German voice joined in in harmony.
The cannons rested silent. The gas cloud rolled no more
as Christmas brought us respite from the war.

As soon as they were finished a reverent pause was spent.
'God rest ye merry, gentlemen' struck up some lads from Kent.
The next they sang was 'Stille Nacht". "Tis 'Silent Night'" says I
and in two toungues one song filled up that sky.

"There's someone commin' towards us" the front-line sentry cried.
All sights were fixed on one lone figure trudging from their side.
His truce flag, like a Christmas star, shone on that plain so bright
as he bravely strode, unarmed, into the night.

Then one by one on either side walked into no-mans-land
with neither gun nor bayonet we met there hand to hand.
We shared some secret brandy and wished each other well
and in a flare-lit soccer game we gave 'em hell.

We traded chocolates, cigarettes and photographs from home
these sons and fathers far away from families of their own.
Young Sanders played his squeeze box and they had a violin
this curious and unlikely band of men.

Soon daylight stole upon us and France was France once more.
With sad farewells we each began to settle back to war.
But the question haunted every heart that lived that wondrous night
"whose family have I fixed within my sights?"

It was Christmas in the trenches where the frost so bitter hung.
The frozen fields of France were warmed as songs of peace were sung.
For the walls they'd kept between us to exact the work of war
had been crumbled and were gone for ever more.

My name is Francis Tolliver. In Liverpool I dwell.
Each Christmas come since World War One
I've learned it's lessons well.
That the ones who call the shots won't be among the dead and lame
and on each end of the rifle we're the same.

This Christmas Eve, remember those caught up in the killing fields of Flanders, and the Ardennes, and Khe Sanh. And remember those who still stand post far from home and family tonight. 

(This is something that I've posted each year for quite a while)

In lieu of politics and snark ...

This is your read of the day.  I can't imagine a more perfect message for this Eve of the Feast of the Redeemer. 

Quote of the Day, Consequences edition

The whole thing is long but hits center mass.  Here's an excerpt:

f) long-term, having a large class of unemployed, under-employed, and broke, hungry, shiftless lumpenproletariat is how revolutions start. Middle classes do not revolt. This year has seen the biggest targeted wipeout of the middle class, worldwide, and shifting them to the lower class, than anything since the Great Depression. And we're still in the early innings of it, as COVID2.0 now appears to be clearing its throat.

g) That's before the blatant disenfranchising of a third of the adults in this country by the most ham-fistedly blatant electoral fraud (outside of every election in Central America, ever) in living memory.

Yup.  You should go read the whole thing.  And it's been a while since I posted this: New Gingrich on what the Second Amendment is really about.  It's long, but really gets rolling at about 5 minutes in.  Newt's point is exactly the same one that Aesop makes.

The Continental Congress was an unauthorized, unsanctioned, unlawful, treasonous, and seditious assembly, and every man-jack of them were eventually targeted for arrest and hanging.

Michael Bublé - I'll Be Home For Christmas

This was written in 1943, as we had 15 million men overseas staring down the Nazi and Japanese super races.  It's sadly newly fresh again, as Governors from sea to shining sea tell us not to go see our families for the Holidays - under threat of force of law.

 Somehow I suspect I know how those 15 million men would have taken the orders from Govs Cuomo, Newsom, and Whitmer ...

A Christmas Story (updated for modern times)

I must confess that I'd never watched A Christmas Story until I met The Queen Of The World.  It's just one of the many ways that she has improved my life.

It's awesome, and if you have never seen it, the line from the film to remember is You'll shoot your eye out.  You see, the kid in the film wants a BB Gun for christmas and everyone tells him, well, you know.  The Queen Of The World made me a T-shirt with that caption and the picture of a set of glasses with one lens shattered.  I wore it to the gun show last weekend to great hilarity. 

Anyway, via T-Bolt (you do read him every day, right?  Thought so.) we find this most excellent mash up.  Embedding seems to be broken in the new Blogger interface and the new one can't seem to find this video even though it's there (WTF, Youtube?) - bit it's worth the click.

And remember, T-Bolt is your go-to Zombie Defense guy.  'nuff said.

For you lucky sumbitches out there

Suppose you have one of those sweet, sweet M1 Carbines - you know the ones: light, short, handy, low recoil and fun to shoot all day.  You lucky sumbitch.

Well, Ammoman has a sweet deal on .30 Carbine to feed your habit, just in time for the holidays: 1080 Mil Surp .30 Carbine cartridges in 10 round stripper clips in nine bandoliers for $520 (!).  You lucky sumbitch.

And remember, ammunition makes great stocking stuffers.

(No comment on how Gov. Cuomo gave Gammy the gift of Eternal Peace this past year ...)

Just remember, a shotgun is not a defense against zombies.  C'mon - this is an expert on the subject. 

The Bronze Star Prayer

December 1944 saw the German Army launch a blitzkreig on the western front, designed to cut the American Army off from the British Army, and drive to the port of Antwerp cutting off the Brits.  It was Hitler's last roll of the dice.

For the first few days, things went all the German's way.  They overran a lightly defended area in Belgium, making big gains towards their objectives.  Only the crossroads town of Bastogne held out, bottling up part of the advance.

Eisenhower had kept George Patton on a shot leash - at the urging of British Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery (he and Patton detested each other), but now Ike needed his best field General.  Patton turned on a dime and had six divisions point north to relieve Bastogne.

The problem was that the weather was awful.  Clouds and snow kept the Army Air Corps grounded while the SS Panzer divisions ran wild.  Patton turned to the Third Army Chaplain, Col. James Hugh O'Neill and asked him for a prayer for better weather.  Here is what the Padre came up with, which was distributed to the entire Third Army, issued on this day in 1944:

Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee, of Thy great goodness, to restrain these immoderate rains with which we have had to contend. Grant us fair weather for Battle. Graciously hearken to us as soldiers who call upon Thee that, armed with Thy power, we may advance from victory to victory and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies, and establish Thy justice among men and nations. 

Amen.

The weather cleared almost immediately.  Patton got Col. O'Neill awarded the Bronze Star for his intercession withe the Almighty.

Note: if you are not following OldAFSarge's online novel about this battle, you're missing out.

Damn all you new gun owners!

Well, no - but everyone who is saying things like "ZOMG tHe amm0 factoryz ar3 bogarting t3h ammo" need to think on the old saying about war:

When it comes to war, amateurs think about strategy.  Professionals think about logistics.

Now think on the 7M new gun owners this year: they've never owned a gun before.  They think it's needed to protect themselves and their families in an increasingly lawless Republic.  They got themselves a gun, joining us in the defense of the right to defend ourselves.

They also need a couple or 3 (or 10) boxes of ammo for their new heaters.  So 7,000,000 time 4 (boxes) times 50 (rounds per box) is {scribbles on paper} 1.4 Billion rounds of ammo for new gun owners.

Yeah, they went to the front of the ammo line at your gun store.  They bought a gun, and need ammo, amirite?

So how many billion rounds do you think that American manufacturers make each year?

Dwight (you do read him everyday, right?) sends a video of a CEO of an ammo manufacturer explaining this.  Again, Youtube is weird about embedding so you need to click through.

UPDATE 21 December 2020 11:48:  Oops, I forgot to give credit to Dwight who pointed me to this video.  You do read him every day, don't you?

Joe Bonamassa - Christmas Boogie

If this doesn't get your toes tapping, we can't be friends anymore.

 Interesting to see Joe B. without his trademark suit and sunglasses.

Ralph Vaughan Williams - Fantasia on a Christmas Carol

Other than the movie theater, the only other place that the American public seems to have a taste for classical music is at Christmas.  I think that this is primarily due to popularizers like Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops, and particularly composers like Aaron Copeland and Ralph Vaughan Williams who here takes the familiar and spins it in new directions.

Vince Guaraldi - Linus and Lucy

This is, of course, from the A Charlie Brown Christmas special.  The Studio Execs were nervous about the show: the explicit Christian themes, the use of child actors, the lack of a laugh track.  Of course, the show was a sensation: almost half of everyone who had the TV on that evening had it tuned to that show.  This year is the show's 55th anniversary (!).

And yes, the music is as iconic as everything else from the show.

Notes from the Gun Show

Now that I live in the Gunshine State, I went off to the Palmetto Gun Show to work the booth for my gun club.  It was interesting (and fun).  Here are some more or less stream of consciousness thoughts:

• There was a good turnout.  This was the opening day of the show but they do this every month.  Traffic was brisk from beginning until I left after lunch.  There were whole families there and every race in the rainbow was represented.
• There were a lot of guns for sale on dealer's tables.  I haven't been comparison shopping so can't say definitively about prices but in general they looked reasonably sane.
• I'm not sure about the guys bringing their own heaters around to sell by themselves.  One guy had what he said was a vintage WWII 1911 with web belt and holster and was looking for $1800.  That seemed rich to me but ask I said I haven't been pricing on the antique market.
• Ammo was at a premium.  Pricing was high and it looks like dealers were buying out other dealers before the show started (and then marked each box up).  While I'm not enormously well stocked, I'm well stocked enough not to have to spend $20 for 50 .22LR (!).  I mean, seriously?
• There was a LOT of Donald Trump stuff there, and not in a let's clear out the old inventory sense.  People were walking around in MAGA hats and there was what looked like a lot of fresh inventory being scooped up by the crowd.  However this plays out, The Donald is not fading away.  Oh, yeah - several vendors had "Biden Is Not My President" T-Shirts for sale and I saw more than one dude walking around in them.
• Didn't see any tables of Nazi memorabilia.  Might be the first gun show I've been to that didn't sport that.
• Where the heck is the jerky?  I don't think I've ever been to a gun show where you couldn't buy any.
• Finish Mosins were going for how much?  Sure if you want a Mosin you want one done by the Finns, but the days of the box of $50 Mosins are long gone.
• There was a big area where they were signing people up for Concealed Carry classes.  It was mobbed.
• Lots of people were interested in my gun club.  A bunch asked about the Appleseed sessions we offer.
• The last two are a good sign - people aren't just buying guns but in practicing and carrying them.

My takeaway is that the gun culture is very strong here in Florida.

Lynyrd Skynyrd - Run, Run, Rudolph

You want kick-ass Christmas music?  Gotcha covered.

 You're welcome.

Good writeup on forensic analysis of Dominion Voting System

It is very long, but detailed and nicely broken up with quotes from the report interspersed with commentary and analysis.  If you are interested in this topic, or if you are interested in computer security, you need to spend some time reading this.  Note that this is a two part series, and you need to click through to the first installment.

My take as a 35 year veteran of computer security?  Angels and Ministers of Grace, defend us.

Ahhhhh

 

And it's nice to be near the grandkids, too

Hunt AAR

 A couple weeks ago I posted What deer rifle for an old hunter?  Many of you left comments and I'm happy to say that Tim emails saying that the hunt was a success and he got his deer.  He has a nice After Action Report posted.

I agree with him that the local deer populations seem to be pretty strong.  I used to see them regularly in Maryland and Wolfgang would chase 'em if he got a chance.  He never got close, of course, but if you're a deer in a subdivision then neighborhood dogs will be an occasional encounter.