DEI OFFICER AT STANFORD JOINS STUDENTS IN CHILLING FREE SPEECH OF JUDGE – Anti-American students at Stanford University yelled racial epithets and other derogatory comments at Fifth Circuit Judge Kyle Duncan for having American values and beliefs while on their anti-American, anti-human campus.
The violence, the intimidation against an American citizen because of his beliefs alone was incited and joined in by the DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) officer, who made it clear that DEI Officers are de facto DNC police state party enforcers, collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to enforce the DNC’s woketarian code on students.
After the Dean of Stanford’s Law School apologized, the Marxist-trained anti-American students demonstrated their lack of understanding of the first amendment, the right to free speech, by equating their violent intimidation of a speaker with “free speech,” to the cheer of the DEI officer, the Democrat Party’s de facto thought police enforcer, Tirien Steinbach, who never met an American she didn’t want to silence.
The dawn of the 19th Century heralded perhaps the greatest explosion of technological development in human history. While technologies in most areas had been advancing slowly for centuries, a little-understood combination of factors combined to radically reshape human societies, developing – for better or worse – faster in one hundred years, than at any other point in human history. Steam engines radically reshaped transport on land and sea, opening broad new ranges of products, both agricultural and manufactured; the telegraph radically altered patterns of human communication; medicine suddenly evolved from speculation and bloodletting to observable and testable practices, radically reshaping human mortality rates. The maturing of electrical power generation, transmission and use resulted not only in the telegraph and the light bulb, but of an early form of fax machine.
Caselli’s pantelegraph tinfoil mechanism, 1866. Public Domain.
In firearms technology, the developments were just as radical. In 1800, the only personal firearms out there were flintlock muskets (aside from some pretty radical one-offs). Less than thirty years later, the percussion cap significantly changed the calculus, by making the musket vastly more reliable. By the end of the 1860’s, self-contained rimfire and centerfirecartridges had begun to dominate the battlefield. Well before the end of the century, smokeless powder and functional machine guns had begun to fundamentally alter infantry warfare.
This steamroller of technological advancement held true in the world of artillery technology, as well. The muzzle-loading cannons of 1800 gave way to breech-loading guns by 1870…Which is where our story actually begins, when artillery met steam power, but off the railroad or warship.
Edmund Louis Gray Zalinski, (1849 – 1909) was a Polish-born American soldier, military engineer and inventor. Born to a Jewish family in Kórnik, Prussian Poland in 1849, he immigrated with his parents to the United States in 1853. Lying about his age to enlist, he joined the US Army and served during the Civil War. Commissioned a 2nd LT in an artillery regiment from the state of New York, Zalinski served on the staff of General Nelson Miles. While not much is known of the details of his exact service, it was apparently enough to see him offered a commission in the Regular Army after the war, which is a notable thing, given the drastic post-war cuts in manpower and budgets. During his career, he served as an artillery officer at the Fort Jefferson military prison in Florida (where he authored an appeal to President Andrew Johnson to pardon Dr. Samuel Mudd, who had been convicted as a conspirator in Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, for the doctor’s service during an outbreak of Yellow Fever at the prison), and as a professor of military science at MIT (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology). During this time, he patented a number of inventions, including an artillery sight.
In 1883, Zalinski witnessed a demonstration of a pneumatic artillery weapon, designed by D. M. Medford of Chicago, Illinois. Zalinski began working on the idea, and eventually designed his own pneumatic gun. While the Army was not initially interested, the US Navy was intrigued. As chemistry had advanced, it had started to create high explosives, that were far more powerful than the older black powder; however, these new explosives were very unstable, and were liable to detonate when fired in a conventional gun. The Navy, wanting to find a way to use the new tool, thought that Zalinski’s new system might be the answer.
USS VESUVIUS Dynamite Cruiser, 1888-1922. Photo: H.C. Peabody. Public Domain.
In late 1887, the USS Vesuvius was laid down at the William Cramp & Sons yard in Philadelphia, PA; she would be commissioned some six months later. As fitted out, the Vesuvius (named for the Italian volcano) carried three 15-inch “dynamite guns” (a term coined by the press), that could each throw a 500-lbs shell (called a “torpedo”, because – Navy) out to about one-and-a-half miles, adjusting the range by varying the air pressure. Without a war to fight, however, the ship was mostly relegated to the dreaded “dog & pony” circuit, visiting port towns to help them celebrate various holidays. In South America, the Brazilian Navy also fitted a 15-inch model to an auxiliary cruiser named the Nichteroy, which was later sold to the US Navy, which named that ship the USS Buffalo.
15inch ‘Dynamite Gun’, mounted on the Brazilian Navy ship Nitheroy, 1892. Photo by Marc Ferrez, 1982. Public Domain.
Wanting to stay as far ahead of the game as possible, the Navy also commissioned the USS Holland in 1900, to see if an 8-inch version of Zalinski’s gun could be used on a submarine.
USS Holland (SS-1), the first submarine of the U.S. Navy, showing the 8-inch dynamite gun muzzle open at the bow. Taken in 1898. US Navy Photo.
Following a two-year stint in the yards for repairs, Vesuvius returned to the fleet in 1897, as relations with Spain worsened. These tensions would soon lead to the Spanish-American War, in 1898. While the Vesuviusperformed well in nighttime raids on the Cuban city of Santiago, the ship was saddled with a number of flaws, not least of which was the fact that it was very difficult to aim her main guns, as they were set deep into her hull, instead of being mounted in more conventional turrets. This led the Navy to convert the Vesuvius into a torpedo test vessel in 1904, stripping her of her ”dynamite guns” and replacing them with a variety of torpedo tubes.
U.S.S. Vesuvius, c. 1890-1901, showing its main gun barrels protruding from its deck. Library of Congress. Public Domain.
As well, the US Army would abandon their experiments with Zalinski’s guns. The Army, which was responsible for coast artillery defense, had installed a number of 8- and 15-inch guns at various forts around the country. But, by 1900, the “dynamite guns” had all been dismounted and sold for scrap.
“Battery Dynamite” at Fort Winfield Scott, San Francisco, CA. Photo c.1900. Public Domain.
The reasons for the abandonment of Zalinski’s design are simple: the development of stable high explosives and the limited range of the guns made the “soft-launch” of the pneumatic guns irrelevant, as both issues were easily overcome by conventional artillery. As well, the low velocity of the shells forced them to fire at a high angle, limiting both their accuracy and impact force against armored targets.
While it is neat to speculate on “what if,” the fact remains that pneumatic artillery, although playing an interesting and important role in late-19th Century artillery, has had its day: the support infrastructure to operate pneumatic guns, even using modern technology, is not sufficient for use in combat, even using rocket assist to increase their range.
There’s no reason to reinvent the wheel.
The Freedomist — Keeping Watch, So You Don’t Have To
U.S. Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell recently declared that the road back to economic health is to be filled with higher interest rates than most might be expecting. “We raised rates very quickly last year, and we know that monetary tightening policy has delayed effects; it takes a while for the full effects to be seen,” he said.
He infused more confidence in the market when he added, “We have many unusual factors, and I don’t think anybody knows with confidence how this is going to play out.”
Powell promised indirectly that eventually we will all benefit with the Fed’s decisions to dramatically raise rates while the government continues to spend trillions funding Ukraine and Woketarian causes (as reflected in their baby green new deal).
The New York Fire Department is dividing over the appointment and leadership of FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanaugh, who seems to be more concerned with assuring the department reflect anti-American leftist ideals rather than being an efficient fire fighting force. The Chiefs have had enough, and now they are suing the leftist diversity hire.
The leftist appointed by Mayor Eric Adams has put a priority on getting women fire fighters, at risk to other fire fighters, and at risk to the people whose homes and businesses are on fire and in need of efficient handling. She has no previous experience fighting fires herself, something that is not lost on the firefighters that are forced to follow a “leader” who wants to use the department to advance her leftist bona fides rather than serve the public securely, a trait more often than not seen in leftist politicians across these lands.
A growing number of Israelis are choosing to not show up for their reserve duty obligations, and more are threatening to join them. The movement is a response to the plans by Netanyahu’s government to dramatically “reform” the judicial system in what seems like a transparent attempt to protect the Prime Minister, who faces corruption charges in an ongoing trial.
A former advisor to Yair Lapid, the former PM and current opposition leader, claimed he made the decision because he has “no choice – I cannot do reserve duty under a regime that is trying to destroy us, and I cannot do reserve duty in an undemocratic country.”
For his part, Lapid falls just short of supporting the movement, but he continues to give it legitimacy.
Like America, it appears the rift between the “left” and the “right” is becoming existential at its core. For we Americans, we can overcome this turmoil, but for Israel, they are surrounded by enemies, including the Palestinians, who would rather see them dead than live peacefully with them.
Outlying islands owned by Taiwan have been experiencing their internet go out over and over again these past five years. One island, Matsu, recently had their internet cut again. The culprit is almost always the same, Chinese boats that invade their waters and send divers down to cut cables connecting the islands to the main island. So far, the Chinese have done this to Matsu alone 27 times in the past five years.
Matsu is home to 14,000 residents, who make due by creating limited internet connectivity through microwave radio transmission, which is a slower form of internet than dial-up. Taiwan’s Coast Guard caught one Chinese ship red-handed, but it was able to escape to Chinese waters.
The Department of Homeland Security has a program called “Overt Human Intelligence Collection Program” that allows agents to circumvent due process requirements of questioning individuals without their lawyers present. The program allows them to interview anyone, including prisoners, where the due process issues begin to be muddled. Employees of the prisons where the interviews took place demanded that the program pay for legal liability insurance, as they knew the program was a violation of the spirit of the law, at minimum.
The program empowers agents to conduct interviews with “willing individuals” without lawyers presence, under the guise of being for the purpose of collecting intelligence for security reasons. An unnamed employee for one of the prisons said the operation “is shady” and “runs like a corrupt government.”
The program appears to be more of a shakedown operation to intimidate people than anything else. When the DHS comes a calling, offering to have a voluntary interview with someone, you know they understand that refusal could lead to serious charges coming their way. The nature of the relationship alone implies such threats, as the DHS is a large government organization with the authority to charge people with anything from extortion to sedition.
In an age where anyone other than a DNC-marked human can clearly see the level of political bias in the most lethal branches of government, including our own military, means restraint of power is not something a human being sitting in a jail cell can much believe in.
The program is a classic sophistic assault on the spirit of truth, finding a grey zone to effectively violate the 5th amendment, the right to due process, for purposes that are more often about DNC interests than American ones.
A staff attorney for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is charged with participating in a terrorist assault against new police recruits in the city of Atlanta. The hate-grift group uses accusations of “hate group” to give DNC-infested corporations the “justification” to unperson dissenting people, who then in turn continue to fund the hired “assassins.” The lawyer for the hate-grift group, Tom Jurgens, is alleged to have join in a planned assault of new police recruits at a new facility derisively called “Cop City.”
Atlanta Police say the group“destroyed multiple pieces of construction equipment by fire and vandalism.” They added, “The illegal actions of the agitators could have resulted in bodily harm. Officers exercised restraint and used nonlethal enforcement to conduct arrests.”
The assault group utilized the same tactics that Antifa groups have used in assaulting American businesses and homes throughout this country for the past few years. To the SPLC, Antifa is not really a group at all. They claim “Antifa, short for anti-fascist, is a broad, community-based movement composed of individuals organizing against racial and economic injustice. Those who identify with the label represent a large spectrum of the political left. The Trump administration frequently uses the term to describe any group or individual that demonstrates in opposition to its policies. Far-right extremists use similar tactics.”
Their very statement exposes the hateful nature of the group, constantly using labels like extremist, far, right, racist, homophobe, nazi, etc. to describe any individual or group that rejects the death cult of DNC woketarianism, with the SPLC serving as one of the cult’s “Unpersoning Assassins.”
While Antifa burns down buildings, the SPLC wants you to believe that loving the American flag is LITERALLY worst than Hitler, but burning down buildings is mostly peaceful protest.
CBS News has chosen not to cover this inconvenient truth, more evidence the SPLC is the hate group that should ALSO be designated a terrorist organization as Trump designated Antifa one (to the protest of this same hate group, the SPLC). The other networks left out any mention of leftist, let alone mentioning the SLPC lawyer, in all their reports.
Researchers from the Universities of Geneva and Lausanne have discovered a way to generate new neurons in brains. Theoretically, they believe the technique, which was successfully carried out in adult mice, can be used to generate neurons in adult humans. The discovery could lead to reversals of neuron loss from neurodegenerative diseases.
The technique involves reactivating neural stem cells, which are the cells from which the brain originally formed. One of the researchers, Francesco Petrelli, said of the discovery, ‘‘We found that mitochondria, the energy-producing organelles within cells, are involved in regulating the level of activation of adult NSCs.”
Fox News is reporting that a “well-placed CNN Insider” was told by Jeff Zucker, the then-President of CNN, to bury the lab leak theory on Covid-19 because it was a “Trump talking point.” Translation: We want to assure Biden wins the election, so even if we KNOW that Trump is right about where the virus came from, we will not only bury the story, we will produce hit pieces slandering anyone that puts forth this theory.
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