Sold my Gurkha Knife on Kijiji

 

Military Medals

 

Some Generals need an extra chest so they can wear all their medals.

Chinese Cultural Revolution 2.0

Have you noticed the blank spots on store shelves? Things are getting scarce. If you are buying for Christmas, you should do it now. Things are really going to get scarce. China has started the Cultural Revolution #2. Years back the country was destitute, everyone starving and poor. At that point they decided to let in Capitalism. We went in and our money built their factories, their infrastructure and their military. Now they are far enough ahead and no longer need us. Time to take on the west. 

They are doing away with all forms of decadence, movie stars, pop stars and some billionaires have disappeared. They have already started closing down factories. And of course they sent us the virus which has yet to come to full bloom.

Our political leaders are really dumb and our Captains of industry are so greedy. The factories are all gone and they can't be built overnight. We can't build a darn thing.

Saw a film yesterday telling us that the U.S. government is offering farmers 1 1/2 times the value of their crops if they destroy them. If they don't, they won't be getting subsidy payments next year. Trying to create a food shortage? Somebody has sold out to somebody. 

The NEWS broadcasters spend most of the TV hours talking about the virus. Telling us every possible combination of patients, one province after the other, hours and hours, determined to scare the shit out of us. Except for forest fires or floods, you don't know one other thing that is going on. Riots in France, protests in England and don't even think about Australia. We are all in deep shit and you are to blame. 

The Afgan war is on a respite

 

 I read this. 

"Ever since the start of recorded time, men have been excited at the start of a war and disgusted by the end."

When civilized countries go to war, it's barbarianism that wins for them.

 

War Movies

 

I just realized that in concentration camp movies, the people are not thin enough.

Military Budget

Funds for protection are always reduced in the times of peace when there are no problems. Why spend money on the military? It seems like such a waste. That money can be put to better use. Only hindsight will tell us what a mistake we have made. Of course then it is too late. And when the danger has passed? Have we learned a lesson? Probably not. 

War

War is socially sanctioned murder.

Smoking was actually popularized in Europe during WWI, as it was used by the soldiers in the trenches to fight against the smell of the thousands of decomposing corpse pieces scattered around the battlefield.

Were medieval battles as brutal as in the movies?

Morgan Jones,  studied Medieval Warfare at University of Oregon

No they were not.

Soldiers fought in formation (instead of breaking off into a bunch of mindless solo melees where they were surrounded by enemies on all sides). They wore armor (which is much more protective than shown in the movies) and often had shields. The result basically meant it was much harder to kill people, if you got injured you could usually back out of the fight and let the men behind and to the side of you continue on in your stead, meaning that being on the front line wasn’t a death sentence. Battles were usually much longer more drawn out affairs, but eventually a line would cave in or moral would break and an army would flee. Almost all of the killing would actually happen after the battle was finished and the enemy army was on the run (no longer fighting back). It was rarely important to exterminate the enemy army - just defeat it, and after the initial route, any remaining enemy soldiers - particularly the nobility - would often be spared (though not always).

Soldiers were humans, and humans don’t like to die. Armed men would try everything they could to avoid fighting other armed men. There are many reports of soldiers refusing to fight each other, just standing at a safe distance trying to keep the other army at bay. Very rarely would soldiers actually meet each other in pitched battle. Most wars were fought by opposing forces who avoided each other at all costs, and pillaged the peasant population of either side instead. You could get a lot more resources by pillaging the working class, damage the economy of the country much more, and at significantly lower risk of your own life in the process. Field battles were extremely rare, and they are all so idolized in history because of how few there actually were. In order for 2 armies to meet in pitched battle, they would both have had to have seen each other and both decided that they had good odds of winning the fight. If one army had less men they would simply run away, only under specific circumstances (such as holding a chokepoint) would an army fight a seemingly losing battle. Siege battles were also very uncommon, usually the invading army would simply camp outside the fortress and raid the countryside for supplies while the resident force slowly starved. Eventually one side would out-resource the other and the losing side would give up.

That all said, when shit hit the fan and your life was on the line, you fought like hell and payed a bloody price, but as a whole hollywood vastly over-dramatizes and misrepresents the brutality of medieval warfare.

I would definitely recommend checking out Scholagladiatoria and Lindybeige, both excellent YouTube channels from creators who have a vast amount of knowledge on these subjects.