Reader Tips

Reader Tips 35 Comments

Have you been searching high and low for an animated world map showing the major military conflicts in the last 1000 years, with the brightness of the explosions proportional to the number of casualties? Well, search no more: accompanied by the sounds of Richard Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries, as performed by the Oslo Philharmonic under the conductorship of Mariss Jansons, here’s World Battleground: 1000 years of war in 5 minutes.
The comments are open, as always, for your Reader Tips.

35 Replies to “Reader Tips”

  1. President Barack Obama reassures Americans that his kids will be okay even if America itself goes down the tubes:

    “Our kids are going to be fine. And I always tell Malia and Sasha, look, you guys, I don’t worry about you — I mean, I worry the way parents worry — but they’re on a path that is going to be successful, even if the country as a whole is not successful.”

    That is a huge relief.

  2. Suez Crisis has more casualties than Gettysburg? O don’t think so. Cute, but way, way inaccurate.

  4. Jacques Delors, the architect of the single currency, says Euro doomed from the start:
    “The euro came into existence without strong central powers to stop members running up unsustainable debts, an omission that led to the current crisis. Now that the excessive borrowing of countries such as Greece and Italy has brought the eurozone to the brink of disaster, Mr Delors insists that all European countries must share the blame for the crisis. ‘Everyone must examine their consciences,’ he says.”
    Especially those stubborn, dictatorial, greedy Krauts:
    “However, he singles out Germany for its strict insistence that the European Central Bank must not support debt-stricken members for fear of fueling inflation. The euro’s troubles spring from ‘a combination of the stubbornness of the Germanic idea of monetary control and the absence of a clear vision from all the other countries.'”
    The Telegraph’s Charles Moore asked Delors whether he is concerned about the “takeover of the technocrats” who, in Greece and Italy, “have been parachuted in without anyone asking the voters.”
    Delors replies:

    “This is not the first time in history that we have put in a non-political person to ensure the transition…” (emph. mine)

    What a great, fluffy description of unelected rulers: “non-political”.

  5. Lloyd (10:16), Jordi Colomer fully acknowledges at the link that the animation isn’t entirely accurate – that the data he used is somewhat Eurocentric – and indicates his intention to update the animation. The video isn’t intended to be a substitute for years of book-learnin anyway, but you gotta admit that them explosions sure are purty!
    Nydwracu:
    “Now consider the history of the American ideography. Its terms have changed consistently, and in a consistent direction: leftward. Equality under the law became equality of opportunity, and is now becoming equality of outcome. Freedom from the tyranny of a single, unelected, overactive monarch became freedom from fear and want, and is now becoming freedom from any sort of moral judgment of all but the most repulsive forms of libertinism. And so on. Considering the structure and history of this ideography, and its identification with ‘Americanism’, there can be no American Right. The American ideography does not hold promise for conservatives, and yet they do not challenge it; in fact, they do the opposite, and in doing so, sign their own death sentence.”
    “That is the failure of conservatism.”
    h/t

  7. Now you can see how the socialistas are quoting the fascistas to support their thesis.
    Now you know what means when you say tergiversate.
    ter·gi·ver·sate
       [tur-ji-ver-seyt] Show IPA
    verb (used without object), -sat·ed, -sat·ing.
    1.
    to change repeatedly one’s attitude or opinions with respect to a cause, subject, etc.; equivocate.
    2.
    to turn renegade.
    Just making stuff up.

  9. actually, this was the point:
    http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2011/12/02/zbigniew_brzezinski_sheer_lunacy
    RUSH: All right, by the way, if you’re wondering about the Gini coefficient, that’s not a genie in a bottle. The Gini coefficient that Zbigniew Brzezinski was referring to here is a guy by the name of Gini, G-i-n-i, and he wrote a paper called “The Scientific Basis of Fascism” in 1927. This is who Zbigniew Brzezinski happened to be citing. Mussolini loved it! Mussolini thought “The Scientific Basis of Fascism” in 1927 was fabulous. This guy, Gini — Corrado Gini is his name — was born May 23rd, 1884 died and died 1965 in March. He was big on controlling the population. He was Italy’s Margaret Sanger. He established the Italian Committee for the Study of Population Problems. He was a statistician, demographer, sociologist, and he developed what is called a Gini coefficient. It’s “a measure of the income inequality in a society.” He was a fascist, theorist, and ideologue who wrote The Scientific Basis of Fascism in 1927 and that’s who Zbigniew Brzezinski is citing, and that’s how he is arriving at the notion: A fascist theory to explain income inequality in the United States.

  11. Chris Moody at Yahoo News:
    “ORLANDO, Fla. — The Republican Governors Association met this week in Florida to give GOP state executives a chance to rejuvenate, strategize and team-build. But during a plenary session on Wednesday, one question kept coming up: How can Republicans do a better job of talking about Occupy Wall Street?
    “‘I’m so scared of this anti-Wall Street effort. I’m frightened to death,’ said Frank Luntz, a Republican strategist and one of the nation’s foremost experts on crafting the perfect political message. ‘They’re having an impact on what the American people think of capitalism.’
    “Luntz offered tips on how Republicans could discuss the grievances of the Occupiers…
    The rest here.
    (via Maggie’s Farm)

  13. The Beeb: “UK police recorded at least 2,823 […] [‘]honour attacks[‘] last year [2010], figures from 39 out of 52 forces show.
    “A freedom of information request by the ‘Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation (Ikwro)’ revealed that nearly 500 of these were in London[istan].”
    Islamist speaking at Hyde Park “Speaker’s Corner”, 2005: “We will take USA, we will take the UK, we will take over Europe. We trust in Allah.”

  16. Grab the stupid Lefty in your life and make him/her watch Tarek Fatah’s exposé of the muslim brotherhood and the idiots on the liberal-left – including Barack Obama – who refuse to see the painfully obvious.

  17. “But what outrages me most is the bigotry. Behind this crisis and blocking any solution is the pervasive assumption that one race – aboriginals – are not like anybody else in this country. Supposedly they don’t think the same way, they don’t react to incentives the same way, and we can’t reform policy on the assumption that they are like everyone else.”
    “We’ll never fix this or a host of related problems until we say and mean that all men are created equal.”
    – John Robson on Attawapiskat

  18. Aboriginals survived for thousands of years through hard times by making sure that their clan prospered while other clans didn’t. Our European immigrant values might label this as nepotism or corruption, but for them it’s traditional. The band leaders and their relatives living well while others in the village live in shacks is completely normal to them.
    When that happens in Africa it’s called “human rights abuse” but when it happens on native reserves it’s just First Nations Traditional Government. Lieberal governments tacitly condoned this practice for decades, so situations like Attawapiskat shouldn’t come as a big surprise.

  19. O’Nixon: I am not a crook*.
    …-
    “Committee Weighs Contempt Citation Against White House Over Solyndra”
    “Members of Congress investigating the $535 million loan guarantee that the Obama administration gave to now-bankrupt solar panel manufacturer Solyndra are considering suing the White House to obtain access to documents relating to the case, Fox News has learned.
    For close to a year, the House Energy and Commerce Committee has been probing the circumstances surrounding the loan and its subsequent restructuring, which subordinated taxpayers to private investors in the recovery of the company’s assets. Solyndra’s chief investor, billionaire George Kaiser, is a prominent Obama supporter whom records show visited the White House 17 times.
    The White House and the Energy Committee have clashed repeatedly over access to documents and witnesses. A White House spokesman notes the administration has already turned over 185,000 documents to the committee, and that Argonaut Ventures, the Tulsa, Oklahoma-based private equity firm Kaiser founded, has also produced a large volume of documents. Earlier this month, the committee subpoenaed the White House for more documents, but the administration did not comply fully, citing what it deemed the excessive scope of the request.
    The committee has also been stymied in its attempts to secure interviews with some personnel from the Energy Department and the White House Office of Management and Budget, particularly those bureaucrats who raised red flags early on about Solyndra’s shaky finances.”
    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/12/02/committee-weighs-contempt-citation-against-white-house-over-solyndra/#ixzz1fRkduw61
    …-
    “Nixon “I’m not a crook” press conference – YouTube”
    03/01/2006 · “People have got to know whether or not their president’s a crook. Well, I’m not a crook.”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxeFMHyOx3I

  20. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gDzsrNbxcidMni3rIoMhRV6plNQA?docId=6841d3fcd7334a9da2a775e83089b309
    The college bubble is hugely inflated right now, and it’s possible that the comments at the end of the article are an attempt keep the bubble from popping. But I think it’s more likely that college administrators, who never see these students once they get their degree, have no idea that those degrees are becoming worthless.
    But most interesting to me is the tacit admission that college without a degree at the end has no value. A student who takes three years of courses with no debt but no degree is worse off than a student who takes four years of courses and emerges with debt and a degree. The only way this equation is true is if the degree has value and the courses don’t.

  22. Neo-AGW Progress Report.
    CCWOT: Heads up, er off with their Durbans.
    …-
    ““Climate change is our war on terror,” says Seyni Nafo, a Mali native and senior negotiator for the African delegation at Durban.”
    “Durban”
    “African countries press developed world to come to climate deal”
    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/african-countries-press-developed-world-to-come-to-climate-deal/article2259029/
    …-
    “‘Dead dictators’ roast chicken ad pulled after threats against restaurant staff”
    “AFFAN CHOWDHRY”
    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/dead-dictators-roast-chicken-ad-pulled-after-threats-against-restaurant-staff/article2249262/

  24. You missed it too, eh?
    “But she did remind us that November 20 was Transgender Day of Remembrance.”
    “All political tendencies exhibit double standards but the Left gets away with murder.”
    But, there is no left-right divide when it comes to humour/wit/mockely/lidicure, right Mao?
    …-
    “All political tendencies exhibit double standards but the Left gets away with murder. This week saw the publication of an excellent article in Commentary magazine in which Jonathan Foreman tried to explain to a US readership why the Independent isn’t sacking its columnist Johann Hari, whom we now know is a plagiarist, fantasist and slanderous liar. Foreman’s conclusion was spot on. Hari escaped sacking because he told the right kind of lies, ones that amused liberal opinion-formers.
    Twitter, needless to say, heartily embraces the double standards of the Left. It went bananas over Clarkson. Misery princess and New Statesman hack Laurie Penny declared: “I am ashamed to have a passport the same colour as the crypto-fascist propagandist Jeremy Clarkson. Whose salary, btw, is publically [sic] funded.”
    Strangely, I have been unable to find a tweet from Laurie condemning Carr, with whom she appeared on the “edgy” but sanctimonious Channel 4 programme 10 O’Clock Live. But she did remind us that November 20 was Transgender Day of Remembrance. Must put that in the diary for next year. Do you think Jimmy or Ricky have some jokes up their sleeves about transsexuals? I doubt it, somehow. Wrong sort of minority.”
    “Jeremy Clarkson ignites the hypocrisy of the Left”
    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100121397/jeremy-clarkson-ignites-the-hypocrisy-of-the-left/

  25. Gee, forget Obama’s serial noun/verb, noun/pronoun disagreements, Michelle Obama has pronoun/pronoun disagreements! “Barak is one of the smartest men YOU will meet in OUR lifetime.”
    ONE notices that Michelle is pretty well being kept under wraps these days. Too bad. Like her husband, she’s a disaster waiting to happen. Their joint “reign” is like being in a minefield: one never knows when the next explosion’s going to happen.
    (Thanks to Glenn, I loved Obama’s geography, history, and health lessons: Europe is a country, Eau Clair is a state—one of the 57—the Americans dropped a bomb on Pearl Harbour, Israel is a friend of Israel, Lincoln built America’s first intercontinental railway, and asthma sufferers need treatment with breathalysers. And that’s just what I can remember off the top of my head. When he was in Canada, Obama said how happy he was to be in “Iow . . . I mean Ottawa.” WHAT a maroon!)

  26. I wonder if this story of SAT cheating partly explains the moral decay in politics and crony capitalism in our large corporations. Perhaps the current financial collapse and global political competence deficit, headed by our moral and intellectual superiors from “good” schools, stems from the real life lessons learned about how to get into and successfully graduate from elite institutions.
    Beyond Cheating on Long Island
    As more information emerges about the SAT-cheating scandal on Long Island, it has become clear that this isn’t a story about kids. Parents and school officials have gone off the rails. As the NYT reports, parents did nothing as their children paid stand-ins as much as $3,600 to catapult their scores into the 2100 range; school officials knew that cheating was happening, but refused to act as long as there were no obvious scandals; and test administrators convinced themselves that a female student could look like this.
    Many of the fraudulent test-takers’ parents were community leaders
    […]
    All this said, it is still true that the scandal points to the absurd overvaluation that America gives the imprimatur from blue chip schools. Via Meadia wants national exams that would allow students from less famous or non-traditional schools to demonstrate that a hardworking kid at Wayne State can come out of college better educated than a lazy wastrel from the Ivy League. The absence of such recognized credentials is what gives prestigious degrees excessive weight in the job market, and this system is not only dysfunctional but morally wrong.
    http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2011/12/02/beyond-cheating-on-long-island/

  27. “*Such stuff as dreams are made on”.
    …-
    “Commune plus one
    by James Panero
    On Occupy Wall Street & the legacy of the Paris Commune.”
    […]
    “Whenever Lenin wanted to suggest the success of the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, he compared it to the mythical seventy-two days of the Paris Commune of 1871. For Lenin, the seventy-third day of Bolshevism became “Commune plus one.” “All through his life,” writes Horne, “Lenin studied the Commune: worshipped its heroism, analyzed its successes, criticized its faults, and compared its failures with the failures of the abortive Russian Revolution of 1905.” At his death, Lenin’s body was wrapped in the red Communard flag.
    In 1964, a Soviet Voskhod even rocketed to space carrying a shred of an original Communard banner. By restarting a clock that ran for a couple of months in a Paris spring, the Communists consigned tens of millions of people to death and ruined half the nations of Europe. They then saw fit to celebrate these achievements by sending the Paris Commune into space before, eventually, their own idealistic creation came crashing down to Earth.
    Marx called the Commune the first “dictatorship of the proletariat.” Lenin’s Bolsheviks identified closely with the Commune and shared the same name. Yet the Communists were far from the last to be taken in by its myth.
    There is an undeniable romance in doomed idealism, even if the ends are worse than the beginnings. The deadliest form of idealism invites its own ruin, either from outside or within, so that the purity of the ideal can be measured against the severity of its destruction—cataclysm as a defense against compromise. “The Commune ruled for a brief seventy days before expiring in a holocaust of fire and bloodshed far in excess of anything perpetrated during the Great Revolution of 1789,” writes Horne, “but it left behind an indelible mark that was to spread far beyond the boundaries of France.”
    The legacy of the Commune was an idealistic promise that can never be fulfilled. To resurrect the Commune therefore means to restart the countdown to ruin. Herein lies the deadly mechanics of the Commune and the movements it inspires. Listen closely and most of the failed idealism of the last century has the tick of that Commune clock, from the terror of China to Cambodia to many smaller time bombs including, now, Occupy Wall Street.”
    http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Commune-plus-one-7227
    …-
    “The statue of Lenin stares grimly across the overgrown parade ground in Wünsdorf, a small town 20 kilometers south of Berlin. But the last parade here happened long ago, and Lenin’s stone features are weatherbeaten and covered in lichen. Nature has taken command in this deserted place.”
    “Abandoned Soviet Outpost”
    “Glimpses of a Forgotten, Forbidden City”
    http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-75674-20.html
    …-
    “*Prospero:
    Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
    As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
    Are melted into air, into thin air:
    And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
    The cloud-capp’d tow’rs, the gorgeous palaces,
    The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
    Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
    And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
    Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
    As dreams are made on; and our little life
    Is rounded with a sleep.”
    Shakespeare

  29. Cute, but the size of the conflict is often not the most important thing about it. Results matter.

  30. the biggest is yet to come and ‘bama’s intent on heading there as fast as he can…
    the islamic brotherhood he insists on helping into power in every ‘secular’ ME nation will pull the trigger soon enough…especially since ‘bama now says it’s all Israel’s fault…just to help them out a bit more
    wait for scenes like this in a school near you before long…
    TUNIS – A group of Salafists disrupted classes on Monday at a university west of the capital Tunis, demanding a stop to mixed-sex classes and for female students to wear full face veils, officials said.
    “They want girls to wear the niqab, a mosque in the middle of the campus, a stop to mixed classes and a prohibition of women teaching male students and vice versa,” he said, adding that it marked the first such incident on campus.
    Tunisia’s Salafists have become more assertive in recent months, following the revolution that ousted a staunchly secular regime along with president Zine el Abidine Ben Ali in January following mass protests.

  32. Cute idea for a video, but as others have pointed out, quite inaccurate and, as the maker of the video points out, strongly biased toward conflicts in Europe.
    Also, in terms of casualties, Marxist internal wars against the people should show as colossal explosions.

  33. Things go better with ice for polar bears; but, for the Nomeites it’s a ……
    …-
    “Churchill polar bears finally have sea ice to hunt on”
    “Freeze-up on Hudson Bay came later than in recent decades, but most of Churchill’s polar bears have managed to get out onto the sea ice to hunt for seals again, says Polar Bears International.
    For the past two years, Churchill’s polar bear population was forced to wait until the first and second weeks of December to get on the ice and return to hunting seals, according to the non-profit advocacy and research group.”
    http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/Churchill+polar+bears+finally+have+hunt/5805669/story.html
    …-
    “Ice Causes Fuel Delivery Nightmare for Nome, Alaska”
    “The fuel delivery was delayed by the “snowicane” conditions that slammed Nome, Alaska during the first week of November.
    The barge was en route to Nome carrying 1.6 million gallons of fuel when the storm roared into the area. The storm delayed the barge and it was unable to reach Nome before the winter sea ice began to set in.
    The town of Nome is now surrounded by about a foot-thick ice and the barge can not make it into port.”
    http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/ice-causes-fuel-delivery-night/58581

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