Thomas Wictor

Posts Tagged ‘World War I’

Life can be made far more frightening than death

Today I suddenly understood another aspect of the military genius that Saudi Deputy Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman is showing. The Arab League and its allies are fighting in Syria, using new weapons that I call EMPFAE munitions. They produce shock waves and nonnuclear electromagnetic pulses that wreck the enemy’s electronics. They…

 

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Context: Here’s how “civilized” westerners used to fight

While we wait to see what’ll happen in Syria, Iraq, and the rest of the Middle East, here’s some context for the fighting. In five years, about 250,000 have been killed in the Syrian civil war. In comparison, from February to December of 1916, over 300,000 combatants were killed in the Battle of Verdun. Nobody’s…

 

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My latest acquisitions

I can’t post tonight for a variety of reasons. Mainly, I’ve had to spend the evening with my cats, who are terrified of the skyrockets that my slobbering, obese, mentally subpar neighbors have begun shooting off. My neighbors buy illegal Mexican municipal-level fireworks that are fired with mortars, so you hear a loud bang, three…

 

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A prisoner who refused

I once saw a World War I postcard that I wished desperately I had in my collection. Today my own original copy arrived. It shows a prisoner of war who refused to play by the rules. Here’s the image. German officers are interrogating French prisoners of war. The uniforms of the Germans show that the…

 

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Fake photos send a message

There’s an image making the rounds that appears to show an American soldier with his legs blown off, sitting in a chair, smoking a cigarette. It’s one of the many fake photos that either boost morale or sap it. I knew it wasn’t real; it took me three minutes to find the source. This is…

 

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Night Raid: Screenplay for a short war movie

I’m very critical of movies. Might as well put my money where my mouth is. Here’s a screenplay for a short war movie titled Night Raid. I wrote it this morning. It’s my first-ever screenplay. Night Raid FADE IN 1. EXT. THE WESTERN FRONT. TITLE READS “1917” – NIGHT We see the devastated, shell-pocked landscape,…

 

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But MY books are rejected

I just read the silliest article. “What if the Germans had won the First World War?” by Martin Kettle. Who’s Martin Kettle? Why, the son of two prominent communist activists! No idea if that has anything to do with his thinking. Wealthy people who call themselves communists are by definition silly, so it makes sense…

 

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Sanctimony is very attractive

I’ve developed a theory: The level of actual concern a person has is inversely proportional to the sanctimony they show. Therefore the louder people bleat about an issue, the less they actually care. The inventor of the AK-47 assault rifle, Mikhail Kalashnikov, just died at the age of ninety-four. The AK-47 is the most-manufactured weapon…

 

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Thanks for the clarity

On this Thanksgiving Day, I say, “Thanks for the clarity, whomever or whatever you are, if you’re up-out-in there.” I think the way the system is set up is that the more clearly you can think and see, the more becomes comprehensible and visible. If I have my car radio turned all the way up,…

 

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God did a little dance

Tim likes to say about people who’ve had happy, successful, fulfilling lives, “God did a little dance around him (her).” Like me, he doesn’t actually believe that the Creator singles out individuals for blessings. It’s just Tim’s shorthand for, “It’s great that someone has had such good fortune. I’m glad for them.” A little more…

 

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