Some time ago, I watched a fascinating documentary about the history of tanks.
I did not know that they were originally to be called landships, because they were modeled on the early warships used by naval forces around the world. But allies felt that the name would give an hostile WWI Germany a hint of what was being planned, so the name tank was coined.
Because it looked somewhat like an old water tank.
From their humble beginnings in the early 20th century to the sophisticated armored behemoths of today, tanks have evolved significantly, shaping military strategies and battles along the way.
The concept of armoured vehicles dates back to ancient times, but it wasn't until World War I that the modern tank was born. In 1916, the British unveiled the Mark I tank, a tracked, armoured vehicle designed to break through enemy lines and traverse difficult terrain. These early tanks were primitive by today's standards, with rudimentary armour and limited mobility, but they represented a revolutionary leap in military technology.
Read more: The History of Tanks
Certain battles stand out not just for their strategic significance, but also for the profound human cost they exacted.
The Battle of Fromelles, fought during World War I, is one such chapter.
It took place on July 19–20, 1916, in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France. It was part of the wider Somme Offensive, a British and French joint operation aimed at breaking the stalemate of trench warfare on the Western Front.
It was planned to stop the Germans from reinforcing their unit on the Somme, where the Allies had launched a major offensive earlier that month. The feint was unsuccessful. The attack was a disaster for the British and among the worst 24 hours in Australian military history.
Read more: The Battle of Fromelle - " Don't Forget me Cobber "
When I was young (many decades ago) we lived on a small family farm at Wheatvale near Warwick on the Darling Downs in Queensland, Australia.
Our lifestyle was close to the organic self-sufficient nirvana that today's green zealots babble on about - we produced much of what we needed and needed most of what we produced, using mainly solar power plus a bit of hydrocarbon and wind energy.
But life was no picnic.
Our farm supported our family of four, 30 dairy cows, one bull, eight draught horses, two stock horses, a cattle dog, two cats, two ponies, plus a few pigs, calves and chooks and, at times, a returned service Uncle recovering from the malaria he caught during the war in Papua New Guinea.
One thousand and twenty-one submissions to the Covid-19 Response Enquiry, out of the two thousand and ninety, declined to permit the author’s name to be published.
That’s 49%. Overall, 49% of those people moved enough to make a submission felt disinclined to put their name to their submission.
What a sorry state of affairs. When only half the submitters are confident enough to sign their name for all to see, something is rotten in the states and territories of Australia. Why don’t people put their name to their opinions?
Fear of being cancelled? Fear of losing your job? Fear of retribution? Fear of an awkward conversation over the back fence?
More worrying is that of 26 million, give or take a daily planeload more, only 2,000 bothered to write about the catastrophe of the last 4 years.
That’s 0.008%. Or in technical mathematical language, bugger all.
Read more: When we forget our past, our future is in jeopardy.
John B. Calhoun’s “rat utopia” experiments of the 1960s, designed to be paradises with unlimited resources, resulted in societal collapse and extinction due to extreme behavioural changes, showcasing a dark side of population density and social roles.
The initial population explosion and flourishing of the rat colonies in these utopias turned into a nightmare as they approached their physical and social limits, leading to a breakdown of social structures, deviant behavior, and eventual demographic collapse.
The experiments serve as a chilling parallel to the trajectory of Western society, where periods of abundance and growth gave way to economic shocks, social stagnation, and a rise in antisocial behaviors, suggesting we are experiencing our own form of “behavioral sink.”
Current societal trends, including the breakdown of traditional roles, rising deviancy, and a loneliness crisis, mirror the decay observed in Calhoun’s rat populations, indicating that Western civilisation might be nearing its own “point of no return.”
Humanity possesses the unique ability to recognise its dire straits and has the power to reverse the downward spiral, preventing us from meeting the same fate as the “rat utopias.”
What does the future hold? How the hell will we cope moving on? Our economies are in meltdown; our freedoms destroyed and the Thought Police are censoring our lives through fear.
They are aiming for castles in the sky but forgetting that, in order to get there, you have to travel a dangerous road and someone has to be the driver.
We are poisoning ourselves with vaccines ( not me or most people I know ) and locking ourselves away from normality because we are too scared to stick our heads above the radar and risk being arrested for negative thoughts.
We don't want to be carted off in handcuffs, wearing our PJ's because we dared to say that life isn't very fair right now.
We are living in a dystopian nightmare and we truly need to wake up and shake off the stupor that has infected us.
There’s nothing new about academics stoking schoolkids’ climate fears and depression. But nothing I’ve previously seen can match the onslaught on those from seven upwards by the University of Tasmania (UTas), which helped it gain World No 1 ranking for climate activism. [1] ABC Radio has assisted by publicising and recruiting kids for the program.[2]
The university’s Curious Climate Schools unit has arranged for teachers of more than 2000 Tassie kids in scores of schools to run class “brainstorms” about the alleged global warming peril. Each class forwards its ten best questions to a pool of 80 activist “experts” mobilised within the university and externally. Strangely they include the Chinese Academy of Sciences — China pumps out 35 per cent of the world’s human-caused CO2 emissions.
More than 600 questions have come in. The “experts” get themselves filmed answering the questions and the entire compendium of climate alarmism is offered to all kids on-line.
The scheme ran from 2020-23 and is underway again in 2024. The executives want it to go national and international. The brainwashing is evident in Tassie kids’ questions like “How long do we have until the earth becomes uninhabitable?” and “How long before climate change will destroy the earth?”
One day while I was driving down the highway in the sun
I sat behind a milk truck just returning from his run.
His sign said "Licensed Vendor" and it made me feel secure
That only numbered milkmen could come knocking on my door.
*********
Then I saw a licensed builder with his number on the door
And a plumber with a permit which was issued by the law.
Then a hawker and publican each with his licence plate
And a licensed money lender with his number on the gate.
*********
“The record of the Waco incident documents mistakes. What the record from Waco does not evidence, however, is any improper motive or intent on the part of law enforcement.”
The siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, is an important event in American history because it directly led to one of the biggest terrorist attacks on American soil – the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building. It’s not necessary to defend this act of terrorism to understand why the entire freedom movement of the time was so incensed by it. Indeed, it stood as a symbol of federal overreach and the corruption of the Clinton Administration. Lasting for 51 days, the confrontation between federal law enforcement agencies and the Branch Davidians, a religious sect led by David Koresh, culminated in a catastrophic fire that claimed the lives of 76 people, including Koresh himself.
The seeds of the Waco siege were sown when the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) obtained a search warrant suspecting the Branch Davidians of stockpiling illegal weapons. On February 28, 1993, ATF agents attempted to execute the warrant, resulting in a shootout that claimed the lives of four ATF agents and six Branch Davidians. This event marked the beginning of the standoff.
It’s important to separate fact from fiction when it comes to the siege of Waco, just as it is important to do so with the siege of Ruby Ridge or the attack on the American consolate in Benghazi. With every event, it is important to stick to the facts and what can be extrapolated from them to make the strongest argument about what went wrong and why, and what could be done differently in the future.
Read more: The Waco Siege: What Happened When the Feds Laid Siege to the Branch Davidian Compound
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