Emmanuel

A guillotine, yes.

Device for Dealing with People who take Opposite Window Seats in a Bus or Train and then Shout at Each Other Across the Aisle.

Poor screenshots from computer games!
TL must be a Merlin-engined Dewoitine D.521 then;
TR a Merlin-engined P-40F or L;
BL A Seafire Mk.XV with a Griffon engine;
And BR the Mustang Mk.X with the RR designed Merlin installation.
BL must be the odd one out.

The cover of “Boulanger!” by John-Alexander Janssen, showing the face of general and populist politician Georges Boulanger (1837-1891). Perhaps now best remembered for Clemenceau’s cruel but posthumous comment, “General Boulanger had the soul of a second lieutenant.”

@thisguysucked.com I think I may have a candidate speaker for you 😏

It’s only the start. Mussolini also ensured the news wouldn’t mention his age, his birthdays, outbreaks of disease, bad weather, or women wearing pants.

About 80% of my grammar suggestions from Microsoft Word are “why not use a simpler word here for clarity?”

No. Fuck you.

I will use a complicated word for evocative precision whenever the muse’s clarion song demands ebullience, vivacity, torpor, or solemnity, you shit-ass suck machine.

Apparently the duke captured part of the Spanish royal art collection — and was allowed to keep it by his grateful former allies.

I’d recommend to go see Apsley house, the former residence of the Duke of Wellington. Apart from Canova’s statue of Napoleon in the (flattered) nude, the Duke had a fantastic art collection. And it’s interesting too.

The front of a castle under a cloud-dotted summer sky. It’s the castle of Gaasbeek by Brussels, which its last owner (the Marquise Arconati-Visconti, the daughter of a French journalist) decorated in a playful mock-medieval style. It’s great!

If you see this post a castle

Business empires are cowards. But also, tariffs are ultimately a regressive form of taxation. Consumers will pay the price, small business may face bankruptcy, but big business know that they will weather it. Don’t expect them to do anything.

When the FDA Commissioner goes on TV to elevate an unverified anecdote about a "friend's parent" dying from a COVID vaccine—while ignoring safety data from 1M+ people published 48 hours earlier—we have an institutional problem. This misleading rhetoric is deeply irresponsible. 🧵

The Beaufighter wasn’t suitable as a day fighter, but in WWII building twin-engined aircraft as day fighters was a waste of resources anyway, something only the Americans could afford to do. Mostly, it was their flexibility in other roles that justified the existence of the class.

Once it had found its niches and had been equipped for them, a case could be made that the Beaufighter was best in class for these roles, until the Mosquito appeared. And maybe the Ju 88G.
The Typhoon always had the competition of the P-47 and Fw 190, which could at least equal it in its roles.

I liked that one too!

“Russia against Napoleon” by Dominic Lieven (always good).

“Curse on this country — The rebellious army of imperial Japan” by Danny Orbach

14 - French aviation has always been better than is usually given credit.

Their aviation history is amazing and you should really be following @aviationmarlene.bsky.social

That seems very unfair to the free-trader Napoleon III…

Interesting that the Japanese plate was high quality. It must have been effective against rounds destabilised by penetrating aircraft structures and equipment or striking at unfavourable angles. The .50 M8 API was more effective than the M2 AP, fire being the great multiplier of damage.

I once read a statement attributed to the WWI ace and later airline CEO Rickenbacker. Paraphrasing, something like: “I hate shooting in the back a man who hasn’t even seen me. It goes against every sporting instinct that I have. But it fits my theory of combat, and that seems to work pretty well.”

A B6N shot down while attacking USS Yorktown off Kwajalein on 4 December 1943. The aircraft lacked armour or fuel tank protection, but it didn't matter given this was the result of a direct 5" hit.

Given the imminent release of a chat I had with Seth and Jon for the Unauthorized History of the Pacific War Podcast, where one of the tangents was me rambling semi-coherently about aircraft protection, I've decided to update a thread I did on it related to Japanese aircraft from many years ago.

For this layman, the odd thing is that Richard III didn’t ensure that they were _seen_ to be dead? Children died often (including Richard’s own son) and a short disease and a very public funeral might have been much safer than a disappearance?Whatever happened maybe wasn’t according to plan.

When you are trying to be stealthy, but haven’t seen Star Trek VI

I assume that for von der Leyen, this is more about disaster control than about negotiation. Trump is an unreliable narcissist, but the EU just tries to minimise the casualties.
Besides, 18% depreciation of the dollar is a trade handicap for the EU too, and one likely to become worse.

Ground crew members ride on the wing to guide the pilot during taxiing, as the forward visibility of the big-nosed Thunderbolt was poor.

"SLATE: 15 MARCH 1945. CAMERAMAN: MCCORD. […] P-47 taxiing past ruined building with crew chief on wing of aircraft"
🎞️📑 catalog.archives.gov/id/67051?obj...

Possibly. It did take 22 years from the first indications that HIV-1 Capsid was a possible drug target, to this point. The first molecules that were potent enough to be potentially useful were discovered 10 years ago.
This is truly amazing news, but let’s have realistic hopes for the future.

The question probably is not what is missing, but what might be present too much, viz. bugs from any number of possible espionage agencies. So it has to be at least stripped bare, and possibly entirely taken apart and reassembled.

I can forgive them for not wanting to touch the A6M too much. Some small carriers were still operating the A5M! Anything that could disrupt A6M production was high risk.

OTOH, the IJN problem in 1941 was that they wanted to replace the B5N by the B6N and the D3A by the D4Y, replacement of the G3M by the G4M was ongoing, and neither the B6N or the D4Y were going well. They were forced to restart production of aircraft they had wanted to phase out.

It’s a fair point about the A6M. Japanese fuel quality limited engine development. And reportedly the IJN refused to consider installing the Kinsei until supply of the Sakae became a problem, and then it was too late. The bigger engine was available throughout the war.

I don’t think the Japanese made small updates that more often then others. (The Germans were the champions of having myriad options and kits.) That they struggled to get their new designs to the front in meaningful numbers was the result of industrial poverty and poor logistics.