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May 30, 2018

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Also, too, I'm spending way too much time on the twitters, and encountering some very special people

LOL

Absolutely hilarious to watch people who are so cheek-clenchingly offended about a bunch of black athletes "disrespecting" the flag by exercising their right to free speech by kneeling during the anthem rush to the defense of Roseanne.

I mean, the off-key rendition, spit, and crotch-grab was only twenty-eight years ago...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls1YVhcLD2c

and only five years ago, Roseanne was saying "too bad trayvon was unarmed, or GZ would be the dead one"

i pity the fool who makes Roseanne his political champion.

The all-around prevailing attitude seems to be, "Free speech for me, but not for thee."

"Executives shocked when horrible racist makes horribly racist comments"

Honestly, on the one hand I can get with the idea that if there is sufficient demand for something a supply will arise, on the other hand, JFC are you really willing to do that for a buck?

I kind of liked the off key rendition, spit and crotch grab back in the day.

also

god damn that was 14 years ago...

The all-around prevailing attitude seems to be, "Free speech for me, but not for thee."

The all-around prevailing attitude seems to be, "Everything good for me but not for thee, and everything bad for thee and not for me."

CharlesWT, there is no first amendment right to have a TV show.

I WANT TO BE ON TELEVISION!

--Raymond Luxury-Yacht

"Free speech for me, but not for thee."

if only.

but no, Roseanne is still tweeting away.

(and even that has nothing to do with "free speech")

If I were an NFL player, I would invent increasingly subtle gestures to protest racial injustice. No kneeling? Maybe I’ll just slouch a bit, after announcing publicly that, if I seem to be slouching, I may or may not be protesting racial injustice. (Wink! Wink!) Maybe I’ll gently rub my belly, or blink a bit more often than is normal, or purse my lips ever so slightly.

How much nationalist-ritual regulation is the NFL up for? Let’s find out!

CharlesWT, there is no first amendment right to have a TV show.

True. And people should be called out for being dickish. But there seems to be too much willingness on all sides to try to smother any speech they don't like.

But unlike countries who're our "more civilized" superiors, we not at the point of tweet and go to jail.

Just saw a meme:

“Rosanne made a joke. Just like Trevor Noah, Jimmy Kimmell, The View, Stephen Colbert, Anthony Atamanuik, Jimmy Fallon, etc. make jokes and make fun of Trump and his supporters. I guess it’s not funny when a conservative does it.”

“Just like” is bearing a heavy load in this well-considered formulation. And, gee whiz, didn’t she make a bunch of “conservative” jokes before this one -ones that were even in the script for her show? Somehow, she didn’t get fired for any of those jokes. What could be going on here?

What could be going on here?

Let's see.... How about: Jokes about liberals aren't as cutting as jokes about conservatives, because . . . something. So comparing them isn't valid.

But anyway, racist comments are (somehow by definition) conservative, so objecting to them is an attack on conservatives.

(I think it's a bad sign that I'm getting to where I can imagine the "reasoning" of these nut cases. Aaaargh!)

But there seems to be too much willingness on all sides to try to smother any speech they don't like.

I love how libertarians obliterate counterarguments by the sheer overwhelming force of their deeply delusional assumptions.

The smothering of free speech in the workplace is a feature, not a bug. Ask any union organizer.

...but yes, "all sides." What 'effing BS.

And people should be called out for being dickish. But there seems to be too much willingness on all sides to try to smother any speech they don't like.

Nobody is smothering Roseanne's speech.

the off-key rendition, spit, and crotch-grab was only twenty-eight years ago...

Jeez I am getting old.

Since it's an open thread, here some ... entertainment?

A character named Max Linn has been in the news in Maine for several months. The first splash I saw was early this year, when he announced that he was running in the Republican primary for Angus King's US Senate seat.

There was drama from the beginning, at first focusing on his wandering and sometimes unsavory political history (see linked article). Then the drama switched to the fact that his petitions to have his name placed on the ballot had invalid names -- dead people, forged signatures, you know the drill.

There were a couple of rounds of Sec' of State decisions and finally a court case, where it was ruled that his petitions were fraudulent enough so that he could no longer be a candidate.

But -- ballots were already printed. So people will have to be told at the polling booths that if they vote for him, it won't count.

I happened to be in Augusta yesterday for an appointment and errands, and there were signs all over the place for ... Max Linn?

Yes indeed, he is still campaigning. Acc' to the article, there is no law against it. And votes for him still won't count.

For the record, it's too late for him to run as an independent, and anyhow, to do that requires 4000 valid signatures, whereas he couldn't even get the 2000 required for party-primary candidates. And AFAICT he's not campaigning as a write-in, either.

Some people do live in a world of their own.

There's a difference between free speech and unchallenged speech. The US Constitution protects the former, not the latter.

There's a difference between free speech and sponsored speech. The US Constitution does not require anybody to sponsor speech.

There's a difference between pro-Trump speech and racist speech. In theory.

That is all.

--TP

Just watched this on Netflix

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/netflix-documentary-re-examines-hsbcs-881-million-money-laundering-scandal-2018-02-21

So apparently laundering close to a billion in drug cartel money for years is punished with a slap on the wrist and a stern talking to while the prisons are overflowing with drug addicts due to ridiculously harsh mandatory minimum sentencing laws.

But there seems to be too much willingness on all sides to try to smother any speech they don't like.

Roseanne Barr's speech-in-question was on Twitter, not on TV. she's still Tweeting. and it's still terrible.

Once you re-imagine government and law as mere component products of the social no more or less autonomous and determinative than religion or the economy then the practical differences between legally protected/unprotected speech and socially protected/unprotected speech becomes much less important but much more interesting.

Jokes about liberals aren't as cutting as jokes about conservatives, because ....*crickets*

HA!

Don't you know? The entire "politically correct" nonsense was started as a dig BY liberals, on leftier-than-thou people, decades ago!

Guess who didn't get the joke?

Guess who didn't get the joke?

Ha! I remember when "political correctness" was a term of anarcho-liberal New Leftists derision when talking about Maoists, who used the term seriously.

Those were the days.

Actually, the term has antecedents going back to the 30's: https://s-usih.org/2015/02/politically-correct-a-history-part-i/

It is to weep (if you are a lefty type).

I've played for years on mixed race sports teams.

I frequent a local bar that is mixed race and among the many friends there are gay men and lesbians.

It's not difficult for me to imagine the brand of speech smothering that would ensue if some jackass decided to call someone an ape or a fag in those settings as some sort of juvenile conservative baiting of this republican ass wipe made-up bullshit called "political correctness".

You can sue me later for your medical bills, you fucking racist, whomever you are.

One thing I know you aren't is a southern racist Democrat because all of them long ago joined the lynch mob called the republican party.

The speech we ought to be grateful for is Valerie Jarrett's civilized, peaceful response to Roseanne's twittertwatting racist free speech.

It should have been handled this way:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=fight+breaks+out+on+the+geraldo+rivera+show+over+race

At least those butthead white supremacists, now among mp's racist paramilitary base, had the guts to show up in person to deliver their racist, anti-Semitic speech so Roy Innis could deliver HIS response with his fists.

The speech we ought to be grateful for is Barack Obama's continuing his SOTU speech after racist Joe Wilson called him a liar from the cheap balcony seats, instead of Obama taking a revolver out of his pocket and shooting Wilson in the head, and watch the latter fall out of the balcony dead at the feet of the seated republican assholes.

The speech we ought to be grateful for is Barack Obama's gentle, civilized jokes in racist lout birth-certificate-liar Donald mp's direction at the news banquet. He could have come down off the podium, strode thru the audience and beaten mp to a pulp with a baseball bat and we wouldn't be currently cursed with the racist republican party in that fuck's suit in the White House today.

It's 2018, people.

Stop it.

Jackie Robinson doesn't have to indulge the racist jackasses on the Philadelphia Phillies and the St. Louis Cardinals any longer for fear of upsetting Branch Rickey's integrationist apple cart.

He made it. So has Valerie Jarrett. So has Huma Abedin. So has Michelle Obama.

Any further racist remarks like Roseanne's is not an experiment in free speech.

It's suicide, and I'd be happy to help with that.


Thanks for posting this. I was trying to write something about this, but this post is much much much better.

But I though I would give you what I was trying to write in point form, not that I'm any closer to figuring any of this out.

-Everything I see (at first) references Roseanne's tweet about Valerie Jarrett. True for everyone?

-However, the tweet was one of a barrage
https://www.vox.com/2018/5/29/17404972/roseanne-clinton-conspiracy-trump

-R also has to focus on not being a racist
http://deadline.com/2018/05/roseanne-not-racist-valerie-jarrett-wikileaks-tweet-abc-cancel-1202400218/
and blames it on Ambien
https://gizmodo.com/roseanne-blames-ambien-for-her-racism-then-deletes-the-1826413719

-note the 'I didn't know she was black' defense in that article. various thoughts about how that defense works

as well as a host of other reasons
https://people.com/tv/roseanne-barr-feels-misunderstood-after-racist-tweet/
Barr also placed blame for the cancellation on Wanda Sykes, a consulting producer on the sitcom who announced on social media that she would “not be returning” to Roseanne following the first tweet about Jarrett.

“Her tweet made ABC very nervous and they cancelled the show,” Barr said in response to a fan’s tweet.

-so why the focus on the tweet about Jarrett?

Several possibilities raised and discarded, leading to final conclusion: the problem with intersectionality is that it raises lots of questions, but doesn't answer any of them.

Wanted to work in this from the maker of Ambien
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/05/30/roseanne-barr-blames-ambien-zolpidem-drug-real-side-effects/654683002/
Sanofi, who makes Ambien, tweeted a response Wednesday morning: "While all pharmaceutical treatments have side effects, racism is not a known side effect of any Sanofi medication."

Flamethrowers coming to schools, parched forests and sporting events near you:

https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/05/elon-musk-nearly-ready-to-ship-cool-new-forest-fire-starter/

Well, mp hasn't gone up in flames via spontaneous combustion yet, so we may need this new fun toy on the streets.

https://www.theonion.com/report-96-of-nations-smut-consumed-by-filthiest-1-1819574369”>On the 1%.

https://www.theonion.com/report-96-of-nations-smut-consumed-by-filthiest-1-1819574369

Not sure why I couldn’t make a link with the text “On the 1%.” So I gave up and posted the URL to auto-link.

I miss the days when I knew practically nothing about tv people except what show they were on, lots I only knew by their character name.

Really big stars I knew who they married.

I miss the days when I knew practically nothing about tv people except what show they were on

you and me both

Flamethrowers coming to schools

my niece's ex and his buddies like to go out in the desert, get a buzz on, and blast away with flamethrowers.

it's a thing.

everybody needs a hobby. just take it outside, please. way outside.

Anybody else done any axe-throwing? That seems to be getting to be a popular-ish thing, enough to be commercially viable.

I havent thrown an axe in 5 decades, but we did it as a thing during my teen years. I couldn't help myself, I used the Google to find a place near me, and it's all about drinking and throwing: www.forbes.com/sites/michelinemaynard/2018/01/14/axe-throwing-bars-are-a-hot-trend-despite-what-you-think-could-go-wrong/amp/

James Buchanan, father of our country along with James C Calhoun

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/05/meet-economist-behind-one-percents-stealth-takeover-america.html

I read abou this book elsewhere, but can’t remember where. It has a melodramatic flair to it, but it does pretty well describe trends over the past several decades that I associated more with Friedman and Rand.

"those who own the country ought to govern it" - John jay, founder, co-author of the federalist papers, first chief justice

the idea is as old as the nation, and older

united states of property

Damn John Jay, and damn everyone who won't .. etc, etc.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-poor-person-economy-commerce-secretary-rich-cabinet-appointments-a7803096.html

Even Wilbur Ross was poorer than vermin mp thought, and thus unworthy, having lied on the resume he submitted for entry into the Forbes 400.

I'm ordering the book on Buchanan/Calhoun as we speak.

I can own that book. Also the automatic weapons, the flamethrowers, and the axes of Evil.

Seems a foolhardy oversight by the Jay/Buchanan/Calhoun/Koch/mp 1% (now we know who thrives on the smut) to allow me those items of property, given the comeuppance they deserve.

You have to start drinking pretty early in the morning to put one past me, har.

Of course, Gates, Buffet, and the oncologists, among others, will be spared because they haven't, for the most part, confused their wealth and property with their dicks, by which I mean they don't think of their earned good fortune as an instrument by which to fuck everyone else.

Marty's ax-throwing/drinking and wj's previously-mentioned broad-sword fighting brings this to mind:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5n28hpMFBE

Jay/Buchanan/Calhoun/mp/Koch take their good fortune as a signal to become the mean girls of America:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAOmTMCtGkI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWVRg6IOGWY

Damn John Jay, and damn everyone who won't...

the new ObWi motto!

meanwhile... repatriated income and tax cuts are spurring a round of reinvestment... meh.

at least, so says the WSJ.

Charlie Brown America tries to kick the football held by .01% Lucy, once again.

Trickle down doesn't mean what they're telling you it means.

Maybe next quarter it will turn around.

That Naked Capitalism piece is a real hoot. I should just watch Westworld and ignore all this stuff. Watching humans and apparent humans slaughter each other is far less disturbing.

"those who own the country ought to govern it"

There's a passage in GB Shaw's writings that I've been looking for as a response to this and other things that get said around here. Since I haven't found it (yet), I give you Smeagol and Gollum:

'But the Precious holds the promise,' the voice of Smeagol objected.'

'Then take it,' said the other, and let's hold it ourselfs. Then we shall be master, gollum.

Marty's ax-throwing/drinking and wj's previously-mentioned broad-sword fighting brings this to mind

Videos like this are always amusing. Notice that the "chain mail" shirt is actually knitted cloth, not steel. You can tell because real chain main doesn't work like that at the elbows. In fact you only do short sleeves precisely because it won't bunch up and let you move. (Also, you have the shirt draped over your belt, not just the belt cosmetically around your waist. Because otherwise the weight will make it impossible to raise your arms.)

No doubt folks who are really experts at martial arts have similar caustic things to say about the fight scenes in movies, too.

California, as we are all aware (some delighted, some irate), tends to get to new trends first. So here is a little something to amuse you all:

“Republican” has slipped to the third-most popular party affiliation — after no party at all [emphasis added]
It's been visibly coming for some time. Aided, no doubt, by the fact that our "top two" open primary system means that you don't have to register with a party in order to vote in the primaries. (Except the Presidential primaries, where the national parties are able to insist.)

No doubt folks who are really experts at martial arts have similar caustic things to say about the fight scenes in movies, too.

I did a year's class on Beowulf (in the original language...that was part of the point) in grad school. One of the guys in it was a Society for Creative Anachronism buff. He told us how there was a big debate over whether the spears mentioned in Beowulf were thrown with one hand or two (the poem doesn't say, although IIRC there is some idea, maybe from actual physical remnants, of how big they were).

He was on the two-hand side; he and many of his buddies couldn't possibly control a big spear like that with only one hand.

He was a great guy, but he wasn't very big, and he wasn't much of an athlete, and I always wondered why he thought he should judge the physical fitness and talents of medieval warriors -- probably doing hard physical work of some sort for their entire lives -- by his own puny capabilities. I'm pretty sure he couldn't dunk a basketball either, but that didn't mean no one else could do it.

"I did a year's class on Beowulf (in the original language...that was part of the point) in grad school."

Lectures and discussion in Old Ænglisc? Wild!

Hollywood almost always messes up historical details. One of the most common (for ancient periods) is how surprisingly late stirrups were invented. You'd think, from a modern perspective, that they'd have been around since 1000BC, but there's a *reason* that chariots were so popular back then, and that 'mounted lancers' didn't really take off until late antiquity.

He was a great guy, but he wasn't very big, and he wasn't much of an athlete, and I always wondered why he thought he should judge the physical fitness and talents of medieval warriors -- probably doing hard physical work of some sort for their entire lives -- by his own puny capabilities.

No argument about this at all (how could there be - you were the only person who knew him), but as a side issue it's always astonishing when you look at old armour (in, for example, the Tower of London if I recall correctly) and see how short they mostly were. I suppose it was mainly nutrition, even for the upper classes, but it really is astonishing when you see it IRL.

No doubt folks who are really experts at martial arts have similar caustic things to say about the fight scenes in movies, too.

I'm no expert, but at the height of my training in escrima I had a pretty hard time with any fight scene involving a weapon - not because I expected realism, but because my trained awareness was telling me that the "attacks" were no danger. They were all either aimed over the opponent's head or were too far out to connect with anything but the opponent's weapon. The instant after the weapon started moving I had already decided that the attack could be ignored with no danger and had started paying attention to something other than the weapon (distance, weight distribution, targets of opportunity). So when the hero reacted like the fake attack was serious it created a sense of dissonance that was distracting because the lack of real intent seemed so obvious.

I've never been close to qualifying as an expert in the martial arts, but several years of having weapons coming at your head with anything close to real intent teaches you a few things.

Another side effect of that training: I can spot a blunt edge on a prop sword without even trying, and then it stops registering as a blade and my mind starts treating it as a nasty club instead.

How do you throw a spear with two hands?

The only way I can visualize is sort of an underhand toss from the side, which doesn't strike me as very effective.

Plus, I've always wondered about throwing spears. It seems like kind of a one-shot tactic, with the added disadvantage that the other guy gets the spear if you miss. Maybe there's more to it, somehow. Did they have 30-spear magazines?

Lectures and discussion in Old Ænglisc? Wild!

No, just the reading. SRSLY.

the Guardian on realism in war films:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/29/antony-beevor-the-greatest-war-movie-ever-and-the-ones-i-cant-bear

How do you throw a spear with two hands?

I don't know, but Wikipedia says that "As a weapon, it may be wielded with either one hand or two."

From cleek's link, regarding Saving Private Ryan. The piece goes on to rip it a good one, which is fine. I didn't have any opinion about the historical accuracy of the film (I don't expect it), but I was dismayed at the thought that I might have been so terribly wrong about the basic physical reality depicted, particularly during the beach landing. I'm glad to find out that that wasn't the problem with it.

After a truly extraordinary opening – probably the most realistic battle sequence ever filmed...

my trained awareness was telling me that the "attacks" were no danger. They were all either aimed over the opponent's head or were too far out to connect with anything but the opponent's weapon.

And because actors are typically trained in fencing (if they have any training at all) they use broadswords like they were foils, with their shields acting as counterweights. It's actually gotten a bit better in the last couple decades. But any movie from before 1970 is simply laughable.

Hurstwic living history group on the viking spear. I usually find them to be well informed if not quite as adept in weapons practice as the more active European HEMA groups.

Don't think that spears were thrown two-handed, but they were definitely wielded both single handed with shield and double handed for more reach and control when used without a shield.

Notes (I guess the memory of Beowulf reignites the scholarly urge)

1. The point of saying it was in OE was to answer the expected question: why would you spend a whole year on Beowulf? Answer: because it was a language course, too. But as with my high school Latin, we weren't expected to be able to converse in it. (It did count as one of the three languages one had to show "proficiency" in for the PhD. "Profiency" meaning the ability to translate a passage with a dictionary at one's elbow.)

2. Spears are a big deal in the poem.

3. Per GftNC on the size of the people who wore the armor: this is also true of artifacts of Revolutionary times in the US. But without having time to search, I'm pretty sure the phenomenon is an on-again, off-again thing over the millennia, and does indeed depend a lot of diet. In any case, you can't make a straight-line extrapolation from average height now back through average height in 1776 or 1500 to get a clue what it was in (Beowulfishly) 1000 AD.

And Spud Webb could dunk a basketball even though he was all of 5'7". My OE pal wouldn't, as a friend of mine one put it, have been able to dunk on a 9 foot basket if the fate of the world depended on it. (The rim of a normal basket is 10 feet off the ground.)

4. The poetry of the Rohirrim in LOTR is modeled on OE poetry, in meter and alliteration patterns.

5. I once did a semester-long class on War and Peace. Obsessives will obsess, and apparently I'm not the only one, because it was a full (and very good) class.

I came close to being a medievalist. Had been admitted to one Ph.D. program for it but got a better offer from another school that took me in a different direction with my studies.

Love Anglo-Saxon poetry, but if I were to dump that much time into a Northern European language for historical research, I'd go for Old Norse so I could do double duty with Icelandic.

anybody into ballistic slings?

a question I would not ordinarily think to ask, but, we seem to be in archaic weaponry territory...

one of the three languages one had to show "proficiency" in for the PhD. "Profiency" meaning the ability to translate a passage with a dictionary at one's elbow.

I recall being appalled to discover that I could get credit for German by passing a test where there was sufficient time to look up every single word which was not a cognate, do a literal translations, and then follow up with a free translation. I know German better than that, but it made passing the test a walk in the park. One wonders why they bothered.

The language test was a feature in fields where much of the important scholarly research was published in a language other than the student's L1. Candidates in one of those fields would have to show that they could keep up with new developments in the field and work through important journal articles on their own.

For most, though, it is a formality of the qualification process.

On historical weapons, armor and their use these are some very interesting Youtube channels

Knyght Erand (spcialist on armor)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1T4KJG1L_kTrP9RcdU5Csw

Metatron (specialised on Roman and Japanese armor and weapons)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIjGKyrdT4Gja0VLO40RlOw

scholagladiatoria (historical martial arts)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt14YOvYhd5FCGCwcjhrOdA

Skallagrim
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3WIohkLkH4GFoMrrWVZZFA

Lindybeige
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9pgQfOXRsp4UKrI8q0zjXQ

Also interesting: shadiversity
(don't won't to break the 5 links limit)

I suppose it was mainly nutrition, even for the upper classes, but it really is astonishing when you see it IRL.

Childhood illnesses, which could keep someone bedridden for months or a year or more at a time also stunted growth.

As for diets, after the potato introduced into Europe, a great many people spent much of their lives eating almost nothing else.

But any movie from before 1970 is simply laughable.

At least, they stop putting silencers on revolvers.

@nous at 12:43 PM: I've been a hobbyist bladesmith for at least 10 years, and prop blades in movies and tv are huge distractions for me. I can tell they are props, and not sharpened, and in many cases, not steel. The Lord of the Rings was funny this way - they'd switch from a steel blade to a lighter prop made out of some other material. So you could see that the "same" sword was actually at least two different objects.

How do you throw a spear with two hands?

I believe it's possible to use some atlatls two-handed

Historian Alexis von Tunzelmann had a long running column devoted entirely to historical (in)accuracy in films - quite entertaining:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/series/reelhistory

Also available as a book: "Reel History: The World According to the Movies"

My favourite war films:

Paths of Glory (Kubrick)
The Thin Red Line (Malick)
Das Boot (Petersen)
The Pianist (Polanski)
La Grande Illusion (Renoir)
Army of Shadows (Melville)
Au Revoir Les Enfants (Malle)
Battle of Algiers (Pontecorvo)
Black Book (Verhoeven)
All Quiet on the Western Front (Milestone)


ooops, make that Alex von Tunzelmann

Whew favorite war movies

Ivan's Childhood, Come and See, Cranes are Flying
Human Condition, Fires on the Plain, River Fuefuki, Ugetsu?

Cranes are Flying is beautiful

Looks like today is hitting a bunch of my nerdic obsessions (WWII combat rhetoric and representation - check).

Just had a long discussion about The Best Years of Our Lives with a friend on Memorial Day. Going to go back and watch Mrs. Minniver and it back-to-back this summer to bookend the war and get a better feel for how it might have affected Wyler's sensibilities.

Clearly spears can be wielded with both hands. It was specifically the throwing I didn't understand.

Based on a quick lookup on wikipedia, it seems the atlatl would always require two hands, and is quite effective. I still wonder about the loss of the spear though.

Two possibilities:

Forward hand to support and guide; backward hand to propel.

Using both hands to hold the spear above the head to throw it.

Using both hands to hold the spear above the head to throw it.

Consider the velocity and range obtained by a ball thrown one-handed overhand, versus what soccer players manage using both hands above the head. Shoulders and the muscles around the joint are "designed" to favor the one-handed approach.

I still wonder about the loss of the spear though.

don't miss

Terminology gets tricky here. Both the atlatl and the spear are propelled by a single arm, though both could employ the other hand for support or preparation.

The Roman javelin, the pilum, would pierce a shield and often bend, making it hard to remove and useless in case someone wanted to return to sender.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilum

I had always read it was designed that way, but Wikipedia says maybe not.

I’ve always suspected a great deal of spear-throwing expertise on this blog. It’s pretty much the only reason I’ve stuck around.

All this pilum-and-atlatl talk reminds me: I once read somewhere that Ben Franklin advocated equipping the Continental Army with bows and arrows, in light of the low accuracy and slow rate of fire of muskets in his day.

True or apocryphal, the story makes me wonder whether my right to keep and bear arms allows me to acquire a crossbow and lay in a supply of arrows, today.

--TP

crossbow's aren't that fast, but they do have advantages of power and less need for training.

There's a whole set of youtube videos of some guy demonstrating shooting arrows at a high rate (eight arrows in eight seconds?). A stunt, but entertaining.

Now, if you could rig up a rapid fire fully-auto crossbow THAT could be interesting. But not very practical to haul around along with the small gas engine needed to run it.

Until the advent of repeater rifles, the mounted Indian warriors could turn a soldier into a pincushion while he was reloading.

A Dream Came True: Home Made Full Auto Crossbow!

i think we need some kind of rule 34 for archaic weapons

Google 'full auto crossbow' or go here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbKGjRoSofA
or here
https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/a24869/joerg-sprave-full-auto-crossbow-magazines/

A power drill is sufficient to drive it.
Sprave is a mad (in a postive way) genius.

Should do refresh before posting too since CharlesWT beat me to it.

I love that guy's guttural laugh.

Glad to see Sebastian Gorka found work, now that his treason enterprises are on temporary hold.

Apparently Oncology doesn't yet return enough on investment to draw that guy's ingenuity and inventiveness into some useful enterprise.

Of course, he'd have to lose the throaty machine gun ha-heh-ha when delivering the bad news at bedside.

noted lefty rag, the Wall Street Journal, pees on the "Yay Tax Cut!" parade:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-arent-companies-spending-more-1527429600

Until the advent of repeater rifles, the mounted Indian warriors could turn a soldier into a pincushion while he was reloading.

I vaguely recall reading that it took quite some time for individually held firearms to surpass the longbow in effectiveness.

I meant to add, the Mongols also demonstrated the power of the mounted archer.

Wow. Thank you CharlesWT and Hartmut. Real life cannot possibly match the variety of "hidden worlds" YouTube has to offer. And it's always delightful when you stumble into one by mistake, as I did when I wrote "crossbow" when I meant (like Ben Franklin, probably) "longbow" a la Robin Hood.

On a COMPLETELY different subject, I can't resist sharing the most delightful YouTube video I've stumbled across this year:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2snTkaD64U
I'm no opera buff, so no surprise I had never heard of Elina Garanca. What did surprise me, on doing a bit of surfing, was discovering that this sexy, sultry Carmen is actually a stylish, charming, blonde Latvian mother of two.

--TP

Another variation:

Electric Automatic Cross Bow

And related: A problem for gun control:

How to (Legally) Make Your Own Off-the-Books Handgun: Build a Glock 17 using parts from the internet

I meant to add, the Mongols also demonstrated the power of the mounted archer.

because they had stirrups.

A problem for gun control:

with enough determination, you can kill a person with almost anything you can get your hands on.

murder is still illegal.

Ah, the days of wine and Brett Bellmore.

with enough determination, you can kill a person with almost anything you can get your hands on.

an ObWi challenge: choose your weapons.

I say marshmallows.

Ah, the days of wine and Brett Bellmore.

they laugh and run away
like a child at play
with a howitzer

I say marshmallows.

Sugar is far too obvious a killer.

I vaguely recall reading that it took quite some time for individually held firearms to surpass the longbow in effectiveness...

But the expertise required was/is far less.

I say marshmallows.

You're aware that marshmallows are considered a significant choking hazard for children, right? Adapting that threat to grown-ups is left as an exercise for the student...

But the expertise required [for using firearms] was/is far less.

Which was, overwhelmingly, the reason that national armies adopted them. It allowed raising much larger armies, and eliminated the need to have, as England did, every village hold regular practices with bows.

Blowpipe.

because they had stirrups

Parthian mounted archers seem to have been effective even without stirrups. See the Battle of Carrhae.

I had to google "Parthian" and remind myself how little I know about history. (Sadly, I still probably know more than most people - a low bar to hop over.)

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