In alarming, but not surprising, news, the Department of Justice is demanding over 1.3 million IP addresses and associated contact information for visitors to a website hosted by Dreamhost, a Los Angeles-based web hosting company. Our web host.
The only surprising aspect of the case is that it is not Glibertarians.com that is targeted. The website in question is disruptj20.org, “a website that organized participants of political protests against the current United States administration,” according to Dreamhost. Not only is the contact and personal information of the site visitors wanted, the DOJ is also pushing for access to photographs of protesters that are on the site’s server, and what content the website visitors viewed.
If you don’t want something coming back to bite you in the ass, don’t put it online in any form. Almost everyone gets this. (Well, maybe not the assorted criminals who are easily apprehended after posting videos of their criminal exploits publicly on Facebook.) This has been a concern for far longer than the current administration has been around, as I am quite sure the Glibertariat is well aware. Hell, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was established in 1978, and it has been perverted and allowed to be used for nefarious purposes willy-nilly ever since, completely gutting Fourth Amendment protections.
However, web browsing is something that most people do automatically, without thinking too much about the ramifications. Of course, many people routinely block their browsing history from spouses, children, bosses and other people in their daily lives. (Visitors to the Certified Family Friendly website Glibertarians.com should certainly be doing so.) It’s far more difficult to block one’s browsing history from one’s internet service provider, and from the web host of sites one visits.
But back to Dreamhost. Dreamhost has a long history of attempting to protect its users by challenging law enforcement requests for information and legally rejecting them. In 2014, for example, DH was able to legally block 57% of the information requests it received.
I’ve been a Dreamhost customer for a decade, give or take. I use DH for all websites I build and domains I register, no matter who owns the site. One of the first things that sold me on DH was the ability to have one’s domain registrant and contacts protected by DH during a whois search, at a time when most other web hosts and domain registrars simply wouldn’t bother. I was happy to avoid random obnoxious marketers targeting website owners, and the occasional too-ardent admirer.
Since then, I’ve repeatedly seen that Dreamhost makes sincere and real efforts to protect more than my mailing address.
My concern over the gutting of the Bill of Rights by the government has increased steadily since 9/11. That dismantling shows no sign of slowing down. It gives me some tiny measure of comfort that Dreamhost shares that concern.
And THAT is why Dreamhost is our host.
If so led, show DH a little appreciation by commenting on their post (link below) or giving a quick shoutout on Twitter or Facebook.
I love coffee. I’m drinking a hot cup while I pen this article. Roasting and grinding coffees from around the world is my hobby. Experimenting with different brewing methods in search of the perfect cup of Joe is my holy grail. I even researched planting my own coffee trees here in Orlando so that I could experience the whole process from soil to cup. A hero of mine, Heriberto Lopez, had the same idea in 1985. Mr. Lopez, who owned a coffee plantation in Venezuela, came to the United States so his son could receive treatment for a rare heart condition. He gambled some of his family fortune on growing coffee in south Florida, so that he could work in the U.S. while his son got the treatment he needed. The experts said it would never work. Heinz Wutsher, a researcher with the U.S. Department of Agriculture laboratory in Orlando said, ”I think the whole thing is a crackpot idea.” Well you know what? They were right. It failed. Coffee grows best in the bean belt, 25 degrees north, 30 degrees south latitude. Florida is technically in the belt, but has a deficiency of mountains on which to plant coffee. Mr. Lopez and I had our caffeine fueled dreams thwarted by geography and economics, but I still enjoy learning about coffee. Reading “Uncommon Grounds” by Mark Pendergrast, I was horrified to learn that coffee had been prohibited in various countries at different times. Why ban a harmless drink? Who could be so cruel? Don’t they know coffee is the elixir of Life? Well my friends, let us dive into when, where and why coffee was banned in history.
1511, Kha’ir Beg, the governor of Mecca, was cruising past a Mosque and saw some dudes getting their caffeine on so they could do some endurance praying–much like some of you would do with Mountain Dew and an all night Dungeons and Dragons session. Beg got bent out of shape for some reason, so he banned coffee under the power given to him by the Koran prohibiting wine. I know you are thinking, “How in the hell is coffee, a stimulant, anything like wine, a depressant?” I’m sure the Saudis were thinking the same thing. So Kha’ir goes to some local Persian doctors, the Hakimani brothers, and buys some expert testimony. The Hakimani boys claimed that coffee was harmful and had no legitimate medical use–a conflict of interest since coffee was used as a natural, inexpensive cure for depression as opposed to whatever expensive pharmaceuticals they were selling. Finally, the Sultan of Cairo stepped in because people were getting cranky without their morning coffee, and declared governor Beg had exceeded his authority to ban coffee and the people rejoiced. Happily, Kha’ir was caught embezzling money and was executed. I guess he skipped the part in the Koran about stealing.
Continuing in the 16th century, the next group anxious to wield the banhammer are the Italians. Christian Europe had been brawling with the Muslim Ottomans since 1591 and were a little salty. The Pope’s advisors wanted to ban coffee as the “bitter invention of Satan” because the drink was popular with the Turks. Ironic, considering coffee was banned in Mecca less than one hundred years before. Pope Clement the VIII requested a cup so that he may see what all this devilry was about and declared, “This Satan’s drink is so delicious that it would be a pity to let the infidels have exclusive use of it.” The Pope also believed that coffee was less harmful than alcohol and thus blessed the bean. Thanks to the Coffee Pope, modern Italians are free to sip espressos while riding vespas saying, “Ciao.”
The 17th century saw a new Muslim anti-coffee zealot, this time in Constantinople. In 1623, Murad IV claimed the throne of the Ottoman empire, famous for making little couches you put your feet on. So Murad quattro was a new king and usually you become king by screwing people over and crushing dissent. Coffee has been blamed/credited with fueling rabble rousers, as the king was aware. In fact, one of the HQs for planning the American Revolution took place in the “Green Dragon,” a coffee house in Boston. Americans switched to coffee from tea because screw England, and the founding fathers would drink caffeine and write kick-ass constitutions. Back to Constantinople, Murad knew coffee angers-up the blood and fuels revolutions so he banned coffee. Turns out, people really love coffee and kept drinking it despite the first offense: catching a beating. Second timers got sewn into a bag and thrown into the Bosphorus. Even with these severe punishments, Murad still had no trouble going undercover with his big ass sword, surprise beheading people he caught drinking Java. The ban ended when Murad decided to have a one man drinking contest and died of alcohol at the ripe old age of 28. Maybe he should have had coffee instead.
Coffee-making paraphernalia in Coffee World museum near Cairns.
Moving into the next century, 1746 Sweden not only banned coffee, but coffee paraphernalia because people were abusing coffee. I don’t know how you abuse coffee other than by leaving a pot of coffee on a burner until it turns to tar. Gustav the third, king of Sweden, ordered a pseudoscience twin study to prove the harmful effects of coffee. One twin drank tea, the other coffee. They didn’t wait around to get the results because the twins lived into their 80’s. So the Swedes sent goons around anyways, kicking in doors and smashing coffee pots and confiscating coffee beans for evidence (totally not for them to consume or resell). Shockingly, people continued to consume coffee in spite of the ban. Eventually the Swedish government decided enforcement was unmanageable and repealed the bans in the 1820’s. Today Sweden has one of the highest per capita coffee consumption rates in the world.
Another jerk from the 18th century is Frederick “the Great” of Prussia. In 1777, Fred was concerned that coffee consumption was cutting into the beer profits. Beer was a local product so profits stayed in Prussia. Coffee, being an import good, caused money to flow out of the country. So he proclaimed coffee banned and told the proles to go back to drinking beer for breakfast. In true Top Man fashion, nobles were allowed to continue to drink coffee. Fred liked to drink his coffee made with champagne instead of water, in true baller fashion. Rappers take note, that is how you stupidly waste money. Drinking a hot champagny cuppa in front of the people you are telling don’t drink coffee doesn’t inspire people to respect the ban. I thought ordering a bunch of Germans to drink beer for breakfast was an easy sell, but Fred screwed it up somehow. Freddie had to rescind his order and allow the Prussians their coffee.
An article about coffee prohibition wouldn’t be complete without mentioning America, the largest coffee market in the world. Multiple attempts by moral scolds and busy bodies to shut down coffee have been mounted, but, luckily for us, they have all failed so I won’t bore you with the details. However, one man was moderately successful in cutting into American coffee consumption, C. W. Post. Post was not a mentally stable person, to put it mildly. He believed in all the quack cures of the day and Grandpa Simpson diagnoses. C.W. suffered from nervous breakdowns and became
student of John Kellogg, another cereal Barron, that taught him the dark arts of healthy eating to cure his imbalanced humours. Kellogg was a Seven Day Adventist and shunned caffeine and advised C.W. to give up coffee. C.W. became a titan of the breakfast food world because he was the first to understand the power of advertising. He spent a tremendous amount of money pushing his health foods on the public using clever ads that weren’t always completely true. Post started an ad campaign warning about the dangers of coffee and how it is basically killing you every time you take a sip. Unbeknownst to the public, C.W. couldn’t start his day without his big mug of bean juice. That didn’t stop him from telling everyone else to drink Postum, the coffee substitute made from wheat bran, wheat, and molasses. Bizarrely the slogan of Postum was “There’s a Reason.” I guess that did something for the chumps of the 20th century because they bought the stuff. Postum sales surged during WWII as coffee was diverted to the front lines, because nothing kills Nazis better than a conscripted 18 year old with coffee jitters and a M1 garand. If you would like to try this
abomination of a drink, you can still purchase Postum on Amazon.
21st century America has not banned coffee, thank the Coffee Pope, but we do have prohibition of drugs. The arguments for caffeine prohibition of the past are the same arguments used to prohibit drugs today: “The money flows out of the country;” “ It makes God angry when you use an intoxicant;” “Undesirables use it and listen to music I find offensive;” “ It causes crime and dissent among the masses;” “Drugs have no legitimate medical use.” These arguments are as hollow now as they were 500 years ago and the banners are as big of hypocrites as ever. Three out of our four past presidents are known to have used drugs and yet happily continued the war on drugs. The true reason for drug prohibition is power and that is one hell of a drug. Currently in the 103rd year of drug prohibition, America has been slow to reverse course, but public opinion is changing and that is what ultimately lead to the reversal of coffee prohibition in Mecca, Sweden, and Prussia. So the next time you’re in the breakroom having a cup of coffee with a coworker, share what you have learned about the tyrants that banned the drink they are enjoying. Maybe you’ll help turn the tide of public opinion.
The real sport of the day yesterday was played by the media. It was an endurance contest, a triathlon of sorts. The first component was to shit in one’s pants. They measured the weight of the shit by milligrams (since standard is a racist, sexist system in some obscure way I’m not about to look up). The second phase was running around with one’s hair on fire, with total distance (in a direct line using decimeters) reached to the left of one’s starting point measured, with bonus points given for each minute one cried in fear yesterday. The third metric was to count how many retweets and likes the journalist received from their most virtue-signaling tweet of the day. The total of the three were added together to get the final score
And the winner, ladies and gentlemen, was Jake Tapper. Jake Tapper wins! Congratulations, Jake. You’ve done your side proud.
I’d also like to thank The Hill and WaPo for doing so well in the rear race division. You guys did a hell of a lot more yesterday to reinforce the level of credibility you have in America than you’ll ever realize. Kudos.
In other sports action, here’s what went down: The Yankees won, the Nationals won, the Red Sox won, The BIG RED MACHINE beat the Cubs, The Indians beat the Twins, The Dodgers won, The Mariners beat the Orioles, The Rockies lost, and the Astros won (and actually put some runs on the board!) Liverpool won the away leg of their UCL play-in tie. And Zeke Elliott officially appealed his inexplicable six-game suspension. They’re playing tennis, but the real action starts in a couple weeks. Dog days indeed, my friends.
Well that’s about all for the fun and games. Now let’s get down to business with…the links!
Man tells it like it is. Virtue signaling spirals out of control. I swear, the inability or refusal by the media and establishment politicians to acknowledge that there was violence from two groups is alarming. As is the refusal by either to touch on the myriad acts of violence, intimidation and destruction of property by antifa groups over the past several years.
Walter Block: good guy for many reasons
Its not just Palin anymore. Walter Block’s lawsuit against the New York Times for defamation may continue. Good!
Falafel is one of the greatest junk food items in the world and quintessentially Jewish- real Jew, that is, not dumbed-down Eastern European blandness. I discovered it in 1970 when I was a teenager on a trip to Israel not long after the 1967 war. Hashish was cheap, American teenage girls were numerous and loose, and it was easy to work up an appetite, even for something that strange and unfamiliar to me, a rather conservative and unadventurous eater. It was, to use the cliche, love at first bite. Crunchy, salty, greasy, spicy, it hits everything that I love in food. The portability and customizability took it from wonderful to perfection. When I was traveling and living in Europe during the 1990s and 2000s, I sought out the best examples- and the easy winner was the Maoz shop in Amsterdam near Leidseplein (the other Maoz in town wasn’t nearly as good). It says a lot that it was always my first stop after landing at Schipol, even before the coffee shops or checking into my hotel.
In my experience, food does more to bring people together than anything else I can think of. But as with anything great, the dark side is the assholes who insist on politicizing it, to scream about cultural appropriation, and to make wild and sweeping claims to support whatever narrative they’re invested in. Falafel is particularly prone to this because of the drama-queen tendencies of certain sects of Middle Easterners. Here’s some examples:
From a prominent Israeli leftist:
To some extent, then, Israeli cuisine reflects the violence of the Israeli state and the appropriation of Arab and Palestinian foods. Regional foods are not so much integrated as taken over. Seemingly traditional Arab foods like falafel and hummus are written into the Israeli culinary narrative at the expense of erasing their status as Arab or Palestinian.
There is nothing trivial about being deprived of the ability to claim a food as your own. Food has important cultural meanings, and the ways in which we identify different foods both shape and reflect our understandings of each other. To appropriate another people’s food is to undermine their culture and is an act of violence. For Israel to claim regional dishes as its own serves a political process, and raises the question of whether or not any cuisine can legitimately be called Israeli.
From Al Jazeera:
… in Falafel Road, a project that stemmed from an art residency with the London-based Live Arts Development Agency, (Palestinian artist and filmmaker Larissa) Sansour, in collaboration with Israeli artist Oreet Ashery, visits London eateries, recording what they call “the falafel experience”.Although the duo predominately visited Arab-run falafel restaurants, they also encountered Israeli-run eateries. In a visit to a restaurant operated by Iraqi Jews, Sansour and Ashery talk about about their discomfort upon hearing militant Israeli music being played in the restaurant.
“This genre of music came from the era of Israeli military bands, and whilst they might sound ‘innocent’ to everyday Israeli listeners, they are steeped in military and Zionist overtones, and are part of the brain-washing machine that the Israeli national project is. If we had any doubts earlier as to how politicised falafel was, this experience put an end to them,” writes Ashery on the Falafel Road blog.
So even the Muzak is part of the Zionist conspiracy.
From Gulf News:
My niece, Irene, called me a few days ago indignant that some of her American friends, including some Jews, keep describing typical Arab foods such as falafel, hummus and shawarma, among others, as Israeli. She wanted to know how she can convince them this is not the case. I am quite familiar with this problem since many Americans have been aware of this undeclared war at many unsuspecting restaurants specialising in Mediterranean cuisine, or coverage in the media.
…To cite but one of many distortions and claims about the authenticity of Israeli cuisine, Joan Nathan, author of The Foods of Israel and whose writings and recipes appear on MyJewishLearning.com, maintains that falafel is “the ultimate Israeli food”.
The author then pivots to tie this in with further Zionist conspiracies:
In an Op-Ed column published in The Washington Post, Nina Shea complains about the alleged “cleansing campaign” now underway against non-Muslim minorities in Iraq. Shea, director of the Hudson Institute’s Centre for Religious Freedom and a commissioner on the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, saw this action as similar to what happened “sixty years ago (to) Iraq’s flourishing Jewish population, a third of Baghdad, (that) fled in the wake of coordinated bombing and violence against them”. Of the 125,000 only 6,000 remained in Iraq and the remainder settled in Israel.
You would think that Shea would have checked her facts before making these outrageous and disputed allegations.
Naeim Giladi, an Iraqi Jew who fled to Israel and later settled in the US, maintains in an article that appeared in The Link (April – May 1998) and his book, Ben Gurion’s Scandals: How the Haganah & the Mossad Eliminated Jews that “the terrible truth is that the grenades that killed and maimed Iraqi Jews and damaged their property were thrown by Zionist Jews”. He also pointed out that Wilbur Crane Eveland, a former senior officer in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), wrote in his book, Ropes of Sand, published in 1980, that “in attempts to portray the Iraqis as anti-American and to terrorise the Jews, the Zionists planted bombs in the US Information Service library and in synagogues (and) soon leaflets began to appear urging Jews to flee to Israel.”
Uhhh, OK.
A contrarian view that falafel is a modern invention:
Pita pockets were made possible by European baking technology likely only about 100 years old, (Prof. Shaul Stampfer) notes. The falafel balls themselves are also not as ancient as some sources imply: While many state that the origin of falafel is in Egypt, where it was made with fava beans by the Coptic community as early as the 4th century, falafel and its fava equivalent ta’amiyeh start appearing in Egyptian literature only after the British occupation in 1882, he found. Oil would have been too expensive before the modern era for deep frying, Stampfer told Haaretz in a recent interview. Falafel became popular in Beirut and Mandate Palestine in the mid-1930s, and was common in Israel by 1949, he says.
Even tomatoes are a new-world food, and not indigenous to the Middle East, reaching the region only at the end of the 19th century, he adds.
…Some argue that falafel was an Arab dish that was appropriated by Israeli Jews – an act of cultural appropriation said to mirror other forms of Israeli violence against Palestinians. This argument rests on the assumption that falafel has a long history in the Arab world, and that Jewish immigrants to the Middle East have attempted to disregard or erase its Arab or Palestinian roots by calling it an Israeli food. Until now, a common counter argument was that many Israeli Jews are originally from Arab nations, and their ancestors therefore made falafel, too.
But Stampfer says that these arguments rest on claims that are simply incorrect. Falafel is too recent a development to have been appropriated by anyone, he writes. Yet many Israelis have accepted the Palestinian claim “that the Jews living in Israel illegitimately adopted a food of another population.”
“The eating of falafel in a sandwich was very possibly an innovation of Jews living in Jaffa or Jerusalem,” he speculates in his essay.
OK, so bottom line is, who the fuck knows, and really, who cares? At least if, like me, you love the food first, are delighted by the interchange and mingling of cultures, and think that our strength as humans is in communication and adaption- and this is, I think, particularly true of Jews. So, when you think “Israeli food,” you think “falafel” in the same reflexive way you think “Italian” when you hear “pasta,” Marco Polo notwithstanding.
So every time I hear about “appropriation,” I figuratively punch the moron in the pants. Well, usually. Sometimes literally.
Now, the best part, making these delights. There’s about a zillion variations, and like pizza, vociferous defenders and detractors of each choice. What kind of beans, fava or garbanzo? What greens, parsley or cilantro? What frying oil, olive or peanut? I have my own opinions, of course, and everyone else is wrong.
Old Man With Candy’s Most Excellent Jew Falafel
1 cup dried garbanzos
1-1/2 tsp baking soda
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 small onion, minced
1/2 cup chopped parsley
1/4 cup chopped cilantro (optional- I live with a cilantro hater, so leave it out when I’m cooking for her)
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
1-1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp freshly ground pepper
1 ripe tomato, diced
1 cup shredded romaine hearts
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded, and diced
tahini sauce
Soak the garbanzos for at least 24 hours in 3 cups of tap water with 1 tsp baking soda. Drain thoroughly. Grind the cumin and coriander seeds (I keep a spare Braun coffee grinder for spice use- you should too, it’s easier than a mortar and pestle), then add the soaked and drained beans, the cumin, coriander, garlic, onion, cilantro, parsley, salt, pepper, and the remaining 1/2 tsp baking soda to a food processor with the metal blade. Pulse on and off, scraping down the bowl, until the mixture is the consistency of very coarse sand.
If you’re tempted to use canned garbanzos, don’t. You can also use dried fava beans or a mix of fava and garbanzo- this is more of the Egyptian style, and let’s face it, Egypt is a shithole with the military prowess and bravery of France.
Heat oil in a deep fryer to 360°F. I prefer a blend of corn oil and peanut oil, but wouldn’t argue with some refined olive oil. Don’t use canola unless you want everything to smell like a lesbian locker room. Form the falafel patties- some do it by hand, I go the pro route and use a falafel scoop, a nifty spring-loaded device pictured on the left, which gives me rapid and consistent molding. I dip it in cold water between patties for good release. Mine was a gift from a Palestinian lady whose son worked for me; she was apparently grateful that I hadn’t murdered him or appropriated his house and land. Her falafel is stunningly good, but I haven’t gotten her to cough up her secrets yet- the Mossad should eventually come through for me. Nonetheless, my version is still better than 99% of the restaurant ones I’ve had.
Deep fry the patties for 5 minutes or so until medium brown and crispy. Drain. Serve stuffed into pita with the tomato, romaine, and cucumber, drizzled with tahini sauce. For the last, blend tahini with pureed garlic, salt, lemon juice, cayenne (I substitute sriracha just for a little more appropriation), and enough water to form a smooth sauce.
If you really want to twist the knife, this goes great with a nice bottle of Chateau Musar Blanc, a Lebanese wine made from a blend of merwah and obaideh grapes. Or, frankly, a fine Belgian ale. Piss off those Muslims good and hard.
I know y’all hate Twitter, but who here hasn’t had a day like this? At least our new overlords will be clumsy…
PC Master Race culture wars. Which side are you on?
What’s wrong with having a first lady who doesn’t do anything? (Trigger warning: MSN + Autoplay… Clicking will basically give you cancer, is what I’m trying to say.)
Lastly, here’s some music to lift to; I’ve lifted to it, anyway.
This article goes over the more common and interesting long arms used during the American Revolutionary War in what is now Canada and the United States. If I tried to cover all weapons used in anywhere the war was fought, this would be a very long article.
The American Revolutionary War turned into a global conflict. As the war in the American Colonies progressed, France and Spain entered the war on the Colonial side. Both France and Spain wanted revenge on Britain for past losses. Spain did not recognize the United States’ independence due to concerns that Spain’s colonies would get ideas about themselves becoming independent. France thought that supporting American independence would give France leverage over Britain. The Dutch colony of Sint Eustatis became a major shipment point for goods going between the American Colonies and their supporters. Angry at the Dutch support for the American Colonists, Great Britain declared war on the Dutch in 1780. The expansion of the conflict led to fighting in the Caribbean, Central America, Europe, and India.
With such a wide ranging war, and with such a large number of combatants, there is a huge variety of arms used by all sides in the American Revolution. Some examples:
• American militia men equipped themselves with firearms and a secondary bladed weapon. Requirements for those weapons from each colony’s militia system could be vague.
• Some British sergeants still carried halberds, and some British officers carried spontoons.
• Indian forces used rockets against British troops in Mysore.
So, to try and keep the article to a reasonable length, I’m going to write only about long arms used in what is now Canada and the United States.
Flintlocks
First, a description of flintlocks for those aren’t familiar with them. All long arms covered in this article are flintlocks. A flintlock uses a piece of flint, held in a hammer, to strike a piece of metal called the frizzen to create sparks. Underneath the frizzen is a small pan which holds gunpowder. There is a hole in the pan leading to the chamber with the powder and ball. When the flint strikes the frizzen, the sparks ignite the gunpowder in the pan. The sparks travel down the hole to ignite the powder, firing the weapon. Since the powder in the pan was exposed to the elements, flintlocks were useless if it was raining. The flintlock’s lock brings all the pieces (hammer, frizzen, pan, and barrel) together. This short animation shows a flintlock in action.
Muskets
Muskets were the most common type of long arm used during the American Revolutionary War. Muskets are muzzleloading, smooth bore firearms.
“I need a good source for how fast someone can shoot a musket… Oh shit.”
Muskets could be reloaded and fired quickly. The best on-line source, a re-enactor’s work, I can find states that a rate of 3-4 rounds per minute come from 18th century live fire studies, but doesn’t mention the studies. The British Manual of Arms for a soldier to reload and fire a musket consist of 15 steps. If each can be done in a second, then there is a theoretical limit of four rounds per minute.
Black powder residue would foul rifling; however, the residue would even buildup in smooth bores, eventually making reloading difficult despite the smooth bore. To increase the amount of time before fouling made loading difficult, musket balls were generally smaller than the musket’s bore size, which hurt accuracy. Muskets of the period did not have sights, though some had sighting grooves and bayonet lugs on the top of the barrel that could be used as sights. Muskets had an effective range from 50 to 80 yards, depending on the musket.
I’ve read that if you use a tight enough fitting ball, a smooth bore musket can be fairly accurate, rivaling rifles of the time. I have not found any tests which show this.
As a result, tactics of the time emphasized speed of loading and mass fire over accuracy. Hand-to-hand combat with fixed bayonets finished the battle.
American Made Muskets
In 1775, “Committees of Safety” placed orders with gunsmiths to produce muskets for Colonial forces. Few of these muskets survived. Most had no identifying markings due to fear of prosecution from Royal authorities. Soon the states superseded the local committees. As the war went on, Congress centralized production, storage, and repair of arms in six arsenals: Philadelphia, PA; Carlisle, PA; Lancaster, PA; Head of Elk, MD; Albany, NY; and Manchester, VA.
Early in the war, American made muskets were loosely based on the “Brown Bess” muskets. Later in the war, production shifted towards French designs. However, there was no standard design pattern. American gunsmiths used whatever parts they could get their hands on. Many parts were imported because, despite British blockade, it was easier and cheaper to import whole components. Those parts which American made tended to be cruder and more cheaply made than imported parts.
“Brown Bess”
“Brown Bess” is the nickname for the British Land Pattern Musket. The “Brown Bess” traces its roots to 1713, when the Royal Board of Ordnance began standardizing weapons production for the British Army. Entrenched interests in favor of the existing arms procurement system opposed these changes. The Board persevered, and in 1722 released the “King’s Pattern” musket. Political pressure and the lack of wartime pressure delayed the new musket’s production until 1728. The new musket was first issued in 1730 as the “Long Land” pattern musket. There are many explanations for how the musket received its nickname, none of which are convincing to me. The earliest reference to the name I can find, courtesy of George Neumann’s work, is in the “Connecticut Courant” newspaper in 1771.
The musket is .75 caliber and has a walnut stock. The stock ends before the muzzle to allow for a bayonet. Attached accessories were made of brass. The musket weighed 10 to 11 pounds. The barrel was held to the stock with heavy pins. The musket’s bayonet lug could be used as a front sight and there was a groove at the rear which could be used as a rear sight. There were many variations of the musket. The two broad variations were the “Long Land” which had a 46 inch barrel and the “Short Land” which had a 42 inch barrel. There are several sub variations which were developed based on war time experience with the musket and to ease production.
British, American Colonial, Loyalists, and Hessian troops all used the Brown Bess. Generally, only the British forces used the newer variants. American Colonial forces used whatever Brown Bess muskets they had at the beginning of the war or could capture as the war progressed. The British equipped Loyalist and Hessian forces with older Brown Bess muskets which were being replaced by newer muskets shipped in from England.
Here is a video of Australian re-enactors demonstrating Brown Bess accuracy using standard loads.
Charleville Musket
The French infantry musket was standardized in 1717. The musket became known as the Charleville musket, after one of the many arsenals which produced the musket, even though Charleville was never an official name for the musket. I did not find any official naming for the musket beyond it being identified by the year a variation was introduced. Most of the variations were to lighten the musket and make maintenance easier. The musket used a .69 caliber ball to reduce weight in the field. The stock is walnut. The barrel and stock were held together with three lightweight bands. The musket throughout its life was lighter than the Brown Bess.
The French sent 200,000 of these muskets of various types to American Colonial forces. American Colonial forces received the Model 1763, Model 1766, and the Model 1774. Post-war, the Model 1766 heavily influenced the design of the American Springfield Musket of 1795. The Model 1763 was shorter than previous models and had a different lock. The Model 1766 was a lightened version of the Model 1763. The Model 1774 had more lock modifications and had a modified stock.
The French kept the Model 1777 for their own forces. The Model 1777 stayed in use in the French military through the Napoleonic Wars. The Model 1777 supported a new type of bayonet, had a cheek rest in the stock comb, among other variations.
Quebec militia units probably used left-over Model 1728 muskets while defending against American Colonial invasion.
German Mercenary Muskets
The British, for various reasons, found it cheaper and easier to hire German mercenaries than to raise more troops for the British Army. The British hired about 30,000 mercenaries from various German states for combat in America. As a side note, George III, who was also King of Hanover, leased some of his Hanoverian soldiers to Britain for use during the American Revolution. The Hanoverian troops remained in Europe. Roughly half of those that went to America came from Hesse-Kassel, which is why the mercenaries are known in America known as Hessians. In addition to Brown Bess muskets from the British, the mercenaries’ muskets came from all over Germany. While American colonists captured many Hessian muskets during the war, only a few hundred were listed in American post-war inventories.
M1752 Musket
The Spanish Army’s first standardized firearm was the M1752 musket. Spanish Colonial forces were armed with this musket when they attacked British forces at Pensacola. Spain sold between 10,000 and 12,000 of these muskets to American Colonial forces.
Rifles
Rifles are a long arm with a rifled bore. Rifling is the process of cutting spiral grooves into the bore. The rifle’s projectile, when fired, grips these grooves as it travels down the bore. The spin stabilizes the projectile, improving the weapon’s range and accuracy. Muzzle loading rifles of the time were slower to load than muskets due a tighter fighting ball and were more prone to problems with powder fouling. Rifles of the time could not be fitted with bayonets.
The American Revolutionary War was the first war with widespread use of rifles. German mercenaries, American Colonial forces, and British forces all used rifles.
Use of rifles was fairly new to the British Army. British rifles corps were small.
American Colonists and German Jäger troops were familiar with rifles. Hunting was a common past time among both groups.
The range of rifles of the time is disputed, but there are accounts of effective fire from 200 to 300 yards. I’ve searched for information on the longest rifle shot in the Revolutionary War, and found nothing definitive. Timothy Murphy’s killing of General Simon Frasier comes up most often. The range for that shot varies between 300 and 500 yards, depending on the source. Unfortunately, it is impossible to verify.
Ferguson Rifle
Major Patrick Ferguson was a Scot who joined the British Army. During his time the British Army, he developed a breech-loading flintlock rifle. This was the first breech-loading firearm adopted by a military, but it was not the first breech-loading firearm. Maj. Ferguson based his rifle on the French Chaumette.
The Ferguson rifle relied on a screw mechanism to open the breech. The riflemen would turn the trigger guard, which worked the screw, and opened the breech. The rifleman could fire four to six rounds a minute, as fast or faster than the muskets of the time. The rifle was expensive, difficult, and slow to make. The rifle also used a special powder, which was more expensive than regular musket powder.
Only about 100 or so Ferguson rifles were made. These rifles equipped an experimental unit which was under Ferguson’s command. They arrived in America in May, 1777. Ferguson was killed at the Battle of King’s Mountain. His unit was disbanded afterwards.
Among the mercenaries from Hesse-Kassel were Jäger troops. These troops were armed with rifles, and they covered advances and withdrawals. Their rifles were made in Schmalkalden (a town in present day Thuringia). Their rifles had 29 inch long barrels whose external shape was octagonal. The rifle bore was .65 caliber.
Long Rifle
The Long Rifle dates to the early 1700s when German immigrant gunsmiths began making rifles in Lancaster County, PA. The rifles were based on German patterns and there is a good bit of variation between rifles. Generally their bore is between .45 and .60 caliber, and the barrels long. American Colonists used the rifles to engage in hit and run tactics and to snipe at British officers, which the British considered “ungentlemanly.”
Pattern 1776 Infantry Rifle
The Pattern 1776 rifle was another British attempt to equip troops with rifles in order to counter American rifleman. About 1,000 were made. They were made in Germany and by four different manufacturers in England. Nine are known to survive to this day, and some had been modified after the Revolution. Loyalist American rifle companies were among the units which received the rifles.
Sources
Allison, Robert, “The American Revolution: A Very Short Introduction”
Chavez, Thomas E., “Spain and the Independence of the United States: An Intrinsic Gift”
The Indians, who won on Sunday as well, beat the Red Sox handily. The Yanks beat the lowly Mets. Team Canada beat the Rays. The Cubs beat up the Reds, even though Joey Votto is still hitting the cover off the ball. The Orioles beat the Marlins. And of course, the Astros lost again. YOU HAVE TO SCORE TO WIN, boys!
The NBA released the 2017-2018 schedule. And I couldn’t care less. And the Nature Boy is resting in the hospital after surgery for an undisclosed illness. He had been hospitalized for supposedly a heart issue, but his publicist said the surgery, which he had been put into a medically-induced coma prior to, the surgery is unrelated. Let’s hope he makes a full recovery. I always loved that guy from the WCW golden days. WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Right, a lot is happening out there. So let’s talk about some of them with…the links!
Well, President Trump finally succumbed to the left and directly denounced nazism and white supremacy, even though he had never asked for or offered the slightest bit of support for either. And the left predictably loses their shit. Say what you want about the left, but they at least know how to read. They’re never going to let this “crisis” go to waste. And even though its just one body, there’s enough room to climb on top of her and grandstand till the cows come home.
Our pound of flesh is made of metal!
Crowd of goons destroys property in act of mob vandalism. The local cops stood on and watched as the mob sought to extract their pound of flesh from something made of rock and metal. The governor began his re-election campaign by telling those with bloodlust that they can come up with different ways to do what they’re doing. He was, however, unable to find words to allay the fears of anybody right of center that may have at some point in the future felt the need to publicly support the monuments remaining in public as historical reminders of the past.
Kid Rock is a household name to Americans under the age of 50, and voters might be attracted to vote for him, as a middle finger to the political establishment.
Well, one part of that statement is demonstrably true. While the other is not. He’s certainly not a “name” in my household.
Conservative group Club For Growth (not sure if they’re affiliated with white supremacy, as they’ve not publicly disavowed them yet this week) pours $10 million into campaign to capture Missouri Senate seat from Dem Claire McCaskill. That’s gonna leave a mark. Expect McCaskill to decry “dark money” and “outsiders” meddling in races held in other states. Just kidding, I’m sure she’ll be consistent and not mention it once, like what happened with the special election in Georgia earlier this year.
Florida Man In His Natural Habitat
Tiger Woods officially joins the ranks of Florida Man. Well done, sir. You did it the way you’re supposed to do it…fucked up out of your mind. The video is just great, but he did lose a point or two for not having a beer in hand.
Keep your heads down, friends. Its a jungle out there.*
*”Jungle” was not implied to mean the world was full of savages from other parts of the world. Its a commonly-used phrase. I personally know many people from other parts of the world and each and every one adds to the human experience and is a great addition to my life. And I personally disavow any European colonialism that sought to destroy jungles or displace people from them by importing technology such as the wheel, or medicine or the storage of potable water and foodstuffs.
Recently, within the Liberty-o-sphere, much hay was made over a speech by Jeff Deist, president of the Mises Institute, titled “For a New Libertarian.” Steve Horowitz, Professor of Economics at St. Lawrence University took issue with Deist’s employment of the phrase “blood and soil,” calling it a “clearly racist and anti-Semitic Nazi-era phrase.” Reaction to Horowitz ranged from pointing at him and hissing ‘Jew!’ to moremeasuredresponses. From my reading of the speech, I find claiming Deist’s employment of the phrase to be “clearly racist and anti-Semitic” to be uncharitable. However, I do find the defense of “Blut und Boden” being first coined by 19th century German romantic nationalists to be a bit odd in this context, as I wonder why the president of an ostensibly anarcho-capitalist think tank would choose as his cri du coeur a phrase that was the very center of the ideological foundations of the modern nation-state. Indeed, lost in all the back-and-forth over whether or not “For a New Libertarian” is Mein Kampf redux is the larger question: Is thin libertarianism dead?
Horowitz, as a self-styled “Bleeding Heart Libertarian,” is a proponent of what is known as thick libertarianism. That is, the belief that libertarianism entails certain social and political beliefs, namely a lukewarm 20th century humanist liberalism. Thickists argue that a society (or an individual) is not truly libertarian unless there is a general belief in egalitarianism, tolerance, democracy, etc.. On the other hand, Rothbardian anarcho-capitalists argue for thin libertarianism, which is defined as the belief that libertarianism equals the non-aggression principle – nothing more, nothing less. At least they did until Deist’s speech two and a half weeks ago. When Deist argued that “[i]n other words, blood and soil and God and nation still matter to people. Libertarians ignore this at the risk of irrelevance,” it is an explicit rejection of thin libertarianism; he is saying that there is more to libertarianism than the NAP. However, contrary to the Bleeding Heart Libertarians, Deist and others now argue that it entails some flavor of traditionalist social conservatism.
As an anarcho-capitalist, I’m quite used to completely execrable human beings advocating for positions I share, which is why I believe Deist’s recent gambit to be wrong-headed. In the name of attempting to make liberty more appealing to people, Deist is, in fact, limiting and delimiting the movement extremely narrowly. Deist claimed “Mecca is not Paris, an Irishman is not an Aboriginal, a Buddhist is not a Rastafarian, a soccer mom is not a Russian,” yet here I am, the son of a Rastafarian and a Jew who converted to Buddhism at the age of 24. Thin libertarianism is what allows me to stand ranks with Deist against ever-encroaching statism. I need not agree with Deist’s new penchant for romantic nationalism, but as long as he respects the NAP, we can co-exist in the liberty sphere. It’s a shame the moonshine is so good that Deist keeps wanting to be invited to all those yokeltarian hootenannys down in Auburn, for with the death of thin libertarianism, the liberty movement may have suffer a self-inflicted dolorous blow from which it will not recover. Contra Deist, what will, in actuality, doom libertarianism to irrelevancy is fracturing the movement along 1,000 little stupid country mouse/city mouse pissing matches.
Item originally published here. Republished with author’s consent.
Not Robert E. Lee.
Let me say up front I am not a Nazi, a white nationalist, or a sympathizer of them. I am a military history buff who knows a lot about the Civil War and am firmly pro-union and very unsympathetic to the southern cause. I don’t buy a word of the lost cause or other mythologizing of the old south. So, anyone reading this can please not waste their time accusing me of being a white nationalist or confederate sympathizer. I am most certainly not.
Second, before we get onto the important work of using the events of yesterday to slander our political enemies, I think we might want to at least look at the facts as we know them. The facts are, as best I can tell, as follows. A white nationalist organization known as Unite the Right decided to have a national rally in Charlottesville, VA, to protest the removal of the city’s Robert E. Lee statue.
After months of work and hype on social media, Unite the Right managed to get 200 marchers to show up in Charlottesville Friday. On Friday night they marched around with tiki torches and waved flags without incident. On Saturday a group of Antifa counter protesters showed up. The counter protesters proceeded to attack the Unite the Right Marchers and a riot broke out.
According the the Virginia ACLU, the Charlottesville police stood down and did nothing to control the situation. During this riot, a supporter of the march, it is unclear if he is a member of any of the organizations there, slammed his car into a crowd of counter protesters, killing one person and injuring 19 others. It is unclear if the driver had planned to do this to any counter protesters before the march or if he just took the riot as an excuse to do it.
Those are the facts as we know them currently. What they mean can be debated. Any debate about this subject should be based upon facts, not assumptions or hasty generalizations. What can we reasonably conclude from the known facts? Three things, I think.
First, the white nationalist movement is still the same small, insignificant movement it always has been. Despite months of hype and work, the Unite the Right rally drew 200 people. The white nationalist KKK movement has been able to draw a couple hundred people at a national rally for my entire lifetime. So let’s stop with the nonsense about this being some significant rally or that the white nationalists are any more popular or emboldened today than they ever have been. They are not. It’s the same small group of morons that have always been there. The proof of that is in the numbers. If there had been 10,000 people at that rally, I might reconsider that. But there wasn’t.
Second, what played out yesterday in Charlottesville is just a repeat of what happened in Berkeley, Middleburg, NYU, and other places over the last year and a half. Some group Antifa finds objectionable has a speech or a rally. Then Antifa shows up and starts assaulting people and the police stand down, let them do it, and let the riot happen. That is exactly what happened yesterday. It should surprise no one that one of these riots has now resulted in someone’s death. The fact that the death was the result of the actions of the enemies of Antifa, rather than Antifa itself, changes nothing. This was going to happen eventually.
Third, this is exactly what Antifa wanted. Their plan is always to attack their enemies hoping they fight back and then get blamed for the resulting violence. And time and again the police let them do it. Every time some self-righteous writer like David French gets up and talks about this being the result of the “alt right,” whatever that is, they are doing nothing but emboldening Antifa and encouraging this to happen more in the future.
You want this stuff to stop, and you should, don’t waste your time virtue signaling about the dreaded Virginia Nazis. They are an insignificant group that are defended by no one and whose only use seems to be to allow Democrats and writers like David French to slander their political opponents. Prosecuting and condemning the person who did this is an essential start. But you can’t undo the harm he did and you can’t deter or prevent the actions of truly violent people.
What can be done is to hold local police accountable for doing their jobs and preventing situations like the one in Charlottesville from happening in the first place. As the President said, the solution to this is for police to restore law and order. There are no other answers or deeper lessons here. It is just that simple.
Editor’s note (8:32 pm central): there are several people involved at Glibs. I took it upon myself personally and without discussion to post this article. I thought it was well-written and would provoke a respectful and engaging discussion from the readers. It is in no way the consensus opinion of everyone involved and shouldn’t be considered such. -sloopyinca
I spent half the weekend cleaning house or doing yardwork, etc. a bit less than half was spent with relatives (mostly in laws) and a small fraction at my local taproom, trying to avoid the first two. So, I was away from the news quite a bit. Needless to say, catching up last night and this morning has been…ungood. Plus ungood. So the links you get from me this afternoon are going to be quite devoid of the the feces-tornado of the past two days. Needless to say, they will be disregarded and the links that will come avalanching into the comments can serve as your political discussion fodder.
Considering the alcohol consumption of the Glibs, we are gonna live forever!
English asshat. I am reminded of Monsieur the Marquis (in Tale of Two Cities) “It is extraordinary to me,” said he, “that you people cannot take care of yourselves and your children. One or the other of you is for ever in the way. How do I know what injury you have done my horses.”
In alarming, but not surprising, news, the Department of Justice is demanding over 1.3 million IP addresses and associated contact information for visitors to a website hosted by Dreamhost, a Los Angeles-based web hosting company. Our web host.
21st century America has not banned coffee, thank the Coffee Pope, but we do have prohibition of drugs. The arguments for caffeine prohibition of the past are the same arguments used to prohibit drugs today: “The money flows out of the country;” “ It makes God angry when you use an intoxicant;” “Undesirables use it and listen to music I find offensive;” “ It causes crime and dissent among the masses;” “Drugs have no legitimate medical use.” These arguments are as hollow now as they were 500 years ago and the banners are as big of hypocrites as ever. Three out of our four past presidents are known to have used drugs and yet happily continued the war on drugs. The true reason for drug prohibition is power and that is one hell of a drug. Currently in the 103rd year of drug prohibition, America has been slow to reverse course, but public opinion is changing and that is what ultimately lead to the reversal of coffee prohibition in Mecca, Sweden, and Prussia. So the next time you’re in the breakroom having a cup of coffee with a coworker, share what you have learned about the tyrants that banned the drink they are enjoying. Maybe you’ll help turn the tide of public opinion.
On the 
Second, what played out yesterday in Charlottesville is just a repeat of what happened in Berkeley, Middleburg, NYU, and other places over the last year and a half. Some group Antifa finds objectionable has a speech or a rally. Then Antifa shows up and starts assaulting people and the police stand down, let them do it, and let the riot happen. That is exactly what happened yesterday. It should surprise no one that one of these riots has now resulted in someone’s death. The fact that the death was the result of the actions of the enemies of Antifa, rather than Antifa itself, changes nothing. This was going to happen eventually.