Manpower.

I have often heard, from outside the hedge, that most of the work in the world is done by women. I do not doubt for a moment that there are parts of the world where men sit and drink coffee and play board games all day while the ladies slave away, but that has not been my observation in the western world. And it would appear that much of what the western world enjoys in terms of 'modern goods', clothing, footwear and the like is made by ladies in China and the Indian sub-Continent. Were those ladies to down-tools for a week there would likely be an interruption to supply chains and a slow reduction in 'stuff' on the shelves for a while.

But we would get by.

Not so if men downed-tools for a week.  I hazard we would be in strife well before the week was out.

The Tavern has been in need of some maintenance work and over the past few weeks we have had the stonemasons in (it is a very old Tavern), along with carpenters, glaziers, roofers, electricians and plumbers, etc. Every one of them has been a man.

We had a Tradies Night for them last evening and the place was packed. We appreciated them in Tavern fashion. Free Ale, all night, served by a Knight.

By the way, that photo above is a nonsense. Propaganda. It is never seen in real life. Five woman and four men. Tradies?

Yes, of course, in our 'equal society' such tasks can be done by women in equal numbers. But they aren't. 

"Women can do anything a man can do - and better " - come the shouts from beyond the hedge, but they don't and won't.

A chap gets tired of hearing all the hubris and cant.

Were men to down tools we would be done for in a week. 

Oz is a modern country, like America, Europe, and perhaps half a dozen other 'First World' Nations, and we depend on men to do ALL the essential work to keep us going. 

The ladies make sandwiches. Except they do that less and less, and with more and more resentment.

That is an exaggeration, I know. Blame a customer for that one. 

Yes, ladies work, but largely in offices doing the paperwork. Few are in the trades. No quotas for ladies in the trades. Quotas are reserved for boardrooms and politics. Ladies pulling the plug in the west would mean that our bills would be late.

But men pulling the plug would mean disaster.

Janet Bloomfield recognises this. She told us of what American men do. It is much the same in Oz.

What would a Men's Day Off look like?

Time for a reality check.

I personally reckon that most of what she now speaks of would take a week, but who am I to argue with a lady. 

First up, the entire power grid is down. 100% of power plant operators, distributors, and dispatchers are men. Now, it’s possible that there are a few women working in these occupations, but however many there are, they do not make up even 1% of the total workforce, so statistically, 100% of the workforce is male.

91% of the nation’s electrical engineers are men, and if they don’t show up for work, there is no one to monitor and manage the nation’s electrical supplies. Assuming some automation (designed by men, naturally) kicks in for the day, we had all better pray there are no problems. 97.6% of electrical power line installers and maintenance workers are men.

Lights out, ladies and gentlemen.

Don’t bother turning on your taps, either. Or flushing your toilets. 95.5% of water and liquid waste treatment plant and system operators are men.

Think you might be able to get out-of-town for the one day the men don’t show up?

Think again.

Planes are out.

95.9% of aircraft pilots and flight engineers are men. If you happen to find a plane with a female pilot, don’t get too excited. 98.4% of aircraft mechanics and service technicians are men. You can, however, be assured of your comfort as you sit on a pilotless aircraft that has no mechanic for pre-flight clearance, because 77.6% of flight attendants are female.

But they stop short of actually making the sandwiches!  

Should you be lucky enough to find a female pilot and a female technician to clear you for take-off, you still have some praying to do. Statistically, 0% of air traffic controllers and airfield operations specialists are women.

Of course, that doesn’t mean there are ZERO ladies working in air traffic control. There just aren’t enough to constitute even 1% of the workforce.

Trains, of course, are also out.

100% of locomotive engineers and operators are men, as are 100% of the workers who operate railroad brakes, signals and switches. 94.4% of railway yardmasters are men, but if you chance upon a female yardmaster, it won’t help you much. She can’t operate the trains.

You might have better luck with bus drivers, almost half of whom are women.

But the streets are likely to be chaos. And there won’t be anyone on hand to help you navigate that.

87.4% of police and sheriff’s patrol officers are men. 96.6% of firefighters are men. 68.8% of Emergency Medical Technicians and Paramedics are men, so if it all goes tits up and you get hurt, there’s a small chance you might make it to a hospital.

I hope you don’t get too badly hurt, though. 65.7% of all surgeons are men.

Maybe you should just work from home? In the dark, mind you. With no running water.

Uh-oh. Looks like that might be a problem, too.

For all computer and mathematical occupations combined, 74.4% of the workforce is male. Computer network architects, who design and implement all our computer based communications systems are 91.9% men. And 94.2% of radio and telecommunications equipment installers and repair technicians are men.

Looks like that plan is frucked.

Hope it doesn’t get too hot, or too cold the day men don’t show up for work. Even if you had power, which you don’t, you would be hard-pressed to get anyone in to take a look at your wonky air-conditioner or furnace.

98.4% of heating, air-conditioning and refrigeration mechanics and installers are men.

Oh well. Guess you’ll have to mosey on down to the local café, which has no power either, but what’s logic and consequence anyways? Be careful when you step over all that accumulating garbage! Remember that most EMTs are men, and they’ve taken the day off. Don’t want to get hurt now.

Most garbage collectors are men, too – 93.4%, to be exact.

You’ll need to stop at the ATM first, for a little cash injection.

Oops. Don’t bother.

The machine hasn’t been filled with money today. 81.5% of security guards and gaming surveillance officers are men. It’s unlikely the banks would be functioning anyways, with no men at work. 72.1% of all securities, commodities and financial services sales agents are men. 72.6% of the nation’s CEOs would be taking the day off, along with 70.9% of all the general and operations managers.

Don’t count on getting a weather report today. Statistically, 0% of the nation’s atmospheric and space scientists are women.

Actually, don’t plan on acquiring pretty much anything today.  

The workers in the entire production, transportation and material moving occupations are 78.2% men. Not only will no goods be moving on the day men go on strike, they won’t be made, period. 82.4% of all the industrial production managers are men.

Nothing will be built or extracted from the earth in terms of raw materials. 97.5% of that workforce is male.

Nothing will be installed, maintained or repaired. 96.8% of that workforce is male.

If men took a collective day off, we would instantly be without power, without the means to communicate, without protection, without water, without trucks bringing us the food and products we take for granted, because men are the ones who provide all those things. 

-Janet Bloomfield was banned from Twitter after creating hashtag #womenagainstfeminism

All information taken from Bureau of Labor Statistics, United States Department of Labor.

So, there you have it. 'It' being just a glance at just a few instances of the essential work that is done by MEN. 

None of the tradies in the bar said a word about doing anything a woman can do - better or otherwise.

I do wish the wimminz outside the hedge would put a sock in it.

But I guess that would be a man's job too.

And as a voice from a corner of the bar shouted over.... And yet, how many apocalyptic TV shows are saturated with kick ass women saving the day and beating those nasty, toxic males? I'll betcha there are feminists out there who think, bring on that no-male apocalypse, we'll show ya... lmfao!!!

Drinks all round and a special one for Janet.

Now, before you go, I am sure we can all find a similarly comprehensive list of all the things we depend on women for.  

Give it a go. Let us have 'the other side'.

Pax.

White/Pink Flag Militaries

No, not the French this time, who have been sharpened up a bit in the past 60 years, but the US military, again, who have been under the gun and proven wanting. Few Institutions have escaped the deleterious effects of Feminism and Leftism and assorted cultural engineering, as Oz knows all too well, and the American military is right there in the firing line too. One would have hoped that the Top Brass would put a hard and heavy foot down, but just as Oz has weenie Generals, so does America. The White Flag has been hoisted in the Marines, of all people.

It is the 'Wimmin Ishoo' again, which everyone hoped would go away when Trump grabbed the reins.

It hasn't. And that is because, I guess, the Generals appointed during the Obama regime may take a while to dislodge. Bureaucrats still hold sway too.

I have said before that I have no problem with women in the military, so long as they are not sent to do a man's job. The same holds for certain civilian roles too. Like fire and police work. Women, mostly,  - I have to be plain - are just not up to the job. Not when YOUR life depends upon them. 

Soldiering is HARD. 

Far harder than firefighting, which, let us face it, is damnably hard work.

Young people join with romanticised ideas of what it is about and for at least a year they are civilians pretending, trying on, becoming soldiers. They are expected to eventually do five times or more what they could do, possibly, a month before they got off the bus. Many fail.

Men fail training. Women fail training.

21C 'youth' educated, if it can be called that, by a feminised school system, will remain soft, weak and undisciplined shirkers well into their first year or two. Entitled and physically on a par with the disabled, they will need all the 'Instruction' they can get. Not lax rules.

But the boys fail at nowhere near the rate at which woman fail training. Men who pass toughen in a while and become productive and reliable. 

Their colleagues insist. 

Women however fail more and those that do get through suffer far more thereafter.  Their colleages give them hugs. 

IF women are to be soldiers, then they should be in dedicated, all-female formations. They can organise themselves to an appropriate standard. And carry the responsibility along with their lighter packs.

But that does not stop the Social Justice Warriors in the Bureaucracies.  

Richard Viguerie brought us up to date.

Marines Hoist White Flag To Social Justice Warriors

The United States Marine Corps may have battled America’s enemies from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, but today’s Marine Corps leadership has hoisted the white flag to social justice warriors demanding the Corps continue the destructive social engineering experiments of the Obama administration.

 http://www.conservativehq.com/node/29502

The latest Marine Corps capitulation courtesy of Marine Corps Commandant General Robert B. Neller was on the long-contentious issue of co-ed basic training.

Our friend Elaine Donnelly, founder and president of the Center for Military Readiness, gave us the heads-up that Neller quietly announced on a Friday afternoon that for the first time in history, a platoon of fifty enlisted female recruits would be housed and trained alongside five male platoons in the 3rd Training Battalion at the Marines’ Parris Island boot camp.

If this were a good and certain to be well-received policy, it would have been trumpeted from the parapet of the Pentagon. 

However, since the announcement was buried on a Friday afternoon news cycle in the midst of the government shutdown controversy you can be sure that Neller and the Obama holdovers at the Pentagon knew it would not be well-received by Republicans on the Hill, the conservative national defense constituency and a White House that doesn’t need or want another Obama-era policy to defend.

According to a Marine spokesman speaking to ABC News, boot camp recruit classes typically are much smaller in the winter months.  Housing one female platoon with five male ones in the 3rd Training Battalion allows temporary de-activation of the all-female 4th Training Battalion.

The excuse was lame, 

.....at best says Elaine Donnelly.  

The Marines’ Delayed Entry Program (DEP) sends new recruits to boot camp on timetables set by the needs of the service, not the weather.  

Someone should find out why there aren’t enough female recruits to populate the 4th Training Battalion.  Perhaps young women are shunning recruiters because they know that once they sign up, they might be ordered into ground combat units on the same involuntary basis as men.

Officials also made the disingenuous claim that the “temporary” change would support “training efficiency.”  But within a week, Marine Corps Times reported that the female platoon co-located in the men’s training battalion “may not be the last.”

Speaking at a forum in Washington, D.C., Marine Sergeant Major Ronald Green said the service doesn’t “do things as a one-time deal.”  Green added that the intent is to give everyone “the greatest opportunity for success.” 

Marine Sergeant Major Green’s “I’d like to buy the world a Coke” comment failed to recognize that boot camp is not about individual “success.”  Its mission is to transform ordinary civilians into disciplined male and female Marines.

Elaine Donnelly also noted that the Marine Corps Times article confirmed General Neller’s needless campaign to increase the percentage of female Marines from 8.9% to 10%.  That quota, unfortunately, signals that the Marines are assigning highest priority to political correctness over mission readiness and combat lethality.  

The Trump Administration should revoke this and all gender diversity mandates, including the 25% quotas that still apply in in the Navy, Army, and Air Force.

Sergeant Major Green also said that assessments of the gender-mixed battalion would determine “whether it is a model the Corps should continue.”  Based on previous Pentagon practices, however, assessments of the gender-mixed battalion likely will center on sociological goals, not the primary military goal: 

transformation of undisciplined civilians into Marines.

Officials and media will claim that standards are “gender-neutral” and women are doing the same things as men. 

Half-truths such as this in all the services, however, are misleading says Elaine Donnelly.  Under the Dempsey Rule, which Donnelly named for former Joint Chiefs Chairman General Martin Dempsey, 

high standards that women cannot meet are being re-evaluated, dropped, or scored differently to ensure female trainee “success.”

An example of how this works occurred last year at the Marines’ Infantry Officer Course (IOC) at Quantico, VA.  As CMR reported in 2018, only one female officer out of more than thirty had passed the IOC.  Most failed on the grueling Combat Endurance Test (CET) – the first and toughest challenge in the Infantry Officer Course conducted at Quantico, VA.

The incredibly tough CET event was designed to identify and prepare infantry officers who are capable of leading other men on the battlefield, from the front.  With uncompromising physical demands and high attrition rates, the first-day test was working to separate the best from the rest.

The system was not broken, but in November 2017, without prior notice, General Neller decided to “fix” it.  

Neller changed the must-pass CET into a success-optional Combat Evaluation Test.  The acronym remains the same, but now the CET is just another evaluation data point.  Seven months later, a second female officer passed the course.

All branches of the service are struggling to make changes in basic physical fitness and combat fitness tests (PFT/CFT).  They are finding it difficult to challenge stronger men without causing disproportionate injuries among women.  Gender-normed scores are justifiable in basic, entry-level, and pre-commissioning training, but not in advanced courses qualifying personnel for the combat arms.

Donnelly says, and we agree, that controversies surrounding co-ed boot camp are only part of the larger debate about the consequences of treating men and women as if they are interchangeable in all military positions, including combat arms units such as the infantry.  This debate must include an honest re-assessment of conditions leading to sexual misconduct in the military -- a problem that eviscerates morale and readiness in America’s military, and may have roots in co-ed basic training.

In the classic military and bureaucratic imperative, promotable officers and drill instructors will do everything possible to ensure that women are happy.  Over time standards or evaluations will change without notice, and the incremental experiment will be declared successful, justifying more “progress” in the wrong direction.

Lest anyone think I am singling out the US for failing to properly acknowledge the demands placed upon their military people, the Oz military 'attitude' at top level is also in a woeful state. The 'cream' of fighters - The British Army - has also come under fire for the appalling adverts they recently released literally calling on snowflakes, the emotionally incontinent and homosexuals to join up and be welcomed in, and those all-so-reliable Muslims, for whom new rules have been instituted for them to down rifles in the thick of battle five times a day to pray to Allah for the overthrow of Infidels.

Hello !!

Have a drink.

We need it.

Pax

Living on Water.

Water is necessary for life, and for living, even for landlubbers like me. But I am not the sort that is inclined to live upon it.  My good mate James Higham (of Nourishing Obscurity fame) has that desire, as did my good and very long-time mate Denis, with whom I went through Grammar School before he went to sea (Merchant Navy) and I to the Air. But I do delight in waking to the sun shining on 50 square kilometres of water outside of and below my cave. The only constancy in it is the change it undergoes by the day, hour and minute. Stunning. I only occasionally go out on it.

Denis spent much of his early to mid adult life travelling the seas. A man going his own way (MGTOW). We met up occasionally in foreign ports as I too travelled the world. He now lives in the same hemisphere as I but across the Tasman sea in Kiwiland. There, quite some years ago, when doing some 'local' moonlighting in NZ waters, he rescued many from a sinking Russian passenger liner. Good man, Denis. Adventurous.

Few people take the leap to go to sea with their family, though. That is a huge adventure, and today I heard of such a family. I hope they sail into my gorgeous harbour some day and drop into the Tavern. The Gifford family left their home in Washington in 2008 to sail around the world. They have not stopped for long since. They did stop for a while in the summer of 2016 in Noank, Connecticut to tell their story and to show how they all live on a 47-foot sailboat.

They have it all together, take the risks, do the work and are raising independant, frugal youngsters. Good luck to them.

What they did not do though was build their boat. That is what James is doing, and has been doing for a while now. He will get there, no doubt.

It is not going to be a similar sort of boat though. Seagoing? Yes. And canal-going too. He has considered so much about hull and sail design, that N.O. readers have been following along for a while. Building a boat is art, craft, engineering, mathematical and hard graft. But great Beauty is made that way. For a brief idea of what and how, we can see here:

James wants not only to sail across the world, but live aboard and see the canal system of England. In the same craft. Most canal-boats though are of a common design and now't like what he is building. And in reality, he is almost as much of a landlubber as most of us. (Almost).

Still, here is a chap I was told of too, with some useful perspectives. David Johns, a former TV journalist from the UK who quit his job, sold his house, and bought a narrowboat to cruise the canal network. His plan was to try being a live aboard for a year. 

He’s been living aboard for 9 months so far and he’s still happy with his decision and loves being part of the friendly, helpful narrowboat community. 

Watch this video to take a tour of David's narrowboat, learn how he earns an income as a freelance journalist, where he “parks” his boat, and about the joys & challenges of life afloat. David has been documenting his journey living on a boat with a regular vlog on his YouTube channel: Cruising the Cut 

https://www.youtube.com/CruisingTheCutUK

With his experience as a TV journalist, the videos are extremely well filmed and edited, and they're a real pleasure to watch. We were excited when he sent us his interview footage because we learned so much about this alternative lifestyle that he’s trying out. It is like living in a tiny house (like my cave) on the water and of being able to explore from the comfort of your own home.

The extremely RICH folk do things a little 'bigger' I have never been envious of the rich, as some might be. They often 'commission' artifacts of great beauty which, frankly, I would not trust to a socialist Committee. Much if not most of our material, historical heritage was commissioned by the very rich, for their own pleasure. Often, for the pleasure and uplift of the many, such as Cathedrals. Most, eventually, get passed to or taken over by the many, anyway. 

Here is a sailing Palace.

Not much change out of a large fortune for that one ! Maybe one day it will take kids or old folk, say, to sea, for jollies. 

I am pretty sure the designers and naval architects, the builders and craftsmen had a great time contributing, and would shout a pint or two were they to drop into the Tavern.

Cheers to them, and Denis, James, David and the Gifford Family.

Safe seas be before you all. 

Dominus Vobiscum.

That Was the Year.

Goodbye 2018. Many will say 'good riddance', while others will have had a brilliant old time of it. I can't say that the Tavern's year was other than 'mixed. Certainly the latter half saw the old Tavern Keeper struck down a couple of times and on his knees in the Crypt, asking "Why meeee? "  Hahaha.  But in the main I am still standing: and the Tavern's walls and tables and bars, while listening to its customers as they imbibe, has heard some pretty awful things from around the world that put mine in perspective, and some splendid events too. All in all, one can say that 'things have been worse'. 

We had a customer tell us of the really Worse time to be alive, but first let us take a quick look at what passed for Big Events and Matters of Interest in 2019.

Notice that jubilation at the 'Climate' bizzo? What crock. Here we are in possibly (probably) the most benign climatic period in history and what do we have? Money-grubbers trying to spread doom and gloom and rob your wallet.

Jamie Seidel gave us the nuts and bolts of the doom and gloom that really struck our planet: when man's incompetence and greed were overtaken by a far more powerful Nature. 

536 AD. Worst year ever

Throughout history, our ancestors have had more pressing concerns.

Finding wild weather a problem? How about 18-straight months of fog?

Supermarket prices getting too high? How about watching all your crops wither and die?

Constantly catching some new bug? How about contending with the Black Plague?

Sick of government leadership spills? How about the collapse of civilisation itself?

Put it all together, and you get a date: 536AD.

 https://www.themercury.com.au/news/tasmania/in-depth/what-was-the-worst-year-to-be-alive-ever-ad536-when-winter-came-for-real/news-story/2899fe1ad79088851af0b6955ff018b2

Harvard University medieval historian Michael McCormick has set out to find out just how bad things were, and what caused it all.

He’s come up with some answers.

“It was the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year,” Professor McCormick says.

It was the darkest moment of the Dark Ages.

Now we know why. And when things started to get better again.

Times weren’t great. The Western Roman Empire had collapsed 60 years earlier, when Emperor Romulus was defeated by the Germanic war lord Odoacer. 

Without the central rule of law, Rome’s old provinces throughout Europe became increasingly isolated. Infrastructure such as aqueducts, public baths and roads were failing. The highways were thick with brigands. Local strongmen surged forward to fill the power vacuum.

But things were about to get much, much worse.

Professor McCormick has told the American Association for the Advancement of Science that 536 may not have been the exact worse year — but it was the year things fell apart.

The next decade would be a living hell.

The results of his study were published in the journal Antiquity.

It was as if the gods had abandoned Europe, China — and much of the land in-between.

A mysterious fog rolled over Europe, the Middle East and parts of Asia.

It did not lift.

For 18 months it sat there — plunging the lands into

darkness.

“And it came about during this year that a most dread portent took place,” wrote Byzantine historian Procopius. “For the sun gave forth its light without brightness, like the moon, during the whole year.”

It was just the start. The following decade would be the coldest recorded for at least 2300 years.

But, in 536, snow would fall in summer.

Crops withered and died.

People starved — en masse.

What caused it all has long been unknown.

But a 1990s analysis of the growth of tree rings during the era proved the historic records: the summers around 540AD were certainly very cold, severely stunting their growth.

Rome’s Western Empire may have collapsed. But the Eastern Empire still stood.

Emperor Justinian the Great seemed firmly ensconced. He was in the 10th year of his — until then — prosperous reign.

Then, the skies grew dark.

“And it seemed exceedingly like the sun in eclipse, for the beams it shed were not clear nor such as it is accustomed to shed,” Procopius described.

Elements of the thriving network of international trade established over the past 600 years lingered. Nations and provinces still relied upon each other for vital resources.

After 536, this would not last. But it would contribute to making things worse.

Bubonic plague began its relentless march.

Among people and animals already reeling from starvation, the Black Death would extract a terrible toll. And the disease-carrying parasites would spread far and wide carried by ships, wagons, and travellers.

In 541, the Roman port of Pelusium in Egypt became the first major population centre to be brought to its knees by plague. The following Plague of Justinian killed up to one half of the entire population of the Eastern Roman Empire — bringing on its collapse.

Europe, the Middle East and much of Asia fell into economic and societal collapse that would last just over a century.

It was what would commonly become known as the Dark Ages.

Entire peoples would uproot and swarm across Europe, seeking new lands to plant their crops.

It was the era that spawned legends such as that of King Arthur — with lingering memories of a lost golden age, and a yearning for a hero to bring back the good times.

How things got so bad, so fast, has long puzzled historians.

Was the Roman Empire simply too corrupt to survive?

Were the ‘barbarians’ stampeding and ravaging their way across Europe?

And what was the cause of that choking cloud of fog?

Professor McCormick and his team say they now have an answer.

Careful analysis and dating of ice cores exposed evidence of an event that sparked the global catastrophe.

Volcanic ash.

Vaporised glass. Sulphur. Bismuth. All were blasted high into the sky, creating a thin film reflecting sunlight back into space.

Glaciologist Paul Mayewski of the University of Maine says the ash appears to have come from a volcano in North America, or perhaps Iceland.

It blew — big time — in early 536. It spewed ash across the entire Northern Hemisphere.

But that wasn’t the end of it.

The volcano erupted twice more — in 540 and 547. The consequent ash clouds served only to revitalise the climate changing impact of the first.

But the ice core reveals more.

Each tree-ring-like layer of ice acts like nature’s logbook of what was happening at the time.

Among those layers associated with 640AD was found a sudden spike in particulate lead.

And historians knew where that came from.

Industry had revived.

Economies had fired up.

The wheels of trade had begun to roll again.

And greasing it all was the flow of freshly-minted silver coin — the processing of which produces the lead pollution.

Professor McKormick’s team found microscopic particles of volcanic glass in a Swiss glacier dating from 536. Ice cores and tree-rings from Greenland and a peat-bog cores from welsewhere in Europe also contained similar particles.

Indications are they came from a volcano in Iceland, but the samples are too small to be certain. The researchers say they want to examine cores from lakes in Europe and Iceland to identify more fallout from this catastrophic event.

Once identified, there may be clues as to why this particular eruption proved so devastating.

Wherever the volcano, the jet-stream winds propelled the plume across Europe and Asia. Beneath it, the chilled-fog formed.

The ice also tells the tale of the end of this dark age.

Archaeologist Christopher Loveluck of the University of Nottingham says in Antiquity that the ability to precisely date sample cores was a major breakthrough for historians.

Ice cores are proving to be a fantastic resource for inferring what has happening at any given point in history. Each snowfall lands on top of another, building up layer-by-layer ice sheets that capture snapshots of what was in the air for each given season.

“We’ve entered a new era with this ability to integrate ultra — high-resolution environmental records with similarly high resolution historical records,” Loveluck says. “It’s a real game changer.”

The cores reveal the smelting of lead ore to extract silver produced a surge in pollution in 640, and again in 660.

Economies were thriving once again. Gold was becoming scarce for coins. So silver found itself suddenly in great demand.

“This unambiguously shows that, alongside any residual pool of Roman bullion and imported metal, new mining facilitated the production of the last post-Roman gold coins — debased with increasing amounts of silver — and the new silver coinages that replaced them,” the researchers wrote.

Loveluck added: “It shows the rise of the merchant class for the first time,”

It was a golden age set to last 700 years.

Then the ice cores tell another tale.

Once again, lead vanished from the air.

Between 1349 and 1353, the Black Death once again swept through Europe.

Once again economies collapsed. Crops failed.

But it wouldn’t prove as bad as 536.

Grim times past.  So many deaths !! We all needed a drink, sitting out on the patio looking out over the waters where we watched the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race finishers sailing past.. We are in 'comfortable' times. The sun is warm. The waters blue. 

What could possibly be wrong.

Hmmmm. Our civilisation is falling apart, that's what. And we can't blame a volcano. But we do blame 4WD cars !! They have no effect whatsoever on our planet but the modern hubris has it - from the hundreds who fly in to meetings in expensive places -  that we are more powerful than Nature and can be blamed. Well, YOU can be blamed. 

We are becoming mad, immature, stupid,..... call it what you will. We are definitely becoming anti-life, as bad as any massive eruption. Half the Eastern Roman Empire was a modest number of people and I dare say less than the number of the most vulnerable people that we, deliberately, kill, Every Year.

Abortion was the number one cause of death worldwide in 2018, 

with more than 41 million children killed before birth, Worldometers reports.

As of December 31, 2018, there have been some 41.9 million abortions performed in the course of the year, Worldometers revealed. By contrast, 8.2 million people died from cancer in 2018, 5 million from smoking, and 1.7 million died of HIV/AIDS.

 https://www.breitbart.com/health/2018/12/31/abortion-leading-cause-of-death-in-2018-with-41-million-killed/?fbclid=IwAR2CJrsH8k1ZnVrlh8BHD_yt2rR8zb9OjP8ZgcOew06hqjgAFBiN9-KFwjc

Worldometers — voted one of the best free reference websites by the American Library Association (ALA) — keeps a running tally through the year of major world statistics, including population, births, deaths, automobiles produced, books published, and CO2 emissions.

It also records the total number of abortions in the world, based on the latest statistics on abortions published by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Globally, just under a quarter of all pregnancies (23 percent) were ended by abortion in 2018, and for every 33 live births, ten infants were aborted.

There were more deaths from abortion in 2018 than all deaths from cancer, malaria, HIV/AIDS, smoking, alcohol, and traffic accidents combined.

The staggering number of deaths from abortion, in fact, has led certain observers to call abortion “the social justice cause of our time,” since judging from the sheer magnitude of the problem other human rights issues pale in comparison.

Hey, but take cheer and fill your cups. 

Hope.

Pray.

Be courageous.

Stand with those who help mothers rather than kill their babies.

May 2019 be the year YOU grasp the nettle, bite the bullet, take up your sword. 

And find good fortune coming your way. 

Pax

Lost Civilisations? Atlantis Staring Us in the Eye.

One day our civilisation may be a myth, like Atlantis. The remains may be as difficult and exciting to uncover as Roman Britain is today. Just as individuals with dementia may not even be aware of their demise, or the average Roman going about his day with visigoths and sundry barbarians in his midst, so we may be living through Western Civilisation disappearing before our eyes and many people remaining largely unaware of the impending doom. Will there be anything to show we were here?

The past few weeks have seen Europe in high fever with its vital organs being eaten away by corruption, viruses, bacteria in high places fighting Yellow Vests in the streets, and many a pock-marked black face staring down as a plague attacks the healthy. Frankly the old Tavern Keeper has been laid low for a while too, but amid the grumbles this week came some quite odd news. 

Some folk think that The End is Nigh. Western civilisation is being flooded with very unchristian hordes and my Supplier observes from on high. Just whether He will permit another world-wide destruction like the last time He sent a Flood, who knows? I am close to one of His messengers who has not whispered anything like that in my ear when he delivers the Good Ale. Little remains of what was before.

Greenies, of course, have been threatening a flood for a few decades now. The rising sea levels, they wish upon us, would swamp and destroy quite a bit of our civilisation. They want us to sink beneath the waves and become a myth. I don't know of greenies being around back in Atlantis' day and no slow rise was predicted back then as far as we are told. It was supposed to have happened overnight. There yesterday: gone the next day. Our greeny-wished flood is a tad slower. Glacial in fact.

I was hobbling around the bars  a week or two back when I came across the first hints. Graham Hancock is a British writer and journalist who specialises in theories involving ancient civilisations, stone monuments, megaliths and the like, and was settled in a quite corner speaking of the Lost City civilisation, Atlantis. He has little truk with the Wikipedia writer who barely conceals his disdain and dismissal of the notion of Atlantis altogether. 

Giving the positive a little preference, let us hear briefly from Graham before looking at the 'general' version.

His position is clear. As it that of the Wiki miserable who said: Atlantis (Ancient Greek:"island of Atlas") is a fictional island mentioned within an allegory on the hubris of nations in Plato's works Timaeus and Critias, where it represents the antagonist naval power that besieges "Ancient Athens", the pseudo-historic embodiment of Plato's ideal state in The Republic. In the story, Athens repels the Atlantean attack unlike any other nation of the known world, supposedly giving testament to the superiority of Plato's concept of a state. The story concludes with Atlantis falling out of favor with the deities and submerging into the Atlantic Ocean.

Despite its minor importance in Plato's work, the Atlantis story has had a considerable impact on literature. The allegorical aspect of Atlantis was taken up in utopian works of several Renaissance writers, such as Francis Bacon's New Atlantis and Thomas More's Utopia. On the other hand, nineteenth-century amateur scholars misinterpreted Plato's narrative as historical tradition, most notably in Ignatius L. Donnelly's Atlantis: The Antediluvian World. Plato's vague indications of the time of the events—more than 9,000 years before his time —and the alleged location of Atlantis—"beyond the Pillars of Hercules"—has led to much pseudoscientific speculation. 

As a consequence, Atlantis has become a byword for any and all supposed advanced prehistoric lost civilizations and continues to inspire contemporary fiction, from comic books to films.

While present-day philologists and classicists agree on the story's fictional character, there is still debate on what served as its inspiration. As for instance with the story of Gyges, Plato is known to have freely borrowed some of his allegories and metaphors from older traditions. This led a number of scholars to investigate possible inspiration of Atlantis from Egyptian records of the Thera eruption, the Sea Peoples invasion, or the Trojan War. Others have rejected this chain of tradition as implausible and insist that Plato created an entirely fictional nation as his example, drawing loose inspiration from contemporary events such as the failed Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415–413 BC or the destruction of Helike in 373 BC.

So then, into the bar comes young Jimmy. He has some 'pedigree' too.  Youthful and exuberant Jimmy is an  Independent researcher - Former Corporate Theft/Fraud Investigator - Army/Iraq war vet with an MBA, who has been around a bit.

I shall show you Jimmy in his engaging full flood. That word again !! But first his view is easily summarised.

Not only did the lost city of Atlantis actually exist, but its true location has been hiding in plain sight for thousands of years, completely unnoticed, as we’ve been looking in all the wrong places...Since everyone assumes that it must be under the ocean somewhere, such as in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean or the Mediterranean Sea, which have long been considered to be the most likely places for its existence. 

And no, I am not about to suggest that Antarctica is the hidden location of Atlantis, either. 

Because here I am going to connect the dots on the exact words that Plato used to describe Atlantis, its location, and the geographical land features that surround it, which were recorded in Plato’s dialogues, the Critias and Timaeus. And the details that Plato shared of Atlantis, which I’m about to share with you in side by side comparison, will show you that the Richat Structure located in Mauritania, Africa, also commonly referred to as the Eye of the Sahara, or the Eye of Africa…is the most likely location for the lost city of Atlantis.

So, go for it Jimmy. Tell us about it.

He gives an entertaining and plausible account, in my opinion. (My opinion is open to question, of course, as long as you pay for a round).

Now, you might be thinking that he has not given you enough to be 'convincing': so he came back a few days later with more.

The Bible does not mention Atlantis. Neither did Assurbanipal from his Assyrian perspectives and tales. He mentioned the Flood, of course, an ancient myth even for his mob, but then he was very unlikely to have even known of Atlantis, which was well out of his way. But the timing is quite important. 

Perhaps one day soon some internet billionaire will do as the 19C explorers and arhaeologists did and go dig around a bit. It would be about time.

Meanwhile I think Jimmy deserves a few days free run of the bars to drink his fill. His account is fascinating stuff. Fair took my mind off my ailments.

I shall raise a tankard to his efforts to date.

Pax