90 Miles From Tyranny

Sunday, December 7, 2014

Obama's Illegal Executive Amnesty Order...

On Submarines And Sabotage In World War II

On April 9th, 1940 Adolf Hitler sent the Wehrmacht into Norway in what amounted to a (relatively)
bloodless regime change. A puppet government was set up under Vidkun Quisling and his Nasjonal Samling (the Norwegian Nazi party). By the winter of 1940 the Norwegian resistance had begun organizing an intelligence network across the whole country. This network was so successful that the Norwegian resistance soon gained a reputation for being the most efficient and ruthless of all the resistance movements of occupied Europe. However, being in the resistance was not a full-time occupation. The vast majority of Norway’s coastal community were largely subsistence fishermen and of course had to continue supplying their families with food, the most common of which were sardines, as it had been for centuries. Consequently the Norwegian government’s decision, at the behest of the Nazis, to requisition the entire sardine catch came as a huge blow to the Norwegian resistance. However, thanks to their extensive intelligence networks, the Norwegian resistance soon learned the reason behind the mass acquisition of their precious sardines. The sardines were to be sent to the port Saint-Nazaire in Western France, the home of the U-boat wolfpacks that were raiding the shipping lanes to intercept supplies coming from the US and Canada to Britain in an attempt to starve the latter into surrender. The sardines were to be used to supply the U-boats with easily stored food for their long voyages at sea.

Seeking revenge for the theft of their main staple food, the Norwegian resistance contacted the intelligence services in London and requested a shipment of the largest amount of croton oil possible. Croton oil is an extremely powerful laxative from a plant called the Hogwart (yes, like Harry Potter’s school). London complied and the oil was smuggled into every canning factory in Norway where the oil was used to replace the vegetable oil that is usually used to can sardines (the tangy flavour of sardines was also a convenient disguise for the strange flavour of the croton oil). These spiked sardines were then dutifully handed over to the Germans and sent to the U-boat crews. Now diarrhea is bad at the best of times but suffering it in a confined space with a bunch of guys, all of whom are suffering the same thing, must have been a truly hellish experience.

British intelligence were so impressed by the success of the mission that they started to put together their own diarrhea based campaign. In a document titled “Evacuation against evacuation” the British sought to use a substance called carbachol to spike German supplies. Bottles of carbachol were also to be dropped over German defensive positions with labels attached explaining that the German soldiers should drink it to induce illness and so get out of fighting (a less painful, albeit messier, variation of the famous “shooting yourself in the foot” that was used in WWI). However, this plan was never adopted by British command.

Croton oil would also have a rather strange earlier usage in the US navy. Alcohol was banned from US warships in 1914, however, early torpedoes were fueled by ethyl alcohol which was 80% proof. The sailors would therefore use the...

The Great Chinese Famine 1960

I post a lot of historical pictures because I find them amazing. They serve as a reminder of where we were and where we have come. They bring back memories of what was and the hopes and dreams of the people and times that they capture. They inspire me, make me sad, make me happy and remind me of things that were and the dynamics of the pictures that stay the same and how my perceptions of them change over time.

For a few minutes, forget your troubles, forget your worries, open up and take a journey...

Camels and burning Kuwaiti oil fields that had been blown up by retreating Iraqi troops, 1991.

The Zeppelin Columbia over the Empire State Building in 1931

One of the first underwater photographs ever made - 1893

To demonstrate the superiority of the Red Army, 57.000 German prisoners of war are herded through downtown Moscow, July 1944

The last prisoners leaving Alcatraz, 1963

British soldier observing Argentinean helmets after the Battle of Goose Green on the Falkland Islands, May 1982.

Execution by cannon, in Shiraz, Iran, mid-late 19th century

New York City, 1947, photo by Fred Stein

Central Park in 1930

Alligator farm in St. Augustine, Florida, 1926

Depression In America: 1929 - Is This Our Near Future?

Uploading the first 5 MByte hard disk to a Pan Am plane, 1956

Carl Akeley posed with the leopard he killed with his bare hands after it attacked him, 1896

Confederate and Union soldiers shake hands across the wall at the 1938 reunion for the Veterans of the Battle of Gettysburg

Che Guevara and Fidel Castro fishing, 1960

A German U-boat stranded on the South Coast of England, after surrender, 1918

Banksy Parodies Government Spying..

American Soldiers Used For Nuclear Testing In 1953..

Muslim Navy Engineer Tried To Steal Schematics For New Aircraft Carrier Class

A Navy engineer was arrested and charged Friday with attempting to steal plans for the Navy's most advanced aircraft carrier, now under construction at Newport News Shipbuilding.

Mostafa Ahmed Awwad, 35, a York County, Va., resident who worked at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Virginia, was indicted on two counts of attempted exportation of defense articles and technical data, according to a news release from U.S. Attorney Dana J. Boente. If convicted, he faces a maximum of 20 years in prison on each count.

Awwad intended to send the schematics to Egypt, authorities said.

Court documents describe a saga that included an FBI undercover agent posing as an Egyptian intelligence officer, a clandestine meeting in Sandy Bottom Nature Park in Hampton, a prearranged "dead drop" along a secluded hiking trail and Awwad's alleged intention to wear a pinhole camera to photograph classified material.

During one meeting with the undercover agent, he "discussed where to strike the vessel with a missile in order to sink it," an affidavit states.

Awwad worked in the nuclear engineering and planning department at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, having begun working at the yard early this year, the affidavit says. His security clearance gave him access to information on Naval nuclear propulsion systems.

He made an initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Va., on Friday and is scheduled to appear at the federal courthouse for a detention hearing Dec. 10.

Though it was unclear from the documents how investigators first began to track Awwad, a search warrant affidavit made public Friday says that an FBI undercover agent first called him on the afternoon of Sept. 18.

The FBI agent, "posing as an Egyptian intelligence officer," identified himself as "Yousef," from Washington, D.C., according to the affidavit by FBI Special Agent James Blitzer. The undercover agent then "asked Awwad to meet him at a public park in Hampton" the next day.

Awwad agreed, and they met at...