Trash talk, 1676 style

Sultan Mehmed IV to the Zaporozhian Cossacks

As the Sultan; son of Muhammad; brother of the sun and moon; grandson and viceroy of God; ruler of the kingdoms of Macedonia, Babylon, Jerusalem, Upper and Lower Egypt; emperor of emperors; sovereign of sovereigns; extraordinary knight, never defeated; steadfast guardian of the tomb of Jesus Christ; trustee chosen by God Himself; the hope and comfort of Muslims; confounder and great defender of Christians – I command you, the Zaporogian Cossacks, to submit to me voluntarily and without any resistance, and to desist from troubling me with your attacks.

— Mehmed IV

Cossacks to Mehmed IV

Zaporozhian Cossacks to the Turkish Sultan!

O sultan, Turkish devil and damned devil’s kith and kin, secretary to Lucifer himself. What the devil kind of knight are you, that can’t slay a hedgehog with your naked arse? The devil excretes, and your army eats. You will not, you son of a bitch, make subjects of Christian sons; we’ve no fear of your army, by land and by sea we will battle with thee, fuck your mother.

You Babylonian scullion, Macedonian wheelwright, brewer of Jerusalem, goat-fucker of Alexandria, swineherd of Greater and Lesser Egypt, pig of Armenia, Podolian thief, catamite of Tartary, hangman of Kamyanets, and fool of all the world and underworld, an idiot before God, grandson of the Serpent, and the crick in our dick. Pig’s snout, mare’s arse, slaughterhouse cur, unchristened brow, screw your own mother!

So the Zaporozhians declare, you lowlife. You won’t even be herding pigs for the Christians. Now we’ll conclude, for we don’t know the date and don’t own a calendar; the moon’s in the sky, the year with the Lord, the day’s the same over here as it is over there; for this kiss our arse!

– Koshovyi Otaman Ivan Sirko, with the whole Zaporozhian Host.

 

Oh my. Here is a 1891 painting inspired by this exchange, these are some amused Cossacks:

Zaporozhian Cossacks reply to the Turkish Sultan

Amazing – whence the periodic table? Stellar stuff

I consider this to be mankind’s greatest discovery: almost all of our world is debris or exhaust from star fusion processes, fission/decay, and star explosions & collisions. This knowledge highlights how unimaginably big space is plus how unimaginably long time is. Ponder, wonder, and enjoy this image from wikipedia:

Only we wee humans make stuff denser than plutonium, and that stuff is quite fleeting. Look how much is made by explosions and neutron star mergers!

Identifying elements began in 1718, so ~300 years for us to define and categorize the list, plus the last ~70 years to cipher how all elements come to existence. Amazing.

Need “prettier?” Okay, Chandra, show us:

Tough times in Missouri

Extracts from letter of J. I. K. Hayward to J. W. Brooks, dated Steamer Hannibal City, August 13, 1861.

…Then, as a sample of what is done by some officers, last week a man named McAfee (speaker of the last house of representatives) was arrested. General Hurlbut ordered him to be set to digging trenches and pits for necessaries -note: field toilets, sometimes called sinks-, at which he was kept all one day when the mercury ranged about 100 degrees in the shade. A few days after he was taken from Macon to Palmyra, and the general ordered him to be tied on the top of the cab on the engine. It was prevented by our men, who, when persuasion failed, the engineer swore he would not run the engine if it was done (and I upheld him in it), and as he was being marched to the engine to mount it the signal was given, and the train started, giving them barely time to get on the cars. When there is added to this the irregularities of the soldiery such as taking poultry, pigs, milk, butter, preserves, potatoes, horses, and in fact everything they want; entering and searching houses, and stealing in many cases; committing rapes on the negroes and such like things the effect has been to make a great many Union men inveterate enemies, and if these things continue much longer, our cause is ruined. These things are not exaggerated by me, and, though they do not characterize all the troops, several regiments have conducted in this way, and have also repeatedly fired on peaceable citizens sometimes from trains as they passed and no punishment, or none of any account, has been meted out to them….

…If the thing goes on this way much longer, we are ruined. I fear we cannot run the road or live in the country except under military protection. It is enough to drive a people to madness, and it is doing it fast….

 

Incident in 1864: Pickett’s Mill, Georgia

Maj. Jonathan R. Kennard, age 38, was slightly wounded in the head.

Memphis Daily Appeal – Atlanta, Georgia – June 4, 1864

One little incident right here, so characteristic of the man. Major Kennard (of whom I have told you often, lately promoted), was as usual, encouraging the men by his battle-cry of, “put your trust in God, men, for He is with us,” but concluding to talk to the Yankees a while, sang out to them, “Come on, We are demoralized,” when the Major was pretty severely wounded in the head, though not seriously; raising himself up, he said: “Boys, I told them a lie, and I believe that is the reason I got shot.”

3Lt. Thomas J. Stokes, Co. I, 10th Texas Infantry – Life in Dixie During the WarMary Gay

 

Imagining the sarcastic taunts and the story-telling after this incident makes these figures from our past a bit more comprehensible. Read or download the book for free at gutenberg.org.

 

WAR, with leaflets!

From late Fall 2014, it is clear that we were close to the Brink. KCNA keeps us informed. Update: KCNA site is geo-blocked, unfortunately, but you may try this web site.

This clearly indicates that the puppet authorities are the prime movers of the madcap leaflet scattering operations of human scum in south Korea.

As already disclosed, different ministries and agencies of the south Korean puppet regime are vying with each other to spend several millions of U.S. dollars for the leaflet scattering operations.

Military gangsters provided military backing to the leaflet scattering operations. Not only forefront units of the puppet army but also flying corps of its air force were put on emergency alert.

It is nonsensical, indeed, to have dialogue and discuss the issue of improving the north-south relations with such black-hearted guys.

The puppet group is getting frantic in its anti-DPRK human rights racket in international arena in collusion with the U.S. and desperately hurling human scum into leaflet scattering operations as part of its confrontation ruckus. This is aimed to escalate the confrontation with the north and ignite a war.

 

 

NY v. Boston, Strauss smackdown edition

New York World (19.06.1872) decried Strauss as

the little hop and skip maestro, hot from the wicked salons of Vienna

and adjudged his music “clap-trap,” so the Boston Globe (21.06.1872) retorted that,

New York is to be pitied

and a Boston periodical, Jubilee Days (20.06.1872), likened New York’s critics to a “herd of mules.”

October 1863, a terrible time

Some text from the Official Records of the War of the Rebellion. There are many, as in thousands of, noteworthy items in this giant collection.

First

He himself blew the brains out of one, and, as I had ordered that no more prisoners should be taken, he says their loss must have been very great.

THOMAS C. FITZ GIBBON, Major, Commanding Fourteenth Michigan Volunteers

Second

HDQRS. SECOND DIVISION, SIXTEENTH ARMY CORPS,
La Grange, Tennessee, October 29, 1863.
Lieutenant HILLIER,
Comdg. Detachment of Ninth Illinois Cavalry:

You will proceed immediately to La Fayette, Tennessee, and, if you find the railroad bridge destroyed and cannot find the men who did it, you will promptly arrest every man and lad in that neighborhood and send them here. You will then burn down every house in that vicinity.

By order of Brigadier General Thos. W. Sweeny:

THOS. G. MORRISON,
Major, and Chief of Outposts, Second Div., 16th Army Corps.

Vexillological prank

TRI-WEEKLY ALAMO EXPRESS

San Antonio, TX, February 6, 1861, p. 3, c. 1

The Lone Star flag which was raised over Carolan’s Auction room on Tuesday and left up over night, was floating Wednesday morning bespangled with the complete “glorious constellation,” much to the annoyance of the enterprising gentlemen who put it up. Of course the culprit is not known. The stars were sewed on.

So some bold wag sewed six stars around the Texas star, after the 2/1/61 Texas secession. The other four states seceded after Texas.

 

Another RACIST Civil War general

RALEIGH, June 4, 186x.

Brigadier-General HAWLEY,

Wilmington:

You are to use the colored troops as you think best, so as to relieve the white troops from duty where they would be exposed to disease.

x. x. xxxxxxxxx,

Major-General.

Those Southerners, what a group of bad men….

Wait, this order came out 9 days later, I reveal the year and the general for the above note:

GENERAL ORDERS, HDQRS. DEPT. OF NORTH CAROLINA,, ARMY OF THE OHIO, Numbers 84.
Raleigh, N. C., June 13, 1865.
The time has arrived when I must bid farewell to many of my old comrades of the Army of the Ohio, and doubtless the time will soon come when we all must separate. It is a farewell tinged with no feeling of sadness, save for the loss of our brave comrades who have fallen. Our thoughts at parting are of duty faithfully done, of hardships and dangers bravely met, of battles fought and victories won, of our glorious Union saved from destruction and more firmly reestablished on the basis of freedom for all, of dear homes and friends to which we are returning, rendered tenfold more dear by the price it has cost us to preserve them, and of the grateful welcome that awaits us among our friends and countrymen.

Let the memory of Knoxville, Resaca, Dallas, Kennesaw, Chattahoochee, and Atlanta; of Columbia, Franklin, and Nashville; of Fort Wagner, Drewry’s Bluff, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, Richmond, and Fort Harrison; of Fort Fisher, Anderson, Wilmington, and Kinston, ever remind us of the priceless value of our free institutions, and incite in us that faithful discharge of our duties as citizens which alone can secure to us and to our posterity the full fruits of the victories which as soldiers we have won.

My comrades, I bid you farewell, and may Almighty God bless and reward you for patriotism and fidelity in the cause of liberty and Union, and may he comfort and protect the widows and orphan children of our comrades who have given their lives for their country.

J. M. SCHOFIELD,
Major-General.

Things were not as clear-cut as we have convinced ourselves during the intervening 150 years.

Idiot

HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI, IN THE FIELD, BIG SHANTY, June 16, 1864.

General Halleck, Washington, D. C. :

General Thomas did not make the progress last night I expected. He found the enemy strongly intrenched on a line slightly advanced from a straight line connecting Lost and Kenesaw Mountain. I have been along it to-day, and am pressing up close. Shall study it, and am now inclined to feign on both flanks, and assault the center. It may cost us dear, but in result would surpass an attempt to pass round. The enemy has a strong position, and covers his road well, and the only weak point in the game is in having the Chattahoochee in his rear. If, by assaulting, I can break his line, I see no reason why it should not produce a decisive effect. I know he shifts his troops about to meet our supposed attacks, and thereby fatigues his men, and the woods will enable me to mask our movements.

W. T. SHERMAN,

Major- General Commanding.

150th anniversary at Kennesaw Mountain

Cost were “dear” indeed to ~3,000 men and their families.

 

Reward

tracert -h 100 216.81.59.173

Be patient, watch, and read. If you are enjoying freedom (linux), then

traceroute -m 100 216.81.59.173

jb

Bit late for Force of July festivities.

Finally, for text rick rolling, try tracert -h 100 obiwan.scrye.net

Updated signature

To replace “bomb bomb president” as the primary e-mail signature, a Slashdot contributor provided this improved content. Improvement is possible, but it is a great start.

Update from jawa report:

Dear NSA,

Constitution Allah Ackbar Tea Party bomb abortion patriot gun IRS Islam dog whistle Obama prayer tax surveillance.

To make sure you get this message, may I also say 9/11 Eric Holder birth certificate Bill Ayers drone Orwell Anonymous leak.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Coast Guard (USCG), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Border Patrol, Secret Service (USSS), National Operations Center (NOC), Homeland Defense, Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), Agent, Task Force, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Fusion Center, Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), Secure Border Initiative (SBI), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS), Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS), Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Air Marshal, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), National Guard, Red Cross, United Nations (UN), Domestic Security, , Assassination, Attack, Domestic security, Drill, Exercise, Cops, Law enforcement, Authorities, Disaster assistance, Disaster management, DNDO (Domestic Nuclear Detection Office), National preparedness, Mitigation, Prevention, Response, Recovery, Dirty Bomb, Domestic nuclear detection, Emergency management, Emergency response, First responder, Homeland security, Maritime domain awareness (MDA), National preparedness initiative, Militia, Shooting, Shots fired, Evacuation, Deaths, Hostage, Explosion (explosive), Police, Disaster medical assistance team (DMAT), Organized crime, Gangs, National security, State of emergency, Security, Breach, Threat, Standoff, SWAT, Screening, Lockdown, Bomb (squad or threat), Crash, Looting, Riot, Emergency Landing, Pipe bomb, Incident, Facility, HAZMAT& Nuclear, , Hazmat, Nuclear, Chemical Spill, Suspicious package/device, Toxic, National laboratory, Nuclear facility, Nuclear threat, Cloud, Plume, Radiation, Radioactive, Leak, Biological infection (or event), Chemical, Chemical burn, Biological, Epidemic, Hazardous, Hazardous material incident, Industrial spill, Infection, Powder (white), Gas, Spillover, Anthrax, Blister agent, Exposure, Burn, Nerve agent, Ricin, Sarin, North Korea, Health Concern + H1N1, , Outbreak, Contamination, Exposure, Virus, Evacuation, Bacteria, Recall, Ebola, Food Poisoning, Foot and Mouth (FMD), H5N1, Avian, Flu, Salmonella, Small Pox, Plague, Human to human, Human to ANIMAL, Influenza, Center for Disease Control (CDC), Drug Administration (FDA), Public Health, Toxic, Agro Terror, Tuberculosis (TB), Agriculture, Listeria, Symptoms, Mutation, Resistant, Antiviral, Wave, Pandemic, Infection, Water/air borne, Sick, Swine, Pork, Strain, Quarantine, H1N1, Vaccine, Tamiflu, Norvo Virus, Epidemic, World Health Organization (WHO and components), Viral Hemorrhagic Fever, E. Coli, Infrastructure Security, , Infrastructure security, Airport, CIKR (Critical Infrastructure & Key Resources), AMTRAK, Collapse, Computer infrastructure, Communications infrastructure, Telecommunications, Critical infrastructure, National infrastructure, Metro, WMATA, Airplane (and derivatives), Chemical fire, Subway, BART, MARTA, Port Authority, NBIC (National Biosurveillance Integration Center), Transportation security, Grid, Power, Smart, Body scanner, Electric, Failure or outage, Black out, Brown out, Port, Dock, Bridge, Canceled, Delays, Service disruption, Power lines, Southwest Border Violence, , Drug cartel, Violence, Gang, Drug, Narcotics, Cocaine, Marijuana, Heroin, Border, Mexico, Cartel, Southwest, Juarez, Sinaloa, Tijuana, Torreon, Yuma, Tucson, Decapitated, U.S. Consulate, Consular, El Paso, Fort Hancock, San Diego, Ciudad Juarez, Nogales, Sonora, Colombia, Mara salvatrucha, MS13 or MS-13, Drug war, Mexican army, Methamphetamine, Cartel de Golfo, Gulf Cartel, La Familia, Reynose, Nuevo Leon, Narcos, Narco banners (Spanish equivalents), Los Zetas, Shootout, Execution, Gunfight, Trafficking, Kidnap, Calderon, Reyosa, Bust, Tamaulipas, Meth Lab, Drug trade, Illegal immigrants, Smuggling (smugglers), Matamoros, Michoacana, Guzman, Arellano-Felix, Beltran-Leyva, Barrio Azteca, Artistics Assassins, Mexicles, New Federation, Terrorism, , Terrorism, Al Queda (all spellings), Terror, Attack, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Agro, Environmental terrorist, Eco terrorism, Conventional weapon, Target, Weapons grade, Dirty bomb, Enriched, Nuclear, Chemical weapon, Biological weapon, Ammonium nitrate, Improvised explosive device, IED (Improvised Explosive Device), Abu Sayyaf, Hamas, FARC (Armed Revolutionary Forces Colombia), IRA (Irish Republican Army), ETA (Euskadi ta Askatasuna), Basque Separatists, Hezbollah, Tamil Tiger, PLF (Palestine Liberation Front), PLO (Palestine Libration Organization), Car bomb, Jihad, Taliban, Weapons cache, Suicide bomber, Suicide attack, Suspicious substance, AQAP (Al Qaeda Arabian Peninsula), AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb), TTP (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan), Yemen, Pirates, Extremism, Somalia, Nigeria, Radicals, Al-Shabaab, Home grown, Plot, Nationalist, Recruitment, Fundamentalism, Islamist, Weather/Disaster/Emergency, , Emergency, Hurricane, Tornado, Twister, Tsunami, Earthquake, Tremor, Flood, Storm, Crest, Temblor, Extreme weather, Forest fire, Brush fire, Ice, Stranded/Stuck, Help, Hail, Wildfire, Tsunami Warning Center, Magnitude, Avalanche, Typhoon, Shelter-in-place, Disaster, Snow, Blizzard, Sleet, Mud slide or Mudslide, Erosion, Power outage, Brown out, Warning, Watch, Lightening, Aid, Relief, Closure, Interstate, Burst, Emergency Broadcast System, Cyber Security, , Cyber security, Botnet, DDOS (dedicated denial of service), Denial of service, Malware, Virus, Trojan, Keylogger, Cyber Command, 2600, Spammer, Phishing, Rootkit, Phreaking, Cain and abel, Brute forcing, Mysql injection, Cyber attack, Cyber terror, Hacker, China, Conficker, Worm, Scammers, Social media

 

Belloc

Here is a fun find from over a hundred years ago, thank you Hilaire Belloc:

The Hippopotamus

I shoot the Hippopotamus

       With bullets made of platinum,

Because if I use leaden ones

       His hide is sure to flatten ’em.