Monday 28 January 2013

Drone plane machine gun - Prototype Quadrotor with Machine Gun!




This type of weaponry is very ingenious, but how long before such technical skill becomes so mainstream that even criminals might acquire such things. Its all well and good using such devices against terrorists, but I can't help thinking that terrorists might be able to acquire a drone or make something like it too. So many people are getting to do clever and unexpected things nowadays with computer technology. How long before some teenager works out how to do such a thing? Or a radical minded student with warped views about the world? I find this YouTube clip extremely ingenious but also very frightening. There is far too much wicked potential to this clever way of killing people.

In the UK, I imagine what it would be like if an extremely twisted political group wanted to use such a devise. Our politicians could be attacked through a window or at a garden function before security could be alerted. Imagine a shopping mall - the potential is horrendous. Sometimes the future is just far too scary. Are we becoming too complacent in our belief of everyday security?




 
 



Sunday 27 January 2013

Giving You The Black and Tan Police of Ireland (Reserve Police Force)




The problem of Irish Independence flared in 1916 during the Easter uprising. The Irish Volunteers wore uniforms and tried to fight according to rules of war. However, the British government refused to accept this. When the IVF were defeated, many high-ranking officers of the Volunteers were executed by firing squad. The government adopted the usual retro British ways of justice with ill-deserved confidence. The Irish Republican Army learnt and adapted their methods. They went underground and became more ruthless in a new and covert method of combat.

The Black and Tans were recruited from Britain because the Royal Irish Constabulary needed more manpower. Police barracks throughout Ireland were being attacked by the IRA rebels and as a consequence, it was becoming difficult to recruit R.I.C. members. Many were killed when police compounds were raided and destroyed by the Flying Columns of the I.R.A. (Irish Republican Army) 

In Britain, there was a huge surplus of unemployed ex-soldiers from the great war of Europe. Many of these men had no apprenticeship except that of fighting and killing in the trenches of Europe.  They were thrown upon the scrapheap of economic necessity when suddenly in 1919 an opportunity to earn 10 shillings a day came about. This involved being in a reserve police force attached to the Royal Irish Constabulary and serving in Ireland combating the rebel I.R.A.


Crossley Tender with Black and Tans

This covert rebel force wanted to pull Ireland away from the United Kingdom to become an independent republic. The desire for Irish independence had been about for hundreds of years and was a problem that the British Government kept pushing along – like kicking a tin can down the road and continuously coming back to it as one journeyed along. Sooner or later the issue had to be faced. In the past; Irish uprisings were brutally put down, but by 1919 this was not going to work.


Irish Rebel Flying Column

The British Government thought they could fight the I.R.A. conflict as a police action and keep it low-key. If ever a mistake could have been made it was this one - it proved to be monstrous and monumental. The recruitment of reserves among the ranks of Britain’s unemployed soldiers might have seemed an appropriate thing, but there were hundreds of thousands of unemployed. Only 8,000 were recruited as there were so many applicants. The most brutal and thuggish of the men were cherry-picked to do the job.

The large number of recruits that went to Ireland quickly found there was not enough dark green R.I.C. police uniform to go around for 8,000 men. Therefore they were supplied with part R.I.C. uniform and part British Army khaki – hence the nickname of Black andTans.

The first Reserve (Black and Tan) units were introduced to the conflict in March of 1920 and the men quickly earned a grim reputation for themselves. Their brand of community policing and winning hearts and minds left much to be desired. They started off with a carefree attitude and had diabolically scant respect for the local population. Often they took their frustration and anger out on the ordinary people. This was because the rebels were fighting a covert war and the towns and countryside among the local population were where they could hide. The rebels were proving much more evasive and adapt than anticipated.

The Black and Tan recruits did not have the proper skills or patience for the type of conflict they were in. When one of their numbers was hit; the Black and Tans would often retaliate by rounding up all people in a district. It rapidly became clear, to the British Government, that the Black and Tans and then the Auxies were doing more to further the Irish Republican cause then the rebels were. Their disrespect and aggressive tactics drove the populace to support the I.R.A. more.


At home and abroad, the British Government came under enormous pressure to redress the situation as a spiral of tit-for-tat murders began to get out of control. By 1921, both sides began to put out feelers. Eventually, there came a ceasefire in August of 1921 and the reserves (Black and Tans and Auxies) were kept in their barracks. A peace treaty came about and in November 1921, the British pulled out of Dublin as a new Irish Free State came about.

It brought about a civil war between the pro-treaty rebels and the anti-treaty rebels. The Black and Tans were disbanded and sent back to Britain. They remain a blighted organisation and something we Brits don’t like to talk about much.

They have left a lasting scar upon Ireland. The Black and Tans are an enigma to most Brits – many have never heard of them, but among Irish people, they are remembered with bitterness and aversion.


The Black and Tan Summer



What is the The Black and Tan Summer

Saturday 5 January 2013

Richard Branson's Breath of Fresh Air Concerning UK in EU


It is very encouraging for fellow Brits to voice sensible arguments for the UK to try and help reform the EU from within. Richard Branson's blog was very well worded and simple in its good reasons for staying in the heart of the EU and fighting to change the present way Brussels and Strasbourg work. We (Brits) should not run away from this. All euro sceptics correctly point out a great many things wrong with the EU, but using a UK exit policy of the EU is very wrong indeed. 

Everything that Richard Branson states in his blog are sound reasons why. Mainly the future - the EU will sort this mess out and the coming years will look very promising if we stick together. I hope and pray that more substantial people of influence will make their voices heard for the United Kingdom to become more deeply involved with the EU.

I believe that other fellow Europeans in all other states would want to change and restructure some of the EU's bureaucracy, but the other states don't use running away from the problem as a solution. It is no good voicing correct points about a faulty apparatus and then running away from it. Get in there (all the people of substance from across Europe) and change it - make it more effective and seen to be so. We need more high profile Brits like Richard Branson delivering short, sweet sharp to the point messages like the blog he wrote below. 

Branson warns against British EU exit




A British exit from the European Union would be 'very bad' for British business and for the economy, said Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson.


Writing in his New Year blog, the founder of the Virgin Group said global business relies on large trading agreements created by regions, not by countries.


"The EU is the UK's biggest trading partner. Its combined market dwarfs the US and China. For that reason alone, the UK must stay in to help rebuild the EU," he wrote.


"Obviously Europe has had difficulties, but so has America and most other countries in the world. The tough medicine that countries like Ireland, Spain and Portugal have given themselves will result in Europe being in far better shape than America in a few years' time."


Looking ahead, he said Britain must be at the centre to help the EU forge new partnerships with the emerging markets of Latin America and Asia - and to renew and extend our relationships with the US and Canada.


"Those powerful economies want to trade with a market of 500 million people and not the UK's 60 million," said Branson.

"The UK must not become a peripheral country on the edge of Europe. This will be damaging to long-term prospects of British business and also in the country's ability to attract new international companies to set up and employ people in the country."


He urged the British government to get together with Germany to restructure Europe. "We are in a position where if we take a positive approach, Germany and ourselves could be the key two countries to the restructure of Europe.

"Unless we do all this, Britain could be an island completely adrift in 20 years."

Thursday 3 January 2013

What If Boudicca beat Gaius Suetonius Paulinus?


What if the Iceni warrior queen had not lost her final battle? If Boudicca, the Iceni warrior queen, had defeated the Roman Governor of Britain, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, at the final battle along Watling Street; what would she have done next? 

To the north was the Brigante Kingdom ruled by Queen Cartimandua. She enjoyed friendship with Rome and was known as collaborator queen. This would not have gone well with the Iceni warrior queen and her Trinovante allies. Also in the south west of the Isle, at today's Exeter, was the II Augusta Legion. This Roman Legion had been held back from aiding Gaius Suetonius Paulinus. Maybe they were getting ready to evacuate - expecting the Roman governor of Britain to be defeated.

Which force would Warrior Queen Boudicca of Iceni have faced first after defeating Gaius Suetonius Paulinus in our alternative reality? Perhaps the last Roman stronghold at Exeter? For the Roman allied Brigante Queen Cartimandua in the north would not be going anywhere else and could be put on ice for later attention. That is if; the II Augusta Legion stayed put and tried to defend their stronghold at Exeter. These political consequences must have been real and acted upon - especially by Cartimandua. Surely she did not remain quite for she too was a sovereign of great prowess. Perhaps more so then Boudicca for she would have been Queen of the Brigante for about sixteen to seventeen years by the time of 61 AD.


What was going through Brigante Queen Cartimandua's mind? She would surely dread the prospect of victorious Boudicca and her Iceni horde, yet there is no mention of her helping Gaius Suetonius Paulinus and his Romans. Her exiled and divorced husband Venutius might have tried to side with Boudicca, yet if he did; there is no mention of such. Venutius had good reason to hate Rome and must have much to gain by joining Boudicca's uprising. He was always looking for ways to usurp Cartimandua and this opportunity would surely not be missed. There is no historical record of this, yet something must have happened among the feuding Brigantes while the Iceni and Trinovante tribes went on their killing spree of Roman occupied Britain.


The Brigante southernmost boarders would have been about where Manchester is today - maybe a little further south. If the last battle against Suetonius was around the Midland area; then surely Boudicca and Cartimandua might have been closer then expected in the final days of Boudicca's great war against Rome. Perhaps Cartimandua of Brigantes left her great hill fort and patrolled the southern boarders. Maybe she needed to keep her own Brigante subjects in check for it is plausible that they might have wanted to join Boudicca's rebellion. It was, after all, an intoxicating time of British victory over the hated Roman occupiers. How did Cartimandua's Brigante subjects become reluctant to help Rome if she was a good and loyal client queen to the Roman Empire? Did she contain her own people from rebelling and joining the Iceni and Trinovante by imposing her presence along the southern boarders? Would this leave her northern boarder with Caladonia's Picts unprotected (presuming Venutius had sanctuary here) All these problems must have weighed heavy and how was Venutius kept at bay during this time - if he was. Perhaps the rebellion happened so fast, that there was little time for Venutius to act - if he was in exile up north in Caladonia with the Picts. 

I would love to be able to go back in time and see Cartimandua of the Brigantes and witness how she dealt with the situation. What did she think of Boudicca? What did Boudicca think of Cartimandua? How did Cartimandua keep her Brigante out of this turbulent trouble? So many questions and no historical records to show. Cartimandua of Brigantes still remained in favour with Rome after Boudicca was put down, so she must have aided the Roman Empire in some way. Eight years later during the Year of Four Emperors; Rome held true to Queen Cartimandua and aided her escape from the Brigante lands when Venutius, her divorced husband, did overthrow her rule. They sent cohorts to rescue her and bring her south.

Wednesday 2 January 2013

UFO Discovered Under the Sea


UFO Lying On The Bottom Of The Baltic Sea?

June 19, 2012

10K
665
736
Image Credit: Vaghauk/deviantart

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com
A Swedish expedition team has found an unidentified object at the bottom of the Baltic Sea, leaving some to believe it’s the remnants of an extra-terrestrial ship.

Scientists went off on a deep-water dive to debunk some theories about the underwater object, but were left with more questions than they had answers.

The divers found that the object was raised about 10 to 13 feet above the seabed, and curved in at the sides.

“First we thought this was only stone, but this is something else,” Ocean X team diver Peter Lindberg said in a press release.
The object had an egg shaped hole leading into it from the top, working like an opening. On top of the object, they found strange stone circle formations, which resembled small fireplaces. The stones were covered in something that resembled “soot.”

“During my 20-year diving career, including 6000 dives, I have never seen anything like this. Normally stones don’t burn. I can’t explain what we saw, and I went down there to answer questions, but I came up with even more questions “, Stefan Hogeborn, one of the divers at Ocean X Team, said in the press release.

Farther back from the object, the Ocean X team said that they could see a “runway” or a downhill path that is flattened at the seabed with the object at the end of it.

“As laymen we can only speculate how this is made by nature, but this is the strangest thing I have ever experienced as a professional diver“, continues Peter Lindberg, one of the founder Ocean X Team.

Scientists are currently examining samples from the circle-shaped object, and experts in sonar imaging are processing data from the “ship” to help shed more light on what exactly this underwater object is.

The outline of the ship on pictures resembles the famous Star Wars ship the “Millennium Falcon.”

Lindberg said the odd thing about the discovery is that there is no silt on the rock, which is an ordinary thing to find when lying at the bottom of the sea.

He also told Fox News that the object is “disc-shaped” and “appears to have construction lines and boxes drawn on it.”

Lindberg told the news agency that the Americans and Japanese “are much more excited” about the discovery than the local Swedish people.