The Off Topic Topic

[dps]

Ranting that Britain shouldn't let India become independent and that Indians are inferior wouldn't have made anyone an outcast in 1930's Britain, or anywhere else in Europe.  It was pretty much the mainstream Western opinion at the time.

[DGuller]

Churchill strikes me as Giuliani of the time.  A pretty vile individual who is mostly wrong about things, but who happens to be just the right person at just the right time and place. 

[dps]

Churchill strikes me as Giuliani of the time.  A pretty vile individual who is mostly wrong about things, but who happens to be just the right person at just the right time and place. 

He would have been a great fit for Languish.

[Ed Anger]

Languish as an animated cat gif:

I can't imagine Ed doing that kind of wicked parkour.

Not even when I was healthy.

[Eddie Teach]

The Giuliani comparison is incredibly weak. It's like making your son a tree house and calling yourself Frank Lloyd Wright. You're too near the NY orbit, Guller.

[jimmy olsen]

The Giuliani comparison is incredibly weak. It's like making your son a tree house and calling yourself Frank Lloyd Wright. You're too near the NY orbit, Guller.

Agreed. Laughable comparison.

[Valmy]

Churchill strikes me as Giuliani of the time.  A pretty vile individual who is mostly wrong about things, but who happens to be just the right person at just the right time and place. 

What? He didn't happen to be at just the right time and place. He was out of power. He insisted he take control at the worst possible time.

And the whole thing about being a vile individual and being mostly wrong about things is ridiculous. Yes he was vile in some ways. Yes he was wrong about some things. But holy shit educate yourself a little bit more about the entirety of his career before you start spouting this kind of thing.

[Jacob]

I haven't looked into Churchill's career particularly, beyond what you pick up by osmosis.

So I know about his speeches and leadership during WWII, and about the less than stellar performance at Gallipoli.

The bits Tyr brought up about his response to the famine in India sound pretty damning, especially if he was in a position to mitigate the impact and refused to.

What else should appear on the ledger in your opinion Valmy?

[Valmy]

The famine in India is more complicated than that version (but that is just an article not a biography or historical essay) lets on but also remember the article Tyr quote also points out why he is also a hero which is why I found it funny Tyr was using it as support.

I also find it weird he gets blamed entirely for the Gallipoli thing. It was the army who took control of the operation and landed the troops, they deserve most of the blame for the army part of the disaster. If the army had provided the troops he requested when he requested them they might have had more success.

But he was a huge force in the various government reforms of the late 19th and early 20th century that, among other things, removed the power from the House of Lords. Almost all of them I think are good and progressive reforms that should be celebrated.

His career is incredibly long and there is an amazing variety of things he was involved in. And of course you always have to remember he was manic depressive and prone to bizarre behavior at times. And I mentioned his late night benders when he would say and write really um...colorful things that generally did not reflect well on him. I am curious if those were the sources of some of the things quoted in that article.

As far as the "ledger" is concerned I don't know. I don't really keep ledgers on historical figures. Everybody thinks they are the hero of their own story I just try to understand them.

[Valmy]

Some of the things in that article were things I did not know. I did not know it was Churchill who was behind the Sykes-Picot agreement and I did not know it was Churchill who drew the borders for the nation of Iraq. I mean silly me I thought he resigned from the government in 1915 and served in the trenches and then later rejoined the government in mid 1917 as Minister for Munitions which seems a weird position to make the Sykes-Picot agreement and draw the lines for Iraq. I mean I suppose its possible but I have read a lot about both topics and this is the first time anybody has ever mentioned Churchill being involved much less responsible for.

I mean Kerensky at one point swore that Churchill was behind the Kornilov Affair which again is a very strange thing for somebody who was not even in power at the time to be behind.

I wonder if people just randomly give Churchill blame/credit for things David Lloyd George did.

[The Minsky Moment]

He wasn't out of power in the 30s because of his racist, pro-imperial rantings, he was out of power because the rest of the British political class distrusted him and thought of him as unreliable and flaky, and with good reason on all counts.  The rantings just helped reinforce that perception.  That said, 1940 happened and credit must be given when due.

The thought of him as Chancellor of Exchequer always gives me a chuckle.  Really what where they thinking there?  It almost worked out as Churchill's iconoclasm led him to consider alternative views, but in the end, he followed the Treasury "mandarins" and restored the pre-war gold parity, thus tanking the British economy for the rest of the decade.

[Valmy]

Well he did switch parties at least twice. That was pretty flaky.

[Josquius]

I've recently aquired a belt that I can't fasten.
The buckle consists of a door which flips full 360 vertically .... I can't figure out at all how the belt entering horizontally can be fastened by this.
Any idea of this type of buckle?

[Grey Fox]

I've recently aquired a belt that I can't fasten.
The buckle consists of a door which flips full 360 vertically .... I can't figure out at all how the belt entering horizontally can be fastened by this.
Any idea of this type of buckle?

You need to provide visual support there, Tyr.

[mongers]

I've recently aquired a belt that I can't fasten.
The buckle consists of a door which flips full 360 vertically .... I can't figure out at all how the belt entering horizontally can be fastened by this.
Any idea of this type of buckle?

It's an old one, a swash type, easy once you get the hang of it; google for instructions.