For those of you that have not heard about the largest leak of Secret Documents in History, Here is some background from BBC and Business Insider. -SF Aside from their immediate shock value, the Panama Papers reveal the enormous extent of tax evasion on a worldwide scale. This unprecedented phenomenon is inextricably tied with…
Cartel Corner #72: 2015 Cartel Movie “Sicario” Will have A Sequel
Last year’s critically-acclaimed thriller, “Sicario,” starring Emily Blunt as an FBI agent who is thrust into the dirty war on drugs at the border between the US and Mexico, is going to get a sequel. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, upstart production company Black Label Media, which has had an impressive start with…
The History of Terrorism: How a Spanish Assassination Helped Turn a Dictatorship into a Democracy
Spain gasped when the rumor spread that Prime Minister Luis Carrero Blanco had been killed in an explosion the morning of Dec. 20, 1973. It wasn’t until midnight that government-controlled media confirmed what many feared: The hand-picked heir to replace Gen. Francisco Franco had been assassinated. The bombing “changed Spain’s history” and contributed to a…
World War Two History: The Secret Speeches Ike Never Had To Give
Despite the seeming inevitability of an Allied triumph, the success of the cross-channel invasion in 1944 seemed like anything but a foregone conclusion.” “SOLDIERS, SAILORS AND AIRMEN of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are about to embark upon a great crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon…
Think Before You Post: The Future of Social Media Monitoring In the United States
This may have occurred in Scotland, but it is just a dark foreshadowing of the kind of “monitoring” and “regulations” coming to Social media here in America. So For all you poor souls out there addicted to Social Media, Good Luck with all that. -SF Glasgow police are warning people not to post unnecessary things on social…
Bad-Ass Files: Alvin C. York, All-American Bad-Ass
This guy holds a special place in my heart. When I was a kid,growing up in the eighties, I watched the 1941 black-and-white epic, “Sgt. York” with Gary Cooper with my Dad. I always remember the part where York uses a turkey mouth call to get as a group of German soldiers hiding in a fox…
Holocaust History: The Ghost of Babi-Yar
KYIV, Ukraine—Seventy-four years later, I reached up and broke off a small piece of a branch that was long and gray. It was bent in the strange, contorted ways it had blindly grown to look for light here at the cold bottom of the ravine, where the forest canopy above had turned the sunny spring…
The History of Guerilla Warfare: Ancient Bullet Supports Accounts of T.E. Lawrence
Experts say discovery in the desert, near scene of famous train raid, seems to prove British diplomat’s memoir was not just a tall tale A bullet from a Colt gun found in the Arabian desert lends credence to TE Lawrence’s own account of his part in the Arab revolt in the early 20th century. Until…
Ancient History: Were The Vikings First To Discover North America? The Evidence Sais Yes
The Vikings’ claim to be the first Europeans to reach North America will receive a huge boost, with the announcement of the discovery of a new site that marks the farthest known westerly point of the Norse exploration across the Atlantic. Scientists working with the BBC will today reveal that they believe they have discovered…
Cold War Files: After-Action-Report (AAR) of a Rhodesian Ambush
Imagine initiating an ambush with a 40 mike-mike training round. That would be a Bad Thing. This ambush, as remembered by our friend and former Rhodie troopie Nick Bliksem, is just about as bad (but not quite). This was during the “Second Chimurenga” period of the Rhodesian Bush War, back when Jimmy Carter was POTUS,…