It's Stange -

Conrad Cannot Stand Legal Dramas

 - and will leave the room if one comes on television.  Yes, I dislike them that much, and query exactly why the world needs so many of the Dog Buns things.  What we really need is a twenty-six part documentary series about the war in North Africa during the Second Unpleasantness, each an hour long and when I say "an hour long" I mean AN HOUR not forty-four minutes with the rest being adverts.  I am quite willing to write the scripts, for a modest fee.

Iconic.  But staged.

     Anyway, that's completely off-topic <abjectly acknowledges that this off-topic topic is going to go round and round in the back of my mind for days> because what I wanted to say is that, despite this active dislike of legal dramas, one of my Subscribed Youtube channels is "Legal Eagle", where attorney Devin Stone provides genuine legal commentary on all matters legal in South Canada.  Art?

Devin in his hairier persona

     Dev recently looked at the New York Attorney General's office seeking to dissolve the National Rifle Association, whom you may have heard of.  We shall not go into the politics (remember BOOJUM!s remit - avoid Politics, Religion and Current Affairs) of this organisation save that they are very conservative, and have been very influential.  Note the past tense there.

     Okay, the NRA is a non-profit charitable organisation, one of 1.5 million (!) across South Canada, and it has 5 million members.  Dev further explained that it is incorporated under tax code 501c(4), which allows it a tax exempt status but with the ability to conduct limited political activity.  There you go, a look at the arcane secrets of South Canadian taxes.  

     However, up popped Oliver North (yes, that Oliver North) with whistle-blowing allegations that the NYAG was very interested in.  Why there?  Because that was where the NRA was incorporated.  Ollie's claims have led to an investigation that alleges 4 of the top people at the NRA effectively diverted a few dollars to their own well-being.  Well, when I say "a few" I mean £50 million.  In only three years.  This is on top of £60 million in costs for recent contentious issues as well.  Art?

It is a town most wonderful.

     So you can see they might be struggling a bit.  Why dissolve the organisation?  That goes back a few years, to when a certain Donald Trump was skimming a few dollars off the DJT Foundation - okay, okay, millions of dollars.  The NYAG investigated, slapped his wrists, have him pay the money back, then dissolved the DJT Foundation in 2018.  Hence the precedent here.

     Doubtless it will take ages for the whole sordid mess to get resolved in court, so this may be the last you hear of it for some time.  Doubtless Dev will come back to it.  Although he does not make any statements of political allegiance, his eyes were twinkling with mischievous delight when giving details of the DJT Foundation; enough to read between the lines.

The NYAG in question

     All in all, far more entertaining than a television show, and Dev makes it entertaining as well as educational.

     Motley!  Bring me some popcorn!

More Of Herr Schickelgruber And Rome ("We Have Ways -" Podcast)

Of course I have to immediately break our charter rules by mentioning Christianity, which Ol' Schicky detested and which he would have gotten rid of once he'd seen off everyone else he didn't like (quite a long list).  As Tom Holland said, he couldn't quite bring himself to dismiss Jesus along the way, so he invented an Aryan Roman soldier as his dad.

     Hmmmm.

     Then we have Herr Schickelgruber's admiration of the Roman emperor Augustus, who inherited the job of emperor after his adoptive dad Julius accidentally fell on a load of sharp things and expired.  Art?

Augustus

     Where do you think the name for "August" came from?  Ol' Gusty was a kind of benevolent dictator, who ruled for 40 years and whom initiated the Pax Romana, a period of peace that lasted two centuries, with a few exceptions.

     One of those exceptions was in AD 9, at a place called the Teutoberger Wald in what is now Germany.  You can see where this is going, can't you?  A Roman force of three legions was wiped out by Germanic tribesmen under the leadership of one Arminius, whom of course Herr Schickelgruber revered because - German.  "Arminius" is the Romanised version of "Herman", because Ol' Army had, of course - obviously! - been a Roman soldier.  Art?

Conrad is unsure what the Latin for "******  ****" is, but you'd have heard it that day

     And with that I think we've exhausted most of the notes I made from this podcast.  Let us move on!

Dangerous!

Nope, we're not returning to the subject matter of chemical compounds that are toxic, explosive or radioactive (or all three at once - hello plutonium!).  Rather, to some stunt work on "The Longest Day" which seems to have been both well done and dangerous.

     To recap and set the scene, two French commandoes have been dropped into occupied France in order to help the local Resistance carry out sabotage on the railway.  

     Here we see the train approaching and it looks like a full scale train, no model work.

     The saboteurs bug out, having place an explosive charge on the rails.

     The charge goes off and the train derails.  This looks very realistic, with a sense of how massive the train is, though Your Humble Scribe is unsure if it's just really good model work or - did they really derail a real train?

     General chaos ensues as the carriages derail, collide, explode and catch fire.

     Filming the initial explosion must have been done by a fixed camera running remotely, because if it was a real train, you couldn't risk a camera crew getting squashed.  I wonder if there's any confirmation anywhere of how this scene was shot?

Finally -

Right, we have hit the Compositional Ton, so my musings on Crommy and his campaigns in Scotland will have to wait until tomorrow.  Art?

Stirling Castle