150 years since the CSS Shenandoah docked in Melbourne to a rock star's welcome

Via Philip

"I wouldn't be surprised if there was a bit of Confederate DNA floating around Victoria."

It's a story way closer to Richmond, Victoria than the Confederate heartland of Richmond, Virginia – a little known chapter of local history that led to an Australian gun crew firing the last shot of the American Civil War.

These guys were celebrities. Melbourne really feted them. The ladies just loved them.
Terry Smyth, author of Australian Confederates

It's 150 years since the CSS Shenandoah docked in Melbourne to a rock star's welcome.

Captain James Waddell and his rebel officers were wined and dined during a stay of more than three weeks before being unceremoniously ousted for illegally recruiting Melburnians to the Confederate cause. Throw in an illicit love story between Waddell and a Union prisoner on board and it's a ripping yarn.

More @ The Victoria Age

The Fairbairn-Sykes Fighting Knife plus huge Rock Island Auction

 

 Two Confederate Style Leather Belts One Dagger and One Holster

Both of the belts have interlocking brass "CS" buckles. One has a frog and the other has a hanger. The black leather belt holster is unmarked. The double edged fighting knife/dirk has a 9 inch blade that swells near the center, spines, an iron cross guard, brass fittings and a walnut handle.

Good to fine overall. The leather has cracking and general wear. The knife has a dark patina with light pitting and some cracks in the wood.

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Editor’s note: We’re looking back at a another historical blade. There are a lot of modern versions of this knife, and a lot of fakes. Where can you look if you want an original? Rock Island Auctions has a huge auction coming up this week. It starts on the 11th of September, and will run for several days. You can bid on-line, by phone, or by proxy. Check out the Fairbairn-Sykes they have coming up in the auction: http://www.rockislandauction.com/search/aid/65. (2,997 items)

We don’t just like things that go bang around here at GunsAmerica, we are also fans of the blade. This installment is a continuation of the history of the fighting knife that we started with the Ka-Bar knife of WWII fame.    The idea here is to look at some of the classic fighting knives for a bit of background on their development before we look at some more modern designs.

This brings us to another famous knife of WWII, albeit from the other side of the pond: the British Fairbairn-Sykes.

More @ Guns America

Trump: A Southern Conservative Perspective

 

There are several attributes of Donald Trump’s bid for the U.S. Presidency that this Paleo-Conservative finds to be interesting. To follow is an adumbration of the more salient.

1. His campaign style is refreshing. The absence of teleprompters, which results in spontaneity, which in turn reveals the unvarnished candidate in contradistinction to the coached, stale, and unconvincing political hacks, is refreshing. Trump’s campaign speeches and debate performance have actually juiced up political discourse, making politics interesting not simply for the political class but also for Middle American.

2. The engagement of Middle American into this presidential election cycle have the political class spooked. It is this same political class responsible for the removal of all things Confederate from the public square, not Middle American. It is Middle America that has catapulted Trump into the lead. In other words, Middle America may actually have some meaningful input into the election of the next POTUS.

More @ The Abbeville Institute

Old Ridgeland Civil War (sic) battlefield in SC to get new look

Via Bob

Wade into the woods in Ridgeland looking for the site of the Battle of Honey Hill, and your chances of identifying something meaningful are slim.

A sign off of S.C. 336 tells a brief tale of the Confederate victory at the site in November 1864. The rest is up to those brave enough — and with enough local knowledge — to make their way around.

But the town of Ridgeland and preservationists are finalizing an effort to make the site more welcoming, to tell people what they are seeing and what took place and to preserve key elements of the battlefield.

More @ S&S

Joe Biden: North America: "Mexico, the United States, and CHINA"!

Via David

The One Gun Violence Statistic that No One Wants to Talk About

 

Everyone involved in the great gun debate wants to reduce firearm-related violence. Of course, the two sides differ on solutions to the problem. To oversimplify for the sake of brevity, the National Rifle Association wants to put guns in the hands of more law-abiding citizens in the hope that an armed society creates a politer society, whereas Everytown for Gun Safety wants to restrict access to guns in the hope that it keeps them from falling into the wrong hands.

However, truth be told, neither solution really addresses the elephant in the room which is that gun-related violence is an epidemic in the African American community. To quote from a recent Pew Study:

More @ Guns America

NC: Stuck on Hating Whitey

Via Billy

 

 My Two Cent Check Is Returned

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Recently, after spending three months in Colorado I returned to North Carolina to a large list of errands. The first of these errands was replacing a lost passport, which meant I had to go to the Post Office in downtown Wilmington. I rarely go downtown, largely because the area is infested with drugs and crime. Unsurprisingly, before I left the downtown area I passed a crime scene. Judging by the number of police cars I could tell it was a murder.

In addition to the things I knew there were some things I merely suspected when I happened upon that crime scene. For example, I suspected that both the perpetrator and the victim were young black males between the ages of 15 and 25. I’m not Sherlock Holmes. You don’t need to be a detective to know that black on black violence is rampant in downtown Wilmington.

It should go without saying that I was unsurprised when I watched the evening news and learned that the victim was a young black male and that a young black male suspect was already in custody. But the following statement made by Police Chief Ralph Evangelous did surprise me: “Where is the outcry in our community? God forbid it would be an officer involved in this situation, we’d have a protest.”

More @ Townhall

Another!? Chinese Chemical Plant Explodes, Huge Clouds Of Black Smoke Billow Skyward

Via sauced05

If you’re planning on travelling to China, we have two pieces of advice:

1. Do not look like a short seller
2. Do not go near any chemical factories

Failing to heed the first tip there could get you thrown in jail (or, as Man Group’s China chief Li Yifei calls it, sent on a "short vacation").

The consequences of failing to follow the second piece of advice above could be, how should we put this... explosive.

With Beijing still scrambling to contain the fallout (both figuratively and literally) from the devastating blast at Tianjin which killed some 160 people and injured more than 700 last month, the country is on edge. Two additional chemical blasts (both in Shandong) did little to calm China’s frayed nerves and now, a fourth blast, this time in Zhejiang, has been reported.

Here’s Reuters:

More @ Zero Hedge

Previously Deported Criminal Alien Allowed to Stay Because He is Transgender

Via sauced07

A previously deported criminal alien from Mexico with a felony conviction has been allowed to stay in the United States because he is transgender. Deportation would be inhumane, the Federal Appeal Courts for the Ninth Circuit ruled.

In the opinion filed on September 3, Judge Jacqueline Nguyen (A Vietnamese liberal?  I guess our commie schools brain washes them also.) disregarded the fact that Edin Avendano-Hernandez, who had been previously deported, had been convicted of DWI and had a felony conviction for injuring people while driving drunk when ruling in his/her favor.

The judge further criticized the lower courts for being insensitive to the previously deported criminal alien.

More @  Breitbart

 The daughter of a South Vietnamese army major who had worked closely with U.S. intelligence officials, Nguyen moved with her family first to an army tent at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, where she lived for several months.^[2]

POLL: Trump Receives 25% of Black Vote – Enough to Ensure a GOP Landslide

Via Billy

 

 Very interesting considering Trump had mentioned something to the effect before.

A SurveyUSA poll released Friday shows that 25% of black respondents said they would vote for Trump over Clinton.

According to The American Mirror Trump would more than double the best result for a Republican in modern American history… Looking at the last 10 presidential election cycles, the highest black vote share for a Republican was 12% for Bob Dole in 1996.

More @ The Gateway Pundit

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Poll

In an election for President of the United States, today, Labor Day, business provocateur Donald Trump narrowly defeats Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Al Gore, in head-to-head matchups, according to nationwide polling conducted by SurveyUSA.

Today it's:

* Trump 45%, Clinton 40%. (There is a 20-point Gender Gap; Trump leads by 18 points among seniors.)
* Trump 44%, Sanders 40%. (Trump leads by 10 among independents and by 6 among moderates.)
* Trump 44%, Biden 42%. (Trump leads by 10 among the best educated; Biden leads by 17 among the least educated.)
* Trump 44%, Gore 41%. (Trump leads by 12 among men and by 18 among voters age 50+.)

Among a subset of registered voters who tell SurveyUSA that they pay "a lot" of attention to politics, the scale tilts to the right: 

Today it's:

* Trump 54%, Clinton 36%.
* Trump 53%, Sanders 39%.
* Trump 53%, Biden 37%.
* Trump 54%, Gore 36%.