The real first World War

 

                                      History is His Story

The Thirty Years War might be considered the First World War because all of Europe was involved.  It began with a failed movement for Bohemian independence.  Half the Bohemians were Moravian Protestants. Half were also nationalists but the two sides often disagreed.  Bohemia was very important for the ruling Hapsburg Empire because of its mineral wealth.  The extremely devout Catholic prince Ferdinand ascended to the Bohemian throne and made enemies of the Protestants and nationalists.  A mob 20,000 people stormed the palace.  Ferdinand wasn’t home.  They threw two deputies and the foreign secretary out of the castle window. Nobody was hurt because they landed in a dung pile (you wonder how the 3 Stooges got that routine?).  This famous Defenestration of Prague was hailed as a miracle by the Pope and rotten luck by the Protestants.  But the die was cast for independence.  German Protestants came to the aid of the rebels and lost repeatedly while Catholics from Spain, Flanders, and Austria-Hungary won the day.

            One by one, the German dukes and princes were defeated.  Finally their leader, Frederick of Palatinate was defeated when his commander deserted him.  The loss of civilian life was staggering.  To understand this, one has to understand that weapons had changed from swords and armor to muskets and pikes.  Handling a musket with a five-foot barrel was quite a skill, firing it from a tripod while the charge was set off by a match. Much practice was required in pike formations to protect gunners who took a long time to reload. Warfare was for professionals, but governments of the day had no way to tax, recruit, discipline and drill.  Mercenary armies arose, commanded by organizers who were loyal to the highest bidder.  Protestant Ernst von Mansfeld was such a man.  He was skilled at recruiting and keeping men fed and equipped.  His finance and organizational skills set him apart.  The soldiers were recruited from every country and had no national loyalty.  If not paid, they deserted; if not fed, they looted. Around each army was an enormous group of camp followers who were civilians—servants, wives, prostitutes, cooks.  Half a dozen children might be born among camp followers each week. So when Mansfeld deserted Frederick, this great marauding mob plus armies began to pillage Germany, where the battles happened.  1/3 the population of Germany starved or was killed by 1630.

            Bohemia was reclaimed under Hapsburg authority, Palatinate was divided by Catholic princes, but the armies continued fighting among each another. Another leader, Albrecht von Wallenstein, arose to ally with Catholic Ferdinand.  Like Mansfeld he had dubious titles but was an organizer with ambition. As he mopped up Lutheran Germany, however, Christian IV of Denmark became the Protestant leader of desperation. Meanwhile James I of England entered the fray re-hiring Mansfeld.  The two armies met at Desau on the Elbe River in 1626.  Mansfeld was totally defeated and fled. It looked like a united Catholic Germany and Scandinavia would soon occur under Hapsburg influence.  An edict for all people to become Catholic was decreed.  Then all of Europe awoke to the Hapsburg menace.  German princes of the Holy Roman Empire realized their sovereignty was in doubt.  Others realized their lands would be seized and their relatives slaughtered. Even the Pope expressed reservations at the Emperor’s power. The Bourbons of France were threatened by this too. Cardinal Richelieu, effective leader of France under Louis XIV, settled the Swedish-Polish war and hired the king of Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus, to champion the Protestants.  Adolphus was an odd hybrid—king of a small country but also a military organizer far beyond his time. His soldiers were issued uniforms and boots, wheel lock muskets, and he used a logistical crew like a modern army instead of camp followers.  His crack army of only 13,000 defeated much larger Catholic League armies, and soon other Germans joined him until he had 80,000 soldiers. The tide turned quickly and in one last battle in southern Germany at Lutzen, Wallenstein and Adolphus met.  Adolphus was killed in the battle but his army won.  The Emperor and the Protestants signed a peace treaty saving Protestantism in 1635.

            The final phase of the war included France who joined with Sweden and fought Austria, Spain and the Papal states.  The war was now political, not religious. By 1644, all the leaders who had begun the war had died and after a 4-year peace conference, the Treaty of Westphalia was signed in 1648, a compromising treaty. 

            What came of the long war?  Germans and others grew extremely religious-war weary, an attitude that continued into the 19^th century when many fled to American shores. As disillusionment with the strife became universal, Europeans became more agnostic, setting the stage for the Enlightenment and Deism. When Christians fail to see Christ in other Christians who differ in type, it leads to hollow, legalistic faith, seen in the Orthodoxy of the latter 17^th century. Hollow faith and agnosticism haunts Europe down to the present day.  The Dutch achieved final independence, but Germany was left left a chaotic collection of states.  Germany became a constant battleground through Napoleon’s era. France grew strong and Austria grew weaker. Kings needed taxes and began to claim divine right to rule, leading to later revolts and the demise of most monarchies.  Finally, a peace-loving king of Prussia arose and told his German peasants to plant potatoes, which invading armies couldn’t find, and thus save yourselves during the marauding wars.  The Germans have celebrated Frederick “the Great” ever since.  

The Real Doc Adams

  

German Lutherans are often characterized (sometimes in humor by Garrison Keillor) as people who just want to fit in.  Samuel J. Crumbine’s German Lutheran parents emigrated to Pennsylvania, where he was born in Emlenton in 1862.  As a young man he worked in Cincinnati as a prescripton clerk and then moved to Spearville, KS, operating a drug store (It’s a tiny town next to Dodge City but in 1870s Dodge was the tiny town compared to Spearville.)  He returned to Cincinnati and graduated from College of Medicine and Surgery in 1888.  He practiced in Dodge City and married Katherine Zuercher in 1890.  Does this sound fit-in ordinary?  But life in Dodge City in the 1880s was rough-and-tumble with trail drives.  And Dodge had an epidemic of tuberculosis.  Crumbine knew this was caused by germs that spread by hands and house flies.  Flies flocked around outhouses and the tuberculosis infested dung, then spread it to food and dishes. It was spread also by use of a common water dipper and bucket for drinking and common towels.  Doc began a newspaper crusade to raise awareness, printed fliers and talked to saloon owners. His articles tried to get people to install screens and shut up homes to keep out flies.  Nationwide, 150,000 people died of TB every year.  But Sam’s articles didn’t change the non-hygenic lifestyles much.    The legendary lawmen of Dodge City—Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Luke Short and Bill Tilghman, were Doc Sam’s contemporaries. On one occasion, he helped Tilghman through pneumonia. The legendary lawman, later a US Marshall in Oklahoma, became one of the few to live to an old age (killed, serving in Cromwell).

            Crumbine’s campaign against TB did not go unnoticed. He was appointed to the State Board of Health in 1899 and became part-time secretary and executive officer of the board in 1904. Then in 1905 something interesting happened.  He got a visit from a Cub Scout leader who had fashioned a piece of screen to a yardstick.  It was dubbed the Fly Bat by the scouts and they had fun killing flies with it.  Still thinking about this invention, Crumbine attended a baseball game.  The game was a pitcher’s duel.  When one of the home team’s players got on 3^rd base the fans began to cheer for a sacrifice fly ball to the outfield.  Some guy behind Sam yelled, “Swat one!” Doc had a eureka moment.  He would promote the fly bats as “fly swatters” and he wrote another article entitled “Swat The Fly”.  It was a clean hit.  Evidently, people decided that killing flies was more effective than trying to keep insects at bay.  New tuberculosis cases fell by 80% in one year in the Dodge City area. Two years later, Crumbine quit his private practice to further his campaign.  He got brick factories in Coffeyville and Peru to print “Don’t Spit On Sidewalk” on their pavers sold to cities all over the country.  Posters showing Doc Sam’s mustachioed benevolent face with the slogan, “Ban the public drinking cup, out with the common roller towel, and swat the fly” gave him an international reputation.    Crumbine also warned against misleading labels on food and drugs. He authored Frontier Doctor: The Autobiography of a Pioneer on the Frontier of Public Health, which described his medical practice on the Kansas frontier in Dodge City.

            In 1911, during his tenure on the State Board of Health, Crumbine was appointed dean of the University of Kansas Medical School. He left Kansas in 1923 and moved to New York where he served as executive director of the American Child Health Association. After retirement in 1936 Crumbine moved to Long Island, New York, but returned to Kansas for speaking engagements on several occasions before his death, July 12, 1954. The Crumbine Award was established in 1955 in his memory and is awarded each year by the food and drug industry to encourage public health.

            But most of the general public today wouldn’t have know him, except that a certain TV Western, “Gunsmoke” used Crumbine’s life story and mustache to create a character known as Doc Adams played by Milburn Stone.

5 mathematical reasons there was voter fraud

 

Wisconsin had 91% turnout for the election, virtually impossible percentage.  This turnout exceeds Australia and Netherlands where voting is mandatory.  If you fail to vote in Australia, you get fined $100.  Inner city Milwaukee supposedly achieved 84% turnout.  Milwaukee built a 145,916 vote lead for Biden. Milwaukee and Cleveland are like sister cities.  Bot have similar populations and demographics, have an economy based on Great Lakes traffic.  But Cleveland had 51% turnout—about like most cities this size.  Almost all the too-big-to-believe turnouts occurred in the big cities of vote-contested states.  Madison,WI had almost 100% turnout.  Since virtually no one notifies their election board when they move, and most lists of registered voters consist of at least 15% deceased or relocated voters, I am at a loss to explain this. Maybe no one moves from lovely Madison or dies there—Workers Paradise, as Pravda used to say of the USSR.  There is no plausible explanation except voter fraud.

Boy, they must really love Joe Cool Biden in his shades in Pennsylvania. His performance, according to the vote numbers overwhelmed Obama, but just in a few places.  Could a candidate as feckless and confused as Biden really have massively outpaced the vote totals of a politician who boasted rock star appeal?

Well, 3 counties-- Chester, Cumberland, and Montgomery.  Sleepy Joe bested the Obama election performances by factors of 1.24-1.43 times. For Montgomery County, Obama won this swing county by 59,000 votes in his 2012 re-election. But in 2020, Biden won Montgomery County by a whopping 131,000 votes, more than twice the prior Obama margin. Joe Cool’s 2020 total vote in Montgomery is reported at 313,000, crushing Obama’s 233,000 take in 2012 – and population growth does not explain the gains, as the county only grew by 22,000 residents during those eight years. In almost every other county Biden's % is a few points behind Obama, but in just a few, he had inordinate popularity.

Simple explanation: someone tampered the vote.  But according to the all-knowing Chuck Schumer, there was NO voter fraud.  None, zip, nada, null set,zed.

Trump legal advisor Sidney Powell says that 450,000 Biden-only ballots were cast in the 4 swing states—MI, WI,PA and GA—in big batches arriving late at night.  But there were hotly contested Senate and House races in all those states.  Why would someone cast a Biden-only ballot and neglect the other races in a place like GA but not in OK? MI but not WY?  OK and WY had races where the R-Senator was hopelessly ahead.  In GA, Trump’s vote almost exactly reflects that of Sen. Perdue.  But in metro Atlanta, Biden managed to amass a lead of 95,000 votes, through mostly Biden-only voted ballots.  And re-count?  Well they separated the ballots from their envelopes.  We can't check identity.  Something is rotten in Denmark.

PA added unsolitcited mail-ins this year.  When states go to mail-ins they usually experience a 3% rejection rate since voters are not used to the new format.  In the NY Primary this spring the new format yielded 21% reject rate.  In 2016 PA had a 1% rejection rate of the old absentee ballot method that has gone on for years.  This year they had mail-ins and a .03% rejection rate.  Miracle of Miracles!  And it appears the origin of these ballots ( truly filled in with professional expertise) is the big blue counties where the number of ballots exceeds the number of registered voters.  Shazzam!

The Ds will argue that fraud was just a few mistaken characters and didn't do anything to affect the final result. Bullspit. Look at the metrics and ask if this makes sense. The cheaters are slick and get away with a lot. But some entity, state legislature or Supreme Court needs to put their foot down and demand an explanation or "we will declare a fraudulent election and demand a revote the traditional way with enormous checks on the process."

In the middle of Election night, WI and MI received 138,399 ballots in bundles that were 100% Biden votes. But studies have shown that 1 in 1000 or 500 votes is a mis-vote.  The voter pushed the wrong button or marked the wrong square by mistake and didn’t catch it.  But the 138,399 were entirely Biden votes.  Where are the 138 or so mis-votes? There will always be a few votes for the other candidate. It makes no statistical sense, unless there was a skilled person behind all 138,399.

So those are 5 metrics that are seriously violated by WI, MI, and PA (and perhaps GA) this year—turnout, inordinate counties,Biden-only votes, unusual rejection rates, no mis-votes.