Good News in a Story of Evil

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In a landmark operation, U.S. authorities have seized 127,271 Bitcoins—valued at roughly $15 billion—from an international scam syndicate operating out of Cambodia. This unprecedented recovery, the largest in American history, marks a turning point in the global fight against cyber-enabled financial crime. Investigators traced the digital currency to a sprawling network of fraudulent investment schemes orchestrated by Chen Vincent Zhi, a prominent Cambodian businessman. The case not only exposes the dark underbelly of cryptocurrency but also highlights the growing sophistication of law enforcement in tracking illicit digital assets.

Shay Johnson
November 2, 2025
World’s Largest Crypto Seizure Announced—DOJ Takes Down $15B Pig-Butchering Empire Across 30 Nations

I heard a presentation on the pig butchering* scams about two years ago. The stories told were just heartbreaking. Lonely, frequently elderly people where completely drained of all their wealth and left with huge loans they were unable to repay. They were frequently convinced to borrow money from friends and family.

The authorities knew the geographical location of the scammer were. It was near the border with China. When the location was revealing in the presentation, I was of the mood to advocate for just bombing the place. If the local authorities would not shut them down, a few dozen bombs should do the job, I thought. Then they told of the slaves they held to implement the scams. Their situation was even worse than the financial scam victims. My high explosives solution to the problem suddenly became significantly less ethical.

That this evil empire has been broken up, some restitution is likely, and the slaves are being rescued is extremely good news to me.

* “Pig butchering” is a type of financial scam where fraudsters build trust with victims over time—often through social media or dating platforms—before convincing them to invest in fake or manipulated financial schemes, such as cryptocurrency or forex trading. The term refers to “fattening up” the victim with attention and false profits before “slaughtering” them by draining their funds. It’s a blend of romance scam and investment fraud, often run by organized criminal networks.

No Matrix?

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Via Newsweek:

You can stop looking for glitches in the Matrix—it’s finally been proven that our universe is not merely a simulation running on some powerful alien civilization’s supercomputer.

I did not read the original paper. But the claimed solution involves quantum gravity and Kurt Gödel’s first incompleteness theorem. There is more than enough mind twisting physics and logic in there that I am not going to even try to really understand it. That complexity means there might be room enough for an oversight in their proof.

I don’t know that it matters to me one way or the other, but I am vaguely pleased it is less likely our reality is huge computer simulation.

Gun Control in the U.S. is Futile

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The actual figure really is innately unknowable. You can legally build an AR-15 rifle at home with a wee bit of mechanical skill and a router. However, for the sake of discussion, let’s pin that number at 30 million.

A fixed-stock AR-15 is 39 inches long. An M4 carbine with a 16-inch barrel is 33 inches long with the stock collapsed. Let’s therefore establish an average length for an AR-15 as 36 inches. If the typical “assault weapon,” whatever that truly is, spans 36 inches and you arrayed every one of them muzzle to butt, that line of guns would stretch from Boston to Los Angeles 6.5 times. That’s 17,045 miles’ worth of weapons. Starting to appreciate the scope of this thing?

There are around 400 million firearms in the U.S. A Glock 19 is 7.3 inches long. That M4 was 33. Some pistols are shorter. Some rifles are longer. Let’s just guess that they average around 20 inches across the board. Place every gun in America end-to-end, and now you have an unbroken line of weapons that will circle the globe five times.

There are 77 million lawful gun owners in the U.S. That’s 2.5 times as many Americans packing heat as there are soldiers on Planet Earth. We are some seriously well-armed rednecks.

After the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, the Australian government outlawed most guns, confiscating some 650,000 firearms. Gun control enthusiasts often look lustfully at our friends Down Under as role models. Even in a slow year, we gun-crazy Yanks buy that many new firearms every two weeks.

Will Dabbs
September 15, 2025
Gun Math is Hard | Field Ethos

Although the numbers above might seem definitive to gun owners, I’m not so sure it will have the desired effect on anti-gun people. I have often said gun grabbers don’t even understand arithmetic and some don’t even understand numbers. And with that blindness they may just double down. They may view this as all the more justification in saying, “There are too many guns on the streets.”

AI Girlfriends and Nazi Insults

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Via Chuck Petras @Chuck_Petras

She is even more beautiful than I thought she would be. (As my degrees were in E.E. I have a thing for good hardware.)

Via Thecackalackyhightest @Cackalacky2:

I suspect, that in most cases, it is a little more complicated than that. I think it is more likely they think of the worst possible insult, that in their warped sense of reality sort of fits, and they come up with “Nazi.” Then after using that insult without much effect the homicidal thoughts percolate to the surface. The Nazi label lets them feel justified in having the murderous urges.

And, of course, there will be people a little further left on the bell curve will seek approval/self-esteem/etc. by killing a “Nazi” or two.

Still, the end result is the same. When you start getting called “Nazi” you know they want you dead and it is time to plan appropriately.

The Power to Starve You

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Quote of the Day

If you give them the power to feed you, you give them the power to starve you.

Stop being retarded.

The Redheaded libertarian @TRHLofficial
Posted on X, October 30, 2025

Nice. It is more direct and a novel twist on the famous quote:

If your government is big enough to give you everything you want, it is big enough to take away from you everything you have.

Paul Harvey (maybe)
1952

Starvation of an entire nation does achieve one of the goals of socialism/communism. Equality.

Prepare appropriately.

You Have a Mayor Who Hates Guns

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You have a mayor who hates guns. If it was up to me, we wouldn’t have any handguns in the District of Columbia. I swear to protect the Constitution and what the courts say, but I will do it in the most restrictive way as possible.

Muriel Bowser
Mayor, Washington D.C.
2015
The Trump Administration Reveals the True Cause of Crime | An Official Journal Of The NRA

I appreciate her apparent honesty. But my guess is this does not begin to reveal the depth of his malfeasance.

Do not ever let someone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.

I look forward to her words being used at her trial.

Overkill Caliber for White Tail Deer

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I use a .308 to hunt deer. My wife uses a 2025 Subaru. She has got more deer than I have.

My Next-Door Neighbor (in Idaho)
October 30, 2025

I was busy shoveling dirt on and around my underground bunker to improve the landscape and fallout protection when the closest neighbor to the north (over a half mile away) drove in on his ATV to say hi and ask how the construction was going. We chatted for probably 20 minutes, and he told me of the recent collision of his wife’s car with a deer in Orofino (yes, inside the city limits). He also explained that he had his rifle on the ATV in case he saw a deer while he was driving around. He has been in the area for a few years, and I asked if he usually gets a deer. “Only one so far”, he said, but this is his wife’s second deer.

I Admire Their Ability to Lie

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Kirk was shot in the throat by a high-powered sniper rifle while speaking to college students at Utah Valley University on September 10.

Phillip Nieto
October 29, 2025
Kash Patel shuts down Charlie Kirk foreign intelligence probe in explosive feud with Trump’s counterterror chief | Daily Mail Online

I have to admire the ability of some people to pack so many lies into a single sentence.

  • The bullet did not involve his throat. *
  • The rifle used was not a “high-powered sniper rifle.” **
  • The rifle did not shoot Kirk. It was a human who fired the shot.

See also: CCRKBA ALERT: MEDIA NOW CALLING KIRK ASSASSIN’S GUN A ‘SNIPER RIFLE’ | Citizens Committee For The Right To Keep And Bear Arms. Which includes this:

“The media couldn’t blame Kirk’s murder on a so-called ‘assault rifle,’ so they’re doing the next worst thing,” he added. “They’ve slapped a defamatory label on commonly-owned hunting rifles, hoping to make them the new bogeyman for the gun ban lobby. The Daily Mail has pulled a page out of the gun control playbook simply for the purpose of sensationalism. It doesn’t pass the smell test.

Gun banners lie. It is an essential part of their culture.

* Via Grok: No, it would not be accurate to say the bullet hit him in his throat.

The precise point of impact was the right side of his neck, specifically in the lateral cervical region (near the sternocleidomastoid muscle, approximately at the level of C5–C6 vertebrae). Medically and forensically:

  • The throat refers to the anterior neck (front), including the larynx, trachea, and thyroid area.
  • The neck is broader, encompassing anterior, lateral, and posterior regions.

The bullet entered the right lateral neck, not the anterior throat. It traversed obliquely leftward and downward, damaging the right carotid sheath and spinal structures before lodging near T1 on the left side—never entering the throat proper.

Saying “throat” would be anatomically incorrect and could mislead, especially given conspiracy claims misidentifying blood from internal vascular rupture as an anterior wound. Official autopsy diagrams and surgical reports consistently label the entry as right posterolateral neck.

** Via Grok: The rifle in this case was grandfather’s hunting rifle, modified with a shortened barrel and basic scope—functional for a 200-yard shot, but far from a modern sniper system.

…

Bottom line: Calling it a “high-powered sniper rifle” is inaccurate and inflammatory—it was a vintage bolt-action hunting rifle, effectively used but not technically either “sniper” or “high-powered” in the modern sense.

Any Kind of Independence is Considered a Threat

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Burning your own fuel in your own house is about far more than the “aesthetic of it”, no matter how hard the papers try to tag it with that superficial label. A wood burner offers energy independence, and for that reason, like everything else that offers any kind of independence, they are considered a threat.

The existence of anyone or anything outside of the system, even in token or vestigial ways, threatens the idea that the system is even necessary. Therefore they must be attacked.

It’s an autoimmune response, a reflex; they can’t help it.

They need to know everything you’re doing, how you’re doing it, and why.

And, more importantly, they need you to be OK with that, to welcome it, even thank them for it.

They need you to know that is the safe; the normal; the only way the world works.

So, expect this messaging to continue until the ban is in place, or licenses are required, or they manage to wire a smart meter to a wood axe.

Kit Knightly
October 22, 2025
They’re Coming for Your Wood-Burning Stove. Again. – OffGuardian

While the article is referring to potential U.K. regulations it would only take an administration change in D.C, for the U.K. craziness to be imported with similar motivation.

It is Time to Hold Them Accountable

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 I am DONE. If you have ever excused or condoned violence or knowingly consorted with those who have, and I don’t care one whit if you’re someone as lofty as Barack Obama, you need to be driven from polite society. I will happily engage in the ritual malediction of saying that the call to ostracize obviously extends to forces on the political right. Except I do so knowing that no matter how much corrupt Democrat leaders cook the stats to pretend right-wing violence is a serious threat, nothing the right has ever done comes close to setting off five bombs a day for 18 months straight, proceeding to terrorize the country for more than a decade, and then electing new generations of politicians that knowingly excused this insane level of violence.

Mark Hemingway
September 11, 2025
The Left Has Never Been Held Accountable For Political Violence

A Copilot summary of the “cooked stats” reference is here. I think Copilot downplays things more than is appropriate. Read the original report to get your blood pumping.

Hemingway overstates things some. There are times where violence is called for. Justified homicide is a thing for a reason. Using lethal force to prevent death and/or serious bodily harm to innocent life is certainly moral and almost universally legal.

My hypothesis is that many on the left leverage this moral and legal right to violence to their own evil ends by redefining “violence” to include people saying things that offend them and/or prove them wrong. We must be on guard to notice and call them out on this linguist sleight of hand. And especially hold their feet to the fire on actual violence they condone.

Violence is in the nature of the political left. It comes to them as naturally as defense of the innocent does to most people. Aside from the recent examples of assassination attempt on candidate Trump, and the murder of Charlie Kirk, you saw it in their blindness to Antifa and Black Lives Matter crimes as well as when Kyle Rittenhouse defended himself against threats to his life. In their minds it is a crime if someone tries to defend themselves against a violent attack by a leftist.

The Hitler/Nazis/Fascist rhetoric, whether intentional or not, is them working themselves up for serious violence. This must not be allowed to continue. Hold them accountable. Prepare and respond appropriately.

Unholy Trinity of Threats to our Republic

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Mamdani represents the unholy trinity of threats to our Republic—Islamism, Communism, and the Democratic Party.

Xi Van Fleet @XVanFleet
Posted on X, October 25, 2025

Just a FYI, Van Fleet was born in China and participated in the “Cultural Revolution.” She has been in the U.S. for many years now and is fighting for the good guys.

She uses an interesting collection of labels. I’m not sure they are all compatible. Pure communism not tolerant of religion. But then, coherence is not a defining characteristic of any of them.

My expectation is that within a few years New York City will be a shining bad example for the rest of the world to see. It is also my expectation that most people will look at the mess without seeing the root cause.

There is virtually nothing I can do about the problem, so I’ll get back to work on preparing my underground bunker in Idaho.

Teach a Person About Socialism

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Give a man a fish and he eats for a day.

Teach a man about socialism and he eats his neighbours fish for ever, while envying his neighbour for catching fish successfully and regulating his neighbour so he can’t catch as many fish for both of them.

Alice Smith @TheAliceSmith
Posted on X, October 25, 2025

It doesn’t have to be a man. Women can be just as stupid as men.

And not forever. Just until both the person and their neighbor both die of starvation.

Only an Intellectual

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Via Thomas Sowell Quotes @ThomasSowell:

I thought I had posted this famous quote before, but I can’t find it at the moment so here you are, just in case.

The late, great, Eric Engstrom once told me his analogy of socialism, “Socialism is like a piece of candy that gives you cancer. Later you start feeling sick. The offered cure is always another piece of socialist candy.”

Only an intellectual, indeed.

They Want Violence Against Their Enemies

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Understand that Democrats and their media lickspittles don’t actually care about anything they pretend to be mad about. They don’t care about the East Wing or group chats or the shutdown or muh democracy or whatever.

Everything they say is intended to manipulate their base into doing what they want. That’s it. What they want right now is violence against their enemies, and every new narrative is little more than an A/B test to determine what is most likely to incite their foot soldiers.

Once you see it, you can never unsee it.

Sean Davis @seanmdav
Posted on X, October 23, 2025

This is a reasonable hypothesis. I have my doubts this is entirely true, but I probably could be convinced it is true.

I think the more reasonable hypothesis is that because of their steady decline in the polls they have been increasing the shrillness of their claims. The side effect is the appearance of wanting violence.

I don’t believe the Democrat leadership is so stupid as to believe violence is a one-way street. Furthermore, I don’t believe they are so foolish to believe that once their enemies perceive they have a green light for returning the violence that, short of a change of identity and continent of residence, the leadership would be physically safe.

Human Beings are NOT SANE

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Today’s topic addresses a pet peeve, which is how every single time some human-shaped monster attacks a school in America, the resulting commentary heavily features the line: “This never happens anywhere else!!” Really? Nowhere else? In no other country, in the entire world.

…

But here’s the linguistic game they play. Any time an incident involves a gun, it’s no longer a massacre. It’s a shooting. I insist on pushing back with that one. Of course they can say “it never happens elsewhere” if they make sure that it exclusively refers to only one specific type of massacre.

As for the argument that it makes the killing easier, therefore there will be more killings — that presumes some population of people who are a hair’s trigger away from killing everyone they see, but only stopped by the fact that they don’t have an “easy” way to do it. No, I argue that the important part is the line between “peace” and “killing”, and that once someone crosses that line, the weapon matters little.

Emma Hankins
October 17, 2025
guest post by Emma Hankins – According To Hoyt

She gives several examples, including her childhood in China, which disprove the assertion that “This never happens anywhere else!!” And, more importantly she offers some suggestions to deal with the fact, “Human beings are NOT SANE as a general rule and sometimes insanity leads to serious problems.”

Intelligence is a Social Construct

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Believing this is even possible is about one step away from naziism. Intelligence is a social construct.

warrbo @warrbo
Posted on X, October 21, 2025

This was in response to this post:

I can see the potential risks of Eugenics but believing intelligence is a social construct is proof positive this person is an idiot.

I am increasingly of the opinion that if someone uses the phrase, “is a social construct” you can and should disregard everything such person says.

While I not as enthusiastic about this as Aella, I am far closer to her point of view than this warrbo character:

This is maybe the most exciting technical development we have right now

Aella @Aella_Girl
Posted on X, October 21, 2025

Useless Idiots

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Being out of actual new ideas, they’ve spent the last quarter century or so simply reflexively opposing anything a Republican President does. Bush and the Gulf War set them on the path of taking the side of the Muslim world.

And once they got on that tiger they had no choice but to keep riding it. Hope you are sitting down, but I’ll say that even Joe Biden must have been repulsed by the atrocities of October 7th. But by then he needed the Electoral Votes of Michigan more than he needed to have a soul.

Lost ’em both anyway.

Tacitus
October 18, 2025
The New Old Fashioned Hate – Chicago Boyz

I think I have posted something similar to this claim before. Democrats in this country reflexively opposes anything the Republicans say or do. This makes them vulnerable to manipulation and the current administration has been utilizing the vulnerability. It is not quite this simple but it illustrates the point, if President Trump says the sky is blue the Democrats feel morally obligated to claim it something other than blue.

This has led to President Trump claiming reasonable positions in the middle ground, such as trans women should not be competing with biological women in sports. And the Democrats lose several percentage points in the polls because they are compelled to oppose this position.

And what was the point of the “No Kings” protest? Did they think President Trump would change his behavior because of street protests? He got 312 electoral and 77,303,568 popular votes last year. Those are all that are important to him. The Democrats express all the emotional energy they can muster, and he just trolls them to urges them to even greater heights. Democrats believe they have accomplished something profound. Trump and his supporters get stomach aches from laughing so hard.

They are saying aliens in the country illegally are not criminals. They are shutting down the government to give free and/or subsidized healthcare to illegal aliens. Are they aware of the U.S. debt is approaching $38,000,000,000,000? Can’t they cut aid to criminals to help reduce that debt? More and more people are coming to believe they are deliberately trying to destroy this country.

I wish they would engage in a constructive debate. If they really tried, they probably could contribute some decent ideas and/or tweaks to the administration agenda that would be good for the country. But they cannot allow themselves to “collaborate with the enemy.”

It is no wonder they are polling at the lowest approval rating in decades. They have earned and continue to demonstrate their worthlessness nearly every day.

Sometimes I think they do not rise to the level of useful idiots. Perhaps, even, they cannot rise to that level. They are stuck at the level of useless idiots.

Alternate Framings/Realities

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It is amazing to me how reframing things makes such a huge difference in not just the point of view, but in the conclusions about reality. Here is one such example (via Sarah A. Hoyt):

I spent nearly four decades in a relationship with a woman who had problems with depression. When she got depressed any evidence of her/our situation would be rationalized into justification for the hopelessness of things.

For example, if we were tight on money because of an unexpected car repair or some such thing my pointing out that we both had steady jobs and would be back to normal in a month or two. But she could not see “the light at the end of the tunnel.” It was a catastrophe. If a depressive episode occurred when things were going well, she had rationalizations to justify her depression “This is just temporary. It will get worse tomorrow.” “It is all downhill from here. This is the best it will ever be.”

This affected even the most ordinary of things in her daily life. And the really sad part was the self-fulfilling prophecy of it. This literally happened more times than I could count… She would be driving down a street free of traffic with a green light ahead. She would start slowing down as she approached the light. She did this because she was afraid the light would turn red, and she would have to stop. Of course, this increased the chances the light would turn red, and her concern would be justified.

I could see the future as awesome with a “clear road ahead”. She could only see the bridge ahead being taken out by a meteor.

Or another reframing, after your wife has just had sex with another man:

Sloppy seconds always feel amazing

570_kinkycouple @5Kinkycouple

With the following comments:

Agreed!

Sex Club Diary @SexClubDiary

Yes they are love it 👅👅👅👅🔥

Tony @Tony38967281

With most men, assuming the wife didn’t get killed, it would mean a divorce. Yet, another set of men think this is awesome and something to be enjoyed. How can these two framings be compatible with the same data? Yet, they are. These are alternate, very real, realities.

From the engineering world one of my favorites is to tell people to solve tough problems by looking for a different point of view. Imagine never having seen a wheel before and viewing a heavily loaded cart from a distance moving straight away from you pulled by a single horse. How can that be? That just can’t work! But if you look at the cart from a 90 degree again to its direction of motion it is incredibly simple.

Politics are filled with examples. One of my favorite examples is destroying the “right” versus “left” view of politics. People tend to believe that if you are opposed to a few of the left-wing policies that you must be in favor of all of the right-wing polices. In essence, many people will shout, “There are only two choices!”

<heavy sigh>

No. There are many ways to view the political world. A simplistic way of understanding my view political ideal is, “Free markets, free minds.” With this point of view, you see people on both the right and left as incoherent and something to be opposed. Both “wings” want some things controlled by the government and other things free from government interference. They just want government oppression for different things.

And on a whimsical note, there are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who do not.

If you look for these alternate framings/realities, you will soon see them everywhere. And in doing so, just as with the wheel example, you will find better solutions to problems of all types. Psychology, sex, engineering, politics, almost anything can be seen from different viewpoints. And finding better solutions to problems in all domains makes the world a better place.

I Have a Mental Illness

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I have a mental illness that makes me think that people will change their minds if I present the correct arguments with the appropriate facts and data.

Pascal Anglehart @DemosKratosCA
Posted on X, October 17, 2025

I suffer from this too. I can sometimes overcome it for short periods of time, but it reoccurs in full force within a few hours.

It makes me want to just hole up in my underground bunker in Idaho and only come out for supplies, exercise, and grounds maintenance.

Schindler Factory Museum

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[On March 14, 1943] we found out that they were gathering a group of people that would be sent to the cemetery to dig a hole ( … ). There were 150 of us. We dug a hole that was several hundred metres long and few metres deep. After some time, flatbed carts began to arrive, loaded with the murdered people from ghetto B. The first few hundred of the killed were dressed, while the successive carriages were bringing along corpses that had already been undressed ( … ). The corpses were laid in the grave one by one, and when a whole layer had been laid, some soil was scattered around, and another layer of corpses followed ( … ). Some of the people were busy collecting the valuables found on the dead ones. The valuables were put into chests. Such was our 6-hour shift at the graveyard.

Jan Mischel
A clerk, aged 34
From an exhibit in the Schindler factory museum, October 4, 2025.

Earlier this month Barb and I went on an abbreviated WWII tour of Europe. The administration building of Schindler’s factory was our first stop after settling into our Airbnb.

From the same exhibit:

Our guide had numerous things to tell us I had not heard before. The following is my paraphrasing. We were not allowed to record the tour.

The Nazis regarded the Poles as subhumans as well as the Jews. We were all to be removed to make room for the classic Aryan Germany, tall, blonde, and blue eyed. They did not destroy Krakow as they did many other cities. In part this may have been because the Polish military did not defend Krakow. It was also a very nice city. The plans were to resettle the Aryan Germans to the city.

One thing that was different in Poland compared to the other conquered countries such as France. For example, in France, it was a death penalty if you were caught hiding a Jew. In Poland it was a death penalty if you were caught helping a Jew. Giving a Jew a glass of water or a slice of bread could result in you being killed. If a Jew was found hiding in a home or shop, everyone in the home or shop, even the current customers were murdered.

When the Germans took control, it was a death penalty to possess a gun or listen to the radio. They shut down the schools because Poles did not need an education to be slaves.

In the movie Schindler’s office was at the top of the stairs on the right. In real life it was in a different place.

The picture above is of the real office.

These are pictures of some of the Jews Schindler saved:

Schindler’s factory mostly made pots and pans for the military:

And Schindler:

After four years of occupation by the Germans Poland was occupied by the Soviet Union for 45 years. The Poles have some rather strong opinions about that. But other than the picture of Stalin, I will save that story for another day.