Profiles in Toxic Masculinity XV – “Jumpin’ Joe” Beryle

by | Oct 4, 2021 | History, In Memoriam, Military | 170 comments

Profiles in Toxic Masculinity, Part 15 – “Jumpin’ Joe” Beryle

Appearances Can Be Deceiving

The young fellow to the left no doubt looks like a calm, mild-mannered young man, with his neatly coiffed hair and spiffy suit.  Doubtless a young man of promise, who will go on to manage a hardware store or perhaps sell cars.

That is not the case; this is the young Joseph Beryle, one of America’s premiere Second World War badasses, a guy the Germans couldn’t keep locked up, the only soldier to make his fellow troops feel inadequate in both the U.S. Army and the Soviet Red Army, and the latest subject of our Profiles in Toxic Masculinity.

His Maculate Origin

Joseph Beryle was born on August 25, 1923, in Muskegon, Michigan.  His parents, William and Elizabeth Beryle, were a factory worker and a housewife, respectively.  Joseph’s father lost his job early in the Great Depression, after which the Beryles were evicted from their home and moved in with Joe’s grandmother.

Growing up in the Depression had its challenges, as my own parents often described in detail.  The Beryles dealt with things as many other folks did in those days; by finding a way to get by.  Joe’s two older brothers dropped out of high school to join the Civilian Conservation Corps, and so Joe was able to finish high school and even win a full scholarship to Notre Dame.

But then, Pearl Harbor happened, and young Joe passed up the Notre Dame scholarship to join the U.S. Army’s 506th Parachute Infantry regiment.  The 506th was, of course, part of the 101st Airborne Division and the same regiment from which came the men described in Stephen Ambrose’s book Band of Brothers.

Joe in uniform

His Adventurous Career

Training for the paratroops was some of the toughest training the U.S. Army did in World War 2.  Beryle apparently got through the Camp Toccoa training with little trouble.  Paratroopers were required to make a certain number of jumps to qualify, and it seems some of Joe’s fellow soldiers weren’t terribly keen on it, so Joe would take their places on training jumps, getting them their jump credit on the sly; this earned him the nickname “Jumpin’ Joe.”  Once he was at last a fully qualified paratrooper, he was sent forthwith to Ramsbury, England, to continue field training.

There was one problem:  Maneuvers, sand-table exercises, and field problems bored Sergeant Beryle.  There was a need for a paratrooper with balls to jump into German-occupied France with gold for the French Resistance.  Sergeant Beryle apparently thought this would be, as the Brits say, “a bit of a lark” and so volunteered – twice – for a mission that would have gotten him shot if he were captured by the Germans.

It was on The Longest Day, though, that Sergeant Joe Beryle’s real odyssey began.

His One-Man War

On the very early morning of June 6th, 1944, Joe Beryle found himself along with many of his fellow paratroops, in a C-47 transport plane bound for Normandy.  On the approach to the drop zone, the C-47 came under heavy fire, forcing the men to jump early and, like so many other members of the 101st and 82nd Airborne divisions in that exercise, to be scattered and lost.

German troops in the French village of Saint-Côme-du-Mont woke early that morning to find it was raining Michigan badasses.  Jumpin’ Joe came down on the roof of the church and, while under fire from a German rifleman, calmly cut himself free of his parachute, loaded his M1 carbine and started killing Germans.

One of Beryle’s unit missions was to blow up the power substation in Saint-Côme-du-Mont.  Alone, Jumpin’ Joe nevertheless had some Thermite and a huge pair of solid titanium balls, so he found the substation, killed a squad of Germans around it, and blew it up himself.  He used his supply of grenades to kill another squad of Germans who came to investigate, then blew up a bridge to prevent more Germans from reinforcing the village or the troops defending Utah Beach.

He then stumbled across a German machine-gun position and, finding himself facing ten armed and pissed-off Krauts, was forced to surrender.

Trouble was, the Germans didn’t know they were trying to imprison a demon in a corncrib.

On the march back towards a German POW collection point, the column Jumpin’ Joe was part of was bombed and strafed by aircraft.  Whose aircraft it was remains unknown to this day, but Joe used the opportunity to escape – after being hit by shrapnel and blown into a ditch, he legged it for the horizon but was captured by a German patrol after twelve hours on the lam.

Joe was then loaded into a truck bound for the French town of St. Lo, which was still held by the Wehrmacht.  The truck was strafed, this time by Allied fighter-bombers.  Joe used the resulting chaos to attempt escape again but was caught.

That night the Allies bombed St. Lo.  Beryle somehow survived that.  Joe later recounted events of that day:

I was interrogated 20-24 hours a day, they were trying to get all the usual questioned answered. “Why me, a German, was I fighting for the Jews Roosevelt and Morganthau against my own people?”

Sometime during the questioning, I called a German officer a “SOB” and woke up several days later in a hospital with a big headache and a bashed head and later I was taken back to the monastery.

Finally, it dawned on the Germans that this stubborn guy from Michigan was going to try to escape again no matter how much they abused him.  In September of 1944 Joe was sent to a POW camp in Poland containing mostly Russian soldiers.

Joe as a POW and still intimidating the shit out of the Nazis.

The Germans treated Russian prisoners even worse than Americans, but that didn’t stop Jumpin’ Joe from enlisting some fellow American prisoners in his next escape plan.  One night in November, the four cut through some barbed wire and hopped on a train that they thought was headed east towards advancing Soviet troops.  Bad luck, though, as they caught the wrong train and found themselves in Berlin and ended up in the hands of the Gestapo.

About that interlude Joe later related:

In the next 7 to 10 days, we found out everything we had heard about the Gestapo was true. We were interrogated, tortured, kicked, knocked around, walked on, hung up by our arms backwards, hit with whips, clubs, and rifle butts. When you thought they could do no more, they would think of other ways to torture you. When you would slip into semi consciousness, they would start again.

Eventually a Wehrmacht officer found out about the Gestapo’s prisoners and protested, claiming the Gestapo had no jurisdiction over military prisoners of war, and so Jumpin’ Joe found himself out of the Gestapo frying pan and into a larger, Wehrmacht frying pan known as Stalag Luft III.

Stalag Luft III had been opened in Poland in 1942 and was considered escape proof.  Once Jumpin’ Joe got his strength back from the Gestapo abuse, he put that assertion to the test.  In January of 1945, Joe and three other allied POWs broke through a wall and ran for it.  Joe’s three companions were shot and killed but Joe escaped.

On the run in frozen Poland with a pack of German troops and dogs on his trail, Joe plunged into an icy river and followed it downstream for several miles to throw off the pursuit.  Finally, he reached the Soviet lines.

Approaching a Soviet tank battalion, Joe raised his hands, showing a pack of American Lucky Strike smokes in one hand, and shouted “Amerikansky tovarishch!”  (American comrade!)

Once more at least in (sort of) friendly hands, Jumpin’ Joe was taken to the battalion commander, one Aleksandra Samusenko, the only female tank commander of World War Two.  Recognizing each other’s inherent badassery, the two quickly established a rapport in spite of Joe’s minimal Russian.  Samusenko found Jumpin’ Joe’s request to join her troops convincing, and the fact that he had demolitions experience was a plus.  Thus, Jumpin’ Joe Beryle became the only soldier to serve in both the American Army and the Red Army in the entire conflict.

Later that month, the Red Army battalion Jumpin’ Joe was assigned to liberated Stalag Luft III.  That had to be satisfying.  But in February, Jumpin’ Joe’s unit was attacked by German aircraft, and Joe was wounded.

Oops.

The Red Army sent Joe to a Soviet hospital in Landsberg an der Warthe.  While there, word got out that there was an escaped American POW serving with the Red Army, and so in a Forrest Gump-like moment, Joe received a visitor – one Marshal Georgy Zhukov, who arranged for Joe to be sent to the American Embassy in Moscow.

There was a problem – Joe had been declared killed in action back in 1944, and his family notified by telegram.  There had even been a funeral Mass held in Muskegon.  Joe was held under guard until his fingerprints were verified, and then had a long trek to Odessa, Cairo, and Italy before finally arriving back in Muskegon in April 1945.

Joe’s awards included:

  • Combat Infantryman Badge
  • Parachutist Badge with one Combat Jump Star
  • Bronze Star
  • Purple Heart with four Oak Leaf Clusters
  • Prisoner of War Medal
  • Army Good Conduct Medal
  • American Campaign Medal
  • European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with 2 Service Stars and Arrowhead Device
  • World War II Victory Medal
  • Croix de Guerre 1939-1945 with Palm (France)
  • Order of the Red Banner (Soviet Union)
  • Order of the Red Star (Soviet Union)
  • Medal “For the Liberation of Warsaw” (Soviet Union)
  • Medal “For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945” (Soviet Union)
  • Medal of Zhukov (Soviet Union)
  • Jubilee Medal “50 Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945” (Russia)

His Golden Years

Home at last in April of 1945, Joe celebrated V-E Day in Chicago.  The next year, he married JoAnne Hollowell and started a 28-year career with the Brunswick Corporation and, by all accounts, let an uneventful post-war life.  One exception to that peaceful existence came on the 50th anniversary of D-Day, when he was invited to the Rose Garden to receive medals from U.S. President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin.

Joseph Beryle passed away in his sleep on December 12, 2004, during a visit to Toccoa, Georgia, where he had been trained as a paratrooper.  On the wall of the church Jumpin’ Joe landed on in Saint-Côme-du-Mont, France, there is a plaque that bears the following words in French and English:

From this spot on June 6th, 1944, T/4 Joseph Beryle, I CO, 506 PIR, 101 ABN DIV begun his war for the liberation of the people of Europe.

No soldier ever was awarded a finer – or more appropriate – epitaph.

About The Author

Animal

Animal

Semi-notorious local political gadfly and general pain in the ass. I’m firmly convinced that the Earth and all its inhabitants were placed here for my personal amusement and entertainment, and I comport myself accordingly. Vote Animal/STEVE SMITH 2024!

170 Comments

  1. WTF

    DAMN!
    I love these profiles in Toxic Masculinity.
    Thank you, Animal!

  2. WTF

    I mean, “badass” doesn’t even begin to describe this guy.

  3. Tundra

    Wow.

    Great story, Animal. I love the POW pic. I know there are still men like this around, but they seem to be even more rare than they were back then.

    Thanks!

  4. MikeS

    That POW pic…made me feel like he was going to jump through the screen and kill me. What a badass.

    • R C Dean

      And the cherry on top is that he could be the Aryan in a Nazi recruiting poster.

      • PutridMeat

        Right?!?! The posed pictures are his good side, nice angle – “I’m just a nice country boy”. The POW picture is like “I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU WITH A BUTCHER KNIFE WHILE WEARING A HOCKEY MASK!” He could be the model for the Nazi Super Villains in any Wolfenstein video game.

        (Casts around for something else to divert my attention so a I can avoid delving in python interfaces to sql…)

      • Ghostpatzer

        python interfaces to sql

        Welcome to my world…

        /resumes cursing at PyCharm window

      • juris imprudent

        Suddenly not missing his days of coding.

      • PutridMeat

        YAY! Another diversion!

        I wouldn’t normally use python – because me HATES python – but I need to pull data from an entity and store said data on disk locally and the meta-data in a local SQL DB; And the entity holding the data only supports a python API. Suppose I could wrap the python retrieval code in some thing else and handle DB ingest in the wrapper, but that just seems clunky. Bite the bullet and use the EVIL that is python. Not really evil, but there are aspects of it that just drive me up a frickin wall.

      • Ghostpatzer

        I actually like python, but like any tool it gets ugly when used improperly. My current assignment involves refactoring legacy code whose original authors and maintainers had a bad habit of putting shared code in multiple modules. Circular imports FTW.

      • DEG

        We use psycopg. It gets the job done though I miss the tools we used under Java.

      • PutridMeat

        Played with PostgreSQL from time to time, but always end up back at mysql/mariadb. I “feel” like I should prefer PostgresSQL, but I guess inertia/existing code pulls me off the ‘learning’ curve, shallow though it may be, and back to instant gratification.

        “Java” – Runs screaming from the room.

      • UnCivilServant

        Oracle owns our shop. We are so locked into them as a vendor, the question is more ‘which reseller gets the contract?’

      • Ghostpatzer

        “Java” – Runs screaming from the room.

        *Shrieks in unison*

      • Ghostpatzer

        Only Oracle could take something that shitty and make it worse.

      • Rat on a train

        Is cx_Oracle still a thing?

    • JaimeRoberto (shama/lama/ding dong)

      At Auschwitz they have walls of photos of the prisoners who came through. There were 3 general categories: 1) those that looked scared shitless because they knew what was coming, 2) those that looked like they were mentally defeated and had given up because they knew what was coming, and 3) those that looked like Joe.

  5. Yusef, and the Giant Cat

    Exactly 40 years older than me,
    What a Badass! He even looks Badass,
    Thanks again Animal! these Stories are great.

    • Not an Economist

      Imagine having him as a school teacher. He wouldn’t have to say anything to get the class to settle down … just glare at them.

  6. The Other Kevin

    This is one of my favorite Glibs series. Thank you!

    • WTF

      Jesus, even as an old man he looks like he could rip your head off.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        And shit down your neck.

  7. ron73440

    That’s impressive stuff.

    Thanks for this Animal.

  8. Fourscore

    The badassiest badass in Badassville! Thanks , Animal

    I whine when my coffee is cool, not cold, only cool. Damn few, if any, Joe Beryles around today

    • slumbrew

      I knew that I had fully gone-native as a Bostonian when I started drinking iced coffee year round.

  9. Ghostpatzer

    Yowza. This guy miraculously manged to survive all that. Amazing. I’m also thinking, there were thousands of others who were perhaps equally brave who didn’t quite make it. Hats off to them as well.

  10. slumbrew

    Amazing dude.

    Jumpin’ Joe was taken to the battalion commander, one Aleksandra Samusenko, the only female tank commander of World War Two. Recognizing each other’s inherent badassery, the two quickly established a rapport in spite of Joe’s minimal Russian.

    If this were a movie, they would begin banging immediately.

    • Tundra

      How do you know they didn’t?

      • slumbrew

        I mean, one can hope.

      • WTF

        Jumpin’ Joe was too eager to get back to killin’.

      • slumbrew

        “Russian Front 8”

      • Sean

        heh

      • slumbrew

        Her T-34 brings all the boys to the yard.

      • Mustang

        After being tortured in a POW camp and escaping, my standards would be non-existent. Homely Russian tank commander that’s providing me food and not stringing me up by my elbows would probably be a solid would.

      • Not Adahn

        Homely? She has a nice natural, tank-commander-next-door look about her that I find quite appealing.

      • Penguin

        Definitely not the Russian tank commander I expected.

  11. Ed Wuncler

    “…while under fire from a German rifleman, calmly cut himself free of his parachute, loaded his M1 carbine and started killing Germans.”

    I have no idea why I chuckled at this sentence. Anyway, great story Animal!

    • slumbrew

      I picture him whistling to himself as he’s cutting away his chute.

      • R C Dean

        “Finally! They wouldn’t let me kill Germans the first two times I jumped into France.”

      • WTF

        I would not be surprised if those were his actual thoughts.

  12. juris imprudent

    Normally I would be unimpressed with Soviet war decorations. I make a notable exception here.

    And speaking of toxic masculinity, in the form of farce

    • R C Dean

      “I was nothing more than the hired mannequin,” Emily Ratajkowski said.

      Sweetie, you’re a model. That’s been the case for every gig you’ve ever had.

    • slumbrew

      A pop-star cupped your tits while you were dancing around topless in his music video? The deuce you say!

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      They are spectacular…

      • slumbrew

        Yes. Yes they are.

      • slumbrew

        The power of good genes

        (very lightly NSFW, I guess)

    • Mojeaux

      This is my shocked face. ?

      • Not Adahn

        I cannot wait for Helena Christensen to bravely tell her story of being molested by Chris Isaac in the Wicked Game video.

  13. Scruffy Nerfherder

    A lesson in how the CCP is destroying itself.

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/one-of-worlds-largest-port-operators-warns-global-supply-chain-crisis-will-last-longer-than-expected_4030709.html

    Sulayem’s DP World is one of the largest operators of marine ports and cargo terminals in the world, with hubs in Africa, India, Russia, Europe, and the Americas.

    “Even now, every time they see an incident of COVID in China, they shut down a port,” he said. “Many manufacturers around the world are delayed by as much as three years because they can’t get components from China. They’re taking a very, very aggressive approach.”

    Suggesting a move away from relying on Chinese markets and possibly the regime’s controversial Belt and Road Initiative, Sulayem noted there is “huge potential in India and that reflects in DP World’s investments. Africa continues to grow, and there’s also Southeast Asia, mainly Indonesia.”

    • Ghostpatzer

      If you find yourself in a hole, keep digging. Works every time.

    • db

      Sulayem’s DP World is one of the largest operators of marine ports and cargo terminals in the world, with hubs in Africa, India, Russia, Europe, and the Americas.

      I can’t even anymore with these euphemisms.

    • rhywun

      It’s not just the CCP.

      The hysteria is global.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Absolutely. I’m just pointing out that the CCP is creating a long-term incentive to diversify supply chains away from them.

      • juris imprudent

        Typical CEO – b, bu, but they have A BILLION consumers without brand attachments! We have to get into that market, even if it costs us all of our IP!

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Just long enough for the CEO to get a golden parachute at least.

        Been there, seen that…

      • juris imprudent

        Someday one of them needs to open up that golden parachute, desperate to slow his descent, and find out it is a brick.

      • Ghostpatzer

        Gold bricks for goldbricks. Checks out.

  14. DEG

    This is good.

  15. db

    This guy: legitimate bad ass.

  16. Ownbestenemy

    One of the few that deserve the moniker of “Greatest Generation”.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Yeah, about that, fuck off and die.

  17. robodruid

    Wow, I am insignificant to people like him.

    • Sean

      He killed Germans with German efficiency!

      • R C Dean

        Going by that Scandihoovian jaw, I would say Nordic efficiency.

    • juris imprudent

      Fuck Bezmenov. I am convinced he was a disinformation plant, not a defector. The Birchers of course gobbled his shit up. You notice he never appears in any other source?

      • Yusef, and the Giant Cat

        Whatever entity it was he served, it sure looks like the things he predicted have come to pass,

      • juris imprudent

        The point is, his story is just a little too good, and told to an interviewer that is only too credulous.

      • Mustang

        What, exactly, is wrong about what he says?

      • juris imprudent

        It is a just-so story, and it gives way more credit to a governmental agency than any agency of any government is truly deserving. For those who want to believe, it is like gospel.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        I have been thinking of writing something about the subject of how we got to this point, maybe I should.

      • kbolino

        Bezmenov was mostly analyzing the Soviet Union, which is where he came from, and for which his analysis was more or less accurate (top-down control, centralized authority, single org chart for the whole country). The diffuse and decentralized nature of the (Anglo-)American system makes it much harder to identify the source but yet the effect is still there and just as observable.

  18. OBJ FRANKELSON

    The Soviets did a better job of recognizing his accomplishments than we did. Almost all of those are, “Thanks for showing up.” awards, the Bronze Star is the only individual award there, for soloing a Company(?) objective I would think that a Siver Star or DSC would be in order.

    • Not Adahn

      Hmmm. Now I wonder if he collected pensions from both services.

      • Not Adahn

        Or if the US denied him one since dead servicemen don’t get them.

      • R C Dean

        I have in my office a piece of the original “red tape” – red ribbon used to tie the binders containing Civil War service records. The story is that the phrase “cut the red tape” came from the endless disputes over Civil War pensions and the need to access those records.

      • UnCivilServant

        So what you’re saying is that someone failed to follow document disposal procedures and you have the evidence?

      • juris imprudent

        For a libertarian, you do bureaucrat a little too well.

      • UnCivilServant

        I am not a libertarian.

        I am a bureaucrat.

    • LCDR_Fish

      I agree, but if he was alone with nobody to corroborate his actions, there’s nothing to report. Details probably came out during debriefing post-war.

  19. Penguin

    Good history, Animal.

  20. PutridMeat

    Suggestion for next “Profile in Toxic Masculinity” – Aleksandra Samusenko 🙂

    These are fun, just the right mixture of history and story telling, thanks!

    • kinnath

      Femme Fatales

      • Ghostpatzer

        *Checks name*
        *Checks bio*
        *Refrains from obvious snark, fearing retribution from the grave*

      • slumbrew

        I got a chuckle out of the Colorado highway dept getting sick of people stealing the ‘420’ mile marker from some road, so they eventually replaced it with ‘Mile 419.99’

      • The Other Kevin

        I’ve been by there several times, never knew where the name came from. This is apparently the one thing I learned today.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Agreed, a Badass!

      • Pine_Tree

        I’ve always been a P-38 fan, so I read everything about Bong, McGuire, etc. as a child.

        Something that didn’t really stick with me then, but does now as an old guy, is how “unexpected” some of their backgrounds are. Not all of them have Patton’s somewhat odd/wild upbringing. Bong was a small farm kid with a thing for planes who went to the local-ish teacher’s college, and (how stereotypical) names his plane “Marge” after his sweetie back home. And he turns into the top ace.

    • kinnath

      “You want to know why it’s not your choice? Because you could create the variant that could kill millions of people… it’s very likely,” the teacher said. “Do you know how many different variations come from a person who isn’t vaccinated? And then it’s passed and passed and passed, and it can make thousands and thousands of people sick. It is so selfish of people not to get the vaccine. You are killing people.”

      I fucking love science.

      • slumbrew

        Do you know how many different variations come from a person who isn’t vaccinated?

        I’ll bite – how many? Show your work.

      • Sean

        She’s a biology teacher.

      • UnCivilServant

        Those who Can’t, Teach.

      • Yusef, and the Giant Cat

        I should teach….

      • UnCivilServant

        I can’t, and I can’t teach.

        I don’t know what to do with myself.

        Maybe I’ll hit the lottery.

      • Gender Traitor

        Those who can’t teach, consult.

      • UnCivilServant

        I dislike the lack of job security in consulting.

        And I’m not good enough at bullshitting or sales.

      • juris imprudent

        You found your niche didn’t you? Bureaucrat.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        That degree in education invalidates any other credentials you might have.

      • ron73440

        “Teachers are the real heroes, but the guy who planted the flag on Iwo Jima, he’s close, right”

        “The guy that went to the moon, it’s not 11th grade biology, but it’s something?”

        -Norm McDonald from one of the greatest takedowns of a self important teacher I’ve ever heard.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        LOL

      • Plinker762

        He also said that to teach 3rd grade you only need a 4th grade education.

      • ron73440

        He’s not wrong.

    • Ed Wuncler

      And then school boards wonder why parents come to their meetings and are in a rage about what and how they are teaching their children.

      • The Other Kevin

        This wouldn’t be a problem if they could just keep what goes on in the classroom secret.

      • Sean

        Her email signature says she’s “Striving to Dismantle Systems of Oppression,”

        The irony, it burns.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I think that’s the Assistant Principal.

        It’s darkly humorous how Assistant Principal went from loser adult male striver to unhinged female in less than two decades.

      • Ed Wuncler

        The biggest irony as Sean pointed out is that our public school system especially for the lower classes are one of the biggest creators of systemic oppression.

  21. The Other Kevin

    Mrs. TOK can’t get on Facebook, now I hear there is a major outage on Facebook and a few other apps. I feel like we need that Ron Paul “It’s happening” gif.

    • UnCivilServant

      Here’s hoping it’s permanant and global.

      Couldn’t happen to a nicer company.

      • The Other Kevin

        This could finally be definitive proof that God exists.

    • slumbrew

      Their DNS servers (they run their own) are not responding. Good times.

      • slumbrew

        That covers Instagram & Whatsapp too.

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        Productivity across the nation has increased.

        Except by those using Glibitarians

      • UnCivilServant

        My workday is over except for the evening work.

        *sets alarm*

        I don’t have to be productive right now.

    • Urthona

      Somehow all their DNS records have been hosed.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        My comments seem to be hanging up, some websites as well,

      • PutridMeat

        If I may turn in my libertarian property rights credentials in for just a moment, I would have a moment of happiness if this was an intentional hack. There. Can I have those credentials back now? I need them for the next secret meeting.

      • juris imprudent

        There are libertarians who are quite skeptical of “property rights” for intellectual things – the idea of creating state-sanctioned scarcity.

      • UnCivilServant

        So what’s the alternative? let people sell your work unmodified and without any payment?

      • juris imprudent

        As if mankind never could create anything artistic or intellectual until copyright and patent?

      • UnCivilServant

        Get that strawman out of here and answer the question.

      • PutridMeat

        Sure, but intentionally attacking their infrastructure and making it non-functional might fall outside of the philosophical debate about property rights. I think DOS’ing their servers or otherwise interfering with clear communication they’ve presumably paid for would fall outside the scope of that argument. Though I haven’t thought it through very carefully, was more trying to tongue-in-cheek in a totally not HM sort of manner.

      • slumbrew

        https://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/2021-October/215693.html

        This looks like gun applied to foot – change made to their routing that then promptly isolated themselves from the rest of the internet – with no alternate access to allow them to fix it.

        Now scrambling to get hands and eyes in individual datacenters.

        Good times.

        (someone is probably going to get fired)

      • slumbrew

        Their nameservers themselves are unreachable – they get those back online, they should be hunky-dory.

        Interestingly, I’m seeing some weird rotation in their NS delegation records, e.g., ‘a.NS.FACEBOOK.COM’ vs. ‘A.NS.FACEBOOK.COM’ – not sure if that’s a symptom of them trying to recover things or a symptom of whatever took them down.

    • The Other Kevin

      Thankfully we aren’t in the midst of an election that needs to be fortified. Otherwise this would be the end of democracy.

      • Urthona

        There was a Facebook “whisteblower” on 60 Minutes last night. She was blowing the whistle on her former company (facebook) because they weren’t censoring conservatives hard enough.

        I am not joking.

        Maybe this prompted some cybercrime.

      • rhywun

        It’s hard to believe the hard-left senior-citizen demographic is large enough to keep that show afloat.

    • Urthona

      It’s probably the super popular photo of my kids soccer tournament. No way Facebook could handle the traffic.

    • R C Dean

      Was there a great disturbance in the Net, as if millions of bots suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced?

    • Urthona

      Has anyone looked into what MySpace is up to today?

  22. limey

    Hell of a man. Thanks again, Animal.

  23. Crazy Capn Gunboat Willy

    What an absolute unit. These are great. Keep em coming.

    If anyone wants similar content check out count dankula’s mad lads series. He did one for Alexandra.

  24. slumbrew

    Oooh, oooh, Mojeaux! I’ve had a brilliant idea – I know you’re not writing right now, but c’mon, sexy times between Joe & Alexandra? There’s gotta be a market for WWII erotic history.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      I like this idea,

    • Ghostpatzer

      Illustrated?

      • slumbrew

        You’ll have to wait for the movie adaptation.

        Fifty Shades of Red?

      • Rat on a train

        Like WWII propaganda posters?

    • UnCivilServant

      Does NA have stock options?

      • slumbrew

        It’d be nice. I don’t actually know anything.

      • Not Adahn

        NASDAQ, symbol GFS.

      • Ted S.

        Go Fuck Slumbrew? That’s not very nice.

      • slumbrew

        That’s hurtful.

      • UnCivilServant

        I just checked my brokerage account and for some reason I have less money than I started with.

        Oh, Games Workshop has dipped to the price at which I bought it, and CDPR is still in the crapper. All through september, GW’s been on a downward trend. But it’s done that many times before. I’ll hold onto my ten shares.

        And GFS isn’t listed there yet.

  25. Fourscore

    I mailed some packages at the PO today. The express package mailing price temporarily increased, until Xmas. Will it come down later, ? I think I already know the answer.

    • Ghostpatzer

      To be fair, the delivery times will increase to compensate for the increase in cost. Back of napkin calculation says cost per unit of time will actually decrease. Winning!

      • ron73440

        I don’t doubt they would try to spin it this way.

        “We have become more efficient!”

  26. Not Adahn

    I have been summoned before the Board of Trustees to explain my winter shooting game.

    I haven’t decided if I should just market this and sell out, or if I can use it as a springboard to world domination.

    • Urthona

      lol “wrongfully conceive”.

    • grrizzly

      WTF does it mean?

      Demcorat Rep. Chris Rabb, who represents Pennsylvania’s 200th legislative district in northwest Philadelphia, has said that his introduction of the bill is to “codify the definition of wrongful conception to include when a person has demonstrated negligence toward preventing conception during intercourse.”

    • juris imprudent

      Antonio Cromatie hit hardest?

    • Plinker762

      Does a trans man have to get a vasectomy?

      • UnCivilServant

        How? They don’t have a vas deferens to cut.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Stop aggressing against trans-men.

        Do you even science bro?

    • kinnath

      wrongful conception

      Other than rape, this not possible.

  27. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Neighbor update:

    We’re pretty much out of it at this point. I don’t think the neighbor took the wife’s conditions for further help (a POA) very well, but it was what was required in order to help her while minimizing the risk to us.

    Neighbor doesn’t know she slandered the hell out of the wife while she was in the hospital as she doesn’t remember the incident, so I can see where she wouldn’t take the request for the POA well even though she was in the process of granting one prior to the mental break/stroke,

    I’ve got to go home and convince the wife not to write a nastygram to the neighbor until she cools off. I’m sure she’s pissed about getting her name dragged through the mud and just having to put up with it after the fact with no acknowledgment at all.

    That said, the neighbor is going to get picked clean by her vulture friend who has been all over her and controlling her communications since the stroke.

    Ultimately, this is the neighbor and her husband’s fault for not preparing ahead of time. No will, no AMD, nothing at all except a lot of liquid and accessible assets and two very old and inform people.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      infirm

    • slumbrew

      Good to hear you’re clear of that potential nightmare.

      As you say, a shame but some fairly basic preparations would have prevented it.

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      +1 “Helping is Futile”

      Very kind of you both to try.

  28. whiz

    Joe was an awesome dude.

    And he looks just like a young Kirk Ferentz (U of Iowa football coach, for those not familiar with him).