A first-hand account of the charge of the Light Brigade has been found.
Cool
Category Archives: History
Not That The Analogy Isn’t Still Stupid
But I’m reminded that Jesus was a preacher. Barabbas was the community organizer. And a freedom fighter, like Bill Ayers. Also like Ayers, he got off on a technicality.
Get Ready To Split A Gut
…at the world’s oldest jokes.
Well, OK, not so much. It says they’re old jokes, not good jokes.
More SpaceX Perspective
Clark has a round up of links.
It was a little strange, and sad, descending into the LA basin yesterday. I had a left window seat, and I looked down at the old Rockwell/North American (and back during the war, Vultee) plant in Downey, which had been abandoned back in the nineties, and saw that Building 6 appeared to be no longer there. A lot of history in manned spaceflight took place there, but now there’s almost no manned space activities left in southern California at all. Not in Downey, not in Huntington Beach, not in Seal Beach. It’s all been moved to Houston, and Huntsville.
Except, except. A minute or two later, on final descent into LAX, I saw Hawthorne Airport just off the left wing, and quite prominent was the new SpaceX facility, which had previously been used to build jumbo jet wings.
So perhaps, despite the indifference of local and state politicians, the era of manned spaceflight in LA isn’t quite yet over. And of course, Mojave remains ascendant.
Compound Interest
Some interesting thoughts on the insane notion of banning it to save the planet. Also, comments about law students’ economic literacy.
Baseball History In The Making?
Assuming that this is correct, the biggest shut out in history is 22-0. Detroit is currently leading the Royals 18-0 in the top of the eighth, with men on second and third, and two out.
[Update a couple minutes later]
They got one more run to end the inning. Going into the bottom of the eighth, it’s 19-0. They scored ten runs in that inning. Three more in the ninth ties the record, and four breaks it. It could happen. Their bats seem pretty hot tonight, and Kansas City is deep into its bullpen. The Tigers just brought in Dolsi to preserve the shut out.
[Update a couple minutes later]
They blew it by relieving Miner. Dolsi let in a run on a wild pitch.
Dang.
[One more update]
Wow, they really blew it. The Royals got four runs in the bottom of the eighth off Dolsi and Lopez. Of course, once they lost the shut out, it didn’t really matter. But people are going to be asking for a long time why Leland relieved out a pitcher who was pitching a three-hit shut out, with one who had an equivalent ERA.
[Update on Tuesday morning]
I guess I’d misread the box score. Miner had been replaced the inning before, before it looked like there was a history-making shut out to preserve.
Ich Bin Ein Dummkopf
Obama’s three hundred foreign policy advisors apparently weren’t enough. His new choice of location for his German sermon from the mount, to win over valuable electoral votes of the German people, seems to have backfired as badly as the attempt to emulate Kennedy and Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate:
Andreas Schockenhoff, deputy leader of the conservative bloc in Parliament, said Sunday that the choice of the Victory Column, also known as the Golden Angel, was an “unhappy symbol” since it represented so much of Germany’s militaristic past.
Rainer Brüderle, deputy leader of the opposition Free Democrats, said Obama’s advisers had little idea of the historical significance of the Victory Column. “It was the symbol of German superiority over Denmark, Austria and France,” Brüderle told the newspaper Bild am Sonntag.
The monument was built in 1864 to commemorate Prussia’s victory over Denmark. When it was inaugurated, Prussia had defeated Austria during the Austro-Prussian war in 1866 and the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71.
The column has been originally located near the Reichstag, now the Bundestag, or German Parliament, which is close to the Brandenburg Gate. But Adolf Hitler relocated it about two kilometers, or one mile, toward the western part of the city to the Grosser Stern, or Great Star.
Too bad Leni Riefenstahl isn’t around any more to film the event for him. Then later, he could reenact his grandfather’s liberation of Auschwitz.
Maybe if he gets a couple hundred more advisors, he can find one with a clue. I’ve never seen anyone have so much trouble getting good help. It must be tough being a messiah.
I do have to say, though, that watching this kind of thing for four years would be entertaining. I just wish that he wouldn’t be in charge of anything important during the show.
Thirty-Nine Years Ago
On July 16th, 1969, the largest rocket ever built thundered off the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, delivering three men and the equipment and supplies they would need to land two of them on the moon and return the three of them safely to earth, fulfilling the national goal declared eight years earlier. The anniversary of the landing is this coming Sunday.
One Week To Plan
Next Sunday will be the thirty-ninth anniversary of the first human footsteps on another world. As I do every year, I’d like to remind my readers of a ceremony that I and some friends came up with to celebrate it. If you think that this was an important event, worthy of solemn commemoration, gather some friends to do so next Sunday night, and have a nice dinner after reading the ceremony.
Oh, and coincidentally, Friday was the twenty-ninth anniversary of the fall of Skylab. James Lileks has some thoughts. Next year, it will be the fortieth, and thirtieth anniversaries, respectively, of the two events. It was ironic that our first space station came plunging into the atmosphere almost exactly a decade after the height of our space triumphs in the sixties. The seventies really sucked.
The High-Water Mark
One hundred and forty-five years ago today, was the beginning of the end of the southern cause:
The names of the places associated with the charge are deeply indented on the American conscience. Every summer, “The Angle” and “The High Water Mark” are crowded with visitors who come to commemorate the event and ponder those terrible minutes when American killed American in a desperate contest of wills and ideals. So much carnage in such a small place- it is difficult for us today to realize the horror those young men faced, and how quickly the hopes of the North and South were determined in this famous battle.
Even if they had won Gettysburg, the fall of Vicksburg the next day to Grant probably sealed the fate of the Confederacy. The war might have lasted longer had Lee’s Pennsylvania campaign been successful, but it seems unlikely that the south could have held out long enough.