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Posts by billl

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  • Civil War Preservation Trust Unveils Report On Most Endangered Battlefields

    03/14/2007 7:21:46 PM PDT · 32 of 32
    billl to AnalogReigns

    The Gettysburg rules were set by the winners.
    Regimental monuments were only allowed where a unit spent the night, therefore all the union regimental monuments are on the high ground and all the confederate regimental monuments are at the bottom of hills. There is 1 Maryland confederate marker up by spangler's spring because they held it overnight and were driven back in the AM.
    In addition in the 50 years after the battle, when most of the monuments were done, the local teams had both more money to pay for the work and more people who could make the trip to see it. Pennsylvania has the largest monument, etc.
    Yous guys do have a few nice monuments along Confederate Avenue, including the Alabama monument. It's so fiercesome it looks like you won.
    Even with all these advantages for the home team, everybody I ever met there sides with the South, especially since the Scout Medal hike ends with Pickett's charge. The youth campsite that our Scout troop used is actually in the woods where Pickett's division spent the night before the charge.

  • Civil War Preservation Trust Unveils Report On Most Endangered Battlefields

    03/13/2007 6:14:28 PM PDT · 13 of 32
    billl to pandoraou812

    went with my son's scout troop about 7 years ago.
    that piece of the battlefield is still preserved.
    the church is still quite a thing to see.
    a lot of the historic hike was along roads that had a lot more traffic than i would have liked.
    if we had cut out about 3 miles at the beginning to get from the scout camp to the beginning of the battlefield, it might have been a better trip.

  • China: Archeologists shake up history(Jinsha Ruins, Sanxingdui Culture)

    08/13/2005 12:36:31 AM PDT · 71 of 72
    billl to TigerLikesRooster

    very cool stuff.
    this is a museum i'd like to see someday.
    does that face look at bit polynesian to you?
    sort of tiki bar-ish?

    maybe these guys were part of the culture that went across the pacific but lost out locally to the northerners.

  • Mystery Digger named at last

    08/04/2005 5:53:37 PM PDT · 8 of 11
    billl to 68skylark
    My Dad was US Army Signal Corps in New Guinea, which meant he was part of scratch infantry units as required.

    He told a story about serving under the Aussies. He said the officer didn't carry a firearm and kept standing up. When he asked him to stop doing that and asked why (both of those things) the officer said how else could he lead the men and it was his sergeant's job to protect him.

    He did teach them how to load a clip of 5 and a bullet in the chamber so if the Japs counted to 5 waiting to reload, they'd surprise them with that 6th one.
  • Ice ages linked to earth's travels through galaxy

    08/02/2005 10:42:52 PM PDT · 19 of 54
    billl to Kevin OMalley

    jesus - god ghost or guru is available used on amazon and i would guess other places.

    following your reco, I've ordered a paper copy for $7

    thanks.

    cs lewis wrote about this also. I guess its a common topic.

  • Israel blasts Pope; Vatican responds

    07/27/2005 6:20:42 PM PDT · 11 of 30
    billl to Clintonfatigued

    of course, it is unlikely that the Vatican will forget it ever again.

  • NYT's original title: "4 Blasts Suck the Air Right Out of Blair the Statesman's Balloon"

    07/07/2005 8:26:39 PM PDT · 47 of 97
    billl to kristinn


    Articles call them terrorists today when yesterday they were militants or something nicer.

    The Times's and their ilk's treasonous defeatism may get shriller as their numbers get fewer.

    It is a war and we will win.

    The last 2 days we had a workshop with a number of our London colleagues and we were having a lovely time celebrating London winning the Olympics (and
    the French LOSING) and now this dreadful news of those bombs. They were very matter of fact and recalled the IRA bombings and wanted to get on to business once they knew all their families were fine.

    They don't call it Great Britain for nothing.


    I also found a few of Andrew Sullivan's posting very uplifting. I especially liked his 1939 quote of C.S. Lewis about the importance of living life fully, especially during dangerous times ...

    "I think it important to try to see the present calamity in a true
    perspective. The war creates no absolutely new situation: it simply
    aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it.
    Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice. Human culture
    has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more
    important than itself. If men had postponed the search for knowledge and
    beauty until they were secure, the search would never have begun... The
    insects have chosen a different line: they have sought first the material
    welfare and security of the hive, and presumably they have their reward. Men
    are different. They propound mathematical theorems in beleaguered cities,
    conduct metaphysical arguments in condemned cells, make jokes on scaffolds,
    discuss the latest new poem while advancing to the walls of Quebec, and comb
    their hair at Thermopylae. This is not panache: it is our nature."

    Keep living well and let's all try to show that "London Pride".

  • Do you know what day this is?(Excellent piece)

    07/04/2005 6:51:29 AM PDT · 3 of 10
    billl to kellynla

    1814? The British invade Washington
    1964? The Beatles invade the Ed Sullivan Show

  • No takers for visiting French kids

    07/03/2005 5:41:54 AM PDT · 33 of 72
    billl to YankeeGirl

    We agreed to take a French student from a similar program about 20 years ago in a similar sounding diverse town in NJ, thru a friend of a friend thing.
    When we showed up the US volunteer organizer was short 2 more host families, so we ended up with 3 boys.
    My wife and I had a good time with the Frogs (as we called them), John Phillipe, Eric Phillipe and Phillipe Phillipe.
    Other than the guest bathroom smelling of Canoe or some other aftershave it was fine.
    We took them down to DC for a day and dinner in Georgetown at Le Petit Auberge for crepes. The kid from Brittany thought his mother must be cooking in the back. As we walked thru the town I finally got to make the point that the English architecture here is AMERICAN, the Chinese food here is AMERICAN, the French-style city plan is AMERICAN... its all AMERICAN. That's what AMERICAN means.
    They got 3 of the French girls on the tour to cook a dinner party for us at our house on Bastille Day. One girl wore a Chanel dress (my wife said) and dinner was pretty good. I wanted to get into the French spirit and I played my Edith Piaf records for them. They hated it but were grateful that at least it wasn't Charles Aznevour, like their Dads' would have played.
    3 years later we hosted 2 girls, since we then had a 1 year old son. They were bitches and no fun at all.

    You never know.

  • Let's start counting citizens

    06/26/2005 5:55:40 PM PDT · 44 of 66
    billl to Publius6961
    NEVER is quite an exclusive neighborhood and far too brief a comment for us to learn the details.

    Could you enlighten us all on this thread with some of your knowledge about all this?

    By this also I mean the entire entirety of my post which was begun with "I think" and continued with "except for Indians and slaves" (which I honestly think covered 90% of the male exclusions) and then goes on to suggest it may have been a crazy quilt.

    The scenarios I am unsure of, which I am hopeful you are more familiar with include:

    1. when did "naturalization" 1st get defined here? Did our federal government do this first or was it states by which you got your US citizenship?
    Being a citizen and being qualified to vote might have been different in the old colonies, but in the west there were less restrictions and universal white male sufferage was more of the norm.

    2. how were annexed territories handled? Surely when Texas came on there must have been some guidelines. Was it everyone in Texas became a US citizen by virtue of being a Texas citizen? Did Texas have laws and rolls to check? Was it everyone around except for the slaves and Indians? Did they leave out the Mexicans?

    how about the north-west territories? what if you were a Pennsy native who moved to what became Ohio? I can guess you only got to vote for Pres once you were a resident in a real state, so while you were in Ohio territory you might at best be an absentee ballot from Pennsy, if such a thing was possible way back then ...

    how about the Southwest or especially California? Except for Indians and slaves, did they pick and choose or did they take all present? I think the Chinese exclusion act was a much later development, so even the Chinese 49ers might have been counted in the 1850 census.

    I would think the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo had something to say about the status of the persons in this former Mexican territory, even if there were irregularities in the actual enforcement.

    Maybe most people who "naturalized" as we expanded across the continent did so by being in the annexed territory from the moment of annexation or statehood or something.

    I really think there were a lot of situations where blanket naturalizations were the only practical method, (again, except for Indians and slaves).

    I remember seeing something on the Mexican War where Jefferson Davis (maybe then Secy of State) was described as unwilling to annex more of Mexico because then those darker people would become Americans. That sounds like the default process was a sort of blanket naturalization. I think the idea of being there or being grandfathered in goes back a long way and I just don't buy NEVER. Another interesting one that I remember is that in the history of the Old Mine Road (from Delaware River to Kingston NY) the author suggested that part of the mystery of the age of the road is caused by Dutch settlers attempting to back-date their land occupation to before the 166? British take-over the 1st time, so their claims were grand-fathered.
    If it was England after taking over Canada, I think if you were there, once you swore an oath to the crown you were in. The Arcadians were an example of those not doing that.

    4. the old text about the native-born requirement had the escape clause for Alexander Hamilton about "unless you were a resident of the territory of the US at the time of adoption of the Constitution" or such like that always interested me. Do you know if that was ever applied for an area that became part of the US after the 178~ ish era? Vermont? Kentucky? Did they just take people as they were so long as they were taken as citizens in their state? Abe Lincoln was born in 1809 in Kentucky. Would it have been a problem if he had been born in Illinois territory? I'm not sure if being able to be President wasn't just a special case.

    What about the people resident in areas of Maine (who until 183? was a part of Mass) who were added to Maine as a part of the Ashburton?-Adams boundary negotiations in 18?? That would be a situation where there was never a territorial interval in the annexation to the US.

    Come to think of it, were citizens of the NW territories American citizens by virtue of being subject to laws, like the NW compact, which maybe was under the Articles of the Confederation (don't remember the date of the compact vs. the Constitution, but there were real close).

    5. what happened if you the Irish who came over around the time of the famine? What was the basis back then of them becoming citizens? How about the Irish that were supporters of the NY political machines or the Irish that joined the civil war army. This might have been the beginning of naturalization by the methods we knew.

    6. The other one that I'd like more info on is the case of seamen either seeking aid from an embassy overseas or even the case of impressment during the war of 1812. The contention of HM Gov was sometimes that the "American" sailors were either Royal Navy deserters or former Englishmen. How did we determine if they were "Americans" if in truth they had come from elsewhere? Were we just defending the property rights of US flag vessels to be unmolested in their employment arrangements? I thought they were referred to as "Americans"?

    Inquiring minds want to know...
  • Let's start counting citizens

    06/26/2005 4:09:22 PM PDT · 12 of 66
    billl to Founding Father

    I think in the old days, before there was "naturalization" all the people were citizens, except for the slaves and indians which if present in the district were presumed NOT to participate in the body politic.

    I don't know the history of naturalization rules, like when they were established. I expect it was a crazy quilt dependent on the state, the time and the ethnicity.

  • Wake Island: The Alamo of the Pacific (History Channel show)

    06/18/2005 5:12:08 AM PDT · 10 of 12
    billl to kms61

    I've been trying to find a copy of this poster "The Defence of Wake Island" by Arbin Henning for years.

    http://www.cv6.org/noumea/default.asp?uri=detail/nara-img-44pa1907

    When I was a kid in the 60s in the NY area all the movies where we are losing were shown around Pearl Harbor day,
    Bataan, They Were Expendable, Wake Island.

    I used to have nightmares about them, especially the scene in Bataan where the Robert Walker character is firing at the Japs camoflaged as bushes with his machine gun. The fact that he dug his foxhole to be his grave was the creepiest.

    Anyway, Wake Island was the only one that made the heroics trump the actual defeat. From a kid's perspective it was just like John Wayne's Alamo.

  • Hollywood knows not to let facts derail a good tale

    01/21/2005 2:07:05 PM PST · 20 of 26
    billl to Luddite Patent Counsel

    actually George isn't in the cast of 1776.
    letters from him are read aloud.
    you must have been thinking of Adams or Lee.

  • Paul Greenberg: Lee Outside the Frame

    01/18/2005 5:34:34 PM PST · 4 of 4
    billl to billl
  • Paul Greenberg: Lee Outside the Frame

    01/18/2005 5:32:56 PM PST · 3 of 4
    billl to Arkinsaw

    can anyone post a link to the picture that is referred to?

  • Democratic Realism:An American Foreign Policy for a Unipolar World

    08/25/2004 4:17:07 PM PDT · 7 of 8
    billl to narby

    if only bush could articulate it like this.
    i hope he makes these points in a debate with kerry.
    peggy noonan's words in reagan's hands could soar.
    bush has got to get it across to people because the press
    will never tell them this stuff.

  • One Man and his God

    06/14/2004 10:51:36 AM PDT · 10 of 15
    billl to I still care

    In the article, the author says ... In a recent press conference, the president asserted that the real objective of the war in Iraq was freedom. "Freedom is the Almighty's gift to every man and woman in the world." The Philadelphia Inquirer, in its May 2 2004 edition, asked two theologians, one Evangelical and the other Catholic, what biblical foundation there was for this doctrine. Neither could find any.

    I guess we are lucky the commies never pointed that out to us before.

  • Soldiers of the Chelyabinsk Chernobyl

    04/16/2004 5:37:51 AM PDT · 6 of 7
    billl to endthematrix
    The main highway from Ekaterinaberg to Chelyabinsk passes by a body of water contaminated by this. There's a sign and a fence warning you away because its contaminated.
    I saw this in 1993.
    You know its bad if they actually post a sign.
  • LIBERAL "HEADLINE" VERSUS CONSERVATIVE "HEADLINE"

    03/22/2004 6:17:25 PM PST · 10 of 11
    billl to HitmanNY
    old russian joke

    the us and russia had a car race.
    the american car came in first.

    American headline - US beats Russia in car race.

    Russian headline - Russia places 2nd in international car race. Americans come in next to last!
  • Prehistoric Row Erupts Over Hunter-Gatherer Riddle

    02/28/2004 5:14:29 AM PST · 16 of 17
    billl to Fedora
    same reason public school children are subjected to new curriculum after new curriculum.
    new math, whole language, gender equity, ...
    you cannot get your doctorate in education without one.
    luckily for them since the average parent only has a 5-8 year life in any zone (2 kids, 2-3 years apart) the educators can re-cycle the usual suspects
    back to phonics, math manipulates, character education ...
    and zig-zag along