Jim Rittenhouse's semidaily journal of news, commentary and reports
Partially for Da, partly for the historians in the audience. Feel free to whale away on it or suggest other things; I was having real problems with a non-scholarly-to-the-point-0f-boredom book on the German Diaspora, especially to America in the 1800s. I also skipped a lot of works on regions within Germany. Yes, I believe that [...]
Berlin TV tower – lift off from Fabian Tischer on Vimeo.
From the Coming Anarchy site: projected maps of Europe in the future and the former Yugoslav areas, along with their tag on microstates. Personally, I strongly doubt some of this; France has been doing a thorough stomp of its minority groups (linguistics-wise, especially) for the last 100+ years to Make Everyone Parisian, and the Bosniak [...]
Mijn schilt ende betrouwen Zijt ghy, O Godt, mijn Heer. Op U soo wil ick bouwen, Verlaet my nimmermeer… Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit für das deutsche Vaterland! Danach lasst uns alle streben Brüderlich mit Herz und Hand! And one for Mere: Qǐlai! Qǐlai! Qǐlai! Wǒmen wànzhòngyīxīn, Màozhe dírén de pàohuǒ, qiánjìn! Màozhe dírén de [...]
Languages are a hot item of discussion at our house, because – well, there’s a big language gap here. Susan’s family is a mix of Norwegian, Danish and variations on British Isles, and there’s a little bit of the ‘Fargo’ Scandinavian-American accent there. Not much, mostly in word choice and the occasional ‘ya, sure‘ delivered [...]
The alternate history opening of 2001: A SPACE ODDYSEY Hans Conreid interviews Rod Serling! Germania (ww2) (from the movie FATHERLAND) History of the White Eagle (alternate Poland in medieval times) Japan as an ally of the Allies in World War 2 (from the excellent 2009 LOST MEMORIES)
A French court has ruled that the Vichy government of France during World War II was instrumental in the handing over of Jews and others to the Nazis for extermination camps. Calling for a “formal admission of the state’s responsibility and of the prejudice collectively suffered”, the court said it had concluded that acts such [...]
Another bit of Rittenhousia, about the beginnings of paper-making in America, circa 1688 – this is from the Historical Magazine, 1857. Again, for the record.
I’ll sit down and go over the Presidents Thang in a day or so. Right now, I’m busy fishing the big Digital Organization, to be followed up with more organizing tricks tomorrow. So I’m Really Busy As Heck with that stuff. Meredith had a good deal from Sinterklaas, with lots of pepernoten / kruidnootjes and [...]
BBC article about a cave full of skeletons from the Bronze Age in Germany, and how they matched the DNA to a couple of locals…3000 years down the line.
Bush and Georgia U.S. credibility is again on the line as the Bush Administration stumbles to respond to the Russian invasion of Georgia. So far the Administration has been missing in action, to put it mildly. The strategic objective is twofold: to prevent Moscow from going further to topple Georgia’s democratic government in the coming [...]
After the last week of major screwups from McCain, including the whole “surge is when I say it is, ignore history business”, and things like accusing Obama of being responsible for the rise in gas prices and willing to ‘lose the Iraq war deliberately in order to win the 2008 election’, it looks as if [...]
Movie tagline: In 1945 the Nazis fled to the moon. In 2018 they are coming back. AH on Nazis on the Moon, etc. The trailer looks spiffy! (youtube)
From my recent read on Brian Fagan’s THE GREAT WARMING: Batu, a grandson of Ginghis [Khan], soon conquered the Crimea, then ravaged what is now Bulgaria as well as fourteen Russian cities, turning their shattered remnants into vassal states. Next he turned his atention to Europe, with the objective of reaching “the ultimate sea.” The [...]