Long, Obstinate, and Bloody.

A good title!

235 years ago today my 5 times Great-grandfather and his sons stood in the militia line of Natty Green's Southern Army to fire at the king's army.  I walked the ground for myself in April 2013.  You can take a walk via this C-SPAN video.  There was an anniversary reenactment last Saturday and historical events.  Cool.  The United Sates Army Center for History has a good account of the battle.

The battle is key, because the cost of the fight leads Lord Cornwallis to move North.  Eventually placing his army on a peninsula at a place named Yorktown.

"I never saw such fighting since God made me. The Americans fought like demons"
 -- Lt. General Charles, Earl Cornwallis.

After the war some of the sons received the land bounty for service from the State of North Carolina and moved Westward and settled a place called Tennessee.

Jihad is agile

Yes it is, and that is why it is succeeding.  A lovely thought isn't it?  John Robb wrote about it earlier in the year with a post titled "The Open Jihad" over at Global Guerrillas.  I know, I know, it is a linking, but this is important information o learn, know and act upon.

Does any of this sound familiar?.

1. tinkering with tactics, strategies, and technologies that can be used to advance the team;s goal.
2. testing the efficacy of these innovations by using them in production.
3. copying the innovations that work. 

Read John Robb's post, then compare the methods described to your development process.

Monday, Monday.

It is a rainy Monday afternoon here in Oregon.  Nice!

I spotted this in my morning reading.  I was aware of the case from an earlier EFF post, that the ancestry.com owned database had been used and Mr. Usry had been fingered by the long arm of the law. . . What I was NOT aware of is this: He was cleared by his DNA. . .after 33 days under suspicion.

Read the article, and the EFF link.  I think this is an insidious use of technology, that of course has gone awry.  How could this not have?  Think of the Stanford Experiment?  What do you think should be done?

Cesar Chavez Day

Yep, today marks the birthday of Cesar Chavez, organizer/founder/voice of the United Farm Workers Union in California's central valley.  He was an American you know, a veteran (a squid) of World War Two.  He was a classic organizer of the Chicago School.  When ranchers brought in scabs to cross the UFW picket lines, he called Immigration and they were deported back to Mexico.  What?  Yes, Cesar Chavez was an American union organizer, organizing for American Union workers.  He and Dolores Huerta fought the Braceros Program and as a result of their efforts Congress ended it in 1964.  Political expediency. The thing is this, those first grape workers in Delano, California that struck for the UFW were Filipino-Americans. . .Interesting hmmm?

Try and get that straight.  Doesn't fit the current societal narrative does it?  John Adams said of the massacre trial "Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."

Happy Birthday Mr. Ben Stein!

Today is Mr. Ben Stein's Birthday!

I'm Just A Bill - SNL 2014

From Saturday Night Live - Schoolhouse Rock, "I'm Just A Bill" with a little help from the President.

Seven Score and Eleven Years Ago Today.

President Abraham Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address 151 Years ago today.

What did it mean, what should we take away from it.

In context it is a speech to rally the Nation and bolster a flagging will to fight.  The meaning of the war, "To Save the Union" had been changed into a Holy crusade to "Set other men free", yet this was not taken to heart by most of the population.  The draft had been instituted that Summer, and riots opposing it burned hot only days after the great battle in July.  New York City urned against compulsory service, the mob taking out its anger on black men in the city.  So grave the disruption in New York that Federal troops had to be brought in the quell the violence and restore order.

What can we draw from that time?  In school we are taught that established single point narrative of slavery as the sole cause for the war.  Historians, authors who should know better or refuse to know parrot this narrative.  If we look at primary and secondary source material from the time such as personal letters, essays, publications such as Harper's Weekly we see a number of reasons, mostly corresponding to a shift in the economy through industrialization and tariff policy.  You can see it in the editorials North and South, and in the political cartoons.

This is not something new, it had been brewing slowly for a number of decades.  Andrew Jackson addressed it during his presidency, the threat off succession from South Carolina.  His force of personality and known character carried behind his words when he said regarding the matter "if one drop of blood be shed there in defiance of the laws of the United States, I will hang the first man of them I can get my hands on to the first tree I can find."  That was in 1832, and the matter was tariffs enabling economic disparity between Northern manufacturing and Southern raw materials.  This was the beginning of the modern era for America, moving from agrarian to industrial, from slave based labor in the South to immigrant based labor in the Northern States.  The conditions faced by immigrant labor were the force behind modern labor law.

No, I am not going to provide a list of sources.  You my fellow American need to go out and learn about your country, its history and the grit it has taken to allow you the freedom you have and the effort required of you to keep it.  As the Iroquois say, "for the next seven generations."

Coming full circle, it is a great speech.  Short, moving, on point.

After completing the Gettysburg Address, President Lincoln, center, without hat.

Christmas Tree Tax?

Did you know there is a tax on Christmas Trees starting this year?  Apparently it is part of the Farm Bill.  It went into effect in April 2014.  A bit of subsidy spending to prop up declining sales of fresh cut Christmas Trees. . .

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2014/04/04/the-christmas-tree-tax-quietly-takes-root/

That is a 6% decline from 1965 to 2008.

Aha!  That faint aroma, something has gone rotten in the state of Denmark perhaps?

Remember, Remember. . .

"Remember, remember, the fifth of November the Gunpowder Treason and plot;
I see of no reason why Gunpowder Treason should ever be forgot.”

The Fifth of November.  Guy Fawkes Day!  His intent to “to blow you Scotch beggars back to your native mountains."  And end the reign of King James.  James as a monarch was none to kind to the Scots either.  But that is another story that branches off to me. . .

Pesticides are good for you. . .aren't they?

Pesticides are good for you aren't they?   They must be, because the FDA tells me so!

Follow the money to see the truth.  I am in agreement.

H/T MarksDailyApple

50 Years ago today "A Time for Choosing"

Yes, fifty years ago in a televised address for the Goldwater Presidential Campaign, Ronald Reagan challenged Americans.  Listen to it, hear it again or for the first time.  Make your choice.