xwr!pjs v/i@/g/r/@ up to fifty feet! Another bunkosaurus discovered. (Via Jane and Mindles.)

Memories of Freddy's. Eeeegcellent. It appears that the Dipster's site is no longer generating server error messages. Do check out recent posts, in which he demands satisfaction from Wesley Clark, provides a helpful public service post assuaging your fears about Mad Cow disease, and tells you everything you need to know about sex. And the grammar and punctuation are pretty good, for a drunk guy.

Cold sweat. You gotta wonder about people who proclaim their profound irrational fears in public. I mean, don't you people have enemies? Do you really want to give them ammunition? Do you really think they won't use it against you? And not just your enemies, but your more evil-minded friends and younger brothers, too.

Oh I have a major phobia all right. You think I'm going to tell you about it? Hahahahaha. Don't bother trying your snakes on me. Our household pet is a lovely snake. Insects? Insects are beautiful and fascinating. Flying? Heights? Love 'em.

Like you'd ever get it out of me. Y'all out there just keep talking about your deepest darkests. Write your old pal Mo and tell her all about it. I'll just go about my business quietly collecting and storing information. Information that could be useful in the future...

A special holiday treat. The word over at Solent's joint was that Myria her own self was back. And I'll be damned, so she is. Huzzah! (Am I the last to know?)

The dollars and cents of maintaining access to the past. While I've never had a tip jar at this site - oh, how noble of me! The riches I have foregone! - I would like to solicit donations for Friends of America's Past, an organization you've encountered many times on this blog. They now have a paypal button, making it more convenient to support their worthy activities. (They are helping, among other things, to defray the legal expenses of the plaintiff scientists in the Kennewick Man case.)

They've also just issued a call for articles (remunerated!) in case your writerly interests take you into that territory.

Mail bag. Is there, I wonder, some necessary correlation between psycho illiteracy and inattention to timeliness? I get email and comments from sane and generally reasonably intelligent people re only current posts. The psycho illiterates appear from god knows where and drop their free-associative performance pieces in long-dead threads, said missives coming to light only through the good offices of MT's comment-mailing function. This morning's gem:

First of all Semetic people are from the middleast not from America, Northern Europen and Russia. That means Arabs are semtic not just Jews. Most of the anti-anything is about Fundamentalist thinking,Jews,Muslims and Christians. Anyone who beleives they are the only ones who are right will usually kill others without a thought. So we have religious fanatics and political fanatics. A world filled with hate for other cultures,race and religion. Americans might be the worst since they have no real history,culture or religion to bind them together as a people.

It makes less sense in context.

Well, yes, whatever, madame. The best of luck to you in your struggles with time and text!

Heard through the grapevine - Re HR 2419, an extract from a letter sent in response to a Democratic Party fund-raising letter from Nancy Pelosi:

"As much as I would like to see the Republicans ousted from control of Congress, I cannot in good faith contribute to the Democratic Party as long as it continues to promote legislation supporting anti-science agendas. One of several possible examples is the Native American Sacred Lands Act (H.R. 2419) introduced into the House by Representative Rahall and 16 other members of Congress. This bill is an affront to all Americans who believe in upholding the Constitution: separation between church and state should apply to all religions, non-Christian as well as Christian."

A fair summation of the philosophical mess underlying certain well-intentioned legislation. So fear not, Mr. Bensky (6th comment), you're not the only one noticing the contradictions crunching underfoot.

But I digress. In order to take a break from this morning's necessary but tedious reading, I pose a question to those more militarily-historically informed than I. A bit of background and meandering: the family went to see Master and Commander the other night. I am no great movie-goer, and have no sophisticated taste in cinema; I generally rouse myself to the theater only for adventure stories/"ripping yarns", so naturally I enjoyed Master and Commander well enough. (And just as naturally, though only familiar by a few novels with the series, I snitted at any departures in the story from the "facts" and my own convictions about that fictional world.) Contra Michael Blowhard, and possibly because I have no familiarity with the actor whatever and therefore don't associate him with anything else, I thought Russell Crowe made a satisfactory Aubrey. (A Charlton Heston in the role? Ludicrous.) But Michael's exactly right in noting how well director Weir conveys the business and logistics of managing such a ship. (Fleck leaned over and Maturin-ly whispered, however, that the "weevils" were not weevil larvae but meal worms.)

I did tend to get confused about who and what was getting damaged in the battle scenes, and was a bit perturbed over coffee the next morning when we got to musing about sails and I couldn't bring up an accurate image of the sail configuraton of the Surprise. Fortunately there are enough Patrick O'Brian fanatics online to aid in the accurate consolidation of memory.

Oh yes, that question I mentioned. The daughter asked how a captured enemy captain would have been dealt with at that time. I thought I could answer that, and I did answer that, though when I had finished answering that, it occurred to me that I had been talking out of my ass. My assumption was that a captured captain or other person of rank would be detained and kept from the action for the duration, but treated as a respected guest. (Am I remembering correctly that Maturin was so treated by his American captors in one of the novels?) Then I cogitated a bit on the fact that the capture in question proceeded from a battle that was not initiated as a straight-up fight between warships, but from a mistaken attempt at the privateering that everyone was practicing right and left. How would the commander of an enemy vessel, an officer and not officially a criminal pirate, have been treated in such circumstances? In reality, not novels, that is. I fear I've been feeding my child a load of rancid lobscouse on this issue.

In jeopardy, or lost but not forgotten. Rooting around for other info, I realized that I've neglected to post a link to this useful synopsis of the fates of very old human remains (> 6000 years) found in the United States.

Good for Nancy Reagan:

"While I can understand the intentions of those seeking to place my husband's face on the dime, I do not support this proposal and I am certain Ronnie would not," she said in a brief statement issued in Los Angeles Friday night. "When our country chooses to honor a great president such as Franklin Roosevelt by placing his likeness on our currency, it would be wrong to remove him and replace him with another.

"It is my hope that the proposed legislation will be withdrawn," Mrs. Reagan's statement concluded.

Running around attempting to rename everything in sight after a still-living leader is so...commie pinko. (Via Tacitus.)

Sacred lands, cont'd. Thanks to Lynxx Pherrett for providing the link for the "sacred lands" bill (H.R. 2419) discussed below. He also alerted me to similar legislation proposed in California. SB 1828 was eventually vetoed by Davis; another such bill, SB 18, has been introduced. Both versions are beset with the same vagueness and troubling "confidentiality" clauses that mark H.R.2419.

Saturnine but not gloomy. Today's image is a lovely view from the Cassini spacecraft.

The archaeological past is negotiable. And we don't mean "negotiating" the past as in constant critical reapparaisal of ideas in view of new evidence, fresh insights, or re-evaluation of old evidence. If you're not familiar with the topic, here's a very good article on the politics of the repatriation of remains.

Concerning a different but related issue is this new bill presented in the House this summer, whose purpose is "to protect sacred Native American Federal land from significant damage". I'll be digging up more info and writing more about it, but you might want to take a look at that link and chew on the implications. First, you might want to consider the definition of federal land - "(1) FEDERAL LAND- The term `Federal land' means any land or interests in land owned by the United States, including leasehold interests held by the United States, except Indian trust lands" - and then google up a map of the U.S. with federal land delineated.

For now I'll just point out a few more definitions and items of interest in the bill. [All italic emphasis mine - mb]

SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE- The term `significant damage' means any action or activity which results in the loss of the sacred meaning and value of the site to the affected Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian organization.

Hmmm. A lot of land and a lot of vagueness we've got here.

(1) IN GENERAL- Any Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian organization shall have the right to petition any department or agency of the United States with administrative jurisdiction over Federal land to have Federal land under the jurisdiction of that department or agency designated as unsuitable for any or certain types of undertaking.

(2) SUPPORTING EVIDENCE- Such a petition shall contain allegations of facts with supporting evidence which would tend to establish the allegations. Oral history and Native science shall be given no less weight than any other evidence. After an Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian organization has filed a petition under this section, and before the hearing as required by this subsection, any person may file allegations of facts, with supporting evidence, that are relevant to the petition.

If you're curious about the definition of "Native science", it is provided:

(4) NATIVE SCIENCE- The term `Native science'--

(A) means the oral knowledge of Native Americans gained throughout history by observation and experience;

(B) embodies traditional tribal lifestyles and values;

(C) is based on the fundamental belief of the sanctity of all life;

(D) is guided by principles that include interdependency, reciprocity, and the significance of place;

(E) is a living, spiritual knowledge of the relationships between the land, natural resources, and the environment; and

(F) is transferred from one generation to the next often through oral tradition and practice.

You might want to ponder that for a bit, but to my mind an even more interesting part of the bill concerns "confidentiality":

(a) IN GENERAL- Notwithstanding section 5 of title 5, United States Code (commonly known as the Freedom of Information Act) or any other law, no information obtained as a result of or in connection with a petition filed or a hearing held under this Act that contains a reference pertaining to a specific detail of a Native American traditional cultural practice or religion, or the significance of an Indian or Native Hawaiian sacred land, or the location of that sacred land, shall be released except as provided in subsection (c). [Subsection (c) allows a waiver of this section by petitioners.]

Now let me see what more I can find out about the status of this bill.

(Thanks to Friends of America's Past for the alert.)