I don't watch network news -- ever. however, I was hoping to see how NBC dealt with MSNBC's David Shuster and the sh!t-storm over his "pimping out Chelsea" comment. The didn't. But I did end up seeing one of the most fascinating stories about blogging ever -- a voice from the distant past, digitalized for our edification and education.

This is part of a convergence of events around WWI that has taken place in my life over the last few weeks.

Right before Christmas, one of the men from our church gave me a copy of his father's WWI memoir, Argonne Days in World War I. I find it humbling to read the words of an actual doughboy, who constructed this memoir from notes kept in a book of scripture given him and his fellow soldiers by the YMCA.

As i'm working my way through the book, I am also preparing to teach about "The Great War" in the next couple weeks, so I am re-immersing myself in the ins-and-outs of the conflict.

And now I this fascinating website, composed of slowly unfolding letters of a British Tommy, William Henry Bonser Lamin, better known as Harry to his family and his mates. It makes for fascinating reading, nine decades after they were first written.

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It is a number that I had never really considered before -- there are some 88,000 missing American servicemen from the wars of the twentieth century, 79,000 of them from WWII.

Of those, the remains of some 35,000 are classified as "recoverable" by the military, generally meaning that they were not lost at sea.

More than six decades after the end of World War II, the families of men like Joe Huba are making a new push to find and bring home the remains of their missing and dead. After years when survivors accepted the solace of mass memorials and unknown-soldier graves, a younger generation is seeking something much more personal.

The relatives are spurred by strides in DNA matching, satellite mapping and Internet archives, and by a new advocacy group impatient with the pace of the military unit that tracks down remains.

“We owe these men for giving their lives — we can’t just leave them in jungles, on mountainsides,” said Lisa Phillips, 45, president of the group, World War II Families for the Return of the Missing, which was formed in 2006 to compete with organizations pressing for recoveries from the conflicts in Vietnam and Korea. “There’s that saying, ‘No one left behind,’ and we’ve left a generation behind.”

The search has its pitfalls, Ms. Phillips admits. Discoveries about how a loved one died can prove more disturbing than ignorance. International swindles and treasure hunters complicate the sheer challenge of identifying remains after so many years.

And some relatives have come up empty-handed after expensive private searches, like a Minnesota man who has spent thousands of dollars on underwater dives off Yap Island in the South Pacific without finding his uncleÂ’s sunken B-24.

The sad reality is that many of these heroes will never make it home. But the desire to keep looking -- to find that loved one for the surviving family members -- is strong. And even if remains are truly unrecoverable, we do have an obligation to try to honor them as fully as they honored our nation by giving their lives for us.

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As well they should – these drawings are important cultural monuments to freedom of expression.

Denmark's national library is to risk re-opening an international political storm by housing the cartoon images of the prophet Muhammad that provoked violent convulsions throughout the Islamic world two years ago.

The royal library in Copenhagen - founded in the 17th century by King Frederik III and home to many historic treasures - has declared the drawings to be of historic value and is trying to acquire them for "preservation purposes".

The library, widely acknowledged as the most significant in Scandinavia, has agreed to take possession of the caricatures on behalf of the museum of Danish cartoon art, a spokesman told the Art Newspaper.

Congratulations to Denmark for taking a stand for freedom once again. They are standing before the surging barbarian horde, intent upon remaining free men and women rather than submitting to yoke of those who would enslave them.

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Two Clinton lies for the price of one.

First, Hillary Clinton.

Matt Lauer: "You have said, I understand, to some close friends, that this is the last great battle, and that one side or the other is going down here."

Hillary Clinton: "Well, I don't know if I've been that dramatic. That would sound like a good line from a movie. But I do believe that this is a battle. I mean, look at the very people who are involved in this — they have popped up in other settings. This is — the great story here for anybody willing to find it and write about it and explain it is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president."

Of course we now know that the only conspiracy out there was one by the Clintons to lie their way out of Bill Clinton's infidelity and perjury, and to recast anyone who was concerned about the integrity of the presidency and the judicial process as involved in a conspiracy to bring down her husband (who had a government employee going down on him on government time).

And then that evening we got this lie from her husband during the State of the Union Address.

Together, we must confront the new hazards of chemical and biological weapons and the outlaw states, terrorists, and organized criminals seeking to acquire them. Saddam Hussein has spent the better part of this decade and much of his nation's wealth not on providing for the Iraqi people but on developing nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. The United Nations weapons inspectors have done a truly remarkable job finding and destroying more of Iraq's arsenal than was destroyed during the entire Gulf war. Now Saddam Hussein wants to stop them from completing their mission.

I know I speak for everyone in this chamber, Republicans and Democrats, when I say to Saddam Hussein, "You cannot defy the will of the world," and when I say to him, "You have used weapons of mass destruction before. We are determined to deny you the capacity to use them again."

President Bill Clinton
January 27, 1998

Wait -- you mean that wasn't a lie? But I thought it was a lie -- after all, Democrats (including both Clintons) have accused George W. Bush of "lying the nation into war" for using the same intelligence (and more) to reach the same conclusion as Bill Clinton had reached five years before. That means that we are stuck with the conclusion that Bill Clinton was lying to us in 1998 -- or that the Clintons and other Democrats are lying to us now for partisan advantage, damage to our national security and trust in the institutions of government be damned. You decide -- and realize that either way you have to conclude that Bill Clinton is a liar.

But we already knew that.

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"Now, I have to go back to work on my State of the Union speech. And I worked on it until pretty late last night. But I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I'm going to say this again: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time; never. These allegations are false. And I need to go back to work for the American people. Thank you."

President Bill Clinton
January 26, 1998

An astute observation from Andrew Sullivan regarding Bill and Hillary Clinton.

This couple really do corrupt everything they touch.

And some things have not changed in 10 years.

Bill and Hillary Clinton have been giving America the finger for the last 16 years. Let's return the favor.

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And perhaps one day the dream will become a reality.

Until then, we will be stuck with affirmative action programs and racial set-asides that judge by the color or one's skin, not the color of one's character.

When, oh when, will this nation live by the prophetic words of the man this day was set aside to honor?

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Quick -- tell me what this Houston Chronicle editorial leaves out.

On the federal holiday that honors Martin Luther King Jr., the civil rights leader's legacy has become the subject of a presidential campaign controversy.

It shouldn't be.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, seeking to make the point that action speaks louder than words, dreams and visions, noted that passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act required the signature of President Lyndon Johnson as well as the leadership of King. Her analogy was not well-taken. King famously had a dream of a colorblind society, yet he also acted, organized, preached, mobilized and suffered the persecution of authorities in the segregated South.

As Joseph Califano Jr., an aide in President Johnson's White House, wrote in an article in Sunday's Outlook section, passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act outlawing discrimination in employment, education and public accommodation required a political partnership — King's stirring leadership and Johnson's mastery of Congress. King knew that the realization of his dreams needed presidential initiative. He asked Johnson for it, and Johnson complied, taking the risk that the South would move for generations into the Republican column.

The end to segregation followed the actions of thousands of lawyers, judges, freedom riders and civil rights workers, and more than a few martyrs.

One could argue, perhaps perversely, that the brutality of police officers in the South, captured by television cameras, hastened the end of segregation by searing the grotesque injustice and oppression on Americans' psyches.

When King was assassinated in 1968, Johnson called on Congress to pass the Fair Housing Act as a tribute King's life and work.

King's role is open to interpretation, but arguing whether he or Johnson was more instrumental in the battle for civil rights is a faulty dilemma. Both played their parts. Today's mock controversy over Clinton's remarks is silly, yet it serves to remind Americans that King's legacy survives and matters.

Did you catch it? You didn't? Really?

Nowhere does this editorial mention the contribution of the party that provided overwhelming support for the 1664 Civil Rights Act AND the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Nowhere is mentioned the party that sought a stronger civil rights bill in 1957, and had in fact been at the forefront of civil rights legislation for nearly a century -- including being repeatedly frustrated in its attempt to pass anti-lynching legislation.

And which party was that? The Republican Party, of course.

The Democrats opposed every civil rights law in American history before 1964. And as it was, the Republican party voted by an 80% majority in favor of the legislation, while Democrats could barely muster a 2/3 vote despite all the arm-twisting of a president of their own party seeking reelection.

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That's right -- 125 years ago today the terms of the Emancipation Proclamation became effective.

On New Year's Day in 1863, the Republican Party's Emancipation Proclamation came into effect. While Republicans rejoiced, Democrat politicians and newspapers denounced President Abraham Lincoln (R-IL) for freeing slaves. Demonstrating their depravity, New York's Gov. Horatio Seymour, who would be the 1868 Democrat presidential nominee, denounced the Emancipation Proclamation as "a proposal for the butchery of women and children." The Louisville Daily Democrat called it "an outrage of all constitutional law, all human justice, all Christian feeling."

Republicans celebrated. Democrats vocally objected. And to this day, the GOP remains the party of freedom and equal rights for all Americans.

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I wouldn't be surprised if this act of arson was precisely that. After all, why else hit this tiny museum exhibit?

A home where President George W. Bush lived as a young boy with his parents in Odessa, Texas, and that is now part of a presidential museum there was damaged on Thursday by a fire that investigators blamed on arson.

"I can tell you it has been determined that it was intentionally set, but I cannot discuss anything about evidence or possible suspects because this is an ongoing criminal investigation," said city of Odessa spokeswoman Andrea Goodson.

Museum administrator Lettie England said no motive for the blaze had been determined and there was no reason at this point to believe it was a political act. She said there were no notes or messages left at the scene.

England said in a telephone interview from the west Texas city that the arsonist spread some kind of flammable liquid on the door and front windows and set the fire.

Now I'll be honest -- I don't necessarily see this old house as particularly significant in any historical sense. Indeed, I'm at a loss as to why anyone would find this to be a building worth preserving, given that the seven months of the toddlerhood of the current President is probably not particularly significant, nor is that particular time frame really important to the lives of his parents. But regardless, torching the place cannot be defended.

Now the police have not assigned a motive for the blaze, which is classified as arson. But I really can't think of a more likely reason for the attack, because there would surely be easier targets for someone to hit.

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When I was 14 or 15, I had the opportunity to see the King Tut exhibit at the Field Museum in Chicago. I remember standing about three feet from the case, just staring, with a sense of awe and wonder as I gazed at an artifact that was more than 200 time my age. To this day, I shudder as I think back upon that experience and my nearness to such a significant piece of human history.

And tonight, I find myself reveling in a similar experience -- yet one that is in some ways even more profound. You see, only a sheet of polycarbonate glass stood between my hand and this wonder today.

Yes, that is one of the most significant fossil finds in human history Lucy (known also as Dinkenesh in Ethiopia). She is currently on exhibit here in Houston until late April. I remember reading about the discovery of this fossil in the newspaper back when I was in sixth grade or so, and being amazed by the discover. I could not have imagined the opportunity to actually see this early hominid fossil up close. Call me a history geek if you want, but I found myself near to tears as I gazed down on this collection of fossilized bones and considered their significance.

Let me offer two videos of note related to this topic.

The first is about the exhibit here in Houston.

The second is about the discovery of Lucy and her significance to the stucddy of human evolution.

I encourage you to see this exhibit if you are near to Houston in the next few months -- and if it comes to a city near you while it is in this country, make a point of seeing it. It also is quite informative about the history of Ethiopia up to the modern day, and has many interesting cultural artifacts.

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A Republic not a Monarchy.

There is a Christmas story at the birth of this country that very few Americans know. It involves a single act by George Washington -- his refusal to take absolute power -- that affirms our own deepest beliefs about self-government, and still has profound meaning in today's world. To appreciate its significance, however, we must revisit a dark period at the end of America's eight-year struggle for independence.

The story begins with Gen. Washington's arrival in Annapolis, Md., on Dec. 19, 1783. The country was finally at peace -- just a few weeks earlier the last British army on American soil had sailed out of New York harbor. But the previous eight months had been a time of terrible turmoil and anguish for Gen. Washington, outwardly always so composed. His army had been discharged and sent home, unpaid, by a bankrupt Congress -- without a victory parade or even a statement of thanks for their years of sacrifices and sufferings.

George Washington could have seized power.

His officers and men would have supported him.

The powers of Europe would have certainly reacted favorably.

And we might well live today with some royal family or other ruling over us, with not the notion of "a republican form of government" nothing but a pipe=dream of a few political scientists and philosophers.

Instead, Washington committed an act of moral and political heroism that ultimately lead to the creation of the nation we know today. Read about it here.

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While we are talking about Pearl Harbor on this sixty-sixth anniversary of the Japanese attack on the Pacific Fleet, I'd like to repost this piece from last year, one that has special significance to me.

Today is the sixty-fifth anniversary of the sneak attack on Pearl harbor by the Japanese. Today's New York Times carries a special section dealing with the recovery from the attack -- with pictures and articles censored and locked away during the war, with a special focus on the civilian shipyard workers brought to Pearl to aid in the recovery.

In the months after Dec. 7, a sleepy shipyard went into hyperdrive, pulling off unprecedented feats of engineering that The Times’s Robert Trumbull described in a series that is excerpted on today’s Op-Ed page. The Japanese had crippled the fleet but left the Navy base’s immense oil storage tanks untouched, making it possible to ramp up the shipyard for 24-hour duty. The Navy and the civilians made it up as they went along: The U.S.S. Oklahoma, flipped with its belly exposed, was righted by a fantastical arrangement of cables and winches out of “Gulliver’s Travels.”

In May 27, 1942, the carrier Yorktown, severely damaged in the Battle of the Coral Sea, pulled into port and was immediately swarmed upon by more than 1,400 workers. She sailed out again on the 30th, fit to fight in the Battle of Midway.

The local labor force was supplemented by a flood of thousands of workers, mostly bachelor men, shipped in from the states. Their lives centered around the shipyard and Civilian Housing Area III, population 12,000 at its peak and suddenly Hawaii’s third-largest city after Honolulu and Hilo. It had its own train station, bus fleet, police department, baseball fields, boxing arenas, theater, post office, stadium and football tournament, the Poi Bowl. And it had a newspaper, The Pearl Harbor Banner, filled with small-town news items (“Five Hundred Pairs of Shoes Salvaged Here,” “Fresh Vegetables Now Assured”), photos, sports scores and updates from the front.

One of those civilians was Fred Bagley, My maternal grandfather, who was recruited in Providence, Rhode Island, to help bring the Pacific Fleet back to fighting strength. This special section therefore has a special meaning to me, thirty-seven years after a heart attack took him away from me. I never got to hear the stories that I know he had to share, so I will count this as a chance to learn a little more about him and what he did during the war.

I encourage readers to take the time to read about the work of thousands of men whose efforts were so important to the war, but whose work is often overlooked as we rightly honor those who fought and died.

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How did Pearl Harbor impact the lives of those in Hawaii. I've often wondered, but have never looked at the question in depth. I appreciate this article today for doing exactly that.

Children carried gas masks to the playground. Military officers commanded civilian courts under martial law. Residents feared that enemy troops would parachute into the mountains and then swarm the beaches.

This year's 66th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor offers reminders of how the assault upended the lives of Hawaii's civilians, in addition to the severe damage inflicted on the military.

"It was scary," said Joan Martin Rodby, who had to carry a gas mask everywhere as a 10-year-old -- even as she sat for her fifth-grade class portrait in 1942. "It was more or less living in constant fear they were always going to come back."

Annual remembrances of the Dec. 7, 1941, attack often evoke images of burning ships in Pearl Harbor and exploding planes at Hickam Field. This year's observance will be no different. But the plight of civilians who survived the attack has attracted more attention because of deepening interest in the home front during World War II.

"Maybe the unsung heroes that we should remember and look at are the civilians that endured the attack on Pearl Harbor and the years after it," said Daniel Martinez, chief historian at the USS Arizona Memorial.

At this great distance from the events of December 7, 1941, we face the reality that those who lived the events of that day are dying. It is important that we hold on to these memories, so that future generations know the full impact of the attack that dragged an unwilling nation into war. Thank you to the Washington Post, and reporter Audrey McAvoy, for enabling us to hold on to that history.

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If Ronald Reagan engaged in racist behavior for appealing to white southerners at the Neshoba County Fair, then so did another candidate who liberals like Paul Krugman and Bob Hebert always forget to mention.

Krugman and Herbert also forgot to chide 1988 Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis for speaking atÂ…the Neshoba County Fair! The Massachusetts governor ignored Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner on the 24^th anniversary of their murders, which were committed about 12 miles away.

So, is Michael Dukakis a racist? You know, especially since, as Kevin Drum points out, he was there seeking to appeal to white Southern conservatives. Was Dukakis a racist – especially given his failure to note that he was speaking on the ACTUAL ANNIVERSARY of the discovery of the bodies of the slain civil rights workers. So if Reagan was engaging in a racist strategy, how can Dukakis not be so condemned – unless, of course, the critics are really engaged in a rank act of political hypocrisy with their application of a double standard. Especially since, as the New York Times itself noted at the time, the fair had nearly a century of history as a prime campaign spot for candidates – one which predated the murders and which continues into the present day.

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Is there nothing that Leonardo could not do?

It's a new Da Vinci code, but this time it could be for real. An Italian musician and computer technician claims to have uncovered musical notes encoded in Leonardo Da Vinci's "Last Supper," raising the possibility that the Renaissance genius might have left behind a somber composition to accompany the scene depicted in the 15th-century wall painting.
"It sounds like a requiem," Giovanni Maria Pala said. "It's like a soundtrack that emphasizes the passion of Jesus."

Painted from 1494 to 1498 in Milan's Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, the "Last Supper" vividly depicts a key moment in the Gospel narrative: Jesus' last meal with the 12 Apostles before his arrest and crucifixion, and the shock of Christ's followers as they learn that one of them is about to betray him.

The case made is interesting – and the illustration does show what could be interpreted as the notation for Gregorian Chant. This could certainly make for an interesting topic for scholarly debate for years.

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You know, for those of you who were taught that Joe McCarthy made such things up, and that there were not penetrations of sensitive programs and agencies by ideologues working for Moscow.

He had all-American cover: born in Iowa, college in Manhattan, Army buddies with whom he played baseball.

George Koval also had a secret. During World War II, he was a top Soviet spy, code named Delmar and trained by StalinÂ’s ruthless bureau of military intelligence.

Atomic spies are old stuff. But historians say Dr. Koval, who died in his 90s last year in Moscow and whose name is just coming to light publicly, was probably one of the most important spies of the 20th century.

On Nov. 2, the Kremlin startled Western scholars by announcing that President Vladimir V. Putin had posthumously given the highest Russian award to a Soviet agent who penetrated the Manhattan Project to build the atom bomb.

The announcement hailed Dr. Koval as “the only Soviet intelligence officer” to infiltrate the project’s secret plants, saying his work “helped speed up considerably the time it took for the Soviet Union to develop an atomic bomb of its own.”

Of course, we've known for years that stuff like this went on, but a loud chorus of denial cried out from the Left. Even now, when mounds of evidence has shown there were communists in the Departments of State and Defense and that the Rosenbergs and Alger Hiss were guilty as sin, those who espouse such positions are called Red-baiters. Will one more candid admission by the heirs of the Kremlin do anything to lay to rest the canard that there was no Red Menace? I'd like to hope that it would, but I fear that ideology will continue to trump truth on this matter.

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In 1980, Ronald Reagan spoke to a county fair near Philadelphia, Mississippi. It has often been claimed that the event was an appeal to racism by the Republican candidate, given a civil rights atrocity committed by members of the Democrat Party's paramilitary terrorist wing, the KKK, sixteen years earlier. Often overlooked was the fact that in the same week he gave a speech to the National Urban League which was a specific outreach to black Americans by pomising an agenda for economic opportunity.

New York Times columnist David Brooks sorts out the history of the speech and how it came to be given.

Reagan’s speech at the fair was short and cheerful, and can be heard at: www.onlinemadison.com/ftp/reagan/reaganneshoba.mp3. He told several jokes, and remarked: “I know speaking to this crowd, I’m speaking to a crowd that’s 90 percent Democrat.”

He spoke mostly about inflation and the economy, but in the middle of a section on schools, he said this: “Programs like education and others should be turned back to the states and local communities with the tax sources to fund them. I believe in states’ rights. I believe in people doing as much as they can at the community level and the private level.”

The use of the phrase “states’ rights” didn’t spark any reaction in the crowd, but it led the coverage in The Times and The Post the next day.

Reagan flew to New York and delivered his address to the Urban League, in which he unveiled an urban agenda, including enterprise zones and an increase in the minimum wage. He was received warmly, but not effusively. Much of the commentary that week was about whether ReaganÂ’s outreach to black voters would work.

You can look back on this history in many ways. It’s callous, at least, to use the phrase “states’ rights” in any context in Philadelphia. Reagan could have done something wonderful if he’d mentioned civil rights at the fair. He didn’t. And it’s obviously true that race played a role in the G.O.P.’s ascent.

Still, the agitprop version of this week — that Reagan opened his campaign with an appeal to racism — is a distortion, as honest investigators ranging from Bruce Bartlett, who worked for the Reagan administration and is the author of “Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy,” to Kevin Drum, who writes for Washington Monthly, have concluded.

But still the slur spreads. ItÂ’s spread by people who, before making one of the most heinous charges imaginable, couldnÂ’t even take 10 minutes to look at the evidence. It posits that there was a master conspiracy to play on the alleged Klan-like prejudices of American voters, when there is no evidence of that conspiracy. And, of course, in a partisan age there are always people eager to believe this stuff.

Of course there is such an audience, given that the version attacking Reagan fits the false narrative built up by Democrat partisans about the GOP being a party of uneducated racists -- a narrative which is racist in its disregard for southern whites. ANd indeed, it overlooks the fact that, as Reagan points out in the speech, much of his audience was composed of Democrats -- folks who may have voted for Reagan that fall, but who also cast ballots for Democrats for every other office in that same election.

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Given that the "mint-on-the-pillow" Democrats constantly insist that failure to include that amenity constitutes a war crime at Guantanamo Bay, let's take a look at a book that examines real war crimes.

The perpetrators of some of the worst atrocities of the Second World War remain alive and unpunished in Japan, according to a damning new book.

Painstaking research by British historian Mark Felton reveals that the wartime behaviour of the Japanese Navy was far worse than their counterparts in Hitler's Kriegsmarine.

According to Felton, officers of the Imperial Japanese Navy ordered the deliberately sadistic murders of more than 20,000 Allied seamen and countless civilians in cold-blooded defiance of the Geneva Convention.

One favored tactic? Beheading prisoners. Sound like anyone we know today? That would be the so-called "freedom fighters" that Michael Moore and Cindy Sheehan say are the moral equivalent of America's founding fathers.

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As a history teacher, one of the things of which I am acutely aware is that history is all around us -- and today's current events are tomorrow's history. Our public figures and pop culture icons will be remembered tomorrow as the folks who shaped history and culture for an era. And each day, a little bit of history dies as we lose the participants in key events of earlier generations.

Yesterday was one of those days when there was no doubt that we lost a major figure in an important event.

Brig. Gen. Paul W. Tibbets Jr., the commander and pilot of the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in the final days of World War II, died today at his home in Columbus, Ohio. He was 92.

His death was announced by a friend, Gerry Newhouse, who said General Tibbets had been in decline with a variety of ailments. Mr. Newhouse said General Tibbets had requested that there be no funeral or headstone, fearing it would give his detractors a place to protest.

In the hours before dawn on Aug. 6, 1945, the Enola Gay lifted off from the island of Tinian carrying a uranium atomic bomb assembled under extraordinary secrecy in the vast endeavor known as the Manhattan Project.

Six and a half hours later, under clear skies, then-Colonel Tibbets, of the Army Air Forces, guided the four-engine plane he had named in honor of his mother toward the bombÂ’s aiming point, the T-shaped Aioi Bridge in the center of Hiroshima, the site of an important Japanese army headquarters.

At 8:15 a.m. local time, the bomb known to its creators as Little Boy dropped free at an altitude of 31,000 feet. Forty-three seconds later, at 1,890 feet above ground zero, it exploded in a nuclear inferno that left tens of thousands dead and dying and turned much of Hiroshima, a city of some 250,000 at the time, into a scorched ruin.

Colonel Tibbets executed a well-rehearsed diving turn to avoid the blast effect.

In his memoir “The Tibbets Story,” he told of “the awesome sight that met our eyes as we turned for a heading that would take us alongside the burning, devastated city.”

“The giant purple mushroom, which the tail-gunner had described, had already risen to a height of 45,000 feet, 3 miles above our own altitude, and was still boiling upward like something terribly alive,” he remembered.

It is easy for us today to question the morality of dropping the atomic bomb when and where we did. That said, there was no question that those in 1945 saw it as an appropriate decision, one that would shorten the war and ultimately save American lives. That there are those today who would revile Paul Tibbetts and his crew is symptomatic of a fundamental conceit that prevails in modern society -- the assumption that contemporary moral outlooks are somehow morally and intellectually superior to those made by other people at other times. Rather than place ourselves in the shoes of those intimately involved in historical events and seek to understand the, too many people would instead look askance at the failure of men and women of an earlier age to act and think like men and women living in the early twenty-first century.

This is not to say that we shouldn't question the morality or wisdom of the actions of historical figures -- indeed, we debated just such issues during a discussion of the slave trade in my classes this week. But as students of history, it is more important that we understand what was done and the reasons why, and to draw lessons accordingly.

And so America now bids farewell to a hero -- one whose deeds helped to end the most horrific conflict of the twentieth century. And if there is room for questioning the wisdom and the correctness of the policy decision that led Paul Tibbetts and his crew to drop the first atomic bomb ever used as a weapon, there can be no question of the importance of the men of Enola Gay -- or their heroism and love of country.

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You know, Leon Jaworski has been a hero to Democrats for decades. Now it has been shown that he was willing to let a guilty white murderer go free to ensure the conviction of innocent black soldiers.

Fortunately, it appears that belated justice is being done.

Guglielmo Olivotto, an Italian prisoner of war, died with a noose around his neck, lynched at a military post on Puget Sound 63 years ago. Samuel Snow, 83, hopes that people will stop blaming him and the 27 other black soldiers convicted of starting the riot that led to Mr. OlivottoÂ’s death. It was one of the largest Army courts-martial of World War II.

This week, a review board issued a ruling that could lead to overturning the convictions of all 28 soldiers, granting honorable discharges and providing them with back pay.

The board found that the court-martial was flawed, that the defense was unjustly rushed and that the prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, a young lieutenant colonel who went on to fame three decades later as a Watergate special prosecutor, had important evidence that he did not share with defense lawyers.

All of the 28 have died except for Mr. Snow and another soldier.

Leon Jaworski went on to fame and fortune after railroading these men. Why did he ignore the evidence and insist upon sending them to prison? Could it have been the race of Jaworski's victims -- and of the murderer?

And I wonder -- Jaworski's grandson, Joe Jaworski, is seeking to unseat my state senator. Will he have the integrity to condemn his grandfather for this clear example of prosecutorial misconduct?

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It appears that they may have found the seal of one of the most infamous women of the Bible.

An ancient seal that surfaced in Israel more than four decades ago belonged to the biblical Queen Jezebel, according to a new study released on Tuesday by a Dutch university.

The seal, which some scholars date to the ninth century BCE, was first discovered in 1964 by the Israeli archeologist Nahman Avigad, with the name "Yzbl" inscribed in ancient Hebrew, Utrecht University said.

Although it was initially assumed that the seal belonged to Jezebel, the powerful and reviled Phoenician wife of the Jewish King Ahab, there was uncertainty regarding the original owner both because the spelling of the name was erroneous, and because the personal seal could easily have belonged to another woman of the same name.

Moreover, the unknown origin of the seal, which was not found in an official excavation but purchased on the antiquities market in Israel, has left Israeli archeologists uncertain of its ownership for the last 40 years.

But the study by Utrecht University Old Testament scholar and Protestant minister Dr. Marjo Korpel, 48, concludes that the seal must have belonged to Jezebel, based on the symbols that appear on it.

Will it ever be possible to authenticate the seal with 100% certainty? No, it won’t – but once again, we have archaeological evidence that seems to corroborate the existence of biblical figures. And while that doesn’t “prove” that the Bible is 100% accurate, it does show that it contains at least some elements of historical truth not available elsewhere.

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The Austrians are facing this issue right now – and not to the satisfaction of some groups tracking those involved in documenting the Holocaust.

She seems harmless enough now, the elderly figure in a dressing gown peering round the door to her flat.

Erna Wallisch, an 85-year-old grandmother, rarely ventures out, spending her days drinking coffee and being cared for by her family.

But the image she presents belies a dark past which has put her seventh on the Simon Wiesenthal Centre's list of most-wanted Nazi war criminals still at large.

Under Austria’s laws, the statute of limitations has run out on Wallisch’s crimes. But are there some crimes that deserve no statute of limitations? Is there no place else that she could be prosecuted – perhaps Poland or Israel? How long should participation in crimes against humanity be subject to punishment – or should such individuals be subject to the perpetual threat of punishment for their participation in genocide?

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This is the first of its kind -- First Temple artifacts found on Temple Mount.

The unauthorized dig of a trench this past summer by the Moslem Waqf on the Temple Mount, in the course of which it was assumed that precious findings were destroyed, apparently had a thin silver lining. Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) personnel monitoring the trench-digging have, for the first time, found traces of the First Temple.

* * *

Archaeological examination of a small section of this level, led by Jerusalem District Archaeologist Yuval Baruch, uncovered fragments of ceramic table wares, animal bones, and more. The finds date from the 8th to 6th centuries BCE; the First Temple existed between the 9th and 5th centuries BCE, having been built by King Solomon in 832 and destroyed in 422.

This will certainly make it harder for those who claim the Jews never had a temple on Temple Mount -- but then again, the Muslim radicals don't really care about historical finds like this one.

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Our ancestors wiped them out tens of thousands of years ago. Were they able to call for help? New evidence indicates that perhaps they could.

Neanderthals, an archaic human species that dominated Europe until the arrival of modern humans some 45,000 years ago, possessed a critical gene known to underlie speech, according to DNA evidence retrieved from two individuals excavated from El Sidron, a cave in northern Spain.

The new evidence stems from analysis of a gene called FOXP2 which is associated with language. The human version of the gene differs at two critical points from the chimpanzee version, suggesting that these two changes have something to do with the fact that people can speak and chimps cannot.

The genes of Neanderthals seemed to have passed into oblivion when they vanished from their last refuges in Spain and Portugal some 30,000 years ago, almost certainly driven to extinction by modern humans. But recent work by Svante Paabo, a biologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, has made it clear that some Neanderthal DNA can be extracted from fossils.

That is an exciting use of DNA to learn more about the past, including the development of the human species.

Of course, there is other evidence of Neanderthals being able to speak -- and type.

H/T Malkin

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Professor David Currie of the University of Chicago, a great scholar, passed away this week. This report comes in from the Volokh Conspiracy about a great resource provided by the school.

Via the University of Chicago Law Faculty blog, I learn that the Chicago website has posted an MP3 file recorded in 2006 of the late Professor David Currie reading the U.S. Constitution (link to the hosting page rather than the file). It's a big file, but a download is well worth it: Currie has a marvelous voice, and hearing the Constitution read aloud gives you a particularly keen sense of the structure and internal consistency of the document. Super cool.

I've downloaded it -- you should, too.

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This is cool stuff – stashed away for seven centuries, we can now get access to the evidence that was used to destroy that famous order of Crusader Knights, the Knights Templar.

The Vatican has published secret archive documents about the trial of the Knights Templar, including a long-lost parchment that shows that Pope Clement V initially absolved the medieval Christian order from accusations of heresy, officials said Friday.

The 300-page volume recently came out in a limited edition -- 799 copies -- each priced at $8,377, said Scrinium publishing house, which prints documents from the Vatican's secret archives.

* * *

The work reproduces the entire documentation on the papal hearings convened after King Philip IV of France arrested and tortured Templar leaders in 1307 under charges of heresy and immorality.

The military order of the Poor Knights of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon was founded in 1118 in Jerusalem to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land following the First Crusade.

As their military might increased, the Templars also grew in wealth, acquiring property throughout Europe and running a primitive banking system. After the Templars left the Middle East with the collapse of the Crusader kingdoms, their power and secretive ways aroused the fear of European rulers and sparked accusations of corruption and blasphemy.

Historians believe that Philip owed debts to the Templars and seized on the accusations to arrest their leaders and extort confessions of heresy under torture as a way to seize the order's riches.

Of particular interest is the fact that Pope Clement was prepared to absolve the Templars of the heresy charge, only to relent later and suppress the order at the insistence of Phillip. Given that this is an area of history that IÂ’m not familiar with, IÂ’d love to know more.

However, I won’t be buying this book – at over $8000, it is well beyond my reach.

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To this day, Turkey denies the Armenian genocide.

Not only that, it punishes its citizens who speak of the Armenian genocide.

And it also rails against those outside its borders who dare to speak the truth about the Armenian genocide.

Turkey reacted angrily Thursday to a House committee vote in Washington to condemn as genocide the mass killings of Armenians in Turkey that began during World War I, recalling its ambassador from Washington and threatening to withdraw its support for the Iraq war.

In uncharacteristically strong language, President Abdullah Gul criticized the vote by the House Foreign Relations Committee in a statement to the semi-official Anatolian News Agency, and warned that the decision could work against the United States.

“Unfortunately, some politicians in the United States have once more dismissed calls for common sense, and made an attempt to sacrifice big issues for minor domestic political games,” President Gul said.

Sorry, but the shameful thing here is that it has taken over two decades for even one committee in Congress to say what Ronald Reagan did some twenty years ago -- that the Armenians were systematically murdered by the Turks, including the beloved hero and founder of secular Turkey, Kemal Ataturk. No president since that time has had the intellectual honesty and moral courage to stand up and repeat the truth uttered by the greatest president of the twentieth century -- and his successors have actively discouraged officially acknowledging that truth.

Does this vote come at a bad time, in terms of our military and diplomatic relations with Turkey, a valued ally in NATO, which has provided, albeit inconsistently, assistance in the War on Terror? Yes, it does -- because for the Turks, any time that anyone attempts to set the historical record straight is a bad time. The current threats and rumblings are therefore irrelevant.

But those who support the resolution can count their blessings on one score -- no longer are those who publicly proclaim th truth about the Armenian genocide subject to death threats and untimely deaths at the hands of Turkish nationalists and intelligence agencies.

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The genocide of the Armenian people by the Turks in the early 20th century is clearly documented historical fact -- and was even cited by Hitler as evidence that the world would stand by and allow him to destroy the Jews.

Bravo to one committee of House of Representatives for daring to speak the truth on this matter in the face of White House pressure to respect the sensitivities of the nation that perpetrated that crime against humanity.

The Bush administration will try to soothe Turkish anger after a House panelÂ’s approval of a measure describing as genocide the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians early in the last century.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee defied warnings by President Bush with 27-21 approval Wednesday to send the measure to the full House for a vote. The administration will now try to pressure Democratic leaders not to schedule a vote, though it is expected to pass.

Hours before the vote, Bush and his top two Cabinet members and other senior officials made last-minute appeals to lawmakers to reject the measure.

“Its passage would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in NATO and in the global war on terror,” Bush said.

I urge the House leadership to schedule a vote quickly -- and the Senate to take up the matter promptly. We must bear witness to the truth.

And to President Bush, let me say that your actions in this instance shame our country. What next -- a call to tear down the Holocaust Museum to spare the feelings of the Germans?

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DNA tests may finally answer that question for us.

When schoolchildren turn to the chapter on Christopher ColumbusÂ’s humble origins as the son of a weaver in Genoa, they are not generally told that he might instead have been born out of wedlock to a Portuguese prince. Or that he might have been a Jew whose parents converted to escape the Spanish Inquisition. Or a rebel in the medieval kingdom of Catalonia.

Yet with little evidence to support them, multiple theories of ColumbusÂ’s early years have long found devoted proponents among those who would claim alternative bragging rights to the explorer. And now, five centuries after he opened the door to the New World, ColumbusÂ’s revisionist biographers have found a new hope for vindication.

The Age of Discovery has discovered DNA.

In 2004, a Spanish geneticist, Dr. Jose A. Lorente, extracted genetic material from a cache of ColumbusÂ’s bones in Seville to settle a dispute about where he was buried. Ever since, he has been beset by amateur historians, government officials and self-styled Columbus relatives of multiple nationalities clamoring for a genetic retelling of the standard textbook tale.

Why the questions?

A Genoese Cristoforo Colombo almost certainly did exist. Archives record his birth and early life. But there is little to tie that man to the one who crossed the Atlantic in 1492. Snippets from ColumbusÂ’s life point all around the southern European coast. He kept books in Catalan and his handwriting has, according to some, a Catalonian flair. He married a Portuguese noblewoman. He wrote in Castilian. He decorated his letters with a Hebrew cartouche.

Intriguing issues, each of which contributes a bit of mystery to this complex man wh "discovered" America -- if one can ever truly be said to have discovered a land already inhabited by others.

In the end, though, one has to wonder what the significance of this debate really is? Yes, as a historian I would like to know the answer to these questions, but are the man's origins really more important than his explorations? Is this game of historical identity politics -- the same sort of issues that get raised when discussing Barack Obama and Tiger Woods -- really more than a sideshow? Whether Genoese or Jew, rebel knight or royal bastard, his voyages and their later impact must always be seen as outweighing his origins.

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The space race kicked into high gear 50 years ago with the launch of Sputnik.

When Sputnik took off 50 years ago, the world gazed at the heavens in awe and apprehension, watching what seemed like the unveiling of a sustained Soviet effort to conquer space and score a stunning Cold War triumph.

But 50 years later, it emerges that the momentous launch was far from being part of a well-planned strategy to demonstrate communist superiority over the West. Instead, the first artificial satellite in space was a spur-of-the-moment gamble driven by the dream of one scientist, whose team scrounged a rocket, slapped together a satellite and persuaded a dubious Kremlin to open the space age.

And that winking light that crowds around the globe gathered to watch in the night sky? Not Sputnik at all, as it turns out, but just the second stage of its booster rocket, according to Boris Chertok, one of the founders of the Soviet space program.

It is interesting to realize just how seat-of-the-pants that first launch really was -- fifty years ago this Thursday.

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More heroes of WWII have been found at the site of their final resting place, entombed forever in the remains of their submarine, USS Grunion.

When famed novelist and sailor Joseph Conrad wrote in 1900, "I have known the sea too long to believe in its respect for decency," perhaps he had some foresight into the mysterious disappearance of a U.S. Navy submarine 42 years later.

The foreboding comment by Conrad, author of sea novels such as "Lord Jim," "Typhoon" and "The Rescue," dramatically applies to the fate of the crew of the submarine USS Grunion and the anguish of the families of the missing whose ship vanished in 1942 while steaming off the coast of Alaska.

The 311-foot, diesel powered Grunion and its 70-member crew had not been heard from for 65 years since they went missing while on patrol off the island of Kiska in the Aleutian Islands.

In early July of 1942, the Grunion had sunk two Japanese sub chasers and damaged a third near Kiska, one of two islands in the Aleutians that had been captured by the Japanese during the early months of World War II.

But the Grunion, named for a small fish and commissioned just three months earlier, had not been located since its last message of July 30, 1942, when it reported by radio the receipt of a Navy message ordering it back to the U.S. Navy base at Dutch Harbor, Alaska.

One month ago, the remains of the USS Grunion were found in 1,000 feet of water off Kiska Island following a lengthy and intensive search led by the son of the Grunion's skipper and with the cooperation of the Alaskan Civil Air Patrol and World War II Japanese navy veterans who had served in the Aleutians in 1942.

Utilizing Japanese navy records discovered in Tokyo last summer, John Abele, the son of Grunion skipper Lt. Cmdr. Mannert Abele, discovered the mangled remains of the sub utilizing an underwater, remotely operated vehicle equipped with video cameras.

May God Almighty grant them eternal rest, and comfort to their families.

The Crew of USS Grunion (SS-216)
Abele, M. L. LCDR
Alexander, F. E. SM3
Allen, D. E. SM3
Arvan, H. J. Matt2
Banes, P. E. CMOMM
Bedard, L. J. I. CMOMM
Blinston, W. H. RM3
Bonadies, N. R. F2
Boo, R. F. RM3
Bouvia, C. L. MM1
Caldwell, G. E. CEM
Carroll, R. H. S2
Clift, J. S. TM2
Collins, M. F. F2
Cooksey, L. D. MOMM1
Cullinane, D. MM1
Cuthbertson, W. H., Jr. ENS
Deaton, L. D. S2
DeStoop, A. E. CTM
Devaney, W. P., Jr. S2
Dighton, S. R., Jr. LTJG
Doell, L. H., Jr. RM2
Franck, L. H. S1
Graham, M. D. CTM
Hall, K. E. S2
Hellensmith, E. G. EM3
Henderson, H. B. MOMM2
Hutchinson, C. R. TM3
Kennedy, S. J., Jr. MOMM2
Knowles, E. E., Jr. S2
Kockler, L. R. TM1
Kornahrens, W. G. LT
Ledford, M. J. CY
Lehman, W. W. EM1
Loe, S. A. MOMM2
Lunsford, S., Jr. EM2
Lyon, J. W. F1
Martin, C. R. CMOMM
Martin, T. E. EM1
Mathison, R. EM1
McCutcheon, R. G. TM3
McMahon, J. M. LT
Miller, E. C. F2
Myers, D. O. F1
Nave, F. T. MOMM2
Newcomb, A. G. RM1
Nobles, J. W. MOMM1
Pancoast, J. E. MOMM2
Parziale, C. A. TM3
Paul, C., Jr. MATT2
Pickel, B. J. S1
Post, A. C. S2
Randall, W. H. RM2
Ryan, L., Jr. S2
Sanders, H. A. MOMM1
Schumann, E. T. CQM
Sullivan, P. P. PHM1
Surofchek, S. SC1
Swartwood, D. N. S2
Templeton, S. A. GM1
Thomas, M. W. LT
Traviss, B. A. S2
Ullmann, A. S1
VanWoggelum, M. F. F3
Walter, M. H. F3
Webster, R. E. EM2
Welch, D. F. FC2
Wells, J. H. TM2
Wilson, J. E., Jr. SC3
Youngman, R. J. F2

Bless those who serve beneath the deep,
Through lonely hours their vigil keep.
May peace their mission ever be,
Protect each one we ask of Thee.
Bless those at home who wait and pray,
For their return by night and day.
— Reverend Gale R. Williamson

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1 Hat/tip: JammieWearingFool.

PS. My haloscan won't accept the trackback, so I thought I'd at least try some way.

Posted by: Rosemary's Thoughts at Sat Sep 29 15:41:45 2007 (2k5qj)

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But some will still deny that the Jews occupied Israel in the past, will still deny the existence of the Temple in Jerusalem, and will still advocate for their expulsion from the Holy Land. Historical evidence like this doesn't matter to them -- or to international organizations and "prestigious" universities that give such folks a platform to speak.

An ancient quarry where King Herod's workers chiseled huge high-quality limestones for the construction of the Second Temple, including the Western Wall, has been uncovered in Jerusalem, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced Sunday.

The quarry, which is located four kilometers northwest of the Old City of Jerusalem in the city's outlying Ramat Shlomo neighborhood, was used 2,000 years ago by dozens of King Herod's workers at the site during the construction of the Second Temple walls, archeologist Yuval Baruch said.

"This unique and sensational find is the first Second Temple quarry ever found," he said.

The site, which spans at least five dunams, was uncovered by chance during a "salvage excavation" carried out by the state-run archeological body over the last two months following municipal plans to build an elementary school in the area, he said.

Dozens of quarries have previously been uncovered in Jerusalem - including ones larger than the present find - but this is the first one that archeologists have found which they believe was used in the construction of the Temple Mount itself, Baruch said.

Archeologists had previously assumed that the quarry which was used to construct the Temple Mount was located within the Old City itself, but the enormous size of the stones found at the site - up to 8 meters long - as well as coins and fragments of pottery vessels dating back to the first century CE indicated that this was the site used 2,000 years ago in the construction of the walls of the Temple Mount, including the Western Wall.

"We have never found any other monument in Israel with stones this size except for the Temple Mount walls," Baruch said.

One more bit of proof of the undeniable presence of the Jews in Israel. One more bit of evidence for the Jewish nature and history of Temple Mount. One more fact to throw back at the anti-Semites.

And may we see the Temple rebuilt in our lifetimes.

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The discovery of more of the ruins of the Second Temple in Jerusalem clearly puts the lie to claims by some Islamists that there was never a Jewish temple on Temple Mount -- and seems to confirm the belief of some Jewish groups that renovations and improvements by Muslim religious authorities are really directed at destroying Jewish artifacts there.

Remains of the Jewish second temple may have been found during work to lay pipes at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in east Jerusalem, Israeli television reported Thursday.

Israeli television broadcast footage of a mechanical digger at the site which Israeli archaeologists visited on Thursday.

Gaby Barkai, an archaeologist from Bar Ilan University, urged the Israeli government to stop the pipework after the discovery of what he said is "a massive seven metre-long wall."

Television said the pipework carried out by the office of Muslim religious affairs, or Waqf, is about 1.5 metres deep and about 100 metres long.

The compound, which houses both Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, is located in east Jerusalem, which Israel occupied in 1967 and then annexed. It is the third holiest site in Islam after Mecca and Medina.

For Jews it as known as the Temple Mount, which they revere as the site of the King Herod's second temple, which was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. It is the holiest site in Judaism.

All that remains today is the temple's Western Wall, or Wailing wall.

I agree with Barkari's assessment that the Israeli government must act to stop the construction work so that this historical treasure may be preserved, studied, and properly venerated by the Jewish faithful.

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As Houston prepares to welcome Lucy from Ethiopia, a new discovery will likely cause a reevaluation of the evolutionary timeline of the human species.

Ten million-year-old fossils discovered in Ethiopia show that humans and apes probably split six or seven million years earlier than widely thought, according to landmark study released Wednesday.

The handful of teeth from the earliest direct ancestors of modern gorillas ever found -- one canine and eight molars -- also leave virtually no doubt, the study's authors and experts said, that both humans and modern apes did indeed originate from Africa.

The near total absence to date of traces on the continent of apes from this period had led many scientists to conclude that the shared line from which humans and living great apes emerged had taken a long evolutionary detour through Eurasia.

But the study, published in the British journal Nature, "conclusively demonstrates that the Last Common Ancestor (of both man and ape) was strictly an African phenomenon," commented paleoanthropologist Owen Lovejoy of Kent State University in Ohio.

Lovejoy described the fossils as "a critically important discovery," a view echoed by several other scientists who had read the paper or seen the artifacts.

"This is a major breakthrough in our understanding of the origin of humanity," Yohannes Haile-Selassie, a physical anthropologist at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, told AFP.

The most startling implication of the find, the scientists agree, is that our human progenitors diverged from today's great apes -- including gorillas, orangutans and chimpanzees -- several million years earlier than widely accepted research based on molecular genetics had previously asserted.

Looks like I may have to revise my lesson plans for Wednesday. Who says there is nothing ever new in history?

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The missing children of RussiaÂ’s last Tsar have been identified, nearly 90 years after they and their family were murdered on the orders of Vladimir Lenin.

Prosecutors announced Friday that they have reopened an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the last Russian czar and his family nearly 90 years ago after an archaeologist said the remains of the czar's son and heir to the throne at last may have been found.

The announcement of the reopened investigation, while a routine matter, signaled that government may be taking the claims — announced Thursday by Yekaterinburg researcher Sergei Pogorelov — seriously.

In comments broadcast on NTV, Pogorelov said bones found in a burned area of ground near Yekaterinburg belong to a boy and a young woman roughly the ages of Czar Nicholas II's 13-year-old son, Alexei, and a daughter whose remains also never have been found.

Yekaterinburg is the Urals Mountain city where the czar, his wife and children were held prisoner and then shot in 1918.

If confirmed, the find would solve a persistent mystery and fill in a missing chapter in the story of the doomed family, victims of the violent 1917 Bolshevik Revolution that ushered in more than 70 years of communist rule.

* * *

The spot where the remains were found appears to correspond to a site described in writing by Yakov Yurovsky, the leader of the family's killers, said Pogorelov, an archaeologist at a regional center for the preservation of historical and cultural monuments in Yekaterinburg.

"An anthropologist has determined that the bones belong to two young individuals — a young male he found was aged roughly 10-13 and a young woman about 18-23," he told NTV television by telephone.

Nicholas abdicated in 1917 as revolutionary fervor swept Russia, and he and his family were detained. The next year, they were sent to Yekaterinburg, where a Bolshevik firing squad executed them on July 17, 1918.

Historians say guards lined up and shot Nicholas; his wife, Alexandra; their five children and four attendants in the basement of a nobleman's house. The bodies were loaded onto a truck and initially dumped in a mine shaft but were later moved, according to most accounts.

And thus closes a sad chapter in the violent, murderous history of Communism.

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Let's be honest here -- some pretty lousy things have happened in just about every society since the beginning of civilization. However, do people alive today bear some moral responsibility for the actions of their ancestors? Do they have a moral responsibility to apologize for those actions? To make some recompense for them?

I've long argued that the answer is no. Two stories today illustrate how absurd such apologies can be.

For the first story, let's go to Papua New Guinea.

THE descendants of Papua New Guinea cannibals who killed and ate four Fijian missionaries in 1878 have apologised.

Fiji's High Commissioner to PNG, Ratu Isoa Tikoca accepted the apologies at a reconciliation ceremony near Rabaul in PNG's East New Britain Province yesterday in front of thousands of people.

"We at this juncture are deeply touched and wish you the greatest joy of forgiveness as we finally end this record disagreement," Ratu Tikoca said.

PNG's Governor-General Paulias Matane told the crowd he appreciated the work of the early Fijian missionaries in spreading Christianity in the islands region.

The ceremony marked 132 years since Methodist ministers and teachers from Fiji arrived in the New Guinea islands region in 1875 headed by Englishman George Brown.

In April 1878, a Fijian minister and three teachers were killed and eaten by Tolai tribespeople on the Gazelle Peninsula.

Brown directed and took part in a punitive expedition that resulted in a number of Tolais being killed and several villages burnt down.

His actions caused a storm of protest in the Methodist Church.

Official investigations by British colonial authorities in the Pacific cleared him of criminal charges.

I'll be the first to accept the notion that contrition and repentance are good things. However, doesn't it seem rather bizarre for non-cannibals to apologize for having ancestors who were cannibals? These people bear no responsibility for the crimes or sins (and let's not discuss in this context whether cannibalism was either) of their ancestors. For what are they apologizing? Their mere descent from these people? I think the headline of the article catches the craziness of it all -- Sorry we ate your forefathers. Nobody apologizing did any such thing.

And then you get into even older historical disputes.

MORE than 1200 years ago hordes of bloodthirsty Viking raiders descended on Ireland, pillaging monasteries and massacring the inhabitants.

On Wednesday, one of their more mild-mannered descendants stepped ashore to apologise.

The Danish Minister for Culture, Brian Mikkelson, who was in Dublin to celebrate the arrival of a replica Norse longboat, apologised for the invasion and destruction inflicted.

"In Denmark we are certainly proud of this ship but we are not proud of the damage to the people of Ireland that followed in the footsteps of the Vikings," Mr Mikkelson declared in his welcoming speech delivered by the River Liffey.

"But the warmth and friendliness with which you greet us today and the Viking ship show us that, luckily, it has all been forgiven."

Good grief! We are talking about things that happened over a millennium ago! It is how the world was at the time, a much less civilized place. Warfare and raiding were an accepted part of Scandinavian culture (Irish, too -- thought they tended to do it more among themselves ). Why apologize for it?

What next? Will the Greek ambassador to Turkey make a visit to Hisarlik and formally apologize for the actions of Agamemnon, Achilles, and Odysseus during the Trojan War?

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Interesting news for my fellow history geeks.

The legendary city of Alexandria was founded by Alexander the Great as he swept through Egypt in his quest to conquer the known world.

Now scientists have discovered hidden underwater traces of a city that existed at Alexandria at least seven centuries before Alexander the Great arrived, findings hinted at in Homer's Odyssey and which could shed light on the ancient world.

Alexandria was founded in Egypt on the shores of the Mediterranean in 332 B.C. to immortalize Alexander the Great.

The city was renowned for its library, once the largest in the world, as well as its lighthouse at the island of Pharos, one of the "Seven Wonders" of the ancient world.

Alexandria was known to have developed from a settlement known as Rhakotis, or Râ-Kedet, vaguely alluded to as a modest fishing village of little significance by some historians.

But now it looks like there was something more than a sleepy fishing village -- hardly a surprise, given that there are a limited number of sites that meet the needs of a Bronze Age city. I'd have been shocked if something hadn't been discovered there.

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I tip my hat to blogger and author Michael Zak, whose Grand Old Partisan website includes this bit of information I had never connected together about Yale historian and Republican Senator Hiram Bingham.

On this day in 1911, Yale University historian Hiram Bingham discovered in Peru the ruins of Machu Picchu, one of the most spectacular archaeological sites in the world. Machu Picchu turned out to be a 15th century residence of the Incan emperor. Today, tourists arrive at the site via the Hiram Bingham Highway or the Hiram Bingham train.

Bingham would go on to become a successful member of the United States Senate -- and would also be one of those who would become a model for the character Indiana Jones.

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Teddy and Mary Jo went for a drive and drove off a bridge on July 18, 1969, resulting in one fatality. The wrong one survived.

Think I'm being harsh? Consider the fact that the Senator left his passenger to drown, failed to call the police, went to sleep it off at a cheap motel, tried to obstruct justice by getting a cousin to take the rap, and consulted with legal an political advisers before contacting the authorities after he sobered up -- and walked away with a slap on the wrist.

So have a happy Chappy Day, Senator Kennedy!

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What would have happened if the US didn't bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of WWII?

here is a scenario written from the perspective of a world in which the atomic bombings didn't happen.

Computer modeling of alternate World War II scenarios, which began in the academic world, has begun to generate considerable controversy in popular opinion. In one much-discussed simulation, Harry S. Truman made the immense, irrevocable decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan. To the relief of a war-weary world, this hastened Japan's surrender. But relief swiftly gave way to doubt and fear -- doubt about whether the use of such weapons had been justified, and, when the U.S. nuclear monopoly ended, fear that America had created the instrument of her own eventual demise. The simulation, however, produced a surprising result: the grim warning of the destroyed cities, together with stockpiled nuclear weapons as a strategic deterrent, ensured that the leaders of a multi-polar nuclear world, in future international crises, never pushed brinksmanship across the final threshold. A sort of "cold war" ensued, but catastrophe was averted. Deterrence worked.

Readers are doubtless aware that this scenario is also the basis for a popular board game simulating the politics of an imaginary twentieth century. What actually happened, of course, bore no resemblance to a "cold war".

First you must remember that in 1945, the President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was gravely ill but did not die. At Yalta and Potsdam, FDR's condition left him no match for Stalin, and he continued to deteriorate. Vice President Truman was obliged to make some difficult decisions, but whether to use the atomic bomb was not one of them. The military did not inform Truman of the successful Trinity test, because the extent of FDRÂ’s infirmity was concealed by the PresidentÂ’s staff. By default, use of the bomb against Japan was never authorized.

More than 2.5 million American, Russian, and Japanese lives were lost in an invasion that many theoreticians now argue should never have happened. In the think-tank scenario, Operation Downfall (the plan for the invasion of Japan) is a minor footnote.

The divergence between history and the simulation widens. As we know, Japan was partitioned after the Allied victory. The Soviets demanded sovereignty over the Kurils, Sakhalin, and Hokkaido; the northern third of Honshu and an enclave in Tokyo comprised the Soviet Occupation Zone. The remainder of Japan was under U.S. occupation. Before FDRÂ’s death in late 1946, the ailing President bowed to the Russian and Chinese demand that Hirohito stand trial as a war criminal. When the Emperor was sentenced to hang, MacArthur refused to recognize the war crimes tribunalÂ’s authority. A newly-sworn President Truman relieved MacArthur of his duties.

There is a photograph which haunts the memory of every historian. An angry crowd is outside the building where the tribunal was convened. A young man waves a sheaf of political pamphlets. Many hands reach for the proffered tracts. His face is unmistakable; he is Yukio Mishima.

In the simulation, Mishima has an important place in twentieth-century literature, but in a prosperous, non-partitioned, postwar Japan, his politics are completely marginalized. In history, MishimaÂ’s Emperor-worship, his fanatical hatred of Russia, and his willingness to threaten nuclear war to regain lost territory became dominant themes in South Japanese politics. The forever-demonized image of Mishima is inescapably linked to that day thirty years ago when everything changed forever, the day that the Hokkaido crisis exploded in a nuclear exchange involving Japan, Russia, China, America, Britain, and France. Today we remember over two billion dead.

The theorists have created a scenario in which the destruction of two cities allows the world to be spared. The public is obsessed with this alternate history because it does not approach the horror of the truth.

Now it is true that some historians now suggest that the invasion of japan would have had a significantly smaller cost in lives than the 2.5 million envisioned in this piece, but I've never been persuaded by their arguments. And while I'm not so sure that the Japanese would have later acquired the bomb, I do recognize that a partition of Japan was a likely outcome of the war in the Pacific dragging on much longer, as the soviets would have been part of any invasion. Imagine the geopolitical impact of the existence of the People's Republic of Nippon and a divided Tokyo (similar to the status quo in Germany for four decades).

Ultimately, the use of the two atomic bombs at the end of World War II probably contributed to a more stable world situation than any other outcome could have -- unless, of course, we had been able to use them before the ailing Roosevelt's trip to Yalta and the subsequent partition of Europe that resulted from his inability to face down Stalin.

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