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Thank you for the compliment (I think) but we all know that American did most of the heavy lifting in history (the important stuff anyways)…Bill Clinton defined "is"...Al Gore discovered ecology and invented the internet...The President is giving us change... so does McDonalds... but at least there you get a burger too 8)The list goes on and I havn't even touched on the Reflublicans 😮We only look brainwashed if you watch the mainstream (sell you down the river) news 😉
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Atanasoff#Patent_disputedhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atanasoff%E2%80%93Berry_Computerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeywell_v._Sperry_RandSome quick and dirty [thank you Wikipedia] background on the issue. Draw your own conclusions or investigate further.Cheers,Wally
.... Yes, there was a Genocide against the Armenians. ....
Agreed. Apologies and latter day statements of agreement don't change the death toll. If this didn't happen then Holocaust deniers will one day win.
Sort of like 'Zeb' Rawlings (George Peppard) told Jethro Stuart (Henry Fonda) in HTWWW re: Linus Rawlings' penchant for trouble…
'Now, why'd you get in such a fix? Do you like fightin' grizzlies?' He said, 'Well, not 'specially. I just wanted to go somewhere and the bear was there first.' I guess I just wanna go somewhere, too.
One tribe, ethnic group, religion, nation state, or other institution of your choice wants to impose on another that was there first (or that they are afraid will get there first). Overly simple, perhaps, but my story... and I'm sticking to it.
Interpretation is subjective, but history does not have to be. It must be based on critical research and a sober assessment of sources.
Who is making the critical research and sober assessment ? A human !! Someone who will interpret, analyse and comment about a historical fact according his culture, education and philosophy of his time. History is made of human facts; it's not chemistry , physics or mathematics !
As long as we couch our comments with a disclaimer and entertain other ideas I can agree with you both. Comment:Bias is like the filter on a camera lens; the filter may appear transparent but it distorts the light to an extent. If we know it is there and what its "filter factor" is we still have an idea that the picture we have as a result isn't exactly as portrayed. If we don't know that it is there or what the "filter factor" is then we are unable to view the true depiction of the subject of the photo. We've all read authors that leave you wondering what they are really trying to tell us or what they are really thinking... too much filter. The ones that preach their doctrine or slam another give us, perhaps, too little filter.People like Menzies aren't real historians anymore than I am... he just askes some interesting questions and provides the answers he has found in his travels and investigations. It will be harder to prove him correct since many of the souces we'd like to find are (perhaps) lost to history... much easier to say he's not going to prove anything until he provides these same source. We call that being "between a rock and a hard place", where I come from.
Perhaps if we add the advances that were a result of the second Agricultural Revolution (Englishmen Jethro Tull: seed drill and horse plow; also Chas. Townsend: soil additive and winter fodder) then we can understand. England could economically and efficiently increase their food production. This fact lead to many changes in how their laborforce was deployed.--greated use of labor saving devices was only available to the more affluent landowners so they did better than the little guys and eventually bought many of the smaller land owners out----over time the Eclosure Movement made it impossible for those not owning land to farm much if at all----only a limited number of the unskillled or semi-skilled farm workers could find jobs with the large landowners since more work was being done with machines (took less people to farm)----more good food was available at a reduced price; people eat better, are healthier, live longer, have more and healthier kids, population increases dramatically----the unemployed (see above) are forced to move off the land to look for work; jobs are available for unskilled or semi-skilled types in the cities in the growing industies; the rest as we say is history--I guess the success of the Second Agricultural Revolution in England (particularly) providing the large and ready labor for was the catalyst. In my mind the IR won't ever really get going as long as most of the population is tied up feeding the population. After all we didn't see the rise of civilizations until after the 1st Ag Rev.
?History doesn't repeat itself – at best it sometimes rhymes? –Twain.If we accept the linear, view we can dismiss all that which has happened as incidental and having no bearing on what may be happen in the future (disregarding cause and effect) but that is a bit much to ask of humans. We are, after, all the that creates conspiracy theories! 8)My view is that history is like a spiders' web; when something happens to make the web twitch, that twitch will be telegraphed to another part of the web; an event will have an effect up the road and if we watch carefully we might be able to predict, based on the past, what might happen based on history. Each set event is a unique mix of circumstances but there can be (and often is) a common element within the mix of similar events. Make any sense at all?
I dont know that the Hood shootings were inspired by radical islam but suspect that they were and will not be surprised to find out that they were.
Nor would I.
What exactly is there to interpret when a particular country lost a war, changed leaders, shrunk, grew, had a civil war, etc. etc.?
After we have the facts of an event (what happened)... we need answers to the following:--why it matters (in and of itself)?--can we apply this info to other cases (can it help us understand other cases)?--it there a universal thread (or pattern) here or is this an anomaly?--can we use this info to formulate a hypothesis of some sort?--can we use what we've learned (in the steps above) to make predictions?Ala Bloom's or the Scientific Method.
Good points, all. Marx was commenting on religion being able to keep the folks focused on their own salvation and docile to get there. Your point is about gov'ts or leaders that can, have, do and will continue to use religion not as an opiate (to sooth the great unwashed) but as meth to hyp them up.
