Russ Vaughn has composed some birthday wishes for Bill Clinton. It's just as off-color as you'd expect, given the Clinton legacy.
Ooh-Rah:
Here's a great story that shows why we should be proud to have the allies we have. This guy is what "British Sergeant Major" is all about.
H/t John (Arrgh!) at MilBlogs.
Plato Sucks
Plato Sucks:
I feel a lot better after reading this critique of Plato from the London Guardian.
[The Republic] is long, sprawling and meandering. Far from holding water, its arguments range from ordinarily leaky to leaky in that zany way which leaves some interpreters unable to recognise them as ever intended to hold water at all. Its apparent theory of human nature is fanciful, and might seem inconsistent. Its apparent political implications are mainly disagreeable, and often appalling. In so far as Plato has a legacy in politics, it includes theocracy or rule by priests, militarism, nationalism, hierarchy, illiberalism, totalitarianism and complete disdain of the economic structures of society, born in his case of privileged slave-ownership. In Republic he managed to attach himself both to the most static conservatism and to the most wild-eyed utopianism.... [Socrates] is shown as the spokesman for a repressive, authoritarian, static, hierarchical society in which everything up to and including sexual relations and birth control is regulated by the political classes, who deliberately use lies for the purpose.Wow. If that's how the Left treats Plato, I never had a chance. :)
Beer & The Wood
Swords and Songs and Beer:
Today is a day I mark with celebration each year: the day that I first encounter a seasonal Oktoberfest brew for sale. Ah! Autumn, as good as Spring, is coming at last.
The 2004 post celebrating the first October beer is here, and explains the history of October beer for the English-speaking world. Follow the link (or just click this one) to an article called "Dragon's Milk: English October Beer."
On the same topics, a post from back in 2003 on the Merry life of Robin Hood, and a song by yours truly on the subject.
A merry day to you. Would that we could gather over a butt of good October in person.
Swords:
Kim du Toit has cause this week to recommend the keeping of swords. Good on him -- there is nothing better than a sword.
Let me recommend (as I did to Kim) the work of Alex Cameron, one of the last surviving members of the medieval Glaswegian Swordmakers Guild. I own a few pieces of his work, including a customized sword made just the right length for a man of my height and length of arm. It hangs, polished mirror-bright, on the wall of my office.
I have never owned one of these, but I certainly wish I had. If anyone wants a report on the quality of such a thing, enough to help fund the purchase of one, let me know. :)
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