Ayn, Neal and the world around me...

[dover]

 

 

 

Artist

 

Archibald MacNeal Willard

 

 

[dover]

 

Thomas Paine and his little pamphlet; Common Sense

 

Common Sense is a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine. It was first published anonymously on January 10, 1776, during the American Revolution. Common Sense, signed "Written by an Englishman", became an immediate success. In relation to the population of the Colonies at that time, it had the largest sale and circulation of any book in American history. Common Sense presented the American colonists with an argument for freedom from British rule at a time when the question of independence was still undecided. Paine wrote and reasoned in a style that common people understood; forgoing the philosophy and Latin references used by Enlightenment era writers, Paine structured Common Sense like a sermon and relied on Biblical references to make his case to the people. Historian Gordon S. Wood described Common Sense as, "the most incendiary and popular pamphlet of the entire revolutionary era".

 

 

Published in 1776, Common Sense challenged the authority of the British government and the royal monarchy. The plain language that Paine used spoke to the common people of America and was the first work to openly ask for independence from Great Britain

 

 

Paine's arguments against British rule:

 

It was absurd for an island to rule a continent.

 

America was not a "British nation"; it was composed of influences and peoples from all of Europe.

 

Even if Britain were the "mother country" of America, that made her actions all the more horrendous, for no mother would harm her children so brutally.

 

Being a part of Britain would drag America into unnecessary European wars, and keep it from the international commerce at which America excelled.

 

The distance between the two nations made governing the colonies from England unwieldy. If some wrong were to be petitioned to Parliament, it would take a year before the colonies received a response.

 

The New World was discovered shortly before the Reformation. The Puritans believed that God wanted to give them a safe haven from the persecution of British rule.

 

Britain ruled the colonies for its own benefit, and did not consider the best interests of the colonists in governing them.

 

 

 

A True Patriot!

[dover]

 

I thought this was good for the Patriotic mind.....

 

 

 

Here are 10 things you might not know about our America's Independence Day.

 

1.) Independence Was Not Declared on July Fourth: The second Continental Congress actually voted for independence on July 2. In fact, John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail, predicting that future generations would celebrate July 2 as Independence Day, saying, "The second day of July, 1776, will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illumination, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore." July 4, 1776 is significant because that is the day that Congress officially adopted the Declaration of Independence document, but contrary to what many people believe it was not signed on the July 4. The official signing ceremony occurred on August 2, which is when most of the signers affixed their names to the document, but other representatives signed the document throughout the summer of 1776. Finally, there is no historical record of John Hancock saying that his signature is that big so that King George could read it. It has been suggested that Hancock's is by far the largest signature simply because he was the president of Congress.

 

2.) New York Was Late: When the Continental Congress declared independence from Britain the official vote was 12 in favor, 0 against. But wait, you may ask, weren't there 13 colonies? Where is that last one? The answer: The colony of New York abstained from the original vote on July 2. New York did not decide to join until July 19.

 

3.) It Was a States Thing First: Independence was not something that was confined to Congress. It started out as a state and local thing. In fact, the very first Declaration of Independence came on Oct. 4, 1774 (21 months before the Continental Congress declared independence) from the town of Worcester, Mass. During the next 21 months a total of 90 state and local declarations of independence would be made. When Virginia declared its independence in May 1776, they sent Rep. Richard Henry Lee to the Continental Congress with specific instructions to put forth a resolution of independence for Congress to vote on, thus allying all the colonies -- soon to become states -- against the British Empire in the War for Independence.

 

4.) American Troops Did Not fight Under the American Flag During the Revolution: The Fourth of July is always accompanied by a lot of flag waving, but the soldiers of the American Revolution did not actually fight under the American flag. In fact, our Founders did not really consider the flag to be all that important and the design of the flag varied both in the number of stripes and in the formation of the stars. The reason a uniform flag was adopted was so that our navy ships could be easily identified when arriving in foreign ports, but the boys in the Continental Army did not fight under this flag. In fact, the United States flag was considered so irrelevant that in 1794 when someone introduced a bill in Congress to add two stars to the flag in representation of the entrance of Vermont and Kentucky into the Union many members of the House considered it to be too trivial to pay any attention to. One representative is on record saying that this matter was "a trifling business which ought not to engross the attention of the House, when it was it was their duty to discuss matters of infinitely greater importance." In the end, the bill was passed simply to be rid of it. The Continental Army did still fight under flags, but these flags were all different depending on the regiment.

 

5.) Our Founding Fathers Were Not Radicals: As Americans, we like to think that what we did in the American Revolution was original and that our ideas of freedom and rights were new and progressive. But the truth is our Founding Fathers were not radical new thinkers -- all of their ideas and philosophies were rooted deeply in history. Ideas of people's rights, liberty, and social contracts can be traced all the way back through our colonial history, most famously with the Mayflower Compact, and even further through British history and English common law. These ideas can even be seen at work in the medieval era with Magna Carta first established 1215. Our Founding Fathers sought independence in order to preserve their "natural-born rights as Englishmen." Though it is true no colony had ever succeeded from the mother country before and the British were quick to call it treason, everything our Founders did was, in fact, legal. Jefferson himself explains that the Declaration was not meant to express anything new. He said it was "not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before, but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject."

 

6.) We Are Not a Democracy: People often associate democracy with freedom. We hear this word used all the time by our politicians, by our neighbors, even sometimes by our educators. But the fact is we are not a democracy. We are a republic. Our Founding Fathers deemed this an important distinction to make and discussed the matter quite a bit. In the end, our Founding Fathers claimed that a democracy was both extreme and dangerous for a country as it would most assuredly result in the oppression of the minority by the majority. Take this one example from Founding Father, Elbridge Gerry: "The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy." And Thomas Jefferson said that democracy should never be practiced outside the limits of a town. Our Founders were very wary of power no matter who had it and thus limited it as much as possible -- this is why we have such a unique system of checks and balances.

 

7.) Jefferson-Hemings Scandal--Not So Scandalous After All? With Independence Day comes a lot of talk about the Declaration of Independence and with that talk comes references to Thomas Jefferson, which these days will inevitably end with the Sally Hemings scandal. The claim that Jefferson fathered children with Hemings started by Jefferson's political rival Alexander Hamilton as an attempt to smear and discredit him. In the past several years these claims got a lot of media attention when a DNA test was done on the descendants of Sally Hemings, which led people to claim that Thomas Jefferson was definitively the father of her children. However, the matter is far from settled and there are still historians on both sides of the aisle in this debate. The DNA test actually proves that a male from the Jefferson family fathered Sally Hemings' children --that's a number of possibilities. At this point, science cannot actually provide us with a definitive answer on the subject.

 

8.) Our Founding Fathers Would Not Have Recited the Pledge: Another patriotic tradition that gets a lot of attention, particularly around this time of the year, is the Pledge of Allegiance. The Pledge did not exist during our Founders' lifetimes -- something that is very clear when looking at its text. The Pledge was written over a century after America's founding in 1892. It was also written by a socialist -- Francis Bellamy, whose original text was: "I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." According to our Founders, the states are not indivisible, but very much the opposite. In fact, when ratifying the U.S. Constitution, some states, such as Virginia among others, specifically declared the right to secede from the Union should they feel it necessary just as an extra precaution to make sure that that state right was understood. Our Founders took their states rights very seriously and considered the U.S. Constitution to be a compact amongst the sovereign states so that any state could secede if it felt the federal government had become oppressive. So, if not with a pledge, how would our Founding Fathers begin meetings and celebrations? The answer: most likely with a prayer. In fact, the very first resolution brought before the First Continental Congress, and immediately passed, was the declaration that they would open every meeting with a prayer.

 

9.) The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere . . . and 40 others? The mythology of Paul Revere's midnight ride can be traced back to the year 1860 with the writing of that famous poem, "Paul Revere's Ride." Here's what really happened: On April 18, 1775, British troops were ordered to arrest John Hancock and Samuel Adams, both of whom were in Lexington at the time and to seize arms and provisions at Concord. Upon hearing this, Paul Revere and William Dawes set out on horseback -- taking two different routes to Lexington in order to warn Hancock and Adams. Along the way, they warned the towns they passed through of the British invasion. By the morning of April 19 roughly 40 men were out on horseback spreading the news. Revere arrived at Lexington first, followed by Dawes. The two men then headed toward Concord, but were intercepted by British troops. Dawes, though injured, managed to escape, but Revere was captured. He was rescued by American militiamen a short while later. It was during this confrontation between British troops and American militiamen at Concord that the famous shot heard 'round the world was fired.

 

10.) The British Soldiers of the Boston Massacre Were Defended by John Adams in Court: The Boston Massacre, on March 5, 1770, began with a riot and ended with British troops killing five men. The incident help spark the greater rebellion, which led to the Revolutionary War, but tensions had been rising in Boston since British troops had occupied the city in 1768. But you may be surprised to know that one of the Founding Fathers actually defended the British soldiers that were charged of killing the civilians. John Adams, like many of our Founding Fathers, was a lawyer, and though he was a Patriot, he firmly believed in the right to a fair trial and agreed to represent the British troops in court. Adams succeeded in getting Capt. Thomas Preston acquitted as most others. And the two soldiers who were convicted were spared the death penalty.

 

 

 

 

 

[dover]

 

Happy Independence Day!!

 

Sorry to John Adams who felt July 2nd would be the day, but alas it is today.

 

God Bless the new land and the people that fight for its freedom. Thank you to those that saw fit to lead us where no one had gone before.

 

Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

[dover]

 

These are on the way tpo CGC:

 

 

 

Along with 8 others for the hoard!!

[dover]

I liked the first Chrissie Zullo sketch so much, I ordered another:

 

 

Next she is doing some Miyazaki commisions for my kids!!

[dover]

I can't stop staring.....

 

What it shows: Fifteen uncoupled simple pendulums of monotonically increasing lengths dance together to produce visual traveling waves, standing waves, beating, and random motion. One might call this kinetic art and the choreography of the dance of the pendulums is stunning! Aliasing and quantum revival can also be shown.

 

 

How it works: The period of one complete cycle of the dance is 60 seconds. The length of the longest pendulum has been adjusted so that it executes 51 oscillations in this 60 second period. The length of each successive shorter pendulum is carefully adjusted so that it executes one additional oscillation in this period. Thus, the 15th pendulum (shortest) undergoes 65 oscillations. When all 15 pendulums are started together, they quickly fall out of sync—their relative phases continuously change because of their different periods of oscillation. However, after 60 seconds they will all have executed an integral number of oscillations and be back in sync again at that instant, ready to repeat the dance.

 

 

Setting it up: The pendulum waves are best viewed from above or down the length of the apparatus. Video projection is a must for a large lecture hall audience. You can play the video below to see the apparatus in action. One instance of interest to note is at 30 seconds (halfway through the cycle), when half of the pendulums are at one amplitude maximum and the other half are at the opposite amplitude maximum.

 

 

[seanfingh]

 

That was marvelous!

[Aman619]

Like watching numbers dancing!

[dover]

Like watching numbers dancing!

 

Math.....the universal language. I once read a book about Pi. I am a closet physicist / mathematician.

 

[dover]

Hi Bill and Eric

 

 

 

Autobahn.....

 

Driving in Germany on the Autobahn is nothing short of a good time. It is at first scary, then nerve racking and then as one allows the inner driver to take over it becomes a challenge with rewards and penalties served at an almost instant rate.

 

When you are driving a rental (on the company credit card), you can't get one of the cars you need to truly experience it the way it should. You get a Focus or other bland Euro Diesel with a slight pep in its diesel-torque self. But you still get to play the game. You really need a black Audi - BMW - or Benz to have the real feel of the road and life in the left lane. I just get to go over sometimes to pass a lorry, Puget or loaded van. Interesting enough, when in China, the same rule applies; the bigger, darker and more German the car, the more you can get away with. This includes driving across 4 lanes of traffic knowing they will stop; I rode traffic side door to prove it.

 

But back to Germany… you cruise along at about posted speed, 100, 120 etc. until you get the sign for no limit. You can tell they are coming as you can almost see the cars lurch forward and then it is off to the races. Fun to watch really because for the most part, unlike the USA, they know how to drive, respect the road and the people around them. I saw no driving beyond the talent of the driver anywhere. And you can tell people understand; those not branded one of the big three use the left lane to pass, do it quickly and return to the slow lane pond ASAP. Sometimes you really have to judge just how far away they are and how fast they are closing because it can be extreme. We in America do not experience closing speeds like this.

 

You can make the quick pass and get back in line. You can get out there and then see the lights bearing down on you and panic to pass the truck and get over. You can see the nose of the BMW dip as they touch the brakes so as not to hit my sorry slow too hard. And then you can get stuck behind the truck going uphill while the stream of cars goes by at almost twice the speed. I could see grandma now just moving over to get by the truck causing a nice long brake check down the Autobahn. It could not happen in America.

 

My car in Germany has better side view mirrors too. Unlike the States, they have two parts to ensure that close to the car area and down the road can be seen easily; it’s like the people are looking out for other drivers. They even use turn signals, properly. Really rewarding to drive on a road with other competent drivers, much like a race track. I have had a few driving schools and racing in my life so driving for me is on a different level than most. I have different perspectives and views of what is going on around me.

 

The Autobahn could not exist in America because too many people have zero respect for what they are doing and they do not realize that there are other people around them that may not behave or react like they want them too. We respond with road range, anger and other tools that would not work well at over a 100 mph.

 

Another thing you notice is that truck drivers do not go in the left lane, even when an accident occurs and traffic is backed up. American truck drivers at times believe they are allowed to block traffic and control the lane because they feel they can. Again, respect.

 

I had to drive 5 hours today across the country. I think I even noticed a difference between South and North Germany. I could be daft, but it seemed to change tempo after Frankfurt going north. Good times.

 

The other nice thing about driving here, as well as Japan, is that they have real rest stops. As if the journey counts, not just the destination. Nice little local restaurant, snacks, food, gas, resting area. Nicely done.

 

Until tomorrow….

 

[dover]

 

 

If you see this in the rear view mirror.....its too late.

 

 

[icefires]

 

If you see this in the rear view mirror.....its too late.

 

 

 

I'm confused.

 

I am driving a Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Super Sport. I have to slow down for him so I don't rear-end him?

 

 

 

[BlowUpTheMoon]

Like watching numbers dancing!

 

Math.....the universal language. I once read a book about Pi. I am a closet physicist / mathematician.

 

 

Pi is a great little b&w movie, if you get the chance.

[dover]

Like watching numbers dancing!

 

Math.....the universal language. I once read a book about Pi. I am a closet physicist / mathematician.

 

 

Pi is a great little b&w movie, if you get the chance.

 

Always wondered about that movie; Ill netflix it.

 

Thanks for the info.

[dover]

 

Spent the entire day stuck inside trucks working on upgrading our equipment. It amazes me a compnay would fly someone this far (East coast of US to Germany) and not have a decent computer ready to use. Life is not hard if you use common sense, but I guess that is the trick.

 

I can say without a doubt; Honda is absent from Germany. I have seen one, 1, eins, so far.

 

Rain really worries the drivers here. A big difference in the pace of the left lane. I felt like Senna driving circles around that French guy with the bent nose!

 

Let me see if our favorite Mountie picks up on that.

[TupennyConan]

I get frightened when I have to check the air in my tires.

 

 

[seanfingh]

I get frightened when I have to check the air in my tires.

 

 

I was walking into a sushi place for dinner last night, and there was a lovely blonde furiously pulling random car parts out from under the open hood of her car.

 

I suavely sauntered up to her and asked if there was anyone i could call for her. She said "Nah, I've just got to get to the battery." All I could come up with was "Well, you seem to be doing a hell of a lot better than I would be."

[TupennyConan]

I would never have gone anywhere near her so long as the hood was open.

 

I would have hidden my face with a newspaper as I passed by.

 

At most, I would have asked a waiter to go out & help her once I made it safely inside.

[seanfingh]