"The compulsory studies in the primary schools are the Bible, the catechism of the Lutheran creed, the Norwegian language, the usual elementary branches, with history (including a treatise on the constitution and the government of Norway), botany, physiology (including the fundamental principles of hygiene and the effects of the use of intoxicating liquors), singing, drawing, wood-carving, the use of the lathe and other tools, manual training, gymnastics, and rifle shooting."
- William E. Curtis, in Ethlyn T. Clough (ed.): Norwegian Life (1909)

"The national apprehension of both Norway and Sweden that Russia covets one of their seaports has existed a good many years. The bugbear has appeared at intervals for half a century, and a great deal of money has been expended in preparations to meet it. The people are, therefore, cordially patriotic in their support of the army, although many of them emigrate to the United States to avoid military service."
- William E. Curtis, in Ethlyn T. Clough (ed.): Norwegian Life (1909)

Scifi-author Dan Simmons has jumped on the dhimmi wagon with a short story about the coming Eurabia. Read it, it's masterful propaganda, a cautionary example of how well a good author can sell a dumb idea. Pay attention to this part:

"Athens failed in Syracuse – and doomed their democracy – not because they fought in the wrong place and at the wrong time, but because they weren’t ruthless enough. They had grown soft since their slaughter of every combat-age man and boy on the island of Melos, the enslavement of every woman and girl there. The democratic Athenians, in regards to Syracuse, thought that once engaged they could win without absolute commitment to winning, claim victory without being as ruthless and merciless as their Spartan and Syracusan enemies."

Apparently people from the future use history as carelessly as they do today. Maybe we're doomed after all.

Matt Welch says farewell to warblogging: "I used to think blogs would transform ideologues into nonpartisan truth-seekers. Man, was I wrong."

Ditto for the farewell, as well as Matt's nostalgia for those last months of 2001. In retrospect that was probably the high point of "warblogging" as a phenomenon, not so much because it was good but because it was .. or felt .. honest, and unpredictable. So maybe that wasn't so much, but it was better than what came next.

Also read Richard Bennett.

For you people who still aren't blogging, Dennis the Peasant has written a helpful five-part guide on how to become a political blogger - and make money on it. No expertise or hard work or even talent required:

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