Author: NewMexiKen

Gettysburg

The largest and arguably most significant military engagement in North American history began in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on this date in 1863.

In a daring venture, Confederate general Robert E. Lee moved his Army of Northern Virginia into Pennsylvania in June, hoping for a decisive victory on Union soil. Trying to catch up, the Union Army of the Potomac, under new commander George Meade, moved north and west toward the Confederates, who were widely dispersed. Learning the Union Army was on the move, Lee began to consolidate his forces.

On June 30, Union cavalry led by John Buford skirmished with a small Confederate contingent just west of Gettysburg. Buford, realizing that the field provided good defensive ground, determined to hold the Confederates until the main body of the army came up.

On July 1, a larger Confederate force moved east toward Gettysburg and met resistance from Buford’s dismounted cavalry, soon joined by the First Corps. The battle ebbed and flowed during the day as troops from both sides moved to the action. Ultimately, Confederate forces arriving from the north were able to flank the Union troops and force them through the town. The Confederates failed to keep the initiative, however, and the Union was able to dig in on the ridge south and east — Cemetery Ridge.

Fifteen thousand Americans were casualties that day.

We’ve got questions

Dan Froomkin at White House Briefing:

I asked you readers to suggest questions you’d ask the president if you had a chance, and they certainly spiced up my Live Online yesterday. Media blogger extraordinaire Jim Romenesko picked his two favorites: “How does ‘My Pet Goat’ end?” and “Why is Helen Thomas sitting in the back of the room?”

There were some slightly more serious ones: “Mr. President, Have you thought of a mistake yet?” and ” Can you give us instances in which you have been humble in your duties as president?”

And there were some entirely serious ones: “Mr. President, given your enthusiastic support for Turkey’s entry into the EU, could you outline what you believe the EU is and what membership entails? Follow-up: Why are you not granting Mexico the same privileges?” And: “Name 20 of the soldiers who you have sent to their deaths.”

Help!

NewMexiKen’s laptop is acting very peculiar. After a cold boot it works normally for about 45 minutes, then seems to freeze up. I can still move around and click on icons, but nothing happens. Web pages say they are loading, but the frame turns grey. Ultimately all I can do is turn the computer off and restart it. And then the cycle repeats itself.

This is annoying to say the least, worrisome to say more. Any ideas anyone? (Other than backing up, which I have been doing.)

One more from Lewis Black

Comedian Lewis Black reminds us that the people in charge of Homeland Security in Washington today are the same assholes who told him when he was a child that he could survive a nuclear holocaust by getting under his school desk.

Good point

In his concert video currently in rotation on HBO, comedian Lewis Black notes that when he was younger and water was free, no one ever told us to drink more water. Now that water is a commodity, we’re told to drink eight bottles a day.

Opinion, Gossip — What’s the difference?

Mark Cuban calls it like he sees it — and puts his money where his mouth is.

I was listening to the Dan Patrick Show and they had Sam Smith on, my buddy from the Chicago Tribune. Let’s just hope the accountants for the Tribune Company have a higher regard for accuracy in reporting than Sam the Sham does.

Perfect example of Sam in action is Jerry West going on the air during the draft saying the Grizz can’t afford to trade for Shaq. Then Sham chimes on the show saying Shaq is going to Memphis. Sam then does his daily rip on the Mavs and, in particular, our new draft pick, Pavel who he calls a stiff.

How about this for a challenge Sam the Sham Smith?…I will donate 10k dollars to the charity of your choice if you can prove that you have ever seen Pavel play in person or on tape — excluding the footage on the ESPN draft shows. Two minutes of ESPN tape doesn’t qualify as scouting. If you lose, you change your business card title and Tribune byline to “Sports Gossip Columnist”. I will even pay for the cards.

Traffic fatalities

NewMexiKen read many years ago that traffic fatalities were not particularly more significant on holiday weekends than any other days. Safety advocates just had us all thinking they were with their public service advertising campaigns and police check points.

A new study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety confirms this. For the period 1986 through 2002 there were an average of 117 traffic fatalities a day in the United States. And, while July 4 was the worst day of the year with an average of 161 fatalities, 158 people were killed on any given Saturday. July 4 is the only date in the year less safe than any Saturday.

The worst dates:
July 4 — 161
July 3 — 149
December 23 — 145
August 3 — 142
January 1 — 142

Days of the week:
Sunday — 132
Monday — 96
Tuesday — 95
Wednesday — 98
Thursday — 105
Friday — 133
Saturday — 158

Of course, maybe the holidays remain relatively safe because of all the attention placed on them.

Source: The New York Times

Wow!

Archaeologists pulled aside a curtain on Wednesday to reveal what can only be called a secret garden: the pristinely preserved ruins of an ancient civilization that was long ago lost to the mists of time in the remote cliffs of eastern Utah, then resolutely protected over the last 50 years by a stubborn local rancher who kept mum about what he knew.

The ruins, called Range Creek, are spread over thousands of acres, much of it in inaccessible back country and reachable only through a single-track dirt road once owned by the rancher and recently bought by the State of Utah. Preliminary research dates the settlement from about A.D. 900 to 1100, during the period of the Fremont Indian culture.

Read more from The New York Times.

Damnation

A thoughtful essay on western dams from Daniel McCool at High Country News:

We can always find another source of energy, a more sensible place to grow high-water crops, and a more efficient way to water our cities. But we cannot replicate Glen Canyon; we cannot genetically engineer a massive salmon run; we cannot invent a mountain canyon that funnels sand to the edge of a continent. We have great power to foul our own nest, but we have a commensurate power to mend that nest, and create a future of free-flowing rivers and deeply carved canyons.

This’ll work

From Knight Ridder via The Arizona Daily Star:

A pilot program to repatriate to the Mexican interior tens of thousands of illegal Mexican entrants will begin in two weeks, Homeland Security Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson said Tuesday.

The pilot program, which runs through Sept. 30, will cost an estimated $13 million to charter planes that Homeland Security officials say will return 300 migrants daily.

Lena Horne…

is 87 today. American Masters leads its essay on Horne with this:

Even in her eighties, the legendary Lena Horne has a quality of timelessness about her. Elegant and wise, she personifies both the glamour of Hollywood and the reality of a lifetime spent battling racial and social injustice. Pushed by an ambitious mother into the chorus line of the Cotton Club when she was sixteen, and maneuvered into a film career by the N.A.A.C.P., she was the first African American signed to a long-term studio contract. In her rise beyond Hollywood’s racial stereotypes of maids, butlers, and African natives, she achieved true stardom on the silver screen, and became a catalyst for change even beyond the glittery fringes of studio life.

And no cartoon

From Late Night with David Letterman:

Top Ten George W. Bush Complaints About “Fahrenheit 9/11”

10. That actor who played the President was totally unconvincing

9. It oversimplified the way I stole the election

8. Too many of them fancy college-boy words

7. If Michael Moore had waited a few months, he could have included the part where I get him deported

6. Didn’t have one of them hilarious monkeys who smoke cigarettes and gives people the finger

5. Of all Michael Moore’s accusations, only 97% are true

4. Not sure – – I passed out after a piece of popcorn lodged in my windpipe

3. Where the hell was Spider-man?

2. Couldn’t hear most of the movie over Cheney’s foul mouth

1. I thought this was supposed to be about Dodgeball

Name game

From Morning Briefing:

A Texas couple decided two years ago to name their newborn son ESPN. This after another Texas couple had named their son Espn and a Michigan couple had named their son Espen.

ESPN, never one to miss an opportunity for self-promotion, is planning a special on the three youngsters.

“Not sure what the show will be called,” writes Greg Cote of the Miami Herald, “but I would suggest, ‘My Parents Are Idiots.’ “

The defenders

Reported by Dwight Perry in Sideline Chatter:

Greg Cote of the Miami Herald, with a legal update from Colorado: “There was a new motion by the defense Monday in the Kobe Bryant trial, but the motion was blocked by Detroit’s Ben Wallace.”

Yosemite

President Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Land Grant on this date in 1864. According to the Library of Congress:

The legislation provided California with 39,000 acres of the Yosemite Valley and the nearby Mariposa Big Tree Grove “upon the express conditions that the premises shall be held for public use, resort, and recreation.”

The newly-appointed Yosemite Board of Park Commissioners confronted the dual task of preserving the magnificent landscape while providing for public recreation. With amazing foresight, board member and landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted noted these goals could conflict. In his August 9, 1865 Draft of Preliminary Report upon the Yosemite and Big Tree Grove, Olmsted warns “the slight harm which the few hundred visitors of this year might do, if no care were taken to prevent it, would not be slight, if it should be repeated by millions.”

Best and worst

J.D. Power has released its latest survey of automobile dependability. For the tenth consecutive year Lexus lead the list; Buick, Infiniti, Lincoln and Cadillac were second through fifth. The five worst were Volkswagen, Isuzu, Daewoo, Kia and Land Rover (with 472 problems per 100 vehicles).

Toyota, Honda, Porsche, GM and BMW were the best manufacturers, and the only manufacturers better than average.

The survey was based on 2001 models.