18th century equivalent of today's jarhead's "FIELD FUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!!"

woo hoo...

(incidentally, having studied the cerne abbas giant extensively when I was at uni - there is no recordings of it before the 18th century - so it's probably not pagan at all, but in fact some drunken joke from the 1700s)

From wikipedia:

"During the presidential campaign of 1800, the Federalists attacked Jefferson as an infidel, claiming that Jefferson's intoxication with the religious and political extremism of the French Revolution disqualified him from public office. But Jefferson wrote at length on religion and many scholars agree with the claim that Jefferson was a deist, a common position held by intellectuals in the late 18th century. As Avery Cardinal Dulles, a leading Roman Catholic theologian reports, "In his college years at William and Mary [Jefferson] came to admire Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, and John Locke as three great paragons of wisdom. Under the influence of several professors he converted to the deist philosophy." Dulles concludes:

“In summary, then, Jefferson was a deist because he believed in one God, in divine providence, in the divine moral law, and in rewards and punishments after death; but did not believe in supernatural revelation. He was a Christian deist because he saw Christianity as the highest expression of natural religion and Jesus as an incomparably great moral teacher. He was not an orthodox Christian because he rejected, among other things, the doctrines that Jesus was the promised Messiah and the incarnate Son of God. Jefferson's religion is fairly typical of the American form of deism in his day. ”

Biographer Merrill Peterson summarizes Jefferson's theology: “First, that the Christianity of the churches was unreasonable, therefore unbelievable, but that stripped of priestly mystery, ritual, and dogma, reinterpreted in the light of historical evidence and human experience, and substituting the Newtonian cosmology for the discredited Biblical one, Christianity could be conformed to reason. Second, morality required no divine sanction or inspiration, no appeal beyond reason and nature, perhaps not even the hope of heaven or the fear of hell; and so the whole edifice of Christian revelation came tumbling to the ground.”

Jefferson used deist terminology in repeatedly stating his belief in a creator, and in the United States Declaration of Independence used the terms "Creator" and "Nature's God". Jefferson believed, furthermore, it was this Creator that endowed humanity with a number of inalienable rights, such as "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". His experience in France just before the French Revolution made him deeply suspicious of Catholic priests and bishops as a force for reaction and ignorance. Similarly, his experience in America with inter-denominational intolerance served to reinforce this skeptical view of religion. In a letter to Willam Short, Jefferson wrote: "the serious enemies are the priests of the different religious sects, to whose spells on the human mind its improvement is ominous."

Jefferson was raised in the Church of England, at a time when it was the established church in Virginia and only denomination funded by Virginia tax money. Before the Revolution, Jefferson was a vestryman in his local church, a lay position that was part of political office at the time. He also had friends who were clergy, and he supported some churches financially. During his Presidency, Jefferson attended the weekly church services held in the House of Representatives. Jefferson later expressed general agreement with his friend Joseph Priestley's Unitarianism, that is the rejection of the doctrine of Trinity. In a letter to a pioneer in Ohio he wrote, "I rejoice that in this blessed country of free inquiry and belief, which has surrendered its conscience to neither kings or priests, the genuine doctrine of only one God is reviving, and I trust that there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die a Unitarian."

Jefferson did not believe in the divinity of Jesus, but he had high esteem for Jesus' moral teachings, which he viewed as the "principles of a pure deism, and juster notions of the attributes of God, to reform [prior Jewish] moral doctrines to the standard of reason, justice & philanthropy, and to inculcate the belief of a future state." Jefferson did not believe in miracles. He made his own condensed version of the Gospels, omitting Jesus' virgin birth, miracles, divinity, and resurrection, primarily leaving only Jesus' moral philosophy, of which he approved. This compilation was published after his death and became known as the Jefferson Bible. “[The Jefferson Bible] is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the Platonists, who call me infidel and themselves Christians and preachers of the gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what its author never said nor saw.”

However, early in his administration he attended church services in the House of Representatives. He also permitted church services in executive branch buildings throughout his administration, believing that Christianity was a prop for republican government.

Church and state:

For Jefferson, separation of church and state was not an abstract right but a necessary reform of the religious "tyranny" of one Christian sect over many other Christians - and of the interference of the state in affairs of religion. Following the Revolution, Jefferson played a leading role in the disestablishment of religion in Virginia. Previously the Anglican Church had tax support. As he wrote in his Notes on Virginia, a law was in effect in Virginia that "if a person brought up a Christian denies the being of a God, or the Trinity …he is punishable on the first offense by incapacity to hold any office …; on the second by a disability to sue, to take any gift or legacy …, and by three year' imprisonment." Prospective officer-holders were required to swear that they did not believe in the central Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation.

From 1784 to 1786, Jefferson and James Madison worked together to oppose Patrick Henry's attempts to again assess taxes in Virginia to support churches. Instead, in 1786, the Virginia General Assembly passed Jefferson's Bill for Religious Freedom, which he had first submitted in 1779 and was one of only three accomplishments he put in his own epitaph. The law read: “No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.”

One of Jefferson’s least well known writings is: "Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make half the world fools and half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the world"- Thomas Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia.

Jefferson sought what he called a "wall of separation between Church and State", which he believed was a principle expressed by the First Amendment. This phrase has been cited several times by the Supreme Court in its interpretation of the Establishment Clause. In an 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, he wrote: “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between church and State.”

Jefferson refused to issue proclamations calling for days of prayer and thanksgiving during his Presidency, yet he did do so as Governor in Virginia. His private letters indicate he was skeptical of too much interference by clergy in matters of civil government. His letters contain the following observations: "History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government", and, "In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own." "May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all), the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government". Yet, Jefferson advocated the influence of religion in abolishing the institution of slavery in America stating, "Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice can not sleep forever: that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural interference!”

While the debate over Jefferson's understanding over the separation of Church and state is far from being settled, as are his particular religious tenets, his dependence on divine Providence is not nearly as ambiguous. As he stated, in his second inaugural address: “I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries and comforts of life; who has covered our infancy with His providence and our riper years with His wisdom and power, and to whose goodness I ask you to join in supplications with me that He will so enlighten the minds of your servants, guide their councils, and prosper their measures that whatsoever they do shall result in your good, and shall secure to you the peace, friendship, and approbation of all nations."

Nga Phe Kyaung Monastery in Myanmar. This place is a famous tourist attraction. From a nice article in the LA Times here: http://travel.latimes.com/articles/la-tr-myanmar20mar20

"The Intha are known for the strange way they propel their small wooden fishing boats. The fisherman stands at the stern, balanced on one leg, and rows with the other leg by wrapping it around the oar, leaving both hands free to work the net.

Although this method of fishing is unusual and something to see, it's starting to be overshadowed by some unlikely local residents — Madonna, Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt and Tina Turner, among others.

Our driver cut the longboat's engine, and we glided gracefully toward Nga Phe Kyaung, the abode of these local celebrities. Nga Phe Kyaung, an 18th century Buddhist monastery built from teakwood on stilts over the lake, is known more affectionately among its visitors as "the jumping cat monastery." For more than 20 years, the monks here have trained their cats to jump through hoops.

U Nan Da, a young Buddhist monk, met our boat. He led us inside the temple, where Chinese green tea, roasted barley and bananas are served to those who visit.

As I sat on the teakwood floor sipping tea, a feeling of peace prevailed. Beams of light streamed through the open windows, and the eyes of 64 golden Buddhas seemed to watch me from every angle. I sensed another pair of eyes, those of a curious cat, but when I turned to look, it had disappeared.

"That's James Bond," the monk said.

I laughed, but he assured me he wasn't joking.

"He is a very secretive cat," he said. "He likes to watch, but if we try to catch him he always escapes. So we call him James Bond."

Great post!

I have friends who helped with their legal fight for return. The case really exposed a very nasty, cruel and uncaring side of the British government.

Paradise Cleansed by John Pilger 10/11/04 - 'The Guardian'

"There are times when one tragedy, one crime tells us how a whole system works behind its democratic facade and helps us to understand how much of the world is run for the benefit of the powerful and how governments lie. To understand the catastrophe of Iraq, and all the other Iraqs along imperial history's trail of blood and tears, one need look no further than Diego Garcia.

The story of Diego Garcia is shocking, almost incredible. A British colony lying midway between Africa and Asia in the Indian Ocean, the island is one of 64 unique coral islands that form the Chagos Archipelago, a phenomenon of natural beauty, and once of peace. Newsreaders refer to it in passing: "American B-52 and Stealth bombers last night took off from the uninhabited British island of Diego Garcia to bomb Iraq (or Afghanistan)." It is the word "uninhabited" that turns the key on the horror of what was done there. In the 1970s, the Ministry of Defense in London produced this epic lie: "There is nothing in our files about a population and an evacuation."

Diego Garcia was first settled in the late 18th century. At least 2,000 people lived there: a gentle creole nation with thriving villages, a school, a hospital, a church, a prison, a railway, docks, a copra plantation. Watching a film shot by missionaries in the 1960s, I can understand why every Chagos islander I have met calls it paradise; there is a grainy sequence where the islanders' beloved dogs are swimming in the sheltered, palm-fringed lagoon, catching fish.

All this began to end when an American rear-admiral stepped ashore in 1961 and Diego Garcia was marked as the site of what is today one of the biggest American bases in the world. There are now more than 2,000 troops, anchorage for 30 warships, a nuclear dump, a satellite spy station, shopping malls, bars and a golf course. "Camp Justice" the Americans call it.

During the 1960s, in high secrecy, the Labour government of Harold Wilson conspired with two American administrations to "sweep" and "sanitize" the islands: the words used in American documents. Files found in the National Archives in Washington and the Public Record Office in London provide an astonishing narrative of official lying all too familiar to those who have chronicled the lies over Iraq.

To get rid of the population, the Foreign Office invented the fiction that the islanders were merely transient contract workers who could be "returned" to Mauritius, 1,000 miles away. In fact, many islanders traced their ancestry back five generations, as their cemeteries bore witness. The aim, wrote a Foreign Office official in January 1966, "is to convert all the existing residents ... into short-term, temporary residents."

What the files also reveal is an imperious attitude of brutality. In August 1966, Sir Paul Gore-Booth, permanent under-secretary at the Foreign Office, wrote: "We must surely be very tough about this. The object of the exercise was to get some rocks that will remain ours. There will be no indigenous population except seagulls." At the end of this is a handwritten note by DH Greenhill, later Baron Greenhill: "Along with the Birds go some Tarzans or Men Fridays ..." Under the heading, "Maintaining the fiction", another official urges his colleagues to reclassify the islanders as "a floating population" and to "make up the rules as we go along".

There is not a word of concern for their victims. Only one official appeared to worry about being caught, writing that it was "fairly unsatisfactory" that "we propose to certify the people, more or less fraudulently, as belonging somewhere else". The documents leave no doubt that the cover-up was approved by the prime minister and at least three cabinet ministers.

At first, the islanders were tricked and intimidated into leaving; those who had gone to Mauritius for urgent medical treatment were prevented from returning. As the Americans began to arrive and build the base, Sir Bruce Greatbatch, the governor of the Seychelles, who had been put in charge of the "sanitizing", ordered all the pet dogs on Diego Garcia to be killed. Almost 1,000 pets were rounded up and gassed, using the exhaust fumes from American military vehicles. "They put the dogs in a furnace where the people worked," says Lizette Tallatte, now in her 60s," ... and when their dogs were taken away in front of them, our children screamed and cried."

The islanders took this as a warning; and the remaining population were loaded on to ships, allowed to take only one suitcase. They left behind their homes and furniture, and their lives. On one journey in rough seas, the copra company's horses occupied the deck, while women and children were forced to sleep on a cargo of bird fertilizer. Arriving in the Seychelles, they were marched up the hill to a prison where they were held until they were transported to Mauritius. There, they were dumped on the docks.

In the first months of their exile, as they fought to survive, suicides and child deaths were common. Lizette lost two children. "The doctor said he cannot treat sadness," she recalls. Rita Bancoult, now 79, lost two daughters and a son; she told me that when her husband was told the family could never return home, he suffered a stroke and died. Unemployment, drugs and prostitution, all of which had been alien to their society, ravaged them. Only after more than a decade did they receive any compensation from the British government: less than £3,000 each, which did not cover their debts.

The behavior of the Blair government is, in many respects, the worst. In 2000, the islanders won a historic victory in the high court, which ruled their expulsion illegal. Within hours of the judgment, the Foreign Office announced that it would not be possible for them to return to Diego Garcia because of a "treaty" with Washington - in truth, a deal concealed from parliament and the US Congress. As for the other islands in the group, a "feasibility study" would determine whether these could be resettled. This has been described by Professor David Stoddart, a world authority on the Chagos, as "worthless" and "an elaborate charade". The "study" consulted not a single islander; it found that the islands were "sinking", which was news to the Americans who are building more and more base facilities; the US navy describes the living conditions as so outstanding that they are "unbelievable".

In 2003, in a now notorious follow-up high court case, the islanders were denied compensation, with government counsel allowed by the judge to attack and humiliate them in the witness box, and with Justice Ousley referring to "we" as if the court and the Foreign Office were on the same side. Last June, the government invoked the archaic royal prerogative in order to crush the 2000 judgment. A decree was issued that the islanders were banned forever from returning home. These were the same totalitarian powers used to expel them in secret 40 years ago; Blair used them to authorize his illegal attack on Iraq.

Led by a remarkable man, Olivier Bancoult, an electrician, and supported by a tenacious and valiant London lawyer, Richard Gifford, the islanders are going to the European court of human rights, and perhaps beyond. Article 7 of the statute of the international criminal court describes the "deportation or forcible transfer of population ... by expulsion or other coercive acts" as a crime against humanity. As Bush's bombers take off from their paradise, the Chagos islanders, says Bancoult, "will not let this great crime stand. The world is changing; we will win." "


Finally in 2006 Lord Justice Hooper and Mr Justice Cresswell ruled that orders made under the royal prerogative to prevent the return of the Chagos islanders to their homes were unlawful. They described as "repugnant" the action to exile the population of the islands. "The suggestion that a minister can, through the means of an order in council, exile a whole population from a British overseas territory and claim that he is doing so for the 'peace, order and good government' of the territory is, to us, repugnant," the judges said.

But the government are appealing (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/southern_counties/6333223.stm) and the right of return is still being denied!

(sorry for long post - but this one really gets to me!)

"We are at a turning point in the history of mankind. Atheism, that has so influenced the world of science and thought since the 18th century, is now undergoing an inevitable collapse. In this film you will see how the most basic assumptions of atheism collapsed with scientific, political and sociological developments in the past decades. From the theories of Charles Darwin or Sigmund Freud, to the fall of communism or the hippie dream, see how the atheist dogma falls at the dawn of the 21st century."

So much wonderful bullshit in this video, I had to post it. If you can't be bothered to watch all forty minutes do feel free to skip to any random place for a guaranteed slice of absolute gibbering insanity.

Charles Aznavour is an Armenian-French singer, songwriter and actor. Besides being one of France's most popular and enduring singers, he is also one of the most well-known French singers abroad. Often described as the "Frank Sinatra of France", Aznavour sings mostly about love.

He has written musicals and more than a thousand songs, made more than one hundred records, and appeared in sixty movies. Aznavour sings in six languages (French, English, Italian, Spanish, German and Russian), which has helped him perform at Carnegie Hall and other major venues around the world. He also recorded at least one song from the 18th century poet Sayat Nova, in Armenian.

- Wikipedia

Guns are a guy thing. Because of the hunter that is still in all of us.

As to guns getting banned in america, it'll never happen. One of our fundamental rights is the right to own fire arms. Yea it's a little backwards and definately causes more harm then good but that doesn't change anything.

So yea, we are one of the last civilized countries left in the world where owning guns is a fundamental right, the death penalty is still practiced in most states and we are perhaps the most concervative nation in the western world (even our liberals are nothing near as liberal as those in europe lol.) But you know what? It's Europes falt in the first place. You just HAD to oppress the hardcore fundamental christians Puritans and let them flee to american and start the whole thing didn't you

I of course speak in jest but a lot of what make some (especially southern born) americans gun-toting, death-penalty loving, hard-core conservative, bible-thumping men and women can definately be linked to the original Puritan movements of the 18th century.

Clinton did nothing for national defence. HA, ROFL, Source please? The right will want you to believe that the "Bush doctrine" to protect America is new under Bush, but Clinton always had America's security first and took preemptive actions whenever he could (remember, he didn't have 9/11 to justify illegal action), in the interview he cites situations where this is/was true including the attempted off of Bin Ladin and creating defence against terrorism, it was the inaction of the right when they took office that allowed for 9/11 to happen. Not to mention Bush has failed to find/kill Bin Ladin even when deploying the armed forces in an illegal war and invading two countries, has lied about much worse things than fellatio including torture and inhumane treatment, pretences to invade a country and kill thousands of innocents and our soldiers, and his campaign policies. He has alienated the entire world KILLING any hegemony that Regan, Bush Sr, and Clinton established during their presidencies, created NCLB which does nothing but hurt the public education system, and has done jack shit with the economy except raise the national debt. I would go on, but anyone who doesn't get the point will never be swayed.

"Were it not for Perot, he would've lost in '92 and much of today's hells might've been avoided."
Were it not for the electoral college, a flawed election system that is based on 18th century paranoia GWB wouldn't be president and ALL of today's hell might be avoided.

He didn't just kick ass in this ambush because he's a good orator, he also spoke the truth and not some partisan bull shit that CNN and Fox always spew.

I can't wait for someone to say that he's fiscal policy only worked because he was riding Regan's econ policy...

/edit - http://thinkprogress.org/clinton-interview the full transcript... I think it isn't translated perfectly, I read it via another website and they used this as a source and the english was broken at places but it's still there.

Funny take on a brilliant Swift piece. If anyone hasn't read Swift's "A Modest Proposal" then I suggest you do. It's a great piece of 18th Century political satire.

However, Swift wrote this in reaction to England's treatment of Ireland and its dehumanization of the Irish and the exploitation of her land...and this song doesn't encompass that depth. Swift wrote this in reaction to a pamphlet (I can't recall the name) which reduced the Irish to mere statistics. If you can find the pamphlet that Swift satires, it makes "A Modest Proposal" so much funnier.

So, while I detest rap and am disappointed that these lyrics didn't scratch the surface of Swift's true impetus behind his satire (as so few summaries do) I give props to those boys for being clever little cheeks.

END HISTORY YAMMER