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The quiz covering the events of Book Seven, which took place during the eighteenth and nineteenth years of the war can be taken here.

The History of the Peloponnesian War 1.1 to 1.115.

The History of the Peloponnesian War 1.116 to 2.46.

The History of the Peloponnesian War 2.47 to 2.103.

The History of the Peloponnesian War 3.1 to 3.116.

The History of the Peloponnesian War 4.1 to 4.135.

The History of the Peloponnesian War 5.1 to 5.116.

The History of the Peloponnesian War 6.1 to 6.105

This is where it all comes to a climax; it’s fascinating to see the way in which Athenian strengths and weaknesses are all brought into highlight by the stresses of war.

Miss Lucas takes vociferous objection to a few of the developments I noted in today’s WND column:

It’d be funny if it weren’t so sad, the way Britain is bending over, thanking Islam for the abuse, and asking for more please. The stories just keep coming, and honestly, it’s starting to piss me off on a personal level. My grandfather, and many of yours, are dead because they felt Britain and the rest of conquered Europe worthy enough to help defend. I begin to doubt why they bothered, as it seems their efforts merely put off the destruction of that civilization by about 70 years.

The thing that I find remarkable about all of this is the degree to which many people of all creeds are genuinely surprised to discover that taking Christ out of the historical Christendom is turning out to have a variety of major cultural effects on the inhabitants of that particular land mass over time. Societies have inertia and these sorts of cultural and religious changes require generations to achieve their full impact. I have yet to see anyone make a serious case that these changes are likely to be for the better in the long run.

Ah well. You can take the Norman out of Normandy, but ….

Dittoheads are better informed than NPRniks:

Limbaugh’s audience is often underestimated by critics who don’t listen to the show (only 3 percent of his audience identify themselves as “liberal,” according to the nonpartisan Pew Research Center for the People and the Press). Recently, Pew reported that, on a series of “news knowledge questions,” Limbaugh’s “Dittoheads” — the defiantly self-mocking term for his faithful, supposedly brainwashed, audience — scored higher than NPR listeners. The study found that “readers of newsmagazines, political magazines and business magazines, listeners of Rush Limbaugh and NPR and viewers of the Daily Show and C-SPAN are also much more likely than the average person to have a college degree.”

I don’t know why this comes as such a surprise to people. No one actually listens to NPR for information, they listen to NPR in order to FEEL smart. Tuning out while someone blathers on and on about hand-woven dolls made from dried out swamp weeds in Zambia or some forgotten jazz artist that no one has listened to in forty years doesn’t actually teach you anything, but it does let you pretend that you’ve learned something. For all that his political analysis is often imperfect, Rush does at least expect his listeners to pay attention to what he’s saying.

I would love to see the results of an NPR audience tested one week after listening to their favorite shows. I’ll bet they couldn’t even name most of the general subjects to which they supposedly listened, much less recall any of the details. It’s designed to go in one ear and out the other, much like most modern college educations.

Brits learn, to their astonishment, that people managed to kill each other in large numbers before guns were ever invented:

The power of the knife is its banality. Guns are illegal (in most circumstances), serial-numbered, maybe not hard to obtain in London or Manchester, but you have to know the go-to guy. Guns are good for only one thing. But how can you legislate against knives when, for every 528 seized by Operation Blunt2, there are a gazillion more in kitchen drawers? After amnesties, sabres and machetes, switchblades and flick-knives are displayed in triumph. Yet you can kill with a £3 fruit parer from Sainsbury’s.

The reason knife crime is more likely to get out of control than gun crime is threefold. The first is that guns are the great equalizer in more than one sense; one man defending himself with a gun can hope to stand off a greater number of attackers than a man defending himself with a knife. The second is that knife attacks are far less likely to draw immediate attention; it’s a lot harder to notice the sound of a lung being punctured than the sound of a .44 magnum going off. The third is that the use of guns doesn’t appear to connect as naturally to the wolf-pack beating mentality as the use of knives does. The transition from punch to stab is much easier than the one from punch to step back, draw, and fire.

Britain would be wise to bring back the guns. That will put an end to the recent spate of stabbings in a hurry. And if a few would-be murderers get their heads blown off while trying to stab someone to death for kicks, so much the better.

It’s wonderful how migrants are able to contribute so colorfully to the multicultural vibrancy of the community:

British girls as young as 12 are being forced into prostitution by migrants in a new crime of ‘internal’ people trafficking. Children from ordinary families are groomed by older men posing as boyfriends before being pimped around the UK to have sex up to 20 times a night.

They are raped and often drugged, according to police.

Officers have identified ‘syndicates of Iraqi men throughout the UK’ behind the exploitation. A Government report said ‘internal trafficking’ was an ’emerging issue’ and it should no longer be assumed young victims of sex exploitation were smuggled from abroad.

Culture abhors a vaccuum.

This paints a somewhat romanticized view of homeschoolers, but it sums up the discomfort felt by others reasonably well:

Indications are that home schooling is working well for the kids, and the parents are pleased with their choice, but the practice is coming under increasing suspicion, and even official attack, as in California.

Why do we hate (or at least distrust) these people so much?

Methinks American middle-class people are uncomfortable around the home schooled for the same reason the alcoholic is uneasy around the teetotaler.

Their very existence represents a rejection of our values, and an indictment of our lifestyles. Those families are willing to render unto Caesar the things that Caesar’s be, but they draw the line at their children. Those of us who have put our trust in the secular state (and effectively surrendered our children to it) recognize this act of defiance as a rejection of our values, and we reject them in return.

I used to find it annoying, but now I’m mostly amused by those who get their noses out of joint simply because I don’t live my life the way they do. I’ve found the easiest way to end the hostile questioning is to simply ask “why do you care about this anyhow?” Somehow, I think the homeschoolers will somehow find the fortitude to survive their rejection by the mostly maleducated masses.

This is just my list of personal favorites from the electronic game era; I think it’s problematic to make substantive claims about the superiority of one very good game over another, especially games from different technological eras. I rate them primarily on the basis of how much I liked them at the time, with some nod to their influence on subsequent games. Series games reflect my favorite in the series. I’m sure I’m missing a few that should be here, so this will probably get revised a bit.

1. Akalabeth
2. John Madden NFL Football ’92 (Sega Genesis)
3. Doom
4. Wizardry
5. Wing Commander
6. Castle Wolfenstein (Apple II)
7. World of Warcraft
8. Quake
9. Autoduel (Apple II)
10. Ultima III
11. U.S. Ski Team Skiing I(Intellivision)
12. Swashbuckler (Apple II)
13. Fantasy General
14. Donkey Kong (arcade)
15. Total War: Medieval
16. Heretic
17. TIE Fighter
18. Crash Team Racing
19. Ms. Pac-man (arcade)
20. NCAA Basketball (Super Nintendo)
21. Combat Mission: Operation Barbarossa
22. Mechwarrior
23. Call of Duty
24. Space Battle (Intellivision)
25. Front Page Sports Football Pro ’95

I don’t think there’s any question that Akalabeth is the greatest game of all time. I still play it every now and then. I haven’t played enough GTA IV to have an opinion yet; Age of Conan may also merit a place on this list once I play a big more of it. There’s no question that Mario Karts 64 is better than Crash Team Racing on the PS/1, but I have sentimental reasons for preferring the latter. And if you’re noting an absence of RTS games on this list, that’s no accident. I despise them. And while there are some undeniably excellent games missing from this list, like Tetris, Super Mario Bros. and SimCity, I just never happened to particularly enjoy them.

Unsurprisingly, a journalist simply can’t get it through his head that newspapers don’t make you more intelligent. And it’s arguable that being misinformed is actually better than remaining in ignorance:

My lament this Fourth of July is to ask readers to see newspapers as not just another casualty in the churn of business. Sure, reporters say stupid things and write idiotic stories. Everyone stumbles. But on its best days, a newspaper is a marvel of style and wit, of small-type discoveries and large-type overstatements, a diary of our deeds. We may still prove Jefferson’s preference wrong: perhaps a nation can function without newspapers. But it would be a confederacy of dunces.

It’s not a question of “stumbling”, it’s a question of repeatedly, regularly and reliably getting the facts wrong while operating on a predictive model that is proven to be fraudulent, all the while presenting a blatantly dishonest picture about obvious biases and motives. Why should anyone place trust in a lapdog that insists on describing itself as a watchdog even as it is cuddled and caressed by the very entity it is supposed to be watching?

The New York Times makes the usual predictions of blood in the streets that are made whenever gun rights are honored or carry laws are passed:

In another sharp break with its traditions, the court struck down parts of the District of Columbia’s gun-control law. After seven decades of holding that the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms is tied to raising a militia, the court reversed itself and ruled that it confers on individuals the right to keep guns in their homes for personal use. The decision will no doubt add significantly to the number of Americans killed by gun violence.

Note that “significantly”. In 2004, 29,569 people were killed by guns. In 2005, 30,694 were killed, a 3.8 percent increase. According to the natural progression, there should be about 35,633 firearms deaths in 2009 even without the recent supreme court decision; let’s assume that a “significant” increase would be at least twice the expected rate of increase given population growth, to say nothing of the economic downturn and global warming. So, if the prophetic skills of the New York Times is to be trusted, gun fatalities should rise to at least 40,000 in 2009.

My view is that they won’t get anywhere near that level, unless, of course, Obama gets elected and decides to govern in the conventional African manner.

John Scalzi may be a lefty, but he is that rare and dangerous breed of lefty, the kind who actually pays attention:

Over the last seven elections, the superior military service is 1-6 in presidential elections. If McCain is hoping his service record is going to matter much in this election, he might want to look at the historical record.

I’ve never quite understood the “war hero” candidacy concept, especially given the fact that the USA hasn’t fought a popular war capable of producing public heroes in my entire lifetime. As Scalzi points out, if history is a reliable guide, then John McCain, USN, ret. is toast.

What’s the over/under on flavor in an Obama cabinet anyhow? It will be interesting to see if the usual lamentations about “a cabinet that doesn’t look like America” will resound throughout the land if there are more than two blacks or less than three Hispanics.