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The meme of honourable death

The Anglo Boer War (in what is now South Africa from October 11th, 1899 to May 31st, 1902) was a turning point in European style military history. In previous centuries, infantry would operate in large blocks that would move forward, turn and open or close ranks, and winning an infantry engagement would involve getting your columns around the side or back of the enemy’s columns, or simply overrunning them head on. This worked in part because although everybody had a firearm of some kind, the firearms of the 18th century and in some areas well into the 19th century held one bullet, took time to reload, and were inaccurate, and since they tended to be inaccurate, the soldiers were generally not trained to shoot as well as they might. So, a rifle was really a spear (with a bayonet attached, of course) that also made a lot of noise and fired a few relatively useless bullets. Previously, a highly mobile well trained cavalry was effective under the right conditions because it consisted of swordsmen up on big and/or fast horses who could move quickly across the landscape and would wade into the enemy’s infantry slicing up the foot soldiers. The cavalry could not be stopped easily by the infantry because the infantry would shoot a relatively small number of relatively bogus bullets at the cavalry, knock a few guys off a few horses, then get ripped to shreds with the swords. The fact that the cavalry often consisted of members of the elite classes and the infantry consisted mainly of working class men made it all the more … Victorian.

~ A repost because history is still history ~
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And the Nobel Prize for Literature goes to ….

… Mario Vargas Llosa.

From Wikipedia, we learn that his name is prounouced: “[Ë?maɾjo Ë?βarÉ£az Ë?Ê?osa]” Thank you very much Wikipedia, that was so xweÊ?ul.

Anyway, Vargas Llosa wrote La ciudad y los perros, La casa verde, 1965/1968), and the Conversación en la catedral.

Many of Vargas Llosa’s works are influenced by the writer’s perception of Peruvian society and his own experiences as a native Peruvian. Increasingly, however, he has expanded his range, and tackled themes that arise from other parts of the world. Another change over the course of his career has been a shift from a style and approach associated with literary modernism, to a sometimes playful postmodernism.*

Richard Heck, Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki share Chemistry Nobel

The three are organic chemists, and each independently came up with new ways to make complex organic molecules, in this case, carbon-to-carbon bonds.

The chemical processes are now used worldwide in commercial production of pharmaceuticals, including potential cancer drugs. The molecules are also used to make electronics, LEDs, and extremely thin motors, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.

npr

How to induce an abortion in your unfaithful wife/girlfriend

Guys. There may be times when you feel your wife or long-term girlfriend has been sleeping with another man. You may suspect she is even pregnant from this activity, and you are not the father. There is a way to fix this, using traditional medicines and some magic, so that your wife/girlfriend will have a spontaneous abortion if you are not the father of the child. You will need an ancient Canaanite or Hebrew priest to help mix up the concoction, and you have to go find The Lord himself (Plan ahead! He is not always available!) to help out as well, but overall, the procedure is not that difficult.

Below the fold.
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Robert Edwards, developed In-vitro Fertilization, wins Nobel Prize in Medicine

Robert Edwards of Britain won the 2010 Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for the development of in-vitro fertilization, a breakthrough that has helped millions of infertile couples to have children.

“His achievements have made it possible to treat infertility, a medical condition afflicting a large proportion of humanity including more than 10 percent of all couples worldwide,” the medicine prize committee in Stockholm said in its citation.

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