The Nile and Diogenes

Lake Victoria, Lake Albert and the
Head Waters of the Nile



It is extremely unlikely that the overwhelming majority of people have heard about the explorer Diogenes who sometime in the first century C.E. was blown off course in the Indian ocean and ended up in the port of Rhapta on the African coast near, or at modernday Dars es-Salaam in modernday Tanzania. 

Remembering the Nightmare

Honouring the Sacrifice

 

Poppies

 

Today is November 11 which in Canada is Remembrance Day. Today and the week before lots of us Canadians go around wearing red poppies with black centres.

What If?

A comment on a What If? Nazis winning Scenario

German Tiger Tank in the Snow



The game of what if? is a popular one. In a forum at Randi.org I read a possible scenario about Hitler winning World War I. Here is that post and my comments on this idea.1 The post I am replying to is indented. My remarks are un-indented. The comments are has I wrote them aside from a conclusion and added references.

Finding Odin



The God Odin



In several postings I have reffered to the works of Thor Heyerdahl and in particular I mentioned that he shortly before he died (2002) he published two books about his hunt for the “real” Odin.1 I also mentioned a devastating review that was published in 2002 shortly after his death, concerning Thor Heyerdahl’s efforts in this area. The review was originally published in Norwegian, but a English translation of the piece was put on the web. Sadly it appears that it is no longer obtainable on the web. I have therefore decided to post the piece in its entirety.

In a previous posting I quoted an author who said concerning Thor Heyerdahl:

Rather than classifying him [Thor Heyerdahl] as a pseudo historian it would be more fair and accurate to call him a careful scholar who sincerely holds some highly speculative hypotheses that are widely viewed as wrong.2

The idea that Thor Heyerdahl can be described as a "careful scholar" is actually quite risible as the following will show in abundance.

 

(In this piece my stuff is in italics, the rest in regular script)

Battle of The Little Big Horn

Indian + Army Casualties

Custer's Last Command - Painting

Perhaps one of the most interesting questions regarding the battle is the question of casualties. Now in a previous posting I discussed various aspects of the battle of The Little Big Horn.1 Here I will discuss casualties.