caesar novus

http://news.yahoo.com/roman-wreck-full-wine-jars-found-off-albania-144452643.html Roman wine ship found and declared "among the top 10 most scientifically interesting wrecks found in the Mediterranean". Albanian coast described as rich in underwater archeology, and more finds are expected.

Significance: I said that some claim there was a bit of thrust. A bit, as in cancelling out the drag of a few rivets. Typical thing that raceplane designers do to just get that 1mph edge at any cost. Like eliptical wings - sounds like Meridith-chasing originated at Supermarine and was foisted onto North American during the Brit P-51 order. Fanhood: I called P-51 a tiresome candidate, beloved by many so at least needing discussion. I don't like it, but respect it. A long p-51 evaluation in Smithsonian Air&Space magazine was not entirely glowing, but I have long lost it. I recall they did the same for the Zero and punctured some myths there to - the designer didn't intend for such a light fragile craft but was driven to desperation when the original engine proved weak. Meridith: If you click on the nasa.gov footnote in my Meridith link, you would see pictures and discussion of 1941 electric powered "open-duct jet propulsion" (now called ramjet) which uses no combustion at all and becomes especially effective by mach .75. It ran at 300 degrees, but the temperature "difference" is key so maybe hot p51 oil in -50 degree ambient air at full combat speeds starts to get efficient. Another source claims measurable performance at one half mach, but like you say none at all at rest. As for the nuclear option, look up Tory-IIC nuclear ramjet which is simply an air pipe with hot uranium instead of combustion. In spite of proving itself for 5 minutes at full power, US green extremists squashed the dream of having those spewing overhead. This is a really famous issue for p-47 and p-38 in dives. You can see transonic dangers elaborated over many pages in the P-51 flight manual (link below), although it is called "compressibility". They basically say at 0.75 mach some of the air funnels over airframe bulges around mach 1.0 and you are going to die unless doing so and so procedures. They have many explanatory pictures if you scroll upwards, including how P-51 laminar type wing delays this critical mach onset vs all other aircraft. I speculate it's worst possible oil duct location may be the limiting factor. But I don't care what they knew - I am judging bestness not best effort. http://books.google.com/books?id=SfwqCTY9I6MC&pg=PA74&lpg=PA74&dq=compressibility+p-51&source=bl&ots=hOFFTwYSE_&sig=BHmEe5LoThoB6pcOdv6R7LRnqwE&hl=en&ei=hcZSTouCFeHliAL-rLBt&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CFcQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=compressibility%20p-51&f=false If moved to the European theater I think the Hellcat would be hopelessly mauled, yet the (late-late model) Corsair might be king of all. Hellcat couldn't engage in normal dogfights - it's tactics relied on things like dive at the enemy then flee or the thatch weave. Japanese planes couldn't dive fast - light weight relative to drag gives a low terminal velocity hard to overcome without gobs of power. The Corsair packaged that massive 2000hp double radial in much sleeker, lighter, and more nimble package than similar engined p-47. I have seen it carve pretzels in the air yet speed away like a drag racer. It reminds me of seeing a canard equipped Saab jet demo - unbelievable maneuverability and straight speed. In the Corsair case, instead of canards they relied on pilots who could handle a difficult plane without easy stability. I can't find the reference now, but I read the P-47 extreme, over-the-top turbocharger wasn't deemed helpful in combat - they preferred lesser supercharged p-51 instead. I can't reference everything - maybe the Nazi competition wasn't turbocharged or suffered from their lower octane? It was far more bulky implementation than other turbos which only gave them diminishing returns. Anyway the p-47s shifted to low altitude ground attack. Here is a link below depicting the massive p47 ductwork and how it shielded battle damage and smoothed belly landings in actual experience (scroll up). http://books.google.com/books?id=Sq5pPTWlbqAC&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=p47+supercharger+ducts&source=bl&ots=mHYtOcTUIK&sig=d9trjkfU7gXs5JvQuduObGkXJJE&hl=en&ei=otBSToHdNOnUiAK0hMjuDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false I seem to recall you were statistically almost safer flying a p-47 in combat than driving at home after a few beers on Sat night. The dogfights documentary series covered a p-47 under relentless attack that simply flew home while Germans emptied their magazines into him. I think a deflection shot could have penetrated the ductwork into the pilot, but it was hard to even see where the pilots body was in that huge mass. I question weight not helping in power dives. Weight was a famous dive advantage in published tactics for large US fighters - even without power it tends to give you a higher terminal velocity. You are fighting a lot of drag even in a dive, so will need plenty of power to achieve that magical state of acceleration you would experience while falling in a vacuum. After that, weight would indeed detract your further acceleration, so maybe a little Storch can dive best of all? No, you may need to have power to weight ratio more than 1 to achieve that (thus can climb straight up without losing speed) which I don't think was the case.

The BBC quote in question is: "The Spitfire is one of the most vaunted examples of British engineering's history. The greatest ever single-seat, piston-engined fighter, it had played a vital role during the Battle of Britain the year before." No restriction to WW2, although how do you prove greatness without that test. No distinction of interceptor vs ground attack vs escort fighter, although how to compare between classes. So we can't get overly serious about it, but fun to brainstorm. I think Duxford has US planes all sequestered in one hanger, with so much metal polish they seem like showpieces rather than warbirds. The Hendon RAF museum (alight at Colindale, not Hendon London underground stop) has a P-47 right next to a Tempest2. That Tempest2 stole my heart, even though my head favors P-47 as what I would have done best with. Tempest2's tight radial cowl using ducted fan for cooling is so, er, cool. First on the Fw190, then picked up by Hawker, and even attempted once on a post war P-47 (looked silly) - I think it was the ultimate answer for piston technology. P.S. I may have an anti eliptical bias vs the Spitfire because an acquaintance of mine terrorized the paragliding industry in early 1990's with his patent on eliptical canopies. I think it is an obvious ideal shape based on physics that shouldn't be patentable, but simply used as the default if you don't have important other issues driving the design. I heard he had initial success in getting some fat royalties, but I suspect his claim since fell apart. Some late model Spitfires departed from elipticality.

It is called the Meridith effect, and was apparently introduced in the Spitfire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meredith_Effect . Same principle as a nuclear thermal rocket - apply a heat source to incoming fluid and expel the expanding fluid in a way that provides some thrust without stagnanting the incoming fluid flow. I think some confusion comes from sloppy wording that implies oil coolers provide NET thrust rather than a partial offset of the vent's drag. I speculate that the Spitfire offsets a tiny part of the oil cooler drag, and the Mustang offsets a small amount. The position of P-51 oil cooler always bothered me because it creates the worst possible "area rule" for transonic drag. The cooler vent coincides with the wing and canopy in a cross sectional view, and maybe restrict the max dive speed due to max pressure-wave creation. Is it the Spitfire that has that weird assymetrical cooler location under one wing (or Hurricane)? Seemed strange to me until I thought it might help to balance torque by countering yaw. Sort of like that weird Nazi (B&V?) plane with engine on one side and cockpit on the other - I think they put the draggy part to port which balanced propeller torque. As for the mighty but unloved Corsair, I only consider it a contender in the last year of the war when they fixed a scary assymetric spin/stall pitfall with what wiki describes as "These potentially lethal characteristics were later solved through the addition of a small, 6 in (150 mm)-long stall strip to the leading edge of the outer starboard wing". Before then it had an accident rate many times that of combat losses. By the last year, surely you gotta consider Hellcat as an old duffer - oddly it was hardly changed from it's early introduction yet had a huge kill rate. Oh, that reminds me the Bearcat could be argued as best prop fighter. But the corsair was still used in combat as late as 1969 (shot down a mustang), while Spitfires were pulled out of combat patrols in 1954 (unlike Sea Furies). Turbocharger locaton was the rear in P-47 IIRC, as opposed to more midpoint for P-38. I wish I could find again an amazing semitransparent color coded drawing of the P-47 ductwork, wrapping around the pilot and under the wings to and fro. They were very wide ducts in order to create free flow efficiency. Air came into the cowling which was extra large for this (unlike the Corsair which sipped it's tc/oil air thru wing inlets). Massive ducts brought air to rear for compression, then returned all the way forward to feed the engine. The engine expelled this air into exhaust piped to the rear to power the turbocharger - three lengthwise trips! All for ultimate high altitude performance that wasn't needed. Ducts, etc gave a lot of pilot protection and weight for diving - I would be happy to experience it's great safety record during the war.

Thanks for the reality check on Athens. I think Fukuyama is too dismissive of Rome and England, maybe in a spirit of multicultural revisionism. I would like to revive the place of Rome using his own framework; he seems to leave room for interpretation based on the spirit of the rules rather than just literal. Surely the Roman republic was mostly a shining step forward in good governance and state building. Oddly, he seems to applaud French revolution executions of aristocracy due to them always passing power and property to their children - can't we more appreciate the way England or the US reduced inherited power and turned loyalties toward the state or is that too stuffy and traditional? He praises accountability of ancient Chinese emperors (well, at least a couple) based on fuzzy notions of their morality rather than explicit procedures. However he does consider the current China situation as dangerously unaccountable, with possibility to go unstable with an unlucky change of rulers.

Francis Fukuyama is a famous political scientist with a simple theory of ideal governance, as discussed in book/video http://www.booktv.org/Watch/12427/The+Origins+of+Political+Order+From+Prehuman+Times+to+the+French+Revolution.aspx . In summary, he looks for statehood, rule of law. and accountability. He apparently rates Greece, Rome, and England lower than usual on the evolution of governance (England succeeded by a fluke), and rated institutions like ancient China, Ottoman empire, and medieval Catholic church higher than usual (barely missed ideals). He doesn't think democracy is always the best form of accountability (maybe stabbing Caesar or Caligula is as good as Greek voting?). He doesn't think bigger is better for statehood, altruism just has to extend beyond genetic kinship ties. And rule of law was normally religious because it has to absolutely overrule all political machinations. I wonder if we can make a case to restore primacy to Rome using those same principles, maybe using the hook of Rome's boosting of the Catholic church. He saw the reforming pope Gregory7 as starting the return of rule of law to Europe (both on religious and secular tracks). A lot of it was done thru those odd celibacy rules which is also what Ottomans demanded from certain rulers. This promotes statehood when they have no children to subvert loyalty of the powerful to kin rather the greater state. Anyway, I wonder if we speculate that Constantine wanted the church to be in place partly to play the check and balance role it did in medieval politics? BTW he points to early periods of Chinese history as having a great state, so-so accountibility, but lousy rule of law (no religious constraint on emperors). It all came together in England, but under such accidental conditions that it shouldn't be used as a recipe for developing countries. Leave democracy for last, get your state in order first (not so big as to merge conflicting values, such as Greek vs. Danish retirement practices?). Get a bulletproof rule of law before democracy. Don't dwell only on individual votes for accountability. So would anyone like to non-cynically rate historical regimes on statehood, rule of law, accountability... eg: England: high, high, high China: high, low, medium RomeRepublic: high, med, med RomeEmpire: med, varied, med Greece: ? ? ?

Well, some say the laminar (non turbulent) flow airfoil design did the trick but others say laminarity was lost the moment you hit some insects or raindrops. Others claim the oil cooler cancelled out it's drag with a bit of hot air thrust vs. much draggier competing designs. But it was really key that Mustangs needed the British engine upgrade or else it was mediocre. So I speculate that the Corsair maybe should be the unsung hero American design. It packaged the same monster radial engine in a much sleeker package than the bloated P-47. The P-47 was eccentrically optimized around an efficient turbocharger in it's tail, which required huge internal air ducts going back and forth. Yet it didn't really need to sacrifice everything for high altitude - it became a ground strafer. The Corsair had more problems than poor landing visibility - there was some scary aerodynamic pitfalls that were only cured late (sudden spins?). After that I think it became awesome, at least in the hands of an expert. I could barely believe my eyes watching a demo flight (I have been an airshow fanatic for decades and soloed at age 15). A possible clue for it's downplay came from a pilot interview who said he felt safer in the Hellcat. That is a low performance aircraft, but maybe adaquate for the weak competition near end of war... and built like a tank so an oversight of enemy on your tail wouldn't end your prospects of going home alive. But the radial Corsair was more survivable than either Mustang or Spitfire in the other theater of war. And let's not overlook other issues like the crude flight computer of FW190. I believe the throttle had fancy linkage to something like mixture or prop pitch or some other controls. Then you could slam it forward when spying the enemy, vs a bunch of fiddling in other aircraft that could result in you missing sight of the opponent before reving up. I think one of the last stretched Fw models (but before the Ta152) was a good contender. To me the pretty elliptical wings on the Spitfire were kind of a gimmick. It's well known that is the best aerodynamic shape, but at what cost? You could replace the awkward inverted gull wings on a Corsair with sleek ellipticals, but maybe you would then have to remove a lot of fuel and replace the 50 calibers with 30 caliber (deer rifle category) that the early Spit's had. But based on being the right tool at the right time, I might have to concede the Spitfire won WW2. That if I extrapolate from a video by (eccentric?) historian John Lukacs at http://www.booktv.org/Program/11432/The+Legacy+of+the+Second+World+War.aspx IIRC he says the Pacific theater was a sideshow and Japan never had a chance. And that Stalin admitted he couldn't conquer Germany on his own - only eliminate German expansion. German conquest required USSR plus USA (esp it's supply donations) but not the UK. However, UK played an essential role in not "losing" the war to Germany early on. And while Hurricanes had a high bomber kill count, all may have failed if there weren't just enough Spitfires with enough performance edge to keep fighters from mauling the Hurricanes

I might have to read A. Speer's book about his role as Minister of Amaments. It seems he wrestled with the tradeoffs of futuristic engineering vs practical use. I read some bits about him realizing early on that US/UK/USSR manufacturing ability was going to swamp that of the German empire. One of his responses was to shut down the ambitions of engineers, drastically cutting back refinements and planned projects. He was extremely successful in raising aircraft production, even as bombing ramped up (except in German occupied France, where they could never get production above 10% of Britain). Well, he had other techniques like firing department heads older than 55 and deputies older than 40 (to avoid routine and arrogance). Maybe some of these are applicable to improving business conditions today. Anyway, towards the end the emphasis had to swing back to exotic weapons because nothing else had a shred of hope except for a wild gamble.

I am more of a Hawker fan, so permit me to mudsling. The Supermarine Spitfire was an expensive short ranged racehorse that would have been inadaquate on it's own, but served well in smaller numbers to defend Hawker Hurricanes that were doing the real bomber interception work. I say inadaquate because frills like the eliptical wing took forever to construct, which would reduce producable aircraft numbers. Also the sleek design didn't accommodate heavy upgrades in weapons and engines easily, and I hear later fast models maneuvered poorly. In spite of it's short range, I recently heard that it was a couple of Spit's that strafed Rommel's car in France - good show! I'm not saying the Hurricane was better, but oh man, have you seen the Hawker Tempest 2 in the north London museum? Not the models with droop intake but the svelte ducted-radial, like an Fw-190 mated with a Spit. It had great promise, but never got the chance to be fully debugged by war end. Also what about the similar macho design Hawker Sea Fury, which not only carried over to Korean war but apparently played a big role in Castro defending Bay of Pigs 1961. OK I realize these aren't WW2 battle tested (as I was about to bring up the Fiat G55 which Kurt Tank supposedly liked enough to recommend replacing his Fw190). I've seen the Corsair do mock battle with a Mustang and it was so utterly dominant that I wonder if it was more than just pilot differences. Both were uninteresting until late war refinements, then they flew in different theaters. I do realize an early version of Corsair was flown by England, and don't recall how they rated it besides wresting with the carrier landing quirks. So the Spit may have been top dog early on, but by late war I think Corsair, Mustang, and maybe a long nosed or long tailed Focke Wulf were stronger contenders.

I hate weight training and wish I could find a hobby that accomplished the same. But a series of wellness lectures by some phd made the claim that toning up your muscles has amazing benefits in increasing your resting state metabolism. They claim that the majority of your energy expenditure come from hours of resting state, so basically you can diet less by suffering thru brief gym episodes. Also said strength leads to better health even if you stay heavy (for one of the major killers like heart disease?).

Maybe the bf109 started as a German peoples defensive weapon, but in 1939-45 German weapon designers knew they were enabling the Nazi goals of aggression. Von Braun, Messerschmitt, Kurt Tank (best aircraft), and Ferdinand Porsche (worst tanks) are sometimes spun as well meaning folks caught up in a police state, but... That was spun more positively when we needed to borrow such folks to help oppose communism. An Austrian scholar details the escape of many Nazis thru postwar Italy in book/video http://www.booktv.org/Program/12710/Nazis+on+the+Run+How+Hitlers+Henchmen+Fled+Justice.aspx where a pattern of acceptance by German speaking Italians, the vatican, and the red cross were eventually joined by the US gov't in getting such Nazi's across the Atlantic.

What aspect of that story interests you? I seem to recall that old documentary as slow paced and not as good as others in it's class of Nazi leading edge engineering. Not as bad as some that bordered on science fiction, but there was a particularly good one about 2 hours long that covered many such advanced Nazi aircraft designs. Probably shown on History Military or Discovery Military channels about twice a year. This makes me nostalgic for "real" documentaries, which are virtually never shown anymore on National Geographic, History, or Arts&Entertainment. It's just those "nowcasting" reality shows (whatever they are called) where cameramen follow blue collar drama queen workers doing somewhat adventurous jobs like lumberjacks or offroad truck drivers or state troopers. Oh, that and things like pawn shops and auctions are wildly topping the ratings. Military themes seem banned in favor of handbag fights by bluecollar toughs. Only the somewhat dry Smithsonian channel seems to buck the trend here. Or are you thinking of the technology content? I'm fascinated by German technology, both now and WW2. My last visits to England centered on museums featuring masses of Nazi aircraft and tanks. In air and water sports I have used eccentric German technology. My present car is of the same design line that Hitler had 50 of. Although mine is used, humble, and small (especially the engine, which putters easily in stop and go traffic), it has a big teutonic SUPERcharger that turns it from a kitty to a lion at times. I don't mean one of those neanderthal TURBOchargers that teens adore, but a stealthy velvety warp drive as used by all dragsters and fuhrers ready to flee assasination attempts. Or were you thinking of the historical implications? Nazi Germany was on the brink of amazing weapon technology at the end of the war. Not only fast stealthy aircraft, but long time submersable subs that would have drastically threated Atlantic convoys again (they carried their own oxygen, and were potentially going to carry missles). Maybe not nukes, but enough weaponry to hold off Allies. If you look into the details of these programs, their main holdup seemed to be cutoff of critical supply components. Not just from the derided "carpet" bombing, but time after time their oil or special metal or fabrication centers were pinpointed. Thank you Brits for blocking Rommel from oil country. Thank you Ruskies for blocking Nazi southern thrust towards oil country. Thank you Yanks who apparently did make that Norden bombsight succeed a few times.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_mob#Legal_incidents sez that violent flash mobbing has been experienced and dealt with in the US and Germany with enforcement and preventative measures. It said in the UK it was addressed by police "urging" to refrain.

I got lost in Amsterdam recently, and stumbled around for hours too proud to ask for directions. I consider that good and right behavior, although it has been ridiculed as a typical male weakness. I say "has been" because maybe the issue has become mute with so many people walking with phones displaying map locations or driving with gps stuck to their windshield (doesn't this obscure vision and kill people?). I think finding your way on your own is a fundamental issue of your relation to the universe. If you can't do it, you must try harder to master it's principles rather than get yourself off the hook with a plea for help. Some people like to ask directions because they are needy for social interactions, and it's sort of a mutual backscratching. Fine, but do that for some issue other than navigation which needs to be mastered. So what benefit came from my masochistic stumbling? First note that I criss-crossed all of Amsterdam like a genius for several afternoon hours. I had a tiny cartoon map with several areas I wanted to photograph and surprised myself with the ease of finding them by just blazing a compass course based on the low sun position. After it went dark I got disoriented by the way everything is in a uniform curve like Manhattan bent in a semicircle. I took hours to find my hotel even when I knew I had gotten close. Well, I think the lesson is I got lazy with normal reliance on sun position (ignored the moon) or else high landmarks (ignored differences in church steeple gingerbread). I got mesmerized by the uniformity of the canals, but didn't notice there was one bigger canal with a lack of bridges that kept turning me back, but should have served as a landmark. So I lost sleep, but a lesson was learned to be more flexible for clues (or to carry a map detailed enough for the lengthy Dutch street names). Some might say visual navigation isn't dependable due to clouds or fog, but normally under those conditions there usually is a breeze in a consistent direction vs the random gusts kicked up by local heating. I once carried a compass to explore the backstreets of Cairo, but that wasn't needed due to their sun and landmarks. All you normally need to do is to fix in your mind a map of prominent landmarks before heading out. I never navigate in the sense of a word problem - "second left then right" type of thing just means you are totally lost when you miss or can't take one turn. Anyway, that is my wisdom - or silliness - for the reluctance to ask directions. Actually I did ask a very rare directional question on a previous brief stopover in Amsterdam. A young women was tagging along who was on our tour group into Africa, and exuded delicate sensibilities that I thought might be offended by us blundering into the red light district. Later I found that protectiveness was very misplaced, as she loved to go alone into African bars where glass was being smashed and no other tourists dare tread. Wouldn't it be funny if someone piped up to say "I was that women"... I await an internet reunion.

There are observations of imbalances of gender ratios thru history or in sectors of a society. The most recent example is a deficit of perhaps 100 million baby girls in Asia - said to be due to modern sex selection technology in http://www.unfpa.org/gender/selection.html or more in depth at http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/06/27/where_have_all_the_girls_gone?page=full . But there is a Trivers-Willard explanation that could apply to not only recent times but all thru history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trivers

There is a pantheon webcam sometimes panning the entrance from about the same angle of your photo here (although mounted lower) where you should be able to see the below effect (if not the March equinox thingy). Easily found on the web, although I like to use the android app "rome webcam" in spite of it falling out of date and not showing other Roman sites very well.

It faces north, so the sunbeam can slant in towards the entrance from the south. I found a picture of the supposed Vatican reconstruction of the original pantheon interior, and it is obviously just a loose allusion or a mistake of intentions by a guidebook:

I believe I saw the whole pantheon temple complex depicted in this Yale class session http://academicearth.org/lectures/hadrians-pantheon-and-tivoli-retreat

Just some unrelated observations... I think the Pantheon's exterior is ugly, hulking, and of awkward proportions. However it was pointed out to me that it was originally tightly surrounded by wings of related buildings, and thus mainly seen from inside perspectives. Sorry, but I also think the lower level interior clashes with the Roman vibe. It's sort of Catholic baroque, but I hear the original interior look is recreated in a room of the Vatican. I vaguely recall this as pagan grandiose, but didn't appreciate it too well because the crowds are at a particular chokepoint there. Also it looks a bit new and stagey, so I didn't make the connection until hearing about it afterwards (maybe someone can post a picture?).

I think there are both good and bad misspellings (sp?). English has all kinds of irregular historical oddities that may or may not contribute meaningful distinctions. When it doesn't, I can appreciate a change to a more regular form, like swimmed rather than swam - especially from non-native speakers. There is a grey (gray?) area... do we absolutely need the who/whom or effect/affect distinctions? A related issue is choice of words such as the BBC list of 50 worst Americanisms http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14201796 . I think some are a step forward, some a step backward, and others neutral. Like the included notes from American readers in that article, this is a process of evolution. Mutations can be thought as random, and most misfits will die off but a few improved innovations will survive. There once was intelligent creationism in the form of spelling simplification by Ben Franklin or somebody of the American revolution era where various British spellings were shortened and regularized, although not all caught on. Meanwhile misspellings offer a window into the mind of the writer - are they obviously unaware of the roots of the words they use, or do they cover up a mess with a spell checker which lets them insert many (rightly spelled) wrong words that sound the same?

I wonder in what phase of the war the worst of the artifact damage happened? Too bad Germans didn't recognize that Heidelburg was being purposefully spared (as a culture center, just as Kyoto was) and sent artifacts there. They could have used Hitler's personel train bristling with AA guns, which he didn't use towards the end. Oh right, they would have installed secret weapons and elite villas instead. I will risk brainstorming a bit more, even though my WW2 knowledge may be fractured... It's interesting to think whether the damages were particularly needless (although not known at the time). The final intense bombings of Berlin had a solely psychological purpose IIRC since there were few useful ground targets or defensive planes to worry about. It was actually trying to save more damage and killing by forcing surrender before the ground forces swept in. The Russians were very close, but maybe Allies didn't have Hitler's psychology profiled right to see that a combined, imminent, apocalyptic threat did not tempt surrender (did tempt Hitler's deputies tho). But previous to that, at least in the latter half of the war, the Berlin bomb damage was not for psychological reasons. It was a successful program of tying down masses of 88 guns and fighter planes so that the Russians and later the Normandy invasion could proceed without overwhelming opposition. The bomber crews were explicitly sacrificial bait for the German fighters to approach and be mauled by P-51s and P-47s. Russia gets credit for 4 out of 5 allied casualties, but maybe this would have risen unsustainably if not for artifact-busting bombing which gave them air superiority. Earlier in the war the bombing may have been less useful due to less impact on German defenses (and of course psychology). In the case of Italy, isn't it a shame the fake invasion plan they so skillfully convinced the Germans of (thru a covert operation in Spain) didn't go into effect. Sardinia (after Sicily?) was to be captured and project airpower from southern Germany to the surrounding Med. There was optionally going to be incursion into Macedonia, Albania, or Yugoslavia. Think of the saving to the Italian mainland, not only to such prime artifacts of western civilization but to casualty rates in the mountainous boot that favors defense over offense. I think there is little in Sardinia worth preserving, and if the Germans could be convinced that the island invasion has merit, then why not. Instead a roll up the Italian boot occurred with a particularly skillful German general and klutzy US one.

The "naked archeologist" had a program on how thieves or at least illegal amateurs had brought to light the most interesting artifacts in Israel. Of course the legal archeologists countered that the biggest loss then was inability to examine artifact's embedded context. Maybe in centuries the items could be properly dug up - or on the other hand destroyed by construction. Lake Nemi was such a heartbreaker. Those fabulous Roman ships brought to light by Mussolini draining the lake - a documentary recently examined the tunnels drilled to make this happen. Then the ships being burned by retreating Nazis (I take it an alternate theory that Allies did it accidentally is whispered among scholars - I so much wish the Allies used plan B invading Sardinia rather than the mainland boot). I wonder if Italy completed a reconstruction of 1 ship that was shown laying a keel in a long ago documentary?

I have a medieval england course http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/Course_Detail.aspx?cid=8410 playing on my ipod and I believe the lecturer said both the Viking and Saxon "invasion" was oftentimes more like a stream of settlers, according to the archeology. She gave specific reasons why the history was long ago spun to emphasize the wave or invasion aspect due to identity politics. I don't recall if she claimed many women came by sea - you can put Viking bangles on a Brit bride. I may have muddled some of this narrative because I play this series while walking along busy traffic.

Borders drove me away from bricks and mortar stores and towards online. The freeloaders blocking the shelves in their eternal reading or headphone positions started getting territorial and relishing keeping genuine shoppers away from their interest areas. I remember years ago when these bookstores started this library/coffee theme when such opportunities weren't taken for granted. It was also a time vagrancy was uncommon even during recessions, but now the default attitude seems to be cynical assumption of entitlements. Well, I guess this approach still works at some fringe bookstores that attract esoteric demographics.

Sorry - I guess his "new" findings date from the early 1990's which he is just consolidating (not introducing) now. I am out of date due to immersing myself in WW2 decades ago at a military library with no followup. Now I have started to follow a book called something like "the third reich at war" and almost falling out of my chair due to stuff I didn't know (but probably widely known). Anyway I jumped the gun since I hadn't seen his video yet. I saw another one he did and some overenthusiastic book reviews, but this video was poor. I guess cspan book site is in a summer slow period and not so great now - but don't lose heart and be sure to check it around September!