The best example of what was called a Nejdi horse that comes to my mind is ‘Vonolel’–the horse of General Roberts. Here is a letter that General Roberts has written to Homer Davenport in 1907 and a photograph showing Lord Roberts mounted on the Vonolel, c. 1881

“ENGLEMERE, ASCOT, BERKS,
4th March, 1907.
Dear Sir,—I have been a long time replying to your letter of the 22d of November, in which you asked for information about the Arab horse I had in my possession for many years. I have deferred doing so until I could send you a photograph of the horse; this I have been able to discover quite lately. I bought the horse in Bombay in 1877. He was a pure-bred Nedj Arab and was then five years old, and had quite recently been landed from Arabia. The following year I took him to Afghanistan, where he was with me for two years in extremes of heat and cold, and very often with difficulty about proper food for him, but while other horses fell off in condition from not getting forage, the little Arab maintained his throughout. I kept him all the time I was in India and in 1893 brought him to England. He attracted great attention at the late Queen’s jubilee in 1897; he died two years afterward, and is buried in the garden of the Royal Hospital, Dublin, in which I reside while commanding in Ireland. During the twenty-two years he was in my possession he travelled with me over fifty thousand miles and was never sick or sorry. He measured exactly 14 hands 2 inches.
Believe me,
Yours very truly,
ROBERTS, F. M.”

———————–

Kipling’s tribute to Lord Roberts: “Bobs” (an excerpt):

Now they’ve made a bloomin’ Lord
Outer Bobs,
Which was but ’is fair reward—
Weren’t it, Bobs?
So ’e’ll wear a coronet
Where ’is ’elmet used to set;
But we know you won’t forget—
Will yer, Bobs?

———————–

The grave of Vonolel, the famous and bemedalled horse.

Many people walking the grounds of the Royal Hospital in Kilmainham will pass a small grave without noticing, and yet this grave is perhaps the most unusual grave in Dublin itself. In the grounds of the Hospital, one finds the final resting place of ‘Vonolel’, twenty-nine years old on passing, but a veteran of conflict.

Much more information on the horse can be gathered from an earlier piece however, dating from January of the same year, when Vonolel was still living. In it, it was noted that Vonolel had come to England “having been practically all over the world with his master”. He was described as “..a type of the highest class of Arab charger” and it was noted that “he traces his descent from the best blood of the desert.”

Fort Morgan, Colorado US Historical Climate Network Station. It is easy to see how urbanization can impact recorded temperature data.

Issues & Insights identifies the key flaw in the Alarmist narrative.

The United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is quite certain Earth will be in trouble if the global temperature exceeds pre-industrial levels by 1.5 degrees Celsius or more. But how can anyone know? According to university research, “global temperature” is a meaningless concept.

“Discussions on global warming often refer to ‘global temperature.’ Yet the concept is thermodynamically as well as mathematically an impossibility,” says Science Daily, paraphrasing Bjarne Andresen, a professor at the University of Copenhagen’s Niels Bohr Institute, one of three authors of a paper questioning the “validity of a global temperature.”

Science Daily explains how the “global temperature” is determined.

“The temperature obtained by collecting measurements of air temperatures at a large number of measuring stations around the globe, weighing them according to the area they represent, and then calculating the yearly average according to the usual method of adding all values and dividing by the number of points.”

But a “temperature can be defined only for a homogeneous system,” says Andresen. The climate is not regulated by a single temperature. Instead, “differences of temperatures drive the processes and create the storms, sea currents, thunder, etc. which make up the climate”.

While it’s “possible to treat temperature statistically locally,” says Science Daily, “it is meaningless to talk about a global temperature for Earth. The globe consists of a huge number of components which one cannot just add up and average. That would correspond to calculating the average phone number in the phone book. That is meaningless.”

There are two ways to measure temperature: geometrically and mathematically. They can produce a large enough difference to show a four-degree gap, which is sufficient to drive “all the thermodynamic processes which create storms, thunder, sea currents, etc.,” according to Science Daily.

So if global temperature is unknowable, how can the IPCC and the entire industry of alarmists and activists be so sure there exists a threshold we cannot pass? Of course the IPCC says it knows the unknowable. In its latest report, released this month, it yet again maintained that the global temperature must “kept to well below 2º C, if not 1.5º C” above pre-industrial levels to avoid disaster.

A few years after the University of Copenhagen report was published, University of Guelph economist Ross McKitrick, one of the report’s authors, noted in another paper that “number of weather stations providing data . . . plunged in 1990 and again in 2005. The sample size has fallen by over 75% from its peak in the early 1970s, and is now smaller than at any time since 1919.”

“There are serious quality problems in the surface temperature data sets that call into question whether the global temperature history, especially over land, can be considered both continuous and precise. Users should be aware of these limitations, especially in policy-sensitive applications.”

RTWT

HT: Mark Tapscott.

Statistics! “There are three kinds of falsehoods, lies, damned lies, and statistics.” –Arthur Balfour.

“If I get to select both the data and the methodology of calculation, I can prove anything with statistics.” –David Zincavage.

The Antarctic Worm: Eulagisca gigantea. “Judging by the size of the jaws, [it] is a predator, but its diet is unknown, and very little is known about its biology.”

HT: Vanderleun.

St. George School, Newport, R.I. I went to St. George School myself, but mine was in Shenandoah, PA.

The other day, a Yale classmate announced on the Facebook Class Group that a female member of a significantly later class has a book on the beginning years of coeducation at Yale, Yale Needs Women, coming out next month.

I pre-ordered a copy, and remarked to the group that it looked to me like the author was, unfortunately, going to be milking a “Poor us, we were victims!” perspective. Suddenly, a formerly genial classmate from St. Paul’s was urging me to take my misogynistic opinions someplace else.

Liberal idiocy and absolute liberal intolerance of dissent from the party line are everywhere in establishment America today. Will Davis, for another example, ran into both in his alumni group discussions, too.

Sometimes people ask me how I, as a member of the very liberal newspaper industry, came to be a conservative.

The answer is that I’ve been around liberals enough to know that we don’t want them running —— well, anything.

My first and most lasting introduction to leftists was in Newport, Rhode Island, where I went to boarding school.

St. George’s School is a beautiful place. A gothic chapel sits perched among red-brick Colonial classroom buildings and dorms, overlooking a grassy bluff and the Atlantic Ocean. It’s a picture of tradition, excellence and charm.

Don’t let appearances fool you. Like most of New England, indeed like most educational institutions, St. George’s was and is a hotbed of political correctness and hard-core liberalism. And it’s also the place where Fox News’ Tucker Carlson went to high school, graduating just a few years before me.

And so on Monday, the administrator of our St. George’s Class of 1992 Facebook page struck out to post this:

“Hi all, happy summer. Hope everyone is well. For those of you out there opposed to the racist hate speech that is swirling around in this country and fueling violence (that I hope has not impacted any of you or your loved ones), please consider adding your name to a letter signed by a long list of alumni who are asking the school to break ties with Tucker Carlson (who was recently used as an auction item amongst other things). Please comment here or message me if you are interested in joining other alums in asking the school to stand behind their purported values. Thanks!”

Ah, nothing brings a graduating class together like a good old ex-communication.

In case you missed it, Carlson did a monologue the other day on his Fox show explaining that white supremacy is not a real thing, that it’s a hoax just like Russian collusion used to hammer Trump. Carlson noted that there is no discernible white supremacy movement in the country; that he’s never met anyone who claimed to be a white supremacist. Neither have I. Have you? It’s merely the latest club that the left is using to try to whack Trump and his supporters. It’s just hateful slander.

On a page dedicated to keeping up with classmates, I thought it was tacky to bring up politics, and I couldn’t keep my fingers shut. As comedian Ron White famously said, “I had the right to remain silent, but I did not have the ability.”

I pointed out to my fellow Dragons that former Vermont governor and Democratic presidential candidate Howard “The Scream” Dean is also an SG alum, and he offends ME greatly. Yet I don’t urge our school to banish him.

“If you want to send the message that SG is another liberal bastion that crushes dissent and anyone who thinks original thoughts,” I wrote, “this seems like a good way to do it.”

I went on to say that I’ve lived in Georgia for 27 years and had yet to meet anyone who advocates white supremacy.

My old chum Candace Gottschalk, who lives in New York City, would have none of it.

“I imagine it would be easy for you to agree that white supremacy isn’t a problem,” wrote Gottschalk. “You are a white male who included an image of the confederate flag on your senior page. Just last week, my husband, who is black, went to the farmer’s market and was asked by the vendor if he was looking for collard greens, because you know, black people only eat collard greens. Racism is everywhere. You do not see it because you are never the victim of it.”

Really? So now her husband is a victim of racism because they asked him if he wants collard greens? My gosh, I LOVE collard greens. Are we really sitting around waiting to be offended? Can you imagine growing up with people like this?

RTWT

HT: Glenn Reynolds.

The insane egalitarian ideology is everywhere in Europe and America today. Some News Agency has the story.

A 9-year-old girl is suing a centuries-old Berlin boys’ choir, arguing that her bid to join was only rejected because of her gender, in a case that has sparked debate over equal rights versus artistic freedom.

The State and Cathedral Choir is one of the most renowned boys’ choirs in Germany, founded in 1465 by Fredrick II of Brandenburg. Over its 554 years, it has never admitted any girls.

The girl, whose identity was not revealed to protect her privacy, auditioned with the choir in March and was rejected, according to the Berlin administrative court that is to rule on the suit Friday.

The choir contends the girl’s rejection was “not predominantly about her gender” and she would have been asked to join if she had displayed extraordinary talent and motivation and “if her voice had matched the desired sound characteristics of a boys’ choir,” the court said.

The choir also expressed doubt it would have been able to work with the girl’s parents.

The girl’s mother, who brought the complaint on her daughter’s behalf, argues the choir’s rejection is discriminatory “in an impermissible way” and violates her right to equal opportunities from an institution receiving state funds, the court said.

RTWT

WWI Iron Cross Second Class.

From John Bogin at Quora:

My father served in the South Lancashire Regiment, The Prince of Wales Volunteers in WW2.

One day I was visiting the museum for the Lancashire regiments in Preston, Lancashire. While I was there I saw a medal box which, among other medals, contained an Iron Cross from World war one.

The officer I was talking to told me the story behind the medal and its owner, who I believe, was called Albert. Anyway, I will call him Albert from here on.

I must say that sometime has passed since this conversation and so I am going to fill in some blanks and add, what I hope you will find funny. But when I tell this story I always get a lump in my throat.

Albert was between the lines, in no man’s land, when he was seriously wounded. That night a German search party came out. I presume that they were looking for their own men but I don’t think they were worried about taking a British Tommy back.

They got him back and he would be sent to the nearest hospital. His uniform would be cut of, his wounds attended to and then he was put to bed in a hospital just behind the lines filled with German wounded. By now he would be wearing German army pyjamas.

One day the door opens and a German army general comes into the ward. You can imagine all of the staff standing rigidly to attention when he came in. He addressed the wounded patients. He told them that they were all heroes. They had all fought and been wounded for their country. As a result, they were all to be awarded the Iron Cross, you can imagine him stopping by each bed, awarding the medal, stepping back and saluting the soldier and then moving on to the next.

Was Albert awake or conscious ? I don’t know but I bet you a £5.00 that he didn’t speak German.

I imagine two German orderlies standing to attention as the is happens, call them Hans and Karl.

Karl. “Hans do you think that the General knows that the man in bed 14 is a Tommy?”

Hans “Of course he will. He is the General.”

Karl. “But what happens if he doesn’t and give’s the Tommy a medal?”
Hans ”Good point. You had better tell him.”

Karl “Me. You are senior to me. Oh too late. The Tommy has just been awarded one of the highest honours that Germany can bestow.”

In due course the General found out what had happened and was asked what should happen. Did the Tommy get to keep the medal or should it be taken off him? Well- I told you he gets to keep it.

The General said that the medal had been awarded to men who were heroes. They had fought and were wounded for their country. He was such a man and, as such, he deserves the medal.

I am raising a glass to the German General. I wish I knew his name.

Fellowship of the Minds posts a Millennial story from Georgetown Adjunct Professor of Public Relations and Journalism Carol Blymire.

In a series of tweets on July 12, 2019, Blymire recounted a story she overheard of a millennial “in her late 20s” in Washington, DC, getting feedback on something she had written from her boss, who is also female:

In office space near a client, a young woman was meeting with her boss. She was (by my estimation) in her late 20s.

The boss (also a woman) was giving her feedback and reviewing edits she had made on something this young woman wrote.

They had been speaking in low tones, but their volume got louder toward the end of the conversation because the young woman was getting agitated about a particular edit.

That particular edit was correcting the spelling of “hampster” to “hamster”. Apparently she had used the phrase “like spinning in a hamster wheel” in this draft (presumably) speech or or op-ed.

The young woman kept saying, “I don’t know why you corrected that because I spell it with the P in it.” The boss said (calmly), “But that’s not how the word is spelled. There is no P in hamster.”

Young woman: “But you don’t know that! I learned to spell it with a P in it so that’s how I spell it.”

The boss (remaining very calm and professional), let’s go to https://t.co/n2ZU5Uuuy3 and look it up together. (mind you, this is a woman in her late 20s, not a 5th grader)

The young woman insists she doesn’t need to look it up because it’s FINE to spell it with a P because that’s HOW SHE WANTED TO SPELL IT.
The boss says, “Let’s look over the rest of the piece so I can explain the rest of my edits.” They do, and I can see the young woman is fighting back tears. The boss is calm, cool, and handles this with professionalism and empathy.

Boss says, “I know edits can be difficult to go over sometimes, especially when you’re working on new kinds of things as you grow in your career, but it’s a necessary process and makes us all better at what we do.”

Boss gets up from table and goes to her office and the young woman can barely hold it together. She moves to another table in the common workspace area, drops all her stuff loudly on the table top, and starts texting. A minute later, her phone rings.

It was her mom. She had texted her mom to call her because it was urgent, and I’m sure her mother maybe thought she was in the ER or something. She then … PUTS HER MOM ON SPEAKERPHONE. IN THE WORKPLACE.

She bursts into tears and wants her mom to call her boss and tell her not to be mean about telling her how to spell words like “hamster”.

The mother tells her that her boss is an idiot and she doesn’t have to listen to her and she should go to the boss’ boss to file a complaint about not allowing creativity in her writing.

The young woman kept saying, “I thought what I wrote was perfect and she just made all these changes and then had the nerve to tell me I was spelling words wrong when I know they are right because that is how I have always spelled them.”

She then went on (still on speakerphone) to tell her mom I’m very great and office-inappropriate detail about how hungover she was and what she and her friends did with some guys the night before. Mom laughed and laughed.

The colleagues in and around the workplace kept looking at one another and some even put earbuds/headphones in/on. It appeared as though this was a regular thing with her.

She ended the conversation asking her mom how she should bring this up with the boss’ boss. “I mean, I always spell hamster with a P, she has no right to criticize me.” […]

Based on the way her mom spoke to her and they way they spoke to one another, it seemed as though this young woman had never been told she was anything but perfect by family. […]

Her boss seemed as dumbfounded through the conversation as I was in overhearing it.

I think I was most perplexed by the insistence of wanting to spell something the way she wanted to because SHE WANTED TO, ignoring the fact that there are rules and dictionaries. And seeming offended that anyone would suggest the use of an outside resource as reference. …

RTWT

HT: G.W. Bowen.

The staff at the Babylon Bee clearly wants to live.

Above all, we want to make sure Hillary does not question our loyalty to her and the whole Clinton family. We have nothing bad to say about her. Also, just to be clear, we have no dirt or inside information on her whatsoever and nothing would be gained by our untimely deaths.

So, Hillary, we love you! Please do not hurt us.

RTWT

Kuriositas has an interesting

In the churchyard of St Pancras Old Church in London, hundreds of old gravestones circle an ash tree. Of course, these were not how they were originally laid out. So, how did they get to this, their final resting place, as it were? And who was responsible?

Long before he became famous for novels like Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Far From the Madding Crowd and The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy (like any other aspiring writer) had to find employment with which to pay his way through the world. His chosen field was to be architecture.

However, it is unlikely that the would-be author could guess what one of his firm’s projects would demand of him. He probably didn’t sign up for architecture to then be sent to excavate a graveyard. Yet, like many a young man finding his path, sometimes you have to do what you have to do.

During his five years with the Covent Garden based architect Arthur Blomfield (1862-67) the railway system of the British Isles was undergoing a huge burst of growth. The lines in and around London were, in particular, demanding more room to carry people in and out of the capital.

It was during this time that an older part of St Pancras Churchyard was designated for almost total obliteration in order to make way for a new railway line. The Bishop of London gave the contract for this work to Blomfield who passed responsibility on to his young student, Hardy. Yet these objects in the way of progress could not be cleared like slums. Even progress occasionally must respect what came before and the removal and relocation of so many middle class graves would almost certainly have caused an uproar if it was not done properly..

The coffins were removed from the site with circumspection and care and were reburied elsewhere (the Victorian English had a horror of cremation). There was no need to move the headstones. Yet although the graves were old and unvisited it would not have been respectful to simply dump the headstones in to the Thames.

The process would have taken a great deal of time and young Hardy, who was 25 when he was given this commission would have spent the best part of a year overseeing the work. Perhaps his experiences in St Pancras church yard later informed some of the bleaker passages in his novels.

Some of the headstones were placed in a circular pattern around a young ash tree in the churchyard of St Pancras Old Church, far enough away from the site of the railway for them never to have to be disturbed again. Over the decades the tree has, inevitably grown and parts of the headstones nearest the tree have disappeared in to its growth.

RTWT