Nice story about an archaeology buff who is building a castle from scratch in 13th century style. Along with period building material and methods, they are also considering how to defend from period attackers:

Our guide blended humor with the history lesson and had us play the role of invaders to explain how even the smallest architectural details helped protect castles.

Some examples: A staircase turns clockwise, forcing invaders to transfer their spears to the left hand and giving the defense an advantage. An extra-tall step requires them to take off their chain-link armor to scale it. Anyone who actually makes it up the stairs alive would have to bend over to pass through a low doorway — giving the castle’s hatchet-armed defenders a prime crack at their necks.

Sounds like fun, but the real question is what will they do to defend against other period threats like The Black Death. Will these history buffs bathe regularly and keep their lodging clean or find scapegoats to torture and burn?

More good news about cider, in case you need yet another reason why it should never have been regulated into oblivion in America:

The researchers have found that English cider apples have high levels of “phenolic antioxidants” – linked to protection against strokes and cancer.

The next stage of the study, partly funded by the National Association of Cider Makers, is to analyse how humans absorb these chemicals from cider.

I am sure they will find plenty of volunteers. I may have to return to Scotland to do some of my own “analysis”.

I don’t think many Americans realize that the Nazi party is a very real part of the political patchwork in Minnesota and Wisconsin, let alone the West and South. The Journal Sentinel reports:

Organizers said they staged the rally to protest illegal immigration and to stump for Nazi candidates expected to run in 2008 elections.

Jeff Schoep, a member of the Minnesota-based National Socialist Movement, said he was pleased to be in Madison to share his group’s beliefs, but he wished those behind the counterdemonstration had been more open to the Nazis’ remarks.

I remember stories in the 1990s about the St. Paul factions such as the “White Hammer of the North” gang and how they brutally beat people they considered “dark skinned” with baseball bats and broke into houses to deface them with swastikas.

One can only guess what the remarks at this rally might have been. Perhaps they included the words “final” and “solution”?

“From a police perspective, this event was a tremendous success,” Capitol Police Chief David Heinle said in a statement. “The event started and ended on time, and we have no reports of personal injury or property damage.”

Given the known flaws and weak security practices of companies like Diebold, it is only a matter of time before this type of radical group tries to get a representative hired into software development for voting systems, or they bribe someone. Why bother with a rally if you can spend the same money on just getting elected illegally?

Edited to add (8/27/06): the link has posted a first-hand account of the rally, complete with pictures and links to video:

…they were all Nazi-ed out – dressed to the nines. They had the shirts with the Swastika armband, dark pants, some had helmets, they marched out of the Capitol
rank in file with big swastika flags … So, their “elections coodinator” came over and chatted with us reporters for awhile. And he was saying how they’re have guys running in Butte, Montana for State senate (NAZI Movement is apparently a real, political party)…and we asked him – a 48-year-old paralegal from Virginia (by the way, not a whole lot of sconnie accents took the stand – you can tell that a lot of them were from below the mason-dixon line, apparently there was a few guys from Chicago, but I’ll give Chicago that because there are roughly nine billion people living there, and they’re bound to have a few wackos – but I don’t think there was any one from Wisconsin there), and some reporter asked him if he had any candidates considering running in Wisco and he said “not yet.”

Yup. This is American politics in 2006.

Believe it or not, although houses built in Milwaukee during the 1930s had swastikas for tiles in their foyer I know of at least one case where they still have not been removed. The tiles come from Pelley-backers (the Silver Shirts and the Christian Party) who were more than just a novelty in Wisconsin. I do not doubt for a minute that bubbling beneath the surface of the voting machine fiasco are any number of extreme fringe groups clamoring for a Rove-like opportunity to manipulate their way to victory. Maybe I am just jaded, but I guess I have been to one too many Wisconsin picnics, lunches and biker-weddings where some guy gets completely plastered and espouses “Hitler was not such a bad guy, as I can explain…”. Shame, really, because Milwaukee has so much to offer — some of the world’s best fine art and cuisine hidden away beneath the dust of an economic implosion and obscured by the old-guard of conservative intolerance.