Patriots Day 2011

Today, as I've made it a habit of noting, is Patriots Day. It was two hundred thirty six years ago today that a band of Massachusetts militia drove a column of crack British light infantry and grenadiers from the North Bridge in Concord all the way back to Boston, igniting the American Revolution. Alas, only two states in the US - Massachusetts and Maine (which, in 1775, was part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony) - treat Patriots Day as a public holiday (now celebrated on the third Monday in April, in accordance with the modern fashion for Monday holidays).

There were a couple of amusing[1] things I noticed today. One is that today is also supposedly the day that Skynet becomes self-aware, to be shortly followed by a nuclear holocaust and a horde of Terminator robots. I think it's the Judgement Day of the TV show variant of the Terminator franchise, rather than any of the movies, but hey, any excuse for really bright fireworks, right?

The other amusing thing came from taking a peek at RedState.com to see how they'd handle the anniversary of the start of the American Revolution. Apparently, that stalwart bastion of conservative Amurrican patriotism is handling the anniversary by ignoring it; I can't see anything relating to the battle on their main page, and a Google search for "patriots day" turns up a grand total of seven hits, none of which are dated 2011. Meanwhile, that vile cesspit of America-hating liberalism, the Great Orange Satan, dailykos.com, has "about 393" hits for the same search. Hmmm ...

Feel free to try the searches for yourself at the following handy URLs:

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22patriots+day%22+site%3Aredstate.com

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22patriots+day%22+site%3Adailykos.com

[1] For certain values of "amusing", that is.

Patriots Day 2011

Today, as I've made it a habit of noting, is Patriots Day. It was two hundred thirty six years ago today that a band of Massachusetts militia drove a column of crack British light infantry and grenadiers from the North Bridge in Concord all the way back to Boston, igniting the American Revolution. Alas, only two states in the US - Massachusetts and Maine (which, in 1775, was part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony) - treat Patriots Day as a public holiday (now celebrated on the third Monday in April, in accordance with the modern fashion for Monday holidays).

There were a couple of amusing[1] things I noticed today. One is that today is also supposedly the day that Skynet becomes self-aware, to be shortly followed by a nuclear holocaust and a horde of Terminator robots. I think it's the Judgement Day of the TV show variant of the Terminator franchise, rather than any of the movies, but hey, any excuse for really bright fireworks, right?

The other amusing thing came from taking a peek at RedState.com to see how they'd handle the anniversary of the start of the American Revolution. Apparently, that stalwart bastion of conservative Amurrican patriotism is handling the anniversary by ignoring it; I can't see anything relating to the battle on their main page, and a Google search for "patriots day" turns up a grand total of seven hits, none of which are dated 2011. Meanwhile, that vile cesspit of America-hating liberalism, the Great Orange Satan, dailykos.com, has "about 393" hits for the same search. Hmmm ...

Feel free to try the searches for yourself at the following handy URLs:

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22patriots+day%22+site%3Aredstate.com

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22patriots+day%22+site%3Adailykos.com

[1] For certain values of "amusing", that is.