Below are the 12 most recent journal entries recorded in Joshua's LiveJournal:

Monday, June 30th, 2008
11:59 pm	And to repay them in kind, for all that they have done. Sorry folks, this is it - been great being LJ buddies with each of you over the years, but I've reached the point now there's really no point to this drawn-out death rattle. Namárie, may the Force be with you, thanks for all the fish, live long and prosper, all of that. (Comment on this)
Sunday, February 24th, 2008
11:09 am	Ugh Do NOT break a fast by eating licorice, chips, Dr. Pepper and candy...it WILL destroy you. I feel so physically ill right now, perhaps this idea was not properly thought through... I knew candy would be my demise! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 7th, 2007
2:44 pm	TORTURE OF PRISONERS (Concord) Charles S. Riley, a sergeant in the Twenty-Sixth Volunteer Infantry, thus described to the Senate Committee the torture of a native town officer by men of the Eighteenth Infantry by command of Captain Glynn and under the direction of Lieutenant Conger and Dr. Lyon: "The presidente was tied and placed on his back under a water tank holding probably one hundred gallons. The faucet was opened, and a stream of water was forced down, or allowed to run down, his throat." "His throat was held so he could not prevent swallowing the water, so that he had to allow the water to run into his stomach. He was directly under the faucet, with his mouth held wide open. When he was filled with water, it was forced out of him by pressing a foot on his stomach or else with the hands. This continued from five to fifteen minutes. " "This unhappy man was taken down and asked more questions. He again refused to answer, and then was treated again." "The interpreter stood over him in the meantime, asking for this second information that was desired. Finally he gave in and gave the information." -"The Moral Damage of War" by Walter Wash, 1906 (Comment on this)
Friday, November 2nd, 2007
1:14 pm	"It appears to us that it would be going too far to deny the plaintiff relief against a palpable fraud because possibly here and there an ignorant person might call for the drink with the hope for incipient cocaine intoxication." -U.S. Supreme Court, 254 U.S. 143, 1920. "The Coca-Cola Company v. The Koke Company of America, et al" (Comment on this)
Thursday, October 18th, 2007
11:15 am	Muhammad, the prophet of western Arabia, founded on a basis of phallic worship and animistic belief, the third great Semitic religion - Islam. -Johnston, Harry. "The Nile Quest". 1903. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, September 14th, 2007
12:34 am	Dear diary, Today I made 148 edits to Wikipedia while at work. This is surprisingly common. Since I also made $80 at work, that means I am basically getting paid $0.50 per wiki edit these days. Today's efforts include... Images I take from the old books I have at work, and insert into the Wiki articles on those people... Images I shot myself, while meeting local politicians today... Some Tolstoy stories... A biography on a slave-catcher who crowned himself Sultan of Darfur... A template on the recent alleged Germany terrorist plot... (Comment on this)
Thursday, September 13th, 2007
12:02 pm	There is nothing new under the sun. "Two or three girls clubbing together, and living altogether removed from any control; girls and boys marrying while yet in their teens, only to dissolve partnership in a few months and try some one else. When, on the top of all this, we have to add that free-lovers are sowing their doctrine of devils among these lads and lasses, and practically teaching unbridled licentiousness made safe." -Needham, Geo C. "Street Arabs and Gutter Snipers". D. L. Guernsey, 1884. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 4th, 2007
11:56 pm	Sorry I haven't been updating with quotes from my old books I'm digitising at work...today I'll offer two, as compensation. The few full-blooded negroes who have attained to positions of prominence must be relegated to the category of "Freaks", and like all other freaks of nature, these rare and exceptional cases prove nothing for the race to which they belong. If careful investigation is made, it will be found that the so-called "negroes" who have distinguished themselves above their fellows, are not full-blooded negroes, but half-breeds. And it is to this mixed lineage that their superiority is due. - 1907 American Journal of Sociology Every organ of the body is sacred and should be protected, and this is just as true of the sexual organs as of the eyes or ears. You should never handle them or allow any one else. And yet, girls sometimes form a habit of handling their sexual organs because they find a certain pleasure in so doing. Perhaps they do not imagine that any one will know that they are guilty of this habit, because they are alone when they practice it, but it leaves a mark upon the face so that those who are wise may know what the girl is doing. I was reading the other day what a certain wise physician has said about the effects of this habit. He is convinced that it causes a great many backaches and sideaches and other aches, tenderness of the spine, nervousness, indolence, pale cheeks, hollow eyes and languid manner. This is a very serious penalty to pay for any pleasure that one may derive from this habit. -Wood-Allen, Mary. "What a Young Girl Ought to Know". 1897 (Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007
2:28 am	Did I point out how much fun I'm having getting paid to read old books? How Tigers are Captured Natives are sent out on foot to drive the tigers out of their hiding places into the open, where they are shot by white hunters mounted on elephants. This sort of big-game hunting is exciting and dangerous, because a wounded tiger could spring upon the elephant's back and attack the hunter in his howdah, or cage. -Today's words of wisdom come from the 1920 World Book Encyclopaedia. (Comment on this)
Monday, August 20th, 2007
11:10 pm	More clips from my new job, to prove history and old books ain't boring! In a widely published statement, E. Mackay Edgar, a noted English authority on oil...said: "More oil has probably run to waste in the United States than has ever reached the refiners. Improvidence, carelessness, a blind gambling spirit, have marked all expcet the most recent phases of the industry...America has recklessly, and in sixty years, run through a legacy that, properly conserved, should have lasted her for at least a century and a half." In other words, some fine morning...we are to awake to the realisation that we have exhausted one of our principal sources of industrial greatness...because as a nation, we have felt it was unsound for the government to interfere in any degree with private enterprise - to curb the get-rich-quick promotor in the interest of the [greater good]. "What Fuel Conservation Means to America", 1920 essay by Robert W. Wooleey (Comment on this)
Friday, August 17th, 2007
5:37 pm	I'm not sure if any of you were aware, but as I dropped off the radar and seemed to "disappear", I was keeping busy between learning Arabic, helping a friend move to Toronto where she's making movies, earning money for my eventual war correspondence overseas, and...using my 'extensive' Wikimedia Foundation credentials to get a full-time job with the Internet Archive (archive.org if you've never been). My job here is essentially the same as what I did for Wikisource - digitising old books that would otherwise be lost to history, and putting them online. Sure "War and Peace" will always be around, but if nobody takes the time to manually type out Tolstoy's personal letters, typewritten drafts and essays...or Ernest Hemingway's earliest writings for his High School yearbook and as a cub reporter for the Toronto Star...previous generations won't know them. Among my more fun assignments thusfar has been newspapers from the War of 1812 and the Blackhawk War...there are letters being sent to these newspapers by Thomas Jefferson, decorative hats being presented to General Lafayette, discussion of Napoleon's on-going battles...it's fascinating, and it's stuff that's never mentioned in history textbooks. One of my books yesterday was an original copy owned by Peter Kropotkin, which he signed and gave away to a personal friend, whose family has since sent it to us to put online. :) So, since I'm basically getting paid $25,000 a year to sit on my ass doing normal Wiki-type work, watch movies and read books from centuries ago...I figured I'd also throw in a bit of "activism", to convince those around me that "history is not boring!", so without further ado... In 1814, French POWs being held at Dartmoor prison requested permission to put on a series of theatrical performances for the locals, as a means of "earning their keep" in the British prison camp. The British agreed, and after a number of successful performances of Shakespeare, the French unit announced they would be performing "La Capitaine Calonne et sa Dame", an original production about the British gentry officers and their kind ways. Flattered, the British not only allowed the prisoners to begin preparing for the latest performance, but agreed to let them use British military uniforms so that their play would not seem amateur at the opening performance. The entire troupe dressed in British military uniforms backstage, before marching straight out of the theatre...and being saluted by those British citizens and military police who believed that they were ranking officers in the British Army leaving the theatre. And thus is the story of one of the most amusing and daring true escapes by prisoners of war I've ever heard...and Kaeryn can vouchsafe, I know many ;) Today's story comes from "Prisoners of War in Britain: 1756-1815", as written by Francis Abell (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, November 17th, 2006
1:50 am	λεμα σαβαχθανει (3 Comments |Comment on this)