Home again 1/16/14

But it's not Friday, like the last time I wrote a post with this title.  Interesting it is to go back and read what I was thinking in the past.  Even a short time ago, too, and things have changed.  Not a whole lot, but a little.

I was busy today, maybe that's why it seems like it was when I wrote that then.  Still glad to be home and back from the streets of this town and with a little time to write something for this here blog.  Too busy today to do anything out there.

This morning I did another one of those brainstorm type of posts that I do from time to time.  I played around with the spreadsheet to see what advantages that that configuration can give.  One thing I didn't figure was that it didn't quite go with the original idea---which was to take stuff "off the shelf" and plug it into a system that could be running in a short time.  The trouble with using a Microwave Air Breathing Booster is that the technology is maybe a decade away, if not longer.

I realized that today, but no time to post on it.

By the end of the day, I began thinking some rather radical thoughts.  Those thoughts may not be suitable for anybody to write---it was that radical.

It was along the lines of the fall of the Roman Empire.  That's about as far as I will go with it.

No damn foolish ideas no matter what.  If things are to be turned around, you have to be smart about it.

Now that that has been cleared up, something more about the Empire at its end.  I didn't comment upon this at the time, probably because I didn't have the idea to.  But now I do and that is this:  The Empire might have survived under the right set of circumstances.  Obviously that didn't happen.  Consider this---by the end of the Empire, all of the barbarian invasions had pretty much run their course.  The major incursions had been dealt with.  All that remained was to stabilize the situation and try to improve upon what was left.  The problem is that the Empire could not even do that much.  But it wasn't too far off from being able to.

I'm thinking of the assassination of Aëtius, the general who forced Attila the Hun to retreat.  For all his good work, the Emperor decided to assassinate him because he was becoming too powerful.  That was the last straw.  The man who replaced him was Ricimer, who seemed to systematically destroy what was left of the Empire.  When he died, there was practically nothing left.  Four years after his death, the last Emperor was deposed and that was it.

 As Aëtius himself, he replaced Stilicho, another capable general assassinated by a jealous and weak Emperor.  The Emperor Honorius got rid of Stilicho which in short time led to the sack of Rome.  As for Augustine's City of God, nothing is going to help you if you are terminally stupid.  Truly, the bad drove out the good, and the Empire could not recover from both the barbarian invasions and its weaknesses from within.