Wow, the big 600 was yesterday.

War is so yesterday. We are more enlightened now. All we need do now is wish it away, and you see? No more war. Obama himself has given us this gift. sarc. off.

Definitely worth watching the Brannagh version, its wonderful and he does an amazing job, particularly with this speech.

Magnificent! Wil and Branagh combine their art and talents superbly here. But look through the lens of history:

The relentless cycle of Empire. Growth, apex, decline, nadir. The Brits were "it." Sun never set on 'em. India, Africa, Middle East. Boer war, WWI, WWII, Korea. Even as late as the 1950s A.D. Manly. Brave. Principled. Honor and duty bound.

Now--thousands of their children repeatedly raped and sodomized with zero consequences. Soldiers butchered in public. Porous borders. Huge enclaves of residents proclaiming hatred for their host country.

N-A-D-I-R.

Learn it. Learn how to AVOID it. DO IT.

OR ELSE.

History and the laws of Nature are cruel teachers.

Try this one from when the Empire was close to its peak, 425 years or so after Harry at Agincourt:

Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs.
--Gen. Charles James Napier

Can you imagine a Brit general or politician saying this now? And if he dared to say it, being able to back it up, the way Napier could (and did)? Nadir, indeed.