test please delete

[n5gooner]

The division of William the Conqueror's lands into two parts presented a dilemma for those nobles who held land on both sides of the Channel. Since the younger William and Robert were natural rivals, these nobles worried that they could not hope to please both of their lords, and thus ran the risk of losing the favour of one ruler or the other (or both of them). The only solution, as they saw it, was to unite England and Normandy once more under one ruler. The pursuit of this aim led them to revolt against William in favour of Robert in the Rebellion of 1088, under the leadership of the powerful Bishop Odo of Bayeux, who was a half-brother of William the Conqueror. Robert failed to appear in England to rally his supporters, and William won the support of the English with silver and promises of better government, and defeated the rebellion, thus securing his authority. In 1090 he invaded Normandy, crushing Robert's forces and forcing him to cede a portion of his lands. The two made up their differences and William agreed to help Robert recover lands lost to France, notably Maine.

Thus William Rufus was secure in the most powerful kingdom in Europe (with the contemporary eclipse of the Salian Emperors) and, within England, the least trammelled by feudal obligations. As in Normandy, his bishops and abbots were bound to him by feudal obligations; and his right of investiture in the Norman tradition was unquestioned within the kingdom, during the age of the Investiture Controversy that brought excommunication upon the Salian Emperor Henry IV. Anglo-Norman royal institutions reached an efficiency unknown in medieval Europe, and the king's personal power through an effective and loyal chancery penetrated to the local level to an extent unmatched in France. Without the Capetians' ideological trappings of an anointed monarchy forever entangled with the hierarchy of the Church, the King's administration and the King's law unified the kingdom, rendering the English King relatively impervious to papal condemnation, as the reign of William Rufus demonstrated.

[n5gooner]

Much of William's reign was spent feuding with the church, for which he had a notorious disregard. He frequently left benefices unfilled, collecting their income for his own treasury. Not surprisingly, his most passionate detractors are found among clergymen. [4]

Within a few years he lost William's advisor and confidante, the Italian-Norman Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, who died in 1089. After the death of Archbishop Lanfranc, he delayed appointing a new archbishop for many years, appropriating ecclesiastical revenues in the interim. Finally, in a time of panic during William's serious illness in 1093, William nominated as archbishop another Norman-Italian, Anselm of Bec - considered the greatest theologian of his generation - and this led to a long period of animosity between church and state. Anselm was a stronger supporter of the Gregorian reforms in the Church than Lanfranc had been. William and Anselm disagreed on a range of ecclesiastical issues. At one point the King declared of Anselm "that he hated him much yesterday, that he hated him much today, and that he would hate him more and more tomorrow and every other day." The English clergy, beholden to the king for their preferments and livings, were unable to support Anselm publicly. In 1095 William called a council at Rockingham to bring Anselm to heel, but the Archbishop remained firm. In October 1097, Anselm went into exile, taking his case to the Pope. The new pope, the diplomatic and flexible Urban II, was involved in a major conflict with the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry IV, who supported an antipope. Reluctant to make another enemy, Urban came to a concordat with William Rufus, whereby William recognized Urban as pope, and Urban gave sanction to the Anglo-Norman ecclesiastical status quo. Anselm remained in exile, and William was able to claim the revenues of the archbishopric of Canterbury to the end of his reign.

[n5gooner]

William Rufus inherited the Anglo-Norman settlement whose details are reflected in Domesday Book (1086), a survey that could not have been undertaken anywhere else in Europe at that time and a signal of the control of the monarchy; but he did not inherit William's charisma or political skills. He was less effective than his father in channeling the Norman lords' propensity for rebellion and violence. In 1095, Robert de Mowbray, the earl of Northumbria, refused to attend the Curia Regis, the thrice-annual court where the King announced his governmental decisions to the great lords. William led an army against Robert and defeated him. Robert was dispossessed and imprisoned, and another noble, William of Eu, accused of treachery, was blinded and castrated.

[PRC1964]

DAD:
There are Jews in the world.
There are Buddhists.
There are Hindus and Mormons, and then
There are those that follow Mohammed, but
I've never been one of them.

I'm a Roman Catholic,
And have been since before I was born,
And the one thing they say about Catholics is:
They'll take you as soon as you're warm.

You don't have to be a six-footer.
You don't have to have a great brain.
You don't have to have any clothes on. You're
A Catholic the moment Dad came,

Because

Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.

CHILDREN:
Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.

GIRL:
Let the heathen spill theirs
On the dusty ground.
God shall make them pay for
Each sperm that can't be found.

CHILDREN:
Every sperm is wanted.
Every sperm is good.
Every sperm is needed
In your neighbourhood.

MUM:
Hindu, Taoist, Mormon,
Spill theirs just anywhere,
But God loves those who treat their
Semen with more care.

MEN:
Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
WOMEN:
If a sperm is wasted,...
CHILDREN:
...God get quite irate.

PRIEST:
Every sperm is sacred.
BRIDE and GROOM:
Every sperm is good.
NANNIES:
Every sperm is needed...
CARDINALS:
...In your neighbourhood!

CHILDREN:
Every sperm is useful.
Every sperm is fine.
FUNERAL CORTEGE:
God needs everybody's.
MOURNER #1:
Mine!
MOURNER #2:
And mine!
CORPSE:
And mine!

NUN:
Let the Pagan spill theirs
O'er mountain, hill, and plain.
HOLY STATUES:
God shall strike them down for
Each sperm that's spilt in vain.

EVERYONE:
Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is good.
Every sperm is needed
In your neighbourhood.

Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite iraaaaaate!

[n5gooner]

In external affairs, William had some successes. In 1091 he repulsed an invasion by the Scottish king, Malcolm III, forcing Malcolm to pay homage. Subsequently, the two kings quarreled over Malcolm's possessions in England, and Malcolm again invaded, ravaging Northumbria. At the Battle of Alnwick, on 13 November 1093, Malcolm was ambushed by Norman forces led by Robert de Mowbray. Malcolm and his son Edward were slain and Malcolm III's brother Donald seized the throne. William supported Malcolm's son Duncan, who held power for a short time, and then another of Malcolm's sons, Edgar. Edgar conquered Lothian in 1094 and eventually removed Donald in 1097 with William's aid in a campaign led by Edgar Ætheling. Edgar recognised William's authority over Lothian and attended William's court.

[n5gooner]

William made unsuccessful forays into Wales in 1096 and 1097.

In 1096, William's brother Robert Curthose joined the First Crusade. He needed money to fund this venture, and pledged his duchy to William in return for a payment of 10,000 marks — a sum equalling about one-fourth of William's annual revenue. In a display of the effectiveness of Norman taxation inaugurated by the Conqueror, William raised the money by levying a special, heavy, and much-resented tax upon the whole of England. William then ruled Normandy as regent in Robert's absence—Robert did not return until September 1100, one month after William's death.

As regent for his brother Robert in Normandy, William campaigned in France from 1097 to 1099. He secured northern Maine but failed to seize the French-controlled part of the Vexin region. At the time of his death, he was planning to invade Aquitaine, in southwestern France.

[n5gooner]

Perhaps the most memorable event in the life of William Rufus was his death, which occurred while William was hunting in the New Forest. He was killed by an arrow through the lung, but the circumstances remain unclear.

[Clownio]

Bush: Maybe U.S. Military 'Just Not Very Good'
June 27, 2007 | Issue 43•26

WASHINGTON, DC—Departing from his usual hopeful rhetoric during a question-and-answer session with reporters in the White House Rose Garden, President Bush suggested Tuesday that the war in Iraq has not been successful because the nation's armed forces are "just not very good."

Bush muses candidly about his new idea with the White House press corps.
"When the decision was made to liberate Iraq, I was going on what my advisers were telling me and what everyone has said for nearly a century—that the U.S. military is the best in the world," Bush said. "But if that were the case, and we did have the most powerful army, navy, marines, and air force on the globe, we would be winning, right?"

The president admitted that he'd been toying with the idea that a thorough lack of quality in personnel, from the top U.S. commander to the lowest-ranked private, is the only way to account for the colossal failure in Iraq, given that everything on the administrative side of the war has been carried out with the utmost care and precision.

"I know the folks on our end didn't drop the ball," Bush said. "The civilian oversight of this war and the plan of attack has been brilliant. There's no doubt about that in my mind. Hate to say it, but maybe our men and women in uniform just aren't what they're cracked up to be."

Bush conjectured that U.S. servicemen and women thrust into the horrifying chaos and violence of Iraq's Sunni Triangle may simply lack the proper perspective and cool detachment needed to implement an effective strategy against the insurgency. The commander in chief also wondered aloud why, for all their vaunted competence, American forces become disillusioned while fighting "for such a just and noble cause."

Bush lamented the fact that the U.S. is "losing a lot of vehicles and equipment" in the ongoing conflict.
"I know I should support the troops, especially in a time of war, but if they can't handle the pressure, maybe they don't deserve my support," Bush said. "They're making me look bad."

"On the occasions I've met our troops, most of them didn't seem like they had much going for them," Bush added. "I don't think very many went to college or anything."

Bush said that in the past year he has had much occasion to think about the U.S. military's role in history, which, he recently was forced to conclude, is "overrated." He traced the roots of the misperception back to the nation's victory in World War II.

"We haven't really flat-out won a war since then, and you have to admit even that one was pretty close," the president said.

Continued Bush: "We pretty much have a 3-4 record in terms of important wars, and that's being generous, because I'm counting the Civil War as a victory. We got absolutely killed in Vietnam, which was another war where the leadership at home did a fine job, only to be let down by the troops. Not quite sure what happened in Korea. And I thought we won the first Gulf War, but apparently we didn't, because we're still there."

Shortly after the press conference, the White House announced that an advisory panel comprised of former officials from both Bush administrations and of private military contractors would be formed to devise effective solutions to problem areas in the nation's defense, namely the quality of the soldiers. Some of the likely recommendations include toughening recruitment standards so that not just anyone can enlist, and offering swift advancement opportunities for troops who show less dependence on the support current forces seem to constantly require from the American people. The panel is also expected to recommend that the nation enter into additional costly overseas conflicts as a way for the U.S. military to hone its uneven combat skills.

Yet even the most optimistic administration estimates acknowledge that these transformations are years, if not decades away from being implemented. Meanwhile, Bush still appears determined to maintain the American military presence in Iraq, telling reporters that the only way to improve the armed forces isn't to quit, but to "keep plugging away and hope they'll get better at this war business before they all get killed."

[n5gooner]

On a bright August day in 1100, William organised a hunting trip in the New Forest. An account by Orderic Vitalis described the preparations for the hunt:

...an armourer came in and presented to him (Rufus) six arrows. The King immediately took them with great satisfaction, praising the work, and unconscious of what was to happen, kept four of them himself and held out the other two to Walter Tyrrel... saying It is only right that the sharpest be given to the man who knows how to shoot the deadliest shots.

[PRC1964]

The most interesting thing about King Charles the first is that he was 5 foot 6 inches tall at the start of his reign, but only 4 foot 8 at the end of it