Links and Minifeatures 10 02 Monday

Carnival of Personal Finance Recommended: Aridni (some stuff more important than money)



Carnival of Real Estate



Carnival of the Capitalists Recommended: Econbrowser (debunking another oil conspiracy myth), San Diego Home Blog (doing business with Redfin. Makes me glad I don't list many)

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The Age of Miracles is not yet past: Digger's Realm notes that the Senate has finally passed an immigration enforcement bill. I can do without the party loyalty stuff in the post, but it's good news!



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Watched Gettysburg again over Friday and Saturday nights after the girls went to bed. It's one of those movies that inspires you by showing you people at their best when things are at their worst. The fate of the war would have been far different without General Buford (whose dismounted defense in depth was the reason the Union kept the high ground), or Colenel Chamberlain's Charge, and thousands of ordinary people who became extraordinary, who stepped up to the line and put their lives on the line doing what was necessary when the task was put in front of them.



The film focuses far more upon the Confederate commanders than the Union commanders, showing them as men with misunderstandings, most spectacularly General Lee, who ordered Pickett's Charge, the mistake he could not make and still win the war, no matter how brilliant he was.



The real fate of the war was decided at Vicksburg that same day, when its surrender split the south in two. Both Union and Confederacy paid much too much attention to the war in the east, and not nearly enough to the war in what was then the west. But the men at Gettysburg were no less for that.