Our Great Title is AMERICANS

First Published on 4 July 2008

Independence Day Reflections

One stirring recitation of our Declaration is the 2002 short documentary released by Declaration of Independence, Inc., hosted by Morgan Freeman and starring several notable actors including Mel Gibson, Micheal Douglas, Benicio Del Toro, Rene Zellweger, Whoopie Goldberg and others.

"Our citizenship in the United States is our national character. Our citizenship in any particular state is only our local distinction. By the latter we are known at home, by the former to the world. Our great title is AMERICANS" -- Thomas Paine

Another is the updated Fox Sports short (the original 2002 version is here) starring current and past players and coaches of the NFL and actors portraying Thomas Jefferson and other Declaration signers and from which the title of this post is taken.

The passion with which we Liberty loving Americans hold our land may be heard in the voice of Kate Smith singing Irving Berlin's great God Bless America. Also inspiring is Smith's performance and the cinematic production from This is the Army (1943). Look for a younger Ronald Reagan at the end of the clip.


In the news yesterday came the announcement that the childhood home of George Washington had been found that will provide more insight into the formative years of the Father of our Nation.

A book I just started reading is 1776 by David McCullogh. It begins with King George III's address to parliament

"I shall never forget what I felt...when I saw him brave all the dangers of the field and his important life hanging as if by a single hair with a thousand deaths flying all around him. Believe me, I thought not of myself." --A young officer on Washington's courage during the battle at Clarke's Farm

declaring America to be in rebellion and continues through the Christmas victories for Washington and his Army at Trenton and Princeton.

Washington and the other Founding Fathers started what has become an American tradition of service and sacrifice that continues today with our service men and women defending Liberty across the globe. Today is the anniversary of the birth of our great nation. Our great title is AMERICANS.

Liberty

UShistory.org

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

— John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

19th U.S. CORRESPONDENCE CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP

#chess .
Thinking of entering USCCC19. Anyone else?

Play the Catalan

#Chess #Catalan .
This just hit the front porch from Amazon...

Play the Catalan

I guess it is time. I've been playing the opening off and on for ten years without a decent book.

Huh... Who knew the Amazon text and graphic links and Blogger were having a war? Hence the glob with the pic and link above...

Free Lunch

From BarliMan: "An embarrassment to Cats, Everywhere."


Dude, a few morsels are ok, but you let him take the entire bowl...

Queen Gambit Accepted Win at ICCF

#Chess #ICCF .

I mentioned in the comments to the previous item on ICCF Chess that I had begun playing the Queens' Gambit as White after years of Reti/Catalan and London System.  I've had good success playing the systems resulting from 1.Nf3 but they had started becoming stale and some of my opponents were zeroing in on my preferences (one emailed me after a game with information to this effect).  In looking for a new weapon as White the QG seemed a natural to my tastes so I ran with it despite my aversion to deeply explored openings...  The following game finished this morning with a resignation from my opponent.

He chose the Accepted variation and the fight was on.  After 14...hxg6 Black's King Side was disrupted and I began exploring the possibility of a Rook lift to exploit the h-file.  The game would turn on the mobility of White's Rooks and their threats both on the King Side and threats in the middle game on the c-file.  This mobility was made possible by the great amount of space the advanced pawn center gave White.

[Event "WS/H/227"]
[Site "ICCF"]
[Date "2010.3.20"]
[Round "-"]
[White "Owens, Steve"]
[Black "Sperandio, Andrea"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "2051"]
[BlackElo "2019"]

1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.e4 Nf6 4.e5 Nd5 5.Bxc4 Nb6
6.Bd3 Nc6 7.Ne2 Bg4 8.f3 Bh5 9.Nbc3 e6 10.Be3 Be7 11.O-O O-O 12.a3 Qd7 13.Qc2 Bg6 14.Bxg6 hxg6 15.Bf2

Clearing the third rank for an eventual Rook lift against Black's weakened King Side.

15...Rad8 16.Rfd1 a6 17.f4 Kh7

A temporary prophylactic against the Rook pressure on the h-file with ...Rh8 to follow.   

18.Rd2

Before starting King Side activities I need to counter his pressure against my center.

18...Nd5

I'm not a fan of this move.  The resulting exchanges allow White to solidify the strong center and control action on both wings.

19.Nxd5 exd5 20.Rd3

Threatening to complete the Lift and surveying the field via the third rank.

20...Rh8 21.Rc1

Since Black is countering on the King Side, action on the Queen Side via the c-file should fracture his defense.

21...Kg8 22.h3 Qf5 23.Rc3 Qe6

23...Qxc2 might have been a better try.  After this the Black Queen is completely defensive while the White Queen attacks using the third rank.  The Rooks will have the first and second ranks to use with only a few clearing moves needed.  Black's King Rook, castled and then maneuvered back to the h-file, now maneuvers back to the Queen Side at the White Rooks' demonstration on the c-file.  Throughout the entire game it seemed as if the Black Rooks were a step or two behind the events.  Initiative.

24.Qd3 Rb8 25.R3c2 Kh7 26.Nc3 Rhd8 27.Qf3 Kg8 28.g4

The King Side attack resumes. 

28...f5 29.gxf5 gxf5 30.Kh1 Rd7 31.Rg1 Bf8 32.Be3

A clear path to the Black King.

32...Ne7 33.Rcg2 Qh6 34.Bf2 b5 35.Rg5 b4 36.Na4 bxa3 37.Qxa3 Rdd8 38.Qg3 Rb5 39.b3 Kh8 40.Qf3 g6 41.h4 Rdb8 42.Nc5 Qh7 43.h5 Rb4 44.R1g2 1-0

33...Qh6 was probably a mistake.  In the end the Black Rooks are marooned on the Queen Side away from the action.  If either rook tries to get back via the sixth rank e6 will again cut them off followed by Rh2 and a trapped Black Queen.  Black chose not to see the result and resigned.

Got Him Again

#Chess .

Back in January I wrote about a guy who was gaming the time controls on the ICCF server.  I had claimed a win against him when he was caught in a server outage and had let his time go critical.  Hey, if you can't get your ten moves done in fifty days, that's on you, Bud.  Exacerbating this is that seems to be this guy's strategy to get easy points.  He wears some players down and gets them to agree to a draw.

Well, we were involved in a second game and for whatever reason he did not make his move today.  I claimed and was awarded the win.

Karma.

Here are the two games.  The first is the one that ended back in January and the second is the one he DQ'd on today.

[Event "WS/H/195"]
[Site "ICCF"]
[Date "2009.7.30"]
[Round "-"]
[White "Owens, Steve"]
[Black "Sladek, Vaclav"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "2027"]
[BlackElo "1978"]

1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.g3 d5 4.b3 Be7 5.Bg2 O-O
6.O-O c5 7.Bb2 Nc6 8.e3 b6 9.Nc3 Bb7 10.cxd5 Nxd5
11.d4 Rc8 12.Nxd5 exd5 13.Qd2 Qd6 14.Rac1 Rfd8 15.Ba3 Nb4
16.Bh3 Rc7 17.Bxb4 cxb4 18.Ne5 Rxc1 19.Rxc1 g6 20.Rc2 f6
21.Nd3 f5 22.Qc1 Rb8 23.Ne5 Bd8 24.Bg2 a6 25.h4 Ra8
26.h5 a5 27.hxg6 hxg6 28.Bf1 a4 29.Bb5 axb3 30.axb3
1-0
I think I have a very comfortable game here. I own the c-file and the 6th and 7th ranks are open for my rook.  My Knight has an awesome outpost.  His Bishops are buried and his Rook can only demonstrate on the a-file.  Bc6 will force it back to protect the Light Bishop in any case.

The second game:

[Event "WS/H/187"]
[Site "ICCF"]
[Date "2009.6.8"]
[Round "-"]
[White "Sladek, Vaclav"]
[Black "Owens, Steve"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "2085"]
[BlackElo "2020"]

1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5 d5 3.Nd2 Bf5 4.Ngf3 Nbd7 5.e3 h6
6.Bh4 e6 7.c4 c6 8.Qb3 Qb6 9.c5 Qxb3 10.axb3 Ne4
11.b4 g5 12.Bg3 Nxg3 13.hxg3 Bg7 14.Nb3 Kd8 15.Be2 Kc7
16.b5 Rhb8 17.O-O cxb5 18.Bxb5 a6 19.Ba4 g4 20.Nfd2 h5
21.f3 Nf6 22.Kf2 Bg6 23.Na5 Ng8 24.Rfc1 e5 25.Ndb3 Ne7
26.dxe5 Bxe5 27.Nd4 Rh8 28.Rh1 Nf5 29.Nxf5 Bxf5 30.Rad1 Be6
31.Rd2 Bf6 32.Ke2 gxf3+ 33.gxf3 Rag8 34.Kf2 h4 35.g4 h3
36.Nb3 Be7 37.Ke1 Rh4 38.Rdh2 Rgh8 39.Kf2 f5 40.gxf5 Bxf5
41.Nd4 Bxc5 42.Nxf5 Rxa4 43.Kg3 Rg8+ 44.Kxh3 Rf8 45.Rc2 Kb6
46.Nd4 Bxd4 47.exd4 Rxf3+ 48.Kg4 Rd3 49.Rh6+ Ka7 50.Rd6 Raxd4+
51.Kf5 Rb4 52.Rg2 a5 53.Ke5 d4 54.Rh6 a4 55.Rh1 Re3+
56.Kd5 d3 0-1
This game went twenty six moves longer.  I could tell the guy was upset that he DQ'd on the first game; he let this game go until mere minutes were left for many moves before he eventually over stepped his time again.  This game is again clearly to my advantage.  One of the pawns will Queen.  It's only a matter of time.

Old Klingon Saying:  Revenge is a dish best served cold.  The point puts me into a tie for first in the event with one game yet to be finished between two other players.