An Extreme Gaming What If

People who enjoy historical "What If?" scenarios usually confine themselves to well known junctures that have obvious ramifications (Lee's lost 1862 orders being a well known example). However, everyone who plays historical war games indulges in much the same level of what if.

One of the ones that has intrigued me the most was a game I played a few years ago. The game was a recreation of the First Battle of Kernstown (the only battle Stonewall Jackson ever lost) and this one game was memorable to me based on how badly things went for me (I was playing the Confederates). In the very first turn, as I was pushing my forces across Hogg Run when a long single cannon shot killed Stonewall Jackson! This act destroyed my morale and the dice went against me the rest of the game. I ended up withdrawing most of my forces by the halfway point of the game with Brig. Gen. Garnett's First Brigade suffering over 50% casualties and Col. Fulkerson's Third Brigade nearly annihilated and Fulkerson wounded. Based on the 3,800 Confederate participants, I figure this would have resulted in over 1000 casualties, far more than the original 718; to say nothing of the loss of Jackson himself.

Playing this out is probably the most difficult aspect. The Battle of Kernstown was a tactical defeat for the Confederates but a strategic victory as the Union committed more troops to protecting Washington and driving Jackson out of the Shenandoah rather than reinforcing McClellan on the Peninsula. If my game had actually happened, Garnett would have probably taken command of Jackson's command (ironic given that Jackson blamed Garnett for the loss and had him removed from command). Lincoln would still have committed the troops he did to the Shenandoah Valley so the immediate result would not have changed.

It is likely that even with Jackson's death, Lee would have still advised Jefferson Davis to continue to harass the Union in the Shenandoah to protect Johnson's Army. Garnett would have likely been reinforced by Maj. Gen. Richard Ewell's division, however, in this scenario, Ewell would have taken command rather than been under Jackson. It is at this point that things get interesting. Ewell, while a good general, did not have the command mastery, nor the ability to drive his men at the 30+ miles a day that Jackson did. It is somewhat likely that Ewell would have made several offensive feints before settling in to a good defensive position and letting Gen. Fremont's and Gen. Banks' armies attack him on ground of his choosing.

No matter what the outcome of these battles, this series of movements would have been less immediately costly to the Union and would likely have permitted some, if not all, of Gen. McDowell's army (stationed at Fredricksburg) to move south and reinforce McClellan outside of Richmond. What's more, Ewell would have been unlikely to have been able to reinforce Lee for the planned attack on McClellan's right flank (Battle of Beaver Dam Creek) before McClellan pushed forward with his own attacks.

The ultimate result of this would likely have still been Confederate victory as McClellan technically won most of the battles of the Seven Days but withdrew as though he had been beaten. However, it likely would have been an even bloodier affair as Lee would have had to shift even more troops from the main body to attack the Union right (likely reinforced by McDowell) and the reduced strength in the middle would have given allowed the Union to maul the Confederates even more. Even with McClellan's withdrawal from the Peninsula, the Union would likely have still had two reasonably sized armies in the Shenandoah Valley. McDowell might have been pulled back to Fredricksburg or even Manassas but it still would have left a strong Union presence in Northern Virginia.

With Gen. Pope taking over for McClellan, there is a reasonable chance that he would have had a stronger army than he had historically and Lee's army would have likely been weaker than historically. What's more, historically Gen. Pope's army was heavily harassed by Jackson's army, to the point that Gen. Longstreet was able to outflank him and devastate the Union army at Second Manassas. Pope would have probably still found a way to have been defeated, but the bloody attrition that would have taken place would have likely played out much differently. What's more, there is a reasonable chance that Pope might have been able to win a small victory somewhere in Virginia that would have allowed Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation a month or so earlier than originally issued on September 22, 1862.

My ultimate theory is that had Jackson died at Kernstown in March 1862, the Confederates would have been able to hold on much as they did, but it would have been a harder grind. So much so, that I would speculate that there would have been a real chance that the Union Army under either Gen. Burnsides or Gen. Hooker would have successfully captured Richmond in 1863, although I imagine that Lee would have found a way to keep the Army of Northern Virginia intact and fighting for upwards of another year.

With the likely defeat of the Confederacy in 1864, Lincoln would have been easily reelected (especially if McClellan was nominated by the Democrats as he was historically). John Wilkes Booth was in high demand as an actor in New England throughout most of 1863, although the opening of Ford's Theater in November 1863 gave him several opportunities to perform in Washington. Booth would have likely tried to go ahead with his plans of either kidnapping or killing Lincoln in 1864, but the high visibility of the upcoming election might have made that difficult. If Booth had succeeded prior to the inauguration, Hannibal Hamlin would have become President.

If Booth had killed Lincoln after the election, the Electoral College would have likely been thrown into chaos with many different candidates jockeying for position. Hamlin had broad support among Northern Radicals and Andrew Johnson was only nominated to replace him as VP to keep the loyalty of Northern Democrats. If the war had been going as well as above, Hamlin might have been kept on the ticket. With Hamlin already installed as President, the Electoral College might have felt it best to keep Hamlin as mode of stability, even if he had been replaced on the ticket by Andrew Johnson. Hamlin and Lincoln were not friends per se but they did work well together, although Hamlin did not regularly attend cabinet meetings (as was the style of the time).

A Hamlin Presidency would likely have been harsher on the South as Hamlin was a staunch abolitionist prior to the war (leading to his defection from the Democratic Party in 1856). Hamlin might have gone ahead and indulged in the hanging of prominent Southern politicians for treason and sticking closer to the Republican line of giving closer to equal treatment of blacks (although probably not fully equal status).

From this we could spin out further about how white-black relations would have evolved in the South and whether Ulysses Grant would have achieved enough fame to propel himself to the Presidency in 1868 or if the Republicans would have stuck with Hamlin (with Grant as VP possibly).

All this (possibly) from a single lucky cannon shot south of Kernstown in March 1862.

Rocking and Blowing (Not in the Good Way)

A 5.9 earthquake struck just outside Louisa, VA a short while ago. Apparently it was very shallow (I've seen anywhere from 3.5 miles deep to 0.5 deep) which caused it to be felt all over the east coast and into Ohio (I did not feel it).

Naturally, as this area does not get a lot of earthquakes, news reports have everyone feeling a bit twitchy. Unfortunately, I don't think it has dawned on too many people yet that the earthquake may have damaged the foundations of some structures (even if only minorly) just before the same area is due to get hammered with 100+ mph winds as Irene is expected to move on shore (probably around North Carolina) on Thursday as either a high category 3 or a weak category 4.

I'd recommend a little praying for that area right now as it's going to get a bit bumpy.

Mt. Etna Beachgoing

I'm sure the people of Italy are used to this, but I would just find it very unnerving to play on a beach while volcanic ash vents behind me.

Wisconsin Recalls

Last night was the second of three recall elections taking place as fallout from the Democrat Senate flight from Wisconsin. A total of nine recall contests are being held. The Democrats held on to the first seat a few weeks ago (district 30) (mostly due to the ineptitude of the Republican candidate).

Last night was the contest against the six Republican incumbents (districts 2, 8, 10, 14, 18, and 32). Republicans held 4 and lost 2 (18 and 32). This means that no matter what happens next week, when the two Democratic incumbents are up, the Republicans will still control the Senate (17/16).


What's more, race handicappers suspect that there is a good chance that one of the two Democrats (Jim Holperin - district 12) will go down as his district is a more natural Republican district (much like 32 is a much more natural Democrat district). The other one (district 22) is a better shot for Democratic retention.

Taken as a whole, this is a somewhat disappointing result for the Democrats. The teacher's union and other outside union forces poured a lot of money into these races and had hoped to at least gain control of the Senate. This would have been viewed as acceptance of the Democrats tactic of leaving the state as a form of protest and given them momentum towards recalling Governor Walker; to say nothing of assuring that the state stays blue in 2012. Now, they are looking at about $30 million spent to narrow the Senate to 18-15 (when they probably would have taken districts 18 and 32 in the next election anyway) and have galvanized the grass roots Republicans.

Still, much could change over the next few months and I wouldn't go relying on Wisconsin in any red state calculations by a long shot if I were the Republican presidential candidate.

How to Stimulate an Economy

Ok people. A quick lesson.

Low taxes (producing low prices) = economic resurgence
High taxes (producing high prices) = stagnant economy

Example

BTW, for those crying about the lost tax revenue to the government, those taxes are easily made up in the large surge of profits the companies made that day (and there was no corporate tax holiday).

"We've made more today than we have made in this whole month"

Captain Morgan Crunch

I find this... amusing

(via TeeFury)

September List

September is shaping up to be an interesting month. Here in the US, we'll likely have the remaining holdouts decide if they want to throw their hats in the Presidential ring (Perry, Palin, and possibly Giuliani). We'll move out of the last of the straw polls and gear up for the Iowa caucus in January.

Meanwhile, the UN is going to vote to recognize Palestine as a sovereign nation (around Sept. 21). The Palestinians are now organizing themselves for large scale marches coinciding with the votes. Although they claim that they will be peaceful, history tells us that some violent actions will probably emerge out of these.

On the astronomical front, Comet Elenin will be moving directly in line between the Earth and the Sun around Sept. 26. Elenin is too small to create anything like a true eclipse, but it is possible that the debris cloud could be large enough to have some dimming effects for a day or so, to say nothing of the potential meteor showers that we might be able to see by being in the comet's tail. That could be cool.

And on the personal front, I've got a major design review that we won't be ready for on the 15th. That will cause a bit of consternation and bellyaching but hopefully nothing worse than that. Still, I'll be quite glad when that thing is over. There's very little worse than being assigned to a project with too little resources in a tight span of time. It gives one a sense of doom and failure that I don't particularly like.

Three Comets

I posted earlier about Comet Elenin and it's approach in late September/early October. But there are two other comets that will be passing though around the same time.

Comet Honda is passing through now and will be closest to Earth (0.0603 AU, 5.6 million miles) on August 15.

Comet Levy is still out beyond Mars but will get as close as 0.0484 AU (4.5 million miles) on January 7, 2012.

I'm hopeful that all three of these comets will be bright enough to get a good look at as I can't recall an instance where there were three close passes within a six month time frame.

How Political Commercials Are Done

A fellow who goes by Jazz Shaw, has postulated a commercial based on a possible outcome of the debt ceiling impasse.

When the debt limit is reached, the Federal Government will no longer be able to spend more than it takes in. Without an official budget, there is no direct allocation of funds from the House, so the decision as to who gets what percentage of their funds is left to Treasury. So it is entirely within belief that Treasury would make small cuts here and there and all of a sudden, people can't get what they've been used to getting. That leads to commercials such as this one:








Effective, no?

Of course, there's also the potential crash of the bond market and a potential credit crisis to deal with. So we shall just have to see if either side blinks or if we actually go to this option.

Virus Public Service Poster

I don't know why, but I've always enjoyed the artwork of the public service posters from the '20s through the '40s. Maybe it's the art deco styling.

Anyway, one of the contributors to TeeFury created a public service poster for defending against computer viruses. I like it.

Huge Saturn Storm

Cassini has captured several images of a huge storm that has formed on Saturn. It apparently started as a spot storm around the end of March, but is spreading into a ring around the northern hemisphere of the planet. Quite interesting to look at.

Oh $hit!

A 61,000 acre wildfire is about 50 ft away from the first buildings of the Los Alamos Nuclear facility. The braintrust that runs this facility has about 20,000 barrels of nuclear waste on site that are contained in tent buildings rather than the proper concrete bunker buildings (like was built at Yucca Mountain). If you look at the aerial photos, the tents are nearly surrounded by woods. If this isn't an Oh $hit moment, I don't know what is.

Ocean Reclamation of Japan

Through the twentieth century, Japan created more and more land for itself by diking areas of the ocean and then draining the area. It would seem that the 9.0 earthquake back in March has allowed the ocean to start taking back what was once hers. These videos were all taken in April when the ground was still very unsettled.

Wet and Wild Weather

Weather has been nuts here in the US lately. I did a little digging and found some information that gives a real visual on how off things are this year.

Yesterday (June 23) the city of Cincinnati (recorded at CVG) officially topped the average annual rainfall total and we still have six more months to go. The official annual average is 39.57 inches. We are now at 40.32 inches. I can't even imagine what the numbers must be like out West in the Plains:


The next chart is a track of US tornadoes since 1950. There is a small fault to this chart as the ability to track and verify separate tornadoes wasn't that good until about 20-30 years ago. Still, the past few years are still good and you can see the same effect that we saw in the rainfall totals. We are already ahead of last year's total and about 500 tornadoes behind the record year of 2004. That might seem like a lot but it should be noted that hurricanes and their leftover low pressure systems will spawn a number of tornadoes even though "tornado season" is essentially over:


According to NOAA, we are currently tracking over 200 tornadoes ahead of the high end curve of the prediction charts. If that number holds, we'll end the year with nearly 2,100 tornadoes in the US.

Lastly, there are earthquakes. This data from USGS goes up to June 22 and only covers major quakes (5.0+) but it's still impressive:


Thankfully we are roughly in line with average on the 7.0-7.9 and 8.0+ as we have had 8 and 1 respectively so far this year. The 5.0-5.9 and 6.0-6.9 are well above average though. Some of this is directly due to the Japan quake and earthquake accumulation is distinctly not linear. Still it's rather disconcerting to see that our earthquake totals for the first six months are already above the total numbers for 2001-2003. It seems highly likely that we will top the 2007 total of 2,270. Were the Earth to get another large quake (and with the volcano activity, that seems possible), it would push things well past that number and possibly close to the 3,000 range.

Just one item would be enough for one to sit up and take notice, but all three grab one and shake them somewhat. There is probably some sort of cause but whether that is solar actively or magnetic and gravitational shifts in the solar system, I couldn't say. Either way, let's hope this ride slows down before it gets any bumpier.

Bad Weather News

It is snowing in Colorado. That is somewhat weird given that today is the first day of summer.

But the truly bad part is that it is a reminder that the Rocky Mountain snow pack is still very thick and will continue to melt and pour into the Missouri and Colorado Rivers.

In Nebraska, there are two nuclear power plants, Ft. Calhoun and Cooper, that are in significant danger of being overtaken by the flood waters. Ft. Calhoun was taken off-line for maintenance in April, but it still has spent fuel rods in a cooling pool located on site. It is currently below the flood line, but is being protected by a rubber wall and a wall of sandbags. This has the effect of making it look like an island fortress.

Cooper is still active but the waters are still rising around it as well. If either or both of these plants are inundated, it could dump a lot of nuclear waste material into the Missouri River, which will then flow into the Mississippi and then into the Gulf.

This is some bad juju that bears watching.

Total Lunar Eclipse Tomorrow

Tomorrow there is going to be a total lunar eclipse that will be visible on six of the seven continents. Only us in North America will miss out. The eclipse will start around 12:30 PM EDT and will last until 6 PM EDT. The eclipse will hit its apex right around 3:15 PM EDT.

The bullseye of the eclipse will be in the Indian Ocean but totality will be all over India, the Middle East and most of Africa. The view dies out about halfway across the Pacific on the east side and just before it hits the Caribbean on the west side.


Hopefully there will be some cool pictures of this available on Thursday.

Very Early Republican Polling

You might not know it unless you were paying very close attention, but there are now eight officially declared candidates for the Republican Presidential nomination. These official eight are former Godfather's Pizza CEO Herman Cain, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former MN Governor Tim Pawlenty, former MA Governor Mitt Romney, former PA Senator Rick Santorum, TX Representative Ron Paul, former NM Governor Gary Johnson, and gay-rights activist Fred Karger.

Just after this lot you have the "preparing to declare themselves" crowd. These include MN Representative Michele Bachmann, former UT governor Jon Huntsman, and former LA Governor Buddy Roemer.

In the third pack you have people that have talked about running but have not taken any of the formal steps. These would include former AK Governor Sarah Palin, TX Governor Rick Perry, former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani, and former UN Ambassador John Bolton.

Rounding out the discussion are those who other people wish would get into the Presidential race. These include former FL Governor Jeb Bush, NJ Governor Chris Christie, WI Representative Paul Ryan, and FL Senator Marco Rubio.

Any polls taken at this time would be essentially useless as we are 17 months from the election. That doesn't stop them though. Over the past month, Mr. Romney has polled somewhat well (cracking 20% in the recent ABC poll). This has made him the "front runner" for the time being. Most other candidates well down the list as they typically are all jockeying for the same voters. The lone immediate challenger to Mr. Romney in the recent spat of polls appears to be Ms. Palin. She appears to generally be around 2-4 points behind Mr. Romney but that's still a reasonable distance above the noise that makes up the other candidate's polling numbers.

Because of the swirl of gamesmanship going on between the states (especially Florida), it is still unclear when the Iowa Caucuses and New Hampshire primaries will be (although early to mid-January seems likely). The firming of these dates will set the official deadline for any candidates who wish to declare themselves. I would personally expect to see the field fully set by late August or early September just because of the necessity of getting ground troops in to Iowa and New Hampshire. Once the field is fully set, we should see three or four candidates rise up to become the official gladiators while everyone else fades into the background.

Movin' Trash

This is one of Boy X's favorite songs from the Elmo's Green Thumb CD. It's fun to listen to him sing along if you start him.

A: We're movin' trash...
X: move it, move it. Dig it

Media Insanity

The Bible says that in the last days there will be "raging insanity" (2 Timothy 3:1). I'm sure he didn't mean it quite like this, but Paul could very easily have been talking about our media for the past three days.

For those in the dark, Ms. Palin was invited to speak at the Raging Thunder rally in DC on the Sunday before Memorial Day. She accepted and had her RV painted up in a very flashy populist mode. When she announced that she had accepted the invitation, she noted that she and the family would be seeing some sites on their way up the eastern seaboard while meandering up to New Hampshire.

All of this apparently has set the media's hair on fire. Dozens of reporters have been shadowing this bus tour and acting quite pissy that she has not given them one-on-one access nor given them an itinerary of where she is going. All this despite the fact that (a) she is technically not a declared candidate for anything and (b) still employed by Fox News and might be viewed as in breach of contract if she consulted with other media outlets. Yet, all we are missing the helicopter shots and we would be having the white Bronco chase all over again.

While Ms. Palin has not declared yet, it would seem that she is going to throw her hat in the ring. She is driving to New Hampshire, she will be driving to Iowa later this month, and it was noted today that she will be going to South Carolina after that. All that's missing is a trip to Nevada and she will have hit the four early boys of the Presidential season, so it does not take a rocket scientist to see what's going to happen in the near future.

Still, her eventual getting into the race doesn't explain the media frenzy that going on. Whether you like her, love her, or hate her, it is rather disquieting to see the media act like a pack of feral dogs after a bone for an early campaign tour/publicity event. When CNN acts more like TMZ, something strange is definitely afoot.

Ohio Population Shift

The recent election in NY made me take a quick look to see when the new Congressional districts have to be in place in Ohio (Dec. 7). When I was looking, I found this little graphic that confirms my suspicions that the five remaining Democrats will be under fire:



From what I have heard, it is almost a given that OH-10 will be blown away, most of it combined with OH-11 I would imagine. After that, it looks as though OH-9 or OH-17 will be on the chopping block. OH-13 is the only other Democrat district and that one actually increased by 18,000 people.

If it were me, I'd get rid of OH-17. It lost 30,000 people and could easily be split four ways into OH-6, OH-13, OH-14, and OH-16.

The other little bugaboo is how to reapportion the rest of Ohio. The Columbus area showed dramatic growth and could (in theory) be split into four districts (combined OH-7, OH-12, and OH-15 grew by over 225,000 people). If they take that tack, one then looks at the possibility of OH-9 being absorbed between OH-5, OH-13 and OH-16 as well. Likely, the new Columbus district would create a Democrat safe harbor at the core and surround it with three Republican strongholds, unless they can find a way to gerrymander it to a part of a heavily Republican x-urb.

As such, I would say that the only safe Democrats are Marcia Fudge (OH-11) and Betty Sutton (OH-13)