The Silures continue to fight

If this blog were a child, and were developing at a normal rate, then we'd have acquired some significant capacities over the last year. For example:

• Mastery of some basic rules of grammar
  
• Speaking in sentences of five to six words
  
• Speaking clearly enough for strangers to understand
  
• Telling stories

Pretty impressive as it stands, but there's more. In the next year or so we could look forward to becoming more likely to obey rules, better understanding the concept of time, and standing on one foot for ten seconds or longer. All because this week The Bellman Blog will turn fifty one months old.

Fifty one is widely recognized as the most significant American number. From Area 51 to our manifest ambitions regarding Canada, fifty one is emblazoned on our future. Likewise, fifty one can also be found at significant points in our past. Federalist Paper #51 argues that a system of checks and balances must be embedded in the structure of our government. Article 51 of the UN Charter secures the right of states to wage war in self-defence. Perhaps most significantly, Richard Hatch was sentenced to 51 months in prison for tax evasion following his victory on Survivor's first season.

Among several minor tweaks to the template today, there is one small piece of added content. In the sidebar, just above the archives, I added the section The Lost Bellman. The five links there lead to five snapshots of the blog during its first six months of existence. Possibly unfortunately, there's not much to see at any of those links. On what is almost certainly the upside, we've now gone 30 months without a blog existence failure, and all of .jasonblog. remains extant.