Monthly Archives: November 2015
Today in History – November 30
1782 – American Revolutionary War: Treaty of Paris (1783) — In Paris, representatives from the United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain sign preliminary peace articles recognizing American independence. (later formalized as the 1783 Treaty of Paris).
1886 – First commercially successful AC electric power plant opens, Buffalo, New York.
1934 – The LNER Class A3 4472 Flying Scotsman becomes the first steam locomotive to be authenticated as reaching 100 mph.
1941 – Japanese Emperor Hirohito consults with admirals Shimada & Nagano and rubberstamps the Pearl Harbor attack plan.
1988 – UN General Assembly (151-2) censures US for refusing PLO’s Arafat visa. At this time we should have given then a two-week notice to vacate the premises.
1993 – U.S. President Bill Clinton signs the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (the Brady Bill) into law. Thousands of criminals immediately turn in their handguns. Wait… They didn’t? You’re kidding, right?!?!?
The Name Game #420
Fifty-eight degrees at 0800, headed for the upper sixties this afternoon. It’s overcast. I walked out to retrieve the Sunday paper, feeling a little fine mist.
the biggest news in the paper is NOT that Louisiana elected a dimmocrat governor, but rather that the highest paid state official, LSU’s football coach, retained his job after losing three games in a row, among them the God-accursed Alabama. The answer seems to be that, yes, we adore him so much for leading our gallant athletes to victory that we wist to continue top lay him millions of dollars a year.
Oddly, the birth announcements were in Wednesday’s paper. I’ve been sitting on them (not literally) for today. We find that the big hospital across the river reports thirty-seven new babies from between November 6 & 23. Of those, sixteen are to unwed parents and four new mommies are still confused as to who the baby daddy is.
Let’s forge ahead:
Bill & Whitaney(!) A. name their son Teal Reed. One wonders if he has a sibling, Spoonbill Sawgrass. (That’s a duck name for you who might not be up on North American waterfowl)
First apostrophe of the week shows up as Miss Asia(!) G. does her daughter up with Le’Asia Ja’myrika, hitting both sides of the “Capitalize the first letter after the goofy-assed apostrophe” rule.
We roll right into another apostrophe (they’re sprinkled like dog droppings in some segments of the population) when Darius(!) & Tyiesha(!) L. present their daughter, little Zoey De’Na.
And another apostrophe when as Sanders D. & Betty W. tag their son with De’Chaun Authemont.
Dow & Jennifer W. may be prescient when they name their son Rebel James.
Monte’ D. Jr. & Laurol(!) T. name their daughter Harlee, meaning she’ll fit right in at either a biker bar or a strip club.
Miss Taiquisha F. names her daughter Zoey (not bad) Amelya(Pretty bad – what’s wrong with spelling a name like it’s been spelled for centuries?)>
Miss Brittany G. does a bit of product placement using her baby girl, Bria Chanel.
Kyle ‘n’ Leslie M. name their son Kip McCoy. Nothing like a last name for a middle name and a nickname for a first name.
Derek & Kayley V. show their love of the letter “K” by tagging their daughter Karter Kay.
And we’ll quit here and call it good.
Today in History – November 29
1877 – Thomas Edison demonstrates his phonograph for the first time.
1910 – The first US patent for inventing the traffic lights system is issued to Ernest Sirrine. City council immediately sets a fine for running one.
1929 – U.S. Admiral Richard Byrd becomes the first person to fly over the South Pole.
1944 – Johns Hopkins hospital performs first open heart surgery. Today it’s almost a yawner.
1947 – UN Gen Assembly partitions Palestine between Arabs & Jews, leading to the legal formation of the nation of Israel, restoring a nation that was torn apart by the Romans in 70 AD. But skip forward to 1978…
1952 – Korean War: U.S. President-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower fulfills a campaign promise by traveling to Korea to find out what can be done to end the conflict. Nuking Red China to a cinder would’ve worked…
1963 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson establishes the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. This is like Al Capone investigating crime in Chicago…
1978 – UN observes “international day of solidarity with Palestinian people,” boycotted by US & about 20 other countries. The UN has been dead useless for twenty years when this happens.
1972 – Nolan Bushnell (co-founder of Atari) releases Pong (the first commercially successful video game) in Andy Capp’s Tavern in Sunnyvale, California. And with this shot, a revolution begins.
Food for Thought – 28 November 2015
Saturday Song #121
Blue Oyster Cult Don’t Fear The Reaper
I was in Germany making sure the commie hordes didn’t come running through the Fulda Gap. If you thought Paris had fun printing menus in German, imagine if they’d had to typeset Cyrillic.
Now they’ll have to print ’em backward in Arabic.
Today in History – November 28
1520 – After navigating through the South American strait, three ships under the command of Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan reach the Pacific Ocean, becoming the first Europeans to sail from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. And THAT’S why it’s called the “Straits of Magellan”. The other route is around Cape Horn through an unpleasant stretch of the Southern Ocean.
1811 – Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73, was premiered at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig without a lightshow and backup dancers.
1814 – The Times in London is for the first time printed by automatic, steam powered presses built by the German inventors Friedrich Koenig and Andreas Friedrich Bauer, signaling the beginning of the availability of newspapers to a mass audience. Today, newspapers are sucking sludge trying to keep in business.
1907 – In Haverhill, Massachusetts, scrap-metal dealer Louis B. Mayer opens his first movie theater. He’s one of the “M’s” in MGM… A scrap metal dealer. Mean ol’ America, holding folks down and all that…
1925 – The Grand Ole Opry begins broadcasting in Nashville, Tennessee, as the WSM Barn Dance. Yee-haw, y’all!
1942 – In Boston, Massachusetts, a fire in the Cocoanut Grove nightclub kills 491 people. The exact number of dead varies in different reports, but it’s a lot.
1958 – Chad, the Republic of the Congo, and Gabon become autonomous republics within the French Community, go on to become standards of fairness, security and prosperity.
1994 – In Portage, Wisconsin, convicted serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer is clubbed to death by an inmate in the Columbia Correctional Institution gymnasium. Justice is served and for a brief moment harmony is found in the universe.
2014 – Gunmen set off three bombs at the central mosque in the northern city of Kano, Nigeria, killing at least 120 people. Nothing to see here, folks. It’s a simple disagreement among adherents of the Religion of Peace.
Food for Thought – 27 November 2015
Post-Turkey
Let’s see if I got this straight. Hollande of France seems to be siding with Putin of Russia in the unpleasantness in Syria.
Tells us one thing, at least – France recognizes that Putin has a pair of gonads that Obama lacks, and France would like to see SOMETHING happen to the bunch that claims responsibility for the Paris attacks.
Obama’s still into the ‘stern look’ phase of engagement.
Then Turkey shoots down a Russian plane. That puts a weird kink into the mix. You see, Turkey, France and the USA are members of NATO. That’s the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a hangover from the Cold War when The USSR (which was REALLY Russia, okay?) was expected to attack a weak member. The basic premise was that an attack on ANY member would be met by a response from ALL members.
Neat, huh?
Except France is a member and they’ve sort of sided with Russia, who ‘attacked’ another member, Turkey.
Turns out, Turkey was a bit miffed because Russia, having decided that Assad was the best hope for a sane solution in Syria, was bombing the crap out of any and all of Assad’s opposition. One of the members of said opposition was a tribal bunch, the Turkmen, ethnic Turks, that Turkey was backing against Assad. Popping a Russian plane was Turkey’s way of saying “Back off and go play somewhere else.”
Obama’s backing of the ‘anybody but Assad’ plan is one of the things that got us Daesh (or ISIS or ISIL – Daesh is colloquial Arabic for ‘people who trash things’, a fitting descriptor). It’s a natural progression of the Left’s breathless adoration of the idea of “Arab Spring”, where in a couple of hundred million rock-worshiping goat-f**kers would miraculously acquire the trappings of Western Civilization, sit in circles holding hands, and sing Kumbayah while we gave the world a Coke.
Instead, we got a little of the Apocalypse, gangs without any restriction getting weapons, fighting Assad for a while, each other even more, all clawing the be the ones who decide the NEXT despotic regime. Looks like Daesh is on top of the heap right now.
How to unravel all this mess? Bomb ANYTHING that moves within a hundred meters of a weapon. Any one. Any weapon. When you have a hornet’s nest on your porch, you kill the whole nest.
Further, upon the protests of the other rock-worshiping goat-f**kers, nuke Mecca. Yeah, yeah, yeah… It’ll p**s people off. Hey, bunkie, these people want to KILL us or turn us into rock-worshiping goat-f**kers, and if they don’t PERSONALLY want to weild the knives, they parade in the streets in support of those who WILL wield the knives. So if they want to bow to Mecca five times a day, it’s right over there, still glowing. Easier to find, yaknow?
Some will pop up and say, well, MC, that’s not very Christian. That’s why I’m mad. Between desiring a quiet peaceful life watching my friends and family and having to depart from my ‘turn the other cheek’ learning, I have to side with the fact that he who will not protect the defenseless, his own family, is worse than a heathen. That’s in the Book, too.
Interesting times. Watch Turkey and Russia. This could go off the tracks very fast.
Today in History – November 27
602 AD – Emperor Maurice is forced to watch his five sons be executed before being beheaded himself; their bodies are thrown into the sea and their heads are exhibited in Constantinople. How did this come about? He disrespected the army and they revolted.
1789 – A national Thanksgiving Day is observed in the United States as recommended by President George Washington and approved by Congress. 2014 – Barack Obama celebrates Thanksgiving by receiving the thanks of his adoring friends in the mainstream media..
1826 – John Walker invents friction match in England.
1839 – In Boston, Massachusetts, the American Statistical Association is founded. “There are three kinds of lies: Lies, da*n lies, and statistics.”
1868 – Indian Wars: Battle of Washita River – United States Army Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer leads an attack on Cheyenne living on reservation land.
1895 – At the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris, Alfred Nobel signs his last will and testament, setting aside his estate to establish the Nobel Prize after he dies. He didn’t envision it becoming a propaganda tool, but parts of it have done just that.
1924 – In New York City, the first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is held. They used animals from the zoo in the first couple of parades. In 1927, the first big balloon, Felix the Cat, made its debut.
1967 – Gold pool nations pledge support of $35 per ounce gold price. It’s at $1400 in 2010, and around $1100 right now.
Thanks, given…
Dad was a WW II navy veteran. He told me that one constant of a celebratory meal onboard his ship in the Pacific was lemon meringue pie. Throughout my life, Mom provided Dad (and us) with a home-made from scratch lemon meringue pie.
Withe the passing of Mom and Dad, nothing I found in stores compared with Mom’s pie. My friend Chrissy’s niece makes the grade now. This is today’s pie. When I ate a slice, I did it in memory of Mom & Dad.
Thanks, Chrissy. Thanks, Dee-Dee. You two make my Thanksgiving.
Food for Thought – 26 November 2015
Thanksgiving
Tough ol’ world out there, folks.
I give thanks for family and friends (over several continents, actually) who help me through things. I try to do the same.
For every one of you who stop by this trainwreck of a blog, thank you for yet another year.
Let’s pray that we can keep the wheels on for a while longer.
Today in History – November 26
1778 – In the Hawaiian Islands, Captain James Cook and company become the first Europeans to visit Maui.
1789 – A national Thanksgiving Day is observed in the United States as recommended by President George Washington and approved by Congress.
1939 – Shelling of Mainila: The Soviet Army orchestrates the incident which is used to justify the start of the Winter War with Finland four days later. Tiny, out-numbered, under-armed, gutsy Finland gives the Russians more fight than they bargained for.
1942 – Holocaust: Shoah: 572 Norwegian Jews are deported to Auschwitz on the cargo vessel Donau. This was the first step on the journey to the death camp Auschwitz. Altogether the total number of Jews deported from Norway was 767, 25 of the deported survived. If the Bush Administration were Nazis as the Left has screamed during his eight years, THIS is what you’d have seen. The Left couldn’t FIND a Nazi if one bit them on the ass.
1943 – World War II: HMT Rohna sunk by the Luftwaffe using a radio-guided bomb in an air attack in the Mediterranean north of Béjaïa, Algeria. Of the 1,138 men lost, 1,015 were American. The attack constitutes the largest loss of U.S. troops at sea in a single incident.
1944 – World War II: A German V-2 rocket hits a Woolworth’s shop on New Cross High Street, United Kingdom, killing 168 shoppers. If one would’ve hit a Wal-Mart on any Black Friday, it would’ve raised the state’s average IQ a dozen points.
1950 – Korean War: Troops from the People’s Republic of China launch a massive counterattack in North Korea against South Korean and United Nations forces (Battle of the Ch’ongch’on River and Battle of Chosin Reservoir), ending any hopes of a quick end to the conflict.
2000 – George W. Bush is certified the winner of Florida’s electoral votes by Katherine Harris, going on to win the United States presidential election, despite losing in the national popular vote as reported by the mainstream media. When you factor out the dead votes ( a heavily dimmocrat-leaning block) and the ‘extra’ votes cast by ‘community activists’, Bush won the popular vote as well.
2008 – The first shots of many attacks on Mumbai, India are fired. These ten coordinated attacks by Pakistan-based terrorists kill 164 and injure more than 300 people in Mumbai. Included among the victims are members of Mumbai’s tiny Jewish community, specifically targeted, lest you mistakenly think terrorists have forgotten the Jews.