Monthly Archives: September 2013
Today in History – September 30
1452 – First European book printed with moveable type, Johann Gutenberg’s Bible, in Mainz, Germany. Mainz has a terrific museum devoted to printing, including a display of an original Gutenberg Bible. It’s worth a visit if you’re in the area. I was.
1544 – King Henry VIII draws his armies out of France. His army leaves behind a considerable amount of genetic material.
1791 – The Magic Flute, the last opera composed by Mozart, receives its premiere performance at Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna, Austria.
1791 – The National Constituent Assembly in Paris is dissolved; Parisians hail Maximilien Robespierre and Jérôme Pétion as incorruptible patriots. Yeah. Just like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are “incorruptible patriots”. And cool move, there Gaston!: You get rid of a monarchy and pass control to a dictatorship by moonbat.
1841 – Samuel Slocum patented the stapler. Hey! A milestone IS a milestone…
1882 – Thomas Edison’s first commercial hydroelectric power plant (later known as Appleton Edison Light Company) begins operation on the Fox River in Appleton, Wisconsin, United States. it was a whopping 12.5 kilowatts. Honda makes a portable generator that big now and it fits in the back of a pickup truck. I’ve worked on a 600 MEGAwatt unit. That’s 48,000(!) times bigger. In less than a hundred years.
1938 – At 2:00 am, Britain, France, Germany and Italy sign the Munich Agreement, allowing Germany to occupy the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. Neville Chamberlain forever sets the standard for moonbat politicians being flim-flammed by dictators when he returns to London, waves a copy of the agreement and says it means “peace in our time.” Hitler says “a little piece of Poland, a little piece of France…” (and extra points if you can identify where the Hitler quote comes from…)
1938 – The League of Nations unanimously outlaws “intentional bombings of civilian populations”. Yeah, that worked. The League of Nations died. If only the UN would have the grace to do the same…
1949 – Berlin Airlift ends after 277,000 flights. America faces down the Soviet Union. Today’s Left would not only have signed West Berlin Over to them, but would have held a star-studded concert to celebrate.
1954 – The U.S. Navy submarine USS Nautilus is commissioned as the world’s first nuclear reactor powered vessel.
1968 – First Boeing 747 rolls out. American aviation shows the world how it’s done.
2005 – The controversial drawings of Muhammad are printed in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Muslims are driven to a killing frenzy by cartoons. Who knew? Other things that drive Muslims into a killing frenzy: Days that end with “y”. Puppies. Music. People smiling. BACON!
Proselytizing…
For the Religion of Peace.
Just maybe, somewhere along in here, we should start being outraged. While the world still reels from from last week’s massacre at a shopping mall in Kenya, Islamic proselytizers hit a college dorm in Nigeria.
Suspected Islamic militants gunned down students as they slept and killed as many as 50 in an early-morning attack in north-east Nigeria, a college provost said.
Molima Idi Mato, of the Yobe state College of Agriculture in rural Gujba, said the gunmen also torched classrooms in the attack at about 1am.
The college is about 40km from the scene of similar school attacks around Damaturu town. He said security forces are still recovering bodies so he could not give an exact death toll. About 1,000 students have fled.
North-east Nigeria is in a military state of emergency against an Islamic uprising prosecuted by Boko Haram militants who have killed hundreds of civilians in their quest for an Islamic state. (Emphasis mine)
Follow that little tidbit up with reports that ONE reason that the Syrian rebels are getting their collective butts handed to them by government forces is that there’s a second-tier war going on. This one is between indigenous Syrian rebels with a beef against Assad and a highly foreign contingent of (Surprise!) radical Muslims, many with al Qaeda roots, who want to –GASP! Another surprise!– establish an Islamic state in Syria.The Russians and the Chinese recognize that as bad as Assad might be, he does not rely on an interpretation of Seventh Century fables to justify stoning teenaged girls. Our own ‘leaders’, though, raised and educated on the idea of ‘moral equivalence’, see no difference between a mullah signing off on a beheading and a Baptist speaking against drinking.
The Name Game #339
Our little autumn-like respite is over. We almost did the ‘eighty by eight’ thing today. It’s seventy-eight at ten after eight. There’s a front coming, though.
Leafed through the Sunday paper this morning over an omelet. The birth announcement section shows twenty-eight new babies from between August 2 and September 17. Seventeen of those are to unmarried parents and four of them, including a set of twins, are in the possession of a mommy who can’t remember who to tag as the daddy. Hillary’s ‘village’? It’ll be raising these. with MY money.
Let’s see what comes out of this:
Christopher & MariEllyn(!) miss that whole “It’s ‘heaven’ spelled backwards’ thing by tagging their daughter with Revaeh Jewel.
William & Leah O. damage two little girls with Elizabeth Mishelle and Emily Louise Marie. And pray tell, what was wrong with ‘Michelle’, other than the fact that it’s also the name of a current occupier of the White House?
Miss Olga A. starts her son off as royalty, giving us little Prince Roy. She don’t give us the name of the sperm donor for this operation, though.
Miss Tyra A. doesn’t ahve a baby daddy to name her son after, so she names him after herself, giving us little Tyrann James.
Josh T. & Pennie D. give their son a manly name, Hunter Blaine.
Ryan & Cheryl B. continue their love of the letter ‘y’ with their daughter, little Blayklee Grayce. Yyyyyyyyyy?
Winston F. & Katy M. tag a daughter with Rosie Suzonne to make sure her name is pronounced in only the most sophisticated manner.
Neil M. & Jessica G. do their son up as Sully Gage. I wonder if that’s an allusion to Captain Sullenberger of “We’re gonna be in the Hudson” fame.
Jeremy M. & Angelle W. gain inspiration for their daughter’s name from a fashion magazine, so she starts out as Jordyn Armani.
Miss Ja’Cortlynn W. drops a pair of twins on us and shows her love of the letter ‘K’, so we see little Kyson Josiah and Karson Joel. Note the inclusion of two good biblical names. She got that out of the Bible. It’s a shame she didn’t pick up on that whole ‘chastity’ and ‘marriage’ thing.
And Miss Jasmine A. tosses in an afterthought apostrophe for her daughter, little Bayleigh Brianne’, because ‘Bayleigh’ is, like, yahknow, just soooo much more sophisticated than ‘Bailey’.
And that’s the list this week.
Today in History – September 29
1789 – The U.S. War Department first establishes a regular army with a strength of several hundred men. today, the Department of Agriculture has a bigger standing army.
1916 – John D. Rockefeller becomes the first billionaire. Oil!
1936 – Radio used for first time for a presidential campaign. Obama loyalists try to get the ads pulled.
1938 – Treaty of Munich signed by Hitler, Mussolini, Daladier & Chamberlain. “If we give them a little of what they want, they will think we’re nice people and stop doing mean things.”
1942 – French government of De Gaulle cancels Agreement of Munich. The REAL French government, still actually IN actually in FRANCE, is collaborating its butt off. That 1938 agreement in Munich wasn’t worth the paper it was written on. Of course, from the safety of England, neither is the De Gaulle government…
1960 – Nikita Khrushchev, leader of Soviet Union, disrupts a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly with a number of angry outbursts. Obama shows up and members erupt in giggling fits.
1966 – The Chevrolet Camaro, originally named Panther, is introduced, features in many an episode of “Hold mah beer an’ watch this!”
1975 – WGPR in Detroit, Michigan, becomes the world’s first black-owned-and-operated television station, helping lift Detroit to its current position as a jewel in America’s tiara.
1991 – Military coup in Haiti. Still having trouble with that whole ‘election’ thing…
Flautistry
A musical freebie because I was looking for one thing and found another, a demonstration of serendipity:
It’s an adaptation of themes from The Magic Flute, Mozart’s last opera. The lead flute part is played by the guy who was the principal flautist for the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, which means you’re hearing technical and artistic perfection.
Saturday Song #100
Let’s go Bach. With Prelude and Fugue No.1 in C Major from The Well Tempered Clavier, twenty-four pieces “for the profit and use of musical youth desirous of learning, and especially for the pastime of those already skilled in this study.”
Oh, let’s be generous and do another one: Prelude and Fugue in C Minor
Today in History – September 28
1066 – William the Conqueror invades England: the Norman Conquest begins. Part of what makes us what we are…
1781 – American forces backed by a French fleet begin the siege of Yorktown, Virginia, during the American Revolutionary War. This was France before a revolution by a bunch of enlightened fops ruined the place.
1850 – US Navy abolishes flogging as punishment.
1928 – Sir Alexander Fleming notices a bacteria-killing mold growing in his laboratory, discovering what later became known as penicillin. He wasn’t “Sir” back then, just a science geek playing with bread mold.
1938 – Dutch Premier Colijn sends radio message “No war coming” . See! They had pacifist moonbats back then, too. 1940 – Nazi occupiers present “New Dutch Culture” in German. Premier Colijn is now right. The war was short and nasty and the Netherlands lost. Now they have ‘peace’.
1939 – Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union agree on a division of Poland after their invasion during World War II. It’s a neat agreement between two blood-thirsty amoral dictators. Two years later Hitler decides that he wants ALL of Poland. And the Ukraine. And everything else.
1958 – France ratifies a new Constitution of France; the French Fifth Republic is then formed upon the formal adoption of the new constitution on October 4. The way things are going, the next one will be written in Arabic, based on sharia.
1961 – A military coup in Damascus effectively ends the United Arab Republic, the union between Egypt and Syria, which brings up a seldom-considered point: If the Arab world DIDN’T have a common enemy, Israel, they they’d be quite happily slaughtering each other.
Food for Thought – 27 September 2013
The dims don’t have to fight Cruz. We have a whole bunch of RINO’s who will fight him first.
Today in History – September 27
1066 – William the Conqueror and his army set sail from the mouth of the Somme River, beginning the Norman Conquest of England. Don’t get peckish. The term “Norman” comes from “Norseman”, the vikings who’d carved out a chunk of France for themselves already.
1777 – Lancaster, Pennsylvania is the capital of the United States, for one day. For one brief day the population becomes example of large number of self-serving… nah… THAT’S Washington today. It took them a while to get that way, but they’ve got the act down pat now….
1821 – Mexico gains its independence from Spain. Freed of the despotic rule of European interlopers, the country goes on to enjoy decades of peace, justice and prosperity. Today, thousands of Americans cross its boarder seeking opportunity not found here.
1903 – Wreck of the Old 97, a train crash made famous by the song of the same name. “They gave him his orders in Monroe, Virginia, said “Steve, you’re ‘way behind time…”
1908 – The first production of the Ford Model T automobile was built at the Piquette Plant in Detroit, Michigan. You could have any color you wanted, as long as it was black.
1941 – The SS Patrick Henry is launched becoming the first of more than 2,700 Liberty ships. America’s might produced ships like cupcakes…
1942 Last day of the September Matanikau action on Guadalcanal as United States Marine Corps troops barely escape after being surrounded by Japanese forces near the Matanikau River. A Coastie by the name of Douglas Munro gave his life to rescue a group of Marines trapped by the Japanese. His last words were, ”Did they all get off?” His medal was awarded by the Navy for his work with the Marines. He is the ONLY member of the Coast Guard to ever receive the Medal of Honor.
1964 – The Warren Commission releases its report, concluding that Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, assassinated President John F. Kennedy. It is widely debated as a cover-up.
1979 – The United States Department of Education receives final approval from the U.S. Congress to become the 13th US Cabinet agency. Public education is fast becoming equivalent in quality to public housing and public toilets.
1998 – The Google internet search engine retrospectively claims this as its birthday.
Food for Thought – 26 Septemeber 2013
Today in History – September 26
1580 – Back when the British had balls, Sir Francis Drake completes his circumnavigation of the globe. When he shows up back home, he’s got gold he captured from the Spanish in several engagements.
1777 – The British army launches a major offensive, capturing Philadelphia.
1786 – Protestors shut down the court in Springfield, Massachusetts in a military standoff that begins Shays’ Rebellion. It’s about the courts enforcing tax and debt collection.
1792 – Marc-David Lasource begins accusing Maximilien Robespierre of wanting a dictatorship for France. They get a dictatorship anyway, but Robespierre is executed in 1794. He’s a victim of the terror in France that he helped author.
1820 – Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson proved tomatoes weren’t poisonous by eating several on the steps of the courthouse in Salem, New Jersey. The news takes decades to be absorbed as far as Texas, which is why REAL chili doesn’t have tomatoes.
1950 – General Douglas MacArthur’s American X Corps, fresh from the Inchon landing, links up with the U.S. Eighth Army after its breakout from the Pusan Perimeter, recaptures Seoul from the North Koreans.
1960 – In Chicago, the first televised debate takes place between presidential candidates Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy. Nixon isn’t a cute as Kennedy and his poll numbers suffer…
1960 – Fidel Castro announces Cuba’s support for the U.S.S.R. Two words: “Communist bast*rd!” He makes the longest speech in UN history (4 hrs, 29 mins). President HUSSEIN has a copy lined up on his teleprompter.
Food for Thought – 25 September 2013
And our ruling class republicans, where’s there’s no principle so important that it can’t be compromised or abandoned.
Today in History – September 25
1492 – Crewman on Pinta sights “land”-a few weeks early. Wanting something really bad isn’t the same as having it.
1789 – The U.S. Congress passes twelve amendments to the United States Constitution: the Congressional Apportionment Amendment, the Congressional Compensation Amendment, and the ten that are known as the Bill of Rights. Only the Bill of Rights were ratified at the time, while the other two were proposed by James Madison but not ratified. In 1992, the Congressional Compensation Amendment was ratified as the 27th amendment to the Constitution. Does anyone really think that the government goes out of its way to follow the Constitution?
1929 – After an all-instrument flight the day before, Jimmy Doolittle performs the first blind flight from Mitchel Field proving that full instrument flying from take off to landing is possible.
1955 – The Royal Jordanian Air Force is founded. The name translates in Hebrew to “live targets”.
1990 – Saddam Hussein warns that US will repeat Vietnam experience. In 2003, America’s Left, with the complicity of the mainstream media, does its darnedest to relive its happy days in the seventies.