Daily history

Good morning,


To all of the members of the "Four o'clock Club", I am taking a hiatus from all that debauchery to let my body and soul detoxify. I will be back eventually.

Quote of the day:

"The only thing that saves us from bureaucracy is its inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy would take all of our liberty."

                                 Eugene McCarthy

Down in Tampa the SEC championship game was played Saturday afternoon. I guess all of you football fans out there saw that the juggernaut from Tuscaloosa is going to Pasadena to play for the national championship by beating the crap out of Tim Tebow and the Gators from Gainesville. They will play Colt McCoy and the Longhorns from Austin (maybe). My money is on Alabama. Even though the Bama quarterback has been at best mediocre for most of the year, he played the best game of his career this weekend. The Bama offensive line blew out the Florida Gator defense and Mark Ingram, the chief running back for Bama, ran wild. Against the supposed best defense in the country, the Crimson Tide had nearly 500 yards of offense. The Gators from Gainesville were simply outcoached. Coach Urban Meyer did not allow the running game to be established and I think he panicked when he found his team overpowered.

Down in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta it was the Clemson Tigers against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets for the ACC championship and an invite to the Orange Bowl in Miami. It was essentially a contest of the Georgia Tech defense stopping the ACC player of the year in Clemson running back C.J. Spiller, and Clemson stopping the Tech quarterbach Josh Nesbitt. Nesbitt is a tough runner that demands attention from the defense. Even though C.J. Spiller ran for four touchdowns and gained over 250 yards of total offense, the game was decided by the downright toughness of Josh Nesbitt. The Yellow Jackets are going to the Orange Bowl as ACC champions.

Early Sunday morning the Pensacola police were called by a man attesting that a woman was chasing him around with a butcher knife at the Pensacola Village apartments. The man used an alias. He was really Derrick Cox from Gonzalez, Louisiana. When the police arrived they could not find the man nor the woman. It seems that Derrick was looking for this particular woman and could not find her and hoped the police could. This did not sit well with the cops. They finally spotted Cox leaving Babe's strip joint on Davis Street and pulled him over, one car in front and one car behind. Cox did not have a driver's license and chose to drive backward toward a police officer who opened fire with his trusty 40 caliber Glock. Cox then went forward toward the cop in front who opened fire also. Cox finally stopped after being hit three times. Cox is critical condition in the Baptist Hospital. Not only does he not have a drivers license, he doesn't have any common sense either.

This date in history December 7

1941    At 7:55a on Sunday of this date 355 Japanese aircraft launched a surprise attack against the United States naval and air forces on the Hawaiian Islands. Earlier President Roosevelt had talked with the Japanese Emperor about Japan signing an alliance with Germany and Italy who were ravaging Europe. Roosevelt knew that Japan would not withdraw from the so-called Axis so he ordered all oil and scrap metal to be withheld from Japan making it very difficult for that country to manufacture the tools of war. Roosevelt knew this and was expecting an attack by the Japanese but he did not know where. Australian coast watchers reported that a large Japanese fleet has been spotted heading south down the Malayan peninsula and the target appears to be Thailand. This turned out to be a diversion and the real target was the Hawaiian Islands that were going to be attacked by a Japanese task force sporting four aircraft carriers. This whole scenario was planned by the brilliant and Harvard trained Admiral Yamamoto. The attack came in four waves. First came the fighters to suppress any American fighter counter-attack, second came the torpedo planes and finally the dive bombers. There was no American counter-attack. Nearly all of American fighter-bombers were destroyed before they could get off the ground. The Japanese attack was a complete success. They had destroyed 17 ships and nearly all of the American warplanes on the Islands. Fortunately for us, three of our Hawaii based aircraft carriers were out to sea and escaped attack. For reasons known only to the Japanese, they could have occupied Hawaii or sailed on east and attacked the west coast of the United States but they did neither and sailed on back to the house. But the United States Navy was severely damaged. While the Japanese upper military command were singing and dancing about the victory in Hawaii Admiral Yamamoto rose up and said “It is a great victory, but I fear that all we have done is awakened a sleeping giant.” The prophetic words proved to be truthful because Yamamoto knew the manufacturing power available in the good old United States and four years later Japan was prostrate and in ruins administered by the American military.

1787    On this date the thirty members of the Delaware delegation ratify the newest American Constitution making them the first state in the United States. The law was that nine of the thirteen colonies had to ratify the Constitution for it to become law. In June 1788 New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the Constitution and it became the law of the land making us the first Democratic Republic is history.

1982    On this date the predictable staff at the Huntsville, Texas prison executes Charles Morris, Jr. who had been convicted of murdering an auto mechanic. Executions in this infamous prison are not news; they lead the nation in executions only this time they did it with an injection rather than, poison gas, the electric chair or hanging. Texas was the first to use sodium pentothal in excessive amounts to kills someone. Sodium pentothal is normally used as a “truth serum” is smaller amounts. Very soon after the execution of Morris 30 states adopted the lethal injection as their method of execution.

1993    Earlier a black man named Colin Ferguson emigrated from Jamaica to the American west coast and then to New York City. On this date he boards a subway train and after a couple of stops, he jumps up and produces a pistol. He then begins running up and down the aisles shooting people at random. He killed 6 and injured nine. Soon thereafter famous defense lawyer William Kuntsler offers Ferguson his services and had already began putting together a defense using “black rage” as the motive. This defense even infuriated Ferguson and he fired Kuntsler and chose to be his own attorney. First he said that he was not the shooter but that it was a white man that had stolen his gun and tried to pin the murders on Ferguson, then he changed horses and said that it was some other guy with his facial features. All of this in spite of a parade of witnesses that pointed to Ferguson as the shooter. The jury was not fooled and convicted and sentenced Ferguson to 6 life term without the possibility of parole. What a dumb-ass.

1805    After reaching the Pacific Ocean a few weeks earlier, the Lewis and Clark expedition elects to make camp and spent the winter on a small creek off the Columbia River near what is now Portland Oregon. They named it Fort Clatsop after a local Indian tribe. Even though the weather is relatively mild as compared the storms raging in the Cascade Mountains a few miles away, the downside was that in the three months they spent there it rained all but 12 days resulting in wet clothing most of the time causing colds and rheumatism. They had planned to retrace their tracks on there way out the following spring but the local Indians showed them a much easier route to cross the Rockies. In the middle of March 1806, the Voyage of Discovery departed Fort Clatsop and headed east back toward Saint Louis.

Born today:

1873    US writer Willa Cather. She said “Where there is great love there is always miracles.”

1883    English writer Joyce Cary. She said “The less a man knows, the more sure he is that he knows everything.” Sounds like Pat Robertson to me.

1932    US actress Ellen Burstyn. She said “What a lovely surprise it is to realize how unlonely being alone can be.” Me too Ellen.

1947    US baseballer Johnny Bench. He said “I have never seen a horny baseball player walk into a bar and not let everyone know what he does for a living.”

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow