Daily history

Good morning.



Quote of the day:

“The trouble with jogging is that the olive keeps bouncing out of your martini glass."

                                       Martin Mull





Recently a grandfather down in McCormick, South Carolina gave his granddaughter a dog. This past weekend the dog attacked the 9 year old girl and killed her with a bite to the throat. The dog was an Akita, a dog that originated in Japan and was bred for fighting and as a guard dog. This dog is renowned for its viciousness and willingness to attack without provocation. Not a good animal for a nine year old.



You know, some people just will not work for a living. Down in North Charleston, SC man was caught in the exhaust stack of a Shoney’s restaurant trying to break in. After doing hard time, he was paroled. This weekend the owner of a skating rink saw an anomaly with a motion detector in the rear of his building. He armed himself with his trusty Glock and went around for a look-see. What he found was the jackass that was stuck in the Shoney’s stack inside his air-conditioning unit starting to cut out the copper tubing. He held the man at gunpoint, called the cops and they took him away to the joint. By the way, they found wire cutters and tubing cutters in the man’s jacket pockets. What a useless human being he is, and he is not alone.



By now all of you know what happened at the airport in Moscow so I will not bore you with the details. I will say this: All of you that think we can negotiate a peace with the hard core Arabs can kiss my a--.



Over in Pritchard, Alabama two brothers were shot and killed while cruising a depressed neighborhood trying to sell cocaine. The brothers and three others were in an older Crown Victoria when a white van pulled up behind them and sprayed the car with automatic gunfire. The other three passengers were wounded but their wounds were not life threatening. The police said that it was probably another drug gang protecting their turf. I like it. Let them kill each other, as cruel as it sounds.



Here is another adventure from the out of doors. Down in Pensacola, Florida four of us decided to go put out a gill net for mullet one particular night. We launched two boats one of which had 150 yards of gill net aboard and went to an area known as Grand Lagoon. This body of water is on the inter-coastal waterway so we went to the far side before putting out the net. One boat would pull out the net while the other one slowly ran the opposite direction. We finally got the net arrayed and joined back together to wait for a while. One of the guys that was with us had never done anything like this before and pulled out a bottle of Jim Beam. The rest of us refused to partake because we knew what a boat, in the dark, with barge traffic close by could mean if mixed with firewater. After a while the rookie had to urinate and stood up and promptly fell over the side. He started screaming “Help, Help, I can’t swim.” We told him “Just stand up, the water is only 4 feet deep.” He stood up while the rest of us laughed our ass off. Then he did something that was life-threatening, he got his feet tangled in the gill net. It was a hell of a struggle but we pulled the net up and got his stupid feet untangled and him back into the boat. We threw his bottle of Beam over the side also.



This date in history January 25





1500    On this day Spanish employer Vincente Pinzon raises the coast of Brazil. Pinzon was the captain of the Nina, one of the ships that came over with Christopher Columbus. Pinzon explored the northern coast of Brazil and the Amazon River. There was always contention as to who claimed this country first, the Spanish or the Portuguese. That issue was settled a few years later when the Portuguese explorer Pedro Cabol went ashore and established the city of Sao Paolo, Brazil.



1863   About two months ago Abe Lincoln had enough of US General McClellan’s snot-nose and told him to take a hike and put US General Ambrose Burnside in command of the Army of the Potomac. McClellan was a great trainer and organizer but was very shy and reluctant when it came to combat meaning that the aggressive CSA Robert E. Lee handed McClellan his ass on several occasions even though at times Lee was outnumbered two to one. The final straw came when McClellan’s army had defeated Lee’s army at Antietam and Lee headed back in to Virginia to lick his wounds. McClellan chose to stay in camp for 6 weeks and not pursue Lee. Anyway, that was enough for Abe and he sent McClellan to the showers in and promoted Burnside into command. Burnside had been a desk jockey most of his career with very little if any combat experience and told everyone that they should take someone else but General of the Army Henry Halleck insisted. Very soon after taking command, Burnside knowing that Abe wanted an aggressive commander, launched a movement against Lee. Unfortunately, the movement was detected by Lee and he moved his army in a position to intercept Burnside at Fredericksburg, Virginia. Some of ya’ll may not know what happened at Fredericksburg but the US Army walked into trap a prepared by Lee and his Lieutenants that cost the Union 15,000 casualties to 5,000 for the CSA. Well, Lincoln gave Burnside another chance and he tried a counter-move to attack Lee’s position at Fredericksburg from another direction and during the movement it rained for four straight days and the Army of the Potomac was bogged down to a stop in mud waist deep.. The exasperated US troops gained access to some booze, got hammered and many fights broke out between units, not only that the CSA troops were on the opposite side of the Rappahannock taunting and teasing without mercy. So Abe put a stop to it by firing Burnside after only two months of command and gave command of the Army of the Potomac to US General Joseph Hooker. Little did Hooker know that yet another spectacular victory for the CSA awaited him at a little town named Chancellorsville.



1945   On this date, after a stiff fight the Russian army breaks through the German defenses near Auschwitz, Poland. What they found here was evidence of the most cruel and inhumane treatment of human beings yet recorded. It was a death camp of unimaginable proportions. There were three main camps, I, II and III with 8 other “satellite” camps. This camp had but one purpose and that was killing of human beings. The Russians discovered ovens with human remains still inside smoking, metal buildings with an opening for the insertion of poison gas. The German’s used Cyklon B gas. It was an insecticide and easy and cheap to make, the down side was that it did not kill quickly meaning that the people that were put inside those buildings knew after a short while that they were being poisoned and fought and struggled for life. The Russians found 645 corpses and 7,000 walking skeletons who told them that the guards found out that the Russians were close and they began killing all that they could until they ran out of ammo and then they began blowing up the crematoria and death buildings. The Russians also found three warehouses that were stacked to the top with women’s dresses, men’s suits and shoes that the German’s did not have a chance to destroy. And finally they discover the laboratories and journals of Dr. Josef Mengele. Mengele performed inconceivably cruel and inhuman medical experiments on the prisoners, especially children. There are many records of what this animal did to others but I will not describe them now. But I can tell you that when the Russian army left Auschwitz, they had lost all mercy and remorse for any and all Germans and killed all they found, man, woman, children, dogs, cats, geese, ducks, etc...They intended to wipe the slate clean of Germans. When one particular Russian tank crew entered Berlin they were confronted by an antitank gun manned by seven Germans no older than 12. The Russians destroyed the German crew and repeatedly ran back and forth across the corpses with their tank until there was nothing there that could be identified as human. Hate and no remorse, all wars depend on it.



1905   About noon of this day, the supervisor of the Premier Diamond Mine in South Africa in making an inspection and stops briefly and notices something sticking out of the wall above his head. He pulls out the largest diamond ever found. It is a 3,160 carat monster that was named the Star of Africa. The diamond is sent to the greatest diamond cutter in the world in Amsterdam for cutting and polishing. The cutter examines the stone for six months before making the first cut. When he decides where the cut will be made, he has a doctor standing by in case he makes a wrong cut and shatters the stone. He is successful and he produces two gigantic polished stone that are now in the Tower of London as part of the British National Treasury. There were hundreds of smaller stones also that made the Star of Africa the most valuable gem ever found.



Born today:



1759   Scottish poet Robert Burns. He said “There is nothing more uncertain as a sure thing.” Obviously Robert has been to a horse track.



1882   English writer Virginia Woolf. She said “On the outskirts of every agony sits some observant fellow who points.”



1950   US writer Gloria Naylor. She said “I don’t believe life is supposed to make you feel good, or make you feel miserable either. Life is just supposed to make you feel.” This sounds like a person I know in Black Mountain, NC.



Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow