Good morning,







Quote of the day:


“Deja Moo...The feeling that you have heard this bullsh-t before.”


                                        Anonymous






As all of you know the GOP primary was held in South Carolina over this past weekend. The favorite going in was The Georgia Amphibian Lizard or Newt Gingrich. The end result was a massacre by the lizard. Since the advent of primary elections the GOP winner in the South Carolina primary has ended up as the presidential nominee for the GOP. Several members of my family are Democrats. All I have to say to them is that it is time that we had an intellectual as president rather than a quasi-politicial wannabe...what a relief it would be. The lizard has a PhD in history...right up my alley. The Florida GOP primary is at the end of this month...we shall see what we shall see.






By now all of you have heard that your president has chosen to reject the proposed oil pipeline that would run from central Canada to two different locations in the USA. The project would have meant about 20,000 jobs all paid for by the petroleum companies that would benefit from it, not to mention income taxes gathered by the states involved and the Federal government. I am not sure what this man had in mind but why should he worry, he has a job and a guaranteed retirement. He has said in the past that he felt that America's energies should be focused on alternative energy sources like solar, wind and water movement (water wheels turned by the movement of the tide operating a dynamo) and other sources. What are we supposed to do with the recent discovery of shale oil in the Dakotas that contains more potential crude oil reserves than in the entire middle east? I can hardly wait until November.






For some reason I have been doing a lot of reading about explorers during the 15th and 16th centuries. One was an Italian explorer named Giovanni Caboto but he explored for England and went by the name of John Cabot. He was tasked with finding a water passage to the Orient across the North America better known as the Northwest Passage. He went on his first voyage but was unable to find a passage but asked for a second chance which was granted. He left Bristol, England with two ships and neither he, his ships nor his crews were ever seen or heard from again.






Then there was Henry Hudson. Henry was an English explorer during Elizabethan era. He was tasked with finding the Northwest Passage also. He explored the river that bears his name in what is now New York. He sailed up river for about 150 miles but determined that this could not be the way to the Pacific. He sailed back out into the Atlantic, went north and found the St Lawrence river and the bay that bears his name. There is a small bay off Hudson Bay that juts southward into Ontario, Canada. One particular winter Hudson found himself trapped in Hudson Bay by ice in the St. Lawrence so he sailed as far south as he could and spent the winter in that small bay now named James Bay. When the ice finally relented, Hudson ordered his crews to continue westward looking for the Northwest Passage. After the privations they suffered that winter in James Bay, his crewmen wanted to go to the house. Hudson insisted so they mutinied and put Hudson, his son and seven crewmen loyal to Hudson into a small boat and set them adrift in James Bay. Hudson and company were never seen nor heard from again. The mutineers sailed back to England but were not executed for mutiny because of the knowledge they had of the New World.






The first European to lay eyes on the Grand Canyon was a Spanish soldier named Cardenas who was part of the retinue of Spanish conquistador/explorer Francisco Coronado.






This date in history January 23






1865 On this date CSA General John Bell Hood is relieved of command of the CSA Army of Tennessee thus ending a sad chapter in the history of the United States. Hood had requested to be relieved a couple of weeks earlier. John Bell Hood was born in Kentucky and graduated from West Point in 1853. As with most of his class, he served in the western theater until hostilities broke out at the start of the Civil War. Hood resigned his commission and offered his services to the famous Texas 4th Infantry. His regiment was sent to serve with CSA General Robert E. Lee and the equally famous Army of Northern Virginia. Hood served with distinction in the Peninsular Campaign and especially in the Battle of the Seven Days in 1862. Hood aggressive nature did not go unnoticed and he was eventually given command of a division. There is little question that his aggressive counter-attack at the Battle of Antietam saved General Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia from total annihilation. His next major assignment came at the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg in June of 1863 when he was ordered to attack the left flank of the Union lines on a hill known as Little Round Top. He had under his command was the 4th and 5th Texas, the 5th Alabama and a number of other regiments totaling about 2,500 men. He was attacking the 20th Maine numbering about 300. At the onset of the battle Hood was severely wounded and lost the use of an arm as a result. Hood’s troops were not successful in turning the flank of the Union army on Little Round Top only because of the stubbornness of the 20th Maine and the resolve of their commander Colonel Joshua L. Chamberlain. Hood spent quite a bit of time recuperating from this severe wound. Hood resumed his duties with the CSA Army of Tennessee and fought at the bloody Battle of Chickamauga where he was again severely wounded which resulted in the loss of a leg. When US General William T. Sherman began his attack across the state of Georgia beginning near Chattanooga, Tennessee and aimed at Atlanta and the port of Savannah, CSA General Joseph Johnston was in command of the CSA Army of Tennessee. Johnston knew he was out manned and outgunned and chose to use defensive strategy by digging in, fight and retreat. The closer Sherman got to Atlanta, the more nervous CSA President Jefferson Davis became. Finally Davis decided that the CSA needed a more aggressive commander of the Army of Tennessee and relieved Johnston and named Hood as his replacement. Hood assumed command and immediately struck hard at Sherman’s army in three different futile and costly attacks in and around Atlanta. Eventually Hood pulled his army out of Atlanta, moved west and headed north back toward Chattanooga hoping that Sherman would follow to protect his supply line but it didn’t happen that way. Hood finally moved the Army of Tennessee within striking distance of Sherman’s vital supply line near Nashville, Tennessee. Another Union army was dug-in and waiting but Hood flung what was left of his army at the Union fortifications in two unsuccessful and even more costly attacks. At the end of these two battles the CSA Army of Tennessee ceased to exist as a viable fighting force. When Hood took command in July of 1864, the CSA Army of Tennessee had 64,000 troops, when he was relieved on this day there were 18,000. War is hell.






1968 The United States intelligence gathering vessel USS Pueblo is on patrol 16 miles off the coast of North Korea when a North Korean gunboat pulls along side the Pueblo and orders it to stop. The commander of the lightly armed Pueblo, Captain Lloyd Bucher, tries to run away but the gunship opens fire killing a crewman and wounding Bucher. Bucher surrenders and the ship is ordered to the North Korean port of Wonsan. The crew of 84 is taken off the ship and sent to the capitol of Pyongyang where they are imprisoned. US President Lyndon Johnson demands the release of the crewman stating that the ship was in international waters when attacked and captured. The North Koreans refused stating that the ship was well within the North Korean limit of 12 miles. Johnson had a much larger problem in the small Oriental country of Vietnam and did not want to risk having to fight another military engagement so he decided to let our guys rot in that North Korean prison and try to resolve the problem diplomatically. The North Koreans wanted Captain Bucher and the crew to make a public statement avowing that they were indeed intentionally spying in North Korean waters and were deeply sorry for this breach in the sovereignty of North Korea. When interviewed the American sailors made sarcastic remarks and stuck up their middle finger, a gesture the North Koreans did not understand. Finally the North Koreans caught on and beat those guys for a week and threatened further torture if their demands were not met. Not only that, they demanded that the US State Department to issue a similar statement. The US government finally conceded and issued a public apology and the crew was released. It would not do for me to be in a position of power when that sort of atrocity is made on our guys by those vermin in North Korea. I can assure you that part of the Orient would glow in the dark to this day.










1863 This is another incidence of the American cavalry out of control. Earlier a Montana cattle rancher named Malcolm Clarke had accused a Blackfoot sub-chief name Owl Child of stealing his horses and had savagely whipped him in public. As you might expect, Owl Child returned with a group of his closest friends and capped Clarke and his son in the most horrible of fashions and then fled north to join up with a group of rebel warriors led by another Blackfoot named Mountain Chief. The public outcry became so loud that the military Indian agent in that area notified Colonel Eugene Baker to gather up some troops and cavalrymen and seek out Owl Child and bring him in. The only problem here is that Colonel Baker is heavy into the sauce and stays in the bag most of the time. Anyway, the force led by Baker sets out looking for Owl Child. Finally, some of Baker’s Indian scouts find an Indian encampment. They return and tell Baker what they had found but they could tell by the markings on the teepees that they were not of the tribe that Owl Child belonged to, that they were a peaceful group of Blackfeet. Baker absorbs this information along with another quart of whiskey and at dusk he says “I don’t care, they are still Indians” and orders his troops to surround the village and open fire and burn anything combustible including their meager food supply. The troopers surround the encampment and did indeed open fire and burned all that would burn. The Indians have no idea what the hell is going on and are massacred. The total killed was 39 men, 60 women and 55 children. Baker allows the capture of a few of them but when he finds out that some of them have smallpox, a gift from the damned Europeans, and orders them released out onto the prairie in a Montana winter with no food. When word of this atrocity reaches the east there is a loud outcry and demands are made to correct this situation. President Ulysses Grant orders that all Indian agents must be civilians from now on. But the troopers and Colonel Baker were never brought to justice. No wonder Crazy Horse, Dull Knife, Red Cloud, Sitting Bull and the others were so vicious and cruel in their retribution. What goes around….






1556 In the middle of the afternoon the ground around the Chinese city of Shannxi begins to heave and shake. It is the beginning of the most deadly earthquake in recorded history. The city is a conglomeration of small shacks and huts that are heated by charcoal braziers that also serve as a stove. The aftershocks continue until the following morning triggering huge crevasses that open and close crushing thousands of people along with miles long landslides not to mention the fires. After all was said and done there were an estimated 830,000 deaths. I am going to repeat this: 830,000 deaths. The second largest disaster in history was the tsunami of 2004 in the Indian Ocean. There were only 240,000 deaths there. Repeat: 240,000 deaths.






Born today:






1737 US Super Patriot John Hancock. He said “A chip on the shoulder is too much baggage to carry around all of your life.” I know what will cure that infliction...age or a severe ass-kicking.






Died today:






1875 English clergyman Charles Kingsley. He said “Young blood must have its course, lad, and every dog its day.” I had often wondered where that adage came from.






1893 US clergyman Phillips Brooks. He said “Be such a man and live such a life, that if every man were such as you, and lived a life such as your, the earth would be a paradise.” Phillips, you failed to mention women...Paradise Lost.






1931 Russian dancer Anna Pavlova. When on her death bed and seconds from dying she said “Get my swan costume ready.” A professional to the end.






                                         Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow