Thurday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

“I have noticed that when an American turns 65 their left turn signal comes on and stays on the rest of their lives. It may be a law, I don't know.”

                                                        James Gregory

I guess most of you saw where the embarrassing US Attorney General, Eric Holder, called an “off the record” news conference to explain the targeting of the “Tea Party” and others on the right wing with nothing short of harassment by the IRS. He should not have done that because there is no such thing as an “off the record” or secret meeting inside the Beltway. His remarks were in nearly every news media in the country after a day or two. This set the news hounds digging deeper. Now it has been found that the IRS has targeted over 500 organizations that the present administration considers to not be in their best interest so the IRS buried them with paperwork to delay or discourage their existence. This reminds me of your friend and mine, Richard Nixon. This jackass asked two Attorneys General to fire the special prosecutor that was investigating the Watergate fiasco. Not only did Casper Weinberger and Nicholas Katzenbach refuse to do this but both of them resigned in protest of the President even suggesting such a thing. Not only that Nixon ordered the FBI to not investigate the incident any further that they had already. All of this was brought out in the Congressional hearings along with many other damning findings. It cost Nixon his office and his honor. I think the lights in the White House were burning late those days. To use and old phrase “Something is rotten in Denmark.”

The past revisited:

Yet another series of tornadoes struck Oklahoma City proper last Friday. The town of Moore, OK. Is a suburb of OKC, about 12 miles south. We know what happened in Moore. The tornado that struck OKC this past Friday was not the strength of the Moore monster and it hit a more lightly populated area. Nine people were killed and many more were injured. There was a report of cars on the interstate going out of OKC was packed and one car with a mother and her child was lifted off the ground, the mother and child were sucked out of the car and killed. What a horrible thought. Here is a bit of advise for all of you. All, and I mean all tornadoes in the USA move in an easterly direction. It may be northeast (most often) or southeast (very rare) but it has a easterly movement. The safest thing to do is go underground or into a very safe structure as fast as you can and/or drive to the south or southwest once the exact location of the tornado is known. The Interstate where the woman and baby were killed ran east and west. I suspect the traffic jam caused her to come to a stop and the storm caught up with her. I have heard people here in this area say “All our bad weather comes from Atlanta.” If you people would look at a map your would see that Atlanta is southwest of Greenville and weather (cold fronts) normally move northeast. The storms are not born in Atlanta...They are born in the Pacific or the central plains and are guided to us by the circulation of the Earth (Coriolis effect) and the jet stream. I have also heard that we don't get as much bad weather because of the Blue Ridge Mountains that protect us. That also is incorrect. Some monstrous storm systems come ashore on the American northwest coast and batter areas in the north central plains and then into the northeastern US. These storm systems cross the Cascades and the Rocky Mountains intact. The Blue Ridge Mountains are mere papooses when compared to the Rockies and the Cascades.

Here is a trivia question. What individual song has earned the most money in history? It is not “White Christmas” by Bing Crosby. It is not “Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer” by Gene Autry. It is “Margaritaville” by Jimmy Buffet and his Coral Reefers Band. Many years ago I met Jimmy at the immortal Flora-Bama Lounge on the Florida/Alabama Gulf Coast during early days of the “Mullet Toss”. This is a contest to see who can throw a dead mullet the farthest but it really is just a reason to party. The first few contests were won by Ken “The Snake” Stabler who lived within sight of the Flora-Bama. That particular Flora-Bama was taken to Arkansas in pieces by hurricane Ivan. But the present one is much better than the old one. It is so big that they have three bands going at once and swarms of bikini clad ladies. A while back I had a friend contact me about coming to the “Bama” for this years mullet toss and I was in Pensacola Beach which is about 30 miles from the Flora-Bama. I had a health problem and could not attend...dammit! PW...thanks for the invitation anyway. By the way, Jimmy Buffet was born in Pascagoula, Mississippi and raised in Mobile, Alabama.

                                This Date in History June 5

1968 On this date at 1:00AM in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, Senator Robert Kennedy is making a short victory speech for winning the Democratic primary in California. Robert Kennedy is the younger brother of President John Kennedy who was shot to death in Dallas, Texas in 1963. After the speech he headed for an exit through the hotel kitchen amid a throng of admirers, or as everybody thought were admirers. Suddenly three shots ring out and Robert hits the floor with blood pooling under his head. There was a dazed look in Robert’s eyes and there is a big scuffle behind him. Robert had two or three bodyguards with him most of the time one of which was Roosevelt Grier. Rosie (his nickname) was a giant of man over six foot six and about 320 pounds. He formerly was a lineman for the Rams. Anyway, Rosie was about the first person to get a hold of the jackass with the smoking .22 caliber pistol. It was reported that Rosie broke this maniac’s thumb getting the pistol out of his hand. You will never guess who this guy was. It was a middle-eastern Arab guy named Sirhan Sirhan. As far as I know, no one knows to this day why this towel head shot Robert. Robert knew he was mortally wounded and asked for a rosary as he was Catholic. He fought for his young life (he was 42) for 24 hours before he died. There were six other people that were wounded in the shooting, none fatally. Robert was buried on June 8 in Arlington National Cemetery near his brother’s grave site. By the way, Arlington National Cemetery was originally the home site of CSA General Robert E. Lee. The United States Army chose to start burying some of the soldiers killed in the Civil War on Lee’s estate just for spite and it went from there.

1967 For several weeks the Israelis had been watching a huge buildup of men and armor on their borders with Syria and Egypt. So on this date the Israelis launched a strike against them both. Even with their men and material in place, Syria and Egypt was no match for the well trained and equipped Israelis. As you might suspect, the Israelis wanted control of the air and they immediately struck the Syrian and Egyptian military air bases and destroyed their fighter/bombers before they could get off the ground to the tune of nearly 100%. After that the Syrian and Egyptian tanks, other armor and infantry was wide open to attack from the Israeli Air Force. Needless to say, the war was over in six days after the United Nations stepped in stopped the Israelis from a total massacre of the Syrian and Egyptian, and later on the Jordanian ground troops. After all, the majority of the war was fought in the Negev Desert and there ain’t too many places to hide in that oven. Anyway, Israel gained control of huge sections of real estate. They really did not really want it but later on they used it as a bargaining chip to get what they wanted which was recognition from the Arabs. They got recognition but they have been fighting to survive before and after this event.

1864 Earlier in the year US General Grant had sent General Franz Sigel and a force of 11,000 troops into the Shenandoah Valley to kick out the Confederates known to be there. Sigel presided over an embarrassing ass-kicking by a much smaller Confederate army at New Market, Virginia and was forced to retreat into Maryland. Grant replaced Sigel with US General David Hunter. Hunter immediately moved his army back into the Valley and headed for Staunton, Virginia. He met up with the 5,800 man Confederate army near Piedmont, Virginia and a battle ensued. As you might suspect, with the Confederates outnumbered almost two to one, Hunter was victorious and the northern entrance of the Valley was open to the Union forces.

1944 It was on this date that the surprise invasion of Europe by the Allies was supposed to have occurred. I am talking about the D-Day landing on the Normandy coast of France, but with the ships loaded with 156,000 troops and associated necessities, US General Eisenhower delayed the attack for one day because of bad weather in the English Channel. Things were getting pretty damned tense because Eisenhower knew he could not keep those troops stacked on those ships for more than two days and if he delayed again they would have to disembark the troops to re-fuel the ships. The next time the tide and moonlight would be right would be June 19 and Ike knew that the longer the wait the greater the possibility of discovery of the plan.

1963 On this date the British Secretary of War John Profumo resigned in disgrace for lying to the House of Commons about his sexual affairs with a prostitute named Christine Keeler. Earlier Profumo had attended a party given by one of London’s social elite. The party was held at a big estate outside London and that girl Christine was in attendance also. When Profumo arrived Christine was frolicking naked in one of the fountains. Profumo was immediately smitten and eventually he and Christine were bed partners. This was not too bad in itself but Profumo was not the only man that Christine was servicing. She was also the bedmate of Soviet naval attaché “Eugene” Ivanof who was thought to be a spy. This could prove to be bad news if Christine was used to gather information from Profumo and to give it to Ivanof. The threat was so great that it was about to bring down the whole administration of Prime Minister Harold McMillan but things cooled down with the resignation of Profumo. As Robin Williams said “A man has a brain and a sex organ but only enough blood for one at a time.”

Born today:

1883 US economist John Keynes. He said “Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wicked of men will do the most wicked of things for betterment of all”.

Died today:

2004 Former US President Ronald Reagan. He said “I have spoke to you before about the economy of this nation and I can tell you it is a hell of a mess....We are not on the air yet are we?” Ronald, be quiet.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow