Good
morning,
Quote
of the day:
“The
one sin that I will never forgive myself for is that one day I will
give up my obstinate pursuit of my individuality.”
Oscar
Wilde
Over
in Zimbabwe there is a patrolled park for elephants. At one time
there were millions of African elephants. During the last census if
was found that there between 450,000 and 700,000 African elephants
existing. All of this is because of poaching. Last week park
rangers found two poachers. They buried one of them and arrested the
other. They were poachers that had slipped onto park property to
kill elephants for the ivory. The one that they had buried had been
trampled to death and had a couple of holes in him that was obviously
from the elephant's tusks. The one that was alive saw this happen
and decide to wait on the park rangers to escort him out of there
rather than risk an encounter with another angry elephant. It seems
that the not so dumb elephants have figured out the destruction of
their family units is caused by humans and they are pissed. The
elephants used to travel from one section of the park to another
dependent upon the season using the same ancient trails year after
year. There would be much trumpeting upon arrival at their
destinations. Now that they have figured out human greed, they still
travel the same trails but they do it at night in silence. Over in
China they are still paying about $1,300 a kilo (a little over two
pounds) for ivory and even more for a rhinoceros horn which is
considered a cure-all including impotence. The horns are made of the
same material as a fingernails, so why not just chew your fingernails
while hitting on a woman? That along with the pills that are
available should make the attempt end in success for everyone
involved.
One
of my many jobs after air traffic control was working in the oil
fields in central and western Oklahoma. I worked on a “fracking”
unit for Halliburton. Fracking has been in the news lately. Here is
what is happening. When an oil/gas well is drilled they are looking
for gaps in the strata of the earth. It is these gaps that oil and
natural gas accumulate. The average depth of an oil well in east
Texas is about 4 or 5 thousand feet. Over in the “Anadarko Basin”
which is west Texas and Oklahoma the average depth is about 12 to 13
thousand feet. The temperature increases the deeper you go. Once
all the oil or gas has been depleted from a particular gap or chasm,
the oil companies use a “fracking” technique to open the gap
wider to allow any oil or gas has been trapped in the nearby strata
to drain into the larger gap. This is done by using very, very high
pressure pumps and mixture of water and a gel (Musol) to pump into
the gap. The gel melts immediately and forms a non-flammable gas
that expands at a ratio of 70/1. The water evaporates in the heat
but enormous pressure is applied in the gap. Some of these gaps or
chasms can be miles wide and hundreds of feet high and of course this
will require enormous amounts of water. In parts of the country that
are in a drought situation the use of water in that volume is deeply
resented and therein lies the rub. Also, It is possible that if
there is a deep aquifer close by there could be pollution of the
ground water. The odds are astronomical that his will or has
happened but it is indeed possible.
This
Date in History June 19
1864
Earlier the Confederate raider CSS
Alabama
had raised hell with US shipping up and down the Atlantic to the tune
of either sinking or capturing 68 US vessels. The ship was built in
the shipyards of Liverpool, England as a blockade runner, meaning to
carry trade good through the US blockade of Southern ports trying to
do financial damage to the southern economy. The US Government
complained bitterly about the building of the Alabama and other like
ships but England tacitly supported the Confederacy. After the
Alabama had sailed out of England under the command of CSA Admiral
Raphael Semmes, the ship was re-armed and re-fitted into a commerce
raider. Semmes sailed the Alabama nearly around the world attacking
US shipping wherever he found them. Semmes sailed the ship back into
the port of Cherbourg, France for a much needed repair and refit.
The US warship USS Kearsarge found out that the Alabama was in
Cherbourg and sailed to a point just outside French territorial
waters and waited. The French Admiralty knew what was up and sent a
ship of their own to make sure that the Kearsarge did not attack the
Alabama in French waters. Finally the Alabama was ready and sailed
out to meet the Kearsarge. On this date the two ships opened on each
other but the Kearsarge had the latest chain-mail armor and the shots
from the Alabama were ineffective and the Kearsarge destroyed the
Alabama and it sank in the English Channel. This battle was observed
by the British cruiser Deerhound and some of the survivors, including
Semmes and most of his officers, were taken aboard that ship and
therefore avoided capture. Semmes took a much needed vacation in
Switzerland and then rejoined the Confederacy through Mexico. He was
assigned duty patrolling the James River. After the war, he retired
to Mobile, Alabama and practiced law and wrote a book about his
experiences. Admiral Semmes died in Mobile at the age of 67.
1892
On this date Francesca Rojas contacted the police in her
Argentinean hometown and reported her 6 and 8 year old children
murdered. She reported that she thought the murderer was a man named
Velasquez because she had rejected his sexual advances earlier in the
day. The police found the children had been stabbed several times.
The police picked up Velasquez and using the tried and true method of
torture, tried to elicit a confession but Velasquez maintained that
he had nothing to so with it. The police even chained him to the
corpses of the two children over night to no avail. The police spent
another week torturing this unfortunate man but got no confession.
The chief of police had heard of a new detection device known as
fingerprinting. So he ordered several people fingerprinted including
Francesca and then he sent some of his officers over to hunt for
fingerprints at the crime scene. They lift a bloody print off the
doorknob of the house that turned out to be that of Francesca. The
police showed this evidence to Francesca and promised the same
treatment as Velasquez if she did not confess. She confessed that
she had killed her children because her boyfriend did not like
children and she wanted him to marry her. She was sentenced to life
imprisonment. This is one of the first times that forensic evidence
was used to solve a crime....not to mention the threat of torture. I
wonder if they used water boarding.
1868 It was during
this time after the Civil War that the war between the US Cavalry and
the plains Indians was reaching a crescendo. No settlers were safe
on the plains and western expansion was grinding to a halt. On this
date a Belgian Jesuit priest named Pierre-Jean De Smet went to a meet
with the Great Indian chief Sitting Bull in the Powder River area of
Montana to see what could be resolved. De Smet had been asked by the
US military to try and iron out a treaty with the Teton Sioux whose
chief was Sitting Bull. Sitting Bull trusted what he called “The
Black Robes” because they had never lied to him like the majority
of the US military. In the meeting De Smet tried to get Sitting Bull
to sign a treaty but Sitting Bull said no. A victory of sorts was
gained by De Smet since a modicum of trust had been established
between him and the mightiest Indian tribe west of the Missouri
River. De Smet died in 1873 in Saint Louis just three years before
Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and 3,000 Sioux and Cheyenne warriors had a
meeting with Lt. Col. George A. Custer and the US 7th
Cavalry at Little Big Horn.
1944 It was vital
to the Japanese Empire to maintain control of the western Pacific if
they wanted to continue their expansion. They had air bases at
Saipan, Tinian and Guam to maintain dominance. The US Army and
Marines had already invaded Saipan and it looked like they were there
to stay. Trying to inspire the Japanese defenders of Saipan, Admiral
Nagumo (The commander of the Japanese naval task force at Pearl
Harbor) and General Saito (commander of the Japanese troops on
Saipan), commit suicide but not before sending out an inspiring
message to their troops. It worked. The next day nearly all the
Japanese military, cooks included, swarmed out of the hills and
jungle in a suicide attack unparalleled in history. The US Army and
Marines fought back with everything they had but the overwhelming
number allowed the Japanese to overrun many of their positions. The
slaughter continued for two more days until there were just a handful
of Japanese left on Saipan. The Japanese had lost 26,000 to 3,500
for the US. The US had sent the 5th
Fleet commanded by Admiral Raymond Spruance from the Marshall Island
to the Marianas as support for the troops on Saipan. On the way
over, Japanese Admiral Jisaburo decided to challenge the American
fleet and on this date he sent 430 aircraft in attack. The 5th
Fleet detected the oncoming swarm on radar and send up their own
swarm of American fighters to intercept. The result was 300 Japanese
planes shot down and two Japanese aircraft carriers sunk to the loss
of 29 American planes. This action known as the Battle of the
Philippine Sea, or better known as the “Marianas Turkey Shoot”
all but guaranteed the defeat of the Japanese in WWII.
Born today:
1608 English writer
Thomas Fuller. He said “He is not likely to recover who makes his
doctor his heir.” I have tried to imagine this philosophy in use,
but who would have his doctor in his will?
1623 French
mathematician Blaise Pascal. He said “Man is equally incapable of
seeing the nothingness from which he emerges and the infinity in
which he is engulfed.” Hey Blaise, you are a smart man but stick
with the numbers, philosophy ain’t your thing.
1856 US writer
Elbert Hubbard. He said “All is not lost when losing an argument;
you can still call your opponent vile names.” I like your
attitude, Elbert.
1918 US Attorney
General Evelle Younger. He said “If you have integrity nothing
else matters...If you don’t have integrity, nothing else matters.”
That is an odd quote coming from a politician.
1947 Indian-English
writer Salman Rushdie. He said “If Woody Allen were a Muslim, he
would be dead by now.” Woody married his step-daughter. Damn
Woody, what were you thinking?
Thanks for
listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
No comments:
Post a Comment