Friday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

 

In a letter to Sam Houston in February, 1836 Lt. Col. William Travis wrote in part:

"I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country — Victory or Death."

                         Travis was the commander at the Alamo

Can you imagine anyone in Washington today making such a statement?

 

I saw that jackass Geraldo Rivera being interviewed and he said that Israel should be ashamed about the children that were killed in Gaza by Israeli armaments and they should comply with all of Hamas' demands.  When asked about the 600 rockets/missiles that Hamas has sent into Israeli settlements he said that no Israeli child has been killed because of the "Iron Dome" protection.  Here is a question for you, Geraldo.  How many children were killed in the firebombing of Hamburg, Leipzig, Cologne, Osaka, Tokyo, Nagasaki, Hiroshima and many other cities?  The purpose of the bombing was to break the enemy's will to fight and that has to be the reason for Israel's response.  Geraldo, go read the history of warfare and the US in particular and then shut the hell up.    

 

 

                  

  Here is a biography of one of my favorite characters from history.

                 Ragnar “The Skull-Splitter” Lodbrok

Then exact time and place of the birth of Ragnar is unknown except that he was definitely a Dane. His name began showing up in Viking writings as being a member of the court of Danish king Horik beginning in about 814AD. Ragnar chose to wear pants made of animal skins, mostly wolf hide, gaining him the nickname “Hairy-breeches”. Ragnar had three sons who were believed to be adopted. They were Ubbe, Ivar the Boneless and Bjorn Ironsides. Ubbe was a scholar but Ivar and Bjorn ended up being mighty Viking warriors like Ragnar. Ragnar began regular raids on the lands bordering the North Sea including England and Ireland. After sailing down the English channel he eventually found the mouth of the Seine River. Ragnar decided to make major assault up the Seine and attack Paris. He gathered up about 120 dragon ships and 5,000 wild-eyed Viking warriors and off he went. When this fleet turned off the English Channel and started up the Seine, the head of the French military went to the king of France, Charles the Bald, and told him of the arrival of the Vikings. Charles ordered his military commander to go to the Monastery of St. Denis and protect it because of the known silver artifacts being stored there. When the Vikings arrived at the monastery, they disembarked and dragged ashore several hostages and slaughtered them with their terrible war axes beginning with a crashing blow to the top of the skulls of the hapless victims. Upon seeing this display of unbridled savagery, the French soldiers turned on their heels and headed back to the house. It was from this event that Ragnar received his nickname “The Skull Splitter”. After this bloodbath, Ragnar and the boys continue upstream toward Paris but Charles the Bald sent an emissary to ask Ragnar what it would take to get his young ass back to Denmark. Ragnar said 7,000 pounds of silver and after the extortion was paid, Ragnar went back to Denmark a hero. He eventually became the king of Denmark and part of Sweden. His ultimate place in history came with his attack and capture of Rouen, France. Some of his warriors liked this area of western France and stayed. They were known by the locals and themselves as the Northmen, this was eventually corrupted to Norman and the land they took command of was known as Normandy but they did absorb the French language. Ragnar was not through with Paris, eventually Ragnar and the king of Denmark came back and burned Paris to the ground in spite of yet another enormous ransom being paid. On another raid in the year 865, Ragnar and his troops ran into a storm entering the English Channel and were blown ashore in Northumbria, England. There he went to battle against the King of Northumbria and was defeated, one of the only battles he ever came close to losing. The King of Northumbria chose to execute Ragnar in a strange fashion. He threw him into a pit full of poisonous snakes and Ragnar went to Valhalla to be with the supreme Viking god Odin full of venom. After hearing this, Ragnar’s two sons Ivar and Bjorn came looking for the king of Northumbria with a special plan in mind. Finally, they brought the king of Northumbria to bay and captured and executed him. The method of execution was known as a “blood-eagle”. What happened is that Ragnar’s sons very carefully split open the ribs in the back of the king and pulled out his lungs to look like wings, thus “Blood-eagle”. Anyway, the sons of the Viking settlers in Normandy produced William the Conqueror about 200 years later and William took the crown of England by force in 1066. I can promise you that all of us who have ancestry in Western Europe have the blood of Ragnar the Skull Splitter and others like him flowing in our veins. After all, rape and pillage was their profession and they were good at it.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow