Friday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people."

                                          Eleanor Roosevelt

After Tuesday's election and it became probable that Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky would dislodge your friend and mine, Harry Reid, as Senate majority leader. Reid sent McConnell a text congratulating him saying in part that the people have spoken and it is apparent that they want us to work together. Harry, you freaking jackass, what did you think the people wanted before? Your are disgusting...the people did not express that wish, they expressed the wish that you would get your arrogant ass back to Searchlight, Nevada where you belong. Sorry for the profanity...no I'm not.

Crazy as Hell

Chapter 9

After hearing about what was happening at the Howard Johnson hotel two cops in a patrol car went to the park across the street from the hotel to control the mob that had gathered. They began pushing the crowd back but Essex had spotted them. With an incredible show of accuracy, Essex shot one of the officers in the right shoulder while he was on the move and he went down immediately. His partner sprinted across the park and dragged his wounded partner behind an oak tree and tried to stop the bleeding. Essex took a couple of shots at them but they were too well hidden. Another officer saw that the two officers were trapped behind the tree and plowed his patrol car through the park and stopped beside them. When he got out of his car to help, Essex shot him in the head killing him instantly. He again began firing indiscriminately down on Loyola Avenue. He wounded an ambulance driver, a civil defense worker and killed a police officer that had just arrived. The officer that Essex had shot in the right shoulder lost the use of that arm.

Here is a bio of one of the greatest movers and shakers of all time.

Hannibal Barca

Hannibal Barca was born in the city of Carthage in 247BC. He was the eldest son of General Hamilcar Barca. The city of Carthage was very near the present day city of Tunis, Tunisia in North Africa. Carthage was a very successful and prosperous city settled by the Phoenicians. The Phoenicians came over from the eastern Mediterranean cities of Tyre and Sidon and other cities in what is now known as Lebanon. There were three wars between the Carthaginians and the Romans known as the Punic Wars. Hannibal was only ten years old when his father lost the first Punic war against the Romans. As a result the Carthaginians lost the most important of their possessions and that being Sicily. Soon after Carthage fell into a Civil War and during this time the Romans took the Carthaginian possessions of Sardinia and Corsica. The losses of these trading outposts reduced Carthage to a second class trading empire. But in spite of these losses, Carthage still had several large and important possessions on the Iberian Mediterranean (Spanish) Peninsula. They included the Spanish cities of present day Cadiz, Malaga and Cartagena. Hamilcar died in 229BC and his son-in-law Hasdrubal the Fair gained power by the diplomatic route in marrying into influential Iberian families. Even Hannibal married an Iberian princess. But alas, someone murdered Hasdrubal. The Carthaginian army in Iberia elected Hannibal to be commander and this was confirmed by the Carthaginian government. Hannibal was no diplomat and chose to go the kick-ass route of his father and began an expedition of expansion. From what is now known as the Spanish Riviera, he headed east toward the Italian Peninsula. He quickly captured the cities of Salamanca and Saguntum. The problem here was that Saguntum was made a Roman possession negotiated by Hannibal’s predecessor Hasdrubal and problem number two was that to get to the Italian peninsula he had to cross the Alps. Hannibal knew that to tackle the Roman army on their own ground he would need to have overwhelming power. Before leaving the Iberian Peninsula he brought 37 war elephants across the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa to the vicinity of Malaga, Spain. If y’all will look at a map and see what a stupendous feat that was and you will understand what a military genius Hannibal was. Anyway, Hannibal crossed into what is now known as the French Riviera which was under the thumb of the Roman army and known as Gaul. When the people of Gaul saw Hannibal coming with the 37 elephants, 38,000 infantry and 9,000 cavalry they about wet their pants because they knew the day of their liberation from the Romans was at hand. Hannibal crossed the Alps and reached the Po river valley near the present day city or Turin, Italy and had their first encounter with a Roman army that had been sent to stop them. The two armies met near the town of Tinicus in what was primarily a cavalry engagement. The Roman cavalry was all but annihilated. Upon seeing this, the Gauls joined Hannibal’s army to the tune of 14,000 infantrymen. The next engagement was near Lake Trebia. In this engagement the Carthaginians sallied forth in a crescent shaped formation and engaged the renowned Roman Legion. As the Carthaginians engaged, they slowly retreated in the middle, changing the shape of the formation from convex to concave and maneuvered the Romans into the middle of a semicircle and then brought in 9,000 cavalry to attack them from the rear. Three entire Roman legions were annihilated to a man, thanks to the addition of the 14,000 Gaul infantrymen. In March of 217 Hannibal left his winter quarters near Bologna and ravaged Etruria (present day Tuscany, Italy). The Romans counter-attacked with an army of 25,000 but were ambushed by Hannibal between a high hill and Lake Trasimene. Two more Roman Legions were annihilated. Hannibal thought that his victories would encourage Rome’s allies to change allegiance but it didn’t happen. This put Hannibal between a rock and a hard place. His supply lines were already running back to the Iberian Peninsula and were under attack by the Romans and the Roman navy and their allies had all the seaports sealed. Hannibal had been in Italy for nearly four years and knew that without reinforcements he could not capture Rome itself. The Roman army was reluctant to engage Hannibal directly but sent a Roman consul to tail him and see what Roman ally he was trying to get to come over to his side. In the meantime, the Romans had been attacking the Carthaginian possessions to deny Hannibal any reinforcements, including Carthaginian possessions in North Africa. In 216BC the Roman senate decided that the Hannibal problem needed to be resolved and sent an army of 80,000 troops against Hannibal and his army of 50,000. The two armies met near the town of Cannae, Italy. Remember the crescent shape slowly changing into a semicircle? Well, Hannibal did it again here and when the Romans were unable to break the center of the Carthaginian lines they found themselves encircled and were all but destroyed when Hannibal’s cavalry descended upon them. Upon this event many of Rome’s allies defected including Sardinia. Hannibal moved his capitol to Capua and rode into the town on his last surviving elephant. Hannibal sent his brother Mago back to Carthage who dumped hundred of gold rings taken from the hands of Roman soldiers in front of the Carthaginian Senate building. Hannibal tried to get allies diplomatically and was successful in allying with King Philip V of Macedon (northern Greece) and with the city of Syracuse, Sicily. Incidentally, in the year 212 the Roman army was trying to retake Syracuse when they ran across a man making figures in the sand. When a Roman soldier told him to come with him the man just said to leave his figures alone and to get out of his light. The Roman soldier killed him. It was Archimedes, y’all. What further progress could humanity have made had he lived longer? Anyway, due to the lack of reinforcements Hannibal’s army was slowly pushed into the “toe” of Italy where they were forced into a guerilla type war. Hannibal sent for help from his brother in Iberia but the Romans were looking for that and defeated his brother before he found Hannibal. The Romans had begun a major operation to take the Iberian Peninsula away from Carthage and eliminate his supplies. They were successful and Hannibal had no choice but to head back to Carthage especially since Carthage was under attack by the Roman Consul Cornelius Scipio Africanus. Hannibal met Scipio near the town of Zama in 202BC and the battle was joined. Hannibal tried the crescent/concave maneuver here but Scipio was looking for that and Hannibal was defeated. Rome saw to it that the economy of Carthage was ruined and would no longer be a threat. Hannibal tried to ally himself with the Seleucid Dynasty (present day Turkey, Syria, Palestine, Iran and Iraq) in the hopes of invading Italy again. But the Seleucid Dynasty chose to go to Greece instead. Hannibal was given a small role in the Seleucid navy and was successful in his endeavor. The Romans finally defeated the Seleucids and demanded that they send Hannibal to them as a prisoner. In the year 183BC at the age of 64, Hannibal poisoned himself rather than go to Rome in chains. To this day, there are monuments to Hannibal throughout Italy. They recognized and appreciated a military genius no matter whom it is, and so do I.

This Date in History November 7

1989 This date will go down as one of the most important in history. The head of a borough in New York City is elected mayor and the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia is elected as Governor. It was David Dinkins of New York and Douglas Wilder of Virginia both are African-American. This is the first timer in history that a black man was elected Governor. Virginia law forbids a Governor from staying in office for more than two terms so Wilder was out after two terms. Mayor David Dinkins was defeated art the end of his first term by Rudy Giuliani.

1965 Earlier in 1964 a drag racer from Ohio named Art Arfons build a drag racer utilizing a J-79 jet engine with afterburner. Art has eyes for the land speed record and hauled that beast he named The Green Monster out to the Bonneville Salt Flats to see what he could do. Art unleashed his car and ran a measured mile at a new record of 434.034 MPH. However the record did not stand but six days when another speed burner named Craig Breedlove piloting his jet powered car named The Spirit of America to a new record speed of 468.719 MPH. Art Arfons packed up his car and went back to Ohio and tweaked the Monster for almost a year. On this date he returned to Bonneville with a new and improved Green Monster and blisters the track at a new world record speed of 576.553 MPH. If I am not mistaken the latest world speed record is about 762 MPH which is beyond the speed of sound, y'all. That is scary.

1985 On this date a salesman named David Hendricks was traveling in Wisconsin and called the police in Bloomington, Illinois. Hendricks said that he had been trying to call his family in Bloomington all weekend and had received no response. The police went to the Hendricks house only to find his wife and thee children had been cut to pieces with an ax and a butcher knife. The police could not find any sign of forced entry and almost not sign of a struggle making the killings very suspicious. The police were at a loss for clues so they examined the father more closely. The father said that he had taken the family out for pizza at about 7:30p and allowed the kids to play in an amusement area and eventually arrived back home at about 9:30p. He said that soon thereafter he left for a business trip to Wisconsin. The Hendricks family belonged to a very religious organization called the Plymouth Brethern which was similar to the Quakers. The police examined each and every thread of clothing in Hendrick’s car which proved to be inconclusive. However, the coroner found that the food in the intestines of the children proved to be a vegetable pizza that was not sufficiently digested to comply with the timeline in Hendrick’s alibi. The police charged him with murder even though they did not have a scintilla of a motive since his religion forbade violence. During the trial Hendrick’s attorney hammered at the food digestion process that can be altered with a lot of physical activity knowing the kids had been in a playground after eating. He was right about the food digestion process but in spite the prosecution not having a motive and the problem with the food digestion, Hendricks was convicted of four counts of murder and sentenced to life in prison. This just goes to show you that the justice system here in the good old USA ain’t perfect but it is better than all the rest.

Born today:

1897 US movie producer Herman Mankiewicz. After being sick after a formal dinner and asked how he felt he said “I am fine. The white wine came up with the fish.” Hey Herman, it wasn’t the wine.

Died today:

1962 First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. She said “You always admire what you don’t understand”. Hey Eleanor, I don't really understand how a tornado is created but I damn sure do not admire them.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow