Wednesday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

“The Washington Redskins need to change their disgusting and demeaning name back to just “The Redskins”.

                                          Ruth Buzzi

Thanks to the civility of those in Charleston we here in South Carolina have a great opportunity to take a giant leap toward better race relations...that is unless it becomes a launching pad for the politicians.

Your President has decided to sent 450 “advisers” to help the Iraqi government with the “insurrection” presently under way. The present Iraqi government is entirely Shiite and the insurrectionists are Sunnis. The Sunnis and Shiites are people of differing religious beliefs. Each one of them believes that Allah means for them to rule the Arab world if not the entire world and they have been fighting about this issue since about 800AD. It is a religious war, y'all! America should not take sides...but we have. We are sending help to the Shiites and can expect retaliation by the Sunnis and your President has acknowledged this. There have been wars in Europe over religion many, many times including nine Crusades and nothing good ever comes from it. We have not learned a damned thing. There are two tribes in central Africa known as the Tutsis and the Hutus. They hate each other for reason unknown and have fought for centuries including an untold number of massacres of each other. Why doesn't the good ole USA do something about this destruction of humanity? Answer: They don't have any oil.

I had occasion to visit with my brother recently. He and I often discuss space travel and the colonization of another planet. We always come to the same conclusion. We have no way to overcome the enormity of time and distance with our present technology...we ain't going nowhere. The closest star system is Alpha Centauri which is about 4.7 light years away. This means that it would take 4.7 years traveling at the speed of light to get there. This velocity is impossible because of the enormous amount of fuel required to accelerate to that speed. Even if we were able to achieve 1/10^th the speed of light it would take about 47 years to get there and 47 years back. Even this speed is unimaginable to present day physicists. But if it was this would mean that two generations would be born and die aboard the vehicle while in transit. Not only that, according to Albert Einstein, at that speed time would slow down to about 1/7 that of Earth. The vehicle and the people aboard would have aged about 94 years but Earth would have aged about 650 years. Would the Earth still exist after that time span? Would the mission still be remembered? Here is something to consider. Look up at the sky and pick out a star. It is likely that the light from that star has been traveling toward Earth for millions if not hundreds of millions of years. This means that you are looking into the past. That star may have exploded thousands of years ago but light from that event has not yet arrived. It is tough to wrap you head around, isn't it?

This Date in History June 24

1997 On this day the United States issued its final report on the 1948 incident at Roswell, New Mexico. The locals in the area had reported that a space ship in the shape of a disc had crashed in the desert on a ranch owned by J. J. Brazell. While riding patrol on the ranch, Brazell ran across some scattered metallic debris and two bodies, one alive and the other dead. His descriptions of the bodies are what you imagine them to be today. Big head, small torso, large almond shaped eyes, almost no nostrils or lips, very short and skin with a greenish tint. The local newspaper printed that it was indeed a “flying saucer” and the bodies were those of alien beings. Well, United States Air Force officers and other government officials descended on Roswell and the alleged crash site like locusts and spirited away any scrap of evidence including the bodies. The next day the local newspaper reported that it was a high altitude balloon that had crashed with two dummies that were to be used for high altitude parachute tests. And that is the report that was issued on this date as the “official’ report on the incident and the US government would no longer discuss the incident. There are two things that keep my interest alive when it comes to this and that is soon after the Government officials departed the Roswell area, a hangar at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio became restricted with an armed AP’s guarding it. Wright-Patterson was noted for its medical facilities on site. Another thing was the extraordinary activity near Grooms Lake, Nevada. This place eventually became the infamous Area 51. By the way, if you have “Google Earth” software, you can crank in ‘Grooms Lake” or just look at the west central area of the Nevada desert and , Voila!, there is an airport with two very, very long runways and various and assorted buildings in a place where the US Government says that there is no such place. I look at it frequently and can see aircraft on the ground but I am unable to determine what kind. Secret bases always make me suspicious.

1812 After Czar Alexander I rejected the “continental” plan as described by Napoleon Bonaparte making Napoleon the ruler of the European continent, Napoleon assembled what he calls the “Grand Armee” in anticipation of the invasion of Russia. Napoleon has amassed over 500,000 troops for this adventure. On this day, the invasion began. Napoleon made the same mistake Hitler made 30 years later. He waited too long before advancing. The result was that winter arrived before their objectives were met. Anyway, when Napoleon and his army arrive at the gates of Moscow and Petersburg in the middle of the winter, suddenly he smelled smoke and soon all of Moscow is an inferno. The Russians had move out into the countryside carrying their extra food and supplies with them and burned any building that could be used as shelter denying Napoleon and his army protection from the fierce Russian winter that was already upon them. Napoleon had no choice but head his young ass back to France. The Russian army was waiting. At nearly every bridge the Russians would wait until the majority of the troops were across and then burn the bridge stranding some of Napoleon’s troops on the other side where they were massacred by the awaiting Russians. Anyway, Napoleon arrived back in the Balkans with just over 100,000 troops. That right folks, he had lost 400,000 troops. This adventure by Napoleon is one of the worst military disasters in recorded history.

Born today:

1842 US writer Ambrose Bierce. He said there are four kinds of murder. “Felonious, excusable, justifiable and praiseworthy.” Does anyone know a person that fits the last two?

1915 English astronomer Sir Fred Doyle. He said “Space is not that far away. You can reach it in your car in a couple of hours if you drive straight up.”

1946 US politician Robert Reich. He said “In Washington it is dog eat dog. In academia it just the opposite.”

                  Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow