Monday Oysters

                                       Al's Most Recent

Quote of the day:

When asked how he thought it would be possible to build a wall between the USA and Mexico he said “Think China”.

                                              Donald Trump

There has been a lot of arrogant people saying that the “natural born” clause in the Constitution should be eliminated meaning that if the parents are “illegal” then the children should be also even if they are born on US soil. Let me say this about that.

The United States would not exist if that proposal was the law when the very first “illegal aliens” stepped foot on American soil. It was Jamestown, Va in 1607 and again in Plymouth, Ma. in 1620. That make all of their progeny “illegal”...that means many of us. If either or both of these settlements had failed it is unlikely that our ancestors would have been here for another 100 years. Also, there is substantiated evidence of the presence of Vikings in Canada in the 11^th century, unsubstantiated evidence in Maine, New Hampshire and Minnesota in the 14^th century. From there our ancestors did not obtain this land by divine providence, they took it by conquest, y'all. They had no problem with the unmitigated slaughter of anyone (Indians, French, Spanish and Mexicans, etc.) and anything (bison, passenger pigeon, etc.) that got in their way. Illegal aliens...are you kidding me?

This past weekend beginning Friday my area was besieged by cold weather, sleet, snow and freezing rain. Think about all the homeless out there enduring this while hundreds of churches are warm and empty for days at a time. It bothers me...and it should bother you.

Here is another adventure from my life out of doors. Down in Pensacola, Florida four of us decided to go put out a gill net for mullet one particular night. We launched two boats one of which had 150 yards of gill net aboard and went to an area known as Grand Lagoon. This body of water is on the inter-coastal waterway so we went far from the center canal before putting out the net. One boat would pull out the net while the other one slowly ran the opposite direction. We finally got the net arrayed and joined back together to wait for a while. One of the guys that was with us had never done anything like this before and pulled out a bottle of Jim Beam. The rest of us refused to partake because we knew what a boat in the dark with barge traffic close by could mean if mixed with firewater. After a while the rookie had to urinate and stood up and promptly fell over the side. He started screaming “Help, Help, I can’t swim.” We told him “Just stand up, the water is only 4 feet deep.” He stood up while the rest of us laughed. Then he did something that was really dangerous, he got his feet tangled in the gill net. It was a hell of a struggle but we pulled the net up and got his stupid feet untangled and him back into the boat. We threw his bottle of Beam over the side and he was not invited on another expedition.

         This Date in History  January 25

1863  About two months ago Abe Lincoln had enough of US General McClellan’s snot-nose and told him to take a hike and put US General Ambrose Burnside in command of the Army of the Potomac. McClellan was a great trainer and organizer but was very shy and reluctant when it came to combat meaning that the aggressive CSA Robert E. Lee handed McClellan his ass on several occasions even though at times Lee was outnumbered two to one. The final straw came when McClellan’s army had defeated Lee’s army at Antietam and Lee headed back in to Virginia to lick his wounds. McClellan chose to stay in camp for 6 weeks and not pursue Lee. That was enough for Abe and he sent McClellan to the showers and promoted Burnside into command. Burnside had been a desk jockey most of his career with very little if any combat experience and told everyone that they should take someone else but General of the Army Henry Halleck insisted. Very soon after taking command, Burnside knowing that Abe wanted an aggressive commander, launched a movement against Lee. Unfortunately, the movement was detected by Lee and he moved his army in a position to intercept Burnside at Fredericksburg, Virginia 2 days in advance. Some of y'all may not know what happened here but the US Army walked into trap a prepared by Lee and his lieutenants that cost the Union 15,000 casualties to 5,000 for the CSA. Lincoln gave Burnside another chance and he tried a counter-move to attack Lee’s position at Fredericksburg from another direction and during the movement it rained for four straight days and the Army of the Potomac was bogged down to a stop in mud waist deep. General Burnside decided that a little booze would improve his troop's morale and sent out a few barrels. As you might suspect many of them got hammered and fights broke out between units, not only that the CSA troops were on the opposite side of the Rappahannock taunting and teasing without mercy. So Abe put a stop to it by firing Burnside after only two months of command and gave command of the Army of the Potomac to US General Joseph Hooker. Little did Hooker know that yet another spectacular victory for the CSA awaited him at a little town named Chancellorsville.

1945   On this date, after a stiff fight the Russian army broke through the German defenses near Auschwitz, Poland. What they found here was evidence of the most cruel and inhumane treatment of human beings yet recorded. It was a death camp of unimaginable proportions. There were three main camps, I, II and III with 8 other “satellite” camps. This camp had but one purpose and that was killing of human beings. The Russians discovered ovens with human remains still inside smoking, metal buildings with an opening for the insertion of poison gas. The German’s used Cyklon B gas. It was an insecticide and easy and cheap to make, the down side was that it did not kill quickly meaning that the people that were put inside those buildings knew after a short while that they were being poisoned and fought and struggled for life. The Russians found 645 corpses and 7,000 walking skeletons who told them that the guards found out that the Russians were close and they began killing all that they could until they ran out of ammo and then they began blowing up the crematoria and death buildings. The Russians also found three warehouses that were stacked to the top with women’s dresses, men’s suits and shoes that the German’s did not have a chance to destroy. And finally they discovered the laboratories and journals of Dr. Josef Mengele. Mengele performed inconceivably cruel and inhuman medical experiments on the prisoners especially twins. There are many records of what this animal did to others but I will not describe them now. But I can tell you that when the Russian army left Auschwitz, they had lost all mercy and remorse for any and all things German and killed all they found, man, woman, children, dogs, cats, geese, ducks, etc...they intended to wipe the slate clean of Germans. When one particular Russian tank crew entered Berlin they were confronted by an antitank gun manned by seven Germans no older than 14. The Russians destroyed the German crew and repeatedly ran back and forth across the corpses with their tank until there was nothing there that could be identified as human. Hate and killing with no remorse, all wars depend on it.

         Thanks for listening  I can hardly wait until tomorrow