Tuesday OYSTERS

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Quote of the day:

A SEAL team was surrounded on a hilltop in Afghanistan. There were several wounded and the medic was busy treating them. The medic was wounded himself and was bleeding but he continued treating his men. Eventually the medic became very weak from the loss of blood and said “I am sorry guys, that is all I can do”...then he laid down and died. He apologized for dying.

                                               An American medic

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin declared that there would be definite retribution for a bombing at the Moscow airport. I believe this guy. The Russians do not have a Constitution whereby everyone has “human rights” and are guaranteed due process of law. I saw several instances whereby a criminal in Russia is not arrested and cuffed and quietly led to a squad car. In one instance a man had hijacked a tour bus and was caught in a road block. The police ordered him to release the passengers and he complied…15 seconds later he was dead. There was no negotiation. In another instance the Russian police had a hidden camera in a hotel room where an undercover cop was making a drug deal with some long time drug dealers. One of the drug dealers got angry and slapped the undercover cop. The cops observing from another room had enough and burst into the room guns drawn. The three drug dealers automatically fell to the floor and curled into the fetal position with their hands over their heads. They knew what was coming and the cops did not disappoint . They pistol whipped all of them senseless and dragged their butts out of there. I don’t know about these days but a while back if a criminal was sentenced to death in Russia they would not tell him the date of his execution. While in prison once in a while a guard would sneak up behind them a dry fire a pistol beside their ear. Sometimes they would take them out into a courtyard, tie them to a post and a crew of riflemen would draw down on them, not shoot and would walk away laughing.

                     This Date in History January 26

1788 Eight months Captain Arthur Phillip was commissioned by the British government to establish a colony in the newly discovered land that eventually became Australia. The strange part of it was that the British government wanted Phillip to do it with prisoners that may or may not have farming expertise. So Phillip set out with 11 ships headed to the land down under with nearly as many Marines aboard as he had prisoners. On this date he hove to off the east coast of what was labeled New South Wales and the country of Australia was born. Right from the git-go Captain Phillip found out that most of his prisoners indeed knew more about robbing and killing than they did about farming and not only that the soil was not rich enough to raise crops. Needless to say discipline among the prisoners became a serious problem. Hungry criminals can be a handful, Marines nearby or not. Finally the Marines were not up to the task and Captain Phillip himself took over control of the prisoners and he proved to be a tough but fair overseer, but many floggings and several hangings ensued. Eventually Captain Phillip, the Marines and the prisoners were on the cusp of starvation for several years. Captain Phillip returned to England in 1792 but the colony had already showed signs that it would survive and by the turn of the century the colony became prosperous with a deep sense of patriotism. In fact in 1808 an Australian historian wrote “there was a celebration of the founding of the colony with much drinking and merriment.” Australia is famous for having one of the largest quantities of beer consumed per capita on the planet, mostly Foster’s. I like it myself.

1950 After years of hassling with the British, India passed its own Constitution and became an independent nation on this date. Indian religious leader Mahatma Gandhi had been leading the fight for independence for decades and he finally succeeded. But before all of this came to pass, religious differences between the Hindus and the Muslims raised it ugly head. To settle this problem the British Viceroy of India, Lord Mountbatten, declared that the country would be partitioned with the Muslims going to Pakistan and the Hindus to India. This seemed like a perfect plan but the Muslims and the Hindus still fought vicious battles where thousands were killed, including Mahatma Gandhi. He was a Hindu and was assassinated by another Hindu because Gandhi accepted the partition in the interest of peace. You can say what you want but the most bloody and vicious wars ever fought were in the interest of one or more religion against another. Remember the Crusades?

1936 On This date in Cleveland, Ohio the dismembered corpse of Frances Portillo was found with the head in a basket and the remainder of the various parts stuffed into burlap sacks. This was not the first nor would it be the last. The killings and dismemberments continued until the number reached double digits. Needless to say the Cleveland PD was frantic to find the “Mad Butcher”. The corpses had been dissected with precision and therefore the PD began looking for a real butcher. The arrested a butcher named Frank Dolezal and interrogated him for 40 straight hours until he confessed to killing Frances Portillo. Frank committed suicide in his cell soon thereafter. Very few of the people of Cleveland believed that Frank Dolezal was the actual “Mad Butcher” and that the real killer was a well heeled and well connected member of the community. The Cleveland PD chose to destroy any and all records about these crimes and the killings stopped after the suicide of Dolezal. But the actual identity of the “Mad Butcher” is unknown to this day.

1875 The James brothers, Jesse and Frank, had been hotly pursued by the Pinkerton Detective Agency for over a year. The Pinkertons had been hired by the railroad barons to try and stop the robbing of their trains and banks by the James gang. They were not successful, in fact one of their best detectives named James Witcher had been found dead from a gunshot to the abdomen and his upper torso had been eaten by wild hogs. It was known that Jesse and Frank would visit with their kin in Clay County, Missouri on occasion. On this date a group of men surrounded the house of Jesse and Frank’s mother in Clay County thinking that the James boys were home visiting Mom. It has never been confirmed if the men surrounding the house were law enforcement officials or Pinkerton detectives or a combination. Anyway, the people surrounding the house decided to throw in a couple of flares to flush out anyone in the house. One of the flares exploded killing Jesse and Frank’s nine year old step-brother outright and took off one of Mom’s arms. Jesse and Frank were not there and the local community came after the ones that surrounded the house with blood in their eye. The lawmen/detectives got away and no one to this day admits to who it was that committed that atrocity but after this the Pinkerton Agency cut back on their often violent methods.

Born today:

1880 US General Douglas MacArthur: He said “I will keep on living as if I expect to live forever. Nobody grows old by living a number of years. People grow old for deserting their Ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin but to give up wrinkles the soul.” General MacArthur was one of America’s greatest military commanders in spite of having an ego the size of Oklahoma.

1918 US writer Phillip Farmer. He said “The universe is a big place, maybe the biggest.” Phillip, shut up.

1929 US cartoonist Jules Feiffer. He said “Christ died for our sins, dare we make his martyrdom meaningless by not committing them?” I am working on it, Jules.

          Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow