Monday

                           Musing and History

Quote of the day:

“Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals like hydrogen and oxygen we would not have water, an essential element of beer.”

                                                    Dave Barry

We once again are suffering an onslaught of cowardly terrorists on nations of the free world.  There is an answer.  History has provided an answer for us and the terrorists believe we do not have the nerve to use what has been used for thousands of years because it is barbaric.  The terrorist attacks are in their being barbaric.  There is no concern for the young and innocent, all that matters is to instill fear into the "non-believers" and frighten everyone into submission.  I can asure you that I can utilize actions used by the Romans and many others for centuries to put an end to this madness but the liberal left would cry foul.  They appear to favor the sacrifice of thousands of innocents rather than use barabarism to combat barbarism.   71 to 74 years ago the leaders of the free world decided that the Nazi's and the Japanese needed to be stopped at all costs and indescriminate destruction of their homeland and killing of thousands of German and Japanese civilians was consumated.  It worked and thousands of men, women and children of the free world were saved.  Lets learn from this. 

                            This Date in History   June 5

1968 On this date at 1:00AM in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, Senator Robert Kennedy is making a short victory speech for winning the Democratic primary in California. Robert Kennedy is the younger brother of President John Kennedy who was shot to death in Dallas, Texas in 1963. After the speech he headed for an exit through the hotel kitchen amid a throng of admirers, or as everybody thought were admirers. Suddenly three shots ring out and Robert hits the floor with blood pooling under his head. There was a dazed look in Robert’s eyes and there is a big scuffle behind him. Robert had two or three bodyguards with him most of the time one of which was Roosevelt Grier. Rosie (his nickname) was a giant of man over six foot six and about 320 pounds. He formerly was a lineman for the Rams. Anyway, Rosie was about the first person to get a hold of the jackass with the smoking .22 caliber pistol. It was reported that Rosie broke this maniac’s thumb getting the pistol out of his hand. You will never guess who this guy was. It was a middle-eastern Arab guy named Sirhan Sirhan. As far as I know, no one knows to this day why this towel head shot Robert. Robert knew he was mortally wounded and asked for a rosary as he was Catholic. He fought for his young life (he was 42) for 24 hours before he died. There were six other people that were wounded in the shooting, none fatally. Robert was buried on June 8 in Arlington National Cemetery near his brother’s grave site. By the way, Arlington National Cemetery was originally the home site of CSA General Robert E. Lee. The United States Army chose to start burying some of the soldiers killed in the Civil War on Lee’s estate just for spite and it went from there.

1967 For several weeks the Israelis had been watching a huge buildup of men and armor on their borders with Syria and Egypt. So on this date the Israelis launch a strike against them both. Even with their men and material in place, Syria and Egypt was no match for the well trained and equipped Israelis. As you might suspect, the Israelis wanted control of the air and they immediately struck the Syrian and Egyptian military air bases and destroyed their fighter/bombers before they could get off the ground to the tune of nearly 100%. After that the Syrian and Egyptian tanks, other armor and infantry was wide open to attack from the Israeli Air Force. Needless to say, the war was over in six days after the United Nations stepped in stopped the Israelis from a total massacre of the Syrian and Egyptian, and later on the Jordanian ground troops. After all, the majority of the war was fought in the Negev Desert and there ain’t too many places to hide in that oven. Anyway, Israel gained control of huge sections of real estate. They really did not really want it but later on they used it as a bargaining chip to get what they wanted which was recognition from the Arabs. They got recognition but they have been fighting to survive before and after this event.

1864 Earlier in the year US General Grant had sent General Franz Sigel and a force of 11,000 troops into the Shenandoah Valley to kick out the Confederates known to be there. Sigel presided over an embarrassing ass-kicking by a much smaller Confederate army at New Market, Virginia and was forced to retreat into Maryland. Grant replaced Sigel with US General David Hunter. Hunter immediately moved his army back into the Valley and headed for Staunton, Virginia. He met up with the 5,800 man Confederate army near Piedmont, Virginia and a battle ensued. As you might suspect, with the Confederates outnumbered almost two to one, Hunter was victorious and the northern entrance of the Valley was open to the Union forces.

1944 It was on this date that the surprise invasion of Europe by the Allies was supposed to have occurred. I am talking about the D-Day landing on the Normandy coast of France, but with the ships loaded with 156,000 troops and associated necessities, US General Eisenhower delayed the attack for one day because of bad weather in the English Channel. Things were getting pretty damned tense because Eisenhower knew he could not keep those troops stacked on those ships for more than two days and if he delayed again they would have to disembark the troops to re-fuel the ships. The next time the tide and moonlight would be right would be June 19 and Ike knew that the longer the wait the greater the possibility of discovery of the plan.

1963 On this date the British Secretary of War John Profumo resigned in disgrace for lying to the House of Commons about his sexual affairs with a prostitute named Christine Keeler. Earlier Profumo had attended a party given by one of London’s social elite. The party was held at a big estate outside London and that girl Christine was in attendance. When Profumo arrived Christine was frolicking naked in one of the fountains. Profumo was immediately smitten and eventually he and Christine were bed partners. This was not too bad in itself but Profumo was not the only man that Christine was servicing. She was also the bedmate of Soviet naval attaché “Eugene” Ivanof who was thought to be a spy. This could prove to be bad news if Christine was used to gather information from Profumo and to give it to Ivanof. The threat was so great that it was about to bring down the whole administration of Prime Minister Harold McMillan but things cooled down with the resignation of Profumo. As Robin Williams said “A man has a brain and a sex organ but only enough blood for one at a time.”

Born today:

1883 US economist John Keynes. He said “Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wicked of men will do the most wicked of things for betterment of all”.

Died today:

2004 Former US President Ronald Reagan. He said “I have spoke to you before about the economy of this nation and I can tell you it is a hell of a mess....We are not on the air yet are we?” Ronald, be quiet.

                   Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow