Random News and Notes 2 September

Today is Victory over Japan day here in the US. In the British Commonwealth and in other allied countries VJ day is celebrated on 14 August, the day the Japanese surrender was announced. The US celebrates it on 2 September because that is when the official humiliation ritual surrender document signing ceremony took place aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Harbor.

I have little good to say about Douglas MacArthur, but I have to give him credit for at least one thing. He prevented the Soviets from being a signatory to the surrender documents and iced them out of post war Japan completely.

He was also a consummate showman. The signing ceremony was choreographed down to the last second. Between the US and British Armada parked in Tokyo Bay to the massive overflights of Allied Aircraft the entire thing was meant to overawe the Japanese people. It worked. Probably too well as the Japanese came to revere MacArthur almost as much as their Emperor.

There was a terror attack in Marseilles today. A Tunisian man stabbed a bunch of people while yelling allahu akbar. French police shot and killed the man apparently. According to the reporting I’ve seen, the man was a so-called ‘known wolf’ and was being monitored by the authorities.

Normally, I would let an event like this anywhere in Europe go unremarked. It is just too commonplace an event as sad as that may be. However, this event took place in front of a restaurant called Istanbul City, and that gives ma a reason, no matter how tenuous, to play one of the greatest songs ever written and performed:

And it’s nobody’s business but the Turks .. .

Fat Jerry Nadler, a Dem congresscritter from one of the super-gerrymandered NYC districts, is not going to seek re-election. Mr. Short-Round (Nadler is all of 5’3″) has been a politician of some sort for most of his slimy life. He has been in Congress since 1992 and served 16 years as a State assemblyman before that.

78 year old Nadler claims he’s stepping aside for younger members of the Dem party. The fact is, he doesn’t want to go out a loser, and that is exactly what would have happened if he tried to hang on. He had several high profile primary – read much further left – opponents that would have unseated him.

An strong-ish earthquake hit Afghanistan. The 6.0 magnitude quake struck several provinces, causing extensive damage. It flattened villages and trapped people under the rubble of homes constructed mostly of mud bricks and wood that were unable to withstand the shock.

So sorry, not sorry.

BTW, if I find out that one penny of my tax dollars goes to aid the goatf*ckers I’m gonna get angry. Like break shit angry.

I can’t recall if I covered this when it happened, it gets difficult to keep track when you’re looking at as much news as I do to bring you an edition of RNN every day. Anyway, the State Department has revoked the visas of members of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority before the UN general assembly later this month.

While this announcement came a while back, there is news on that front. The visa ban has been expanded to include nearly all Palestinians. The new ban does not revoke current visas but it does affect any that are in the application process.