Random News and Notes 1 March
Today is the first day of March. Named for Mars, the Roman god of war. March was originally the first month in the Roman calendar (before January/February were added) and was viewed as a time for both initiating war and agricultural activities.
March’s birthstones are aquamarine and bloodstone. These stones symbolize courage. Its birth flower is the daffodil.
A few notes about this date in history.
The Lindbergh baby was kidnapped on this day in 1932. The kidnapper used a ladder to climb up to the open second-floor window and left muddy footprints in the room. Eventually Charles Lindbergh Jr’s body was found less than a mile from the Lindbergh manse. The kidnapping looked like it would go unsolved until September 1934, when a marked bill from the ransom turned up. It was tracked back to a German immigrant and carpenter, Bruno Hauptmann. He was found guilty and executed in the electric chair in 1936.
Baseball Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle announced his retirement from the game on this date in 1969. Mantle played center field and batted clean-up between 1951 and 1968 for the New York Yankees. The Yankees won 12 American League pennants and seven World Series during his tenure. His career MLB slash line (batting average/on base%/slugging %) was a gaudy .298 / .421 / .557. Over 18 seasons with the New York Yankees, he totaled 536 home runs, 1,509 RBI, and a .977 OPS, was a 3-time AL MVP, 20-time All-Star, and won 7 World Series championships
Pink Floyd released the album Dark Side of the Moon on this date in 1973. It stayed on the Billboard 200 chart for a record 937 weeks.
Today’s RNN is going to necessarily light on topics. Epic Fury has sucked all the oxygen out of the room.
Three people were killed and 14 injured in a late night shooting at an Austin TX bar. Austin police arrived within a minute, fatally shooting the gunman who had already killed three people and wounded 14 others, three of whom were in critical condition. First responders treated victims on a very active scene, with paramedics pronouncing three dead at Buford’s on West Sixth Street.
The FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force is now involved amid reports of premeditation. The shooter is believed to be a 15 year naturalized citizen from Senegal.
Stay Frosty friends.
On to the Epic Fury news. We start on a sad note. CENTCOM has confirmed the death of 3 US service members. They have not been identified nor has their unit or assignment. 5 others have been seriously wounded, presumably in the same incident.
of being returned to duty. Major combat operations continue and our response effort is ongoing.
The situation is fluid, so out of respect for the families, we will withhold additional information, including the identities of our fallen warriors, until 24 hours after next of kin have been notified.
Keep our folks in your thoughts today.
Iran claimed to have “targeted” the USS Abraham Lincoln with ballistic missiles today. CENTCOM says none of the missiles ended up anywhere near the Lincoln.
They did however manage to hit one of their own shadow fleet tankers while it was at anchor. The strike injured 4 of the 20 sailors aboard.
M/T Skylight has been on the sanctions list since last year. She wasn’t passing through the Strait of Hormuz though. She’s been anchored in the Musandam governorate of Oman for a week.
This next one is related to the strike on M/T Skylight. Iranian FM Abbas Araghchi says Iranian command and control has completely broken down. He says the attack on the tanker was undertaken independently.
Yeah, not good. Not good for the region, not good for Iran.
I can only hope this is true. Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Ali Khamenei’s personal security detail and counter espionage unit was filled with Mossad agents.
Mossad clearly had compromised the Iranian security apparatus. I mean, they had images of a dead Khamenei before the regime did. How deep the penetration goes is the question.