Random News and Notes 26 April
On this date in 1777, British troops under the command of General William Tryon attack th e town of Danbury, Connecticut, and begin destroying everything in sight. Facing little, if any, opposition from Patriot forces, the British went on a rampage, setting fire to homes, farmhouses, storehouses and more than 1,500 tents. The British destruction continued for nearly a week before word of it reached Continental Army leaders, including General Benedict Arnold, who was stationed in nearby New Haven. Along with General David Wooster and General Gold Silliman, Arnold led a contingent of more than 500 American troops in a surprise attack on the British forces as they began withdrawing from Danbury.
In 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, the German military tests its powerful new air force—the Luftwaffe—on the Basque town of Guernica in northern Spain. With Franco’s approval, the cutting-edge German aircraft began their unprovoked attack at 4:30 p.m., the busiest hour of the market day in Guernica. For three hours, the German planes poured down a continuous and unopposed rain of bombs and gunfire on the town and surrounding countryside. One-third of Guernica’s 5,000 inhabitants were killed or wounded, and fires engulfed the city and burned for days.
The indiscriminate killing of civilians at Guernica aroused world opinion and became a symbol of fascist brutality.
At 01:23:45 on 26 April 1986 the reactor in unit #4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Pripyat Ukraine exploded. Built in the late 1970s on the banks of the Pripyat River, Chernobyl had four reactors, each capable of producing 1,000 megawatts of electric power. Unit 4 was supposed to undergo a safety test to see if the turbine could run emergency water pumps on inertial power.
It could not and between that fact, a series of errors committed in the control room and that a key fact – that a scram done by pressing AZ-5 would create a runaway reaction – was withheld from the engineers, the reactor exploded. It was not a nuclear explosion, as nuclear power plants are incapable of producing such a reaction, but was chemical, driven by the ignition of gases and steam that were generated by the runaway reaction. In the explosion and ensuing fire, more than 50 tons of radioactive material were released into the atmosphere.
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The Soviet cover-up started almost immediately. Fortunately for the world, Swedish radiation monitors picked up a 40% increase in atmospheric radiation levels. This forced the hand of Gorbachev and the Soviets, although they still lied and obfuscated whenever they could.
In the opening days of the crisis, 32 people died at Chernobyl and dozens more suffered radiation burns. The radiation that escaped into the atmosphere, which was several times that produced by the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was spread by the wind over Northern and Eastern Europe, contaminating millions of acres of forest and farmland. An estimated 5,000 Soviet citizens eventually died from cancer and other radiation-induced illnesses caused by their exposure to the Chernobyl radiation. That number is an estimate because the Soviets – and later the Russians – actively hid the numbers and did not record radiation related deaths or illnesses.
Now, News!
The annual White House Correspondent Dinner was last night. And it was a doozy. President Trump attended for the first time. Shortly after the President and First Lady were introduced, a shooter opened fire in the hallway outside the venue. The President, First Lady, VP Vance and his wife were all evacuated by Secret Service as soon as the first shots were fired.
The suspect emerged from a “makeshift room” near the entrance, where “there was no security” near where bar carts were stored, according to the New York Post.
“He was in that room… he grabbed it out of a bag or something.” The weapon “was long” and “didn’t look like a typical gun,” a witness who was a volunteer at the event told the Post.
It is reportedly believed that Allen was a guest at the Hilton hotel where the dinner took place.
It is being reported that the shooter is alive and in custody.
According to reports, Allen’s brother alerted New London Police Department after receiving the alleged manifesto before the incident.
U.S. Secret Service and Montgomery County Police Department later interviewed Allen’s sister, Avriana Allen, at the family home in Rockville. Key points from the interview:
• She said her brother often made radical statements and spoke about doing “something” to fix today’s world.
• She confirmed he bought 2 handguns and a shotgun from Cap Tactical Firearms and stored them at their parents’ home without their knowledge.
• He regularly trained with those firearms at shooting ranges.
• He was reportedly linked to a group called “The Wide Awakes.”
• He also attended a “No Kings” protest in California.
There are some odd things about this shooter. I’ll keep you up to date with any new info as it becomes available.
Al Gore is at it again. Speaking at the Sustainability in Entertainment Honors in Los Angeles, Gore cited recent reports on the weakening of the Gulf Stream, or Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), warning it could shut down within 25 years. The event, marking 20 years since *An Inconvenient Truth*, featured actor Bradley Whitford joking about an ice age in 10 years without policy changes.
He must need his chakras aligned again.