Random News and Notes 1 August

On this date in:

• 1096 – The First Crusade led by Peter the Hermit reaches Constantinople.
• 1489 – Christopher Columbus makes landfall at the Gulf of Paria in what is now Venezuela on his third expedition to the Americas.
• 1664 – The Turkish army is defeated by French and German troops at St. Gotthard, Hungary.
• 1689 – James II’s siege of Londonderry, Ireland, ends in failure. James’ force had suffered some 8,000 casualties to the defenders’ 3,600.
• 1791 – Robert Carter III, a Virginia plantation owner, frees all 500 of his slaves in the largest private emancipation in U.S. history.
• 1798 – British Admiral Horatio Nelson routs the French at the Battle of the Nile.
• 1801 – The American schooner USS Enterprise defeated the 14-gun Tripolitan corsair Tripoli off the coast of Malta during the First Barbary War. The commander of the US vessel, Lieutenant Andrew Sterett, lacking orders to take prizes, de-masted the Tripoli and threw her guns overboard sending her and her commander home in disgrace.
• 1835 – Slavery is banned everywhere in the British Empire.
• 1861 – Robert FitzRoy, a British naval officer who had been researching ways to predict the weather, publishes the first known weather forecast in The Times. The report, which includes a prediction of 62 degrees and clear skies in London, is largely accurate.
• 1864 – Union General Ulysses S. Grant gives general Philip H. Sheridan the mission of clearing the Shenandoah Valley of Confederate forces.
• 1873 – The first of the now iconic cable cars begins operations in San Francisco.
• 1914 – Germany declared war on Russia. WWI begins in earnest.
• 1936 – Adolph Hitler opened the Berlin Olympics. Berlin had won the games before the rise of the NSDAP.
• 1937 – Buchenwald Konzentrationslager was opened. By the end of the war the camp held some 260,000 prisoners.
  56,545 people were killed there.
• 1942 – Ensign Henry C. White, while flying a J4F Widgeon plane, sinks U-166 as it approaches the Mississippi River, the first U-boat sunk by the U.S. Coast Guard.
• 1943 – Operation Tidal Wave, the bomber attack on Ploesti Romania, sees 177 B-24 bombers fly from Tripoli to bomb the oil production facilities in Ploesti. 310 airmen died, 108 were captured and another 78 were interned in neighboring Turkey. 88 of the original 177 B-24s returned, most of them seriously damaged.
• 1950 – Lead elements of the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division arrive in Korea from the United States.
• 1966 – Charles Whitman, shooting from the Texas Tower at the University of Texas, kills 16 people and wounds 31 before being killed himself.
• 1981 – “Ladies and Gentlemen, Rock and Roll” With those words MTV officially launched. The first video to play was the Buggles Video killed the radio star.

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We start this month’s news in Maine where I have to question the ability and sanity of the Democratic party apparatus. First they allowed Porta-Nazi Platner to not only run for Senate, but win the party nomination. Now they have installed Troy Jackson as the nominee. What’s wrong with Jackson you might ask? Well, he is in a romantic relationship with his cousin. The pair have two kids.

There are other issues with Jackson’s candidacy, namely the fact that Maine has a sore loser law. Jackson was a candidate in the Dem primary for Governor and lost. State law should preclude him from running for Senate.

I typically do not cover the funerals of the Fallen. I am of the opinion that the families and loved ones should be able to grieve in private. Typically if you see funeral coverage here it is a call for attendance for the services of an older veteran. Today is something different.

Army Sgt. Angel Sarah Rampersad was killed on an Iranian missile attack on 17 July. Her family held services for the 28 year old Queens native on Friday, July 31. As you would expect, the usual suspects tried to make political hay out of the situation. Among those in attendance were NY gov, Kathy Hochul, AG Tish James and a bunch of NYC pols. Hochul gave a speech that for her was remarkably apolitical. Also on hand, but badly snubbed, was the islamist mayor, Zohran Mamdani. Mamdani was stuck in the 4th row and seemed to think he was going to be invited to speak. He was not.

Mamdani was clearly and visibly perturbed when it became clear he was not going to be asked to speak. Frankly, given that he had nothing at all to say about Angel’s death when it was announced he shouldn’t have expected to be asked. All of this happened against the backdrop of the 9/11 families publicly calling for him to not be at the memorial service later this year.

The DNC is doing “outreach” again. Who they are trying to reach is an open question, but they are trying. Normally I would present the video and then provide some commentary, but Not the Bee had the perfect response:

From the MVAP outdoors desk, there is a video circulating of a young girl getting tossed by a bison in Yellowstone. It is being presented as recent. It is not. The video is from a 2019 incident.

Sorry, had to use that one, made me LOL.

Anyway, stay away from the wildlife. It’s safer for everyone involved.

This next one is courtesy of WhyNot. It seems Anthropic – the creators of Claude AI – are buying up books, cutting off the spine, digitizing them and shredding what’s left. This is Not Good.

If for a second I thought we could trust any AI company not to alter the text of these books, I wouldn’t have a problem. But we all know they will do so as soon as it suits whatever agenda is being pushed at the moment.

I shouldn’t have laughed so hard at this one.