Random News and Notes 31 August
On this date:
- 1303 – The War of Vespers in Sicily ends with an agreement between Charles of Valois, who invaded the country, and Frederick, the ruler of Sicily.
- 1756 – The British at Fort William Henry, New York, surrender to Louis Montcalm of France. Montcalm’s Indian allies massacre the fleeing British.
- 1864 – At the Democratic convention in Chicago, General George B. McClellan is nominated for president.
- 1888 – Prostitute Mary Ann Nichols, the first known victim of London serial killer “Jack the Ripper,” is found murdered and mutilated in the city’s Whitechapel district.
- 1897 – Thomas Edison receives a patent for his movie camera, the Kinetograph. Edison had developed the camera and its viewer in the early 1890.
- 1935 – FDR signs the Neutrality Act.
- 1942 – The British army under General Bernard Law Montgomery defeats Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps in the Battle of Alam Halfa in Egypt.
- 1944 – The British Eighth Army penetrates the German Gothic Line in Italy.
- 1949 – Six of the 16 surviving Union veterans of the Civil War attend the last-ever encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic, held in Indianapolis, Indiana.
- 1951 – The 1st Marine Division begins its attack on Bloody Ridge in Korea. The four-day battle results in 2,700 Marine casualties.
- 1955 – William G. Cobb of the General Motors Corp. demonstrates his “Sunmobile,” the world’s first solar-powered automobile, at the General Motors Powerama auto show held in Chicago, Illinois. The vehicle was 15 inches long.
- 1965 – US Congress creates Department of Housing & Urban Development.
- 1980 – Polish government forced to sign Gdansk Agreement allowing creation of the trade union Solidarity.
- 1985 – Police capture Richard Ramirez, dubbed the “Night Stalker” for a string of gruesome murders that stretched from Mission Viejo to San Francisco, Cal.
- 1990 – East and West Germany sign the Treaty of Unification (Einigungsvertrag) to join their legal and political systems.
- 1990 – Ken Griffey and Ken Griffey Jr. become first father and son to play on same team simultaneously in professional baseball (Seattle Mariners).
- 1994 – Last Russian troops leave Estonia and Latvia.
- 1994 – The Irish Republican Army (IRA) announces a “complete cessation of military operations,” opening the way to a political settlement in Ireland for the first time in a quarter of a century.
- 1997 – Diana, Princess of Wales, dies in a Paris car crash along with her companion Dodi Fayed and driver Henri Paul while fleeing paparazzi.
- 2006 – Edvard Munch’s famed painting The Scream recovered by Norwegian police. The artwork had been stolen on Aug. 22, 2004.
We start the news for the last day of Augustus’ month in Winnipeg where Umar Hayat, a real estate agent is running for Winnipeg mayor. Umar, a Pakistani, released some doozies of campaign posters. It seems these posters were AI generated.
Yeah, I didn’t realize it was illegal for ‘tards to have sex in Canada. In fact, I would have thought it mandatory given the sheer number of them north of 49.
Anyway, this just reinforced my belief that nothing good has come out of Winnipeg since Barry Shenkarow sold the Jets to Steven Gluckstern and Richard Burke who immediately moved the team to Phoenix for the 96-97 season.
This one pisses me off some. Police in Cedartown Georgia shot and killed a pet mini donkey. The police were in a fenced pasture at the home of the donkey’s owner unannounced when the shooting occurred. The officer involved said he was afraid of the mini donkey because it was braying at him as it approached. The cop said he tried to taze HeeHaw before shooting him.
I’m sorry, if you are that skeered about a donkey then you have no business being a cop in a rural area. Chief Jamie Newsome said members of the department’s command staff have opened an investigation into the shooting. The officer involved has not been publicly identified and has been placed on administrative leave while the investigation is conducted.
He needs to be fired and lose his certification to be a cop.
Yesterday, US forces took out a couple of rocket launch sites on Iran’s Larak Island. The launchers were preparing to fire rockets carrying sea mines into the Strait. It was the first real US kinetic action in a month or more. Iran retaliated by firing missiles at US facilities in Jordan. According to US and Jordanian sources, the majority of the incoming were intercepted and there were no significant impacts.
The President said that the US will retaliate for the attacks.
I don’t know what is left to target.
Last night a truck from HMD LLC crashed through a concrete barrier on the Martin Luther King Drive overpass above I-71 in Cincinnati when its brakes failed at the top of the ramp. Firefighters used harnesses to rescue the driver and a passenger.
About 200 gallons of diesel spilled but posed no hazmat risk. Ramps and parts of the road closed briefly for cleanup and inspections, with most reopening before Monday’s rush hour. Police are investigating but no word on the nationality of the driver is available at this time.
Even money on it being an illegal.
Speaking of trucking, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced an immediate shutdown of 110 commercial driver’s license schools for fraudulently certifying thousands of drivers, including non-citizens unable to speak or read English. The action, joined by Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin in Detroit, also closes 160 more schools for issues like unlicensed instructors and improper facilities, such as a backyard school bus used as a classroom.
Officials aim to restore road safety by enforcing decades-old English proficiency rules, building on prior revocations of tens of thousands of improper licenses amid a federal crackdown on CDL fraud.