Random News and Notes 18 September

On this Date:

• 1758 – James Abercromby is replaced by Jeffrey Amherst as supreme commander of British forces after his defeat by French commander the Marquis of Montcalm at Fort Ticonderoga during the French and Indian War.
• 1759 – Quebec surrenders to the British after a battle which sees the deaths of both James Wolfe and Louis Montcalm, the British and French commanders.
• 1793 – George Washington lays the foundation stone for the U.S. Capitol.
• 1830 – Tom Thumb, the first locomotive built in the United States, loses a nine-mile race in Maryland to a horse.
• 1850 – Congress passes the second Fugitive Slave Bill into law (the first was enacted in 1793), requiring the return of escaped slaves to their owners.
• 1862 – After waiting all day for a Union attack which never came at Antietam, Confederate General Robert E. Lee begins a retreat out of Maryland and back to Virginia.
• 1863 – Union cavalry troops clash with a group of Confederates at Chickamauga Creek.
• 1914 – The Irish Home Rule Bill becomes law, but is delayed until after World War I.

• 1929 – Charles Lindbergh takes off on a 10,000 mile air tour of South America.
• 1939 – A German U-boat sinks the British aircraft carrier Courageous, killing 500 people.
• 1959 – Serial killer Harvey Glatman is executed in a California gas chamber for murdering three young women in Los Angeles.
• 1961 – UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold is killed in a plane crash while attempting to negotiate peace in the Congo.
• 1973 – East and West Germany and The Bahamas are admitted to United Nations.
• 1975 – Newspaper heiress and wanted fugitive Patty Hearst is captured in a San Francisco apartment and arrested for armed robbery. Granddaughter of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, Patty was kidnapped by violent radical group SLA (Symbionese Liberation Army) in early 1974. She will later take part in some of the group’s militant activities including a violent armed robbery.
• 1977 – Voyager I takes first photo of Earth and the Moon together.
• 1998 – ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is formed to coordinate unique identifying addresses for Websites worldwide.

We start the news in Carcassonne France, where a chaplain for the 3e RPIMa (3rd Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment) gave a spicy sermon at Saint-Michel Cathedral. The chaplain addressed the troops, urging them to fight for France’s values against incompetent leaders and cultural shifts.

The subtitles are incomplete and not particularly accurate, so here is my translation of the most important parts:

And I say this because we’re among family and no one is recording…
Men and women who died so France would be a beautiful country, so architects can keep building basilicas, cathedrals, cities, fortified castles.
Instead of knights, we put incompetents, people who eat seeds (vegans), who lecture everyone, ideologues. Is that France?
I encourage you, dear friends, to keep fighting, keep the courage of your convictions as I try to do at this Mass. To say: Calm down, leftists! Shh, breathe through your nose! (take a deep breath)
I’m going off track. But keep this fervor, this faith. Otherwise we’ll be ridiculed. This beautiful country France will be mocked and others will take our place. The law of the strongest will reign. Others will take the place of our values, freedom, equality, fraternity, culture, society.

It should be noted that 1200 or so troopers in 3e RPEM are some of the most elite in the French military. Your editor trained some with them in the 90’s and they were good, really good.

Anyway, it appears the Padre found a receptive audience. Also, he isn’t wrong.

A KLM flight from Amsterdam to Curaçao was forced to turn around over the Atlantic on Thursday. Flight KL735, a Boeing 777-300ER, turned around after 5.5 hours when a power bank caught fire. The device was being used by KLM´s former CEO and President, Mr. Camiel Eurlings, who was injured in the incident.

Crew extinguished it quickly, and the plane landed safely at Schiphol after 11 hours airborne. KLM allows power banks on their flights, but bans their use.

New York City is rolling out 17 modular ‘robotoilets’ from Throne Labs as a $4 million one-year pilot. The high-tech shitters are being placed in high-traffic areas across all five boroughs like Yankee Stadium and Columbus Park. These touchless units offer sinks, baby-changing stations, free menstrual products, and entry via text, app, or tap cards, but enforce a strict 10-minute limit with automated warnings in English and Spanish.

¿Dónde está el baño?

A quick note from the sports desk (and a dig at our esteemed publisher). The New York Metropolitans are about to set an MLB record, and not a good one. As of September 18, the Mets (69-84) trail the Atlanta Braves by 20 games in the National League East, despite a luxury tax payroll topping $340 million. The Mets are 2 back of the Nats and have been eliminated from playoff contention since last week. Big offseason moves like Juan Soto’s 15-year, $765 million deal have only made it worse.

njuries, underperformance, and a midseason firing of manager Carlos Mendoza have sunk the team under owner Steve Cohen and president David Stearns.

The 2026 MLB playoffs begin on Tuesday, September 29, 2026, with the start of the Wild Card Series. So far, the Marlins, Yankees, Brewers and Dodgers have clinched playoff spots.

I mentioned that a National Guard F-16 crashed in a comment yesterday, but there is more detail available now. The 149th Fighter Wing of the Texas National Guard fighter went down in Grand Traverse County, Michigan. The pilot ejected safely. ATC audio captured the wingman reporting a possible bird strike leading to engine loss before the pilot punched out.

A spokesperson with the 149th Fighter Wing of the Texas National Guard confirmed that the pilot ejected and is in stable condition. They are currently receiving medical treatment. The aircraft was participating in a routine training exercise at the time of the crash, according to the spokesperson.