Monthly Archives: July 2011

Lost and Found – July 31st Edition

What to remember about July 31st…

    • 1777  Marquis de Lafayette is commissioned as an unpaid Major General in the Continental Army
    • 1875  Former President Andrew Johnson dies in Tennessee of a suspected stroke
    • 1912  American economist and Nobel laureate Milton Friedman is born in Brooklyn, New York
    • 1941  Herman Goering sends order to Heydrich to create a plan for the “final solution of the Jewish situation”
    • 1965  J.K. Rowling the English author of the Harry Potter series of books is born
    • 1971  Astronauts from Apollo 15 take first ride aboard the Lunar Rover on the surface of the Moon
    • 2007  Operation Banner, the British occupation of Northern Ireland, ends after 38 years

Winston Churchill on Islam – The River War (Unabridged, 1899)

Winston Churchill on Islam

This quote from his 1899 book “The River War” summarizes Churchill’s observations of Islam and Muslims during his military service in Kitchener’s campaign in the Sudan.  Eerily on point over a hundred years later.  It echoes sentiments penned even earlier by Jefferson and Adams both.

——————————————————————————–

 How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

 Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen; all know how to die; but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science – the science against which it had vainly struggled – the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.

Sir Winston Churchill (The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages 248-50 London)

(Photo source liketheroman.wordpress.com )

Lost and Found – July 30th Edition

What to remember about July 30th…

    • 1619  The first elected legislative assembly in the New World is held in Jamestown, Virginia
    • 1780  600 Colonials led by Colonel Isaac Shelby capture Ft. Thicketty in South Carolina
    • 1864  Union forces fail to break Confederate lines at Battle of the Crater in after setting off massive bomb in tunnel
    • 1866  Constitutional Convention of blacks and whites in New Orleans is attacked by armed Democrats and anti-abolitionists; 40 killed and over 150 injured
    • 1945 USS Indianapolis is sunk by a Japanese submarine after having delivered the components the for atomic bomb to be dropped on Hiroshima
    • 1947  Actor and politician Arnold Schwarzenegger born
    • 1956  President Eisenhower signs law making “In God We Trust” the official motto of the United States
    • 1975  Teamsters union president Jimmy Hoffa disappears from suburban Detroit; never seen again

 

Lost and Found – July 29th Edition

What to remember about July 29th…

    • 1805  French historian Alexis de Tocqueville is born; author of the famous Democracy in America
    • 1833  English abolitionist William Wilberforce dies
    • 1862  Confederate spy Marie Isabella “Belle” Boyd is arrested by Union troops; detained in Washington, D.C.
    • 1907  Sir Robert Baden Powell establishes Brownsea Island Scout Camp in England; founding of Scouting movement
    • 1921  Adolf Hitler becomes leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (NAZI Party)
    • 1958  President Eisenhower signs legislation creating National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
    • 1965  Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division begin arriving in Vietnam
    • 1976  Serial killer David “Son of Sam” Berkowitz begins his killing spree in New York City

Lost and Found – July 28th Edition

What to remember about July 28th…

    • 1746  Thomas Heyward, Jr is born in South Carolina; signer of the Declaration of Independence
    • 1776  Colonial forces from Massachusetts arrive to fortify Horn’s Hook, New York
    • 1864  Battle of Ezra Church in Georgia; General Sherman’s hold on Atlanta remains unbroken
    • 1868  Ratification of the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution is certified by Secretary of State Seward
    • 1914  Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia; World War I begins
    • 1929  Jacqueline Lee Bouvier is born in Southampton, New York; marries John F. Kennedy in 1953
    • 1932  President Herbert Hoover orders the army to forcibly remove demonstrating veterans from Washington, D.C.
    • 1945  U.S. Senate approves the charter of the United Nations
    • 1945  B-25 bomber crashes into the Empire State Building
    • 1978  National Lampoon’s Animal House is released
    • 1998  Monica Lewinsky granted blanket immunity by Special Prosecutor about her relationship with President Bill Clinton

Lost and Found – July 27th Edition

What to remember about July 27th…

    • 1775  Benjamin Rush begins his term as the 1st Surgeon General of the Continental Army
    • 1940  The first Bugs Bunny cartoon “A Wild Hare” is released
    • 1953 Armistice is signed ending the Korean War, memorial in Washington D.C. dedicated on same day in 1995
    • 1974  U.S. House of Representatives begins impeachment proceedings against President Nixon
    • 1981  6-year-old Adam Walsh is abducted and killed; his father John Walsh becomes victims rights advocate and later hosts America’s Most Wanted television show
    • 1996  Eric Robert Rudolph sets off a bomb at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, Georgia
    • 2003  American actor and comedian Bob Hope dies at 100

Social Progress Doesn’t Guarantee Moral Progress

Walter Russell Mead strikes the nail squarely on the head again with his latest article “From Norway To Hell” :

“There are some trying to draw some political conclusion about left and right from the massacre; I would like to go deeper. This tragedy doesn’t just speak to the state of cultural politics in our time, or remind us (as it surely does) that evil has a home in every human culture and human heart; it challenges some of our deepest beliefs about where the world is headed.”

Evil is an unfortunate side-effect of human free will.  However, to excise our right to choose right from wrong would be an even greater evil.

(Hat tip to Instapundit)

Lost and Found – July 26th Edition

What to remember about July 26th…

    • 1775  Congress establishes the a postal system; Benjamin Franklin is the 1st Postmaster General
    • 1788  New York is 11th state to ratify the Constitution
    • 1797  John Quincy Adams marries Louisa Johnson; she will become the 1st and only foreign-born first-lady
    • 1908  Office of the Chief Examiner hires a group of investigators, in 1935 this group becomes the FBI
    • 1941  President Franklin Roosevelt orders the seizure of all Japanese assets after invasion of French Indo-China
    • 1947  President Truman signs National Security Act creating Department of Defense, National Security Council, and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
    • 1971  Apollo 15 launches carrying the Lunar Rover
    • 1990  President George H. W. Bush signs into law the Americans with Disabilities Act
    • 2008 Islamic militants set off 21 bombs in 70 minutes in Ahmedabad, India; 56 killed and over 200 injured

Benjamin Franklin appears on the first postage stamp issued in the United States

What kind of governtment do YOU want?

A chronic lack of understanding amongst the voting public has brought us to the place we are today.  So many people can’t articulate the difference between a democracy and a republic or even why the difference matters.  This leads to a greater misunderstanding of what constitutes a “right” and that with rights come responsibility and obligation.  Here’s a great video on the differences between political systems, what type of system we were meant to have, and why our government today has far overreached the limits the founders placed on it.

(Hat tip to Sgt. Dave and Chuck L on FB)

Lost and Found – July 25th Edition

What to remember about July 25th…

  • 1780  General Horatio Gates takes command of southern Continental forces
  • 1861  Congress passes Crittendon-Johnson Resolution stating that the war is for reunion not to end slavery
  • 1866  Future president Ulysses S. Grant promoted to the rank of General of the Army
  • 1868  Wyoming becomes a U.S. territory
  • 1897  American author Jack London takes sail for the Klondike gold rush
  • 1898  U.S. forces begin invasion of Puerto Rico during that Spanish-American War
  • 1943  Benito Mussolini voted out of power and arrested
  • 1985  American actor Rock Hudson is 1st celebrity to announce that he has AIDS
  • 1994   Israel and Jordan sign Washington Declaration formally ending the state of war begun in 1948
  • 2000  1st and only crash of a supersonic Concorde Jet