Highlights of this day in history: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi born; President Woodrow Wilson suffers a stroke; Thurgood Marshall is sworn in as the first African-American justice of United States Supreme Court; Rock Hudson dies; Groucho Marx born; Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz is first published; Gordon Sumner is born.
Other notable October 2nd events include:
1535 – Jacques Cartier discovers Montreal, Quebec.
1780 – John André, British Army officer of the American Revolutionary War, is hanged as a spy by American forces.
1789 – George Washington sends the proposed Constitutional amendments (The United States Bill of Rights) to the States for ratification.
1944 – World War II: Nazi troops end the Warsaw Uprising.
1996 – The Electronic Freedom of Information Act Amendments are signed by U.S. President Bill Clinton.
2001 – NATO backs US military strikes following 9/11.
2002 – The Beltway sniper attacks begin, extending over three weeks.
2005 – NFL plays first regular season game outside United States when the Arizona Cardinals defeat the San Francisco 49ers 31-14 in Mexico City, Mexico.
2006 – Five school girls are murdered by Charles Carl Roberts in a shooting at an Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania before Roberts commits suicide.
Hi Pi-guy, and thanks. Small quibble with the 1535 post. Montreal wasn't discovered, it was founded. :)
ReplyDelete/technically he discovered an Iroquois village there that eventually became Montreal.
//Canadian pet peeve. :D
Yeah, but more people understand the significance than if I'd have said that Cartier discovered Hochelaga in 1535.
ReplyDelete(I really should be asleep, but I couldn't sleep and figured I'd check in to today's Time Capsule.)
White House Eyeing Narrower War Effort
ReplyDeleteSenior White House officials have begun to make the case for a policy shift in Afghanistan that would send few, if any, new combat troops to the country and instead focus on faster military training of Afghan forces, continued assassinations of al-Qaeda leaders and support for the government of neighboring Pakistan in its fight against the Taliban.
In a three-hour meeting Wednesday at the White House, senior advisers challenged some of the key assumptions in Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's blunt assessment of the nearly eight-year-old war, which President Obama has said is being fought to destroy al-Qaeda and its allies in Afghanistan and the ungoverned border areas of Pakistan.
McChrystal, commander of the 100,000 NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan, has asked Obama to quickly endorse his call for a change in military strategy and approve the additional resources he needs to retake the initiative from the resurgent Taliban.
But White House officials are resisting McChrystal's call for urgency, which he underscored Thursday during a speech in London, and questioning important elements of his assessment, which calls for a vast expansion of an increasingly unpopular war. One senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the meeting, said, "A lot of assumptions -- and I don't want to say myths, but a lot of assumptions -- were exposed to the light of day."
Among them, according to three senior administration officials who attended the meeting, is McChrystal's contention that the Taliban and al-Qaeda share the same strategic interests and that the return to power of the Taliban would automatically mean a new sanctuary for al-Qaeda.
/RUN AWAY!
KB: Of course, the Dems are no the party of NO! Especially when it comes to military affairs over seas. Only time they say yes is when they are handing out pork barrel projects to themselves.
ReplyDeleteBy the time I figure out the blogspot schedule we'll be outta here. :-/ (Couldn't decide whether to use a :-) or a :-( for that.)
ReplyDeleteI wonder anymore whether "senior WH officials" means Cabinet members, or Obama's coterie of radical "czars".
ReplyDeleteAccording to Power Line, Geithner, Voelker, et al. are upset about having no input to economic matters.
Just horrible employment numbers. Gee, I guess spending $1 trillion on absolutely stupid [expletive deleted] like frozen ham slices, turtle crossings, and outhouses in national parks was such a "stimulative" idea after all. Hey, {expletive deleted]holes, it's not working!
ReplyDeleteDOW futures down 117. Thanks Obama!
/and although it won't stop them, we're way beyond being able to blame Bush anymore
Killian, I am not really sure about this. Aren't most of the items in the stimulus bill scheduled to kick in about a year from now?
ReplyDeleteHiya maud. Always like your bakery drop offs. :)
Day job or no day job, I still have to be on my way.
ReplyDeleteHave a great day, and I hope I can catch up with you later.
And Paladin Phil, thanks for the tip about the new thread :-)
Thanks again for the goodies, maudgonne! :-)
ReplyDeletePaladinPhil said...
ReplyDeleteAren't most of the items in the stimulus bill scheduled to kick in about a year from now?
/even worse, all that will do is spike the debt and inflation, stimulus after the economy is already in recovery is a bad thing
Ha. The money is in somebody's pocket already.
ReplyDeleteYou guys have no faith in our glorious leader!
ReplyDeleteMe neither
Good Morning, all. Can I say that I get more done when I don't have to compose missives refuting nonsense and defending my basic beliefs. I do want to stay in practice, though.
ReplyDeleteIt's a good skill to have,just tiresome as an everyday thing.
Bye maud, good morning Desert Dog, Spenser (with an S).
ReplyDeleteGood morning, PP. You were BC, correct?
ReplyDeleteThat's correct Spenser. New place, new name, new attitude. :)
ReplyDelete/well maybe not the new attitude...
That's cool. Just wanted that for continuity and history.
ReplyDeleteKrauthammer does it again....
ReplyDeleteObama's French Lesson
WASHINGTON -- When France chides you for appeasement, you know you're scraping bottom. Just how low we've sunk was demonstrated by the Obama administration's satisfaction when Russia's president said of Iran, after meeting President Obama at the U.N., that "sanctions are seldom productive, but they are sometimes inevitable."
Hey, this is REALWEST from a moderate (59 degrees going to 78 degrees) mostly cloudy Charlotte! Hope y'all are doing well this morning.
ReplyDelete'Morning, {realwest}! :-)
ReplyDeleteSpenser! :-)
Desert Dog! :-)
Killian! :-)
Good morning realwest. Glad to see you this morning.
ReplyDeleteGood morning, RW!
ReplyDeleteOUr weather here in PHX is almost to the "bragging" level. The oven is almost off for the summer!
Good morning, LoL too!
ReplyDeleteIt's cold and drizzly here in West MI. I'm only working part-time now and I'd like to keep the furnace off as long as my dear bride allows.
ReplyDeleteSee you all later...gotta get the family pack out the door and off to school & work!
ReplyDeleteThinking of starting a sweater business - again.
ReplyDeleteBack when I was in school I sold sweaters out of my closet in the dorms. My uncle had a store on Orchard Street in NY and I'd go up there, load the car up with boxes and boxes of cheap sweaters, and come back to Philadelphia and run my little "cottage"...er CLOSET industry at Temple U.
At $1 profit per sweater I always had money.
/I vaguely remember having money... :-(
Anyway, it was illegal to do that, evidently, but I didn't find that out until after I'd already stopped! ;-)
Bye bye Desert Dog. :-)
ReplyDeleteLater Desert Dog. Have a good day
ReplyDeleteHi - good morning {littleoldlady} and Spenser (welcome aboard!) and Desert Dog and Killian - and anyone else I mighta missed cause I've only had 2/3 of one cuppa coffee so far!
ReplyDeleteAs for Killian's comment all I can say is what I said MUCH earlier this morning:
"Gee I wonder if that known war and military strategist Rahm Emmanuel weighed in on that, hmmm?
And I agree with your /RUN AWAY but the question is: WHERE TO?
General McCrystal's experience and expertise in this matter, not to mention that of the individual and collective Joint Chiefs of Staff being questioned by a Chicago Thug is more than I can take.
The Hubris of the White House is truly astounding, especially with regards to foreign affairs (look at Hillary's credentials - who could want a more qualifed Secretary of State - other than us and anyone else with a brain, I mean). And who could possibly think that we could have a better CiC than President Obama - or Vice-President Joe "plugs" Biden - one of whom has virtually NO FOREIGN POLICY BACKGROUND and one who's knowledge of the US Armed Forces was obtained by sitting his fat ass in a chair in the US Senate and listen to PROFESSIONAL WARRIORS testify as to their experiences and analysis? (and yes I know Biden's son is in the US military in Afghanistan -good on his son, doesn't say a damn thing about his father)."
And now we see that the august group of civilian leaders we have now, nearly 10 months into OBAMA'S presidency, has us up to 9.8% unemployment (and the Good Lord and maybe the IRS knows how much UNDER employment there is). Yeppers, that huge Stimulus Bill that Obama was campaigning for all around the country urging us not to bother wasting time, ya know, READING IT, it was SO URGENT -then after Congress passed it Obama took a 3 day weekend before he got around to signing it into law has done exactly what in terms of employment - or the economy? Hmmmmm?
And this Narcissistic Putz has the temerity to question the "assumptions" of a war, the nature of which Stanley McCrystal has been involved in fighting his entire career? Based on advice from Rahmm Emmanuel, Joe "Plugs" Biden and that Push Toy, Gates?
I feel like maybe I should go back to sleep and hope I wake up and the reality is different when I awake.
Gotta wonder if the Cards and 49ers brought back Swine Flu with them?
ReplyDeleteGood morning folks...
ReplyDeleteAmid the drumbeat of defeatism in the media, it seems they overlooked this major battle in Afghanistan:
Black Watch soldiers destroy Taliban stronghold in dramatic raid
Hundreds of soldiers from the Black Watch have destroyed a Taleban stronghold after uncovering a network of tunnels that concealed bomb factories, the Ministry of Defence said.
About 500 soldiers, including members of the Afghan National Army and Canadian experts, swooped into Howz-e-Maded in the Zhari district of Kandahar province in three waves of six Chinook helicopters.
They were dropped within touching distance of Taleban positions. The insurgents were taken by surprise and quickly overwhelmed. The raid, before dawn on September 14, was the last major assault carried out by The Black Watch before they are to return home.
The Black Watch (3rd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland) was supported by British, Canadian and US bombers [no Canadian, er, bombers, i.e. CF-18s, in Afstan], attack helicopters and unmanned drones. The target was known to be one of the biggest insurgent strongholds in southern Afghanistan...
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2009/10/black-watch-operation-in-zhari-district.html
Reward offered if you can find this story in the US or Canadian media.
Thanks Real. And Wyatt! I was just wondering about you. Good to see friends here.
ReplyDeleteAmen, realwest. I'm sensing Obama is getting ready to give McChrystal the finger. No more troops.
ReplyDeleteHi Kenneth and Howdy Wyatt! Good to see you both and iirc, Wyatt this is your first visit to C2?
ReplyDeleteWelcome aboard!!
Hope you both are doing well today.
And hey Wyatt, maybe you coud use your professional detective experience on my behalf: I use TypePad cause somewhere in the distant recesses of my mind, I signed up for TypePad to get into anothe Blogspot - maybe Babba Zee's when it first started - but for 10 days or so out here it started with "realwest" then, suddenly, they gave me a number and took away my name!
Wonder why they'd do that?!?
Aren't most of the items in the stimulus bill scheduled to kick in about a year from now?
ReplyDeleteOf course. That's why the bill had to be passed with such immediate urgency that no one was allowed to read it.
Mornin' realwest.
ReplyDeletethey gave me a number and took away my name!
I think I heard that in a song once.
Good Morning, all. Can I say that I get more done when I don't have to compose missives refuting nonsense and defending my basic beliefs
ReplyDeleteSpenser, turn was contemplating the same thing walking the lab yesterday. You know me well enough by now to realize that I pretty much avoid confrontation if possible. Why? Because 99% of the time it's a complete waste of time trying to change someone’s basic beliefs and it usually brings nothing but frustration, anger, and bitterness. Following the blogs for the last few years I've come to realize some people actually thrive on confrontation, usually the ones with superior intellects accompanied with even more superior egos. Yes, I know you know the people I’m referring to. Fine, let them have at it but what I enjoy on the blogs is the company of friends, the kind of friends that don't necessarily agree with you all the time but the kind of friends that respect your opinion or basic beliefs even thought they may run contrary to their own. The kind of friends that are willing to listen with an open mind and the kind of friends that are willing to change a basic belief when appropriate and admit they made a mistake. Don’t misunderstand me; turn is the first to call out utter bullshit or injustices that conflict with basic morality; especially when they involve me, my family, and my friends. Life is just to friggin short to get all worked up about trying to change people’s basic beliefs, I would rather spend my time with fiends. Oh, morning all. This is a early morning drive by post and I’ll see you all this afternoon.
Some interesting thoughts on the Obama admin's thinking on Af'stan. Two points are pushing Obama to say no to McChrystal:
ReplyDelete1. The Pakistanis are against it. From the Pakistani point of view the danger in giving McChrystal surge forces is that the US military might get ideas and go after the Taliban in Pakistan. The Pakistanis want a a tame and controlled Taliban, not a defeated Taliban.
2. Obama's leftist instinct is that a US military victory will only breed resentment among the vanquished, leading to more problems. Better to have a negotiated settlement in which everybody gets something, & we all join hands and sing.
To which I add a third factor preventing US military victory: Obama's ego. His ambition is to be the Man of Peace. He intends to solve all the world's problems by force of his winning personality, shear eloquence of speech and superior moral stance. Can't do that with nasty ol' guns and bombs.
Turn,
ReplyDeleteVery well said.
Crossroads
ReplyDeletehttp://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2009/10/01/6204/#more-6204
Morning all.
ReplyDeleteI'm thoroughly sick of seeing Barry on TV, but I actually hope he succeeds in getting the Olympics for 2016.
I know the city of Chicago is a huge pit of corruption and poverty, and that these things almost always lose money, but having the Games in the States is a pretty big deal to me. I'll personally begin trying to figure out how to attend the moment the announcement is made. I was lucky enough to spend a few days at Albertville/Meribel in '92 and it was unbelievably cool. Holding the Games here would give millions of Americans the chance to attend, and the rest of them could at least watch the events in real time on TV.
He intends to solve all the world's problems by force of his winning personality, shear eloquence of speech and superior moral stance.
ReplyDeleteI just threw up in my mouth a little.
Morning all.
ReplyDeleteFor you Pi Guy!
ReplyDeleteTime Time Time
Good morning UFO TOFU - maybe in this particular song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo3Wqf86N4w&feature=related
ReplyDelete?!
LOL!
Hey, POTUS is really fighting for something now.
ReplyDeleteWill America and Chicago survive until 2016?
How much will this one cost us and who's pockets are being padded this time?
Hey, good morning RW. How are you and Mom today?
ReplyDeleteUfo Tofu,
ReplyDeleteActually, it scares the sh*t outta me. The POTUS is a dangerous narcissistic fool.
Hey Kenneth and Jorline. I recognize those green flip-flops!
ReplyDeleteObama meets with McChrystal in Copenhagen
ReplyDeletePresident Obama unexpectedly Friday met in Copenhagen with Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, one day after the general spoke out publicly on his need for more troops.
The president and the general met on board Air Force One for about 25 minutes at the end of Mr. Obama's roughly five-hour visit to Copenhagen, where he made the case earlier Friday to the International Olympic Committee for why Chicago should host the 2016 Summer Olympics.
/Obama should have gone to Bagram
How are you Spenser. I'm glad you made it to C2.
ReplyDeleteSame nic...same flip-flops...beach attire.
Killian Bundy said... "Obama meets with McChrystal in Copenhagen"
ReplyDeleteFigures. Obama gets flak for not talking to McChrystal, so McChrystal has to go meet Obama in Denmark. I wonder if the General was allowed to speak.
Obama's French Lesson
ReplyDeleteBy Charles Krauthammer
"When France chides you for appeasement, you know you're scraping bottom."
RTWT!
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/10/02/obamas_french_lesson_98547.html
Killian
ReplyDeleteI hope the meeting was productive, and not merely a dressing down of the General for speaking out.
Get distracted by work and a whole bunch of people show up. Hello everybody. :)
ReplyDeleteHey y'all - sorry, meatworld & telephone call interrupted me!
ReplyDeleteKenneth - I understand what Belmont Club was saying and I STILL think the idea of Emmanuel, Biden, Gates and Obama making WAR PLANS for the US is a horrible, terrible mistake. And it's Narcissitic Putz, thankew very much.
None of those I mentioned has any military experience of which I'm aware, while Obama's HAND PICKED GENERAL to lead the "war effort" in Afgahnistan has spent probably 80+% of his military career in the US Army Special Forces - the "Green Berets" and he KNOWS in his BONES, what it's gonna take to put down the Taliban. The fact that every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff agree with him just bolsters that point.
We cannot allow the Taliban to "retake" control of Afghanistan. CAN NOT. Aside from the horrific nature of the last Taliban regmime, especially towards women and civilizatin in general, they did give AND WILL CONTINUE TO GIVE Al-Q a safe haven from which to recruit, raise funds, train and prepare for further attacks on the US. Just as they did (as per a VIDEO tape by bin Laden) for 9/11.
That ole "dumb as a box of rocks" George W. Bush undertood that. He also understood that to keep us safe, he needed to a)kill as many Al-Q as possible and to b) KEEP THEM ON THE RUN. Nothing that has been proposed by anyone other than MycCrystal would do that.
God help us all if the Narcissitic Putz gets his way and we try just drones and all. And while the Paki Army is a real force over there, the simple fact is that they too rely on the ISI for their intelligence and we all know how corrupt and fully infilitrated by Al-Q and Al-Q sympathizers the ISI is. And as Gen. McCrystal knows, as long as we stay within the Frontier provinces (and perhaps bribing the four most powerful war lords there) the Paki Army is gonna bitch and moan, but that's all that they'll do.
Howdy and welcome, Spenser with TWO S's!
ReplyDeleteSo realwest, tell us how you really feel. Good rant. I wish we had more politicians up here that served in the military.
ReplyDeleteHi there flip flops,er, Jorline! How are ya doing my friend?!
ReplyDeleteAny physicists here? My friend posted yesterday that her 3 kids were microwaving lunch. Her daughter pulled her son's bowl out of the microwave when he was out of the room before he could personally vouch for it's "doneness" He could not be satisfied that it was done or not done because he didn't see it happen. He ate it anyway. My friend's other (11 year old!) son said "It looks like Tim is eating Schrodinger's Lunch today."
ReplyDelete/ I only laughed because I saw an episode of Big Bang Theory that had explained Schrodinger's Cat to me.
Hey Robomonkey.
ReplyDeleteThe big problem I have with the Schrodinger's Cat metaphor is that the cat itself is capable of noticing whether or not it is dead, so the uncertainty will be resolved long before any additional observers open the box.
ReplyDelete6p - I came by on Wednesday and saw a lot of friendly faces. Good to see you here, sir!
ReplyDelete6p00e55005f9c78834 said...
ReplyDeleteHi there flip flops,er, Jorline! How are ya doing my friend?!
I'm well RW. I enjoyed your post, you need to rant more often my friend.
Please don't equate the flip-flops with JF'nK...lol
(I'm not a physicist, I'm just capable of spotting a metaphor that needs work.)
ReplyDeleteI'm not a physicist, but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night.
ReplyDeleterobomonkey: Nice nitpick. The problem though is that the cat isn't observing the experiment. A human is. So therefore it doesn't matter what the cat sees or doesn't see.
ReplyDeleteDid the express cause time dilation?
ReplyDelete<(I'm not a physicist, I'm just capable of spotting a metaphor that needs work.)>
ReplyDeleteMe either, but an 11 year old! My kids are scary -smart, but their kids scare me a little.
Yes, but the result of the experiment is that there is a 50-50 chance of the cat being poisoned. If the cat (or you, or I) is poisoned, we will die regardless of whether or not there are any external witnesses.
ReplyDeleteThe metaphor should have been set up with only inanimate objects, so that the only possible observers were the scientists. The whole "the cat is both dead and not dead until the box is opened" thing sounds really cool and impressive, and does make the point really well for people who might otherwise not understand, but it's still flawed.
Hey PaladinPhil - good to see you this morning!
ReplyDeleteAnd if you thought THAT was a rant...........well, maybe later when I have the time.
But I do want to clarify one thing: The USA has done pretty damn well with Civilians making the ultimate decisions on War and Peace and I'm glad that the US Military is under the control of the POTUS - even this one. Military types tend to have a narrower focus ("how can we kill the most of those mofo's the best") than do civilians. But when it comes to stategy and tactics IN AN EXISTING WAR, a SMART Potus would allow his HAND PICKED Military Leader make the plans, not his Chicago Thug Chief of Staff, and his push toy Sec Def.
What cause me the greatest amount of agita is that Obama a) doesn't "GET" the threat of the Taliban - at least in his oral pronouncements and b) found time to meet with HIS hand picked Commander there exactly twice - once by video conference and once for all of 25 minutes on a five hour plane trip.
As I said, a Narcissitic Putz.
That was an impressive joke from an 11 year old. Speaks well of the caliber of conversation he hears and/or participates in; and speaks well of him that he understood the concept well enough to make a joke out of it.
ReplyDeleteBasically, Realwest, it sounds like you think the POTUS should set the goals and overall strategy, but avoid micromanaging the generals who are far better equipped to implement that strategy and achieve those goals. Couldn't agree more, since we have concrete evidence of the disasters that occur when the POTUS gets too involved, micromanages, or mistakenly lets bad political decisions override military tactics.
ReplyDeleteGood morning, all! If you want your daily dose of news, snark, and pathetic attempts at humor, I've a new thread up. :)
ReplyDeleterealwest: you are bang on about the idiocy of Obama, Biden et al on military matters.
ReplyDeleteOne detail: McChrystal wasn't hand picked by Obama. He was picked by Petraeus, Mullen & Gates. Obama went along with it because it allowed him to get rid of the Bush appointee, McKeirnan, who was asking for more troops. Now McChrystal is asking for more troops Obama must be mighty peeved.
Obama was planning to redirect the Afghan war away from attacking Taliban & Al Qaeda to concentrating on Al Qaeda alone. He hoped McChrystal could finesse the war to an early close with Predator missile attacks on AQ camps along the Af-Pak border. McChrystal has scotched that unrealistic fancy. He says we need security in Afghanistan, which means more troops, we need to keep up the Predator attacks and even expand them to Quetta where the Taliban leadership is. The Pakistanis are dead-set against that last idea.
For Obama & co, it's not just a lack of competence that's the problem. They have a fundamental ideological objection to using US military power in an effective manner. They truly believe a US military victory will lead to a political and diplomatic failure. They are dead wrong of course.
Oh, you're discussing Schrödinger's Cat. Well, someone shave the damned thing with Occam's Razor, already, hey?
ReplyDeleterobomonkey - well if you insist in putting it in refined language, I guess that is what I'm saying.
ReplyDeleteEXCEPT - that the decision to wage war in Afghanistan was already made by the duly elected civilians who are supposed to do that. This current POTUS owes campaign debts to the extreme Left in this country and my fear is that he'll call the whole war OFF if he's convinced that Al-Quadea is no longer a threat to us, whereas the war in Afghanistan was STARTED by duly elected Civilain authorites who UNDERSTOOD what was at stake; it's just jaw dropping to me that Obama could "forget" how 9/11 occured and that it wouldn't have been possible without the Taliban "governing" or at least being the government of Afghanistan; but his LEFTIST supporters take that exact position. Bush understood that quite well. That little bit of information kept us safe from another 9/11 type tragedy.
Putting the USA at graver risk than it might otherwise be at, to satisfy a campaign debt is absloutely criminal.
Good morning Bare! Yep and they didn't even use shaving cream!
ReplyDeleteHope you're well today!
Chicago eliminated in the first round of voting at the IOC.
ReplyDelete