Thursday, December 28, 2023

December 27, 2023 Ridley's Believe It Or Not

 

© December 27, 2023  Ridley’s Believe It Or Not

             Baltimore State Attorney who made headlines for her prosecution of police officer for the killing of Freddie Gray while in police custody and who was found guilty of several counts of perjury about her financial condition has been hit a State Bar Petition seeking her immediate suspension from the practice of law.
              Consistent with a prevailing view among Christians of a War on Christmas by the left, the FTC announced on Wednesday the filing of a $40 million lawsuit against Grand Canyon University, the largest Christian University in the nation for deceptive advertising following on the heels of Biden’s DOE $37.7 million fine over lying about te cost of its doctoral programs.
              Fighting in Northern Israel is also intensifying as Hezbollah, backed by Iran seems hell bent to get involved in the Hamas Israel War as it launched  18 rockets at Rosh Hanikra, a coastal kibbutz supposedly trying to hit a naval base and failed and  launched 30 rockets at Kiryat Shmona, where residential buildings were damaged. 
              While our military aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan seems on a slow boat to nowhere, XI celebrating the anniversary of the birth of Mao, 130 years ago is touting that the reunification of China and Taiwan is inevitable as China continues with its destabilizing war games in the Taiwan theater.
               On the remove Trump from the ballot on the disgraced notion that entities other than Congress, courts, individuals and state of officials on what constitutes an insurrection, the Colorado Republican party has filed suit to keep Trump on the ballot and in Michigan some sanity on the issue as the Michigan Supreme Court has ruled against the effort to ban him from being on the ballot.
               On the Hamas Israeli War humanitarian aid front former Dutch Deputy Prime Minister Sigrid Kaag was hired as the United Nations coordinator for humanitarian aid to Gaza on Tuesday Kaag, who speaks Arabic fluently, is married to Anis al-Qaq, a former Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) official and should have intimate knowledge of how Hamas ousted the PLO from power and how it will do the same to coopt the humanitarian aid.
               On the illegal immigration front, Chicago Mayor Johnson had it had it less than half right that if the Biden Administration does not address the issue we are doomed but his call for addressing the issue is not securing the border and turning bogus asylum seekers back but more federal aid for housing, food, education, and legal assistance to avoid deportation which will increase the strength of the magnet attracting illegals.
            December 27, 2023  Michael P. Ridley aka The Alaskanpoet 
            Noted Holidays: National Fruit Cake Day: Clueless who created his observance but the fruitcake has been around since the time of the Roman Legions  marching across the known world and today a welcome or despised gift that if alcohol is added can be stored for many years. Nuts, fruits and fiber are welcome but not the sugar.
             Word of the Day: The word of the day as we continue with words starting with “b” is “brachymetropia” which means shortsighted which when applied to public corporations are to be castigated on focusing on quarter to quarter results as opposed to longer time frames.
              Song of the Day: Leaving the number 1 songs  on this day in 1940’s to come back to the number song in 1998 in the U.S.A.  was  “I’m Your Angel”  by R. Kelly and Céline Dion on a run of 4 weeks to share number 1 status with 14 other songs, while 10 acts achieved their first 1st number 1 single. Here is a music video of R. Kelly and Céline Dion performing “I’m Your Angel”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PlrjTLQego
               December 27 Birthdays: “Bitten by the Political Bug Is Hard to Recover From”: celebrating or bemoaning depending on your political affiliation the  birthday on this day in 1953 in the wealthy black Ashburton neighborhood of West Baltimore to become the first woman mayor of Baltimore and the third black mayor but whose career was cut short in an embezzlement scandal that forced her resignation. But once a politician always a politician as she has run for reelection and lost in 2016 and 2020 and in 2023 believing the third time is the charm announced she is running in 2024.
               December 27 Historical Events in Rhyme
               1.      On this day in 2008 Israel launched a 22 day attack against Hamas rocket and mortar sites/To degrade and minimize into the air against Israel taking flight/On the 4th of January Operation Casemate moved into Gaza to tunnels, command centers and military targets to destroy, In a crowded urban environment even with sophisticated bombs and missiles to employ/Collateral damage would be the rule not the exception/Civilian human and residential casualties almost from inception/The IDF claimed victory but October 7, 2023 proved urban warfare will otherwise peaceful citizens radicalize/Peace will be a far off dream if Jews and Hamas cannot learn to each other not demonize.
               2.      On this day in 2007 Benazir Bhutto, who had returned by exile to campaign to be prime minister for the third time/And had shortly after her return survived an assassination attempt by suicide bombers that 129 people had killed in a bloody crime/She was unhurt but reached out for more security from the government and private security firms but was denied/Standing up in an open vehicle visible from the street as a suicide bomber detonations and 3 gunshots as she quickly died.
               3.      On this day in 1991 a MD-91 jet after being parked overnight in freezing weather with a film of clear ice on the wings/Not visible so the ground crew another de-icing to the plane did not bring/Seconds into the flight the ice broke off and into the engines on each wing was ingested/Both engines failed and its climb past 3920 feet was arrested/Now a glider heading to the nearest emergency field/But the forces on a gliding plane do not yield/Landed tail first, wing sheared off sliding across the field to break into 3 parts/A miracle that only some injuries and no deaths in a landing not for the faint of heart.
              4.      On this Day in 1929 Joseph Stalin ordered the liquidation of the kulaks in Ukraine/through confiscation of the crops as even the seed crops the peasants could not retain/Millions starved and it is of no surprise/Ukrainians welcomed the Wehrmacht as heroes who would bring Stalin’s demise/Explains why Ukraine is fighting tooth and nail/To insure Putin’s ill-fated and unprovoked invasion will fail.
              5.      On this day in 1845 Journalist John L. Sullivan who had first used the term “Manifest Destiny” in his paper New York Morning Herald argued that the U.S. had the right to claim the entire Oregon Territory/James Polk who had campaigned on the slogan “54 40 or fight” did not want to fight a 2 front where death would outweigh the glory/Mexico on the south and England on the north when easier to  the existing northern border line extend/Would be a bloodless way to a potential 3rd war in 70 years come to an end/49th parallel to the sea/And still not mock the call for “manifest destiny.”
              Quote on America’s Manifest Destiny by Jeffrey Sachs, America’s Unholy Crusade Against China:
               “In 1845, John O’Sullivan coined the phrase “Manifest Destiny” to justify and celebrate America’s violent annexation of North America. ‘All this will be our future history,’ he wrote in 1839, ‘to establish on earth the moral dignity and salvation of man – the immutable truth and beneficence of God. For this blessed mission to the nations of the world, which are shut out from the life-giving light of truth, has America been chosen...’
               On the basis of such exalted views of its own beneficence, the US engaged in mass enslavement until the Civil War and mass apartheid thereafter; slaughtered Native Americans throughout the nineteenth century and subjugated them thereafter; and, with the closure of the Western frontier, extended Manifest Destiny overseas. Later, with the onset of the Cold War, anti-communist fervor led the US to fight disastrous wars in Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia) in the 1960s and 1970s, and brutal wars in Central America in the 1980s.
               After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the evangelical ardor was directed against “radical Islam” or “Islamic fascism,” with four US wars of choice – in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Libya – all of which remain debacles to this day. Suddenly, the supposed existential threat of radical Islam has been forgotten, and the new crusade targets the CPC.

              © December 27, 2023 Ridley’s Believe It Or Not
                  www.alaskanpoet.blogspot.com
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