Learning from one's mistakes
There's a famous quote that's attributed to Albert Einstein that goes "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Remember the Tailhook scancal involving Navy officers took place more than two decades ago? Much was supposedly done to prevent that kind of thing from taking place in the future. Yet on Tuesday, the former commander of the Navy's Blue Angels was found guilty of allowing sexual harassment to take place in the unit he commanded.
He allowed pornography to be inside the cockpits of the squadron's F/A-18 aircraft. He was okay with porno being on the unit's restricted website. He permitted a painting of male genitalia to reside on the roof of the Blue Angels' winter headquarters building in El Centro. Has nothing changed in 23 years? We hear over and over again that there are serious problems involving sexual assault and harassment in the military.
We have a high ranking officer, Captain Gregory McWherter, who condoned and permitted such behavior in his unit getting off practically scott-free. He was given a non-judicial punitive letter of reprimand at an Admiral's Mast. That's a punishment under Article 15 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and while it effectively ends Captain McWheter's career, that's not all that big a deal. He received his naval commission in 1990. So he has his twenty years of service in, and is eligible to retire. He will probably get more than 50% of his current monthly base pay of $9,625.30 in retirement pay after a few more months on active duty.
Once again, a high-ranking officer has basically avoided prosecution and being held to answer for things that enlisted personnel routinely get sent to prison for. This double-standard is one of the primary reasons commanders don't feel any pressure to do anything about this pervasive problem. I won't bore you with the latest statistics on assaults and harassment of women in the service.
23 years and no progress. Sad.
* * *
President Obama is right. We as a nation have an obligation to bring every single member of our military who has deployed in the service of the country. Even if they are deserters. We don't know for sure just how Sgt Bowe Bergdahl came to be a prisoner. I'm listening to the leader of his team speaking to CNN and claiming that Sgt Bergdahl did indeed just 'walk away.'
That's a separate issue. That's for an investigation, perhaps a formal Article 32 hearing. But the decision to bring him home was the right call.
As for whether or not the President had a duty to notify Congress 30 days in advance, while the discussions that the Obama Administration was having with Congress about the possibility of this trade being made did take place; they do not constitute the formal notice required by law. They are tap-dancing around the issue. Nor does the President's "signature statement" when he signed this law any authority for him to make this move unilaterally.
I remain convinced that the section of the 2013 Defense spending authorization that contains this requirement to "...notify the relevant committees of the Congress..." is not constitutional. I also believe the War Powers Resolution is probably unconstitutional and no President has yet been held to answer for what critics have called violation of that act of Congress.
You can debate the rightness or wrongness of the trade itself, but it seems clear to me that the President has the right to make this decision.
* * *
It's a warm spring evening and you've decided to venture out to a professional sports contest. You drive onto the property of the pro team you're going to watch, pay to park and then go inside to enjoy your overpriced tickets.
After the game ends, or in your mind it's time to get in the car to beat the traffic, you leave the venue and head out into their parking lot. You get in your car, lock the doors and drive away.
Just when did sole responsibility for your safety and well-being stop being yours and yours alone? When you drove onto the property? When you exited your car? When you entered the stadium? When do you once again become solely responsible for that safety and well-being after the event? At the gates? At the door to your car? Or when you drive off of the team's property?
The lawsuit by Bryan Stow against Frank McCourt and the Dodgers explores these questions. A former member of the Dodgers security force, who happens to be a retired L. A. County deputy sheriff's sergeant testified that he'd notified the team the lighting and security plan for the post-game situation in the parking lots was inadequate.
In my mind, a pro sports team assumes at least part of the responsibility and the liability for the safety of the fans attending their games from the moment they set foot on property operated and/or managed by the team. That means all of the space in the parking lots of Chavez Ravine and every inch of space inside the stadium.
If having adequate security means spending money, then just raise the price of tickets. Or parking. Or whatever. The guy who testified that security was inadequate was providing personal security for former Dodgers owner Frank McCourt on the night Brian Stow was nearly beaten to death. If the owner of the team needs personal security inside the stadium, what does that say about the fans sitting in the seats? Do they provide that serious a risk to his health and well-being? Obviously some of them do.
When I was younger, and thought I was invulnerable, I wouldn't think twice about going to any sporting event. Now, given what I'm seeing and reading about, I would never go into a team's stadium wearing the gear of the visiting team. I don't need the aggravation. You couldn't pay me enough to go to a home game of the L. A. Raiders. Most of their fans are just passionate about their team, but some of them are just dangerous.
Going to a game should be safe. For everyone.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
Jonah Hill manned up right away and apologized. Given all of his good works before this verbal gaffe, he should be forgiven and the matter put behind us. He is a good guy.
So the new Playboy Playmate of the year is in school to become a plastic surgeon. There's just too many ways to go with that to pick only one.
Yes, Karl Lagerfeld ripped off the New Balance shoe logo design.
Chris Paul has it all, major skills, a big contract with the Clippers and now an autographed photo of none other than Kelly Kapowski herself. That's an awesome birthday gift he got from Tiffani Thiessen.
The Russians need to stop "buzzing" U.S. Military aircraft and ships.
Why is it people think that they can make money from online rentals and they shouldn't pay taxes on the net income?
Zachary Picket was 16 when he was working as a lifeguard and became paralyzed from the waist down in an accident. He surprised everyone by getting out of the wheelchair and walking across the stage to get his high school diploma. The video of this is inspiring.
U. S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wants to "get the shady money" out of politics. He's behind a doomed-to-fail effort to amend the U. S. Constitution to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v FEC, and limit contributions by corporations. Reporter's note: According to the Center for Responsive Politics, more than 20% of the total campaign funds raised by Reid since 2009 have come from PACs. Clearly he doesn't have a problem taking "shady money."
ABC has a new Karaoke-type show and this video says all that needs to be said about it.
Robert Creamer's blog on attacks on Sgt Bowe Bergdahl fails utterly when he describes Bergdahl's leaving his unit as "...violation of a rule." Desertion in the face of the enemy is not just a rule. Can we just let this process go forward and let the military do a proper, thorough investigation before making it a partisan issue?
Why would 250,000 California voters cast ballots for a politician running for Secretary of State who has been indicted for gun running and corruption? Ignorance? Apathy?
* * *
June 14th in History:
1039 – Henry III becomes Holy Roman Emperor.
1411 – King Charles VI granted a monopoly for the ripening of Roquefort cheese to the people of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon as they had been doing for centuries.
1615 – Siege of Osaka: Forces under Tokugawa Ieyasu take Osaka Castle in Japan.
1745 – Battle of Hohenfriedberg: Frederick the Great's Prussian army decisively defeated an Austrian army under Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine during the War of the Austrian Succession.
1760 – Great Upheaval: New England planters arrive to claim land in Nova Scotia, Canada, taken from the Acadians.
1783 – The Montgolfier brothers publicly demonstrate their montgolfière (hot air balloon).
1792 – Captain George Vancouver claims Puget Sound for the Kingdom of Great Britain.
1794 – British troops capture Port-au-Prince in Haiti.
1802 – Grieving over the death of his wife, Marie Clotilde of France, King Charles Emmanuel IV of Sardinia abdicates his throne in favor of his brother, Victor Emmanuel.
1812 – Following Louisiana's admittance as a U.S. state, the Louisiana Territory is renamed the Missouri Territory.
1825 – General Lafayette, a French officer in the American Revolutionary War, speaks at what would become Lafayette Square, Buffalo, during his visit to the United States.
1855 – Major Henry C. Wayne departs New York aboard the USS Supply to procure camels to establish the U.S. Camel Corps.
1859 – Italian Independence wars: In the Battle of Magenta, the French army, under Louis-Napoleon, defeat the Austrian army.
1862 – American Civil War: Confederate troops evacuate Fort Pillow on the Mississippi River, leaving the way clear for Union troops to take Memphis, Tennessee.
1876 – An express train called the Transcontinental Express arrives in San Francisco, California, via the First Transcontinental Railroad only 83 hours and 39 minutes after leaving New York City.
1878 – Cyprus Convention: The Ottoman Empire cedes Cyprus to the United Kingdom but retains nominal title.
1896 – Henry Ford completes the Ford Quadricycle, his first gasoline-powered automobile, and gives it a successful test run.
1912 – Massachusetts becomes the first state of the United States to set a minimum wage.
1913 – Emily Davison, a suffragette, runs out in front of King George V's horse, Anmer, at the Epsom Derby. She is trampled, never regains consciousness and dies a few days later.
1916 – World War I: Russia opens the Brusilov Offensive with an artillery barrage of Austro-Hungarian lines in Galicia.
1917 – The first Pulitzer Prizes are awarded: Laura E. Richards, Maude H. Elliott, and Florence Hall receive the first Pulitzer for biography (for Julia Ward Howe). Jean Jules Jusserand receives the first Pulitzer for history for his work With Americans of Past and Present Days. Herbert B. Swope receives the first Pulitzer for journalism for his work for the New York World.
1919 – Women's rights: The U.S. Congress approves the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees suffrage to women, and sends it to the U.S. states for ratification.
1920 – Hungary loses 71% of its territory and 63% of its population when the Treaty of Trianon is signed in Paris.
1928 – The President of the Republic of China, Zhang Zuolin, is assassinated by Japanese agents.
1932 – Marmaduke Grove and other Chilean military officers lead a coup d'etat establishing the short-lived Socialist Republic of Chile.
1939 – Holocaust: The MS St. Louis, a ship carrying 963 Jewish refugees, is denied permission to land in Florida, in the United States, after already being turned away from Cuba. Forced to return to Europe, more than 200 of its passengers later die in Nazi concentration camps.
1940 – World War II: The Dunkirk evacuation ends – British forces complete evacuation of 338,000 troops from Dunkirk in France. To rally the morale of the country, Winston Churchill delivers his famous "We shall fight on the beaches" speech.
1942 – World War II: The Battle of Midway begins. The Japanese Admiral Chuichi Nagumo orders a strike on Midway Island by much of the Imperial Japanese navy.
1943 – A military coup in Argentina ousts Ramón Castillo.
1944 – World War II: A hunter-killer group of the United States Navy captures the German submarine U-505 – the first time a U.S. Navy vessel had captured an enemy vessel at sea since the 19th century.
1944 – World War II: Rome falls to the Allies, the first Axis capital to fall.
1957 – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous Power of Nonviolence speech at the University of California, Berkeley.
1961 – In the Vienna summit, the Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev sparks the Berlin Crisis by threatening to sign a separate peace treaty with East Germany and ending American, British and French access to East Berlin.
1965 – Duane Earl Pope robs the Farmers' State Bank of Big Springs, Nebraska, killing three people execution-style and severely wounding a fourth. The crime later puts Pope on the FBI Ten Most Wanted list.
1967 – Stockport Air Disaster: British Midland flight G-ALHG crashes in Hopes Carr, Stockport, killing 72 passengers and crew.
1970 – Tonga gains independence from the United Kingdom.
1974 – During Ten Cent Beer Night, inebriated Cleveland Indians fans start a riot, causing the game to be forfeited to the Texas Rangers.
1975 – The Governor of California Jerry Brown signs the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act into law, the first law in the U.S. giving farmworkers collective bargaining rights.
1979 – Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings takes power in Ghana after a military coup in which General Fred Akuffo is overthrown.
1986 – Jonathan Pollard pleads guilty to espionage for selling top secret United States military intelligence to Israel.
1988 – Three cars on a train carrying hexogen to Kazakhstan explode in Arzamas, Gorky Oblast, USSR, killing 91 and injuring about 1,500.
1989 – Ali Khamenei is elected as the new Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran by the Assembly of Experts after the death and funeral of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
1989 – The Tiananmen Square protests are violently ended in Beijing by the People's Liberation Army, with at least 241 dead.
1989 – Solidarity's victory in the first (somewhat) free parliamentary elections in post-war Poland sparks off a succession of peaceful anti-communist revolutions in Eastern Europe, leads to the creation of the so-called Contract Sejm and begins the Autumn of Nations.
1989 – Ufa train disaster: A natural gas explosion near Ufa, Russia, kills 575 as two trains passing each other throw sparks near a leaky pipeline.
1996 – The first flight of Ariane 5 explodes after roughly 37 seconds. It was a Cluster mission.
1998 – Terry Nichols is sentenced to life in prison for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing.
2001 – Gyanendra, the last King of Nepal, ascends to the throne after the massacre in the Royal Palace.
2004 – Marvin Heemeyer's eventually suicidal protest rampage with an improvised bulletproofed bulldozer destroys 13 buildings in Granby, Colorado, including the town hall.
2010 – Falcon 9 Flight 1 is the maiden flight of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which launches from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Space Launch Complex 40.
2012 – The Diamond Jubilee Concert is held outside Buckingham Palace on The Mall, London. Organised by Gary Barlow, the concert is part of Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee celebrations.
Famous Folk Born on June 4th:
George III of the United Kingdom
Constant Prevost
Rosalind Russell
Don Diamond
Dennis Weaver
Robert Earl Hughes
Bruce Dern
Freddy Fender
Robert Fulghum
Roger Ball
Michelle Phillips
George Noory
David Yip
Parker Stevenson
Linda Lingle
Keith David
Eddie Velez
El DeBarge
Andrea Jaeger
Robert S. Kimbrough
Izabella Scorupco
Angelina Jolie
Bar Rafaeli
Oona Chaplin
He allowed pornography to be inside the cockpits of the squadron's F/A-18 aircraft. He was okay with porno being on the unit's restricted website. He permitted a painting of male genitalia to reside on the roof of the Blue Angels' winter headquarters building in El Centro. Has nothing changed in 23 years? We hear over and over again that there are serious problems involving sexual assault and harassment in the military.
We have a high ranking officer, Captain Gregory McWherter, who condoned and permitted such behavior in his unit getting off practically scott-free. He was given a non-judicial punitive letter of reprimand at an Admiral's Mast. That's a punishment under Article 15 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and while it effectively ends Captain McWheter's career, that's not all that big a deal. He received his naval commission in 1990. So he has his twenty years of service in, and is eligible to retire. He will probably get more than 50% of his current monthly base pay of $9,625.30 in retirement pay after a few more months on active duty.
Once again, a high-ranking officer has basically avoided prosecution and being held to answer for things that enlisted personnel routinely get sent to prison for. This double-standard is one of the primary reasons commanders don't feel any pressure to do anything about this pervasive problem. I won't bore you with the latest statistics on assaults and harassment of women in the service.
23 years and no progress. Sad.
* * *
President Obama is right. We as a nation have an obligation to bring every single member of our military who has deployed in the service of the country. Even if they are deserters. We don't know for sure just how Sgt Bowe Bergdahl came to be a prisoner. I'm listening to the leader of his team speaking to CNN and claiming that Sgt Bergdahl did indeed just 'walk away.'
That's a separate issue. That's for an investigation, perhaps a formal Article 32 hearing. But the decision to bring him home was the right call.
As for whether or not the President had a duty to notify Congress 30 days in advance, while the discussions that the Obama Administration was having with Congress about the possibility of this trade being made did take place; they do not constitute the formal notice required by law. They are tap-dancing around the issue. Nor does the President's "signature statement" when he signed this law any authority for him to make this move unilaterally.
I remain convinced that the section of the 2013 Defense spending authorization that contains this requirement to "...notify the relevant committees of the Congress..." is not constitutional. I also believe the War Powers Resolution is probably unconstitutional and no President has yet been held to answer for what critics have called violation of that act of Congress.
You can debate the rightness or wrongness of the trade itself, but it seems clear to me that the President has the right to make this decision.
* * *
It's a warm spring evening and you've decided to venture out to a professional sports contest. You drive onto the property of the pro team you're going to watch, pay to park and then go inside to enjoy your overpriced tickets.
After the game ends, or in your mind it's time to get in the car to beat the traffic, you leave the venue and head out into their parking lot. You get in your car, lock the doors and drive away.
Just when did sole responsibility for your safety and well-being stop being yours and yours alone? When you drove onto the property? When you exited your car? When you entered the stadium? When do you once again become solely responsible for that safety and well-being after the event? At the gates? At the door to your car? Or when you drive off of the team's property?
The lawsuit by Bryan Stow against Frank McCourt and the Dodgers explores these questions. A former member of the Dodgers security force, who happens to be a retired L. A. County deputy sheriff's sergeant testified that he'd notified the team the lighting and security plan for the post-game situation in the parking lots was inadequate.
In my mind, a pro sports team assumes at least part of the responsibility and the liability for the safety of the fans attending their games from the moment they set foot on property operated and/or managed by the team. That means all of the space in the parking lots of Chavez Ravine and every inch of space inside the stadium.
If having adequate security means spending money, then just raise the price of tickets. Or parking. Or whatever. The guy who testified that security was inadequate was providing personal security for former Dodgers owner Frank McCourt on the night Brian Stow was nearly beaten to death. If the owner of the team needs personal security inside the stadium, what does that say about the fans sitting in the seats? Do they provide that serious a risk to his health and well-being? Obviously some of them do.
When I was younger, and thought I was invulnerable, I wouldn't think twice about going to any sporting event. Now, given what I'm seeing and reading about, I would never go into a team's stadium wearing the gear of the visiting team. I don't need the aggravation. You couldn't pay me enough to go to a home game of the L. A. Raiders. Most of their fans are just passionate about their team, but some of them are just dangerous.
Going to a game should be safe. For everyone.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
Jonah Hill manned up right away and apologized. Given all of his good works before this verbal gaffe, he should be forgiven and the matter put behind us. He is a good guy.
So the new Playboy Playmate of the year is in school to become a plastic surgeon. There's just too many ways to go with that to pick only one.
Yes, Karl Lagerfeld ripped off the New Balance shoe logo design.
Chris Paul has it all, major skills, a big contract with the Clippers and now an autographed photo of none other than Kelly Kapowski herself. That's an awesome birthday gift he got from Tiffani Thiessen.
The Russians need to stop "buzzing" U.S. Military aircraft and ships.
Why is it people think that they can make money from online rentals and they shouldn't pay taxes on the net income?
Zachary Picket was 16 when he was working as a lifeguard and became paralyzed from the waist down in an accident. He surprised everyone by getting out of the wheelchair and walking across the stage to get his high school diploma. The video of this is inspiring.
U. S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wants to "get the shady money" out of politics. He's behind a doomed-to-fail effort to amend the U. S. Constitution to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v FEC, and limit contributions by corporations. Reporter's note: According to the Center for Responsive Politics, more than 20% of the total campaign funds raised by Reid since 2009 have come from PACs. Clearly he doesn't have a problem taking "shady money."
ABC has a new Karaoke-type show and this video says all that needs to be said about it.
Robert Creamer's blog on attacks on Sgt Bowe Bergdahl fails utterly when he describes Bergdahl's leaving his unit as "...violation of a rule." Desertion in the face of the enemy is not just a rule. Can we just let this process go forward and let the military do a proper, thorough investigation before making it a partisan issue?
Why would 250,000 California voters cast ballots for a politician running for Secretary of State who has been indicted for gun running and corruption? Ignorance? Apathy?
* * *
June 14th in History:
1039 – Henry III becomes Holy Roman Emperor.
1411 – King Charles VI granted a monopoly for the ripening of Roquefort cheese to the people of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon as they had been doing for centuries.
1615 – Siege of Osaka: Forces under Tokugawa Ieyasu take Osaka Castle in Japan.
1745 – Battle of Hohenfriedberg: Frederick the Great's Prussian army decisively defeated an Austrian army under Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine during the War of the Austrian Succession.
1760 – Great Upheaval: New England planters arrive to claim land in Nova Scotia, Canada, taken from the Acadians.
1783 – The Montgolfier brothers publicly demonstrate their montgolfière (hot air balloon).
1792 – Captain George Vancouver claims Puget Sound for the Kingdom of Great Britain.
1794 – British troops capture Port-au-Prince in Haiti.
1802 – Grieving over the death of his wife, Marie Clotilde of France, King Charles Emmanuel IV of Sardinia abdicates his throne in favor of his brother, Victor Emmanuel.
1812 – Following Louisiana's admittance as a U.S. state, the Louisiana Territory is renamed the Missouri Territory.
1825 – General Lafayette, a French officer in the American Revolutionary War, speaks at what would become Lafayette Square, Buffalo, during his visit to the United States.
1855 – Major Henry C. Wayne departs New York aboard the USS Supply to procure camels to establish the U.S. Camel Corps.
1859 – Italian Independence wars: In the Battle of Magenta, the French army, under Louis-Napoleon, defeat the Austrian army.
1862 – American Civil War: Confederate troops evacuate Fort Pillow on the Mississippi River, leaving the way clear for Union troops to take Memphis, Tennessee.
1876 – An express train called the Transcontinental Express arrives in San Francisco, California, via the First Transcontinental Railroad only 83 hours and 39 minutes after leaving New York City.
1878 – Cyprus Convention: The Ottoman Empire cedes Cyprus to the United Kingdom but retains nominal title.
1896 – Henry Ford completes the Ford Quadricycle, his first gasoline-powered automobile, and gives it a successful test run.
1912 – Massachusetts becomes the first state of the United States to set a minimum wage.
1913 – Emily Davison, a suffragette, runs out in front of King George V's horse, Anmer, at the Epsom Derby. She is trampled, never regains consciousness and dies a few days later.
1916 – World War I: Russia opens the Brusilov Offensive with an artillery barrage of Austro-Hungarian lines in Galicia.
1917 – The first Pulitzer Prizes are awarded: Laura E. Richards, Maude H. Elliott, and Florence Hall receive the first Pulitzer for biography (for Julia Ward Howe). Jean Jules Jusserand receives the first Pulitzer for history for his work With Americans of Past and Present Days. Herbert B. Swope receives the first Pulitzer for journalism for his work for the New York World.
1919 – Women's rights: The U.S. Congress approves the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees suffrage to women, and sends it to the U.S. states for ratification.
1920 – Hungary loses 71% of its territory and 63% of its population when the Treaty of Trianon is signed in Paris.
1928 – The President of the Republic of China, Zhang Zuolin, is assassinated by Japanese agents.
1932 – Marmaduke Grove and other Chilean military officers lead a coup d'etat establishing the short-lived Socialist Republic of Chile.
1939 – Holocaust: The MS St. Louis, a ship carrying 963 Jewish refugees, is denied permission to land in Florida, in the United States, after already being turned away from Cuba. Forced to return to Europe, more than 200 of its passengers later die in Nazi concentration camps.
1940 – World War II: The Dunkirk evacuation ends – British forces complete evacuation of 338,000 troops from Dunkirk in France. To rally the morale of the country, Winston Churchill delivers his famous "We shall fight on the beaches" speech.
1942 – World War II: The Battle of Midway begins. The Japanese Admiral Chuichi Nagumo orders a strike on Midway Island by much of the Imperial Japanese navy.
1943 – A military coup in Argentina ousts Ramón Castillo.
1944 – World War II: A hunter-killer group of the United States Navy captures the German submarine U-505 – the first time a U.S. Navy vessel had captured an enemy vessel at sea since the 19th century.
1944 – World War II: Rome falls to the Allies, the first Axis capital to fall.
1957 – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous Power of Nonviolence speech at the University of California, Berkeley.
1961 – In the Vienna summit, the Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev sparks the Berlin Crisis by threatening to sign a separate peace treaty with East Germany and ending American, British and French access to East Berlin.
1965 – Duane Earl Pope robs the Farmers' State Bank of Big Springs, Nebraska, killing three people execution-style and severely wounding a fourth. The crime later puts Pope on the FBI Ten Most Wanted list.
1967 – Stockport Air Disaster: British Midland flight G-ALHG crashes in Hopes Carr, Stockport, killing 72 passengers and crew.
1970 – Tonga gains independence from the United Kingdom.
1974 – During Ten Cent Beer Night, inebriated Cleveland Indians fans start a riot, causing the game to be forfeited to the Texas Rangers.
1975 – The Governor of California Jerry Brown signs the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act into law, the first law in the U.S. giving farmworkers collective bargaining rights.
1979 – Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings takes power in Ghana after a military coup in which General Fred Akuffo is overthrown.
1986 – Jonathan Pollard pleads guilty to espionage for selling top secret United States military intelligence to Israel.
1988 – Three cars on a train carrying hexogen to Kazakhstan explode in Arzamas, Gorky Oblast, USSR, killing 91 and injuring about 1,500.
1989 – Ali Khamenei is elected as the new Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran by the Assembly of Experts after the death and funeral of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
1989 – The Tiananmen Square protests are violently ended in Beijing by the People's Liberation Army, with at least 241 dead.
1989 – Solidarity's victory in the first (somewhat) free parliamentary elections in post-war Poland sparks off a succession of peaceful anti-communist revolutions in Eastern Europe, leads to the creation of the so-called Contract Sejm and begins the Autumn of Nations.
1989 – Ufa train disaster: A natural gas explosion near Ufa, Russia, kills 575 as two trains passing each other throw sparks near a leaky pipeline.
1996 – The first flight of Ariane 5 explodes after roughly 37 seconds. It was a Cluster mission.
1998 – Terry Nichols is sentenced to life in prison for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing.
2001 – Gyanendra, the last King of Nepal, ascends to the throne after the massacre in the Royal Palace.
2004 – Marvin Heemeyer's eventually suicidal protest rampage with an improvised bulletproofed bulldozer destroys 13 buildings in Granby, Colorado, including the town hall.
2010 – Falcon 9 Flight 1 is the maiden flight of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which launches from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Space Launch Complex 40.
2012 – The Diamond Jubilee Concert is held outside Buckingham Palace on The Mall, London. Organised by Gary Barlow, the concert is part of Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee celebrations.
Famous Folk Born on June 4th:
George III of the United Kingdom
Constant Prevost
Rosalind Russell
Don Diamond
Dennis Weaver
Robert Earl Hughes
Bruce Dern
Freddy Fender
Robert Fulghum
Roger Ball
Michelle Phillips
George Noory
David Yip
Parker Stevenson
Linda Lingle
Keith David
Eddie Velez
El DeBarge
Andrea Jaeger
Robert S. Kimbrough
Izabella Scorupco
Angelina Jolie
Bar Rafaeli
Oona Chaplin
posted by me at 1:26 PM
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