Would you fly Malaysian Air?
Malaysian Air Flight MH-17 was apparently shot down near the border between Russia and the Ukraine. The reports claim the Boeing 777, on a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was carrying 280 passengers and 15 crew members. All are presumed to be dead.
Sources are claiming the airplane was shot down by a Surface to Air Missile (SAM) from a Buk launcher.
This was a weapons system that came into use before the Soviet Union ceased to exist, and it has been refined and updated since then. Both Russia and the Ukraine have this weapon so in theory the missile could have been fired by either the Ukraine, or the rebels being supplied with weapons by the Russians.
It seems likely that the rebels did this heinous act and that means the Russians are giving them even more support than first thought. The United States just imposed stronger sanctions against Russian in recent days and Vladimir Putin's response was that of a spoiled little boy being punished for eating too much cake.
It's been over 30 years since the Soviet Union shot down Korean Airlines Flight 007 with over 60 Americans onboard. There are unconfirmed reports that there were 23 Americans aboard MH-17. Will this result in more sanctions against Russia? Maybe.
If we were to view the world as a pot of water being heated by actions that increase international tensions, this event should be viewed as raising the temperature much closer to the boiling point.
* * *
The other big news item today was Israel sending ground forces into the Gaza Strip to attack Hamas. I don't think they plan to occupy the entire area, merely to destroy as much of the military infrastructure of Hamas as possible.
The issue of the divisions in the Middle East between Jews and Palestinians, between Sunni and Shiite Muslims and all the rest are never going to be resolved by violence. Israel can turn the entire area around it into a glowing parking lot that will be radioactive for a very long time if they are pushed far enough.
Wiser people will someday find a way to make peace in the region, but I doubt it will happen in my lifetime.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
If the economy is recovering, why is Microsoft about to lay off 14% of its workforce?
Ann Coulter has been railing about voter fraud for some time. Did she herself commit voter fraud? I dunno. Doesn't seem so from what I've read thus far. Stay tuned.
What kind of idiot spits in a woman's face because she's smoking near his business? Then he slaps her? Guess he will get his, since she turned out to be a judge.
I think the locations of Starbucks that aren't adhering to the company policy about limits on free drinks after customers have made 12 purchases are breaking the rules because it will bring in more business.
Supermodel Gisele Bundchen earns $128,000 per day. What I don't understand is why so many people have trouble understanding why she can command that kind of money.
A restaurant owner in England was forced by a court to share his lottery winnings with the waiter who persuaded him to buy the ticket.
I've read about some warning devices to remind a driver there's a kid in a car seat that needs to be removed from the vehicle, but none of them make a lot of sense to me. My thought was a sensor in the car seat that is connected to the car through the cigarette lighter. When the engine is set off, an alarm sounds if there is more than five pounds of weight being measured by the sensor in the car seat.
You've got to pour a lot of alcohol into your system to wind up in the hospital with alcohol poisoning. Seems kind of stupid, but then again it was Scott Disick who did it.
Thank goodness I hadn't eaten before watching Jerry Springer today. I might have had something in my stomach to vomit up when I saw some guy on the show eating marinara sauce off of a woman's foot.
I wouldn't fly on an airline that was shoehorning people in by using saddle seats.
Kids shouldn't sleep with their smartphones. In fact, no one should sleep with a smartphone.
Did Sir Paul McCartney really refuse Weird Al Yankovic's request to turn "Live and Let Die" into "Chicken Pot Pie" because Sir Paul is a vegetarian?
A school superintendent gets caught plagiarizing a speech and she's forced to resign. Senator Joe Biden plagiarized on more than one occasion and he wound up as Vice-President. Go figure.
* * *
July 18th in History:
390 BC – Roman-Gaulish Wars: Battle of the Allia – a Roman army is defeated by raiding Gauls, leading to the subsequent sacking of Rome.
362 – Roman–Persian Wars: Emperor Julian arrives at Antioch with a Roman expeditionary force (60,000 men) and stays there for nine months to launch a campaign against the Persian Empire.
645 – Chinese forces under general Li Shiji besiege the strategic fortress city of Anshi (Liaoning) during the Goguryeo–Tang War.
1290 – King Edward I of England issues the Edict of Expulsion, banishing all Jews (numbering about 16,000) from England; this was Tisha B'Av on the Hebrew calendar, a day that commemorates many Jewish calamities.
1334 – The bishop of Florence blesses the first foundation stone for the new campanile (bell tower) of the Florence Cathedral, designed by the artist Giotto di Bondone.
1342 – Mu'izz al-Din Husayn defeats the Sarbadars in the Battle of Zava.
1389 – France and England agree to the Truce of Leulinghem, inaugurating a 13-year peace, the longest period of sustained peace during the Hundred Years' War.
1391 – Tokhtamysh–Timur war: Battle of the Kondurcha River – Timur defeats Tokhtamysh of the Golden Horde in present day southeast Russia.
1555 – The College of Arms is reincorporated by Royal charter signed by Queen Mary I of England and King Philip II of Spain.
1812 – The Treaties of Orebro ends both the Anglo-Russian and Anglo-Swedish Wars.
1841 – Coronation of Emperor Pedro II of Brazil, on 18 July.
1857 – Louis Faidherbe, French governor of Senegal, arrives to relieve French forces at Kayes, effectively ending El Hajj Umar Tall's war against the French.
1862 – First ascent of Dent Blanche, one of the highest summits in the Alps.
1863 – American Civil War: Second Battle of Fort Wagner – one of the first formal African American military units, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, supported by several white regiments, attempts an unsuccessful assault on Confederate-held Battery Wagner.
1870 – The First Vatican Council decrees the dogma of papal infallibility.
1914 – The U.S. Congress forms the Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps, giving official status to aircraft within the U.S. Army for the first time.
1925 – Adolf Hitler publishes his personal manifesto Mein Kampf.
1936 – An army uprising in Spanish Morocco starts Spanish Civil War.
1942 – World War II: the Germans test fly the Messerschmitt Me 262 using its jet engines for the first time.
1944 – World War II: Hideki Tōjō resigns as Prime Minister of Japan because of numerous setbacks in the war effort.
1966 – Human spaceflight: Gemini 10 is launched from Cape Kennedy on a 70-hour mission that includes docking with an orbiting Agena target vehicle.
1968 – Intel is founded in Mountain View, California.
1969 – After a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Senator Ted Kennedy from Massachusetts drives an Oldsmobile off a bridge and his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, dies.
1976 – Nadia Comăneci became the first person in Olympic Games history to score a perfect 10 in gymnastics at the 1976 Summer Olympics.
1982 – Two hundred sixty-eight campesinos ("peasants" or "country people") are slain in the Plan de Sánchez massacre in Ríos Montt's Guatemala.
1984 – McDonald's massacre in San Ysidro, California: in a fast-food restaurant, James Oliver Huberty opens fire, killing 21 people and injuring 19 others before being shot dead by police.
1986 – A tornado is broadcast live on KARE television in Minnesota when the station's helicopter pilot makes a chance encounter.
1992 – The ten victims of the La Cantuta massacre disappear from their university in Lima.
1994 – The bombing of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (Argentine Jewish Community Center) in Buenos Aires kills 85 people (mostly Jewish) and injures 300.
1994 – Rwandan Genocide: The Rwandan Patriotic Front takes control of Gisenyi and north western Rwanda, forcing the interim government into Zaire and ending the genocide.
1995 – On the Caribbean island of Montserrat, the Soufrière Hills volcano erupts. Over the course of several years, it devastates the island, destroying the capital and forcing most of the population to flee.
1996 – Storms provoke severe flooding on the Saguenay River, beginning one of Quebec's costliest natural disasters ever: the Saguenay Flood.
1996 – Battle of Mullaitivu: the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam capture the Sri Lanka Army's base, killing over 1200 soldiers.
2012 – At least seven people are killed and 32 others are injured after a bomb explodes on an Israeli tour bus at Burgas Airport, Bulgaria.
2013 – The Government of Detroit, with up to $20 billion in debt, files for the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.
Famous Folk Born on July18th:
William Makepeace Thackery
Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor
Machine Gun Kelly
S. I. Hayakawa
Andrei Gromyko
Harriet Nelson
Hume Cronyn
Red Skelton
Marvin Miller
Nelson Mandela
John Glenn
Kurt Masur
Dick Button
Paul Verhoeven
James Brolin
Joe Torre
Martha Reeves
Steve Forbes
Richard Branson
Ricky Skaggs
Nick Faldo
Anne-Marie Johnson
Elizabeth McGovern
Marc Giardelli
Wendy Williams
Vin Diesel
Great Sasuke
Penny Hardaway
Valerie Cruz
Kristen Bell
Sources are claiming the airplane was shot down by a Surface to Air Missile (SAM) from a Buk launcher.
This was a weapons system that came into use before the Soviet Union ceased to exist, and it has been refined and updated since then. Both Russia and the Ukraine have this weapon so in theory the missile could have been fired by either the Ukraine, or the rebels being supplied with weapons by the Russians.
It seems likely that the rebels did this heinous act and that means the Russians are giving them even more support than first thought. The United States just imposed stronger sanctions against Russian in recent days and Vladimir Putin's response was that of a spoiled little boy being punished for eating too much cake.
It's been over 30 years since the Soviet Union shot down Korean Airlines Flight 007 with over 60 Americans onboard. There are unconfirmed reports that there were 23 Americans aboard MH-17. Will this result in more sanctions against Russia? Maybe.
If we were to view the world as a pot of water being heated by actions that increase international tensions, this event should be viewed as raising the temperature much closer to the boiling point.
* * *
The other big news item today was Israel sending ground forces into the Gaza Strip to attack Hamas. I don't think they plan to occupy the entire area, merely to destroy as much of the military infrastructure of Hamas as possible.
The issue of the divisions in the Middle East between Jews and Palestinians, between Sunni and Shiite Muslims and all the rest are never going to be resolved by violence. Israel can turn the entire area around it into a glowing parking lot that will be radioactive for a very long time if they are pushed far enough.
Wiser people will someday find a way to make peace in the region, but I doubt it will happen in my lifetime.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
If the economy is recovering, why is Microsoft about to lay off 14% of its workforce?
Ann Coulter has been railing about voter fraud for some time. Did she herself commit voter fraud? I dunno. Doesn't seem so from what I've read thus far. Stay tuned.
What kind of idiot spits in a woman's face because she's smoking near his business? Then he slaps her? Guess he will get his, since she turned out to be a judge.
I think the locations of Starbucks that aren't adhering to the company policy about limits on free drinks after customers have made 12 purchases are breaking the rules because it will bring in more business.
Supermodel Gisele Bundchen earns $128,000 per day. What I don't understand is why so many people have trouble understanding why she can command that kind of money.
A restaurant owner in England was forced by a court to share his lottery winnings with the waiter who persuaded him to buy the ticket.
I've read about some warning devices to remind a driver there's a kid in a car seat that needs to be removed from the vehicle, but none of them make a lot of sense to me. My thought was a sensor in the car seat that is connected to the car through the cigarette lighter. When the engine is set off, an alarm sounds if there is more than five pounds of weight being measured by the sensor in the car seat.
You've got to pour a lot of alcohol into your system to wind up in the hospital with alcohol poisoning. Seems kind of stupid, but then again it was Scott Disick who did it.
Thank goodness I hadn't eaten before watching Jerry Springer today. I might have had something in my stomach to vomit up when I saw some guy on the show eating marinara sauce off of a woman's foot.
I wouldn't fly on an airline that was shoehorning people in by using saddle seats.
Kids shouldn't sleep with their smartphones. In fact, no one should sleep with a smartphone.
Did Sir Paul McCartney really refuse Weird Al Yankovic's request to turn "Live and Let Die" into "Chicken Pot Pie" because Sir Paul is a vegetarian?
A school superintendent gets caught plagiarizing a speech and she's forced to resign. Senator Joe Biden plagiarized on more than one occasion and he wound up as Vice-President. Go figure.
* * *
July 18th in History:
390 BC – Roman-Gaulish Wars: Battle of the Allia – a Roman army is defeated by raiding Gauls, leading to the subsequent sacking of Rome.
362 – Roman–Persian Wars: Emperor Julian arrives at Antioch with a Roman expeditionary force (60,000 men) and stays there for nine months to launch a campaign against the Persian Empire.
645 – Chinese forces under general Li Shiji besiege the strategic fortress city of Anshi (Liaoning) during the Goguryeo–Tang War.
1290 – King Edward I of England issues the Edict of Expulsion, banishing all Jews (numbering about 16,000) from England; this was Tisha B'Av on the Hebrew calendar, a day that commemorates many Jewish calamities.
1334 – The bishop of Florence blesses the first foundation stone for the new campanile (bell tower) of the Florence Cathedral, designed by the artist Giotto di Bondone.
1342 – Mu'izz al-Din Husayn defeats the Sarbadars in the Battle of Zava.
1389 – France and England agree to the Truce of Leulinghem, inaugurating a 13-year peace, the longest period of sustained peace during the Hundred Years' War.
1391 – Tokhtamysh–Timur war: Battle of the Kondurcha River – Timur defeats Tokhtamysh of the Golden Horde in present day southeast Russia.
1555 – The College of Arms is reincorporated by Royal charter signed by Queen Mary I of England and King Philip II of Spain.
1812 – The Treaties of Orebro ends both the Anglo-Russian and Anglo-Swedish Wars.
1841 – Coronation of Emperor Pedro II of Brazil, on 18 July.
1857 – Louis Faidherbe, French governor of Senegal, arrives to relieve French forces at Kayes, effectively ending El Hajj Umar Tall's war against the French.
1862 – First ascent of Dent Blanche, one of the highest summits in the Alps.
1863 – American Civil War: Second Battle of Fort Wagner – one of the first formal African American military units, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, supported by several white regiments, attempts an unsuccessful assault on Confederate-held Battery Wagner.
1870 – The First Vatican Council decrees the dogma of papal infallibility.
1914 – The U.S. Congress forms the Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps, giving official status to aircraft within the U.S. Army for the first time.
1925 – Adolf Hitler publishes his personal manifesto Mein Kampf.
1936 – An army uprising in Spanish Morocco starts Spanish Civil War.
1942 – World War II: the Germans test fly the Messerschmitt Me 262 using its jet engines for the first time.
1944 – World War II: Hideki Tōjō resigns as Prime Minister of Japan because of numerous setbacks in the war effort.
1966 – Human spaceflight: Gemini 10 is launched from Cape Kennedy on a 70-hour mission that includes docking with an orbiting Agena target vehicle.
1968 – Intel is founded in Mountain View, California.
1969 – After a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Senator Ted Kennedy from Massachusetts drives an Oldsmobile off a bridge and his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, dies.
1976 – Nadia Comăneci became the first person in Olympic Games history to score a perfect 10 in gymnastics at the 1976 Summer Olympics.
1982 – Two hundred sixty-eight campesinos ("peasants" or "country people") are slain in the Plan de Sánchez massacre in Ríos Montt's Guatemala.
1984 – McDonald's massacre in San Ysidro, California: in a fast-food restaurant, James Oliver Huberty opens fire, killing 21 people and injuring 19 others before being shot dead by police.
1986 – A tornado is broadcast live on KARE television in Minnesota when the station's helicopter pilot makes a chance encounter.
1992 – The ten victims of the La Cantuta massacre disappear from their university in Lima.
1994 – The bombing of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (Argentine Jewish Community Center) in Buenos Aires kills 85 people (mostly Jewish) and injures 300.
1994 – Rwandan Genocide: The Rwandan Patriotic Front takes control of Gisenyi and north western Rwanda, forcing the interim government into Zaire and ending the genocide.
1995 – On the Caribbean island of Montserrat, the Soufrière Hills volcano erupts. Over the course of several years, it devastates the island, destroying the capital and forcing most of the population to flee.
1996 – Storms provoke severe flooding on the Saguenay River, beginning one of Quebec's costliest natural disasters ever: the Saguenay Flood.
1996 – Battle of Mullaitivu: the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam capture the Sri Lanka Army's base, killing over 1200 soldiers.
2012 – At least seven people are killed and 32 others are injured after a bomb explodes on an Israeli tour bus at Burgas Airport, Bulgaria.
2013 – The Government of Detroit, with up to $20 billion in debt, files for the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.
Famous Folk Born on July18th:
William Makepeace Thackery
Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor
Machine Gun Kelly
S. I. Hayakawa
Andrei Gromyko
Harriet Nelson
Hume Cronyn
Red Skelton
Marvin Miller
Nelson Mandela
John Glenn
Kurt Masur
Dick Button
Paul Verhoeven
James Brolin
Joe Torre
Martha Reeves
Steve Forbes
Richard Branson
Ricky Skaggs
Nick Faldo
Anne-Marie Johnson
Elizabeth McGovern
Marc Giardelli
Wendy Williams
Vin Diesel
Great Sasuke
Penny Hardaway
Valerie Cruz
Kristen Bell
posted by me at 12:39 PM
<< Home