23-Jan: Today in History
January 23, 1845 - The U.S. Congress decided all national elections would be held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
WDTM? That every four years, there’s the potential for the week of my birthday to be ruined by Presidential elections. Even worse, every 28 years there’s the possibility that my birthday itself will be ruined by people going stupid in the election (like happened in 1976). Perhaps a better way to handle this would be for me to just choose the winner in 2032 — it could be America’s gift to me! 
-ghp
A virulent virus
Neal Boortz is going to receive a firestorm of criticism for these comments, but he is, of course , correct.
“Islam is a virus. It is a deadly virus that is spreading throughout Europe and the Western world,” and “we’re going to wait far too long to develop a vaccine to find a way to fight this.”
He’s just calling a spade a spade. This is a cultural deathmatch. Islam gets this. Far too many in the West don’t, as they believe that we have “evolved” beyond the need for such “intolerance”. Fools…
-ghp
Greatest American?
As an Historiphile (i.e., “lover of History” — if it isn’t a word, it is now, because I cannot seem to find a synonym; so if you know of one, please let me know…), I was aghast when I first saw the ads for the limited-run TV show to determine the “Greatest American of All-Time.” Why? Well, the first ad I saw was one that had text that read something like this:
“He lit up America & the world with his invention of the light bulb. She lit up the daytime. Who’s greater, Thomas Edison or Oprah Winfrey?”
Even for me, words cannot truly express all that is wrong with that statement masquerading as a question…
All that said, I just caught the Top/Final 5 selections, from which the “Greatest” will be determined, over at Worldmagblog, and I must say that it’s a reasonably good list:
- George Washington
- Benjamin Franklin
- Abraham Lincoln
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
- Ronald Reagan
The only one I would quibble with is MLK, because I’d rather see Teddy Roosevelt, James Madison, or Thomas Jefferson on the list instead. That being said, however, my ranking of these 5 would be like this:
- George Washington — The “Father of Our Country.” Nuff said.
- Ronald Reagan — Won the Cold War, stared down Communism, helped us realize that true conservatism & traditional American values could carry the day against patriarchal, FDR-inspired, socialistic, liberalism.
- Benjamin Franklin — The greatest non-president, which is saying something.
- Abraham Lincoln — To be honest, I’m actually ambivalent about him, because his actions in the face of the Civil War fundamentally changed the USA from a Republic of sovereign States into a Federal Republic.
- MLK, Jr. — I respect his fight for civil rights. I don’t, however, respect his faux-Christian spirituality, or his hypocritical (in light of his “Christian” theology) morality.
Who were the worst/most destructive Presidents, you ask? Why, that’s easy — Lincoln & FDR (with Wilson not too far behind…).
-ghp
-
Analytics & Hosting
