USO Canteen FReeper Style ~ Pancakes on Wednesday ~ June 25, 2003

Pancakes on Wednesdays

Yummy, Pancakes taste better than Burkas

Welcome to Pancakes on Wednesdays.

Wednesday June 25, 2003

Here is an amalgamation of trivial facts and seemingly usesless data.

Do not forget to hit the hyperlinks.

We have links, lots of them.

One entry found for prognosticate.

Main Entry: prog·nos·ti·cate

Pronunciation: präg-'näs-t&-"kAt
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): -cat·ed; -cat·ing
Date: 15th century
1 : to foretell from signs or symptoms : PREDICT
2 : PRESAGE
synonym see FORETELL
- prog·nos·ti·ca·tive

/-"kA-tiv/ adjective
- prog·nos·ti·ca·tor

/-"kA-t&r/ noun

Happy Birthday

100 years ago today

George Orwell

Some Tag Lines are more equal than others

1876 - Lt. Col. Custer and the U.S. 7th Cavalry were wiped out by Sioux and Cheyenne Indians at Little Big Horn in Montana.

1917 - The first American fighting troops landed in France.

Over there the Yanks are fighting over there

Pancakes with Maple Syrup

Let 'em eat pancakes

1950 - North Korea invaded South Korea initiating the Korean War.

1985 - ABC’s "Monday Night Football" began with a new line-up.

The trio was Frank Gifford, Joe Namath and O.J. Simpson.

I am an excellent driver

Todays Wednesday Field trip is to a Gym

Would you like some tea with your pancakes?

We are counting Superbowls

2000 - A Florida judge approved a class-action lawsuit to be filed against American Online (AOL) on behalf of hourly subscribers who were forced to view "pop-up" advertisements.

Military pans for pancakes

Chinese Pancakes

Pancakes on Wednesdays

Definitely

On This Day In History

Birthdates which occurred on June 25:
1852 Antonio Gaud¡ Spanish architect (Sagrada Familia, Barcelona)
1864 Walther Hermann Nernst Prussian physical chemist (Nobel 1920)
1865 Robert Henri US painter, leader of the Ashcan school
1886 Henry (Hap) Arnold commanding general, US Army Air Force in WW II
1887 George Abbott Forestville NY, producer (Damn Yankees, Pajama Game)
1893 Charlotte Greenwood Phila, actress (Oklahoma, Moon over Miami)
1894 Hermann Oberth Germany, founded modern astronautics
1900 Lord Louis Mountbatten of Burma, royal relative
1903 Arthur Tracy street singer (Vincent Lopez Show)
1903 George Orwell England, satirist/author (Animal Farm, 1984)
1906 Roger Livesey actor (Drums, Life & Death of Col Blimp)
1907 J Hans D Jensen Germany, physicist (atomic nuclei-Nobel 1963)
1915 Peter Lind Hayes SF Calif, comedian/singer (Peter Lind Hayes Show)
1924 Sidney Lumet Phila, director (Group, Pawnbroker, Fail Safe)
1925 Clifton Chenier blues singer (Bayou Blues, Bon Ton Roulet)
1925 June Lockhart NYC, actr (Lassie, Lost in Space, Petticoat Junction)
1925 Robert Venturi US, architect (Levittown NY, Las Vegas)
1925 Ziggy Talent Manchester NH, singer (Vaughn Monroe Show)
1933 Gary Crosby Calif, actor (Bill Dana Show, Adam 12, Chase)
1935 Eddie Floyd rocker (California Girl, Knock on Wood)
1935 Laurent Terzieff Paris, actor (Head Over Heels, Milky Way)
1940 Thomas K”hler German DR, luger (Olympic-gold-1964, 68)
1942 Patrick Michael Mitchell Ottawa, one of FBI's most wanted
1942 Willis Reed basketball hall-of-famer center (NY Knicks)
1945 Carly Simon NYC, singer (Anticipation, You're So Vain)
1946 Ian McDonald guitarist (King Crisom)
1948 Michael Lembeck Bkln, actor (Max-One Day at a Time)
1949 Brenda Sykes Shreveport La, actress (Ozzie's Girls, Getting Straight)
1949 Jimmie Walker Bronx NY, comedian (JJ-Good Times, At Ease)
1949 Kene Holliday NYC, actor (Tyler-Matlock, Carter Country)
1949 Phyllis George-Brown Denton Tx, Miss America (1971)/sportscaster
1950 Belinda Montgomery Winnipeg Manitoba, actress (Man From Atlantis)
1950 Tatyana Averina USSR, speed skater 1K, 3K (Olympic-gold-1976)
1952 Tim Finn song writer (Puberty Blues)
1963 George Michael England, rocker (Wham-I Want Your Sex)
1963 Mike Myers Canada, comedian (SNL-Wayne's World)

Deaths which occurred on June 25:
1212 Simon de Montfort a leader of the crusades, dies at 67
1483 - Edward V, king of England (Apr 9-Jun 25, 1483), murdered
1876 George A Custer, US general, dies at Little Bighorn
1876 Lame White Man, Cheyenne, dies at Little Bighorn
1906 Architect Stanford White shot dead atop Madison Square Garden which he designed by Harry Thaw jealous husband of Evelyn Nesbit
1959 Charles Starkwether executed
1960 Walter Baade astronomer, dies
1976 Johnny Mercer, US songwriter (That old Black Magic), dies at 66
1988 Axis Sally, [Mildred E Gillars], US nazi propagandist (WW II), dies
1995: Warren Burger, 15th chief justice of the United States, died in Washington of congestive heart failure at age 87.
1997 - Jacques-Yves Cousteau, French oceanographer, dies of heart attack at 87

Reported: MISSING in ACTION

1965 MONGILARDI PETER JR. HALEDON NJ.
[REMAINS RETURNED ACCORDING TO SON 1994]
1966 MARIK CHARLES W. OAKLAND MO.
[GOOD CHUTE]
1972 SHUMWAY GEOFREY RAYMOND SKANEATELES NY.

POW / MIA Data & Bios supplied by
the P.O.W. NETWORK. Skidmore, MO. USA.

On this day...
253 St Lucius I begins his reign as Catholic Pope
1096 - 1st Crusaders warm up for their Holy Land stint by slaughtering Jews of Werelinghofen Germany
1178 5 Canterbury monks report something exploding on Moon
1630 Fork introduced to American dining by Gov Winthrop
1638 A lunar eclipse becomes the 1st astronomical event recorded in US
1672 1st recorded monthly Quaker meeting in US held, Sandwich, Mass
1749 General fast because of drought in MA
1788 Virginia becomes 10th state to ratify US constitution
1798 US passes Alien Act allowing president to deport dangerous aliens
1835 1st building constructed at Yerba Buena (now SF)
1862 Day 1 of the 7 Days begins with fighting at Oak Grove
1864 Petersburg Campaign-Federals begin digging tunnels under Reb lines
1868 FL, AL, LA, GA, NC & SC readmitted to US
1870 - Richard Wagner's opera "Die Walkure" is produced (Munich)
1876 Custer & 7th Cavalry wiped out by Sioux & Cheyenne at Little Big Horn
1888 Republican Convention, in Chicago, nominates Benjamin Harrison
1903 Yanks & White Sox end deadlocked at 6-6 in 18
1910 - Congress passes the Mann Act, The law made it illegal to "transport any woman or girl" across state lines "for any immoral purpose."
1919 1st advanced monoplane airliner flight (Junkers F13)
1921 Jack Hutchinson becomes 1st American to win golf's British Open
1924 K Reinmuth discovers asteroid #1023 Thomana
1928 NY Giant Fred Lindstrom ties record of 9 hits in a doubleheader
1929 Pres Hoover authorizes building of Boulder Dam (Hoover Dam)
1934 Yank pitcher John Broaca ties record by striking out 5 times
1935 Joe Louis defeats Primo Carnera at Yankee Stadium
1937 Cub Augie Galan becomes 1st player to switch hit HRs in a game
1938 Federal minimum wage law guarantees workers 40 per hour
1941 FDR issues Executive Order 8802 forbidding discrimination
1942 British RAF staged a 1,000 bomb raid on Bremen Germany (WW II)
1948 Joe Louis KOs Jersey Joe Walcott in 11 to reatain championship
1950 Israeli airline El Al begins service
1950 Korean conflict begins; N Korea invades S Korea
1951 1st color TV broadcast-CBS' Arthur Godfrey from NYC to 4 cities
1953 1st passenger to fly commercially around the world < 100 hours
1953 86ø F in Anchorage Alaska (more proof of global warming)
1956 51 die in collision of "Andrea Doria" & "Stockholm" (Cape Cod)
1957 Final Hudson automobile is built. As American Motors concentrates on the Rambler
1961 Balt & Calif use a record 16 pitchers in a game (8 each) in 14 inns
1961 Iraq announces that Kuwait is a part of Iraq (Kuwait disagrees)
1961 Yankee's Roger Maris hits his 40th of 61 HRs
1962 Supreme Court rules NY school prayer unconstitutional
1962 Yankee Jack Reed's 22nd inning HR wins a 7 hour game
1966 Beatles' "Paperback Writer," single goes #1 & stays #1 for 2 weeks
1966 Kosmos 122, 1st Soviet weather satellite, launched
1967 400 million watch Beatles "Our World" TV special
1968 Bobby Bonds hits a grand slam in his 1st major league game (Giants)
1969 Longest tennis match in Wimbeldon history, Pancho Gonzalez beats Charles Pasarell in 112 game (5hr12m) marathon
1972 Berenice Gera becomes 1st female umpire in pro baseball
1973 John Dean begins testimony before Senate Watergate Committee
1973 Udo Beyer of East Germany puts the shot a record 20.47 m
1975 Mozambique gains independence from Portugal (National Day)
1977 LBJ denies report he had a cancer during his presidency
1977 Roy C Sullivan of Va is struck by lightening for 7th time!
1978 Argentina beats Holland 3-1 in soccer's 11th World Cup at Buenos Aires
1979 E F Helin & S J Bus discovers asteroid #2343 Siding Spring,
#2392 Jonathan Murray, #2441 Hibbs, #2618 Coonabarabran,
#2619 Skalnate Pleso, #2628 Kopal, #2682 Soromundi,
#2704 Julian Loewe, #3129 Bonestell, #3205 & #3756
1981 Supreme Court upholds male-only draft registration, constitutional
1982 Porn star John Holmes acquitted on murder charges
1982 Sec of State Alexander Haig Jr resigns, replaced by Schultz
1982 SF holds its 1st County Fair
1983 Udo Beyer of East Germany sets record for shot put, 22.22 m
1984 STS 41-D launch attempt scrubbed because of computer problem
1985 Fireworks factory near Hallett, OK explodes (21 die)
1987 Pope John Paul II receives Austrian Pres Kurt Waldheim
1989 1st US postmark dedicated to Lesbian & Gay Pride (Stonewall, NYC)
1990 120ø F in Phoenix Arizona
1990 NBC decides to air episodes of "Quantum Leap" for 5 straight days
1991 Slovenia & Croatia declare independence from Yugoslavia
1996 - A truck bomb killed 19 U.S. military personnel in Saudi Arabia. Several hundred more people were injured.
1997 - Montserrat's Soufriere Hills Volcano, after lying dormant for 400 years, erupted, wiping out two-thirds of the Caribbean island and forcing most of the population to relocate.
2001 - Pope John Paul II, on a visit to Ukraine, offered a prayer for Holocaust victims at Babi Yar.

Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"

Gibraltar : Spring Bank Holiday
Mozambique : Independence Day (1975)
Virginia : Ratification Day (1788)
Newfoundland : Discovery Day (1497-John Cabot) - - - - - ( Monday )
National Accordion Awareness Month

Religious Observances
Christian : Feast of St Prosper
RC : Commemoration of St William, abbot
Luth : Commemoration of the Augsburg Confession
Luth : Commemoration of Philipp Melanchthon, renewer of the Church

Religious History
1115 St. Bernard founded a monastery in Clairvaux, France. It afterward became a strategic center for the Cistercians, a religious order that flourished up until the Reformation.
1580 The German 'Book of Concord' was published, containing all the official confessions of the Lutheran Church. (English translations of the entire work were not available before 1851.)
1744 The first Methodist conference convened, in London. This new society within Anglicanism imposed strict disciplines upon its members, formally separating from the Established Church in 1795.
1865 English pioneer missionary J. Hudson Taylor founded the China Inland Mission. Its headquarters moved to the US in 1901, and in 1965 its name became Overseas Missionary Fellowship (OMF) International.
1957 During a convention in Cleveland, Ohio, the United Church of Christ (UCC) was formed by a merger of the Congregational Christian Church and the Evangelical and Reformed Church.

Source: William D. Blake. ALMANAC OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.

Thought for the day :
"The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop."

SITREP:IRAQ
Soldiers For The Truth ^ | 06-23-03 | Major Eric Rydbom

Posted on 06/23/2003 8:27 PM CDT by Stuckathome

06-23-2003

Sitrep: Iraq

Editor's Note: This is an open letter from U.S. Army Maj. Eric Rydbom in Iraq to the First Lutheran Church of Richmond Beach in Shoreline, Wash. Rydbom is Deputy Division Engineer of the 4th Infantry Division.

It has been a while since I have written to my friends at First Lutheran Church about what's really going on here in Iraq. The news you watch on TV is exaggerated, sensationalized and selective. Good news doesn't sell.

The stuff you don't hear about on CNN?

Let's start with electrical power production in Iraq. The day after the war was declared over, there was nearly 0 power being generated in Iraq. Just 45 days later, in a partnership between the Army, the Iraqi people and some private companies, there are now 3200 megawatts (Mw) of power being produced daily, 1/3 of the total national potential of 8000 Mw. Downed power lines (big stuff, 400 Kilovolt (Kv) and 132 Kv) are being repaired and are about 70 percent complete.

Then there is water purification. In central Iraq between Baghdad and Mosul, home of the 4th Infantry Division, water treatment was spotty at best. The facilities existed, but the controls were never implemented. Simple chemicals like Chlorine for purification and Alum (Aluminum Sulfate) for sediment settling (the Tigris River is about as clear as the Mississippi River) were in very short supply or not used at all. When chlorine was used, it was metered by the scientific method of guessing.

So some people got pool water to drink and some people got water with lots of little things floating around in it. We are slowly but surely solving that. Contracts for repairs to facilities that are only 50 percent or less operational are being let, chemicals are being delivered, although we don't have the metering problem solved yet ( ... but again, it's only been 45 days).

How about oil and fuel? Well the war was all about oil wasn't it? You bet it was. It was all about oil for the Iraqi people! They have no other income, they produce nothing else. Oil is 95 percent of the Iraqi GNP. For this nation to survive, it must sell oil.

The Refinery at Bayji is [operating] at 75 percent of capacity producing gasoline. The crude pipeline between Kirkuk (Oil Central) and Bayji will be repaired by tomorrow (2 June). LPG, what all Iraqis use to cook and heat with, is at 103 percent of normal production and we, the U.S. Army, are ensuring it is being distributed fairly to all Iraqis.

You have to remember that only three months ago, all these things were used by the Saddam regime as weapons against the population to keep them in line. If your town misbehaved, gasoline shipments stopped, LPG pipelines and trucks stopped, water was turned off, power was turned off.

Now, until exports start, every drop of gasoline produced goes to the Iraqi people. Crude oil is being stored and the country is at 75 percent capacity right now. They need to export or stop pumping soon, so thank the U.N. for the delay.

All LPG goes to the Iraqi people everywhere. Water is being purified as best it can be, but at least its running all the time to everyone.

Are we still getting shot at? Yep.

Are American soldiers still dying? Yep, about one a day from my outfit, the 4th Infantry Division, most in accidents, but dead is dead.

If we are doing all this for the Iraqis, why are they shooting at us?

The general Iraqi population isn't shooting at us. There are still bad guys who won't let go of the old regime. They are Ba'ath party members (Read Nazi Party, but not as nice) who have known nothing but and supported nothing but the regime all of their lives. These are the thugs for the regime who caused many to disappear in the night. They have no other skills. At least the Nazis [in Germany] had jobs and a semblance of a national infrastructure that they could go back to after the war, as plumbers, managers, engineers, etc. These people have no skills but terror. They are simply applying their skills ... and we are applying ours.

There is no Christian way to say this, but they must be eliminated and we are doing so with all the efficiency we can muster. Our troops are shot at literally everyday by small arms and Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs). We respond. One hundred percent of the time, the Ba''ath party guys come out with the short end of the stick.

The most amazing thing to me is that they don't realize that if they stopped shooting at us, we would focus on fixing things more quickly and then leave back to the land of the Big PX. The more they shoot at us, the longer we will have to stay.

Lastly, all of you please realize that 90 percent of the damage you see on TV was caused by Iraqis, not by us and not by the war. Sure, we took out a few bridges from military necessity, we took out a few power and phone lines to disrupt communications, sure we drilled a few palaces and government headquarters buildings with 2000 lb. laser guided bombs (I work 100 yards from where two hit the Tikrit Palace), [but] he had plenty to spare.

But, any damage you see to schools, hospitals, power generation facilities, refineries, pipelines, was all caused either by the Iraqi Army in its death throes or from much of the Iraqi civilians looting the places.

Could we have prevented it? Nope.

We can and do now, but 45 days ago, the average soldier was fighting for his own survival and trying to get to his objectives as fast as possible. He was lucky to know what town he was in much less be informed enough to know who owned what or have the power to stop 1,000 people from looting and burning a building by himself.

The United States and our allies, especially Great Britain, are doing a very noble thing here. We stuck our necks out on the world's chopping block to free an entire people from the grip of a horrible terror that was beyond belief.

I've already talked the weapons of mass destruction thing to death - bottom line, who cares? This country was one big conventional weapons ammo dump anyway. We have probably destroyed more weapons and ammo in the last 30 days than the U.S. Army has ever fired in the last 30 years (remember, this is a country the size of Texas), so drop the WMD argument as the reason we came here. If we find it great if we don't, so what?

I'm living in a "guest palace" on a 500-acre palace compound with 20 palaces with like facilities built in half a dozen towns all over Iraq that were built for one man. Drive down the street and out into the countryside five miles away like I have and see all the families of 10 or more, all living in mud huts and herding the two dozen sheep on which their very existence depends ...then tell me why you think we are here.

WMD is an important issue. We have to find them wherever they may be (in Syria?), but that is not our real motivator. Don't let it be yours either.

Respectfully,

ERIC RYDBOM MAJOR, ENGINEER Deputy Division Engineer 4th Infantry Division

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