11 Score And 16 Years Ago…..

Occasionally something that you looked at many times, but have never seen, suddenly jumps out and changes your whole perspective. For example, I had always thought that as far as the Revolutionary War went, Delaware’s only claim to fame was that the new flag was first flown in battle on Delaware’s soil…….

Not so! Two hundred thirty-six years ago today, things were really jumping in these parts. It may seem like a long time ago to most of us, but in reality it is only a string of three ten year olds who each knew someone who was ninety. In the vernacular, that means that most of us know someone, who themselves knew someone who actually had spoken to someone, who was alive during the Revolutionary War!…… Whoa…….

August 25, 1777 close to 300 ships sailed up the Chesapeake Bay, anchored off off Elk Neck, Maryland, and began disembarking. That has been called the largest fleet ever assembled off either of the America’s coasts. To put that number into perspective, the famous Spanish Armada, consisted of a meager 130 Spanish ships. The most-oft talked about Battle of Trafalger, consisted of a combined total of some 60 ships. Modern historians can get a perspective by comparing those 300 ships to the 700 off of Dunkirk or the 900 off of Normandy…….

It must have been quite a sight to stand on the top Iron Hill and see over 300 tall masts sailing to defeat you. And on board those ships, were 15,000 solders disembarking to begin marching towards your capital city….That’s close to the total number of women living across Greater Newark in 2010.

Were we living 236 years ago, we would all be on edge! Anticipating a major battle on Delaware soil, 11,000 continental troops were moved into Delaware and bivouacked at what used to be known as Red Mill Neck, and now is near the Marshalltown bridge over top of Red Clay Creek.

The British moved in steps, out of Elkton to Gray’s hill, then up the road to Newark. One account said their line stretched from Glasgow to the bridge across the Christiana, where the I 95 and 896 interchange is today. They marched through the village of Newark, and then advanced parallel to today’s Kirkwood highway and camped at Milltown, just two miles from the American Camp in Newport. For one day, they stared each other down. The potential existed for a pitched battle to have occurred on Delaware soil. When no attempt was made by the British, Washington got scared that he was to be flanked to the north. Had General Howe chosen to do so, Washington and the Continental Army would have suffered a catastrophic defeat. At 2 am, the Continentals forced marched north to Chadd’s Ford, thereby occupying the high ground, and then on the following day, occurred the Battle of the Brandywine, the second to last major battle to be fought by Washington until Yorktown, four years latter.

Just a small footnote:  it was in Delaware  where General Pulaski, from Poland, met Washington while in Wilmington and was placed in charge of developing the calvary.

Although only a small skirmish actually occurred in this small state, with just a few things happening differently, a major conflagration could have happened that could have ended the war for the Americans.

Needless to say, it was relatively scary “in these parts” just 11 score and sixteen years ago.

Full Resolution

GREENLAND MELT RECORD GETS SMASHED………

Courtesy of Climate Code Red

If you kinda thought the weather was wild this year, you were right. The most ice lost is taking place right while you read this. A large chunk was broken up by a freak storm. Another similar on is on its way. The question that no one knows the answer to, is… will this affect the circulation pattern.

We all know in our lives that as human beings we can put up with aggravation rather well, unless we are Type A. Whether it is aggravation from our boss, from our spouse, from our in-laws, from our choir director, from that guy selling papers on the corner,… we put up with it, accepting it as the normal course of business. Except once or twice in our lives, we just snap. And the consequences of that, momentary snap, cause big changes… maybe in our employment, maybe in our marriage, maybe in our in-law’s will, maybe from the choir director’s husband, maybe from the police…. things change for us in a big way…..

That is how we have to see this. From a mud core taken from an ancient lake, Lough Monreach, in Ireland in 2009 it was discovered that in a matter of one month 12,900 years ago, we went from normal seasonal temperatures to an ice age. The cause came from a switch in ocean currents. As cold fresh water entered the ocean, warm water stopped flowing north. That Ice Age lasted 1300 years before the thaw returned. It flipped in one month…. 30 days more or less.

So is that happening?

The science is too big. We don’t know. It will be like on the Day after Tomorrow where we first find out from buoys scattered across the Atlantic. It cannot be predicted.

What can be foretold is that the earth has never had this much stress before during civilized mans span on earth. Do you know when you snap, or does it take you off guard as well?

That is where we are…

Of course nothing could come about it… Just like when your boss insults you in front of all your staff, your office competitor’s staff, and ridicules you like you have never been before… You just take it…

The boss tells your competitor… “I knew he was a wus… I wasn’t worried one bit… you have nothing to worry about him…”

Republicans will say in Tampa:… “I knew it was a scam…. I wasn’t worried one bit… we have nothing to worry about burning carbon fuels and putting carbon dioxide into the air.”

News Flash: The earth is not a wus……..

2012, day 230, 2.87743 million square kilometers
2011, day 253, 2.90474 million square kilometers (previous record low)

Back to Reality

Photo courtesy of People’s Daily

Ouch.  The Olympics ended yesterday.  As someone watching 24/7 coverage, their absence is immediately felt.  Surprisingly,…. there was little discussion related to that major event within our little frame of the world.

Overall, the global consensus is that the Chinese pulled this one off well.  Their overall execution was acknowledged to have probably been “the best ever” by some of the globe’s most seasoned participants.  Remarkable not only for its individual achievements, but just in the scale of records broken, this Olympic rank for a considerable time as the one to beat….  Of course it helps boost our nation’s spirits that the US came out well.

But hidden within that statistic, is a deeper truth.  Most of those playing for, and vying for Olympic fame,  have spent considerable time, and have trained within the United States.  Ironically our NBA stars were scattered over the entire globes competing basketball teams…  But so had soccer stars, gymnasts, kayak specialists,….all of which had used our technology and our expertise to better their game….

But so did the Chinese do well…   Without question the two athletic powerhouses in the world today are the Chinese (age 11 and up) and the United States.  Wealth is the driving force behind both.  The Chinese spent an estimated 80 billion on the Olympics this year alone.  It will be a while before that amount is ever spent again.  The Opening Ceremony alone was $330 million just in itself.  London appears to have a tough time keeping up with its predecessor, of that there can be no doubt.

Frighteningly, depending on what happens within the global markets after this year’s third quarter announcements…… this Olympics may one day looking back, become to be considered Mankind’s most astonishing, crowning achievement….

That hyperbolic announcement, if true, is scary, but should our global economy collapse into a Great Depression far more epic than the one lasting during the 1930’s, and should a subsequent war consumes all efforts to rise above it……. we may have just witnessed the temporary peak of our species’ achievement.

Achievement peaks fascinate historians.  For there are times throughout History when everything comes together.  Peace, prosperity, technology, the pursuit of knowledge, artistic expansion, caused unsavory negative issues to become fixed instead of ignored.  Egypt’s Middle Kingdom was one, Salomon’s reign during the Old Testament was another,  Byzantium during the Western Europe’s Dark Ages was a third, Elizabethan England in the 1590’s was a fourth, America’s Gilded Age as well as the Roaring Twenties up until the market crashed, could count as well.

During each of those times those within their respective societies, looked around and breathed a sigh of relief.  For there were no pressing problems interfering with living well, and with no challenging battles to fight, the entire realm of society could look around and say to themselves, wow…look at how great we are….

China provided mankind today with just such an opportunity.  And just from a cursory glance it seems that most of Delaware’s blogosphere seems to have missed the occasion.

For within each of those past societies,  once their vigilance stopped, the cracks in the foundation started to appear and increase spread rapidly…..  For two beautiful weeks during the August of 2008, while our eyes looked up to the Olympic Flame soaring above the Birds Nest Stadium, raising the marvel and future aspirations of all Mankind,  those cracks of ruin were racing across the globe underneath our feet at lightning speed.

11 Score and 10 years ago…….

Occasionally something that you looked at many times, but have never seen, suddenly jumps out and changes your whole perspective. For example, I had always thought that as far as the Revolutionary War went, Delaware’s only claim to fame was that the new flag was first flown in battle on Delaware’s soil…….

Not so! Two hundred thirty years ago today, things were really jumping in these parts. It may seem like a long time ago to most of us, but in reality it is only a string of three ten year olds who each knew someone who was ninety. In the vernacular, that means that most of us know someone, who themselves knew someone who actually had spoken to someone, who was alive during the Revolutionary War!…… Whoa…….

August 25, 1777 close to 300 ships sailed up the Chesapeake Bay, anchored off off Elk Neck, Maryland, and began disembarking. That has been called the largest fleet ever assembled off any of the America’s coasts. To put that number into perspective, the famous Spanish Armada, consisted of a meager 130 Spanish ships. The most-oft talked about Battle of Trafalger, consisted of a combined total of some 60 ships. Modern historians can get a perspective by comparing those 300 ships to the 700 off of Dunkirk or the 900 off of Normandy…….

It must have been quite a sight to stand on the top Iron Hill and see over 300 tall masts sailing to defeat you. And on board those ships, were 15,000 solders disembarking to begin marching towards your capital city….Thats the total number of women estimated to be in Newark in 1998.

Were we living 230 years ago, we would all be on edge. Anticipating a major battle on Delaware soil, 11,000 continental troops were moved into Delaware and bivouacked at what used to be known as Red Mill Neck, and now is near the Marshalltown bridge over top of Red Clay Creek.

The British moved in steps, out of Elkton to Gray’s hill, then up the road to Newark. One account said their line stretched from Glasgow to the bridge across the Christiana, where the I 95 and 896 interchange is today. They marched through the village of Newark, and then advanced parallel to today’s Kirkwood highway and camped at Milltown, just two miles from the American Camp in Newport. For one day, they stared each other down. The potential existed for a pitched battle to have occurred on Delaware soil. When no attempt was made by the British, Washington got scared that he was to be flanked to the north. Had General Howe chosen to do so, Washington and the Continental Army would have suffered a catastrophic defeat. At 2 am, the Continentals forced marched north to Chadd’s Ford, thereby occupying the high ground, and then on the following day, occurred the Battle of the Brandywine, the second to last major battle to be fought by Washington until Yorktown, four years latter.

Just a small footnote:  it was in Delaware  where General Pulaski, from Poland, met Washington while in Wilmington and was placed in charge of developing the calvary.

Although only a small skirmish actually occurred in this small state, with just a few things happening differently, a major conflagration could have happened that could have ended the war for the Americans.

Needless to say, it was relatively scary “in these parts” just 11 score and ten years ago.

the end is near…….

Wall Street Journal buried this deep within their pages: Banks Delay Sale Of Chrysler Debt As Market Stalls

In plain English it means that banks have decided not to fund the Chrysler deal. The deal will still go through, mind you, but the risk will be absorbed solely by those underwriting the deal, and the 12 billion will not be spread to investors as has been done in the past. “The market has dried up.”

This does not bode well for Newark. Why? Because the cost of money, or the interest rate for the twelve billion, has just risen.  That means that all costs, supplies, labor, and facilities, must be tightened even tighter in order that corporate is able to pay for the increased financing.

Plain talk: their mortgage, which was already 200 million a year, just hit the ARM plan and may go as high or higher than 300 million!!

That money was sorely needed to invest in environmentally friendly and marketable vehicles. They do not have that option and will have no recourse but to buckle down, hold on, and hope to survive a financial ride as scary as the Ka.

One can only hope that Kia or Hyundai is interested in opening shop in Delaware…..It will be a new experience for the local UAW to be sure, but Toyota seems to treat Americans more fairly than does our own……..At least foreign autos are sensitive to America’s needs and do not foot drag when it comes to creating cars that American’s WANT to buy…….

Anyone who clicked on the above links saw a difference in profitability among all those manufactures. Delaware needs to send someone to South Korea today. Secure jobs are often found within secure companies.

So what does this mean to everyone else? A lot. Here is how it breaks down.

Cheap money is no longer available. It is what has been driving up the stock market. Next time someone tells you it was republican tax policy, bitch slap them. (smile) If borrowed money is cheap then one can afford to spend more in the acquisition of a corporation, because on the bottom line, the cost is the same. Similar to the housing boom which has now ended, the monthly mortgage is the same on a house costing 250,000 at a 3% rate as an 80,000 house at 9%. Just as house prices soared, so did the price of corporations, pushing the market upward……….

Well, ladies and gentlemen. That push has stopped, as of yesterday…….The Fed may react someway and save us from a crash similar to the last time money was not available…..1929.

The political implications are obvious. This could not have happened under a competent Al Gore administration. But I will leave that for someone else to expound. Right now my broker is shut down, off-line, and not answering calls………

I just hope I can shift everything over to “fixed” before everyone else catches on…………………….