The Looming Numbers

On this day:

  • 9 AD: Hermann marks the outer circuit of the Roman Empire.
  • 1297: The English overload a bridge and get themselves walloped by a bunch of blue painted, skirt-wearing savages shouting “FREEDOM!!!” English driven from Scotland.
  • 1609: The Reconquista  is  completed  when the last Moors are  driven from al-Andulus.  Hudson finds his River.
  • 1611: Turenne is born.
  • 1649: The English bring peace to Ireland.
  • 1683: Jan Sobieski prepares to drive the Turk from central Europe.
  • 1697: Eugene of Savoy drives the Turk from central Europe.
  • 1708: The cliché that starting a land war in Asia is bad for your health begins.
  • 1709: The bloodiest battle of the eighteenth century: as usual, a French defeat.
  • 1775: Benedict Arnold goes an entire march without betraying anyone.
  • 1776: The American Revolution does not come to an end.
  • 1777: The American Revolution still doesn’t come to an end.
  • 1786: The overthrow of the United States of America begins, followed by the birth of the United States of America.
  • 1789: Alexander Hamilton begins his destruction of the British Empire.
  • 1814: The United States is not destroyed. No one outside Canada notices.
  • 1829: Mexico finally wins its independence and celebrates by overthrowing a government.
  • 1847: Susannah doesn’t cry for me.
  • 1888: Being dead, Sarmiento can neither govern or populate.
  • 1914: High tide of Australian imperialism.
  • 1919: America invades Honduras. No one outside Canada notices.
  • 1922: British Empire acquires a terminal case of indigestion. Hamilton smiles.
  • 1941: The military industrial complex acquires its first of five sides.
  • 1944: Americans reach Germany, like the looks of the place, and move in for the next 67 years.
  • 1948: The father of Pakistan dies.
  • 1950: The father of holism dies.
  • 1965: The Great  Ophthalmologist  is born.
  • 1973: Communists overthrown by monetarists.
  • 1978: Land apparently brings peace. George Markov dies, killed by a poison umbrella.
  • 1985: Pete Rose breaks Ty Cobb’s career hits record.
  • 1987: Lorne Greene dies.
  • 1989: The Iron Curtain begins unraveling.
  • 1996: The only successful government California ever knew becomes part of the Union Pacific Railroad.
  • 1997: The Scots, inspired by a movie,  drive the English from Scotland. Again. Hamilton smiles. Again.
  • 2001: 2,977 Americans are murdered in cold blood as the centerpiece of a takfiri propaganda of the deed.


On that day:

  1. Working from home
  2. Get on company laptop
  3. Commence morning Web browsing routine
  4. Start with  CNN
  5. Down
  6. Other news sites?
  7. Down
  8. slashdot.org?
  9. Up
  10. A plane’s hit the World Trade Center
  11. Downstairs
  12. Join brothers watching news
  13. Second plane hits
  14. Propaganda of the deed
  15. Straight from Tom Clancy’s 1994 bestseller Debt of Honor
  16. It’s war
  17. A continuation of whose politics?
  18. Who hates America and does synchronized attacks in twos?
  19. Osama Bin Laden
  20. Sherlock Holmes’ words on first meeting wounded Afghan vet Dr Watson come to mind:  “You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.”
  21. Makes sense. Ahmed Shah Massood was killed two days ago. His forces would be needed for retaliation.
  22. Getting to Afghanistan is difficult
  23. From the east, through Iran, would be easiest
  24. Crap
  25. From the north, through “old friend” Russia, Uzbekistan, or Turkmenistan
  26. Crap
  27. From the east, through Taliban ally Pakistan, through the Khyber Pass
  28. Crap
  29. I hate the Taliban
  30. Good excuse to bomb them back from the Stone Age
  31. I need breakfast

So I remember.

2 thoughts on “The Looming Numbers”

  1. PenGun – Along with logic and reason, there should be room in your world for a memorial here and there. Just because you are not accustomed to the form does not mean it deserves insult.

  2. If my high school history classes had been like our RT’s here at ChicagoBoyz – or somewhat like the list above – I might have enjoyed my classes.

    On the other hand, the teacher may have been perfectly fine and I might have been a thoughtless, wanting-to-be-carefree, feckless student.

    I dunno. I’m afraid it might have been the latter….

    – Madhu

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