Happy Birthday Robbie!

August 14th, 2007

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The Announcement

Co-Historian Says: I didn't hear from the boss yesterday so we must assume the weekend's computer surgery is still a work in progress or birthday parties in Texas get started real early. Hopefully this will be edited with his birthday stories later tomorrow.

Alternate Historian's Belated Addition: Thanks for the birthday wishes and getting the page up while we were having computer difficulties, Steve. Perhaps we should have brought Vesta over while delving into that alternate reality...
I have one alternate birthday poster for myself – but there's still plenty of time for you to send in alternate birthdays for Steve (November 22, 1967). Surely all you conspiracy-minded types can come up with a connection between him and certain other events that happened on that day!
Today, I am The Answer. It all seems so clear, now. If only I knew what The Question was. A lot has happened in the 2 years plus 4 decades since my birth. The hospital I was born in is now an office building; the house I grew up in belongs to other people; the city I have called home for most of my life has added a hundred thousand or so people to its population. I've been from one side of this continent to the other, and even left the continent for a brief stay in the “Old Country”. I took a stab at The Dream in Los Angeles, I found my dream girl right here at home, and now I have a baby. Along the way, I lost several family members, a few friends, and many preconceptions about what life was all about. I also gained new family members, new friends, and built a whole series of preconceptions about what life should really be about. I've had epiphanies, life-changing moments, death-defying leaps, and built plenty of character – and I'm still striving for all those things I wanted to be when I grew up. Now that I've reached The Answer, I realize that I'm looking at less time left to do everything I still have planned, and so I have to prioritize. But, how do you prioritize what you love?
42!
No, that's not The Question...

Alternate Birthday Post On August 14, 1965, Robert A. Taylor was born. His first brush with notoriety--decades before his phenomenal publishing career and his marriage to pop singer/sensation Cheryl Vernon--came when he won the district spelling bee at Stephen F. Austin Junior High School and went on to national finals in Washington, D.C. Robbie was invited to the white house after his successful spelling of "synchronicity" and was give the opportunity to speak factually with Jimmy Carter about the concerns of American Youth. The young Taylor's stance on alternative energy became the capstone of Carter's second term as president and may have been the actual turning point of America's conversion from fossil fuels to more reliable and environmentally sound alternatives. In his diary, released consequent with his Nobel Peace Prize, Carter admitted to the world: "I was listening to this kid. He had my full attention. He told me what to do and asked me if I'd really do it? If he hadn't asked me that, I probably wouldn't have done it all. But I made a promise to him and I had to keep it." The rest, as they say, was history. - post by George Wier, whose Bill Travis Mysteries can be found on our links at the side -

In 2008, California based enterprise software author Macrosoft Inc. narrowly beat Saab Motor cars of Sweden to win the prestigious award for "zero defects product of 2007". The International Standards Agency reported that the code engineering in Macrosoft Vesta had defined new best practice in process standards. The significance of protests at the awards ceremony was "de-emphasised" by Macrosoft executives. Many of these individuals had pessimistically disbelieved the minimum system requirements for Vesta, and had proactively purchased 2GB of DDR2 RAM. In fact, Macrosoft had squeezed the new operating system into 256MB under which it performed flawlessly, enabling the Corporation to offer no charge upgrades to domestic and developing country charities who had received end of life PCs. (Western consumers had been under the misapprehension they would not longer run multimedia applications and had wastefully transhipped units that could adequately run Vesta.) Many North American businesses admitted they too were slow off the mark, holding out for Service Packs that were of course never required to achieve this remarkable stable platform. As a consequence, they had failed to leverage the compelling business benefits that could be attained by raising employee performance through the productivity enhancing interface.

~ entry from Co-historian Steve Payne:

"It was the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle. Practically every building of any size had been seized by the workers and was draped with red flags or with the red and black flag of the Anarchists.
Eric Blair	Human beings were trying to behave as human beings and not cogs in the capitalist machine. In the barber's shops were Anarchist notices solemnly explaining that barbers were no longer slaves.." ~ Eric Arthur Blair in “Homage to Catalonia”
George Orwell

In 1936, Eric Arthur Blair describing his role in the Spanish Civil War, an event that would have huge long-term consequences for the people of Europe. The full article is available at Amazon

~ quotation by Co-Historian Steve Payne from Counter-history – You're the Judge!

Bless my cotton socks I'm in the news The king sits on his face buttons all askew All wrapped up the same All wrapped up the same
The Teardrop Explodes	They can't have it You can't have it I can't have it too Until I learn to accept my reward ~ Lyrics to “Reward” - Click to Watch Sample
Marvel comic: Daredevil No.77

In 1981, at the height of their popularity, the English Post Punk/Neo-Psychedelic band received a legal challenge from the owners of Marvel comic book. Without their permission, Lead singer Julian Cope had taken the name of the band from No. 77 of the comic Daredevil published in 1960. During the dispute, Julian Cope found a new target for venting his anger. Cope spent the majority of his career raging at the “greedheads” who compromised his artistic excellence with commercial imperatives. The lyrics are available at at Always on the Run

~ quotation by Co-Historian Steve Payne from Counter-history – You're the Judge!

In 1980, the actor Steve McQueen enjoyed a dramatic remission of Cancer following a mysterious visit to Florida. McQueen's wealth had bankrolled an increasingly desperate worldwide search for a cure. To this day, speculation continues that the actor had been led to the Fountain of Youth by sympathetic First Nation indigenes whose cause McQueen had supported throughout the seventies.

~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1942, monumentally tough old infantryman General Bluemel told captured General Douglas MacArthur to snap out of it. The anguished MacArthur had suffered not just the Command failure of defeat, but the death of wife and son when his escaping destroyer was sunk during the Japanese conquest of the Philippines But all of the American officers at the old Spanish Prison in Manilla have misread the reason for MacArthur's preoccupied thoughts. "General Robert E. Lee often said that duty was the most sublime word in the language. Gentleman, we all know the duty of a soldier who has been captured." MacArthur spoke further of escape, he had plans to fade away.

~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

Rev. Martin Lu..	In 1482, to pass the long night of six hundred years at St. George El Mina Castle, a new soft voice spoke to Kwame. ”From every mountainside, let freedom ring... and when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village ..
.. and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! ”
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1943, on this day Winston Churchill wrote the immortal first line “Now this is not the end. ... But it is, perhaps, the beginning of the end.. " Containing speeches given at the turning point of the war, following defeats at Alamein and ..	Winston Churchi..
.. Stalingrad and the abortive North Africa landings “The Beginning of the End” is a remarkable insight into the events leading up to “Churchill's Last Stand” in the Middle East.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

Prince Albert	In 2004, on this day the editor Peter Tsouras finalised the short stories entries for his compendium “Union Victorious”. This Anthology of ten speculative articles featured Andrew Uffindell's masterpiece "Hell on Earth: Anglo-French Stand Aside in the Civil War". The story turns in 1860, when Prince Albert escapes ..
.. death in a carriage accident and was alive a year later to moderate the British government's reaction to the Trent Incident. Confederate agents fail to escalate the Union-British tension with manufactured incidents along the Canadian border. The U.K. Determines not to intervenes in the American Civil War. Except for some early success around the Great Lakes, the Confederacy is eventually forced to sue for peace.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1976/1750, in New York City LeVar Burton suffers the most vivid nightmare of his entire life. The young actor dreams he is brutally forced into slavery in 18th century America. Assigned to work as a field laborer on a southern ..	Kunte Kinte
.. plantation, he attempts to escape and is severely punished. The following morning, Burton receives a telephone call from the author Alex Haley, who makes an incredible offer.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

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Pledges

	In 1783, turmoil in the Continental Army caused by the Newburgh Conspiracy enabled the British to use the opportunity to attack and re-establish control over their former colonies. With the end of the war and hence likely the resultant dissolution of the Continental Army obviously approaching, there seemed to the soldiers, many of whom were now deeply indebted from their term of service, a strong chance that Congress would not meet previous promises on back pay and pensions.

Congress, at the mercy of the states for all revenue, did not seem to have any way of meeting these promises. The result was that by March 1783, officers launched a coup, setting up martial law to secure what had been promised to them. The winter of 1783 had seen the end of hostilities between the young nation and Britain, but a formal peace treaty had not yet been signed.

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	In 2008, in Islamabad Benazir Bhutto called upon President Pervez Musharraf to convene parliament immediately. February's parliamentary elections delivered a crushing defeat to parties loyal to President Pervez Musharraf. Mr Musharraf has urged the incoming government to leave politics aside and concentrate on good governance. The new administration will be led by Pakistan People's Party, with Mr Nawaz Sharif's PML(N) acting as a junior coalition partner in a government of national unity.

The defeat of parties loyal to Pevez Musharraf surprised no one. However, the miraculous survival of Mrs Bhutton from multiple assassination attempts was a matter of such deep unease to many, that it had overtaken her husband's alleged corruption as a question over her candidacy for prime minister. The national trauma had forced the postponement of the elections until February 20th 2008. On 27 December Benazir Bhutto addressed a rally of thousands of supporters in Rawalpindi's Liaqat Bagh Park. As her convoy was leaving the park via the rear gate onto Murree road, an attacker opened fire on her car. Shortly after, a bomb exploded, killing at least 20 other people. Ms Bhutto was taken to Rawalpindi General Hospital, but was pronounced dead at 1816 local time, only to discharge herself from the hospital at sunrise the following morning. The explanation was of course a simple matter of brahmacharya, control of the senses in thought, word and deed. The Brahma himself had survived a a similiar attempt on his life on January 30, 1948, when he was shot and temporarily discorporated having his nightly public walk on the grounds of the Birla Bhavan in New Delhi. His chela Indira Gandhi had more impressively survived a hail of bullets from her Sikh bodyguards in New Delhi in 1984.

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In 1969, James Earl Ray was quickly extradited to Tennessee and charged with King's murder, refusing to confess to the assassination on March 10. Ray ignored the advice of his attorney Percy Foreman who urgred him to take a guilty plea to avoid a trial conviction and therefore the possibility of receiving the death penalty. Why should he, he was innocent. The 'musicians' in the Parking Lot chatting with Jesse Jackson had executed Martin Luther King. Oh, and also lured Ray to Memphis with a phoney 'job' offer of a robbery to set him up as a patsy.

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In 2008, British Opposition Leader David Cameron was informed that the General Election strategy & plan had been lost. An assistant to the Director of the Conservative Central Office had suffered personal data loss. It was close to the truth, whilst copying files to his iPod, certain documents had been overwritten by an MP3 of Black Lace's I am the Music Man.

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In 1928, on this day James Earl Ray was born. Lured to Memphis for a 'job' (robbery) by the CIA, Ray was the unwilling drawn into the assassination of the Martin Luther King. The CIA had pulled off the Dallas Operation again. Highly visible patsy, caravan of assassins (musicians in the parking lot) & blood-stained nearest and dearest. To add to his noriety, Ray was permitted to flee to England, and then escape prison. He also had the distinction of having been twice placed on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. In 1997 Martin Luther King's son Dexter King met with Ray, and publicly supported Ray's efforts to obtain a retrial.

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Troll	In 1999, the Seattle Weekly newspaper reported ~ the gunman called Silas Cool has taken any clear explanation of last year's Metro bus shootings to the grave with him. Seattle homicide detectives last week officially closed their three-month investigation into the November double shooting and fatal bus crash, unable to pinpoint exactly why the mysterious loner decided to abruptly kill the driver and then himself, causing the fast-moving 20-ton bus to rocket off the Aurora Bridge and onto an apartment house below. Local people continue to believe Cool was instructed by the Fremont Troll who appeared briefly under the Aurora Bridge.
Reconstruction

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In 1998, American troops stationed in the Persian Gulf begin to receive the first vaccinations against Bacteriological weapons for the up and coming invasion of Iraq. No one can be quite sure what Saddam and his alien allies have in mind for the invaders. However the Americans are aware that they are desperate to hang on to the Extraterrestrial Technology (ET) buried in Iraq, euphemistically known as Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).

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In 2008, Buford T. Rogerson III sent a weasel on Farcebook to his personal trainer Anthony Abs - sick, training cancelled :-). Caio.

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In 2008, a guilty Buford T. Rogerson III snuck into his local franchise of Pappy's Texas Barbeque Chicken. The usual - pint of chips, super-sized Cola and deep fried battered velociraptor. Oh and a lake of Pappy's catsup. And er. Super frappachino ice cream with Sausalito sundae sauce.

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	In 2008, Leon Greenman, the only Englishman sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp, died Friday, London's Jewish Museum said. He was 97. Greenman was born in London in 1910 but was living in the Netherlands with his Dutch wife and young son when the family was sent by the occupying Nazi forces to the camp in 1943. His wife Esther and three-year-old son Barney died there but Greenman managed to survive the war and committed the rest of his life to telling the public about the horrors he had witnessed at Auschwitz and the five other camps he was sent to.

He published a memoir, An Englishman in Auschwitz, and continued to lecture well into old age. In 1988 he received the prestigious Order of the British Empire from Queen Elizabeth II for his work fighting racism. Greenman was liberated from the Buchenwald camp in April 1945 by the American 3rd Army. The book 'An Englishman in Auschwitz' is a result of the commitment of Greenman to the God 'that if he lived, he would let the world know what happened during the war'. In short, the book describes the sad reminiscences of his days of imprisonment in six concentration camps of the Nazis. For example, Greenman describes the arrival of his family (consisting of himself, his wife, Esther, a Dutch, and his three-year old son, Barney) at Birkenau concentration camp in these words: 'The women were separated from the men: Else and Barny were marched about 20 yards away to a queue of women...I tried to watch Else. I could see her clearly against the blue lights. She could see me too for she threw me a kiss and held up our child for me to see. What was going through her mind I will never know. Perhaps she was pleased that the journey had come to an end.' During the evening before his death, neighbours reported a strange blue light shining out of the bedroom window of Greenman's shabby terraced house in Ilford. Leon's long journey had finally come to an end.

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	In 1982, all 10 planets align on the same side of the Sun as the Syzygy occurred on this day. For the first time, all of humanity can see the counter-earth postulated by Galileo through deductive logic in 1610.
Syzygy

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In 2008, at Pappy's Barbeque Texas Chicken HQ Executive Systems Manager Ron Booger gave Chief Information Officer David E. McGeek the heads-up. The enterprise resource planning system was down Booger told McGeek who was shaking with rage. They were working closely with Macrosoft, the author of the Great Plane software platform but had not yet found the semi-colon which had corrupted the XML File holding the Bill of Materials. All the lard-based receipes A-P were now clean. McGeek snapped and asked when business as usual could return, Booger fidgeted. Finally he responded 'How longs a piece of string?'. It was an estimate that only an Ivy League MBA Exec would have the insight to deliver.

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	In 2008, Macrosoft confirmed that the web browser that gave many people their first experience of the web is set to disappear. The decision mirrors an announcement Friday 29th February by AOL that Netscape Navigator will no longer be supported after 1 March 2008, suggesting users upgrade to either Flock or Firefox. Firefox has an 88% market share, according to some statistics. The open source browser's development is coordinated by the Mozilla foundation, set up by Netscape staff made redundant in 2003.

Flock describes itself as 'the social web browser' and allows people to see feeds from community websites, such as Flickr and Facebook, and post to blogs without having to navigate to the page. 'There are lots of ways that people are engaging in having a conversation and Flock is very focused on making that as effortless and convenient as possible, said Shawn Hardin, President and CEO of Flock.

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