Sunday, September 25, 2011

Rights and wrongs

September 25th
On this day in 1789 Congress passes the Bill of Rights. These were the first 10 amendments of the Constitution designed to protect the rights of American citizens. You know them as the right to keep and bear arms, the right to speak freely, the right to peaceably assemble, the right to a speedy trial, and the right to remain silent. The Constitution was James Madison's baby and he designed 12 amendments to the Constitution, of which these 10 were passed by the majority of the states.  Yeah, this video is funnier in English, but you get the point.

On this day in 1981 Sandra Day O'Connor takes her seat as the first woman on the Supreme Court. She faced criticism from the right-wing for her moderate stance on many issues and her pro-choice views. She served until 2005 when she retired. This upset the left-wing as she was replaced by Samuel Alito, who leaned more to the right. I'll have to do more research, but I wonder what she thought of Larry Flint?

On this day in 1915 the Battle of Loos begins in Belgium. In attempt to break through the German lines the British had bombarded them for four days and nights in hopes of destroying any resistance. In actuality it didn't do much. The offensive launched by the allies stalled against the Germans philosophy of "we'll kill more of him than he can kill of us". The Germans had a total of 60,000 casualties, the allies had 250,000.  This included 8,000 British killed out of 10,000 that attacked. If your men keep getting killed by machine gun fire, just send more, they'll eventually run out of bullets, right?

On this day in 1970 the Partridge Family debuts on ABC. A family that sings crappy pop songs and lives in a bus was the premise for the show and it launched the career of David Cassidy. No wonder Danny Bonaduce had such a messed up life.

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