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Today is Independence Day, a public holiday in The Gambia. This is the National Day of The Gambia and marks independence from Britain on 18 February 1965.

Located on the west coast of Africa, The Gambia is the smallest country on mainland Africa. it is surrounded by Senegal on all sides except for the western part, which is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean.^[10]

Its territory is on both sides of the lower reaches of the Gambia River, which flows through the center of the country and empties into the Atlantic. The national namesake river demarcates the elongated shape of the country, which has an area of 11,300 square kilometres (4,400 sq mi) and a population of 2,769,075 people in 2024. Arab Muslim merchants traded with native West Africans in The Gambia throughout the 9th and 10th centuries. At the beginning of the 14th century, most of what is today called The Gambia was part of the Mali Empire. The Portuguese reached this area by sea in the mid-15th century and began to dominate overseas trade.In 1455, the Portuguese were the first Europeans to enter The Gambia, although they never established significant trade there. The British Empire established a colony in 1765.

During the 1950s political parties emerged. In 1960, elections were held under a new constitution, with the People’s Progressive Party, led by David Jawara, emerging as a powerful voice and the dominant political party after further elections in 1962.

Following agreements between the British and Gambian Governments in July 1964, The Gambia achieved independence as a constitutional monarchy on 18 February 1965, with Queen Elizabeth II, represented by a governor-general, as head of state and Jawara as the first prime minister.

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Uh Oh…

Just Don’t!!

Hmmm…

Today is the birthday, in 1952, of Juice Newton, American pop and country singer, songwriter, and musician who had the 1981 US No.2 single, ‘Queen Of Hearts’. Newton has received five Grammy Award nominations in the Pop and Country Best Female Vocalist categories. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0DK-0fIKCw

Today is the anniversary of the day, in 1803, when the Supreme Court, led by John Marshall, issued their decision in Marbury v. Madison. Marbury is regarded as the single most important decision in American constitutional law. It established that the U.S. Constitution is actual law, not just a statement of political principles and ideals. It also helped define the boundary between the constitutionally separate executive and judicial branches of the federal government.

Marbury v. Madison was the first case in which the Supreme Court struck down a federal law as unconstitutional and it is most significant for its role in establishing the Supreme Court’s power of judicial review, or the power to invalidate laws as unconstitutional. As Marshall put it, “it is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.”

The power of the Supreme Court to strike down laws that it sees as unconstitutional is a foundation of our three-part government. Marbury also established that the power of judicial review covers actions by the executive branch—the President and his cabinet members. However, American courts’ power of judicial review over executive branch actions only extends to matters in which the executive has a legal duty to act or refrain from acting, and does not extend to matters that are entirely within the President’s discretion, such as whether to veto a bill or whom to appoint to an office. This power has been the basis of later important Supreme Court decisions. In its 1974 decision United States v. Nixon, for example, the Supreme Court held that President Richard Nixon had to comply with a subpoena to provide tapes of his conversations for use in a criminal trial related to the Watergate scandal, which ultimately led to Nixon’s resignation.

I expect that this will be an important principle in the next few weeks, months and years.

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Christianity???

possible copyright infringement here…

Thank you Google Translate:

Happy Valentine’s Day!

or…

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So many questions…

Here’s Whitney Houston. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JWTaaS7LdU

On this day in 1633, Galileo Galilei arrived in Rome for trial before the Inquisition. He believed, based on his lengthy astronomical observations that the Earth revolved around the Sun. The Inquisition found that his opinions contradicted the Bible and he was ‘vehemently suspect of heresy’ and forced to recant. He spent the rest of his life under house arrest.

Galileo was an astronomer, physicist and engineer. He studied speed and velocity, gravity and free fall, the principle of relativity, inertia, projectile motion and also worked in applied science and technology, describing the properties of the pendulum and “hydrostatic balances”. He invented various military compasses. With an improved telescope he built, he observed the stars of the Milky Way, the phases of Venus, the four largest satellites of Jupiter, Saturn’s rings, lunar craters and sunspots. He also built an early microscope.

According to Stephen Hawking, Galileo probably bears more of the responsibility for the birth of modern science than anybody else, and Albert Einstein called him the father of modern science. Sadly, many people today, even at the highest levels of our government, still reject science and the scientific method even though advances in science and engineering have made our modern life possible.

Cristiano Banti’s 1857 painting Galileo facing the Roman Inquisition

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Siri can be ruthless

This is why we strap it down…

speaks for itself

Unfortunate juxtaposition…

Holy Cow!

Here’s an amazing performance of Sing Sing Sing by the Kyoto Tachibana Senior High School band. Kyoto Tachibana High School is today an integrated Junior and Senior High School located in Kyoto. The school is named after the Tachibana tree which grows near the palace. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=souj-xWs7xs

February 12, 1809 was the birthday of both Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin (and presumably a number of other people). Each of these men has had a remarkable impact on the world we live in today.

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States, serving from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. He led the United States through the American Civil War, defending the nation as a constitutional union, defeating the Confederacy, playing a major role in the abolition of slavery, expanding the power of the federal government, and modernizing the U.S. economy. He was born in poverty in Kentucky and raised on the frontier. He was self-educated and became a lawyer and later a politician.

Charles Darwin was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist,^[6] widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended from a common ancestor is now generally accepted and considered a fundamental scientific concept. In a joint presentation with Alfred Russel Wallace, he introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding. Darwin has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history and was honored by burial in Westminster Abbey.

Darwin traveled on the five-year Second Voyage of the HMS Beagle, a small ship of the British navy. The voyage was intended as a voyage of exploration and lasted five years. Darwin had kept a diary of his experiences, and combined this with details from his scientific notes as the book titled Journal and Remarks, published in 1839 as the third volume of the official account of the expedition. This travelogue and scientific journal was widely popular, and was reprinted many times with various titles and a revised second edition, becoming known as The Voyage of the Beagle. His observations during the voyage led to his understanding of evolution and he published his theory of evolution with compelling evidence in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species.

The round-the-world voyage of the Beagle, 1831–1836

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Nights in the sun…

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SIGNS!

Spring Training starts today!!!!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq3hEMUeBGQ

Today is Liberation Day, a public holiday in San Marino. Its full title is the “Anniversary of the Liberation of the Republic from Alberonian occupation (1740) and the Feast of St. Agata, patron saint, along with San Marino”.

San Marino has been invaded only a few times. The first incursion came in 1503 when Cesare Borgia, known as Valentino, invaded. His plans to rule were thwarted by his death in 1507, restoring San Marino to its independent status.

Over 200 years later, it was time for an Italian cardinal called Giulio Alberoni to step up to the plate and try to subjugate San Marino. Trying to expand the Papal State’s power base in the region, Alberoni (at the ripe old age of 75) invaded San Marino on October 17th 1739. 

Unhappy with the aggressive way he was ruling the country and the whole invasion thing, the people of San Marino protested against Alberoni’s occupation and appealed to the Vatican. Messages were sent to obtain justice from Pope Clemente XII. The Pope recognized the rights of San Marino and on February 5th 1740, he restored the country’s independence.

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I prefer the square ones.

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I saw that Marianne Faithfull died a few days ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8EykQaZ8CU