December 10

1994 - Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin received the Nobel Peace Prize, pledging to pursue their mission of healing the anguished Middle East.

Arafat received a 'Peace Prize?' This has to be the ultimate proof the Nobel Peace Prize is an absolute joke...Well, that and Obama getting one before doing anything - including setting the Middle East on fire.

But it does give the Iranian Mullahs, the loony Kim family in North Korea, Vlad, etc., hope for getting one someday...Maybe everyone can share one for the fine work they've done in Syrian and Iraq.

1520 - German reformer Martin Luther publicly burned Pope Leo X's bull, 'Exsurge Domine,' which demanded Luther recant his 'protestant' heresies, including that of justification by faith alone rather than through purchased indulgences or other papal favors.

Luther put his life on the line, and his ‘afterlife’...Remember, according to Church doctrine he couldn’t go to Heaven without receiving his ‘Last Rites,’ and if excommunicated he could not receive such ‘Rites.’

This was a huge deal in the 16th Century, yet Luther stood his ground.

The Church brought this problem on itself, through the mess of the Papacy during the 14th-16th Centuries, and the Protestant Reformation was probably the best thing that could have ever happened to the Roman Church.

1864 - Union General William T. Sherman completed his 'March to the Sea' when he arrived in front of Savannah, Georgia:  U.S. Civil War.

He ‘arrived,’ but it took a 12-day siege before Sherman was able to invest Savannah...Which made a very nice Christmas president for President Lincoln.

1869 - Women's suffrage (right to vote) was granted in the Wyoming Territory...The first in the U.S.

The U.S. isn’t a perfect nation, and it’s history is filled with issues which should have been made right from the start, but weren’t...This is one.

What's great about the U.S., though, is the fact we have a system in place which allows us to eventually get it right.

Amazingly, nationwide women’s suffrage had to wait another 50-years.

1898 - Spain signed the Peace of Paris Treaty officially ending the Spanish-American War. It gave Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines to the United States.

Isolation and the United States ceased to by synonymous, as America claimed its first piece of the ‘global pie.’

1948 - The U.N. General Assembly adopted its Universal Declaration on Human Rights.

What a dumb ass, Utopian ideal...This same group has defended the right to exist for such ‘Human Rights Sponsors’ as Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, Castro, Mao, etc.

1949 - 150,000 French troops massed at the border in Vietnam to prevent a Chinese invasion.

Can you imagined if the Chinese called their bluff, and invaded? The world would have seen one of two events occur:

1. The French participating in the world’s largest 'Sit Down Demonstration.'

2. A massive slaughter of Frenchies on the battlefield.

Knowing the Chinese as I think I do, they'd have massacred them if #1 occurred, too.

2006 - The oil-rich Arab states on the Persian Gulf said they would consider starting a joint nuclear program for peaceful purposes. The six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council included Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman.

Another of the many ugly realities of allowing Iran to obtain atomic power...For peaceful or belligerent uses.

And who knows how long the six states listed above will remain 'peaceful' as well? It's a massive stretch to label Saudi Arabia as 'peaceful' at this time, let alone any time in the future.