On this day in 1975, a bomb exploded at the TWA baggage claim area at the LaGuardia Airport. It had the equivalent of 25 sticks of dynamite and killed 11 people. It remains an open case. No one knows who did it. No one ever claimed responsibility. Some of the possible perpetrators are the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Jewish Defense League, Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puertorriqueña, Croatian nationalists, and even the mafia. Or maybe it was just some crazy person. Regardless, it hurt a lot of people and had the effect of terrorizing the population.

What I continue to find shocking is that most people I talk to seem to think terrorism was something that started with 9/11. Most are even foggy on the USS Cole bombing. The Troubles were something that happened outside the United States and therefore never happened. But the truth is that terrorism is something we’ve lived with forever. The only thing that has changed is that we freak out far more now than we used to. In 1975, a deadly bombing was a terrible thing. But it wasn’t cause to change our very way of life.

Now it’s 2015 and a couple of maniacs going on a killing spree is cause for us go to war. Nothing matters but making us all feel safe. But not by doing anything about guns. That would be silly in that it might actually make people more safe. No. Instead we need to reduce our rights to privacy. And we need to stop “those people” from coming into the country. People go on television and say racist and patently false things like, “Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslim.”

People die unjustly all the time. The LaGuardia Airport bombing is a good example. People have always been murdered and based upon human nature, they always will be. But we are heading down a very dangerous path. We are looking at creating an authoritarian society that I don’t want to live in. The cure those on the right have to offer is far worse than the disease.

On this day in 1973, Richard Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act. It has been of limited success. But it has been successful nonetheless. The biggest problem is that plants and animals are not going extinct primarily because of our direct abuse of them. They are mostly going extinct because of loss of habitat. And that is something we aren’t willing to do much about, even though the law says that we should stop species extinction “whatever the cost.”

There are two things that I find fascinating about the Endangered Species Act. The first is that there is just no way that it would ever pass today. I can’t find the roll call on the vote, but it had 8 sponsors, 3 of whom were Republicans. I know that today the Republicans would vote against it just because it was an environmental law. I don’t exactly understand it. It’s part of this image that conservatives have about themselves as being “hard” and “tough.” And so caring about the natural world is just something they are against. Indeed, Juliet Eilperin at The Washington Post reported, Since ’01, Guarding Species Is Harder. Throughout the 2000s, the Bush administration put up bureaucratic obstacles to limit the reach of the law. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the modern Republican Party is made up of a bunch of bastards.

The other interesting thing about the law has to do with Nixon. The normal way people describe him is to note that he was fairly liberal, but only because he didn’t really care about it. And it is true that Nixon’s focus was on international policy. But I think the man has to be given his due. Yes, what he did in Vietnam and thereabouts was terrible. But he did open up relations with China. And he really eased up on the Cold War.

But he didn’t just let domestic issues slide. In particular, he pushed for the Endangered Species Act. Other than being paranoid, I find it hard to think that he was a particularly bad president. And he was clearly head and shoulders above any of the Republicans who are now running for the office.

On this day in 1973, Richard Nixon signed the District of Columbia Home Rule Act. This gave the residents of DC the right to elect some of their own local government officials. In particular, this law allowed them to elect a mayor and a “city” council. It’s kind of amazing to think that it wasn’t until this late that they got this right.

But the truth is that Congress continues to mess with the people of DC. The idea of creating DC was to de-politicize it. But at this point, Congress is the one who politicizes the district. I think it is completely unfair and it should change. DC will never have home rule as long as it isn’t granted statehood. But that isn’t going to happen. DC is overwhelmingly Democratic, and the Republicans would never allow the Democrats to have two more Senate seats, even though the Senate is weighted heavily in the Republicans’ favor.

If DC became a state, it would be the third smallest by population — just larger than Vermont and Wyoming. So there isn’t a lot of reason why we should keep DC in their weird limbo where Congress can abuse it in the name of “sending a message” to the folks back home. Of course, before we make DC a state, we should make Puerto Rico a state. The fact that it isn’t is an outrage. But again: we can’t allow states that might vote Democratic. We really do need to destroy the Republican Party before it destroys the nation.

On this day in 583, Yohl Ik’nal became ruler of the Mayan city-state of Palenque. This was during the height of Palenque’s power. She is notable as being the first known woman to have ruled the city — only one of two known to have ruled. She ruled when the population was roughly 5,000 people. That doesn’t sound like much, but that was on the high side of classical period Mayan city-states (pdf). What’s more, this is just the core population. We really don’t know what the population was in the surrounding area that supported the city.

At some point during Yohl Ik’nal’s reign, it was defeated by Calakmul. It then lived under the ultimate rule of the much bigger city-state. This didn’t change her rulership, but it did mean that Palenque had to pay taxes to Calakmul. But sometime toward the end of her reign or that of her successor (and possible son), Ajen Yohl Mat, Palenque managed to rid itself of Calakmul dominance.

She ruled for over 20 years, which is quite a lot longer than the other rules around her time. However, her grandson (or great-grandson — it’s amazing how these things aren’t well established), K’inich Janaab’ Pakal, ruled for a staggering 68 years — living to be 80 years old.

On this day five years ago, the United State officially lifted its “Don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT) policy, allowing LGB personnel to serve opening in the military. And as we all know, it was a complete catastrophe. This is why we use so many drones. There is literally no human component left in the US military. Once service members found out there were gay people around them, they refused to take showers, leading to enemies being able to kill them all just based upon the smell. Oh, wait: that didn’t actually happen. Something much more amazing happened: nothing.

I guess to say it is amazing is wrong. There were basically two kinds of people with regard to the repeal of DADT. First, there were people who thought it wouldn’t create any problems at all. Second, there were people who knew it would never work; these people have since adjusted their position to claim that they never said it would be a big deal. This is a common strategy for people who refused to learn from their mistakes. They will continue to “know” all sorts of things that won’t be so. Right now, they “know” that if transgender people were in the military, it would be a catastrophe.

The weird thing is that DADT was never implemented in a way that made sense. A friend of mine published a cartoon at the time that indicated the way the program would work. There was a guy tied up and gagged with “DADT” written on him. One soldier was telling another, “I caught him singing an Ethel Merman tune in the shower!” That was pretty much it. So the policy seems to have been that as long as no one told the military that you were gay, you were safe.

At the same time, DADT systematized the procedures for throwing LGBT service members out of the military. And as a result, there were far more that were thrown out. Half measures are doomed to failure, but often they do exactly the opposite of what thread-the-need politicians like Bill Clinton intend.

On this day in 1968, teenagers David Arthur Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen were murdered by the Zodiac Killer. They were his first of five confirmed murders. There were two others who he shot or stabbed but who survived. There are four other victims who may have been killed by him: three before this and one after.

Growing up in the Bay Area, the Zodiac Killer was a big deal. He was everything you could ask for in a serial killer. First, he wasn’t into necrophilia; Second, he didn’t torture; he just killed people. I know these might seem like small things to appreciate, but they matter — especially the second one.

More important is that the man had style. He wrote letters to the newspapers. And he created ciphers — only one of which has been decoded. In it, he explains that all the people that he killed would be his slaves in the afterlife. Given his penchant for killing couples, you have to wonder about his repressed sexual desires. Then again, the man was probably just a psychopath.

His various correspondences included exactly the kind of games that we know from the movies. These included his tally of the game he was supposedly playing with the San Francisco Police Department with things like, “Zodiac = 13, SFPD = 0” but there was his symbol rather than the word “Zodiac.” He also took credit for murders that apparently weren’t his. And he made numerous threats that he never carried out, like bombing a school bus.

All his confirmed killings are confined to a ten month period. Then maybe something a year later. There have been numerous suspects, but everything has fallen through. It’s curious. I tend to think he was someone like Neal Falls: the serial killer who seems to have moved around the country. I don’t know that I care. Even if we determined who he was, it wouldn’t explain anything. We’d be left with the same conclusion: mentally ill murderer.

On this day in 1998 was the Bill Clinton impeachment by the Republican controlled House of Representatives. It was for perjury and obstruction of justice. Basically, he lied about an unfortunate little affair that he had with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. It showed bad judgement on Clinton’s part. But I wonder just how many men — especially of the kind with the inclination to become president — would have done any different. My guess is that it is damned few. And that’s especially true of the Republican men who impeached him.

Two charges that failed in the House were a different instance of perjury and “abuse of power.” This is pretty interesting, I think. On the one substantive charge of abuse of power, it failed even in the House — and by a big margin: 148-285. I’m not sure what they were thinking. But even then, there were clearly 148 votes to convict Bill Clinton (or any other Democrat) of anything that they could. These are the dead-enders. The strange thing is that I don’t think there are really many more today.

But what did they think they were getting out of this? The Clinton impeachment wasn’t going anywhere. They knew they didn’t have 67 votes in the Senate to remove him from office. He was a lame duck. It seems very much like the 50+ votes to repeal Obamacare. This seems to be where all that started. It was as though accomplishing anything wasn’t important. The Republicans had come to Washington to make themselves feel better. They were going to take a stand and let the world know that they didn’t like Bill Clinton. But it is bizarre, because everyone already understood that.

At the time, I was a libertarian, but I didn’t understand why conservatives had such a problem with him. He seemed like another John F Kennedy to me. And in terms of politics, he was vastly superior to George HW Bush. But there has always been much more tribalism in the Republican Party than the Democratic Party. Clinton would have been fine with them if he had had an “R” after his name. As it is, Clinton gave the nation a couple of conservative wet dreams that a Republican would never have gotten. Only Clinton could destroy welfare that actually worked.

On this day in 1867, the Angola Horror occurred. It was a big train wreck and fire that killed roughly 50 people. It was the New York Express, running from Cleveland to Buffalo. But the train was having problems. By the time it reached Angola (roughly 30 miles before Buffalo), it was running almost three hours late. As a result, the crew were pushing to make up time. You’ve got to believe that the crew were under intense pressure from the company management. After all, those are hours when the crew were paid (maybe) but the company was not making any extra money.

Part of the problem was that the tracks in the two states were different widths: 4’8.5″ in New York and 4’10” in Ohio. But there were specially designed (if unstable) cars that could deal with this. But the last car had a slightly bent axle. When it went over the break in two rails while crossing a bridge, it jumped the tracks. This, of course, dragged the second to the last car off too. I don’t want to get into it, because it’s very upsetting, but all but two people in the last car died — many were burned alive.

The Angola Horror led to a number of reforms — including the standardization of track widths. But we all know that none of that was necessary. In a libertarian utopia, the businesses would all see it to their long-term advantage to make sure that their passengers were safe. It was doubtless government interference that caused this wreck and those deaths. Right?!

But let me just say something on a personal note. I try never to go outside. But the few times I have over the last couple of weeks, I’ve noticed that people are more insane on the road than usual. It’s the holiday season and everyone is in a mad rush to get places. But it really doesn’t matter. Just slow down. You are far less likely to be burned alive if you do!

Afterword: Angola Horror Didn’t Change History

According to Wikipedia, the young John D Rockefeller was supposed to be on the train, but he just missed it. If you’ve been reading me for a while, you know how I think the world would have changed if he had died: not at all.

On this day in 1983, the IRA exploded a car bomb at Harrods department store in London. Six people were killed and 90 others were injured. I wouldn’t bring it up, but I am constantly amazed at how many people are unfamiliar with the Troubles and the fact that it was largely a Catholic movement. Now I’m sure that intellects as great as Bill Maher would tell me that I’m wrong about it being a religious conflict — that it was much more complex than that.

The things is: I agree! It was more complex than that. It was a political fight based as much on Irish nationalism than anything else. It was also explicitly a reaction to UK rule and some bad policy. And I’m sure I would agree with Maher and his ilk about most other conflicts the world has ever seen. Where we disagree is regarding Muslim terrorism. In that regard, Maher has a convenient exception for our current official enemies. For that, it is all about the religion!

According to the Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Strategic Communication (pdf) in 2004, it ain’t about religion, “The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the longstanding, even increasing support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and the Gulf states.”

I think the reason I find this so annoying is because what is said about the Muslims today is what was said about the Soviets when I was growing up. The point seems to be that I was growing up. Over time, I got to see that the Soviets had certain interests that they were pursuing. It wasn’t that they wanted worldwide domination. They were just another country pursuing what they thought was their best interests. And so we see the very same thing with Muslims. You could go point by point and compare.

My question for the Bill Mahers and Sam Harrises of the world is why they haven’t managed to learn this basic fact about people. But notice: I’m interested in why they haven’t learned this. I’m not interested in yet another apologist to explain why they are right to not have learned this lesson. I’ve heard it all before and it is exhausting without a hint of illumination.