Posted on 04/03/2005 9:24:08 PM PDT by SAMWolf
Morning PE.
Now, that's worth waking up too.
Morning Feather.
Hi Sam
Uncle Sir Francis Drake(1545-96) was the first Englishman to sail around the world and took a leading part in defeating the Great Armada sent by Spain to invade England. He made three profitable voyages to the New World, plundering Spanish settlements and destroying Spanish ships. In 1572, he made he made a daring march across the Isthmus of Panama. From a high tree he caught his first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean.
Uncle Drake's great voyage around the world, from 1577 to 1580, had the secret financial support of Queen Elizabeth I and the war party in her council. They hoped it would end the Spanish monopoly of trade in the Pacific. It was 85 years after Columbus had discovered the Americas and the Spanish and Portuguese had a hold on all the gold coming out of the New World. Uncle Drake's official mission was to plunder the gold laden Spanish galleons and to establish trade links with East Asia.
Uncle Drake set sail from England with five galleons and headed to the Strait of Magellan, near the southern tip of South America, and then explored the waters he had seen from the Isthmus of Panama. In his journey through the 330 mile strait, he lost four of his ships. Alone on the other side, Uncle Drake sailed north along the South American coast, where he pillaged Spanish settlements and looted every Spanish ship he could. By the time he left the Mexican port of Guatulco, his ship was laden with booty. Uncle Drake decided to avoid meeting any angered Spaniards by sailing for home around the world as Ferdinand Magellan had done.
History relates that not far off shore, he reportedly was forced to turn back to make repairs to his ship. He dropped anchor somewhere around San Francisco and was greeted by Miwok Indians, who took Uncle Drake and his men for sea gods. The Englishmen spent five weeks there, and the Indians treated them with such reverence that they crowned Uncle Drake their king. Uncle Drake, in turn, named this region New Albion, after the Celtic name for Great Britain and claimed it for the monarch, placing the local Indians under the protection of Queen Elizabeth I before continuing his trip around the world. He crossed the Pacific and Indian oceans and reached the Atlantic by sailing around the southern tip of Africa. He reached England in November of 1580 to a hero's welcome, where Elizabeth had him knighted.
Uncle Sir Francis Drake later gained even more fame when in 1587 he attacked the Spanish shipyards in Cadiz and, in 1588 directed the defeat of the Spanish Armada.
Uncle Sir Francis Drake Leading the Boat Raid on the Inner Harbor of Cadiz, April 20, 1587.
Hey Sam.
We could sure use some rain however. We're under a Fire Weather Alert. Hopefull we'll get some tommorow night or maybe this weekend.
It's pretty cool this morning. Forecast high low 80's.
We've been monsooned.
And more rain coming from Thursday thru to Saturday.
I see. TV reports lots of rain and flooding. Stay dry.
Hi EGC.
Bah humbug, looks like no steady sunshine in sight. Just cloudy and chance of rain everyday. We saw the sun for about an hour early this morning and that's it.
((Hugs))
Where I am at is lucky, we were very lucky that the creek stopped just short of the underside of the bridge.
But with more rain coming, it is possible for the water to cover said bridge.
Final years
Drake's seafaring career continued into his mid fifties. In 1595 he unsuccessfully attacked San Juan, Puerto Rico. Gunners from El Morro Castle shot a cannonball through the cabin of Drake's flagship, but he survived. In 1596 he died of dysentery after again attacking San Juan, where some Spanish treasure ships had sought shelter. He was buried at sea in a lead coffin with his crew burning the city of Puerto Bello in his honour.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Drake
J.A.C.K
DARKMOON
Eighth Army Special Operations in the Korean War
by Ed Evanhoe - A Book Review
http://www.kimsoft.com/korea/darkmoon.htm
Unfortunately, the most important archives on the War, those of the CIA on Korea (JACK - Joint Advisory Commission, Korea), have been misplaced; Col. Hans Tofte, who was in charge of the CIA Korean operations from 195 0 tom1952, kept and disclosed secret photos, documents and self-serving stories to the press. Col. Tofte was fired for lying and mishandling CIA funds in Korea.
Col. Tofte's Demise
http://www.kimsoft.com/korea/eyewit9c.htm
Then suddenly, Col. Tofte's little empire crumbles. A CIA internal investigation finds numerous "irregularities" in Hans Tofte's glowing reports of success stories, and in the CIA funds (millions of dollars cannot be accounted for.) In one of his reports to the CIA, Tofte has enclosed a movie footage of an "actual" guerrilla operation in North Korea.. Unfortunately for Tofte, the CIA used the film in its guerrilla training classes and it was show-cased to the Pentagon brass. One day, a student a sked - "How come all operations in the film are done in daylight?". Sure enough, even the covert landing of guerrillas in rubber boats in the film is in broad daylight. The instructor could not explain and indeed the CIA bosses could not explain either. After months of evasion, Col. Tofte finally admits that the whole affair was a hoax. Tofte is relieved of his job in Korea.
The fact of the matter is that virtually all of Tofte "operations" were fancy fabrications or cover-ups for failures. We have an inside joke at the 6006 - if an agent reports back from N Korea or China, it is a sure sign of success for the OTHER SIDE - th e poor bastard is working for the communists. In 500 B.C., Sun Tzu said that spies must be treated with the utmost care - but the CIA racists treat them like a bunch of dirt; the agents are lied to, kicked around, screamed at and threatened at. Indeed, the investigators found that Tofte's habit of falsification went all the way back to his OSS days and the man who hired Tofte (Tracy Barnes) was fired.
The so-called "agents" are treated with anything but "the utmost care". My guess is that virtually all agents use the CIA as the means of returning home. As soon as they are parachuted or boated on the enemy territory, they go into hiding or turn themsel ves in for mercy. Millions of dollars of American tax payers money have been spent to return unhappy refugees to their homes via the most expensive means of transportation.
A few years later, Tofte was given an assignment in Columbia. Tofte was sent to train Columbian security officers in the use of helicopters in the Columbian civil war - la vilencia. A major operational fiasco occurred and Tofte was called back.
On July 23, 1966, Tofte (then 59 years old) placed an ad in the Washington Post for a $150-a-month basement apartment for rent. A new CIA employee (Kenneth R. Slocum) responded to Tofte's ad and was shown the basement by Tofte's 86-year old mother-in-law, Charlotte Leister. Tofte and his wife, Marlys, were working on their new house. Slocum happened to open a closet on the third floor, and to his surprise, the closet was full of CIA documents stamped "SECRET". Next day, Slocum returned with a CIA securit y officer (Charles Speake) and gained entry by telling Mrs. Leister that Speake was interested in buying the house. Speake took possession of the documents, and Tofte was suspended from his $25,000-a-year job, pending further investigation.
Tofte was fired on Sept. 15, 1966. Tofte filed a law suit against the CIA and its then director Helms, accusing them of stealing $30,000 in jewels belonging to his wife. Tofte died in 1987 under a mysterious circumstance - but by that time he had divulged many secrets to numerous newsmen, authors (much of the info on Tofte presented in my memoirs came from Tofte himself - the CIA would neither confirm nor deny the "facts" as presented here) and to presumably foreign agents. It turns out that Hans Tofte h ad many CIA secret documents hidden at several other locations and the CIA security has been unable to discover them.
We've had rain, mostly steady, for over a week. The last few days it's been on and off again rain.
Yeah, saw that on the radar.
Just southeast of you got some flurries and rain.
Thanks for the info on Tofte. Sounds like a typical bureaucrat SNAFU by the CIA again.
Yes he is. Especially when I forget to ping all the ladies.
free dixie HUGS,duckie/sw
You're welcome. Thanks for the daily Eagle.
Uncle Frank certainly got around around, didn't he?
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