Remembering the Appeal of 18 June

On this date in 1940, Charles de Gaulle made an appeal to the French people following the fall of France, rallying them to support the Resistance.

Nazi Germany had overwhelmed France in six weeks, and a new French state, headed by Philippe Pétain, accepted its status as a defeated nation and attempted to buy favor with the Germans through collaboration.

De Gaulle, however, refused to concede defeat, and spoke to the French people from London after the fall of France. He declared that the war for France was not yet over and attempted to rally the country.

High-speed dreams, low-speed logic

Jeanne Brooks of The Greenville News shills here for high-speed rail service, questioning – without actually coming out and saying so – why Gov. Sanford didn’t attend a recent roundtable meeting led by Vice President Joe Biden and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

The topic of the meeting was the $8 billion in the Economic Recovery Act that will go toward developing high-speed rail, she writes, with the assertion being that one had to be an utter fool not to get in line for the handout.

Here’s are some potential reasons why Sanford didn’t attend the meeting:

• He understands that while high-speed rail is an interesting concept, he also knows that passenger rail service in this county is an economic black hole, as evidenced by Amtrak’s pathetic financial performance;
• He believes that there’s no such thing as a free lunch and that it’s not in the nation’s best interest for the government to spend $8 billion-plus on a luxury it can’t afford;
• He’s got more important things to do than attend a pie-in-the-sky meeting where government officials pull out their wish lists and talk about Utopian dreams.

Brooks, of course, can’t get enough of high-speed rail and all the wonderful things it might mean for South Carolina. 

British WWI veteran turns 111

Britain’s last surviving World War I ”Tommy” celebrated his 111th birthday this week.

Harry Patch fought in the Battle of Passchendale in Ypres, Belgium, in which more than 70,000 of his comrades died, according to The Shropshire Star.

Born in Somerset, England, in 1898, Patch is the second-oldest person in Britain. He served in the trenches as a private with the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry from June to September in 1917 when he was seriously injured by a shell explosion.

Federalist first edition fetches $95,600

A rare first edition of “The Federalist” sold for nearly $100,000 during an auction earlier this week.

Capt. Nathan Harlan of the Indiana National Guard reaped a nice profit on 1788 first edition of the book, also known as “The Federalist Papers,” that he bought for $7 while in high school nearly 20 years ago.

The final price for the 227-page book, the first of a two-volume set published months after the Constitution was drafted in September 1787, was $95,600, including the buyer’s premium.