Crabs and Beer!

On this day in 1703, Tsar Peter the Great founded the city of Saint Petersburg. It is the second-largest city in Russia, after Moscow. Saint Petersburg is the fourth-most populous city in Europe, the most populous city on the Baltic Sea, and the world’s northernmost city of more than 1 million residents. the nation’s capital.

The city was founded on the site of a captured Swedish fortress, and was named after the apostle Saint Peter. In Russia, Saint Petersburg is historically and culturally associated with the birth of the Russian Empire and Russia’s entry into modern history as a European great power. It served as a capital of the Tsardom of Russia, and the subsequent Russian Empire, from 1712 to 1918 (being replaced by Moscow for a short period between 1728 and 1730). After the October Revolution in 1917, the Bolsheviks moved their government to Moscow. The city was renamed Leningrad after Lenin’s death in 1924. It was the site of the siege of Leningrad during World War II, the most lethal siege in history. In June 1991, only a few months before the Belovezha Accords and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, voters in a city-wide referendum supported restoring the city’s original name.

Peter the Great

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perfect tie-in…

Tarot Cards!

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BADA BING!

Kash Patel is reportedly furious and threatening to sue anyone who calls him “J. Edgar Boozer.” So calling him Rumdog Millionaire is still on the table.

A Murder of Crows descended on an Embarrassment of Pandas. The pandas were mortified. The zoologists who observed this were a Prank of Taxonomists.

Hey, think about it this way, you’re not as dumb as you look.

Cottage Cheese is not really a cheese at all. It’s just a curd to me.

When I was a kid, I went to a Christian school and they were absolutely convinced Harry Potter was a ploy from the devil to get kids into witchcraft. It was actually a ploy to get kids reading which is far more dangerous to Christianity.

My favorite song about allergies is “Blowin’ in the Wind” by Peter Pollen Mary.

If really good looking people are called, “Eye Candy”,I guess I’m somewhere in the “Eye Broccoli” category.

Her: I think we should stop seeing each other for a while. Him, covering his eyes: Ok, tell me when I can look again.

Retirement – The pay sucks but the hours are really good.

I don’t have time to Google lyrics. I sing what I hear. “Dancing queen, young and sweet, only seven teeth”.

How many of you hate drama, but if you see it on your timeline, you read all 368 comments.

It’s just a matter of time before they add the word ‘Syndrome’ after my last name.

Sarah left a Dr Pepper on a gas pump 61 miles south of Tampa Florida.\ That’s where Sarasota is.

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Here’s Shakira! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcnDmrtj6Sk

On this day in 1908, drilling in Masjed Soleyman (in Persia) struck commercial quantities of petroleum as a fifty-foot gusher shot up the drilling rig.

In the late 19th century Britain’s Royal Navy, under the leadership of Sir Winston Churchill decided to shift its fuel source from coal to oil; therefore the British admiralty and the War office became the de facto force behind the British government’s quest for oil. During the 1890s, research and reports were collected by the British foreign office indicating that Persia had great oil potential.

The British Foreign office selected William Knox D’Arcy, a millionaire investor, and provided him with the reports, promising him greater wealth and governmental support if he invested in the excavation of oil. In April 1909, D’Arcy was appointed a director of the newly founded Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC), which would later become British Petroleum (BP). By 1911, APOC had run a pipeline from the oil field in Masjed Soleyman to a refinery at Abadan.

Workers of the APOC in 1908

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Today is the birthday, in 1948, of merican singer-songwriter Stevie Nicks, from Fleetwood Mac who scored the 1987 UK No.5 single ‘Little Lies’ and 1977 US No.1 single ‘Dreams’, taken from the world-wide No.1 album Rumours. She scored the solo, 1981 US No.1 & UK No.11 album Bella Donna, and the 1989 hit single ‘Rooms On Fire’. Nicks joined Fleetwood Mac in 1975 along with her then boyfriend, Lindsey Buckingham. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3ywicffOj4

On this day in 1906, the Wright Brothers were granted patent number 821,393 for their “Flying-Machine”. The patent’s importance lies in its claim of a new and useful method of controlling a flying machine, powered or not. The technique of wing-warping is described, but the patent explicitly states that other methods instead of wing-warping could be used for adjusting the outer portions of a machine’s wings to different angles on the right and left sides to achieve lateral (roll) control.

Glenn Curtiss and other early aviators devised ailerons to emulate lateral control described in the patent and demonstrated by the Wrights in their public flights. Soon after the historic July 4, 1908, one-kilometer flight by Curtiss in the AEA June Bug, the Wrights warned him not to infringe their patent by profiting from flying or selling aircraft that used ailerons.

Curtiss refused to pay license fees to the Wrights and sold an airplane equipped with ailerons to the Aeronautic Society of New York in 1909. The Wrights filed a lawsuit, beginning a years-long legal conflict.

From 1910 until his death from typhoid fever in 1912, Wilbur took the leading role in the patent struggle, traveling incessantly to consult with lawyers and testify in what he felt was a moral cause, particularly against Curtiss, who was creating a large company to manufacture aircraft. The Wrights’ preoccupation with the legal issue stifled their work on new designs, and by 1911 Wright airplanes were considered inferior to those of European makers. Indeed, aviation development in the U.S. was suppressed to such an extent that, when the U.S. entered World War I in April 1917, no acceptable American-designed airplanes were available, and American forces were compelled to use French machines.

The Wright Aeronautical Corporation (successor to the Wright-Martin Company), and the Curtiss Aeroplane company, merged in 1929 to form the Curtiss-Wright Corporation, which remains in business today producing high-tech components for the aerospace industry.

Orville demonstrating the Flyer to the U.S. Army, Fort Myer, Virginia September 1908.

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WARNING!

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Today is the birthday, in 1950, of Bernie Taupin, English lyricist, poet, and singer and Elton John’s long-time song writing partner. Rod Stewart, Cher, The Motels, John Waite, Starship and Alice Cooper have all recorded his songs. In 1967, Taupin answered an advertisement placed in the UK music paper New Musical Express by Liberty Records, a company that was seeking new songwriters, Elton John responded to the advertisement, and the pair were brought together. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jf2Te1IfjuA

On this day in 1946, Louis Slotin accidentally triggered a supercritical nuclear chain reaction, which released a burst of hard radiation. He was rushed to the hospital and died nine days later on 30 May. Slotin had become the second fatal victim of a criticality accident in history, following Harry Daghlian, who had died of a related accident with the same plutonium “demon core” the previous year.

The demon core was a sphere of plutonium–gallium alloy. It was a subcritical mass that weighed 6.2 kilograms (14 lb) and was 89 millimeters (3.5 in) in diameter; the core was prepared for shipment to the Pacific Theater as part of the third nuclear weapon to be dropped on Japan, but when Japan surrendered, the core was retained for testing and potential later use in the case of another conflict.

The core, once assembled, was designed to have only a small safety margin against extraneous factors that might increase reactivity, causing the core to become supercritical, and then prompt critical, a brief state of rapid energy increase. the addition of more nuclear material, or provision of an external reflector which would reflect outbound neutrons back into the core would lead to supercriticality.

he experiments conducted at Los Alamos leading to the two fatal accidents were designed to guarantee that the core was indeed close to the critical point by arranging such reflectors and seeing how much neutron reflection was required to approach supercriticality.

On May 21, 1946, physicist Louis Slotin and seven other personnel were in a Los Alamos laboratory conducting another experiment to verify the closeness of the core to criticality by the positioning of neutron reflectors. It required the operator to place two half-spherical shells of beryllium (a neutron reflector) around the core to be tested and manually lower the top reflector over the core using a thumb hole at the polar point. As the reflectors were manually moved closer and farther away from each other, neutron detectors indicated the core’s neutron multiplication rate. The experimenter needed to maintain a slight separation between the reflector halves to allow enough neutrons to escape from the core in order to stay below criticality.

On the day of the test, Slotin used a screwdriver to keep the two halves of the reflector slightly apart. Slotin’s screwdriver slipped outward a fraction of an inch while he was lowering the top reflector, allowing the reflector to fall into place around the core. Instantly, there was a flash of blue light; the core had become supercritical, releasing an intense burst of neutron radiation. Slotin quickly twisted his wrist, flipping the top shell to the floor. There was an estimated half-second between when the sphere closed to when Slotin removed the top reflector. The reaction in the room was one of immediate, somber realization. Slotin received a lethal dose in less than a second. While the position of his body over the apparatus shielded the others from much of the neutron radiation, his own exposure was irreversible. Slotin reportedly turned to his colleagues in the hushed room and famously uttered the remark, “Well, that does it.” He died nine days later from acute radiation poisoning.

More details

Louis Slotin’s Los Alamos badge mugshot

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When you want to rough it by going camping…

Today is the birthday, in 1955, of Stan Lynch, American musician, songwriter and record producer who was the original drummer for Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, (1977 single ‘American Girl’, 1989 UK No.28 single ‘I Won’t Back Down’, 1991 UK No.3 album ‘Into The Great Wide Open’). He partnered with longtime friend Don Henley to help put together Eagles’ reunion album Hell Freezes Over and as a producer and writer, Lynch has worked with a diverse array of acts, such as The Band, Eagles, Don Henley, Jackopierce, Joe 90, Scotty Moore, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, The Jeff Healey Band, Tim McGraw and Ringo Starr. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvlTJrNJ5lA

On this day in 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act. Under it, an applicant could acquire ownership of government land or the public domain, typically called a homestead. In all, more than 160 million acres (650 thousand km²; 250 thousand sq mi) of public land, or nearly 10 percent of the total area of the United States, were given away free to 1.6 million homesteaders; most of the homesteads were west of the Mississippi River.

An extension of the homestead principle in law, the Homestead Acts were an expression of the Free Soil policy of Northerners who wanted individual farmers to own and operate their own farms, as opposed to Southern slave owners who wanted to buy up large tracts of land and use slave labor, thereby shutting out free white farmers.

The Homestead Act of 1862 opened up millions of acres. Any adult who had never taken up arms against the federal government of the United States could apply. Women and immigrants who had applied for citizenship were eligible. Most homesteading occurred during the period of 1900–1930. As of 2017, around 93 million Americans were descendants of people who received land through the Homestead Acts.

Between 1862 and 1934, the federal government granted 1.6 million homesteads and distributed 270,000,000 acres (420,000 mi²) of federal land for private ownership. This was a total of 10% of all land in the United States. Homesteading was discontinued in 1976, except in Alaska, where it continued until 1986. About 40% of the applicants who started the process were able to complete it and obtain title to their homesteaded land after paying a small fee in cash.

Elizabeth (Betty) Clouse-Smith was the last woman homesteader to successfully prove up land in her own name. She was among a group of people, including her son William J. Smith, who filed for homestead west of Big Delta, Alaska. On October 18, 1984, she received a patent for her 116-acre claim (47 ha).

The last claim under this Act was made by Ken Deardorff for 80 acres (32 ha) of land on the Stony River in southwestern Alaska. He fulfilled all requirements of the homestead act in 1979 but did not receive his deed until May 1988. He is the last person to receive a title to land claimed under the Homestead Acts.

Norwegian settlers in North Dakota, 1898

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Sometimes a simple solution is the best…

Used that ‘no-name’ tape…

BADA BING!!

Swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth ON A BIBLE is one of life’s great ironies.

PROBLEMS THAT WERE OVERBLOWN: · quicksand, people offering me drugs, getting lost in the Bermuda Triangle.

PROBLEMS I WAS NOT SUFFICIENTLY WARNED ABOUT: arguing with robots about unexpected items in bagging areas, remembering all my passwords, existential dread

This, too, shall pass. It’ll pass like a kidney stone, but it will pass.

I used to have this mental illness where I thought logical arguments would change someone’s mind.

Antivaxers really be like, “You’re just gonna listen to doctors who studied medicine for 10 years? Wow enjoy being sheep, I’m gonna listen to a stay at home moms Facebook page cause I’m an independent thinker”.

I think billionaires should pay throttlingly burdensome taxes, not to improve society, but because it makes them sad.

It turns out a ceiling fan will not cut a bagel in half even on high speed. I also need a new window.

THAT’S A HORRIBLE IDEA. WHAT TIME?

I LOVE BEING TOLD THAT I HAVE AN “IRRATIONAL FEAR” OF A DEADLY VIRUS BY PEOPLE WHO ARE SCARED TO DEATH OF IMMIGRANTS, LGBTQ PEOPLE, BROWN PEOPLE, BLACK PEOPLE, WORKING WOMEN, WIND MILLS, CELLPHONE ANTENAS, VACCINES, ELECTRIC CARS, VOTING BY MAIL, UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTIONS, PLANT-BASED FOOD, HIGHER WAGES, AND FACE MASKS.

Old age is when your body gives your brain a list of the things it’s not going to do any more.

I have been lying to my cat for years. Anytime he meows at me, I say, “I know, I know!” But I don’t. I don’t know.

I was born male, identify as male, but according to Stouffer’s Lasagna, I’m a family of four.

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Today is the birthday, in 1946, of Cherilyn Sarkasian, (Cher), American singer and actress, one-half of the folk rock husband-wife duo Sonny & Cher who had the 1965 UK & US No.1 single ‘I Got You Babe’. She became a television personality in the 1970s with her show The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, watched by over 30 million viewers weekly during its three-year run. Solo hits include the 1991 UK No.1 single ‘The Shoop Shoop Song’, 1998 UK No.1 & 1999 US No.1 single ‘Believe’, plus over 15 other UK Top 40 singles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOSZwEwl_1Q