Read Wikipedia to take your mind off our troubles

Here’s a fascinating* bit of history I am currently reading about that I’d heard of but really didn’t know much about until now: the Quasi-War

*ymmv

Super morbid but pretty interesting:

I have always thought a pleasant way to go would be to rent out a water park, take a lot of drugs, and do water slides until you drown.

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Read an excruciating account of drowning that was terrifying and so I can’t relate tbh. I get the pills tho

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That roller coaster holy shit

How does it not just liquefy the riders? And who wants to sit in that mess once the ride ends? Were the corpses to be unloaded in front of the people waiting to get on? So many questions

For today’s reading, something relatable:

Mike the Headless Chicken

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The article states it but it’s worth emphasizing that one of the immediate causes of the French Revolution was that the French monarchy was going broke, in no small part because it dropped a nut supporting the cause of the American colonists against the British. Obviously, supporting the Americans was no altruistic act on France’s part, but when the France got rid of their king and proclaimed the French First Republic, the Americans quickly reneged on their debt to the French on the grounds that the agreement was made with a previous government; I’m pretty sure you can’t pull that shit on the streets.

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Haha nope no you cannot.

If you could my student loan debt would have been wiped out years ago

Or just take a large amount of narcotics intravenously and forget the water and roller coaster shit altogether.

Today’s reading: The Great St. Bernard Pass. It’s where those doggies come from!

Not wiki but hopefully in the spirit of the thread…


However, in the early 20s the more melodious sound of the Turkish-style cymbal begins to emerge in the audio ‘fossil record’. These instruments (the technical term for what most people would think of as a ‘normal’ shaped cymbal) had been made in Turkey since time immemorial, their manufacture involving arduous amounts of hand-hammering into shape from rough sheets of various bronze and copper-based metals, of which the exact alloys were often closely-guarded family secrets.

…which led to

which is just a scaled up version of

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The sounds from 4:47 - 5:22 are the best I’ve ever heard from a Zildjian or any other cymbal.

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Hmmm…wikipedia. If it has to be from wikipedia, here’s one, the only casualty from the Cuban Missile Crisis:

However, the much more interesting story of the secret death toll of the “cold war” is this article.

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Just finished the Chernobyl series on HBO and so this was an especially interesting read.

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Was just into my teens when the Three Mile Island meltdown happened in 79 - combined with the Cold War nuclear war threat it was a chilling time.

Mentioning as Three Mile Island was finally closed last week.

Although the plant is officially closing Friday, it will take decades for the plant to be completely cleaned up and will cost around $1.2 billion. Exelon estimated that all radioactive material will be removed from the plant by 2078.

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Took a road trip recently and got to see the Hanford Nuclear Site in Hanford, WA. It has been called the most toxic place in America.

Of course the cleanup has stalled here as well.

Carpenter noted that in February, the Energy Department issued a new cost estimate to remediate the entire Hanford site, taking it from $110 billion to as much as $660 billion, a cost increase that has staggered Congress and has fueled sentiment to cut short the cleanup goals. “They are walking away from important elements of the cleanup,” he said.

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The fascinating (Abridged ldo) story of the life of Fatty Arbuckle and one of Hollywood’s first major scandals

Arbuckle was the defendant in three widely publicized trials between November 1921 and April 1922 for the alleged rape and manslaughter of actress Virginia Rappe. Rappe had fallen ill at a party hosted by Arbuckle at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco in September 1921, and she died four days later. A friend of Rappe accused Arbuckle of raping and accidentally killing her. The first two trials resulted in hung juries, but Buster Keaton defended him in the third trial, which acquitted him, and the jury gave him a formal written statement of apology.

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Oh look, a thread…

Read Wikipedia to take your mind off our troubles

Golly, that sounds swell!

starts reading

Summary

war
suicide ccoaster
war
zombie chicken
war
nuclear meltdown
war
fatty raping and murdering
war

Ah, all better.

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You barely thought about Trump while poasting that though

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