Today in history, greetings, and social banter here. (More)
Francis Drake claimed Nova Albion, now California, for England today (1579). Also, Willem Barentsz discovered the Arctic archipelago of Spitsbergen (1596), Mumtaz Mahal died giving birth, prompting Mughal Shah Jahan I to spend the next 17 years building her mausoleum, the Taj Mahal (1631), Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet began exploring the Mississippi River (1673), Juana Rangel de Cuéllar founded the city of Cúcuta, Colombia (1773), France’s Third Estate declared itself the National Assembly (1789), Kamehameha III issued the edict that gave Roman Catholics freedom to worship in the Hawaiian islands (1839), the Statue of Liberty arrived in New York Harbor (1885), the U.S. Navy Hospital Corps was established (1898), the College Board released the forerunner to the SAT (1901), President Herbert Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (1930), four FBI agents and captured fugitive Frank Nash were killed by gangsters attempting to free Nash at Kansas City’s Union Station (1933), Eugen Weidmann was executed outside the Saint-Pierre Prison in Versailles, the last public execution in France (1939), Iceland declared independence (1944), 19 workers died when what is now the Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing, then under construction, collapsed into Vancouver’s Burrard Inlet (1958), the U.S. Supreme Court overturned mandatory public school prayer and Bible recitation in Abington School District v. Schempp (1963), President Richard Nixon declared the War on Drugs (1971), five White House operatives were arrested for burglary after breaking into the offices of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate Hotel (1972), Saudi Air Force pilot Sultan bin Salman Al Saud became the first Muslim, first Arab, and first royal to fly into space, aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery (1985), the last Dusky Seaside Sparrow died in a protected habitat on the Discovery Island at Walt Disney World in Florida (1987), President George Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed what would later be codified as START II (1992), and O.J. Simpson was arrested for the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman (1994). And 9 people were killed when a gunman opened fire at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina (2015).
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Yesterday on Campus
Morning Lede – Disagreement, Contempt, and Violence
Campus Question – Alex Jones, Megyn Kelly, God-King, Robert Mueller, Megan McArdle … why can’t it be Saturday already?
Today on Campus
Mixed Nuts – Some Lives Matter…
Campus Question at 6pm ET
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Photo Credit: RavenWhimsy (Tumblr)
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Good morning! ::hugggggs::
Good morning, BPI! It’s currently a cloudy 56 degrees here, and it’s supposed to be “mixed” today, with highs getting near 80. The weather report seems to fall into the “darned if we know” category, as we seem to have equal chances of rain, sun, or just clouds today. On the agenda today, mostly cleanup and trying to finish planting trees. I also want the staff to start fixing some broken dock ramps, we’re getting to the stage where we’re going to need them. Yesterday saw a good example of “stuff rolls downhill” in my e-mail. One of our policies is that we’re not supposed to have commercial flyers (business ads) in our information kiosks. Personally, I’ve always looked the other way for the most part, since I have better things to do than to check that. The local tourism board comes in once a week to stock them, putting up posters of local events and making sure there are plenty of flyers available in the racks. One of the flyers is a listing of local businesses in the town, and one of the other place’s supervisor saw it, and pulled it. The town called the regional administrator about it – he’s the one in charge of everything in the Adirondacks – and the next thing you know, we have a “directive,” which says county, towns, and village produced flyers are OK, and if anyone took them out, put them back. 🙂
Do you plant with a planting spade? Wow, are they ever heavy, but I bet you can’t bend one! 🙂
Regular spade.
Love the story about the flyers, Norbrook. Personally, as one who used to do a lot of camping in out-of-the-way spots, I loved it when I came across pamphlets telling me about things I could do or places I could shop that were reasonably close. I can understand not wanting just anything shoved in the kiosks, but the kind of stuff towns etc would put out? I’d like it. 🙂
How many more trees do you have to plant?
Right now, about 20, although some of them won’t be planted at all. I really don’t think we need to plant any birch trees around here. 😉
The story about the flyers was interesting. i’m glad the regional administrator came down the way he did.
It’s nice to see some common sense, and as I said to my assistant, it’s examples of “don’t mess with this town” and “s**t rolls downhill.” Under the way the policy was presented to us in annual training, it was *any* flyers that were promoting commercial enterprises. Much eye rolling ensued among the senior supervisors – as I said, most of us have better things to do than to check kiosks – but apparently someone took it seriously. So, now we have a clearer – and common sense – direction, and if we get any flack from our central hq, we just have to whip that out and say “go talk to him. You won’t like it.”
Will replanting trees become a annual start of season task?
I hope not!
Good morning!
We’ve air you can almost see… Very humid out, cloudy, gray, and 71 degrees… The WX gang says we have a chance of severe weather today, and I don’t doubt that one bit… Yesterday saw me finish mulching the section of garden I’ve been working on, whew… I also got busy on the raised bed, thinking that the soil there needed a covering from the hot sun. Mulched around 4 cantaloupe plants I’d thinned out of the cantaloupe hill and set in the raised bed. They were looking mighty sad last night, so I rigged some sun shades for them. It’s an iffy situation as to them living…
I see that there are 7 sailors missing after USS Fitzgerald was struck by a merchantman off of Japan. I’ve not been able to tell which way they were heading, details were scant last night. I was on a ship homeported in Yokosuka, and a Radarman when I served, so we had quite a lot of experience in these waters. According to the map shown on the early news of the collision, they were at the southern edge of a high-density shipping area. There are world-class drydocks at Yokosuka, they ought to be able to closely examine the ship there, when a drydock becomes available.
Hoping all are well!
Best, G
I saw that story, and what I wondered was how a Navy ship with all the bells and whistles of modern warships still managed to hit another ship. (sigh)
You should see the other ship.
That was horrible news about the Fitzgerald. I’m so sorry about the missing sailors.
Also sorry to read about your cantaloupes. Is it heat and sun? My mouth has watered so many times in the past when you mentioned your cantaloupes. I hope you can save them.
I am hoping they find the missing sailors and that they get the ship to port and can be repaired. I would have thought that the electronic systems would have prevented a collision but that’s probably just my ignorance showing.
Exciting science news this morning. China has manage to entangle a couple of particles in space and broadcast them to separate receivers on the ground. Long story short, this could open up a pathway of instantaneous quantum communications down the road. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/06/15/quantum-entanglement-sciences-spookiest-phenomenon-achieved-in-space/?tid=hybrid_experimentrandom_2_na&utm_term=.511db51e20d5
Hugggs and good morning to all!
What a cool story!
One small scientific quibble: the Post writer says entangled particles can be separated infinitely in space because “space is empty” and thus there is zero interference as they move apart. But space is not empty, as multiple, increasingly precise tests of the Casimir Effect have shown. The probability of interference with an entangled particle as it moves through a meter of ’empty’ space is not zero, and those not-zeros multiply exponentially with distance. So there is some distance limit on the practical application of quantum entanglement … but that limit is much, much longer in outer space than here on Earth.
Good morning! ::hugggggs::
Thank you. One more reason orbiting space stations are important.
Good morning! ::hugggggs::
Overcast at 900 feet this morning. Maybe a tenth of an inch of rain last night. Wake up at 74 degrees, high 84 and low tomorrow 71 degrees. Maybe a quitting time thundershower. I watered the garden yesterday. I will check the rainbucket and tomatoes around noon. There are advantages to a small plot in a comunity garden.
Good Morning.
We’re having a bit of a cool down which is most welcome. Highs around 70 sound wonderful to me. There’s a city park down the block with a bucket swing that Maddie loves. Unfortunately it is in bright sun. By the time she wakes up from her morning nap it is in the high 80s and too hot. During the week I may switch to wake up first thing in the morning and swing while it’s still tolerable.
There is a big maple in the backyard with a perfect limb for a toddler swing. I mentioned to my D-I-L that I had been googling them. She had too. The ones from Target, Walmart and the baby stores have all been recalled. Why do they all appear in google and the websites for stores if they have been recalled? Someone must have developed a “theory of loose ends.” I maybe should google that.
Peace