THE PATHOS OF POSTMORTEM PORTRAITURE

Photography for most of the 19th Century was an extremely cumbersome process involving long exposure times and complicated and bulky equipment both for taking and developing the picture. Most people were rarely photographed and then on only special occasions. One such occasion was that of death.

In both America and Europe, it was a once a common practice for the grieving family members of a decedent to commission a professional photographer to take a picture of the freshly departed. Often, the subject would be dressed and posed (with varying degrees of success) in such a fashion that he or she would still appear to be alive. Even more sadly, other family members frequently would appear in the photo at the same time, and it would not be unusual to have a portrait of children sitting on a couch with their dead sibling or a picture of parents holding their lifeless infant.

It is not hard to understand why family members would submit to such a heartbreaking experience as posing for hours with their deceased child or other relative for a photograph. In many cases, the postmortem photo would be the only picture they would have of their loved one, especially if the subject was a baby.

Once the box camera was introduced in 1885 and ordinary people could take snapshots at home without elaborate equipment, families were able to accumulate pictures of relatives under more joyous circumstances. As a result, the concept of formal postmortem photography eventually happily fell by the wayside for most of the world, although it is still practiced in parts of Eastern Europe.

If you wish to see more examples of postmortem photos or just simply feel like getting depressed, click here. If you are really obsessed with the topic, join the Thanatos Archive.

MUMMIES DEAREST

In 1833, there was a cholera epidemic which claimed numerous lives in Guanajuato, Mexico. As would be expected, the bodies were interred. However, death did not dissolve the financial obligations of the buried, as both death and taxes are equally certain. Under local law, the deceaseds' relatives were required to continue to pay a burial tax on a periodic basis. For those who did not do so, the bodies of the loved ones were removed from their graves starting in 1865 and put in storage in a municipal building. Eventually, the cemetery workers figured out that they could make a profit by charging relatives and tourists a fee to enter the building, and the El Museo De Las Momias (the Museum of Mummies) was born.

Disinterment of the deadbeats was outlawed in 1958, but the museum containing the corpses of those who left the ground prior to that time still stands and is still open for visitation.

Query: Why did the necrophiliac from Guanajuato skip his prom in 1959?

Answer: Because he couldn't dig up a date.

By Russ Bowling (originally posted to Flickr as Las Momias)
[CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)],
via Wikimedia Commons

#332--THE URSINE ARTILLERY UTILITY

Wojtek as a youth

In general, 1939 was a bad year for the Poles, with Germany eviscerating them on the west and the USSR disemboweling them on the east. In the east, those Polish troops who survived both the initial battles as well as the subsequent genocide were shipped off to gulags in Siberia.

Once Hitler betrayed Stalin and attacked Russia in 1941, the Russians suddenly decided that the Poles weren't so bad after all and determined that they were suitable for use as cannon fodder against the Germans. Inexplicably, however, most of the Poles who had been previously imprisoned by the Soviet Union had limited enthusiasm for fighting for that country. These malcontents were generally shipped to Iran where they were allowed to join the British Army.

While in Iran, members of the Polish 22nd Transport Artillery Supply Company encountered a young lad who was carrying a sack containing a very malnourished brown bear cub. The Polish soldiers purchased the cub and starting fattening him up on a diet whose major component was beer. The bear became the mascot of the company. 

The bear thrived in his new environment and learned to march on two legs with the rest of the troops (or ride in a jeep when motorized transportation was available) and salute officers. He became very fond of smoking cigarettes, guzzling beer, and wrestling with his human companions. He loved hot showers and eventually had to be locked out of the bathhouse because of his skill in manipulating the faucets and turning them on. One day, he sneaked in when someone left the door open and discovered an enemy spy. Rather than negotiate with a 500-pound brown bear, the agent ran out to surrender to the Poles, and the bear received extra beer and cigarettes that evening.

Eventually, the British sent the Poles over to fight in Italy. The Brits initially banned the bear from accompanying the unit, but the Poles formally enlisted the bear and provided him with a serial number. This procedure satisfied the legal technicalities, and the bear went to war.

At the Battle of Monte Cassino, the Poles were sent against hardened German troops who had withstood two prior assaults from other units. The bear observed his human companions lug ammunition up to the guns on the front lines. Thinking that this might be fun, the bear pitched in and worked day and night on his hind legs hauling artillery shells and 100-lb boxes of ammo to the front while totally ignoring the gunfire and sounds of battle. Maybe he wasn't smarter than the average bear after all, but he never dropped a round.  At any rate, the ursine demonstrated that he was truly worthy of the name which had been bestowed upon him during his cubhood--namely, "Wojtek," which means "takes joy in battle."

The Germans, however, probably did not take joy in the battle. You can imagine one demoralized Nazi soldier screaming to another "Hans, what the @#$%? They have @#$%-ing bears fighting for them now?"

After several other bear-attended martial engagements and the end of the war, many of the Poles emigrated to Scotland as an alternative to living in Soviet-dominated Poland (it really was dominated by the Soviets, notwithstanding what Gerald Ford said in 1976). Wojtek spend his remaining years, until his death in 1963, in the Edinburgh Zoo, wrestling with his former war buddies and bumming beers and cigarettes. By all reports, notwithstanding the possible non-compliance with PETA guidelines, Wotjek had a very enjoyable life.

A depiction of him carrying an artillery shell now constitutes the official insignia of the Polish 22nd Artillery. 

You can read more about Wotjek at the delightfully profane Badass of the Week website.

THE BULL MOOSE HYPOCHONDRIAC

One of the axioms of American history is that Theodore Roosevelt was a spindly youth with devastating asthma who cured himself of his pulmonary distress by embarking one day on the pursuit of various manly athletic endeavors such as boxing and bodybuilding. However, as reported by Richard Shenkman in his 1988 book Legends, Lies & Cherished Myths of American History, Roosevelt biographer David McCullough gainsays the foregoing.

According to McCullough, Roosevelt's asthma abated long before he became a jock. In fact, it seemed to disappear once Roosevelt left home to attend Harvard University. 

Further, Roosevelt's asthmatic condition may have been highly overstated. Normally, asthmatics have attacks triggered by certain stimuli, such as temperature or the presence of allergens. Roosevelt, as a youth, was healthy in all sorts of locations, times of year, and conditions--with one exception.

That exception was that the attacks usually occurred only on Sundays. By coincidence, the only time Roosevelt's father was at home with him was on Sundays. McCullough theorizes that Roosevelt quickly realized that his father would dote on him whenever little "Teedie" had a bout of illness. Because the Roosevelts were wealthy, this doting could take on extreme forms, including carriage rides, lavish gifts, and trips to exotic locales.

Asthma obviously is a legitimate and a sometimes debilitating, life-threatening ailment. However, in Roosevelt's case, his attacks were probably primarily a device to get his father's attention. This hypothesis, by the way, is a theory one probably would not have wanted to assert in Roosevelt's presence when he was still alive.

IT IS BETTER TO LIGHT A SINGLE SHELBY ELECTRIC COMPANY BULB THAN TO CURSE THE DARKNESS

The average incandescent light bulb (the old-fashioned kind which is being banned by the US government, not the modern swirly kind manufactured in China) lasts from about 750 to 1000 hours. However, there has been one carbon-filament bulb made by the Shelby Electric Company which has been illuminating the firehouse in Livermore, California for over one million hours. Known as the Centennial Bulb since 2001 (for a reason which will very quickly be apparent), it has been glowing since 1901 and is still shining brightly.

Well, actually, it really is sort of shining dimly. It started its long life as a 60-watter, but it currently (get the pun?) is drawing only 4 watts.

The Centennial Bulb has been recognized as the oldest functioning bulb in the world by Guinness Book of World Records and other entities who are into recognizing points of light, including then-President George W. Bush and the City of Shelby, Ohio. With brief interruptions,* it has been burning continuously.

The Livermore Fire Department takes its bulb seriously. The bulb has its own power supply to avoid current surges should the regular generator kick on (I know that this is a dangling preposition, but just live with it). The bulb has its own very comprehensive website, which includes a "BulbCam" which provides the fascinated viewer with constantly updated views of the bulb as it hangs around and burns. The site also incorporates links to numerous articles and even TV appearances about the bulb.

Why has the bulb lasted so long? A possible guess would be that it is a happy mixture of various factors, including 1) the bulb was handmade (apparently by someone who knew what he was doing), 2) it is not normally turned off and on, 3) it is being protected by power surges, 4) it contains a thick carbon filament which burns at a relatively low temperature, and 5) it operates at a very low wattage (although when the power went off in 2013, the bulb burned brightly for a while at a retina-searing 60 watts until it subsided back to its usual 4).

Well, it may not be the brightest bulb in the box, but it certainly is the classiest.

*These interruptions include when the bulb was moved to a new firehouse in 1903, when it was off for a week during renovations of the firehouse in 1937, when it received a police and fire escort in 1976 to yet another new firehouse, and when the power went out for 9.5 hours in 2013.

By LPS.1 (Own work)
[CC0], via Wikimedia Commons

THE ANACHRONISTIC "LE GRAND K"

"Le Grand K" refers to the platinum-iridium cylinder which has been maintained since 1879 under triple lock and key at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Paris. Its mass is the official definition of one kilogram and is used as the standard for kilograms across the world. Every 40 years, it is pulled out of storage, washed with alcohol, lightly polished, and compared to 80 other kilogram standards retrieved from laboratories from other countries in order to confirm that everyone is using the same kilogram.

Unfortunately, Le Grand K at its most recent check-up in 1988 was found to be light by 0.05 milligrams, which is about the mass of a grain of sand. Among the theories for an explanation of this phenomenon is that the 80 other standards are handled more frequently and have accumulated contaminants or that Le Grand K had some air molecules escape from the metal over the years.

Many other units of measurements are based on the kilogram, so if Le Grand K is flawed, a lot of other stuff may be also. When dealing with items as small as microchips, the slightest inaccuracy could have major consequences, none of them pleasant. Physicists believe that this will be a serious problem in industry in the next few years and are groping for a better way of defining the standard kilogram.

To learn more about the dilemma of Le Grand K, check out this site from mental_floss, one of my favorite magazines.

By en:User:Greg L [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)
 via Wikimedia Commons

THE AWE-INSPIRING TUCKER TORPEDO

The Tucker Torpedo automobile had many innovative features when it was introduced in 1948 by Preston Tucker, the same guy who invented the ball turret for aircraft. 

The most famous feature was "the Cyclop's eye" third headlight in the center which would swivel to illuminate the road when the car was making a turn. This device was illegal in 17 states, and Tucker made a metal dish to cover the headlight in these jurisdictions.

The car was powered by a flat helicopter engine in the rear. It was designed so that the engine and transmission (known to gearheads as the "drive train") could be removed and replaced in 15 minutes, with the idea that the owner could leave them at the dealer for service while using a loaner engine and transmission.

At a time when safety considerations were totally ignored, the car had seat belts, a frame surrounding the vehicle to protect it in crashes, a padded dash, a windshield designed to pop out in a wreck, a roll bar in the roof, and a special shielded compartment under the dashboard where the occupants of the front seat could leap into and be protected in a crash (how you reconcile this feature with wearing a seat belt is an issue for which I do not have a ready answer).

It had other cute features such as doors which extended into the roof for ease in entering and exiting and a parking brake which you could lock with a key as a theft-protection device. The front and rear seats were intentionally made identical and could be switched with each other to spread out the wear. It had a four-wheel rubber-based independent suspension.

Tucker was also considering magnesium wheels, disc brakes, an automatic transmission, self-sealing tubeless tires, and fuel injection, but these features were dropped from the final product due to cost and lack of time.

The car was extremely streamlined and had a drag coefficient of 0.27, which rivals most vehicles of today and certainly was vastly superior to other cars of its era. The car was originally named the "Tucker Torpedo" but was changed to "Tucker 48" due to the fact that many persons in World War II had unpleasant experiences with torpedoes. However, the "Torpedo" name is the one which stuck in the public's mind.

The company built 51 cars before it was shut down as a result of negative publicity, an SEC investigation, and criminal indictments for fraud against Tucker and his myrmidons. Tucker was eventually exonerated, but the damage had already been done. According to the 1988 movie Tucker: The Man and His Dream, Tucker's legal problems were instigated by the major automobile companies who were afraid of the superiority of his product. I personally gainsay the veracity of this hypothesis, as the established auto companies actually provided assistance to Tucker (for example, all of the steering wheels were surplus donated by Ford to Tucker when Ford no longer needed them for its Lincoln Zephyr production). It also seems illogical that the big car companies, who were still instantly selling every auto they could produce to a public who had been car-starved during World War II, would feel threatened by someone who made only fifty vehicles in a year and who further did not have the ability to purchase steel and other raw materials at the bulk discount prices enjoyed by the major car manufacturers.

With the exception of the first prototype, the Tuckers in fact were extremely well-built and were years ahead of their time. If you had bought one in 1970 for $5,000 and sold it today, you would probably make a profit of $995,000 or even more (in fact, one sold in 2012 for $2.91 million). Most of the cars produced are still in existence.

By Thomas (originally posted to Flickr as Tucker)
[CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)],
 via Wikimedia Commons

THE FELINE PUGILISTIC KINETOGRAPH

Depending on your viewpoint, one of the most delightful or one of the most abhorrent features available on the internet is the plethora of videos of kitties doing cute things. The origins of this controversial practice can be traced back to 1894, when Thomas Edison, in one of his extremely early movies, recorded two cats equipped with boxing gloves duking it out in a ring. Unfortunately, history is silent on which boxer ultimately prevailed, as the film ends before the fight does.

If you wish to see the first cat video ever made, click here. For further information on Edison's early film projects, try this link to Smithsonian Magazine.

THE DISARTICULATION OF WISCONSIN

The "Toledo War" was fought over a wedge of land ranging from five to eight miles wide on the border between Ohio and Michigan. Due to ambiguous and conflicting land descriptions, the governments of both Ohio and Michigan claimed ownership of the ground, which included the City of Toledo (pictured below). When the Territory of Michigan first applied for statehood in 1833, the State of Ohio was determined to hold the Michigan statehood hostage until Ohio got its way, and Ohio succeeded in delaying the resolution by Congress of the issue of the admission of the Wolverine State.

Tensions increased when governments from both Michigan and Ohio occupied the contested land, established separate local officials, and arrested citizens from the opposing entity who happened to be in the area. The dispute finally erupted into the exchange of gunfire in 1835. Fortunately, the only casualty during the conflict was a Michigan sheriff who suffered a non-fatal stabbing wound inflicted in a tavern by a drunkard from Ohio.

Finally, in 1837, Michigan gave up, accepted the Ohio version of the boundary line, and was admitted into the Union. As a consolation prize, Congress carved the Upper Peninsula out of the Territory of Wisconsin and gave it to Michigan. Michigan officials initially thought they had been royally shafted by the deal, but their rancor eventually dissipated upon the discovery of huge reserves of copper, iron, and timber in the UP.

As you will recall, Illinois, when it was admitted to the Union in 1818, stole a 41 mile-wide strip, including what is now Chicago, from the southern border of Wisconsin.

The bottom line is that the Cheeseheads really got screwed in the process in the making of their state.

View image | gettyimages.com

THE SUPERMAN SARTORIAL STAGNATION

In the 1950s TV series The Adventures of Superman, each principal actor wore the same costume throughout each whole season in order to save production costs. The segments of each show would be shot out of sequence, where one week of production might be spent just shooting all of the scenes in a season which were set in a particular location. For example, one week would be consumed doing the scenes which took place in Editor Perry White's office at The Daily Planet for a season, the next week might be expended filming all of the scenes for the season which took place in Inspector Henderson's cubicle at police headquarters, and the week after that used for shooting all of the scenes for the season which took place at Lois Lane's desk, etc. This process sped up production, saved the costs of using multiple sets at any one time, and sometimes enabled the insertion of the same scene in different episodes, such as the standard clip of Perry White yelling on the phone for Jimmy Olsen to come to his office.
  

Due to the lack of continuity, the actors generally had no idea of the story lines behind any of the scenes they were shooting nor why their characters would be uttering any particular segment of dialogue. These limitations purportedly resulted in less than stellar performances. However, as part of the target audience for this program, I can assure you that I found the portrayals of Superman and his myrmidons to be authentic, witty, and riveting.

View image | gettyimages.com

THE LEONINE HUN REPELLENT

On a particular lousy day in 452, Western Roman Emperor Valentinian III was presented with an ultimatum from Attila the Hun. Attila, having conquered most of Europe, had run roughshod over Italy and was now camped outside the gates of Rome. The heinous Hun relayed to the Emperor that if Valentinian wanted to save Rome, Valentinian had better send his own sister, along with a generous dowry, to Attila to become his bride.

The Emperor dispatched Pope Leo I and two other emissaries to discuss matters with Attila. After rapping for a little while with the Pope, Attila turned his army around and left, abandoning his conquest both of Rome and of Valentinian's sis (and, perhaps even more importantly, her dowry).

What golden words of Pope Leo I changed Attila's mind? No one knows for sure. One common theory promulgated during the Middle Ages was that St. Peter and St. Paul, each brandishing a huge sword, appeared along with Leo and made Attila a counter-offer that he couldn't refuse. Other scholars cite more mundane possibilities such as Attila not having enough supplies to sustain his campaign further or that he had lost too many troops to illness to proceed with any additional conquests.

None of these theories appear all that plausible. 

There is no reliable contemporary witness to the appearance of the two saints during this transaction, and there is no evidence indicating that Attila had suddenly embraced Christianity and the altruistic ideals that the religion (and hopefully most of its followers) embrace.

Nor is it reasonable to presume that Attila backed off merely because he could not follow through on his threat to take Rome. Attila was no conqueror-come-lately. He was a pillager par excellence and had the street creds to prove it. As such, he would never make the head-of-state rookie mistake of losing all of his credibility by issuing an ultimatum without having both the will and the ability to implement the threatened sanctions if it was ignored. 

Was the Pope himself such a badass that he frightened Attila, or maybe Attila was cowed by the Pope's position as head of the Catholic Church? Unlikely. It is doubtful that Attila had any residual childhood hangups arising from nuns rapping him on the knuckles with rulers which would hold him back from employing carnage against Catholic officials. He had a track record of going medieval (or, in 452, would it be "pre-medieval"?) on his perceived foes. Furthermore, on a personal level, Pope Leo I was not the bloodthirsty warrior type and certainly would not inspire physical fear on the part of the barbarian who had just overrun half of the known world. Unlike some of the other Popes which followed Leo, he eschewed barbaric tortures or punishments on those who disagreed with him or Church doctrine and relied primarily on strongly written missives instead to modify undesirable behavior.

Maybe there was Divine intervention. Or, perhaps, maybe Attila retreated simply because he respected the courage an obviously highly-principled man who unflinchingly was willing to risk his life for what he believed.

The Meeting between Leo the Great and Attila by Raphael

THE CRANIAL FOB INTERACTION

As anyone with a modern electronic key fob for a car which unlocks/locks the doors, blows the horn, flashes the headlights, and opens the trunk etc. knows, there is obviously a limit to the range of the signal. However, what not everyone realizes is that you can extend the range that the fob works by using your head. Specifically, if you jam the fob next to your skull when you are operating it, it will function at a greater distance than normal.

Essentially, regardless of whether or not you have a mind full of mush, it is always also saturated with water molecules. When the fob is next to your head, the electromagnetic waves causes the positive and negative ions in the water to oscillate in the same pattern as the electromagnetic waves, and your brain becomes a giant antenna which amplifies the signal of the key fob.*

As demonstrated in this video by Professor Roger Bowley of the University of Nottingham, you can get a similar effect by holding the fob next to a gallon jug of water.

Therefore, the next time you lose track of where you parked your car in a large lot, cram the fob next to your temple and press the appropriate buttons until you hear the horn or see the lights.

*Kinda makes you wonder what keeping a cell phone pressed to your head for long periods of time is doing to those ions in your brain, doesn't it?

View image | gettyimages.com

THE REDWOOD ANTI-CONFLAGRATION PARADIGM

One immediate consequence of the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco was the outbreak of numerous fires which spread for three days throughout the area. However, the city was spared from being totally consumed by a massive inferno by the fact that some of the buildings were constructed by settlers during the Gold Rush out of redwood trees. While not absolutely fireproof, the redwood's low resin content and porous grain which soaks up moisture makes it much harder to burn than most woods. In all directions of the city, the fires were slowed down and finally conquered whenever they encountered buildings made out of this miraculous timber.

Notwithstanding the above, there was still substantial damage to the area, with approximately 80% of the buildings destroyed. Some of the structures were burned down deliberately by their owners whose property was damaged by the earthquake itself,  as these particular persons had fire insurance but had failed to purchase earthquake coverage.

THE VICTORIA SPAWNING CONSTERNATION

Queen Victoria (1819-1901) of Great Britain had a total of nine children. She delivered her first seven by natural childbirth without resort to the new-fangled invention of anesthesia. For her eighth delivery in 1853, she was ready to eschew much of the pain and agreed to the use of chloroform during the procedure. Happy with the results, she repeated the process for her ninth and final child.

Even more so than today, every action of the monarch was subject to the intense scrutiny and comments of the public. The leading journal for physicians in the country, The Lancet, decried the use of anesthesia as medically inappropriate for childbirth. Clergymen all over the country advised that the procedure violated God's intention that women suffer pain as a result of the acts of Eve, as revealed by Genesis 3;16, which stated, "Unto the woman He said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." 

However, in the 19th Century, most physicians and clergymen were males. The females of the population thought that what their Queen had done was really cool, and childbirth under anesthesia in industrial societies quickly became the standard procedure (at least for those who could afford it) until the natural childbirth movement emerged in the mid-20th Century.

THE CHICO/PAPAL INTERACTION

One of the things the Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI enjoys most during his retirement is spending quality time with his beloved Chico. Chico is a black and white cat which Benedict had to leave behind in his personal home in Germany when he went to live in Vatican City. Benedict, a devout lover of felines, was informed that no cats were allowed in the Papal Apartments, and he allegedly complied with that regulation.

You would think that if you were asked "Well, who elected YOU Pope?" and you could legitimately respond, "the College of Cardinals," you could keep one lousy little cat around, but apparently you would be wrong.

Chico is actually a replacement Chico. Chico the First was an orange cat who lived in the Pope's hometown and was a friend of the Pope when the Pope was merely Joseph Ratzinger. This Chico allegedly wrote a children's book about the Pope from the viewpoint of a cat, but it is suspected that the real author was Jeanne Perego. Chico the First died after a long happy life of 17 years. 

Rumor also has it that Benedict's relationship with the current Chico cannot be classified as exclusive and that the Holy Father may have had some other feline action on the side, including the winsome Contessina pictured below (who, as you can see, is also black and white).

View image | gettyimages.com

THE THERMAL INPONDERABLE

Most scientists agree on the coldest possible temperature. That would be at -459.67 degrees F (-273.15 degrees C or, on the Kelvin scale used by geeks, 0 degrees K). It is pretty cold at that level, especially considering that the coldest known natural temperature on earth was a balmy -128.6 degrees F (-89 degrees C) measured in Antarctica in 1983. 

The temperature of a substance is determined by how fast its molecules are moving, and, at absolute zero, there are no moving molecules at all. 

Outer space is pretty close to absolute zero, but does not quite make it as there are still a few random molecules moving around out there.

What about the highest possible temperature? The answer to that question is a little more problematic. According to Max Plank, who won the 1918 Nobel Prize for his work on quantum physics, the highest possible temperature is 255 nonillion (255,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000)* degrees F (141 nonillion degrees C). However, according to string theory, the highest possible temperature, known as the Hagedorn temperature, is a mere 2 nonillion degrees F (1.1 nonillion degrees C). Another even more frigid estimate, based on studies at the CERN Large Hadron Collider is only 180 quadrillion (180,000,000,000,000,000) degrees F (100 quadrillion degrees C). The hottest part of the sun (which is its core) is a wussy 27 million degrees F (15 million degrees C).

In short, the correct answer to the question about the highest possible temperature is--"really high."

*Americans are getting accustomed to numbers of this magnitude in light of anticipated future federal deficits. Of course, Illinois residents are even more desensitized than most.

View image | gettyimages.com

THE DRAGON/PULLET DUALITY

One of the elements in the rightfully-popular HBO series Game of Thrones is a trio of dragons raised by the ambitious butt-kicking female character Daenerys Targaryen, also known appropriately as the "Mother of Dragons." Although I have not read the books upon which the series is based, I feel safe in predicting that ultimately the control of the dragons in this medieval fantasy world will have an impact similar to the advantage Napoleon would have had had he had access to a group of B-52 bombers (wow, see if YOU can make a sentence with that many "hads" so close together).

At the risk of shattering the illusions of viewers of this show, I am hereby revealing that the dramatic dragon sequences contained therein were NOT filmed using real dragons. They are computer graphics. The artists/technicians responsible for the graphics used and manipulated chicken carcasses as the templates and models for the actions performed by the dragons.

View image | gettyimages.com

"SHORTIE" LICENSE PLATES

For many years, the length of licenses plates in Illinois and some other states was based on the number of digits on the plate and, to a limited extent, the width of the first numeral. A plate containing only three digits on it was much shorter than one with seven. A seven-digit plate beginning with "1" was, at least in some years, slightly shorter than a plate beginning with "2."

In 1956, Illinois, like most other states in the USA and provinces in Canada, standardized all its automobile and truck plates at 6 inches by 12 inches.

THE GOBBETS OF FLESH CONUNDRUM

One of the most perverse illnesses to be transmitted by an ectoparasite is vectored by the lone star tick. Specifically, persons who have enjoyed consuming mammalian flesh for decades can, if they had been bitten by a lone star tick weeks or months before, suddenly develop allergic reactions ranging from a mild rash or vomiting to a life-threatening anaphylaxis shock three to six hours after they eat a juicy pork chop, yummy hamburger, or any other delicious red meat. Red meat contains a sugar called alpha-gal, and for some currently unknown reason, the tick bite can provoke a person (or a dog) to develop antibodies against the alpha-gal and suffer an allergic reaction upon chowing down on a succulent porterhouse or the like.

For further information on this weird affliction, please click here.

THE DELETERIOUS EFFECTS OF PASSING GAS

One of the major by-products of the internal-combustion engine is water vapor. In the 1930s, German aeronautical engineers devised a scheme to collect, condense, and retain the water from the engine. Further, they strove to have collected at any given moment the exact same weight of water equivalent to the weight of the fuel burned.

Can you figure out why they would want to do this? The answer is below. You just have to scroll through the picture of the cats to get to it.

The answer is, of course, for use in dirigibles. The dirigible was a rigid bag of lighter-than-air gas (the Germans used highly-inflammable hydrogen) holding suspended below it a passenger gondola and an engine (or engines) with propellers to shove the whole thing forward. If the weight of the fuel burned by the engines was not replaced, the whole contraption would eventually get lighter and fly too high. It was much easier, safer, and less expensive to compensate for the lost weight of the fuel with an equivalent amount of water rather than trying the alternative of bleeding off hydrogen--especially since there would often be the risk of sparks from static electricity present.

The below photo of the dirigible Hindenburg illustrates why one would want to avoid as much as possible messing with the hydrogen and static electricity. The Hindenburg, by the way, did not have a water-recovery system and had to rely upon dropping water ballast that had been loaded prior to flight. It also purged 1 million to 1.5 million cubic feet (28 million to 42.5 million liters) of hydrogen gas per each flight across the Atlantic.

If you wished to see how long it takes to disable by fire a dirigible filled with hydrogen, click here. 

SIGH...

A 2007 survey of high school seniors conducted by the U.S. Department of Education revealed that 72% of them did not realize that the United States fought Adolf Hitler and Germany in World War II. For further examples of the pathetic lack of knowledge of basic history on the part of an unfortunately large segment of American youth a/k/a future voters, click here. Thankfully, there are still many young folks who are exceptions to this level of ignorance.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”--George Santayana, 1905..

View image | gettyimages.com

THE STRAIGHT POOP ABOUT THE PENTAGON

The Pentagon has an inordinately large number of toilet facilities on its premises--about twice that needed for an office facility of its size. And, despite the assertions of various anti-government or anti-military groups, it is not because the occupants of the building are so full of you-know-what. The real reason is far more prosaic.

The construction of the gargantuan complex started on September 11, 1941,* and it was amazingly finished and dedicated by January 15, 1943. It was (and is) located in Virginia. In the early 1940s, Virginia segregation law required that there be provided separate restrooms for "colored" and "white." Whether or not this statute applied to the Pentagon is debatable, in light of the fact that the governor of Virginia had given the War Department exclusive jurisdiction over the property and the additional fact that President Roosevelt had signed an executive order banning discrimination against federal employees on the basis of race, creed, color, or national origin.**

There was no actual debate on the matter, however, as Col. Leslie Groves,*** chief of operations of the construction project, ordered that a s---load of bathrooms be provided in accordance with Virginia segregation policy.

In order to comply both with the dictates of the Colonel and the executive order of the Commander-in-Chief, the final construction of the project included the full panoply of potties; however, the doors of the restrooms were not painted to designate their use by any particular race--although one employee did chalk "colored" and "white" notations on them for a brief period until strongly encouraged to discontinue the practice.

For a more detailed analysis of Pentagon bathroom habits, check out the article in Snopes.

*I do not know whether or not it was coincidence that terrorists tried to destroy the facility exactly sixty years later.

**Actual desegregation of the Armed Forces would have to wait for Harry Truman in 1948.

***In his spare time, Groves was in charge of the Manhattan Project and building the atomic bomb.

By David B. Gleason from Chicago, IL (The Pentagon)
 [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)],
 via Wikimedia Commons

Thanks to Michael Green for the heads up on this factoid!

THE NAUSEATING CONCEPT OF BUSHUSURU

"Bushusuru" is the Japanese term for vomiting in public.  It was introduced into that language after George H. W. Bush became ill at a state dinner in Tokyo in January 11, 1992.

For a video of that embarrassing event, please click here. Why you would want to do so is an entirely different issue altogether.

THE PERIL OF THE RED PERIL

It was a dark and stormy night (at least somewhere) on October 6, 1976--one month before the Presidential election. President Gerald Ford was debating with the Democratic candidate--Georgia Governor and peanut farmer Jimmy Carter--on national television. The Republican brass had been nervous about agreeing to the first Presidential debates since the Nixon-Kennedy fiasco in 1960; however, Ford had done very well in his first session with Carter in the previous month. It also seemed probable that he would clean Carter's plow in this second encounter.

Then, disaster struck.

Max Frankel from the New York Times asked what should have been a softball question about the potential expansion of the influence of the Soviet Union; as part of the question, he referenced the then-current domination of that country in Eastern Europe. In his response, President Ford indicated that "There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford administration." Frankel, obviously gobsmacked by this revelation, explored the topic further, providing the President with ample opportunity to ameliorate his position or otherwise do damage control on his dogmatic utterance. The President instead decided to repeat his verbal gaffe and dig himself in deeper.

Those folks who are too young to have been sentient in 1976 might not realize the extent of the absurdity of President Ford's assertions. The Soviet Union had occupied most of Eastern Europe since 1945 and had firmly in place, in most of the Eastern European nations, strong pro-Soviet governments who were tied to the Soviets militarily through the Warsaw Pact. Those countries who had tried to sever their links with the Soviets, such as Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, found Russian tanks rolling through their streets. In 1976, the Soviet Union was an 800-pound gorilla of a superpower with most of Eastern Europe firmly clutched within its massive hirsute paws.

Viewers of the debate had to choose among one or more of the following options: 1)  The President was an idiot who truly did not believe that the Soviets dominated Eastern Europe, 2)  the President knew that he screwed up but was too incompetent to clean up the damage, and/or 3)  the President realized that his statement was BS but had such contempt for the intelligence of the American public that he figured that he could sell his absurd statements anyway. Enough of these viewers voted for Carter (who until this debate was perceived as the candidate who had a much weaker grasp on foreign policy issues) to provide him with a narrow victory over Gerald Ford. The rest is history.

To view a video of the relevant portion of the October 6 disaster, click here.

View image | gettyimages.com