More Linky Links

More stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Lithium deal with over $1.5 trillion discovered in Oregon.

- A piece of forgotten US history.

- Will Jake and Logan Paul's haters make them billionaires?

- Learn AI layer by layer.

The Automobile, Finance, and the American Language

The automobile wasn't exclusively an American invention but all the ingredients were present in the US to help create much of the modern world when it comes to cars. 

That's where American out of the box thinking came in.

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Dan Wetzel: NCAA tournament expansion is bad, but it's happening.

- From the archives: The history of A1 sauce.

- Some interesting WW II history.

- Charlie Baker: Congress must secure the future of college sports. After watching the blatant money grab of playoffs expansion in basketball and football - I don't think the NCAA is in the position to ask for anything from the public.

The Day the American Revolution Began

Today is the anniversary of "the shot heard round the world" Battle of Lexington and Concord that kicked off the American Revolution. Like many things this should be a bigger deal in our schools.

Robert E. Lee Surrenders to Grant at Appomattox

On this day in 1865.

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Secretary of War Pete Hesgeth on the US Government purge of Anthropic.

- Jonathan Turley: Jack Smith had secret orders targeting Kash Patel and Susie Wiles. Jack Smith should face charges.

- From the archives: 5 misconceptions about colonial American history.

- Sam Altman on OpenAI and ChatGPT reaching an agreement with the DoW.

USS Indianapolis

Many only learned of the USS Indianapolis from Captain Quint's speech in the movie Jaws. Here's what really happened after the Indianapolis delivered the bomb at Tinian.

"...the Indianapolis, an older vessel, lacked sonar gear for submarine detection and was top heavy. Japanese submarine I-38 discovered the heavy cruiser in the Philippines Sea a little before Midnight on Sunday, July 29...

The torpedoes and following explosions of ammunition and aviation fuel ripped away the cruiser's bow and destroyed the power center. without power the radio officer was unable to send a distress signal - he went through the motions anyway - or the bridge to communicate with the engine room, The engines pushed the ship forward unchecked, scooping up water through the holes in the hull and leaving behind the sailors thrown overboard who had been sleeping on deck in the tropical heat. The order to abandon ship, when it came, had to be passed word of mouth."

About 850 sailors went into the sea facing 12 foot waves:

"Most had kapok lifejackets. Few could find their way to the life rafts. They floated instead in clusters, linked together, stronger men swimming the circumferences to catch sleepers before they drifted away, one group numbered between three and four hundred souls. They pushed the wounded to the center where the water was calmer and prayed the distress call had gone out.

The captain had found two empty life rafts and later that night encountered one more unoccupied. He ordered the rafts lashed together. They sheltered ten men and he thought them the only survivors. Through the night a current carried the swimmers southwest while winds blew the rafts northeast: by the light of morning rafts and swimmers had separated beyond discovery."

What happened next to those in the water was beyond terrorizing and I'll omit because words can't do it justice.

"Thursday morning, August 2, a Navy plane spotted the survivors. Because of negligence at Leyte the Indianapolis had not even been missed. A major rescue effort began, ships streaming to the area. PBY's and PBM's dropping food, water, and survival gear. The rescuers found 318 naked and emaciated men."

From The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes

Challenger Disaster

 

On this day in 1986 the space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after launch. One of the very few times in my life where I could tell you exactly where I was and what I was doing.

More Linky Links

 More stuff I found interesting or amusing ad thought I'd share.

- China's trade surplus surges 20% to a record $1.2 trillion, even with Trump's tariffs. Data surprised me but then I remembered that these numbers are supplied by the CCP. What if China is lying? 

- From the archives: Mystic chords of memory - learning from the American story.

- Minnesota is a frozen-Banana Republic. It's getting dangerously close to being declared a filed state.

- Tariffs: May Not Be So Scary. Experts and opponents keep being surprised the tariffs are working.

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Seven Tips for the New Year. Good advice.

- Kevin Kelly's Data Manifesto.

- Ironies and compromises at the nation's birth. As an aside - I like Joseph Ellis as a writer. (HT A Layman's Blog)

- Are the walls closing in on Ilhan Omar? Oh what a tangled web you weave when first you introduce legislation to deceive.

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Let's fix college football with common sense - by Louisiana governor Jeff Landry.

- Don Surber on Monroe crossing the Delaware. Some history I was not aware of. (HT Cultural Offering)

- Rob Henderson: Lesson's I learned from Thomas Sowell's memoir.

- Here's why Pritzker should celebrate the Supreme Court ruling on the National Guard.

Pearl Harbor

On This Day in 1963

On This Day in History

The Fifties - David Halberstam

"'You can't say anything in a fifteen second speech,' [Rosser] Reeves quoted [Harlan] Cleveland as saying. Then Reeves dissented: 'As a man who has been responsible for five hundred millions of dollars' worth of advertising I know more about this than you do.' There was a pause in their conversation; Reeves was sure he had his man now. 'Harlan' he asked. 'Do you remember that old radio speech of Franklin Roosevelt - his first acceptance speech?' Cleveland said he remembered it. 'And the phrase about the only thing we have to fear is fear itself?' Again Cleveland assented. 'Harland,' Reeves said, locking the trap. 'That's a fifteen second spot.' Now he pushed forward. 'Do you remember the speech Churchill gave at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri? What did he say there?' 'That an Iron Curtain had descended on Europe,' Cleveland said. What else did he say? Reeves pushed. Cleveland could not remember. 'That was a fifteen second spot from Churchill,' Reeves said." - The Fifties by David Halberstam

More Linky Links

More stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Funny because it could be true.

- How batteries are making the electric grid more reliable.

- America and the Erie Canal. The canal, for a large part, helped make NYC the largest city on the east coast.

- Missouri Executive Order 44. The Mormon extermination order.

The Americans: The Democratic Experience

"When Joyee's Stephen Dedalus said, 'History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake,' he summed up Irish history. And the United States was to be the place of awakening. Irish history in Ireland and Irish history in America were a set of beautifully symmetrical antitheses. While America was a land of immigration, Ireland was a land of invasions." The Americans: The Democratic Experience by Daniel Boorstin

Boorstin later wrote, "In a word, the Puritans had been colonists, the Irish were emigrants." How true! 

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Market Forces (in Healthcare). He's not wrong.

- Tesla rebounds to finish September as the Model Y the best selling car in Europe.

- Peter Attia with a critical look at the lifespan-extending promise of psilocybin. Increasing lifespan by decreasing stress?

- James Madison - the father of the 1st Amendment (among other things). 

Yorktown Day Instead of Columbus Day?

Columbus Day continuing to be a federal holiday also continues to be a divisive issue in some places. On one side you have people who say Columbus was a genocidal imperialist monster and on the other proud Italian-Americans and traditionalists. I have a modest proposal with a solution which I think may be acceptable to most Americans.

About this time of year on October 19, 1781 the British forces under Lord Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington at Yorktown to end the Revolutionary War. America as a free nation really starts with this date. Why not celebrate the date as the new national holiday in replacement of Columbus Day? Yorktown Day could be celebrated on the third Monday in October. The unions would be satisfied since they wouldn't be losing a paid holiday. Italian-Americans couldn't complain since this in no way would be disrespecting Columbus and historically Yorktown is the more important date (beside Columbus really "discovered" the Caribbean not North America). French-Americans would be big supporters of the switch because the French fleet played a huge role in the victory. The only people who might complain are the people who are against glorifying anything that's even remotely militarily related but screw those people.

Why not have Yorktown Day replace Columbus Day?

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- The thing about Letitia James mortgage fraud charges.

- Glenn Reynolds: The Insurrection Act.

- At What Price? At What Reward? A piece of US history I was unaware of.

- Tesla still dominates with nearly 50% of US EV sales.