Weekend Open Thread

… the well-known delivery service FedEx™ was saved by gambling? The founder of Federal Express, Frederick W. Smith (born 1944), created his delivery service in 1971. It was not an immediate financial success, and once Smith needed to secure a business loan to pay off a fuel bill of $24,000. The loan was denied, and Smith had only $5,000 in the bank. He took the cash to Las Vegas, and played blackjack. Normally, such a story has a sad ending, but not in this case. Smith won $27,000, paid off the fuel bill, and kept the company going for one more week. That’s when fortunes began to change, as Smith was able to raise $11 million, and now FedEx, as the company is called today, is worth a whopping $47 billion in annual revenue. (Now that’s what I call “putting it all on the line.”) … your favorite dog or cat may not love you as much as you think? Of course, our fur babies are part of the family, but scientists think that the urge for survival is stronger than a pet’s love for its owner. If a pet owner dies at home and there is nobody to feed the pet, dogs and cats are known to begin scavenging the bodies of their deceased caregivers. (That’s a rather depressing thought.) … drying your laundry outside really does make it smell better? The reason is photolysis. That’s when the sunlight breaks down the compounds in the laundry that cause odor, like body oils or perspiration that the detergents didn’t remove. (So, the detergent doesn’t do it, the sunlight does. So much for detergent ads.) … you inhale one or two molecules of the same air you inhaled as a baby with every breath you take? Bear with me here. When you exhale, almost all of the molecules of air disperse in the atmosphere. Almost all of them, because one or two hang around close enough to be re-inhaled with your next breath, and it’s usually the same one or two. So you’re still breathing some of the same air you… Read more »

… who came up with the source for many of the collective words used for animals? Sure, you’ve heard of a “gaggle of geese” or a “parliament of owls,” but did you ever wonder where those terms came from? They were devised by one Juliana Berners (1388-1460), who wrote a treatise on hunting, hawks and heraldry called The Boke of St. Albans. In her work she ascribed such names as “swarm” for bees and “gaggle” for geese. Berners was also a Benedictine nun and Prioress of the Priory of St. Mary of Sopwell in Hertfordshire, England. Additional trivia note: Berners is also believed to have written a tome on fly fishing, the first such writing on the topic. Historians admit that the paper exists, but they have serious doubts that Berners actually wrote it. Still, she’s sometimes referred to as “the first lady of fly fishing.” (She certainly was “fishing” for words in her book, wasn’t she?)

… members of the French Resistance really socked it to Hitler when he visited Paris in 1940? When German dictator Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) visited the French capital after conquering France, members of the Resistance cut the elevator cables in the Eiffel Tower to keep Hitler from visiting it. Faced with the prospect of having to climb more than 1,500 steps to get the bird’s-eye view, Hitler glumly allowed himself to be photographed at the Tower’s base instead and left the city. (The little cuts are the most significant, aren’t they?)

… nine out of the ten deadliest snipers in World War II were Russian? Of those, one was a woman – Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlichenko (1916-1974). She is regarded as the most successful female sniper in history, with a recorded 309 kills. Following the war, she was a historian. (And in her history class, you paid attention … or else.)

“May Day! May Day!”

Is that you, Bernath?

If you want to send some of the water up UT way, we’d be happy to receive it, use it to fill some lakes and reservoirs so we can have water for this summer.

Worse….
This JPG in the VFAF / Veterans for Trump story link above…
is clearly from January 2024 or earlier.

But Cornicelli is pumping himself up with it now, May 2024,
after it’s already well known, that this committee collection (Team) was called off and changed, well before February 2024,
when Cornicelli, along with oft mentioned Daniels,
were BOTH 2x South Carolina Trump Rally NO SHOWS,
and even J. Evans was pulled off of Trump Rally duty and authority,
due to his failure to vet Daniels (and possibly now also Cornicelli).

Oh boy.

2022 – 2 of 2.
Do you see what veterans in New York saw ????

I’ve seen the headlines, but just now read the story and realized the crimes took place 30 miles from me. Good to hear Livingston parish is leading by example. All convicted rapists should meet the same fate. Prison’s going to be “fun” for this guy, and to think he won’t even be able to crank one out in his cell while his catcher’s mitt is growing calluses.

We see, time and again, leaders misrepresenting themselves through the claims of unauthorized and unearned awards and qualifications. In my mind, one of the more egregious examples is that of Stoney Crump, former CSM of Walter Reed, who happened to serve alongside the only MOH recipient then still serving, Gordon Ray Roberts – Wikipedia.

As a once-was Infantryman who spent more time on staff and in TRADOC than on the line, I don’t understand the embellishers who rise through the ranks only to be embarrassed and reduced in rank when they’re outed. I will admit that it would have been nice to have had one of those E-9(D) turned E-1 through E-7s in my unit, though. I’m all about custom and courtesy, and also all about rank structure. That ex-CSM who got busted in Iraq back in 2005 or so for violating GO#1 (he had alcohol in his billets, and was coercing a female SSG into letting him take lewd photos) and busted to SPC would have been a fine leadership challenge for a 2-year SGT. The aforementioned SSG Crump would have been a great HQ PSG for a small company run by a pissed off frocked E-7 1SG. The dumbass Fort Bragg CSM turned SFC would have been reminded daily that he was a cherry E-7 and given a nice cushy desk job as the Housing NCOIC, on call 24/7. So on and so forth.

Most of us here have served and should be proud of what our teams once did. It’s rarely an individual effort, after all. Lying, embellishing, and purporting to be what we aren’t is a slap in the face to those we served with, and especially to those no longer among us. One of the most junior in rank people I’ve known was one of the best. WO1 McCotter-Bohren had earned the MSM, PH, and numerous other medals and badges, and was on his way to a new career in Hawaii when everything changed: Flying High and Fighting Hard: Billy’s Obituary (billy-cooter-mccotter.blogspot.com).