Another Ace of Spades HQ one-liner

I picked up a hitchhiker. He asked if I wasn’t afraid, he might be a serial killer? I told him the odds of two serial killers being in the same car were extremely unlikely.

Pompeii taco truck opens for first time since Vesuvius eruption

Thermopolium not serving food from 79 A.D. Just for looking. 

From The History Blog

“The elaborately frescoed thermopolium discovered in Pompeii’s Regio V excavation in 2019 opens to the public for the first time on Thursday. The Regio V thermopolium was one of more than 80 small eateries in Pompeii which served beverages and hot food, albeit one with particularly rich decorations and the only one to be fully excavated by archaeologists.

“The snack bars were mostly used by poorer residents of ancient Pompeii who rarely had a kitchen in their homes. Typical menus included coarse bread with salty fish, baked cheese, lentils and spicy wine.”

Customers ordered prepared foods at an L-shaped counter painted with brightly colored frescoes of a nereid riding a sea horse, a food counter with amphorae leaning against it and pots on top of it (thermopolium inception), two ducks hanging upside down, a rooster and a snarling black dog on a leash. The vessels embedded in the countertop contained the remains of some of the dishes on offer at the shop, including duck and a paella-like combination of proteins (pork, goat, bird, fish and snail). Remains of wine and fava beans were found in one of the large storage amphorae.

http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/61970

 

 

Numbers a city does not want to see

But, the numbers haven’t changed in a while. 

Madison, Ark., is in St. Francis County. Madison’s biggest population was 1,263, in 1990. The town’s estimated 2019 population was 686. Thirty years and almost half the population gone.

About 40 percent of the town’s families and 42 percent of the overall population overall lives below the federal poverty line. Fifty-six percent of children under 18 and 50 percent of those age 65 and older are below the poverty line.

Madison’s racial demographics show a population that is 89 percent black and 10 percent white.

St. Francis County population has been going down as well. The county in 1950 was 36,841. The 2019 population was estimated at 29,994. Racially, the county is 49 percent black and 48 percent white. Twenty-three percent of families and 27.5 percent of the overall population lives below the poverty line.

 

 

A little American history

1880s – Too much money. Need to invest somewhere.

1890s – Cuba! Puerto Rico! Philippines! Lots and lots of stuff to sell and buy. Oh, looks like we can have Hawaii, too.

1907-09 – Great White Fleet sails around the world. We can go anywhere, project power as we want.

1903-14 – France has screwed up the canal job in western Colombia, aka Panama. Recognize new country Panama. Dig canal. Open in 1914. Yeah! We can do anything.

1914-19 – Too much s’t going on to really get a handle on. Limeys and Frogs kind of holding the Krauts, but looks like they’ll need American stuff to get the job done. Not a problem. They have cash, right?

1919-39 – Britain, France and US really screwed the pooch. Everybody has an idea, none works. (Maybe we killed too many of everybody except Germans in The Great War? Didn’t kill enough Bolsheviks?)

1939-45 – Well, s’t. Here we go again. Soon the US has the world’s largest navy and the best air force. War’s over, let’s go home.

1946-50 – Ain’t gonna study war no more. And if we have to, we’ll just drop some nukes. Worked before.

1950-1989 – Well, s’t. The commies are really serious. Can’t nuke them, cause they’ll nuke us in return. Sounds kind of MAD, huh. “Little” war here, “little” war there. Does it really matter how many rice farmers think we’re OK? LBJ shook hands with a Pakistani camel driver.

1990-2001 – Americans forgot who they were.

2001-Now – Americans still haven’t figured out who they are. S’t has been piled up for decades, and now it’s starting to roll back down. Find the dung beetles.

A joke from 2001

 Or maybe it was 2002.

Waiting in line at the airport, I saw TSA checkers take an elderly lady into a separate room because she had knitting needles and wool yarn. Did they think she was going to knit an Afghan?

(Not so funny now that we've been run out of Afghanistan. Well, that's inaccurate. Our political generals led by politicians decided they can't take any additional losses. Or, the Global War on Terrorism has become bad press. Or, it was a war we could not win as long as there are Muslims, but nobody will kill enough of them to make them stop fighting. Since 1917 we don't do war well unless we fight a country whose army is just like ours. China should take that under consideration. European-style army, you are going down.)

Ace of Spades one-liner

As I watch this new generation try to rewrite our history, one thing I’m sure of....it will be misspelled and have no punctuation.

The stars at night are big and bright

Somewhere in the skies of Scotland

A rookie police officer in Glasgow, Scotland, was recently embarrassed to discover that the “drone” she thought was pursuing her on her way to a shopping center was actually just the planet Jupiter. Local news outlets report that the embarrassing mix-up has become the talk of her station.

The Daily Record reported Saturday that the officer left her station around midnight Tuesday when she first saw the bright light she believed to be a drone. She attempted to “lose the drone” on her way to a local shopping center; however, she failed. Afraid, she eventually called the general complaints number for Police Scotland to report that she was being followed by a drone and “couldn’t lose it.”

The operator working the complaints line told the officer to return to her station where she could meet with a senior officer. So, she did as she was told.

According to police via Daily Record, when she arrived at her station, “she was found standing in the police yard with her hood up trying to hide from the ‘drone’ and pointed out the bright white dot in the sky.” When the senior officer looked up at the light, they realized that the drone she’d been afraid of was actually just Jupiter.

EarthSky claims that Jupiter and Saturn are “nearly at their most glorious this month.” This is because the planets will both reach opposition in August.

Sky at Night Magazine reports that Jupiter will reach opposition on August 19. “Opposition,” the magazine explains, “describes when a planet or other body is in the opposite part of the sky to the Sun.” During this time, a planet is at its closest to Earth, making it appear much larger and much brighter than usual.

As Jupiter makes its way toward opposition, those in the Northern Hemisphere can see it clearly from evening until dawn, as this officer did in Glasgow.

According to the Daily Record, the officer’s mistake is the “talk” of the station. “Nobody can quite believe it,” an anonymous police source told the outlet. “She was very alarmed and spooked that she was being followed by a drone.”

The source continued to say that the officer was “embarrassed” when it was explained to her that the “drone” was simply a planet. Apparently, those at her station are “concerned.”

“This is going to haunt her for years,” they said.

Local reports did not name the officer.

At Valor Guardians