Only 11 of these 9th century coins are known to exist

Uh, plus the 172 found this past summer.

Uh, and the 77 found in October.

http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/53228

“’This completely shifts our understanding of how we used to mint and the process of coin production.’” – Clause Feveile, Museum of South Jutland.

“When these coins were struck in the first half of the 9th century, Gudfred and later his sons ruled as kings of the Danes. Gudfred is the first Danish king we have decently reliable evidence of in contemporary chronicles. He fought against Charlemagne and the Franks. His son Horik I (the only son whose name is recorded but not the only one to rule) carried on his father’s legacy by raiding the Carolingian Empire of Charlemagne’s son Louis the Pious. We know little about Gudfred and his sons’ monetary policies or really much of anything about their reigns beyond their interactions with the Franks. The hoard may shed a whole new light on an obscure historical period.”

Man in a dog suit

Sometimes things come along you can’t do anything about. A twinge here, a new pain there. You take aspirin or the doctor prescribes a non-narcotic pain killer, but none of it works.

When it’s your dog undergoing those physical changes, you can’t know everything that bothers him.

Victor is a Standard Poodle. He weighs 80 pounds. At his physical peak five years ago, Victor weighed 95 pounds. He was a big dog. He was a runner. He was fast. He loped like a horse, long strides that covered some ground.

Victor is 12 years old. That equals 77 human years. I am 72 years old. Victor and I share ailments – painful joints when standing, pain after walking too far, an inability to run. I think our mental faculties are the same as a few years ago, but Victor can’t tell me what he thinks. I sometimes tell him what I think. He grins, so I am pretty sure he understands.

A month ago, Victor could not stand up. My wife and I helped him get his back legs straight, and then he was okay. Until he laid down again.

His veterinarian said Victor has arthritis, as well as pneumonia. A prescription drug fixed the pneumonia. Prescription pain medicine and non-prescription hemp oil have done some good with his pain.

For those few days when Victor could not stand on his own, I wondered, “How far do we let this go?” When I look at Victor’s eyes, I still see Man in a Dog Suit, just as I did when we got him at eight months old.

He is better now than he was a couple of months ago, but I still wonder how far into pain will we let him go?

Estranged wife picks wrong holdup target

Three suburban St. Louis residents are being charged with second-degree murder, assault, and armed criminal action after a wife’s deranged plot against her estranged husband went wildly amiss.

The “mastermind,” 25-year-old Jasmine Kimbrough, thought it would be a good idea to send three thugs to her husband’s house Sunday. The plan was for the three yoots (Gregory Bell, 18, Davion Rainey, 18, and Bell’s 16-year-old brother, Noah Bell) to burglarize the place and attack the husband if he was home.

The three, who were armed with at least one gun, got as far as the back yard before they were confronted by Kimbrough’s husband, who shot at them. All three ran off.

The husband called the police, who arrived at his home around 1:30 in the afternoon. The officers canvassed the area and eventually found Noah Bell nearly dead of a gunshot wound along the River Des Peres. He died shortly thereafter. Kimbrough and the two 18-year-olds were subsequently arrested.

Police say all three suspects have confessed.

https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2018/11/staff-writer/wifes-planned-robbery-goes-bad-when-estranged-husband-shoots-back-at-hired-guns/

Link at https://thisainthell.us/blog/?p=82716

China’s CH-5 drone

‘Dramatic video shows Chinese CH-5 drone blowing things up’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=kH4jBSqQ2Es

Link at https://www.businessinsider.com/dramatic-video-shows-chinese-ch-5-combat-drone-blowing-things-up-2018-11

Skeptical me saw a drone taking off, flying and landing. One shot showed the drone on the ground, with four missiles under each wing. A takeoff shot showed the drone with two missiles under each wing. A few shots showed a missile flying, with separate shots of missiles hitting targets on the ground. There were no shots of missiles leaving the drone, nor of on-board cameras tracking the missiles’ flights. Flights of US drones are much more believable.

Sanford, Texas

Sanford is in the Texas Panhandle. There’s not much to see. Well, that's not entirely true. Like other places in the Panhandle, Sanford has lots to see, it's just that most of the views are land, land and more land, mesquite trees, red dirt and scrub oak, low hills, and dry gulches (arroyos in Spanish). Sanford, population nearer 150 than 200, just doesn’t have a whole lot of touristy places.

Sanford does have Uncle Bob’s Beer and Bail, on Main Street. Uncle Bob’s is listed as a storage location and doesn’t have much, if anything, to do with beer and bail.

The Texas State Historical Association has this:

SANFORD, TEXAS. Sanford, just south of the Canadian River in southwestern Hutchinson County, was named for J. M. Sanford, on whose ranch land it was established. It was founded in 1927 as a result of the county's oil boom when the Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railway extended its Amarillo-Liberal line through this area. Sanford was populated largely by boomers and oil company employees. During its first year a post office, a lumber yard, a school, a cafe, and a two-story brick hotel were erected. Though many boomers later moved on to other areas, Sanford became a stable petroleum town. In 1933 Natural Gas Pipeline built what was then the largest compressor station in the world beside the railroad tracks seven miles southwest of Sanford. With further development of the Panhandle oil and gas field came the construction of three carbon black plants (see CARBON BLACK INDUSTRY) around Sanford. In addition, Henderson Trusts and Phillips Petroleum Company built two gasoline refineries there. In the early 1950s, after the carbon black plants were closed, Colorado Interstate Gas Company built its first compressor station at Sanford. In 1940 Sanford had five businesses and a population of sixty. With the advent of Sanford Dam and Lake Meredith in the 1960s, however, Sanford was incorporated and experienced new growth. The Sanford school district merged with that of Fritch in 1961. The 1980 census listed several small businesses in Sanford; the population was 249. In 1990 the population was 218. The population dropped to 203 in 2000.

https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hls18

The town’s biggest population was 249, in 1980.

Wikipedia says: “About 24.2% of families and 27.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 45.9% of those under the age of eighteen and 7.4% of those sixty five or over.”

All city streets are dirt.

A search on Sanford brought one very surprising web site claim: “918 Jobs in Sanford, Texas.” Dang. That’s a bunch of jobs in a town of under 200 people.

Photographs by a French spy

Julien Galeotti.

“KGB was watching him closely. Here is a KGB report extract: ‘He saw an old lady sitting on the street and made a photo of her. Then he photographed a line for taxi. Then he photographed a poor man on the market. Then made a photo of a NAVY harbor. Then photographed a trash bin. Then photographed poorly dressed people’”.

http://englishrussia.com/2018/11/02/a-story-of-a-french-spy-who-was-secretly-photographing-ussr-for-years/

How many Hershey bars is that?

Man accused of stealing 18 tons of chocolate to pay off debts

A delivery truck driver has been charged with stealing 18 tons of chocolate in the city of Saransk to pay off a debt, a police spokesperson said on Friday.

In a statement posted on the Interior Ministry’s website titled “The case smells like chocolate,” police spokeswoman Irina Wolf said that a 54-year-old delivery truck driver had been charged with theft for taking off with the chocolate — valued at 2.5 million rubles ($38,000) — from a local car park in Saransk in August 2016.

The police statement said that the suspect had stolen the chocolate with the aim of paying off previously-accrued debts.

In 2014, three suspects reportedly stole two truckloads of chocolate worth $375,000 from a confectionery east of Moscow. 

https://themoscowtimes.com/news/man-suspected-stealing-18-tons-chocolate-pay-off-debt-russian-police-say-63392