Esoteric Meandering Shouting Into the Void

The Automobile 

One commonly held misconception is that Henry Ford invented the automobile. In reality, the development of the automobile can be traced back to Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot, a French military engineer who, in 1769, built a steam-powered tricycle for hauling artillery. Due to its steam-powered nature, not everyone accepts Cugnot’s invention as the first true auto. Instead, that distinction often goes to vehicles made by two Germans, Karl Friedrich Benz and Gottlieb Daimler, who — working entirely separately — developed their own gasoline-powered automobiles in 1886, in two different German cities. Benz actually drove his three-wheeled vehicle in 1885, and it is regarded as the first practical modern automobile and the first commercially available car in history. As for Henry Ford, his name is forever remembered in auto history for the Model T, which he mass-produced using an innovative moving assembly line, making automobiles available to middle-class Americans.

Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

All this carry on over a status that has been addressed to the extent that it needs to be addressed in the Constitution. Not good enough for Trump, he wants full immunity for everything while in office as President. The real point is not that a President can not do his job without it because there have been 44 before him that have. The point is that an HONORABLE, HONEST Person will be able to hold that office without need of total immunity because they will operate within the bounds of law and order.
If this Supreme Court chooses to grant him this then we have lost our Democracy and our identity as a nation. Every vote posted for sanctioning this is as treasonous as the act that has caused this entire mess. Each member of the court that votes that way ought to be punished just as the last persons were for treason, put to death. We can guess that a goodly number of the people that showed up on Jan 6 had no idea what the Constitution stated about such events or that they were in fact going to get into as much trouble as they did, but the justices have no excuse other than being bought and paid for and that makes they dishonest anyway..
The outcome of this election will hopefully not see Trump win. In that case the Congress should begin by expelling all the supporters of the attempted overthrow and when they have done that they need to purge the Court of those that have proven themselves as unworthy to wear the title of Justice. The need for term limits and for adequate policies of behavior is long passed for the Supreme Court. The entire scope of our Federal Government seems to be run at a level and with an attitude of being untouchable and that was not the way it was intended to be. The checks and balances that were in place have been changed with the biggest check being the voting public not having any voice in the way things are done.
Disagreement is normal and we know that not everyone is going to like everything but we have had this carried to the extreme by people that believe they know best for all and that they alone should have the right to make those decisions. One issue alone speaks volumes about the impact of a one sided point of view and that is abortion. When it was legal women that were raped had the choice to keep or not the product of the event. Today that does not happen in many states and the number of cases of reported births from rapes is over 56,000 and over half of those are from Texas.
Now keep in mind that the states that do not allow for abortion for any reason are also the states that do not approve of or will not accept the federal assistance for extra for lunches for children. These are the states that are hardest to get assistance of any kind and they also have the cities that will help people with expenses if they will move there. Says a lot about how others feel about those states.

Monopoly has been beloved for generations, but the history of the classic board game isn’t all fun and games. During World War II, specially manufactured Monopoly boards were used to help prisoners of war escape from captivity. In 1940, the British government struck a deal with Waddingtons, the company that manufactured London-themed editions of Monopoly, in which MI9, a secret department of the War Office, tasked Waddingtons with creating a version of Monopoly that contained various tools and information to aid POWs in their potential escape efforts.

The sneakily altered Monopoly boards were distributed to Nazi-run POW camps as part of larger aid packages. In addition to the standard thimble and dog game pieces, each board contained metal “playing pieces” that were actually escape tools, such as a file and magnetic compass. Each version also contained silk maps provided by the intelligence agency, which could be unfolded discreetly without drawing attention. What’s more, these special editions swapped out fake Monopoly money for real German, Italian, and French currency that could be used to bribe guards. The British government also contracted game company John Jaques & Son to create chess sets and versions of Snakes and Ladders that contained hidden compartments with escape tools.

Washington Chopped Down His Father’s Cherry Tree

Washington telling his father, “I cannot tell a lie… I did cut it with my hatchet,” is coincidentally one of the biggest lies about this larger-than-life figure. Legend says that George Washington received a hatchet as a gift when he was 6 years old, and  took the ax to one of his father’s beloved cherry trees. During the subsequent confrontation with his father, he came clean, unable to tell a lie. The encounter was recreated in artist John C. McRae’s 1867 engraving “Father, I Can Not Tell a Lie: I Cut the Tree.” There’s just one problem: None of this ever happened. The famous legend was devised by biographer Mason Locke Weems in the 1806 edition of his book “The Life of Washington.” Published shortly after Washington’s death, the book immortalized the founding father as a national hero with a steadfast moral compass despite his faults, including the ownership of hundreds of enslavedpeople at his Mount Vernon estate.

Mark Twain and Nikola Tesla

A friendship between the famed writer Mark Twain and inventor Nikola Tesla might, on the surface, seem unlikely. And yet, before the two met, they already shared some significant interests. Tesla had once been bedridden for nine months with a severe bout of cholera, during which time he read some of Twain’s earlier works. He later described them as “unlike anything I had ever read before and so captivating as to make me utterly forget my hopeless state.” Twain, meanwhile, was fascinated by technological innovations and, in particular, electricity. When the two men eventually met in the 1890s, they became friends and spent a lot of time together in Tesla’s lab and elsewhere. One famous account tells of Twain’s participation in an experiment involving an electromechanical oscillator, which Tesla believed might be therapeutic. But when Twain sat on the vibrating plate, it served as something of a laxative, forcing the acclaimed author to run for the bathroom. 

The Youngest American Soldier in WWII

Calvin L. Graham was the youngest U.S. military member during WWII, and is still the youngest recipient of the Purple Heart and Bronze Star. It wasn’t unusual for boys to lie about their age to enlist, but Graham was just 12 years old when he forged his mother’s signature and headed to Houston to enlist. The 125-pound, 5-foot-2 boy was miraculously cleared for naval service and assigned to the USS South Dakota as an anti-aircraft gunner.

On November 14, 1942, the South Dakota was ambushed by Japanese forces at the Battle of Guadalcanal. Graham was severely burned and thrown down three stories of the ship, but still mustered the strength to tend to his severely wounded shipmates. He was honored for his heroism, but when his mother found out about the honor, she informed the Navy of his real age and he was stripped of his medals and thrown into the brig for three months. In 1978, President Jimmy Carter learned of Graham’s story and restored his medals, except for his Purple Heart, which wasn’t restored until two years after Graham’s death.