WTF-Beta

Ugh. "our way or no way" seems to be the mantra that's also spread to the current Republican party...

That was an interesting read for me because I grew up on a dairy farm.

My father did milk testing for awhile. There was a glass carboy full of sulphuric acid housed in a wooden crate in the basement of our home that was used for the process. I was strictly enjoined from messing with it, but boys will be boys. It was way too heavy to lift or spill but one day I took the stopper out. There must have been traces of acid on the stopper that I got on my hands and wiped on my pants. The holes that showed up when the pants were washed gave me away.

We were using artificial insemination to breed many of our cows by the 1950s. I remember looking at the lists of bulls and their attributes in terms of the calves they sired. Some of the best were featured on the pages of a calender published every year by COBA (Central Ohio Breeding Association), the group that managed the service.

My sister still has the butter churn and the milk/cream separator that we used back then. Ah, the good old days.

Big Al

By now "switched at birth" stories have many precedents. Not that that makes it easy emotionally for the people evolved; but there should be templates to trace on how to go forward practically. Chances are they will be fine.

I know. I was totally amazed by what they did.

I've seen a couple of YouTube videos about incidents like this one (including this particular incident), but this story added a lot more color to the event than the videos can do.

Big Al

Great article!

And I learned a new term, too - Trash Mansion ! 👍

That was an excellent report on a largely unseen part of the "deep state." As you no doubt recall, I live in the Pittsburgh region. The hill opposite downtown across the Monongahela River was called Coal Hill for a long time before getting the more upscale name of Mount Washington. I've worked on a facility adjacent to the Bureau of Mines location where Chris Mark worked. The Bureau of Mines headquarters was adjacent to CMU where I earned my degrees.

A significant part of my career involved coal preparation plants, coal-fired power plants, and coke ovens. Coal and coal mining have been of interest and concern to me almost all of my life. Nonetheless, that story told me quite a bit that I didn't know and reinforced opinions I held about some companies involved in the mining industry.

The changes in the regulatory environment that will flow out of the overturn of "Chevron deference" by the US Supreme Court are likely to be more impactful to the citizenry as a whole than the overturn of "Roe v. Wade." The weakening of the ability of government agencies to study problems like mine roof falls and promulgate solutions will be greatly inhibited.

Big Al

It's an evil, insidious drug. This is its nature when it's not used by doctors in medically appropriate settings. It's being mixed with several street drugs. People end up having experiences they weren't prepared for or dying. I've never been a "just say no" type of person and I despise fentanyl.

That’s a great story. Glad they found it.

🤣

Grit.

This thread brings to memory an incident in my high school chemistry class. The experiment I was conducting involved dissolving a strip of aluminum in a beaker of nitric acid. I didn't expect a particularly vigorous reaction so I was working on an open lab bench, not under a fume hood.

I put the aluminum into the beaker with no immediate result so I added a couple of more strips. Suddenly, a reaction commenced and clouds of a heavy, reddish brown gas started boiling out of the beaker toward the floor. I later recognized the gas as nitrogen dioxide, but in the instant, we just wanted to clear it from the room so we proceeded to open all the windows on one side of the room and the transom above the door opposite to generate some ventilation. This worked and the visible gas soon dissipated out the windows.

During this time, the two girls in the class had retreated to near the door. Shortly, they said they felt strange and the teacher sent them to see the school nurse. In a few minutes, we heard them in the nurse's room laughing uproariously while they lay on the cots there.

In retrospect, I concluded that nitrous oxide was also being evolved out of the beaker, but being invisible and about the same density as air, had tended to float in the vicinty of the girls and given them a sufficient dose to feel its influence. I attributed the delayed evolution of the gases to the time needed for the nitric acid to eat away the oxide layer on the aluminum and then react with the bare metal.

I'm pretty certain that high school chemistry labs are mostly better supervised today than ours was 60-some years ago.

Big Al

I gor my Ph.D. at age 47, does that count?

Chas, 😳😳😳