Year: 2020
What will this Fool come up with next?
Trump gets stung from all sides after floating injections of disinfectants
The president, who has championed unproven coronavirus treatments, embraced the dangerous practice as a potential cure.
Trump’s own word:
“And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning?” Trump said. “Because you see it gets in the lungs, and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. So you’re going to have to use medical doctors with — but it sounds interesting to me.”
President Donald Trump’s suggestion that Americans should inject themselves with household disinfectants as a coronavirus remedy provoked an apparently universal rebuke Friday — including from congressional lawmakers, the medical community and the makers of the cleaning products themselves.
On the advice of the President of the United States of America, aka stable genius.
The gun buy scene from the classic film noir ‘Taxi Driver’
Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) purchases four handguns from “Easy Andy” (Steven Prince), the illegal gun salesman.
Flashback: Martin Short, John Candy Go Punk as ‘The Queenhaters’ on ‘SCTV’
The greatest punk band in history only released one song, but “I Hate the Bloody Queen” remains a classic.
In 2011, Rolling Stone asked readers to name their favorite punk bands of all time, with thousands of fans anointing the Ramones, the Clash, the Sex Pistols, Green Day and others as the best the genre has to offer.
They were all wrong.
There is only one right answer: The greatest punk band of all time is the Queenhaters. Formed (and disbanded) on March 18th, 1983, the British punk group, comprised of Martin Short, John Candy, Eugene Levy, Joe Flaherty and Andrea Martin, appeared on Mel’s Rock Pile, a show also hosted by Levy that was a regular bit on Canadian cult sketch-comedy show SCTV. As the perpetually nerdy “Rockin’” Mel Slirrup, Levy hosted an American Bandstand–esque segment that sometimes featured actual musicians like Roy Orbison. But now, it was the punks’ turn to take over.
“How many kids here are into ‘punk music’?” Slirrup asks to a sea of boos. The children want to boogie. They will not today. After interviewing clueless students — “Although I have a powerful command of the English language, I can neither read nor write,” says Short. “I still firmly believe that Italy is nestled between Australia and New Zealand and that my morning glass of milk comes from cats.” — Slirrup welcomes the Britpunks to perform their enduring contribution to the canon: “I Hate the Bloody Queen,” a song about hating the bloody queen.
Hungry Condors Eye Poodles
A wild video out of Chile shows a pair of massive condors sizing up a group of frightened poodles that were, fortunately, protected by a window. The unsettling scene was reportedly captured by Gabriela Leonardi while on lockdown at her penthouse apartment in the city of Las Condes last week and subsequently posted on her TikTok account.
In the video, which can be seen below, the monstrous birds of prey can be seen perched outside Leonardi’s window watching the diminutive dogs that would likely have wound up becoming a meal were they not protected by the glass. To that end, the poodles eventually seem to realize that they are safe and one particularly pugnacious pup presses up against the window as if to challenge the condors.
Leonardi’s footage went viral on social media in Chile, amassing over 100,000 viewers in just a few days. Since the condors living around the city are known to scavenge food left behind by residents, it is speculated that they were particularly hungry because the coronavirus lockdown has turned the city into a veritable ghost town.
The Cowboy Look
The Cowboy look has many variations. From Roy Rogers to Paladin in ‘Have Gun Will Travel’, the colourful and very serious dark look and everything in-between.
Gene Autry
Roy Rogers
Great boots
John Wayne with his trademark light red shirt
The Cartwright’s
Mr. Paladin
The Earp’s and Doc Holliday
The Lone Ranger and Tonto
Jane Fonda and Lee Marvin in “Cat Ballou.”
And of course the super cool and mysterious Clint Eastwood
Mini Me gets in on the action
A Gigantic Jagged Piece of Rock Towering out of the Tasman Sea
Ball’s Pyramid is an erosional remnant of a shield volcano and caldera that formed about 6.4 million years ago. It lies 20 kilometres (12 mi) southeast of Lord Howe Island in the Pacific Ocean. It is 562 metres (1,844 ft) high, while measuring only 1,100 metres (3,600 ft) in length and 300 metres (980 ft) across, making it the tallest volcanic stack in the world. Ball’s Pyramid is part of the Lord Howe Island Marine Park in Australia.
Like Lord Howe Island and the Lord Howe seamount chain, Ball’s Pyramid is based on the Lord Howe Rise, part of the submerged continent of Zealandia.
Ball’s Pyramid has a few satellite islets. Observatory Rock and Wheatsheaf Islet lie about 800 metres (2,600 ft) west-northwest and west-southwest respectively, of the western extremity of Ball’s Pyramid. Southeast Rock is a pinnacle located about 3.5 kilometres (2.2 mi) southeast of Ball’s Pyramid.
Ball’s Pyramid is positioned in the centre of a submarine shelf. The shelf is 20 kilometres (12 mi) in length and averages 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) in width and lies under an average depth of 50 metres (160 ft) of water. It is separated by a 500 metres (1,600 ft) deep submarine canyon from another shelf on which Lord Howe Island is located. The cliffs of the stack continue under the water surface to the level of the shelf.
Ball’s Pyramid lies approximately 500 kilometres off the Australian mainland.
The pyramid at 1,844 feet tall, is higher than the CN Tower which is 1,815 feet high.
Climbing
In 1964 a Sydney team, which included adventurer Dick Smith and other members of the Scouting movement, attempted to climb to the summit of the pyramid. However, they were forced to turn back on the fifth day as they ran short of food and water.
The first successful climb to the summit was made on 14 February 1965 by a team of climbers from the Sydney Rock Climbing Club, consisting of Bryden Allen, John Davis, Jack Pettigrew and David Witham.
In 1979, Smith returned to the pyramid, together with climbers John Worrall and Hugh Ward. They successfully reached the summit and unfurled a flag of New South Wales provided to them by Premier Neville Wran, declaring the island Australian territory (a formality which it seems had not previously been done).
Climbing was banned in 1982 under amendments to the Lord Howe Island Act, and in 1986, all access to the island was banned by the Lord Howe Island Board. In 1990, the policy was relaxed to allow some climbing under strict conditions, which in recent years has required an application to the relevant state minister.
Playgrounds From The Space Age
The rocket holds a special place in history. It’s an icon of technological progress that’s both revered and feared at the same time. During the sixties of the last century, the United States and the Soviet Union was gripped by the space-age fever, and the rocket emerged as the fundamental symbol of the space rivalry. Throughout America, as well as the Eastern bloc, rocket shaped structures began popping up across children playgrounds to foster curiosity and excitement about the space race among kids. Aside from rockets there were other fixture resembling various space-age equipment such as satellites, radar tower, planets and even submarines that kids can climb, swing and slide from.
A rocket slide at a playground in Iowa, United States.
The rocket ship slide in Torrance’s Los Arboles Park, installed in 1960. Photo credit: Daily Breeze
Brenda Biondo, a freelance journalist who photographed many old playgrounds across the US, added that “the Consumer Product Safety Commission never issued requirements, just suggested guidelines. But manufacturers felt that if their equipment didn’t meet those guidelines, they’d be vulnerable to liability. Everybody went to the extreme, making everything super safe so they wouldn’t risk getting sued.”
Playgrounds across the country began retiring old equipment. The Carson playground, in Wisconsin, lost their rocket despite pleas from the public not to remove the beloved fixture.
“Of all the pieces of equipment, the rocket had the most memories associated with it … a lot of the play value went away with the new guidelines,” laments Phil Johnson, the Superintendent of Parks & Recreation.
But lower heights and softer landing haven’t made playgrounds any safer. On the contrary, injuries seems to have risen. As David Ball, a professor of risk management at Middlesex University in London, explains, when playground equipment was higher and had asphalt instead of sand or rubber, kids knew they had to be careful and learned to assess risks. Nowadays, with everything lower and presumably safer, children and parents believe they are in an environment which is safer than it actually is, and take more risks leading to injuries.
A jungle gym in Riverside Park in Manhattan, which has disappeared now. Photo credit: Dith Pran/The New York Times
Children playing on iron pole playground equipment at Trinity Play Park, circa 1900.
Girls’ playground, Harriet Island, St. Paul, Minn. 1905.
Broadway Playfield, 1910.
Rings and poles, Bronx Park, New York. 1911.
Hiawatha Playground, 1912.
A rocket shaped playground apparatus in Thetford, England.
A rocket in Levy Lowry Memorial Park, Princeton, Missouri.
A rocket-shaped playground equipment in Bakerview Park, Mount Vernon, United States.
A rocket slide at a playground in Chillicothe, Missouri, United States.
A rocket slide at a playground in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, United States.
A rocket slid at a playground in Benalla, Australia.
Map Trivia
From where countries import the most
High-speed rail map of Europe
Highest grossing movies filmed in each state.
Top selling cars in Europe by country
Migration to the Americas
Forced Migration
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