TIL: Today I Learned

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aimeeandbeatles said:
Today I learned that the United States once filed lawsuit against 2,116 boxes of boned beef. No, it's even better:

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff,
v.
2,116 BOXES OF BONED BEEF WEIGHING APPROXIMATELY 154,121 POUNDS, and 541 Boxes of Offal Weighing Approximately 17,732 Pounds, Defendant.
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Yeah, that's what happens in asset forfeiture cases, where the government brings the case against the objects if they believe it was going to be used in the furtherance of a crime. Initially intended for use in fraud or mafia cases, civil forfeiture has increasingly been abused by police officers as a sort of extortion fee.

Not really worth making a thread about this as not really much discussion going on, but interesting that more information is coming out indicating that in 1961 UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold's plane crashed not due to a technical problem, but due to getting shot down by Katangese mercenary pilots. Whether or not the Katangese pilots were working with foreign governments is a gigantic question mark, but is probable because we have strong evidence Belgian, French, British, and American security services all collaborated with the Katangese secessionists to kill the Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba.
The Guardian said:
New evidence has emerged linking an RAF veteran to the death in 1961 of the UN secretary general Dag Hammarskjöld in a mysterious plane crash in southern Africa.

Jan van Risseghem has been named as a possible attacker before, but has always been described simply as a Belgian pilot. The Observer can now reveal that he had extensive ties to Britain, including a British mother and wife, trained with the RAF and was decorated by Britain for his service in the second world war.

Film-makers investigating the 1961 crash for a documentary, Cold Case Hammarskjöld, have found a friend of Van Risseghem who claimed the pilot confessed to shooting down the UN plane. They also gathered testimony from another pilot that undermines one of his alibis for that night.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...un-secretary-general-dag-hammarskjold-in-1961
More information:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...hot-down-un-chief-dag-hammarskjold-1961-plane
 
Which thing? The pier, or the thing jutting out from it?
 
I do. Your three zeroes have set me straight.
 
Silurian said:
Mercury is on average the closest planet to Earth
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Surely Earth is the closest planet to Earth.
.....
....
...
..
.
I'll see myself out.
 
Kyriakos said:
Iirc the north star will soon no longer be used as the most stable (from our pov) object in the sky.
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The previous one was Alpha Draconis, and the next one will be Vega. But it won't happen any time soon as far as human lifespans are concerned.

Kyriakos said:
It is a very widespread practice. I never would use it, obviously, but it certainly existed when i was a student and seems to baloon in time.
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Somebody once offered me $25 to write and type a paper for him.

I wouldn't even have typed it for that amount.

Besides which, people getting caught cheating get expelled at RDC, so it's overall not worth the effort.

And this idiot asked me in front of the Student Union secretary, which was a really stupid thing for him to have done.

Silurian said:
Mercury is on average the closest planet to Earth
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As mentioned, Earth is slightly closer, and if they ever classify the Moon as a planet...

I'm reminded of a Jeopardy! show where the answer was "The closest star to Earth." The one who rang in stared vapidly into the air and asked, "Omega?" Alex Trebek was unimpressed.
 
Ajidica said:
Surely Earth is the closest planet to Earth.
.....
....
...
..
.
I'll see myself out.
Click to expand...

Well Mt Chimborazo in Ecuador is the point on Earth that is furthest from the center but I like your joke.:goodjob:
 
TIL about a guy named John Rabe. He was a Nazi who was in Nanjing at the time of the Nanjing Massacre. He was elected leader of a group that set up a safety zone in Nanjing where Chinese civilians could go and avoid the worst of the Japanese siege of the city. The safety zone was credited with saving tens of thousands of lives. When Rabe returned to Germany he tried to send letters to Hitler to convince him to persuade the Japanese to stop the worst of the violence. The Gestapo intercepted the letters and imprisoned Rabe.

I wouldn't normally associate a Nazi with saving people's lives. It's usually the opposite. But in this one specific case it seems to have happened.
 
BenitoChavez said:
TIL about a guy named John Rabe. He was a Nazi who was in Nanjing at the time of the Nanjing Massacre. He was elected leader of a group that set up a safety zone in Nanjing where Chinese civilians could go and avoid the worst of the Japanese siege of the city. The safety zone was credited with saving tens of thousands of lives. When Rabe returned to Germany he tried to send letters to Hitler to convince him to persuade the Japanese to stop the worst of the violence. The Gestapo intercepted the letters and imprisoned Rabe.

I wouldn't normally associate a Nazi with saving people's lives. It's usually the opposite. But in this one specific case it seems to have happened.
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Interestingly a Japanese diplomat tried to save as many Jews as he could from the Holocaust, and the Japanese government declined to deport Jews to Nazi territory. IIRC, Imperial Japan's government found rumors of a small but globe-spanning, mighty, and wealthy cabal that pulled the strings on everything behind the scenes to be fascinating, and they invited Jews to settle there in an attempt to learn their secrets.
 
Phrossack said:
Interestingly a Japanese diplomat tried to save as many Jews as he could from the Holocaust, and the Japanese government declined to deport Jews to Nazi territory. IIRC, Imperial Japan's government found rumors of a small but globe-spanning, mighty, and wealthy cabal that pulled the strings on everything behind the scenes to be fascinating, and they invited Jews to settle there in an attempt to learn their secrets.
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This is the 2nd time my mind has been blown today.
 
I just learned how stupid I am ... so I'm sitting on a meeting for work, and after six minutes I'm wondering why it hasn't started. Well it turns out I somehow muted my speaker ...
 
MaryKB said:
I just learned how stupid I am ... so I'm sitting on a meeting for work, and after six minutes I'm wondering why it hasn't started. Well it turns out I somehow muted my speaker ...
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You are not stupid.
Not realising a button has been pressed or not pressed is too common to bare mention.
What matters is how quickly you sort it and what you do to stop it happening again, not that is always possible.
 
Phrossack said:
Interestingly a Japanese diplomat tried to save as many Jews as he could from the Holocaust, and the Japanese government declined to deport Jews to Nazi territory. IIRC, Imperial Japan's government found rumors of a small but globe-spanning, mighty, and wealthy cabal that pulled the strings on everything behind the scenes to be fascinating, and they invited Jews to settle there in an attempt to learn their secrets.
Click to expand...

this is genuinely the only logical reaction to a Jewish world conspiracy, and it's also the reason why every anti-semitic conspiracy theorist has **** for brains (and probably an inferiority complex to boot!). if ya can't beat em, join em!
 
Phrossack said:
Interestingly a Japanese diplomat tried to save as many Jews as he could from the Holocaust, and the Japanese government declined to deport Jews to Nazi territory. IIRC, Imperial Japan's government found rumors of a small but globe-spanning, mighty, and wealthy cabal that pulled the strings on everything behind the scenes to be fascinating, and they invited Jews to settle there in an attempt to learn their secrets.
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You mean Chiune Sugihara? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiune_Sugihara

I don't remember hearing about the Japanese government inviting Jews to settle there in an attempt to join their conspiracy.

I do recall that when some Japanese official asked some Jewish intellectuals why it is that the Nazis hated the Jews that they responded "They hate Jews because we are Asians. There can be no doubt that they will try to exterminate the Japanese too once your alliance is no longer necessary."

The Japanese certainly committed some horrible acts but it is a strange accident of history that they allied with the Nazis, given that one of their main grievances against the USA was that the USA had blocked their attempts to amend the the League of Nations charter to demand the end to all racial discrimination.
 
MaryKB said:
I just learned how stupid I am ... so I'm sitting on a meeting for work, and after six minutes I'm wondering why it hasn't started. Well it turns out I somehow muted my speaker ...
Click to expand...
I did the exact same thing while listening to music today. :)
 
MagisterCultuum said:
given that one of their main grievances against the USA was that the USA had blocked their attempts to amend the the League of Nations charter to demand the end to all racial discrimination.
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I NEED to hear more about this, pretty please. Seems weird, especially since Japanese fetishize ancestry and throw a temper tantrum whenever someone correctly mentions that modern Japanese mostly come from the Korean peninsula.
 
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