The United States Senate ratifies the Louisiana Purchase on October 20, 1803

The United States Senate ratifies the Louisiana Purchase: On this day in 1803, the United States Senate approves a treaty with France providing for the purchase of the territory of Louisiana, which would double the size of the United States.

At the end of 18th century, the Spanish technically owned Louisiana, the huge region west of the Mississippi that had once been claimed by France and named for its monarch, King Louis XIV. Despite Spanish ownership, American settlers in search of new land were already threatening to overrun the territory by the early 19th century. Recognizing it could not effectively maintain control of the region, Spain ceded Louisiana back to France in 1801, sparking intense anxieties in Washington, D.C. Under the leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte, France had become the most powerful nation in Europe, and unlike Spain, it had the military power and the ambition to establish a strong colony in Louisiana and keep out the Americans.

Realizing that it was essential that the U.S. at least maintain control of the mouth of the all-important Mississippi River, early in 1803 President Thomas Jefferson sent James Monroe to join the French foreign minister, Robert Livingston, in France to see if Napoleon might be persuaded to sell New Orleans and West Florida to the U.S. By that spring, the European situation had changed radically. Napoleon, who had previously envisioned creating a mighty new French empire in America, was now facing war with Great Britain. Rather than risk the strong possibility that Great Britain would quickly capture Louisiana and leave France with nothing, Napoleon decided to raise money for his war and simultaneously deny his enemy plum territory by offering to sell the entire territory to the U.S. for a mere $15 million. Flabbergasted, Monroe and Livingston decided that they couldn’t pass up such a golden opportunity, and they wisely overstepped the powers delegated to them and accepted Napoleon’s offer.

Despite his misgivings about the constitutionality of the purchase (the Constitution made no provision for the addition of territory by treaty), Jefferson finally agreed to send the treaty to the U.S. Senate for ratification, noting privately, “The less we say about constitutional difficulties the better”. Despite his concerns, the treaty was ratified and the Louisiana Purchase now ranks as the greatest achievement of Jefferson’s presidency.

History.com / Wikipedia / Encyclopedia Britannica / Monticello.org / Smithsonian / OurDocuments.gov / National Archives and Records Administration.gov / Library Of Congres.gov / The United States Senate ratifies the Louisiana Purchase on October 20, 1803 (YouTube)

Understanding Military Terminology - National Operations Center

(DOD) The primary national hub for domestic incident management operational coordination and situational awareness. Also called NOC.

Joint Publications (JP 3-28) Defense Support of. Civil Authorities

The Old Salt’s Corner

“A Vision upon the Fairy Queen”

Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay,

Within that temple where the vestal flame

Was wont to burn; and, passing by that way,

To see that buried dust of living fame.

Whose tomb fair Love, and fairer Virtue kept:

All suddenly I saw the Fairy Queen;

At whose approach the soul of Petrarch wept

And, from thenceforth, those Graces were not seen:

For they this queen attended; in whose stead

Oblivion laid him down on Laura's hearse:

Hereat the hardest stones were seen to bleed,

And groans of buried ghosts the heavens did pierce:

Where Homer's spright did tremble all for grief,

And cursed the access of that celestial thief!

~ Sir Walter Raleigh

“I’m Just Sayin”

“Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul,

unbelief, in denying them.”

“Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake

of dreaming that I am persecuted

whenever I am contradicted.”

“All is a riddle,

and the key to a riddle...

is another riddle.”

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Thought for the Day”

“Do not bite at the bait of pleasure

till you know there is no hook beneath it.”

“Governments constantly choose

between telling lies and fighting wars,

One will always lead to the other.

“I hope our wisdom

will grow with our power,

and teach us that

the less we use our power

the greater it will be.

~ Thomas Jefferson

“What I Learned”

“Wars are where old men talk and young men die.”

“What is popular is not always right;

what is right is not always popular.”

“Whom the gods wish to destroy,

they first make mad.”

~ Anonymous

Second Hand News (Links to Articles from Week 42 - October 14, 2019 - October 20, 2019)

‘Crushed bodies and shattered bones:’ China’s Xi Jinping threatens dissidents amid Hong Kong protests • Kurdish forces formerly under .U.S protection forge deal with Russian and Iranian-backed Syrian regime • 'Treasury is ready to go': Trump says sanctions for Turkey may be coming

Maria Bartiromo: DOJ inspector general report due out Friday and covers 'more than just FISA abuse' • Mike Pence revs up communications operation to combat impeachment

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff revealed that his committee may not call on “whistleblower” to testify • Attorney General William Barr warns of 'militant' secularism in speech about declining religious values

Joe Biden says he will ban family and ‘anyone associated with me’ from ‘any foreign operation’ • Hunter Biden will step down from Chinese-backed firm and vows he wouldn’t engage in any business overseas if his father wins the presidency in 2020 as he denies “wrongdoing” Washington Examiner

Syrian Kurds strike deal with Assad for protection from Turkish invasion - after Trump pulls out last 1,000 U.S. soldiers and Erdogan's forces attack convoy carrying foreign journalists and aid workers 'killing at least 10' • 'There is blood on Trump's hands:' Retired four-star Marine general says 'the U.S. greenlighted' the unfolding crisis in Syria after ordering American troops to withdraw

China's trade with U.S. plummeted nearly 20% in September as President Trump's tariff war escalates • China's President Xi warns attempts to divide China will end in 'crushed bodies and shattered bones' as Hong Kong demonstrators smash up pro-Beijing businesses and barricade the streets in another weekend of protests

Hunter Biden steps down from board of Chinese equity firm after Trump accused him of corruption over claims he made $1.5BN in Beijing during his father's time in office - and swears he'll give up foreign work entirely if Joe Biden wins office • Awkward! Chelsea Clinton emphatically states a person with a beard and a penis can 'absolutely' be considered a woman, while mom Hillary shuffles and looks conflicted as she blames 'generational' differences for not being as open to trans identification

• Parents of British teenager Harry Dunn hail legal 'breakthrough' that removed U.S. wife's diplomatic immunity - as they fly to New York to demand her return for killing their 19-year-old son • Caravan of up to 2,000 migrants headed to the U.S. from Africa, the Caribbean, and Central America is abruptly stopped and detained by Mexico Daily Mail UK

CORRUPTION CHRONICLES: Judicial Watch On Issue: Draining the Swamp • “Investigating the Investigators:” Judicial Watch On Issue: Exposing the Deep State

Arrest Of Giuliani Associates Is Likely To Damage, Not Restore, America’s Faith In Justice System • NEW Documents Show State Deppartment KNEW about Hillary Clinton's Secret Email Account • Judicial Watch Files Two New Lawsuits Seeking Records of How CFIUS Investments by Ukraine, China Firms Tied to Hunter Biden Judicial Watch

“Devin vs Twitter; Devin Nunes, Catch-22.”    2 of 2   

Trump sanctions Red China for the enslavement of the Uyghurs.   

Why is Pelosi play-acting impeachment & What is to be done?   

Democrats are stuck in a Trump-bashing loop.   

California was built by giants and is occupied by 6-oz hotel shampoo bottles.    John Batchelor (10/20/2019)

Mr. Answer Man Please Tell Us: If Beer and Bread Use Almost the Exact Same Ingredients, Why Isn't Bread Alcoholic?

All yeast breads contain some amount of alcohol. Have you ever smelled a rising loaf of bread or, better yet, smelled the air underneath dough that has been covered while rising? It smells really boozy. And that sweet smell that fresh-baked bread has under the yeast and nutty Maillard reaction notes? Alcohol.

However, during the baking process, most of the alcohol in the dough evaporates into the atmosphere. This is basically the same thing that happens to much of the water in the dough as well. And it’s long been known that bread contains residual alcohol—up to 1.9 percent of it. In the 1920s, the American Chemical Society even had a set of experimenters report on it.

Anecdotally, I’ve also accidentally made really boozy bread by letting a white bread dough rise for too long. The end result was that not enough of the alcohol boiled off, and the darned thing tasted like alcohol. You can also taste alcohol in the doughy bits of underbaked white bread, which I categorically do not recommend you try making.

Putting on my industrial biochemistry hat here, many [people] claim that alcohol is only the product of a “starvation process” on yeast once they run out of oxygen. That’s wrong.

The most common brewers and bread yeasts, of the Saccharomyces genus (and some of the Brettanomyces genus, also used to produce beer), will produce alcohol in both a beer wort and in bread dough immediately, regardless of aeration. This is actually a surprising result, as it runs counter to what is most efficient for the cell (and, incidentally, the simplistic version of yeast biology that is often taught to home brewers). The expectation would be that the cell would perform aerobic respiration (full conversion of sugar and oxygen to carbon dioxide and water) until oxygen runs out, and only then revert to alcoholic fermentation, which runs without oxygen but produces less energy.

Instead, if a Saccharomyces yeast finds itself in a high-sugar environment, regardless of the presence of air it will start producing ethanol, shunting sugar into the anaerobic respiration pathway while still running the aerobic process in parallel. This phenomenon is known as the Crabtree effect, and is speculated to be an adaptation to suppress competing organisms in the high-sugar environment because ethanol has antiseptic properties that yeasts are tolerant to but competitors are not. It’s a quirk of Saccharomyces biology that you basically only learn about if you spent a long time doing way too much yeast cell culture.

Brew Enthusiast • Food Babe • Forbes • Quara • Wikipedia

NAVSPEAK aka U.S. Navy Slang

Girl Scout: A sailor with an inordinate amount of decorative patches on spotless Poopy Suit,, or a sailor regarded as overly concerned with appearance; a dandy.

Girl Scout Training Aid: A complete pepperoni (a sausage roughly 1-2 inches wide and 2-3 feet long).

GITMO: Guantanamo Bay Naval Station.

Glow worm: A surface fleet name for nuclear machinist's mates.

Goat Fuck Operation: A situation in which every possible aspect fails or goes “sideways”. Not a single aspect is successful.

Goat locker: A lounge or galley for the exclusive use of “Chiefs”.

Goatrope: A confusing, disorganized situation often attributed to or marked by human error.

Wiktionary.org

Just for you MARINE

GITMO: U.S. Naval Base, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.).

Glow Belt: A reflective belt used when running on or near hard-surfaced roads that makes pedestrians more visible to motorists.

Go-fasters: Running shoes or sneakers, named so because they help a person run faster than boots.

Goat Rope: A chaotic and messy situation. See also cluster fuck.

Wikipedia.org

Naval Aviation Squadron Nicknames

VX-1 Air Test and Evaluation Squadron of Anti-submarine warfare (ASW) (VX-1) - nicknamed the “Pioneers”

United States Navy - Naval Air Station (located in St. Mary's County, Maryland, on the Chesapeake Bay near the mouth of the Patuxent River) - Naval Air Station Patuxent River: April 1, 1943-Present.

Where Did That Saying Come From?

“Too many cooks spoil the broth:”

 Meaning: When there are too many people trying to lead and give their opinions, it's confusing and leads to bad results. Jobs and projects should have one or two strong leaders.

• to mean that something does not go well when there are too many ways to do it.

• to fail because of too many opinions on how to do something.

• to have multiple ways of doing something ending up ruining the project.

History: In some ways this phrase is the opposite of “two heads are better than one” and in some others it depicts the consequences of overdoing it.

Broth is usually the basis of many dishes and with the involvement of many people in making this simple base it can get spoilt.

People have their own ways of doing things and when pushed together to do something simple, it ruins it instead of making it better.

The phrase is speculated to have originated in the 16th century.

The Idioms

Science & Technology

Raising fluid walls around living cells • Spintronic memory cells for neural networks • A shady spot may protect species against rapid climate warming • Lawyers suggest better labeling on prophetic patent applications • Discovery of light-induced ferroelectricity in strontium titanate • Phase-change materials from smartphones may lead to higher data storage, energy efficiency • Revealing 'hidden' phases of matter through the power of light

Phys.org / MedicalXpress / TechXplore

Bizarre News (we couldn’t make up stuff this good - real news story)

For Sale: 'Haunted' Medieval Prison That Held Accused Witches

A small building in England that was once a medieval prison for people accused of witchcraft is now a cozy home in need of an owner.

But prospective buyers should be forewarned: The sordid history of the former jail, known as “The Cage”, has led many to claim that the house is haunted, with some calling it the most haunted house in England, British real estate agency Home Domus 360 wrote in a listing on Facebook.

“With a reputation attracting TV crews from around the world, this unique 2 bedroom cottage comes available with many resident ghosts”, Home Domus 360 representatives said on Facebook. [Black Magic: 6 Infamous Witch Trials in History]

Located in St. Osyth in Essex, U.K., the building was recently placed on the market by owner Vanessa Mitchell; this is the third time that Mitchell has tried to sell The Cage since moving out in 2008, according to local news outlet The Clacton and Frinton Gazette. Mitchell reportedly fled the house in 2004 and moved elsewhere after seeing "mysterious blood spatters" and being “physically attacked” by malevolent ghosts - one of which was “a satanic-looking goat”, Mitchell told The Gazette.

During the St. Osyth witch trials in 1582, 14 women were accused of witchcraft-related crimes, for which three were executed, the East Anglian Times reported. During the trials, the women were housed in The Cage. One of the accused, Ursula Kemp, was a local healer who was sentenced to death by hanging; she is commemorated in a plaque that hangs on one of the former prison's walls.

Kemp was accused of casting spells that led to the death of a neighbor's newborn. She then accused others of practicing witchcraft, and they, in turn, accused even more unfortunate individuals, according to the Times. Essex was a hotbed of witchcraft trials during the 16th and 17th centuries - of the 112 witches who were executed in England in the 1640s alone, 82 were put to death in Essex, the Times reported.

In 1921, two female skeletons that were thought to be the remains of executed witches - one of them reportedly Kemp - were unearthed in a St. Osyth garden during a construction project. Some of the bones appeared to have been pierced with nails, a common practice for dead witches to keep their spirits from haunting the living, according to the Times.

The asking price for the allegedly haunted former prison is 240,000 pounds ($305,478), according to Wales Online.

• Photos: Scottish Church Once Imprisoned Accused Witches

• What's Witchcraft? 6 Misconceptions About Wiccans

• Here's Where J.K. Rowling Got Her Magical Ideas for Harry Potter

Live Science (06/12/2019)