The Reichstag passes the Enabling Act of 1933, making Adolf Hitler dictator of Germany on March 23, 1933

The Reichstag passes the Enabling Act of 1933, making Adolf Hitler dictator of Germany The Enabling Act (Ermächtigungsgesetz in German) was passed by Germany's parliament (the Reichstag) on March 23, 1933. It was the second major step after the Reichstag Fire Decree through which the Nazis obtained dictatorial powers using largely legal means. The Act enabled Chancellor Adolf Hitler and his cabinet to enact laws without the participation of the Reichstag.

After being appointed chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933, Hitler asked President von Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag. A general election was scheduled for March 5, 1933. A secret meeting was held between Hitler and 20 to 25 industrialists at the official residence of Hermann Göring in the Reichstag Presidential Palace aimed at financing the election campaign of the Nazi Party.

The burning of the Reichstag six days before the election, depicted by the Nazis as the beginning of a communist revolution, resulted in the Reichstag Fire Decree, which among other things suspended civil liberties and habeas corpus rights. Hitler used the decree to have the Communist Party's offices raided and its representatives arrested, effectively eliminating them as a political force.

The Enabling Act allowed the cabinet to enact legislation, including laws deviating from or altering the constitution, without the consent of the Reichstag. Because this law allowed for departures from the constitution, it was itself considered a constitutional amendment. Thus, its passage required the support of two-thirds of those deputies who were present and voting. A quorum of two-thirds of the entire Reichstag was required to be present in order to call up the bill.

Under the Act, the government had acquired the authority to pass laws without either parliamentary consent or control. These laws could (with certain exceptions) even deviate from the Constitution. The Act effectively eliminated the Reichstag as active players in German politics. While its existence was protected by the Enabling Act, for all intents and purposes it reduced the Reichstag to a mere stage for Hitler's speeches. It only met sporadically until the end of World War II, held no debates and enacted only a few laws. Within three months of the passage of the Enabling Act, all parties except the Nazi Party were banned or pressured into dissolving themselves, followed on July 14 by a law that made the Nazi Party the only legally permitted party in the country. With this, Hitler had fulfilled what he had promised in earlier campaign speeches: “I set for myself one aim ... to sweep these thirty parties out of Germany!”

History Channel / Wikipedia / Deutsche Welle / BBC / Britannica Encyclopedia The Enabling Act 1933 (YouTube)

Understanding Military Terminology - Materiel planning

(DOD) A subset of logistic planning consisting of the four-step process of:

a. requirements definition. Requirements for significant items are calculated at item-level detail to support sustainability planning and analysis.

b. apportionment. Items are apportioned to the combatant commanders based on a global scenario to avoid sourcing of items to multiple theaters.

c. sourcing. Sourcing is the matching of available capabilities on a given date against item requirements to support sustainability analysis and the identification of locations to support transportation planning.

d. documentation. Sourced item requirements are translated in to movement requirements and documented in the Joint Operation Planning and Execution System database for transportation feasibility analysis. Joint Publications JP 4-09 (Distribution Operations - Defense Technical Information Center)

The Old Salt’s Corner

“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

PART V

Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing,

Beloved from pole to pole!

To Mary Queen the praise be given!

She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,

That slid into my soul.

By grace of the holy Mother, the ancient Mariner is refreshed with rain.

The silly buckets on the deck,

That had so long remained,

I dreamt that they were filled with dew;

And when I awoke, it rained.

My lips were wet, my throat was cold,

My garments all were dank;

Sure I had drunken in my dreams,

And still my body drank.

I moved, and could not feel my limbs:

I was so light--almost

I thought that I had died in sleep,

And was a blessÈd ghost.

He heareth sounds and seeth strange sights and commotions in the sky and the element.

continued ...

~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

(originally published in Lyrical Ballads, 1798)

Full Poem

“I’m Just Sayin”

“In economics: when unemployment increases by 1%, the annual GDP decreases by 2%.”

(“But when your're unemployed, your GDP decreases equally.”)

~ Okun's law and “I’m Just Sayin”

“Thought for the Day”

“If you really think the environment.

is less important than the economy,

try holding your breath

while you count your money.”

~ Guy McPherson

“What I Have Learned”

“Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.”

~ Anonymous

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

Men Accused Of Department Store Sex Act Exposed Cops To Scabies: Report

according to The Record, Clifton police were called to the store at the Riverfront shopping center around 5 p.m.

Though the incident occured during business hours, it remains unclear if any shoppers witnessed it. The Clifton Police Department did not return calls for comment.

The men, both 28 years old, face several charges, including lewdness, criminal mischief and possession of marijuana, The Record reported.

“Out of an abundance of caution, the incident-related merchandise and display was immediately pulled from the floor and discarded.”

The Record (02/02/2017)

Mr. Answer Man Please Tell Us: Why is the Passenger Seat Called “Shotgun”?

We’re taught a lot about proper social behavior growing up, from not chewing with our mouths open to excusing ourselves after a productive burp. But nothing is as important as knowing to call “shotgun” when you’re about to enter a motor vehicle.

“I call shotgun” is, at least in the United States, the widely-understood declaration that the speaker has claims on “shotgun”, or the front passenger seat. For a trip with multiple passengers, calling “shotgun” affirms one’s place in the most desirable spot in the car, with more legroom and a better view than the passengers stuffed into the backseat.

If you think the slang term has its roots in the Old West, you’re half-right.

When stagecoaches were common sights in the 1880s, the driver would typically assign his adjoining seat to a weapon-toting colleague whose job it was to ward off any thieves or plunderers encountered along the way. These passengers often carried shotguns, since a roaring blast from one would make it easier to hit one or more assailants from a jostling carriage. It’s natural to assume the seat grew to be known as “shotgun” for this reason alone.

And it did—just not in the Old West. No contemporaneous records exist of anyone using the term “shotgun” to describe the side seat in a stagecoach. It wasn’t until mass media became preoccupied with Western tales that the phrase began to work its way into the American vernacular, with pulp and television writers using the term “riding shotgun” to describe the presence of an able-bodied, buckshot-spitting comrade.

One of the earliest mentions came in a 1921 short story, “The Fighting Fool”, by Dane Coolidge, where a character is said to be ”ridin’ shotgun for Wells Fargo.” The phrase was also used in the 1939 John Wayne film Stagecoach, featuring the open decree “I’m gonna ride shotgun.”

It’s likely that these modern references to historical events led to the phrase becoming commonplace beginning in the middle of the 20th century, particularly as the new medium of television began to grow overstuffed with primetime Westerns. (In 1954, André De Toth made a feature with Randolph Scott called Riding Shotgun.)

Although rules vary from region to region, it’s commonly accepted that calling shotgun only counts when it's called outside, and in view, of a car. And if there’s a mom present, all other calls are null and void—moms always ride shotgun.

Mental Floss • Phrases.org. UK • Quora • Reddit • Shotgun Rules • Wikipedia

Where Did That Saying Come From?

“Bite The Bullet:”  Meaning: Face up to unpleasant reality.

Origin: Before anaesthetics were invented, injured soldiers would bite on a bullet to help them endure the pain of an operation/amputation.

Is it true or is it just 'believed'? The theory goes that patients undergoing surgery would be given a stick of wood or a pad of leather to bite on in order to concentrate their attention away from the pain and also to protect against biting their own tongues. A bullet, being somewhat malleable and not likely to break the patient's teeth, is said to have been an impromptu battlefield alternative. Lead poisoning would probably have been a secondary concern in those circumstances.

Phrases.org UK

NAVSPEAK aka U.S. Navy Slang

NUG: New Useless Guy. Term referred to newly reported sailors with no qualifications or experience. Usually tasked with dirty and nasty jobs often referred to as “"Shit Work”.

Nugget: First tour aviator.

NUB:

• Non-Useful Dody) A sailor who has not completed any qualifications and is therefore of no use to their division.

• A sailor that has not yet earned their Submarine Warfare Qualification (Dolphins).

Just for you MARINE

Padre: Chaplain, usually Catholic, from the Spanish and Italian terms for “father”.

PALS: Pouch Attachment Ladder System, a webbing system used to attach combat accessories to MOLLE and ILBE equipment.

Naval Aviation Squadron Nicknames

VT-35 - Fixed Wing Training Squadrons: “Stingrays”
Established October 29th 1999 Advanced Multi-engine TRAWING 4, Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Texas

Science & Technology

Scientists estimate solar nebula's lifetime • Researchers cast into doubt a tenet of the dominant evolutionary biology model • Bacteria sleep, then rapidly evolve, to survive antibiotic treatments • Ancestry.com analyses user DNA samples to build migration maps of North America • Google Brain uses neural networks to provide realistic enhanced resolution to low res pics • Genetically altered bacteria help destroy cancerous tumors in mice • NASA team looks to ancient Earth first to study hazy exoplanets • Greenland ice sheet melting can cool subtropics, alter climate Phys.org

The Strange, Mysterious or Downright Weird

Fireball Hissing: Weird Cause of Noises Made by Meteors Found

Bright, flaring meteors are sometimes accompanied by faint noises. What's strange about these popping, sizzling, rustling, and hissing sounds are that they reportedly occur almost instantly to earthly onlookers. This makes little sense, as meteors are as far as sixty miles away from viewers on the ground, so any sound they make should take several minutes be heard. What's going on? Do meteors somehow defy the laws of physics?

Researcher Richard Spalding and several of his colleagues at Sandia National Laboratories recently set out to study this strange phenomenon, and in a study just published to the journal Scientific Reports, they announce that the sounds are likely created through light.

Meteor fireballs sometimes pulse with light many times brighter than the full Moon, and these blasts can briefly heat the surfaces of objects many miles away. Such sudden temperature changes can actually create sound.

Astronomers have previously suggested that some meteors emit very low frequency radio waves, which produce near instantaneous sounds. They dubbed such meteors “electrophonic meteors”. Spalding and his team suggest their explanation is more likely, and indeed, it may be preferable to sky-watchers, as it suggests that anyone can hear a meteor provided it's bright enough and they situate themselves in a quiet area with photoacoustically-sensitive objects nearby.

Live Science (02/07/2017)