toucana

A CNN report on the military briefing given to US lawmakers on Thursday by the JCS chair Gen. Dan Caine says the US military did not even attempt to use bunker-buster bombs on the Isfahan site, because the storage facility was buried too deep underground for the GBU-57 weapons to be effective. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/06/27/politics/bunker-buster-bomb-isfahan-iran The Isfahan site which was one of 4 Iranian nuclear sites hit by the US last weekend was attacked with Tomahawk cruise missiles instead, which only destroyed buildings on the surface. What this means is that Iran most likely still has access to most of the 408Kg of highly enriched Uranium it possessed prior to the attack - about enough to make six Hiroshima size (15 Kiloton) atomic weapons. So what exactly was the point ?

According to a recent article in the New York Times, US military planners felt that President Trump himself posed one of the biggest opsec threats to any successful outcome of a military attack on Iran’s nuclear bunker facilities because of his incessant rant-posting on social media ahead of the decision to send in the bombers on Saturday night. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/22/us/politics/trump-iran-decision-strikes.html Trump’s vacillating bluster about whether he might or might not green-light such an attack, coupled with his histrionic demands on Truth Social on Monday 16 June that Iranians should “immediately evacuate Tehran” (a capital city with a population of almost 10 million people) all gave the Iranian leadership plenty of warning, and enough time to disperse their holdings of highly enriched uranium to other locations. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/17/trump-asks-tehran-residents-to-evacuate-immediately-but-can-they A well-sourced article in the Financial Times claims that Iran possesses a total stockpile of around 8,400Kg of enriched uranium, most of which is only enriched to low levels consistent with a civilian power program, with about 408Kg or 5% of that stockpile processed to a more highly enriched level. https://www.ft.com/content/0808eeb8-341c-4a4e-8ccf-0db07febef91 Rafael Grossi the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has said that the Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi sent a letter to the IAEA on June 13 warning that Iran would “adopt special measures to protect our nuclear equipment and materials”. The UN nuclear wtachdog’s inspectors have been unable to visit the plants since then. On Thursday Rafael Grossi told French Radio that Iran’s nuclear program had “suffered enormous damage”, though he also said that claims of its complete destruction were “overblown”.

Right now DT is having a hissy fit and using the F-word in front of reporters because his chances of receiving a long-cherished Nobel Peace Prize are vanishing out of the window faster than a wet dream, with each new exchange of missiles. https://thehill.com/homenews/5364177-pakistan-nominates-trump-for-nobel-peace-prize-then-condemns-strikes-on-iran/ Last Saturday Islamabad formally announced that it was nominating Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize for his supposed role in defusing the recent confrontation between Pakistan and India - only to do a complete volte-face the next day on on Sunday when Trump sent US bombers in to bomb Iran’s nuclear bunkers. Not the best look for a wannabe Nobel Laureate.

Well that 'ceasefire' lasted all of two hours - assuming it ever really existed at all - other than as a figment of president Trump's diseased imagination. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cn7ze4vmk2pt

“Move fast and break things” has a rather long history in the story of America’s industrial development - not least in the field of automobile production. There is an entertaining but probably apocryphal story that back in the year of 1895, the only two automobiles in the entire state of Ohio managed to collide with each other https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/only-two-cars-ohio-crashed-1895/ That story is probably untrue, but a better founded one says the first automobile accident ever recorded in the US did happen in Ohio City in 1891, when inventor James Lambert’s single cylinder vehicle hit a tree root and smashed into a hitching post. Some historians note this mishap was predated by some 20 years by an accident in Dublin Ireland in 1869 when astronomer and naturalist Mary Ward became the first person to be killed in an automobile accident. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/08/pioneering-female-scientist-was-first-car-crash-victim/597037/ That vehicle however was steam-powered.

Breaking >>> BBC NewsTrump says US has bombed Fordo nuclear plant in attack on...Earlier, Iran's foreign minister warned against US involvement in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran saying it would be "very very dangerous".

The New York Times is reporting that multiple American B2 stealth bombers are being flown westwards from Whiteman AFB base Missouri out over the Pacific towards Guam, en route to the Middle-East. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/06/21/world/iran-israel-trump The B2 bombers are the only US aircraft large enough to carry the GBU-57 or ‘Massive Ordnance Penetrator’ (MOP), a 20’ long weapon weighing 30,000 lbs which is the largest conventional bomb in the world, and the only specialised deep bunker-busting bomb capable of destroying the underground Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordow. The same sources say that Israeli forces are carrying out intensive airstrikes in the Ahvaz region of southwestern Iran to take out missile launchers and air-defence radars along the flight path that would be used by U.S warplanes on their way to attack Fordow.

“It may have won WW2, but it lost the battle of WD40 !” - (Steve Colbert)

President Trump has abruptly left the G7 summit in Calgary citing “Big stuff’ to attend to back in Washington, and denying French president Macron’s suggestion that it was in connection with overseeing Middle-East ceasefire negotiations. https://apnews.com/article/g7-summit-canada-trump-departure-ukraine-6c86a0a8463603c9b1a3e950382af0a2 A large formation of United States Airforce aerial refuelling aircraft including over two dozen KC-135 Stratotankers and KC-46 Pegasus tankers was spotted travelling eastbound from USA to Europe on Sunday night https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/huge-number-of-u-s-refuelling-aircraft-cross-the-atlantic/ Some Israeli news outlets are now claiming that president Trump will shortly join Israel’s attack on Iran with the specific intent of destroying the Iranian nuclear facility at Fordow which is located in deep underground bunkers in mountains near Qom - bunkers which Israeli forces lack the specialised munitions to attack. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/06/17/politics/trump-iran-israel-conflict-g7 It would appear that president Trump and his advisers are pondering the fateful step of directly helping Israel to destroy Iran’s nuclear program - a move that many leading MAGA figures will be highly critical of because they see it as a repudiation of their cherished “America First” principles, and yet another unwanted involvement in a Middle-East war.

The fact remains that the key swing state of Michigan was delivered into Republican hands, and along with it the presidency - into the hands of Donald Trump. The Muslim protest voters in Dearborn weren’t alone of course. There were also the “Latinas for Trump” movement who mobilised large numbers of Hispanic voters to turn out for Trump as well. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/09/florida-republicans-criticize-trump-immigration-arrests Well guess guess what ? - according to social media - as of 13 June "Latinos for Trump" leader Hector Luis Valdes Cocho, was picked up by ICE and is now in a detention center waiting to be deported https://www.facebook.com/USdems/posts/latinos-for-trump-leader-hector-luis-valdes-cocho-was-picked-up-by-ice-and-is-no/1150518430453886/ All of which feeds into my point that adopting a ‘neutral’ POV, or engaging in wishful-thinking protest votes when democracy itself is facing an existential threat is simply not an option.

Did you really miss the entire discussion about role of the muslim activists in Dearborn Michigan who campaigned ferociously for Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election on an “Abandon Harris” ticket ? They apparently did so because they blamed Harris for 'collusion', they thought Trump would end the Gaza conflict more quickly, and believed that conservative Republican values’ were somehow closer to those of Islam - and they effectively delivered the entire swing state of Michigan to Trump by doing so We had an entire thread called “The Gaza Riviera” in this sub-forum just a couple of months ago in February which went into this in some detail. This was the news story in the Jewish Chronicle which documented that story: https://www.thejc.com/news/usa/trump-voting-muslim-leaders-in-us-disappointed-by-his-pro-israel-cabinet-choices-fe0x4jb and here is what I wrote about it in that thread: I get the impression that you don't really follow the news in much detail.

Shortly after the 2000 GWB v. Al Gore US presidential election, as the result hung upon endless recounts in Florida, and SCOTUS arguments about ‘hanging chads’ and ‘butterfly ballots’ - one sardonic bumper-sticker said “ DON’T BLAME ME - I VOTED FOR BOTH OF THEM !” Being ‘neutral’ isn’t an option when democracy itself is at stake - not if you value the freedoms that democracy confers. There was ample warning as to exactly who and what Trump was, and what sort of policies he would pursue if returned to office. The people who chose to stay at home, or closed their eyes and voted for Trump because they persuaded themselves they were voting for cheaper eggs, ‘’Palestine”, “Christian values” or "un-woke bathrooms" made a fully informed choice to vote for fascism, racism and Nazism IMHO. The killings in Minnesota are the latest chilling example of the “stochastic terrorism” inspired by Trump and his followers that many commentators warned of back in 2017 after the Charlottesville car attack in 2017 during Trump’s first term. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlottesville_car_attack There is simply no excuse for not being aware of this - FAFO.

I was an art-house film projectionist who actually screened the 35mm prints of ‘Come And See’ by Elem Klimov on its UK release in 1986 - and yes it is horrific. The principal changeover point at the e/o reel 3 (where the projectionist has to watch for the c/o dots) coincides with the scene where a Nazi German Einsatzgruppen rounds up the population of a village into a church and burns them all alive by setting fire to it - almost unwatchable, (and I had to watch it many times). But there is one significant problem with your line of argument - the events depicted in that film take place in June 1941 at the inception of Operation Barbarossa, when Hitler broke the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, and sent a massive invasion force into Byelorussia (where the film is set) and on towards Moscow. Everyone else in this thread however seems to be discussing what happened inside Germany itself eight years earlier in 1933 ! i.e the process by which Hitler once elected as Chancellor, promptly subverted and overthrew the democratic institutions of the Weimar Republic by neutralising the powers of the executive and the judiciary, and then installed himself in perpetuity as a Fūhrer or fascist dictator.

BREAKING NEWS ABC News2 Minnesota lawmakers in grave condition after apparent '...Two Minnesota state lawmakers were shot in apparent "targeted" incidents on Saturday that left them in grave condition, officials said.Do you still think that comparisons to Nazi Germany of the 1930s are "a little extreme" ? ETA - State Rep. Melissa Hortman, and her husband are both dead, Sen John Hoffman and his wife are in surgery.

Three weeks ago (back around May 24) a highly conservative American think-tank called MEF (Middle East Forum) published a report predicting that an attack by Israel on Iranian nuclear sites would take place within “a matter of days not weeks” https://www.meforum.org/mef-observer/days-not-weeks-israels-imminent-attack-on-iranian-nuclear-sites This assessment was based on a convergence of factors including - reports from the Pentagon’s DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) that Iran could produce sufficient weapons grade uranium for a nuclear device within a week, and for another 15 within a month after that - a deadlock in the fifth round of US-Iran nuclear talks in Rome - coupled with an extensive war game simulation conducted by MEF during their conference on Thursday 22 May. The conclusions of this war game study include the following All of this now appears to be playing out in real time, but what is really sobering are some of the other predictions from this simulation. None of this will have come as any surprise to Washington. Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff (who is in fact a realtor by profession) left the US-Iran talks in Rome quite abruptly at the e/o May just after the MEF war game simulation ended - supposedly due to his “flight schedule”; and within the last two days the Trump administration had begun an urgent withdrawal of US staff from a number of locations in the Middle-East. Israel under prime minister Netanyahu has clearly concluded that launching an all-out attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities along with a decapitation attack on their military leadership was necessary in order to deal with an “existential threat to Israel's existence". The problem is that war games - like all mathematical modelling exercises are only as good as the assumptions built into them at the outset.

My Victorian maternal great-aunts in the Isle of Wight used to make a wonderful concoction called ‘Kashmir Chutney’ which they brewed up in a gigantic preserving pan filled with produce from the extensive fruit gardens around the house - following a hand-written recipe in a book that has been carefully passed down through the family for generations. This Kashmir chutney was basically an apple chutney with ginger which was served in a cut-glass decanter with a stoppered lid. I’ve only ever found one commercially available chutney quite like it, and that was Baxters Albert’s Victorian Chutney. Two other mustard related sauces that were popular in the Victorian era come to mind: i. Piccalilli (with many variant spellings) - is a mustard pickle that can be traced all the way back to a recipe from 1694 where it was called "Pickle Lila, an Indian Pickle" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piccalilli ii. Horseradish sauce - which owes its unique flavour to the fact that when the root is cut or grated: Victorian cooks were fond of making Horseradish sauce from freshly cut plants to go with their roast beef. Back in 1856 this practice led to a memorable accidental poisoning in Dingwall Scotland, when a servant sent to harvest the plant in the herb garden accidentally brought back the root of Monkshood (Aconitum) instead. Three of the dinner guests at a party hosted by the provost of Dingwall subsequently died from aconite poisoning. https://www.fabledcollective.com/aconite-monkshood-wolfsbane/#google_vignette

I suspect it also may have had something to do with changing methods of manufacturing and dispensing sugar. Sugar cane was originally regarded as a very expensive ‘rare spice’ which could only be grown in warm climates. It wasn’t until the very end of the 18th century that the discovery of sugar beet enabled domestic sugar production in colder north European countries to begin. Round about 1875 Henry Tate acquired the UK patent rights for the manufacture of lump sugar which had originally been invented in Bohemia in the 1840s, and improved upon in Germany. At about the same time, improved methods of sugar-refining, notably the advent of centrifuge separation of sucrose from molasses meant that bags of loose granulated sugar became more widely and cheaply available. Instead of purchasing rock hard sugar loaves that had to be smashed to pieces with sugar axes and nips, then laboriously ground to a fine powder with a pestle and mortar; households could now relegate castor sugar from the dining table to the kitchen where it was increasingly used solely for baking purposes, and much less often as a table sugar.

Found a fun article - “The Science Behind Salt and Vinegar Chips” - which goes into the use of Maltodextrin and sodium diacetate in some detail: https://www.seriouseats.com/the-best-salt-and-vinegar-chips-tasting-brands-most-acidic I particularly liked this citation from "The English Housewife: Containing the Inward and Outward Virtues Which Ought to be in a Complete Woman", published in 1615 ! "To make dry vinegar which you may carry in your pocket, you shall take blades of green corn, either wheat or rye, and beat it in a mortar with the strongest vinegar you can get till it come to a paste; then roll it into little balls, and dry it in the sun till it be very hard; when you have an occasion to use it, cut a little piece thereof and dissolve it in wine, and it will make a strong vinegar." As a child I can recall buying packs of Smith’s ‘Salt ’n Shake’ crisps which contained a pinch of salt wrapped up in a twist of blue waxed paper (this would have been c. 1961). They were first introduced in the early 1920s, and allowed people to adjust the saltiness of crisps to their own taste.

There seem to be a least two popular DIY methods of creating a 'Salt & Vinegar' seasoning powder described in reddit threads https://www.reddit.com/r/AskCulinary/comments/1vzi2c/how_do_i_make_vinegar_powder/ One involves mixing vinegar with maltodextrin, and the other involves the partial neutralisation of acetic acid with sodium bicarbonate.

On balance sugar does indeed seem to be the most likely answer. You can still buy a modern ‘six piece cruet set’ from amazon which contains 2 bottles for oil and vinegar, 2 shakers for salt and pepper, and a seasoning jar which “comes with a spoon and can be used to store sugar, rock salt, chilli pepper, sauces and much more” - (The sixth piece is the stainless steel caddy used to hold the other items) https://www.amazon.com/Vinegar-Pepper-Durable-Stainless-Bottle/dp/B07KYXBMZZ Not personal experience of handling it, but data sheets say:

I was quite sceptical in my OP about dehydrated vinegar powder being the missing condiment, not least because it’s hygroscopic and would quickly become soggy and lumpy inside a shaker when exposed to humid air - so I would hardly blame Exochemist for being dismissive about it too. Apparently quite a few people in both Hungary and the wider area of the old Austro-Hungarian empire insist that the third shaker in a cruet set was for paprika - (ground red pepper). https://www.reddit.com/r/nonmurdermysteries/comments/ismj11/salt_pepper_and_19thcentury_table_sets_feature_a/ Some of them also say that the third shaker had a hinged lid, and in central European restaurants at least, was often used to store toothpicks !

The antimacasser was introduced into this discussion as a different example of another object whose original function and role has been mislaid and forgotten over time - nothing to do with cruet sets. There are some entertaining online quizzes where viewers are challenged to identify up to 30 obsolete tools or artefacts from the past. I managed to get 28/30 in this particular quiz (missed #23 and #26). In a disturbing number of cases I'd actually used or handled some of these objects professionally !

On the subject of Pomade: One detail I hadn’t fully grasped until I did some more reading, was that pomade was used during the 18th century to deodorise and dress a wig, prior to applying a starch-based powder in order to impart a ghostly whiteness to the horsehair. This splendid 18th century French caricature by Carle Vernet shows the process in action. The owner of the wig is sat on a chair with the wig in place on their head - wearing both a protective apron and a conical face-mask. The hairdresser is blowing wig powder onto the wig with a ‘puff’ or brush whisk (they might also employ a miniature set of bellows). To limit any unwanted spread of powder, this procedure was carried out in a small ante-room set aside for this purpose known as a ‘powder room’.

The story of the antimacassar is quite interesting in its own right. It’s origin can be traced to the rising fashion for using Macassar hair oil which was first promoted by a London barber called Alexander Rowland in 1803 https://windowthroughtime.wordpress.com/tag/rowlands-macassar-oil/ According to this account, a need for this unguent arose directly from the demise of the wig in about 1795. The type of greasy ointment gentlemen now needed to slick down their hair was known by the French word pomade because it was originally made from apples (Latin: pomum). Rowland’s concoction was given the exotic name of Rowland’s Macassar oil because it was supposedly made from plant oils that came from around Makassar, a seaport on the island of Sulawesi in the Dutch East Indies. In actual fact the principal ingredient is thought to have come from the Kusum (Schleichera Oleosa) or Ceylon Oak, a tree native to the Indian sub-continent. By the 1830s, housewives had begun placing decorative cloths on the headrests of armchairs to protect their upholstery from being stained and damaged by this ubiquitous hair oil. Macassar oil subsequently went out of fashion in the 1850s, but antimacassars which were often made in intricately crotched wool patterns had by now become fashionable and highly desirable decorative art objects in their own right. https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/fashion-blog/2012/apr/02/brief-history-of-brylcreem

Mace is the fibrous outer casing that encloses a nutmeg seed, and is supplied in either whole ‘blades’ or as a ground powder. I think it can be used in very much the same way that nutmeg or cardamom is. There is a vivid description in Samuel Pepys’ diary entry for Thursday 16 November 1665 where he describes visiting the hold of a spice ship newly arrived from the Indies: