toucana

Tea bags were an accidental invention, and were originally made from a silk material according to this site. https://www.tea.co.uk/the-history-of-the-tea-bag

American friends living in the Chicago/Illinois area tell me that they are receiving emergency telephone warnings about a large incoming dust storm in their area. Dust storms known as haboobs (arabic: هَبوب habub - “blasting/drifting”) more normally occur in semi-arid areas of the south-western states of USA, and are caused by the collapse of thunderstorm systems, leading to a reversal of winds, and downdraft of cold descending air picking up dust and debris from the ground as it advances. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haboob The last major haboob in the Illinois area on 1 May 2023 caused an 84 car pile-up on Interstate 55 that killed eight people and injured dozens more. https://farmdocdaily.illinois.edu/2025/04/research-conservation-reviewing-the-illinois-dust-storm-of-2023.html From an IRC chat just a few minutes ago —> [00:28:33] <e******l> We just got an emergency notification on our phones for a dust storm coming our way. That's the first I've ever seen in this area. [00:29:19] <toucana> they call them haboobs in some parts of USA ? [00:30:51] <e*****l> Looks like. I just searched Google for "haboob", and instead of getting boob jokes, I got the definition and a map of our warning area. [00:33:41] <toucana> It's from the arabic word هَبوب, haboob meaning "blasting/drifting" [00:34:44] <toucana> Normally happen in places like Arizona, but they also happen sometimes in midwest areas like Iowa [00:35:02] <e****l> Also, that explains why when I've been outside today I have felt like I had stuff getting in my eyes. I actually did! [00:50:06] <e****l> I'm in Chicago, Illinois [01:02:44] <e****l> It is getting dark here from the dust. [01:02:54] <e****l> The wind has started to really pick up. <—

Leeches are still used in modern medicine. Back in 2004 the U.S Food and Drug Administration approved the use of leeches for the treatment of localised post-operative venous congestion. https://www.uhhospitals.org/blog/articles/2020/03/how-leeches-can-save-lives-and-limbs-for-some-patients They are of particular value in skin graft and reconstructive plastic surgeries for cancer and trauma that often require microsurgical techniques. In a small number of cases, the affected body part may develop a dangerous complication called venous congestion. Leech saliva contains hirudin, an anticoagulant agent that works to prevent blood clots and reduce the amount of congested blood in the tissues, as well as promoting blood flow and healing. The treatment is also painless because leech bites release a natural anaesthetic that numbs the bite area. In Scottish Gaelic léich or ‘leech is a word for a physician or doctor - reflecting the 17th century use of that term in English.

The sequel ...

I never imagined that this Tracey Ullman comedy clip would become topical again - but here it is:

Umm... this is the Politics sub-forum. As a matter of interest, my OP originally appeared in the 'Political Humour' sub-forum, but the forum moderators felt it belonged here instead, and moved it.

Interesting article by BBC News about Charlie Hopkins who at 93 is said to be the last surviving former inmate of Alcatraz - according to the San Francisco National Archives. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yep08r9vjo He was transferred to Alcatraz in 1955 aged 23 to serve a 17 year sentence for kidnapping and robbery after causing trouble in other penitentiaries, and spent three years on the ‘Rock’ before being moved to Missouri. Hopkins who is an avid Trump supporter said that he does not believe the president’s proposal is serious:

I suspect the most succinct explanation can be found the final paragraph of the NPR link in the OP: The same article also makes another point: Donald Trump who was born in June 1946 would have been an impressionable 16 y/o at the time when John Frankenheimer’s film came out, and when Alcatraz was shut down. The name Alcatraz simply doesn’t have the same notoriety and resonance for anyone significantly younger.

As a child back in the 1960s I used to watch popular American films shown as Sunday matinee programmes on the BBC service. One of them was a 1962 John Frankenheimer film called Birdman of Alcatraz starring Burt Lancaster. The film was adapted from a novel by Thomas E. Gaddis that was based on the real-life story of Robert Stroud - a double murderer who became an expert ornithologist and authority on avian diseases while serving time at Leavenworth. In 1942 Stroud who was regarded as one of the most dangerous convicts in the US prison system was transferred to the penitentiary on Alcatraz Island where he remained until 1959 - (spoiler alert - he was no longer allowed to keep birds in his cell on Alcatraz). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birdman_of_Alcatraz_(film) John Frankenheimer’s film which was released in July 1962 proved to be an epilogue for both Alcatraz, and Robert Stroud himself. The penitentiary was closed down in March 1963, and the Bird Man himself died in November of the same year, having spent 42 of his 52 years in prison in solitary confinement. Alcatraz (Island of Pelicans) is a bare rock located about 1.25 miles off the coast of San Francisco. Originally the site of a lighthouse and a military prison dating from the 1850s, it was taken over by the Federal Bureau of Prisons and reopened as a maximum security facility in 1934. It was believed that the cold waters and strong currents of San Francisco Bay would render the prison escape-proof. Alcatraz was a very expensive facility to run, it could only ever house about 260 prisoners at maximum capacity, and it cost three times as much per inmate to run as any other comparable US prison facility. With no available supply of fresh water on the island, everything including drinking water had to be brought in by boats. Salt spray caused extensive damage to the sub-standard concrete and steel rebar construction of the prison. By 1961 engineers responsible for a 3 year program of major repairs had written the prison off as a lost cause, and Attorney General RFK submitted plans to build a replacement in Illinois. https://www.npr.org/2025/05/07/nx-s1-5388377/alcatraz-prison-island-trump-pelicans The final nail in the coffin was the successful escape of three inmates in June 1962. The FBI concluded that the men had drowned in the attempt, but other evidence which came to light years later suggests they reached shore and remained free for the rest of their lives. The abandoned facility was occupied by a native American Indian protest group between 1969-71, and was subsequently turned into a highly popular tourist attraction, now operated by the National Park Service. So why in the world does Donald Trump say he wants to reopen it as a prison ? Short answer - he doesn’t. It’s a completely impractical and pointless suggestion. It’s yet another piece of bombastic and symbolic narcissism - on a par with Trump’s long cherished desire to have his presidential sculpture added to those on the Mount Rushmore National Memorial.

The planning department in the city of Stockholm - the capital city of Sweden - has received a letter from the US government demanding that it end its diversity, inclusivity and equality (DEI) programs within 10 days. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/us-demand-stockholm-antidei-embassy-b2746859.html France has also been hit with a similar demand according to other sources. The Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter reports that the letter came from the US embassy, and it said that every organisation doing business with the US government must sign a contract within a few days and agree to end their DEI programmes. Jans Valsekog, Stockholms vice mayor for City Planning and Sports calls the letter completely bizarre, and says that it will be ignored. He points out that it is in fact the US embassy in Stockholm that needs the city planning office, not the other way round “If the US terminates its relationship with the city planning office, the embassy will have difficulty obtaining a building permit if they want to rebuild for example. That’s their headache, not ours”. If the US state department still has any staff left who can understand Swedish, then they may shortly become better acquainted with some of the more colourful and pithy idioms of that language e.g —> "Du har inte alla hästar hemma" - (you don’t have all the horses at home) “Dummare än tåget — (dumber than a train) “Fan ta dig” - (go f**k yourself).

President Trump has been quick off the mark to congratulate Cardinal Robert Prevost on becoming the first ever American to be elected as the new Pope earlier today - under the regnal name of Leo XIV. Vice-president J.D. Vance (a recent convert to Roman Catholicism) may be slightly less happy however, as Cardinal Prevost who originally hails from Chicago but has lived in Peru, recently excoriated the VP on Twitter/X for suggesting that Christian love was subject to a sort of ranking system - a medieval concept known as the ordo amoris - the order of charity, often attributed to St Thomas Aquinas. https://www.ncronline.org/opinion/guest-voices/jd-vance-wrong-jesus-doesnt-ask-us-rank-our-love-others The Cardinal’s response to this back in February was robust - “J.D. Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others” https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/robert-prevosts-post-slamming-jd-vance-surfaces-after-election-heres-what-pope-leo-xiv-said-101746727012007.html

In an interview in Rome, Cardinal Timothy Dolan (Archbishop of New York since 2009) referred to the ‘Pope’ image of Trump as a brutta figura https://x.com/highbrow_nobrow/status/1919095174187417821 The phrase is used in Italian to denote “a crude, grotesque, or deformed image” - the opposite of a bella figura.

His Holiness..

Yet another SignalGate scandal has erupted, as described in a 15m YT video between Andrew Egger of The Bulwark, and Joseph Cox, a journalist from a group called 404.media.co https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4WnMMzoEVs A few days ago, a Reuters photo-journalist Evelyn Hockstein took a photo of NSA Mike Waltz using his smartphone at a White House cabinet meeting (shortly before he was terminated). Enlargement of that image clearly shows Mike Waltz using a modded version of Signal called TeleMessage supplied by an obscure Israeli company. The point of this mod is that it archives active Signal chat threads by routing them via a TeleMessage server to an archival repository. Presumably this was meant to bring the use of Signal by government officials into compliance with the Federal Records Act - as opposed to allowing the Signal chats to be auto-deleted a few days later. A hacker connected with 404.media.co who saw these enlarged images became curious about quite how secure this archival TeleMessage relay system was - and broke into it within about 15 minutes. The hacker obtained plain text versions of messages between officials from Customs & Borders, as well as lobbyists for a Crypto-currency company called Galaxy in conversation with government staffers. The hacker also apparently managed to obtain the group names and passwords for other linked government Signal chats. Telemessage have now shuttered their service. https://www.404media.co/the-signal-clone-the-trump-admin-uses-was-hacked/

I wasn’t quite sure where to put this thread, so it originally appeared in The Lounge, but now seems to have migrated into Politics ! Not for the first time, the board game industry acts a microcosm of the larger pressures likely to be affecting the American economy and world trade in general in the next few months. About a week ago the CEOs of major retailers like Walmart and Target privately warned the Trump administration that the USA was only a couple of weeks away from a retail supply chain melt-down that will see empty shelves and product shortages on a scale unseen since the pandemic of 2020-1. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/walmart-target-trump-tariff-supply-chains/ Shipping analysts are reporting a 40% rise in ‘blank sailings’ from China to USA since the latest China tariffs were announced - as shippers chalk-off scheduled deliveries to American ports. Even worse, this is happening in the April/May time period when Xmas-shopping trade contracts are normally being signed. There is a seven month lead time in actioning these shippings, so retailers already know it’s going to be a bleak Xmas this year. https://www.sea-intelligence.com/press-room/320-transpacific-blank-sailings-rise-rapidly ‘Gloomhaven’ (for those who aren’t board gamers ) is an enormous ‘coffin-box’ size co-op strategy and dungeon crawl game which is campaign based, with 95 unique scenarios and 17 playable classes. If you already have a copy still sitting in its shrinkwrap, then you should just about have time to play through all of it within the remaining 1358 days of Trump’s second term ;-) Handy countdown timer —> https://logwork.com/countdown-h5o4

Hot on the heels of Trump’s latest punitive tariff war against China, comes news that Price Johnson the COO of Cephalofair Games (‘Gloomhaven’, ‘Frosthaven’, ‘Jaws of the Lion’) a small board game design company based in Lafayette Indiana has appeared on CNN, and said that his company is almost completely paralysed by the new tariffs imposed on China. https://cephalofair.com/blogs/blog/planning-our-initiatives-tariffs-part-2 So why are US board game publishers in particular being so badly hit ? The answer is that most modern board games are printed in China, usually either by LongPack Games, a printing company based in Shanghai, or by the Jin Hui Printiing company in Shenzen near Hong Kong, which both offer high volume low-cost printing, warehouse and shipping services at competitive rates that European and American companies simply cannot match. The potential risks of depending on an off-shore supply chain located in China was graphically demonstrated in 2017 when a large warehouse fire in China destroyed the entire EU Kickstarter stock of a brand new board game by Vital Lacerda called ‘Lisboa’ - a game which ironically enough was based on the great earthquake and fire that destroyed the city of Lisbon in 1755. The publisher Eagle Gryphon Games had to delay the launch of that game for months while it was reprinted. The global board game market was said to be worth around $14.37 billion USD in 2024, and is projected to grow to $32 billion by 2032, with a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 10.5% within that forecast period. https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/board-games-market-104972 The US board game market was projected to be worth around $2.87 billion USD in 2025 with a CAGR of 4.23% https://www.statista.com/outlook/cmo/toys-hobby/toys-games/board-games/united-states The grim reality of the situation now facing US board game manufacturers has been documented within the last few days by Cardboard Edison who carried out a new survey that asked US board game publishers —> - 90% say they would have to pass on the increased costs to customers. - 66% say they would have to print fewer copies in smaller print runs. - 56% of the companies say they expect to delay their current plans. - 74% say they will be signing fewer new games from designers, and may claw-back tariff costs from designer royalties - 41% fewer publishers said they would be making dice-based games in particular. - 23% fewer publishers say they will be making board games at all under the new tariff scenario. - 16% say they are considering moving to digital formats - 13% say they are considering moving to PNP (print & play)

President Trump has now fired his National Security Advisor Mike Waltz in the wake of the Signalgate scandal according to multiple press reports. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/mike-waltz-alex-wong-nsa-trump-b2743177.html The former NSA Mike Waltz and his deputy Alex Wong will both be leaving their jobs, marking the first cabinet dismissal of the second Trump administration with just over 100 days in office on the clock - in a manner that echoes the abrupt dismissal of General Mike Flynn as NSA in the first Trump administration back in 2017, after just 22 days in post. Trump was apparently persuaded to sack Waltz by his unofficial HR advisor Laura Loomer a conspiracy theorist who seems to have an unusually intimate level of access to POTUS.

Don't often see an electrical joke :-)

Small correction - REN (Redes Energéticas Nacionals) operate the national grid of Portugal, and REE (Red Eléctrica de España ) operate the Spanish electrical grid system. The Carrington Event which took place in September 1859 happened at a time when high power electrical transmission systems and transformers in the 220/440 KV class simply did not exist. https://www.space.com/the-carrington-event Oddly enough, one of my relatives - a maternal great-uncle Sir Arthur Fleming (1881-1960) was a pioneering electrical engineer who was sent over to Pittsburgh USA in 1899 to train with Westinghouse Electrical Corporation, and he subsequently became an insulation specialist and head of transformer design with British Westinghouse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Fleming_(electrical_engineer) He was knighted for his war-time work in designing the high-power thermionic valves used in British RADAR systems during WW2.

Spain and Portugal have suffered major electrical blackouts affecting capital cities such as Madrid and Lisbon, plus many other regional cities such as Barcelona, Valencia, and Porto. Parts of southern France have also been affected https://news.sky.com/story/spain-portugal-power-outage-latest-large-parts-of-countries-affected-with-traffic-lights-not-working-and-phone-lines-down-13357538 REN the prinicipal electrical grid operator in Spain has blamed rare atmospheric conditions that have affected significant parts of the European power grid system for causing “induced atmospheric variations” which have impacted the operational stability of power transmission lines across the entire Iberian peninsula. They say that it may take up to a week to resolve the problems affecting their 400 and 220 KV transmission lines. What they are referring to appears to be a phenomenon known to power line engineers as GIC (geomagnetically induced currents) which are related to space weather - i.e. charged particles from the sun.The solar cycle is currently on an 11 year maximum for sunspot activity. https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/solar-cycle-progression A recent 2023 AGU article on ‘Expected Geomagnetically Induced Currents in the Spanish Islands Power Transmission Grids’ explains some of the problems: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2023SW003426 "When the Sun is active, it sends out more charged particles that can affect the regions around the Earth where those particles interact with the planet's magnetic field. This leads to a significant increase of electric currents in these media giving rise to geomagnetic storms. This generated electrical fields act like a voltage source and cause electrical currents to flow through the power networks, that can damage the transformers where the circuit is grounded. The currents thus induced in those technological systems are accordingly known as geomagnetically induced currents (GICs). The GIC component of the current flowing in a power transformer disturbs the normal power-frequency operation of the magnetic circuit, causing core saturation, increasing the leakage flux, and generating transformer heating (e.g., Gaunt, 2014). GICs also generate harmonic distortion and voltage unbalance that may lead to the misoperation of protective devices, causing the tripping of over-current relays. If the infrastructure damage and tripping of transmission lines spreads it may result in cascading outages and extended power disruptions."

According to this BBC report, president Trump “stands strongly behind Peter Hegseth” and thinks he is “Doing a great job”. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g8r701lrno Which implies that POTUS is completely satisfied with the performance of his hand-picked muscle-bound, alcoholic Fox TV mediocrity - complete with his Christo-Fascist Jerusalem Cross and Deus Vult tattoos - in destroying the military leadership of the USA.

It was always a given that other Signal threads of this type would come to light. The buried lede in this case is the recent chaos within the Pentagon that has prompted the disclosure of this latest scandal. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/20/ullyot-pentagon-hegseth-chaos-00300695 “The Pentagon is in total chaos” - according to this story from Politico - following the resignation of senior spokesman John Ullyot who resigned, and then went public two days later with an excoriating attack on Hegseth and his team for their “falsehoods” about why three top Pentagon officials were fired last week - supposedly for the unauthorised sharing of sensitive information - exactly the same offense that Peter Hegseth himself was quite blatantly guilty of. According to this account in The Independent, the latest Signal scandal involves a thread called ”Defense | Team Huddle” which was originally started by Peter Hegseth himself during his Congressional confirmation hearings back in January, in order to coordinate his support on Capitol Hill. But he carried on accessing this Signal thread on his personal phone after being confirmed in post, and used it to share the same attack plan details that were shared in another Signal group that Jeffrey Goldberg was party to, on Saturday March 15. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/hegseth-signal-second-chat-yemen-wife-b2736476.html "In the days before the Yemen attack, aides reportedly warned Hegseth not to use the “Defense | Team Huddle” group chat to discuss any sensitive operational details. He was also “encouraged” to move discussions from his personal device to his government phone. But Hegseth never made that transition." Exactly why he thought it necessary to share such sensitive information with his wife, personal attorney, and his own brother remains a matter of conjecture. Politico believes that Hegseth will shortly be fired by Trump.

Dear Mr President According to a recent memo sent by Thomas Lee, managing partner and head of research at Fundstrat Global Advisors, some macro fund managers he has spoken to recently are quietly wondering if you are insane ? https://finance.yahoo.com/news/fund-managers-worry-trump-might-174000541.html Do you have any views on this matter ?

Speaking of which..

It has many uses..