2020·08·15 KMAG Daily Thread

Shitstorm Saturday?

I keep hoping to be able to describe the day as “Shitstorm Saturday” but it hasn’t quite happened yet.

Perhaps the Clinesmith thing will turn out–at long last!! to be the fatal crack in the damned dam.

As for that fraudster Sundance…it sounds like he’s delaying now. His bluff has been called. Well, putting it that way assumes Barr is actually paying attention to the pipsqueak.

We need to get going on Justice.

A Reminder Of Today’s Issues.

Our movement is about replacing a failed and corrupt political establishment with a new government controlled by you, the American People...Our campaign represents a true existential threat, like they’ve never seen before.

Then-Candidate Donald J. Trump

Needs to happen, soon.

Musical Interlude

When I was in exile in the People’s Respublik of Kalifornia (PRK), I came to associate this bit of music with my beloved home state of Colorado. No obvious reason for it but to at least one friend of mine at the time it made perfect sense.

Lawyer Appeasement Section

OK now for the fine print.

Please note that our menu has changed, please listen to all of the options.

This is the WQTH Daily Thread. You know the drill. There’s no Political correctness, but civility is a requirement. There are Important Guidelines,  here, with an addendum on 20191110.

We have a new board – called The U Tree – where people can take each other to the woodshed without fear of censorship or moderation.

And remember Wheatie’s Rules:

1. No food fights
2. No running with scissors.
3. If you bring snacks, bring enough for everyone.
4. The first rule of gun safety: Don’t let the government take your guns.
5. The gun is always loaded.
5a. If you actually want the gun to be loaded, like because you’re checking out a bump in the night, then it’s empty.
6. Never point the gun at anything you’re not willing to destroy.
7. Keep your finger off the trigger until ready to fire.
8. Be sure of your target and what is behind it.
9. Social Justice Warriors, ANTIFA pukes, BLM hypocrites, and other assorted varieties of Marxists can go copulate with themselves, or if insufficiently limber, may substitute a rusty wire brush suitable for cleaning the bore of a twelve or ten gauge.

(Hmm a few extras seem to have crept in.)

Coin of The Day

As a coin collector, I have a superpower.

I can make change for a cent. Not that I ever would, not this way.

Yes, there is such a thing as a half cent. And it weighed in at 84 grains (yes, the same grains as bullets and powder), pure copper. Our current cent, before mid-1982 when it suffered the ignominy and debasement of being made out of zinc with a copper coating on it, weighed 48 grains, making the half cent 1.75 times as massive as the old “small cent.”

So if you own two of these, you can break a cent, but you’d be ill-advised unless the cent is a very valuable one.

Before 1857, the United States had what collectors now call “Large Cents” (in contrast to the current “Small Cent”) and these half cents. Many collectors specialize in these coins, especially the large cents, to the point where there’s even a sizeable club (Early American Coppers) dedicated to collecting them. They’ll collect them not only by date, but by variety–every die that was used to make these had minor (and sometimes not so minor) differences, and people have studied those for at least a hundred and fifty years. And if you think those people surely have no lives, how about the ones who specialize in one die pair and try to collect coins from when that die was new versus when it was falling apart and had to be retired?

Collectors consider large cents to be totally different from small cents. A reference book on US coins, which is typically divided into chapters by denomination, will of course distinguish between the silver dollar and the gold dollar as well (and the silver three cent piece, and nickel three cent piece, and the half dime and the copper-nickel “nickel”). But even though large cents and small cents are (er…dammit until 1982) largely made of copper, they get separate chapters.

Half cents are not collected as avidly as large cents, and are thus considerably less expensive even though there are many fewer of them out there. (Should there suddenly be a great interest in them, their values will climb, quite a bit.)

The problem that these coins faced when they were current, was their weight. 168 grains for a large cent is more than midway between the weight of a (silver) quarter and a (silver) half dollar, yet the bugger was only worth one cent. They saw little use outside of major cities, but even that demand was enough that the mint cranked them out, every year between 1793 and 1857, except for 1815 when no copper was available. People didn’t care for the weight, but they really had no alternative.

The half cent was also bulky for its value, but the denomination itself was nearly useless, so the mint made them only sporadically. Consider the time spans of the different designs: Liberty Cap (1793-1797) to Draped Bust (1800-1808) to Classic Head (1809-1836) to Braided Hair (1840-1857). There are gaps between all but two of these designs when no half cents were made. None were made from 1812-1824. And the first ten years of Braided Hair half cents were only proof specimens made for collectors, none for general use.

One technological change partway through the series was that in 1831, the mint started using a new press that would actually put the coin in a collar while being struck, instead of letting the thing squeeze out between the dies while being struck.

The mint only made operating profit by making cents and half cents. Silver and gold coinage was specified to be of full intrinsic value, but the copper in a large cent, at least initially, was worth less than a cent. But as the 19th century proceeded, that profit became smaller and smaller, and eventually it was decided to do something different.

And now for the rest of the story…

Midway through 1857, the small cent was introduced, and the old coppers, both of them, discontinued, but it wasn’t quite the small cent you knew as a child. It was considerably thicker, and was 12% nickel. That nickel additive had the effect of making it much more difficult for the cent to tarnish; even today they are all a light tan color. However the metal was harder, meaning it was more difficult to strike into coins. The cent weighed in at 72 grains (an extra 50% in weight compared to the pre-1982 cents we grew up with), and bore a flying eagle on its face.

They were instantly popular with the public, and ironically coin collecting got a considerable boost (almost nobody collected coins before that date) as nostalgia for the large cent and half cent increased and people decided to save them.

That was changed in 1859 to an Indian head, the reverse wreath changed the next year, and finally, in 1864 the cent was made thinner and the nickel was removed from the alloy, bringing it to its “modern” spec of 48 grams of copper (with a small admixture of zinc and, usually, tin). The cent stayed in that form with two major design changes until 1982. (In 1909 Lincoln replaced the Indian and wheat ears replaced the old wreath on the reverse, and in 1959 the Lincoln Memorial replaced the wheat ears, both events in celebration of major anniversaries of Lincoln’s birth in 1809). There was one exception; in 1943 the cent was made of galvanized steel to save copper for the war effort (unfortunately, it was too easily confused with a dime in that color).

The lowly cent, disregarded and now suffering the shame of being made out of a metal regarded as the very epitome of “cheap,” indeed has a long and honorable past, even including a time when it had a lesser sibling, the half cent.

Standard disclaimer: Neither these, nor any other coins I show here, are ones I own. In some cases (but by no means all or even most of them) I own a similar coin or coins. But even when I do, it’s not as nice as the pictures I find on the internet.

Obligatory PSA/Reminder

Just one more thing, my standard Public Service Announcement. We don’t want to forget this!!!

Remember Hong Kong!!! And remember the tens of millions who died under the “Great Helmsman” Chairman Mao.

中国是个混蛋 !!!
Zhōngguò shì gè hùndàn !!!
China is asshoe !!!

For my money the Great Helmsman is Hikaru Sulu (even if the actor is a dingbat).