Damn this post is bittersweet or sweet and bitter

Good insight

I live in Michigan in the US. There have been a few dozen tornadoes in the counties near me over the years. I saw a water spout over Lake Huron once. And I had to take shelter in the stock room of a Meijer (local department store similar to a Walmart or an ASDA) once when one was going through. Gotta say, that was the most amount of rain I have ever seen in my life.

That’s completely fascinating.

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Very good points.

Trotsky’s uncle was literally a millionaire connected to international arms smugglers

that anti sematic Mama's boy - this punk rock girl i knew in college

I was impressed that my cat knew the word dinner.

It's so odd the idea of Jack Kerouac doing stuff like being in the army and a college football team considering how so much of his work is spent rejecting the American middle class ideals and throwing himself into counter culture. It's kind of like Trotsky going to work as a bank manager.

Calm down Gino.

And my mum would be a bicycle if she had wheels.

Yeah... those somehow count.

Dorchester was a coastal passenger steamship requisitioned and operated by the War Shipping Administration (WSA) in January 1942 for wartime use as a troop ship allocated to United States Army requirements.

Dorchester is best remembered today for the actions of four of the Army officers among the military personnel being transported overseas for duty: the Four Chaplains who died because they gave up their life jackets to save others. These chaplains included Methodist minister George L. Fox, Reformed Church in America minister Clark V. Poling, Catholic Church priest John P. Washington and Rabbi Alexander B. Goode.

Congress established February 3 as "Four Chaplains Day" to commemorate this act of heroism, and on July 14, 1960, created the Chaplain's Medal for Heroism, presented posthumously to the next of kin of each of the chaplains by Secretary of the Army Wilber M. Brucker at Fort Myer, Virginia on January 18, 1961.

On January 23, 1943, Dorchester left New York harbor, bound for the Army Command Base at Narsarsuaq in southern Greenland. SG-19 consisted of six ships: SS Dorchester, two merchant ships (SS Lutz and SS Biscaya) that were leased by the United States from the Norwegian government-in-exile, and their escorts, the small United States Coast Guard cutters Comanche, Escanaba (both 165 feet), and Tampa (240 feet).

During the early morning hours of February 3, 1943, at 12:55, Dorchester was torpedoed by German submarine U-223. The damage was severe, boiler power was lost, and there was inadequate steam to sound the full 6-whistle signal to abandon ship, and Dorchester sank by the bow in about 20 minutes.

Loss of power prevented the crew from sending a radio distress signal, and no rockets or flares were launched to alert the escorts. A severe list prevented launch of some port side lifeboats, and some lifeboats capsized through overcrowding.

Survivors in the water were so stiff from cold they could not even grasp the cargo nets on rescue vessels.

The crew of Escanaba employed a new "retriever" rescue technique whereby swimmers clad in wet suits swam to victims in the water and secured a line to them so they could be hauled onto the ship.

By this method, Escanaba saved 133 men (one died later) and Comanche saved 97 men of the 904 aboard Dorchester.

The sinking of Dorchester was the worst single loss of American personnel of any American convoy during World War II.

Life jackets offered little protection from hypothermia, which killed most men in the water. Water temperature was 34 °F (1 °C) and air temperature was 36 °F (2 °C). When additional rescue ships arrived on February 4 "hundreds of dead bodies were seen floating on the water, kept up by their life jackets."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Dorchester#

British people "a spot of wind has unsettled my tea. It must be a tornado!" Meanwhile Americans "well only half the neighborhood has been destroyed, it must be a low category tornado."

When I was a kid, we had a elderly neighbor who had two border collies. One dog was sweet and happy and dumb, and the other was Serious Business and could retrieve any dog-portable object in her house, I swear, if she asked for it. Book? It knew to bring the book she was currently reading. We tried to stump it, a few times, but the dog knew a hand towel from a bath towel from a dish towel. Eerie.

Dog was a genius. Could operate doorknobs, turn lights on and off. Not a lap dog like the other one, though. I sometimes worried it was depressed and had caretaker syndrome. Intelligence is not necessarily your friend.

I lived in the UK for decades and only ever seen 1. It was pathetic too lol

Come on Monaco. With one tornado you can beat those numbers.

I was about to say that the United State would like to have a word with you until I read the qualifying statement at the end.

However, if you break it down by state, the top 10 tornado states in the US are as follows:

1: Texas (155)

2: Kansas (96)

3: Florida (66)

4: Oklahoma (62)

5: Nebraska (57)

6: Illinois (54)

7: Colorado (53)

8: Iowa (51)

9: Minnesota (45)

10: Missouri (45)

With the exception of Texas, all these states have, on average, more tornadoes per year per square kilometer than the UK.

Never did drugs/used alcohol. Having kids just fucks up your brain. I constantly mix up my kids names. The cat's name.

My mother did the same thing. It's sad and funny at the same time.

Is this considering those swirls of leaves and plastic bags as a tornado?

What a Doginstein!!

My dad had two sons and a nephew. He couldn't get our names right. Half the time he called any one of us by all 3 names at the same time. "Hey, Chris-James-Carl, get me that widget over there."

He drank a lot in his early days, and smoked a lot of weed in his later days, so mix in some moderation, kids. That's one to grow on.

I can't even remember my grade 10 teachers name 😞

These days lots of "remember, you know... that person. Who is he/she... snapping fingers. You know"

Meanwhile I cannot mention half of my classmates' correctly. :/

I want phallic pasties