Puzzler....

Well, nobody got the right answer to last week's puzzler: how did the vacuum tube manufacturers get the high quality vacuum in such an inexpensive, mass-produced item? The correct answer is the inductively heated barium reactor, known colloquially as a “getter”. These were very simple and cheap: just a piece of sheet metal coated with a barium compound. The barium, when heated, absorbed any gas remaining inside the tube. Typically the manufacturers heated this little piece of sheet metal inductively (meaning by placing the tube in a powerful, rapidly changing magnetic field). This caused currents (“eddy currents” to flow in the sheet metal, and that caused it to get very hot. So hot, in fact, that the barium coating would flash-vaporize (absorbing gas as it did so). This vapor would then cool and adhere to the inside of the glass envelope of the vacuum tube, causing the silvery coating familiar to anyone who has handled vacuum tubes.

This week's puzzler is back to history – in this case, 20th century U.S. history. What was the middle name of a former U.S. Senator who was a judge early in his career (and was a notorious gambler while on the bench), enlisted in the Marines in 1942 to fight (despite his exclusion from obligatory service because he was a judge), came back from the war and successfully ran for the U.S. Senate (despite well-documented lies and self-serving distortions about his military service record), became a highly polarizing figure in the Senate and finally died in office, a bitter and often inebriated man? The clincher is that modern historians are starting to look at his Senate record a little more positively; in fact, some have posited him as one of the early victims of wrongful media demonization.

Quote of the Day...

By James Taranto, in Best of the Web Today:

It's remarkable how many on the left think their free speech rights are violated when they are criticized--that is, when others exercise their free speech rights.

A pattern I've oft noted. Here's the context for the quote above:

Shut Up and Respect My Freedom of Speech
San Jose's KNTV reports that the City Council of Berkeley, Calif., at its Tuesday meeting will consider backing down from its resolution denouncing the U.S. Marines, which have a recruiting center in Berkeley, as "uninvited and unwelcome intruders." This comes in the face of an effort by Republican senators to cut off $2.3 million in federal money for Berkeley. On this question, Sen. Barbara Boxer is siding against the Marines.

The station reports that one left-wing activist doesn't quite understand the concept of free speech:

Code Pink announced they would have what they called a "24-hour peace-in" leading up to Tuesday's city council meeting. They will be camping out but will have a lot of company. A group of pro-troop protesters will also be there.

"I was under the impression that we have the right of free speech," said Xanne Joi of Code Pink. "To me, I thought free speech meant you get to say what you want without recrimination."

In fact, free speech is reciprocal. Xanne Joi has the right to criminate, but the rest of us have a right to recriminate. It's remarkable how many on the left think their free speech rights are violated when they are criticized--that is, when others exercise their free speech rights.

Best of the Web Today is one of my favorite newsletters – and it's free. You can view it on the web, or you can have it automatically emailed to you each weekday. I highly recommend it.

Lamm's Plan...

Richard D. Lamm has a plan:

I have a secret plan to destroy America. ... Here is my plan:

1. We must first make America a bilingual-bicultural country. ...

2. I would then invent “multiculturalism” and encourage immigrants to maintain their own culture. ...

3. We can make the United States a “Hispanic Quebec” without much effort. The key is to celebrate diversity rather than unity. ...

4. Having done all this, I would make our fastest-growing demographic group the least educated. ...

5. I would then get the big foundations and big business to give these efforts lots of money. ...

6. I would establish dual citizenship and promote divided loyalties. ...

7. Then I would place all these subjects off-limits–make it taboo to talk about. ...

8. Lastly, I would censor Victor Davis Hanson’s book “Mexifornia” –this book is dangerous; it exposes my plan to destroy America. ...

Go read the whole thing.