Radio Paradise

On this day 219 years ago (that would be August 7, 1794 if you happen to be saddled with a graduate degree in accounting but have no batteries for your calculator), the
President of the United States was told by his aides that he had to get focused. They warned him that his popularity was slipping...that many of the people worried that he
was trying to expand the government's authority and size...and that much of his problem related to three areas: taxes, exports and access to medication. Finally, they
told him most of his trouble may have been stimulated by his political opponents....the Republicans. In this case, the President was George Washington...the "Republicans" were what
they called Jefferson's supporters at the time (they later changed their name to Democrats)...the tax was an excise tax engineered by Alexander Hamilton...the export
question dealt with the shipments down the Ohio and Mississippi...and the medication in question was, of course, alcohol...er in this case whiskey. (Now
wait...don't scoff...there was no anesthesia yet and the only other means of sterilization was fire..."Sarge, we've got to get that arrow out or Bob will die!"
"Okay, pour some whiskey on this knife and give Bob a gulp for the pain.") We understand there also may be non-medicinal uses of whiskey and hope to hear of
them someday.

Anyway, back to the story. At this time, from Pittsburgh, PA to Marietta, Ohio, Frontier folk were growing more corn and grain than they, or anyone, could eat. So
they decided to sell it. Since there were no roads at the time, they loaded a couple of barges with corn and sent them toward New Orleans. By the time it got there, the
small amount that hadn't rotted and was thus saleable brought almost no value. Next they tried feeding the corn to hogs and sending the resultant pork in barges to New
Orleans. Given the state of refrigeration at the time, the results were about the same. In fact, the only way the barge crews raised enough money to head back north was
by selling a few jugs of whiskey to the medicine hungry folks of New Orleans. Well, at the time the settlers of this region of Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio
were mostly of Scottish and Irish descent. In those politically incorrect days, Scots/Irish were assumed to be good at farming (corn/rye/an occasional buh-day-duh),
pharmacology (above mentioned miracle drug) and finance (Adam Smith, etc.).Applying their finance skills, they realized a ton of corn took up a lot of space and barge-wise yielded no profit. Hogs raised on said ton of corn took up less space but
still yielded no profit. But...a ton of corn or rye made several barrels of medicine which did yield a profit. And since a barge could hold 5 times more condensed corn
(whiskey) than dry corn (corn), the leverage was enormous. Then along came Hamilton's excise tax. He assumed the product was so valuable that producers could easily pass a tax increase along to consumers. (Maybe genius can be crimped by government service.) The initial reaction was so hostile that Hamilton had to develop a formula. The formula forgave small volume producers and punished high volume producers. Since the East Coast was also making money in tobacco and cotton, that left the Ohio Valley crowd to pay the bulk of the tax. Although the Scots/Irish of the area were good at farming, pharmacology and finance; their political skills were rudimentary at best. So they began "tarring and feathering" tax collectors. They even burned tax offices and had bonfires of tax forms. (Whereare these people when we really need them?)Sensing that he was slipping in the polls, Washington followed his aides' advice and sent the army to quell this "Whiskey Rebellion." But...Washington (and the U.S.) had no army so he had to beg for help from the militia of four states. When the "army" hit Pittsburgh, they found most of the rebels were over-medicated so to speak. The two results of the Whiskey Rebellion were: a) the Federal Government could collect taxes; and b) we needed a standing army (to avoid begging).

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Red_Dragon

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Location: Gilead

Posted: Aug 6, 2013 - 6:05am
1964: the world's oldest tree is cut down.

Red_Dragon

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Location: Gilead

Posted: Aug 6, 2013 - 6:03am
1945: The United States becomes the first - and still only - nation to use nuclear weapons.

Coaxial

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Location: Comfortably numb in So Texas
Gender: Male

Posted: Aug 1, 2013 - 7:32am

Proclivities wrote:

1981 – MTV begins broadcasting in the United States and airs its first video, "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles.MTV First Day Saturday August 1st, 1981 12:01... by Dale0823

I remember it well...When we tuned the sat. rcvr. to that transponder and added it to out system feed we monitored it for most of the day...In the beginning it rocked. ${#Dancingbanana_2}$

Proclivities

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Location: Paris of the Piedmont
Gender: Male

Posted: Aug 1, 2013 - 6:50am
1981 – MTV begins broadcasting in the United States and airs its first video, "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles. MTV First Day Saturday August 1st, 1981 12:01... by Dale0823

kurtster

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Location: where fear is not a virtue
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Posted: Jul 30, 2013 - 6:23am
Red_Dragon wrote: 1975: Jimmy Hoffa goes missing And J Edgar Hoover buys a new dress and pumps for the occasion.

Red_Dragon

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Location: Gilead

Posted: Jul 30, 2013 - 6:17am
1975: Jimmy Hoffa goes missing

Red_Dragon

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Location: Gilead

Posted: Jul 29, 2013 - 8:26am
1958: President Eisenhower signs the law creating NASA

Prodigal_SOB

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Location: Back Home Again in Indiana
Gender: Male

Posted: Jul 26, 2013 - 8:29am
1943: Mick Jagger was born in Dartford, Kent, England. 1975: Prodigal_SOB attends his second live Rolling Stones concert in Bloomington, Indiana, U.S.A. Sadly it will be two decades before he attends his third and he has yet to make it to a fourth.

2cats

Location: Oklahoma
Gender: Female

Posted: Jul 22, 2013 - 7:08am
On this day in 1933 Wiley Post became this first aviator to circumnavigate the globe in a solo flight.

Coaxial

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Location: Comfortably numb in So Texas
Gender: Male

Posted: Jul 20, 2013 - 7:14am
Alexandra wrote: I wish I could remember watching it. I remember a lot of other hazy things from that year (was nearly 3) believe it or not. People in our family always joked that Mom & Dad should've named one of us Lunar. Get it? Heh.

Red_Dragon

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Location: Gilead

Posted: Jul 20, 2013 - 6:57am
Proclivities wrote: That's another event where I can remember exactly where I was. I remember going through the motions of the entire mission in front of the TV with my plastic model Saturn V complete with detachable stages and LM. I was ten.

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