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Going to change the subject completely for a minute. Alcohol. Cooper ordered one bourbon and 7 Up at the beginning of the flight to Seattle, spilled it, and did not order another. A drink menu from around 1959 has circulated listing the various bourbons available en route. However, by 1970, as near as I can tell, NWA had ceased listing brands and had resorted to listing styles such as Canadian, rye, bourbon, etc. So, that said, in the 1970s, one of the most popular drink orders was a "7&7" which was Seagram;'s Crown 7 whisky and 7 Up soda. Catchy name, and that meant catchy marketing. Today, if you order a 7&7 you're probably in your 70s. Also, today, Crown 7 is considered a "cheap booze". It's a dive bar whisky intended for bar flies and homeless people. Bourbon was, and still is, a more sophisticated choice for drinkers. While there are varying tiers of bourbon - some expensive and some not - by and large, bourbon is a better whisky than Seagram's 7. Why then, would Cooper choose a bourbon over the ubiquitous Seagram's 7? Was Crown 7 not available on board? Seems unlikely considering its popularity at the time. Perhaps Cooper chose bourbon to appear more sophisticated? To appear above his station in life? If that's the case, then why mix it with a cheap soda like 7 Up? Whisky snobs will tell you that bourbon is sweet enough to be indulged in neat or over ice. They eschew using bourbon as a mixer in a high ball. To me, this indicates that Cooper was trying to appear like a sophisticated, well-to-do man with high brow drink choices, but was still a blue collar or middle class guy who enjoyed his 7&7s and Schlitz beer. This was his one chance to show off, yet he failed by mixing a good liquor with a crummy soda. Also, bourbon is made from corn mash. This makes it sweeter than rye whisky which is made from rye wheat, or scotch which is made from barley. Thus, mixing a sweet whisky with a sweet soda might indicate that Cooper had a bit of a sweet tooth. Lastly, the fact that Cooper ordered just one drink and did not order any after he spilled his first, indicates that Cooper was not a heavy drinker. His ordering the drink was probably more for show than to actually get intoxicated. So, in the end, Cooper's order of a bourbon and 7 Up demonstrates an inexperienced drinker trying to appear sophisticated and upper class while revealing his true blue collar or lower middle class social standing. It might also demonstrate Cooper's sweet tooth. This is all elaborate conjecture based on a very small detail of the case, but I got tired of hearing people argue about people who obviously aren't DB Cooper.

"The company believes the unit can be operated by someone very stupid. LOL

We did a tour of the Stanton Energy Center the other day. It's a small-ish (100 megawatt) hybrid peaker plant near Disney in Anaheim. It's a good example of the new generation of peaker plants. Older peaker plants are just natural gas turbines that the utility contracts with to provide emergency power (during heat waves for example.) The utility pays them three ways: -They pay them some small amount to always be ready to go. -They pay them significantly more to go to "hot standby" (turbine running at idle, connected to the grid, ready to go) -They pay them top dollar for power when they need it, usually on the order of $200-$1000 per megawatt. The Stanton plant combines two turbines with a battery plant. Now when they need to go to hot standby they use the batteries to provide grid services (like frequency control.) If they get the order to operate they do the first 10 minutes or so on batteries. If they have to go past 10 minutes they spin up the turbine with the batteries, without needing to use any natural gas to keep it at idle, and connect it to the grid. If they go past 20 minutes they fire it up and start generating with both turbines. Since they usually don't have to start the turbine they are seeing huge savings. The plant operator estimates they have reduced their costs by 50%, reduced gas used by 80% and reduced total emissions by 90% (mainly by being able to run at 100% power any time the turbine is providing power.) And since they don't have to store 4 hours of power in the batteries on site, the battery plant can be much smaller. This plant went from approval to operation in less than 2 years. They are adding more battery storage now; that took less than 9 months. And plants like this are the reason we are not having rolling blackouts here despite higher demand, hotter summers and longer/more intense heat waves.

The affect on kids sports is really devastating. Every parent thinks their kid is going pro at 8 years old. I grew up playing very competitive hockey and skated in a very minor league like Slapshot only worse. I have coached and refereed hockey since the late 70s. A few years ago we finally had to sit down about 300 parents in our San Diego youth hockey program to set them straight. One of our coaches was a high draft choice in the NHL and never played a game, toiling in the minor leagues for 12 years. He laid it out to them. They STILL thought little Billy should be on line one and make it to the LA Kings! Youth sports has become an entire industry in its own right. It’s crazy. The fun is gone for a lot of kids.

I'm not sure some of them are exactly fixable. Society changes all the time, whether in response to increasing population pressure, technology change, or other social or physical change, so "solving" them is a moving target. But the ability to recognize change, and adjust to it, seems to be variable within and among groups. Of course, my standard trope is trying to respect people as they are, but to expect them to respect others as well. Which really means that "fixing" isn't exactly the same thing for me as for anyone else, either. But I completely agree with people either not accepting (or understanding, or tolerating) complexity that doesn't align. It just seems to most of us (me, too, sometimes), that it's just not worth it under those circumstances. Generally wrong. But time saving, eh? I also think most people are inherently lazy and self-serving. Not that it's bad, it's just what people are; we save energy for what's most important. Wendy P.

There was a Cooper documentary that said Larry Carr found a consumer profile of Bourbon and 7up drinkers. At the time I tried to find that profile but I've never been able to find it or anything similar, nor have I seen it in the FBI files. Perhaps we should ask Larry about it on FB.

Oooh this is great! What a truly compelling and thought provoking post. This most definitely brings to mind the final scene from the Thomas Crown Affair, because you just know that's what he was evoking. I'm in a bit of a hurry now, so more later, but you've provided much food (and drink) for thought. Cool.

Frankly, given his posting history, I think SK wants to sow chaos — just as Bannon seems to deliberately, and Trump and much of the hard right out of a lack of understanding of complexity Wendy P.

Avatars were unfortunately lost in the transition to the new forum software. Wendy P.

An old classmate of mine, Lindy Elkins, proposed a mission to NASA years ago - she wanted to visit an all-metal asteroid, which is likely a remnant of an ancient planetary core, and run experiments. She didn't expect to win the competition for missions. But she did, and she's spent the last 7 years working on this mission. It is scheduled to launch today after a lot of delays on a Falcon 9 Heavy. It will take almost 6 years to get there, using Hall-effect ion engines. This is the first time these engines will be used in deep space. It will then spend two years on station running experiments and making observations. Good luck Lindy!

Laurent Duvernay-Tardiff was drafted by the Chiefs in 2014, he graduated medical school at McGill in Montreal in 2018 with a Doctor of Medicine and Master of Surgery. He studied mostly during the off season. in 2019 he enrolled at Harvard for a Masters in Public Health. He sat out the 2020 season to help in a long term care facility in Montreal during COVID. in 2022 he signed with the Jets and this year announced his retirement from Football. He is only the fourth NFL player to have graduated from Medical School. He got a lot of support from Andy Reid at the Chiefs to accomplish this. Reid's mother is also a McGill Medical School graduate.