Basically, all legal free speech is allowed. We will assist the authorities in dealing with illegal speech. You are each other’s moderators. Have fun. And don’t forget to MAGA at nuclear levels.
Citizen U
Day 29 – COPPER.
OPEN THREAD 20191205
Published
The U Tree 
In investing/trading, copper is known as “Dr. Copper”. It is involved in so many industrial products that an upturn in demand signals imminent economic growth. After all, you have to make the circuit boards before you can put together the iphones, right?
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Also, you’re probably going to need some wire in that building you’re putting up to keep the lights on.
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Lore has it that during the Manhattan project, some bright boy thought it would be cute to use “copper” as a code name for plutonium, which they were using to develop a bomb (Fat Man, the Nagasaki bomb, was a plutonium bomb). The problem was that the labs at Lawrence Berkeley and Los Alamos and Oak Ridge needed a heckuva lot more plumbing and wiring than plutonium, and they couldn’t use “copper” to get supplies.
To get actual copper goods, such as 12 gauge uninsulated wire for grounding machinery, they had to use the phrase, “honest-to-God copper”.
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UGH. CRINGE. Honest-to-God cringe.
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I’m going to lift this directly from Wikipedia:
“Copper is one of the few metals that can occur in nature in a directly usable metallic form (native metals). This led to very early human use in several regions, from c. 8000 BC. Thousands of years later, it was the first metal to be smelted from sulfide ores, c. 5000 BC, the first metal to be cast into a shape in a mold, c. 4000 BC and the first metal to be purposefully alloyed with another metal, tin, to create bronze, c. 3500 BC.”
Copper is probably as close to a “training wheels” metal as the earth was going to provide. Everything in metal smelting, casting, machining, and alloying was probably done with copper first. Mind you, iron is more versatile when things really get going — but copper is great for practice.
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Copper is a vital nutrient within the human body. Most people are about two millionths (2 / 1,000,000) copper by weight. Copper can be absorbed in the diet and excreted in bile and is largely self-regulating. The recommended daily intake is about 1 mg/day. There are a variety of genetic and metabolic dysfunctions that can throw your copper balance off, but normally your copper level is the least of your worries with them (although measurement of copper levels can assist in diagnosis).
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Being a biologically active metal……we all know how the rest of this goes….it can be concentrated by plants and is found in concentrated form in tobacco leaves.
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Copper is the third most-recycled metal — the other two being iron and aluminum. It is estimated that 80% of all the copper ever mined is currently in-use today. Considering that the Romans mined copper two thousand years ago, this can be quite startling. However, 95% of all the copper ever extracted has been done since 1900.
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And, finally, unless I get bored elsewhere…..
The infamous “Caribbean Blue” — seawater that is so beautifully clear so that you can see bubbles on the other side of waves, but with a rich blue color. The blue is copper.
Mind you, all large bodies of water look somewhat blue because they reflect the sky, which is blue — but that’s a light blue. And deep water looks dark blue because redder wavelengths of light are gradually absorbed by water. But that top layer in pure water…..kind o’ looks suspiciously like this color:
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Cyprus had copper mines–very rich ones–in deep antiquity (predating the Greeks). The name of the island derives from cupros–copper. (Upsilon looks like a Y and is often transliterated as a Y, especially since its current sound value is like the I in machine. In ancient times, I believe it was pronounced like the German umlaut-u, and to form the “oo” sound in “food” you needed omicron-upsilon.)
Copper was the poor man’s money. Silver and gold were very valuable; a working man would be lucky to be paid enough silver to make a dime, per day. So a dime-sized coin like a denarius was big money for him. Copper was the usual means of exchange. And Rome used exclusively copper coinage for its first few centuries (known as the “as”). More recently, in the 1700s, Russia produced a lot of copper coinage, especially in what was then, and now, known as Yekaterinburg. (Under the commies it was “Sverdlovsk”, named after Sverdlov, who was directly responsible for the murder of the deposed tsar and his family, in Yekaterinburg. Imagine renaming Dallas after Oswald, and you get a picture of the commies’ capacity for bad taste.) Many of those Yekaterinburg coppers, very large ones broader and thicker than silver dollars, are on the market today and can be had for fairly cheap.
Russia and Sweden both produced plate money, due to a lack of silver or gold to make larger denominations. So they took the equivalent amount of copper, made a big plate of it and stamped the corners with the denomination. Very unwieldy but at least it wasn’t fiat money.
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In Spanish, “y” is named “i griega” — the “Greek i”. But in the Cyrillic alphabet, “y” stands for “u”. As in “supermarket” is “CY[pi]EPMAPKET” in Russian.
For those who haven’t had to deal with it, the Cyrillic alphabet is essentially the Greek alphabet, with additional Roman (and other) characters grafted on. When I was a kid, I used to play with Greek texts, so I was familiar with letters like rho (looks like a p, but means r), gamma (looks like the beginning of a hangman game, but means g), pi (looks like a little table, but means p), lambda (looks like a teepee, but means L), phi (looks like a circle with a slash though it, but means f), and others. All s’s are c’s. All “k” sounds, whether they’re done in English with c’s or k’s or whatever, are k’s. Once you get past the alphabet, a whole lot of Russian is easy — TPAKTOP is tractor. Stop signs say “CTO[pi]”. You can get a quick snack at a “KA[phi]E”.
You might note that I’m doing Russian in all caps. In printed cyrillic, the lower case is always a smaller version of upper case. There is no “A” vs “a”, or “B” vs “b”. It’s all “C” and “c”.
So, yes, “Cyprus” sort of has a mystery vowel at the start. And there is some confusion as to whether the island is named after the metal or the metal is named after the island……they go that far back.
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I’m very aware of Cyrillic, having taken Russian classes (but the explanation will no doubt interest someone else).
Good point about whether Cyprus was named after copper or vice versa; I had forgotten that we were uncertain which was which. (I stand corrected!)
Here’s another tidbit. The Greek letter B (beta) was, in 700 BC, pronounced like “b”. By 300 AD the language had changed, it was now (and is today) “v”. (Likewise, delta changed from “d” to the “th” in that (not the th in thing), and gamma had changed from “g” to a voiced guttural you can’t spell in English. Kh, but voiced. Greeks now, wanting to render the “d” sound, spell it nu-tau; “b” is spelled mu-pi; “g” is spelled gamma-kappa. (not a hundred percent sure of the last one))
Anyhow, when St. Cyril, a Greek, came up with the Cyrillic alphabet, Russian had both the “b” and “v” sounds. He knew his history. B in Cyrillic matched B in Greek–the “v” sound, but the letter he invented for “b” looks like a lower case B with a roof on it: Б. There’s a resemblance to Beta, but he clearly was inventing a new symbol, with a reminder of what Beta used to mean.
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Part of the difficulty in discussing the issue is that your third paragraph may have been true regarding spoken Greek in Greece…..but items like >>>The Greek letter B (beta) was, in 700 BC, pronounced like “b”. By 300 AD the language had changed, it was now (and is today) “v”.<<< did not work on that exact timeline throughout the entire area where Greek was influential.
Such is the intrigue and amusement of linguistics, that identifiable characteristics propagate across geographical areas in such quirky ways. You note the b and v versions of Cyrillic letters based on "B", I noted that Spanish thinks the "Y" in "CY[pi]EPMAPKET" sounds like the vowel in "beet". That's why it's fun. I'm quite pleased to encounter someone who shares my delight.
I should also note that there is a Cyrillic version of cursive, which makes no sense to me at all.
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I get the impression there’s an incomplete thought here. You cite an item I wrote but then don’t say what it is about the time you’re having an issue with.
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…actually a lower case Cyrillic “A” does actually look like “a” but in the main you’re right, the lower case looks like the upper case almost without fail. (I think P has a descender like our “p” too, and there’s a subtle difference between upper and lower case phi in many typefaces. And lower case “b” is б, looking almost like a 6.)
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At The Movies ….
Clint Eastwood does it again ! 😀
to be released Dec 13, 2019….. Richard Jewell …
trailer…
3 articles about it…
Eastwood’s New Film…Takes Aim At The FBI and The News Media
https://hotair.com/archives/john-s-2/2019/10/03/clint-eastwood-promotes-new-film-attack-fakenews-media/
film tells the story about Richard Jewell, the security guard who was wrongly accused by the FBI and various mainstream News networks of having been responsible for the 1966 bombing at the Centennial Olympic Park…
film is based on a 1977 story published by Vanity Fair.
Jewell was eventually cleared of any/all involvement…Eric Rudolph pleaded guilty to the bombing…
Jewell sued several News networks for Libel …NBC, CNN and The New York Post each settled without a trial.
…and a real good reason to see it (as if Clint isn’t enough) : it’s TRUMP-FRIENDLY !
DAILY BEAST : Eastwood’s New Film Richard Jewell Is A ‘Poisonous Pro-Trump Effort’
https://hotair.com/archives/john-s-2/2019/12/03/daily-beast-eastwoods-new-film-richard-jewell-poisonous-pro-trump-effort/
Dec 3, 2019
go get ’em Rowdy Yates ! 😀 ❤
another article, here…
Clint Eastwood Stands Up For A Brave American
https://www.military.com/off-duty/2019/10/04/clint-eastwood-stands-brave-american-richard-jewell.html
😀
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sorry : that “1977” Vanity Fair publish date is incorrect…
the correct date is 1997 …my mistake….
here is that article…
NIGHTMARE : The Ballad of Richard Jewell
https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/share/1fd2d7ae-10d8-474b-9bf1-d1558af697be
by Marie Brenner
from 1997
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Smiley…I was just going to correct the dates when I saw yours…I happened to be at the Olympics at the time.
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yes thanks…I totally botched all those dates…including the bombing incident…I mis-typed it as 1966…wrong…it was 1996 .
sorry about that.
yours truly,
#MissTypo
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so today’s special is Copper …
I don’t know about any of U but whenever I think of copper, I think of…
…the 1982 U.S. Lincoln cent was the last of the real copper pennies….up to and including the1982 pennies they were made of 95% copper (and 5% zinc)….
…but after 1982, U.S. pennies consist of ~ 97.5 % zinc and ~2.5 % of a thin copper coating …
… the value of zinc, however, seems to be increasing…since 2000, the price of zinc has increased to ~ $1.08 per lb…
which is…
Why The Copper Penny Is Worth More Than One Cent
https://www.thebalance.com/the-copper-penny-is-worth-more-than-one-cent-809218
Nov 13, 2019
a lot more interesting info in the article, too
that’s my 2 cents 😀
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I touched upon this subject back at Nickel…..the government has reacted to the situation by……banning export of pennies and nickels and criminalizing the process of smelting them.
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Very cool! I ❤ the color of copper. One of my favorite "metallic" looks. Silver and gold are nice, and rose gold is excellent, but copper is beautiful to me, even tarnished!
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I agree !
I also like the turquoise-greenish patina that sometimes forms on tarnished (old) copper esp if left out in the elements (weather)…
silver is my favorite….pure Sterling…
😀
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copper vase with patina …
nice !
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Mark Levin …. 😀
MARK LEVIN : “Precious” To Watch “Radical”, Anti-Constitutional Professors Claim To Know About Impeachment
article with video , here…
https://www.foxnews.com/media/mark-levin-trump-impeachment-hearing-professors-constitution
Dec 5, 2019
Mark Levin : Why Democrats’ Definition of Impeachment is a LIE
…excellent.
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lullabye & good luck & good night…Nadler Dozed Off ! LOL
😀
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American Citizens RESIST ! American Citizens REVOLT ! …against Refugee Resettlement…
“refugees”….
RESISTANCE !…
article….
CITIZEN REVOLT : Resist Refugee Resettlement Dumps
https://townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/2019/12/05/citizen-revolt-resist-refugee-resettlement-dumps-n2557494
Dec 5, 2019
by Michelle Malkin 😀
FTA : “Should U.S. citizens have input into whether their neighborhoods are fundamentally and permanently transformed into United Nations refugee camps full of welfare dependents and tax burdens ?”
“Government-funded charities that profit mightily from the federal refugee resttlement program say : ‘Hell, no !’ ”
…but PDJT and growing members of informed Americans are saying a loud : YES !
for example, last week in Bismarck, North Dakota residents braved the subzero temps to stand up and voice their opposition aimed at the local Lutheran Social Services …
similar resistance and opposition to this “refugee” resettlement scam has been taking place also in Maine, New Hampshire, Indiana, Massachussetts, Michigan , Vermont, Wyoming and Tennessee over the past few years…
but still too many Americans are not aware of the 40 year old, tax-funded RACKET lining the pockets of 9 privileged non-profit contractors …
those 9 are listed in the article linked as well as the details of this.
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Lutheran Socialist Services!
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Days of Rage ? 1968 again ?
Deja vu ?
maybe so…
article…
Deja vu 1968
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/12/dj_vu_1968.html
Dec 5, 2019
Dems are in horrible disarray… the “perfect storm”, almost identical to what happened at the Chicago DNC in 1968, could be brewing once again…
“If history serves as the best teacher, the Democratic party is tasked with some very difficult but necessary choices between now and Iowa caucuses in February in order to stave off a repeat of 1968.”
“…the growing chasm between the radical left contingent versus liberal moderates requires closure before it’s too late.”
and this : ” Joe Biden the train wreck is most likely paving the way for either Hillary Clinton or Michelle Obama to be nominated from the convention floor.”
much more in the article.
pretty right on comparison, too.
(it’s been 52 years since that shit went down…52 years….anybody else here feeling old ?)
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a little nostalgia ?
MC5 footage of 1968 Chicago DNC convention…with soundtrack…can you spot Phil Ochs ?
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the Battle of Michigan Avenue…Chicago 1968, DNC Convention…
(I do not know anything about who compiled this footage.)
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This is a great theory. SOVIET DEMS ratcheting up. YUP.
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Pelosi calls for Articles of Impeachment…Pastor Marty !
WTH
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