DAILY BRIEFING

[Tassie]

Yes, rufusredtail does indeed provide very interesting reading.
Regards

[rufusredtail]

AXIS

Threatening power-bloc
   
The two founding members of the original Axis were Adolf       
Hitler and Benito Mussolini. On October 25, 1936 they signed an       
agreement that prompted Mussolini to issue a pompous statement       
   '    
that the two nations formed "an axis around which all European       
states animated by the will to collaboration and peace can also       
assemble." One month later to the day Germany signed an anti-Soviet       
pact with Japan, and all three powers signed a tripartite document on       
September 27, 1940. Prior to Mussolini's 1936 statement, the term       
had no use outside physics.       
The Allied use of "Axis" was generally sarcastic and intended to       
belittle the ambitions vaunted in Mussolini's speech. The Axis leaders       
themselves preferred to call the union "Roberto" (Rome, Berlin,       
Tokyo). "Axis," with all its sinister overtones, was given new life on       
January 29, 2002 when George W. Bush included in his State of       
the Union address a description of all states supporting terrorism       
as an " Axis of evil."       

[rufusredtail]

DID YOU KNOW ?

REIGN OF TERROR
   
Period of ruthless purge.    
On September 5, 1793 the French Revolutionary government issued    
a decree announcing that "Terror would be the order of the day,"
intended to keep the population in line while France struggled with    
civil and foreign wars. It is not clear which particular British newspaper    
first used the term, but it was probably he Times that employed it as    
a monarchist jibe implying that, having got rid of their king, the French    
were now ruled by terror. In France, the same period was known as La    
Terreur. As the Terror gathered momentum, it served as an excuse for    
many of the leaders of the French Revolution to settle their differences    
by means of closed trials and midnight executions. The Terror finally    
ran out of steam in July 1794,but the expression has been applied since    
then to the excesses of countless regimes throughout the world.    

[rufusredtail]


DID YOU KNOW ?
    
(AT) LOGGERHEADS
 
In violent dispute.    
As a sister-word of both "log and "clog," "logger" denoted anything    
heavy or impeding, especially the lump of wood used to hobble a    
horse; this kind of logger was also known as a "pester," hence the    
modern use of that verb. But the above expression was coined aboard    
English warships, where one found two kinds of loggerhead: one was    
a long pole topped by a metal ball that could be heated to melt pitch    
for deck maintenance, and the other a bar-shot with a cannonball at each end.

 
The first was frequently used by sailors to sort out their differences,
 and the second was fired at close quarters to whirl about like a lethal
weight-lifting bar to sweep the enemy decks .

Either could have inspired the saying .

[rufusredtail]

DID YOU KNOW ?

LABYRINTH
    
Maze of great complexity.    
The original labyrinth was designed by Daedalus at the command    
of King Minos of Crete, who came home from war to discover that    
his wife, Pasiphae, had given birth to a taurine hybrid after the    
god Poseidon caused her to fall in love with a bull. Mios kept the    
Minotaur in the labyrinth and fed it with his enemies. Above the    
entrance was carved a labrus or labrys, a large ceremonial double-    
headed ax, which suggested to the condemned the unavoidable death    
that lay ahead of them. Twentieth-century excavations of the palace    
at Knossos, closely identified with the labyrinth, revealed the symbol    
of the labrus throughout.    
Eventually, Theseus killed the Minotaur and escaped from the    
labyrinth by following the string that he had unrolled on the way in.    
The myth of Theseus and the Minotaur was a great hit in England,    
where as early as the 1360s "clew" or "clue," terms originally denoting    
a ball of thread or string, were being used metaphorically of    
information that leads to a conclusion.    

[TBWG]

Piss Poor

They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken & Sold to the tannery…….if you had to do this to survive you were “Piss Poor”

But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn’t even afford to buy a pot……they “didn’t have a pot to piss in” & were the lowest of the low


Apologies if this has been posted before.

[rufusredtail]

DID YOU KNOW ?

BEYOND THE PALE
   
Offensive   
When one country gained foothold in another it was said to have    
established a "'pale," from the Latin palus, "a stake," in an allusion to    
a real or metaphorical palisade guarding the boundary. The English    
established two major pales, the first in 1171 centered around Dublin    
in Ireland, embracing Louth, Trim, Meath, Kilkenny, Waterford, and    
Tipperary, and the second around Calais in 1347. The expression was    
born of the disdain of those inside the pale for those outside it, and    
*one within the pale whose behavior irked others would be booted    
mlt to take their chances "beyond the pale:'    

[rufusredtail]

DID YOU KNOW ?

RING OF STEEL
    
Ultimate defense.    
After Italy had surrendered to the Allies in 1943, Hitler addressed    
the German people to assure them that this loss was of minor    
consequence: "Tactical necessity may compel us from time to time to    
give up something on some front in this gigantic and fateful struggle    
but it will never break the ring of steel that protects the Reich."    
Twenty months later the Allies were in Berlin and Hitler was dead.    

[rufusredtail]

DID YOU KNOW ?

THIRD LIGHT
    
Smokers' superstition.    
The notion that one should never take the third light from a match    
or lighter was common throughout World War I, and there is some    
evidence that the superstition was observed during the Boer War.    
The reasoning is not unsound; when the match is first struck it could    
be seen by an enemy sniper, who would have got his rifle in position    
by the time the second cigarette was lit. The third man, illuminated    
in isolation, would present a fine head-shot.    

[urleft]

Did you Know?


Friday the 13th: How did it come about and why are we afraid of it?


Friday the 13th has long been regarded as an unlucky day. Why do we choose this day in particular to fear for our lives?

In 1993, scientists found that there is a general increase in hospital admissions on Friday 13th.

History of Friday the 13th

The superstition around this day is thought to have come about during the Middle Ages, and may have Biblical origins.

Some historians have claimed it was the day on which Eve bit the apple from the Tree of Knowledge, the great flood began and the builders of the Tower of Babel.

In the New Testament there were 13 people present for Jesus's last supper on Maundy Thursday, the day before Christ's crucifixion on Good Friday.

Geoffrey Chaucer made reference to the apparent unluckiness of the day, recording in his Canterbury Tales that it was bad luck to start a journey or a project on a Friday.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/06/friday-the-13th-how-did-it-come-about-and-why-are-we-afraid-of-i/

[rufusredtail]

DID YOU KNOW ?

THREE-MILE LIMIT    

   
Delineation of territorial waters.    
Far from an arbitrary figure, this was decided by the maximum range    
of the largest muzzle-loading cannon on shore batteries and thus the    
limit of protection any nation could offer from land. Although "booze    
cruise" rose to popularity in UK slang with the advent of the Common    
Market and trips across the English Channel to buy cheap alcohol in    
France, the term was first seen in the US to describe floating gin-    
palaces taking American revelers beyond the three-mile limit during    
Prohibition (1920-33) to drink and gamble to their hearts' content.    
Today,most nations have extended this to the 12-mile limit    
sanctioned by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea,    
but in practice limits are extended in some cases to hundreds of miles    
to cover fishing rights and oil or gas deposits.    

[rufusredtail]

DID YOU KNOW ?

LOGISTICS
   
Science of transport.    
In the 18th-century French Army, logistiques described the duties    
of the quartermaster, whose main task was to find quarters, or    
accommodation, for the men to loger, or "lodge." When the Army    
was on the move it fell to this same officer to ensure that supplies    
kept pace with the column. The word is used in the modern sense for    
the British Army Royal Logistics Corps, responsible for transport,    
bomb disposal, catering etc., which was formed from the Royal    
Transport Corps in 1993.    

[rufusredtail]

DID YOU KNOW ?

BITE THE BULLET
    
Prepare for action; accept the unpleasant.   
Obviously of military origins, there are some sources, such as Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, which link this expression to 19th-century field surgery when amputations were conducted without anesthetic; those about to undergo surgery were offered a bullet to bite on, either so that they would not scream or so that they would not bite through their own tongues in pain. In fact, it seems
that patients were usually rendered unconscious during surgery.   
   
 
SInce the surgeon could not risk them writhing about in agony during his tender ministrations with saw, hammer, and chisel. For
minor operations there was always a leather strap to bite on; even a 19th-century surgeon knew better than to put a small object into
 the mouth of a supine patient who might choke to death on it. There is too much known practice to support this suggestion; far more
 likely a progenitor is the cartridge issued for the British Enfield rifle, which required the soldier to bite off the top to expose the charge         
 prior to loading.    
    
    

[rufusredtail]

DID YOU KNOW ?

BARRACK
 
Raucous banter.    
There are various theories as to the derivation of "barrack," which was    
first known in Australia in the 1880s. It has been suggested that its    
origins lie in the rowdy football games then played on land adjacent to    
the Victoria Barracks on Melbourne's St Kilda Road. It has also been    
said that perhaps it derives from the Aboriginal word borak, meaning    
''fun? Unfortunately, neither of these lively suggestions is correct.    
Instead, we should look to baragouin, first noted in print in    
English in 1613 when it was borrowed from the French, who used it    
to mean "unintelligible language." Baragouin itself is borrowed from    
the Breton bara gwin, "white bread," a nickname used by Breton    
soldiers for troops from other parts of France where white bread    
prevailed instead of their own dark and rustic variety. Since the    
Breton language had more in common with Cornish and Welsh    
than with French, the language barrier between Breton soldiers and    
their French counterparts was such a problem that bara gwin and    
baragouin soon came to describe the ridiculing of others' language    
and customs. By the late 1700s, English had modified baragouin to    
barrakin, which was then taken by transportees to Australia, where    
the spelling was later altered again.    

[rufusredtail]

DID YOU KNOW ?


WALL STREET

       
New York's financial district.       
This thoroughfare follows the line of the stockade erected across       
Lower Manhattan by the early Dutch settlers to keep out the hostile       
locals. The first defense was a simple earthwork redoubt built in       
1653 and replaced later by a wooden stockade on the orders of       
Governor Peter Stuyvesant (1600-72).       
The locals had good reason to be hostile to Stuyvesant. The Dutch       
had stolen their land, and all the stories about canny settlers buying       
it for 24 dollars'-worth of beads and axes are pure fiction; it was       
America's first land fraud calculated to stir up war between the tribes.       
The Dutch cynically went through some meaningless trade-exchange       
in 1662 with the Canarse tribe who, as the occupants of modern       
Brooklyn, were only too happy to sell Manhattan, which both parties       
knew to belong to the Weckquaesgeeks who, less than impressed with       
all concerned, came out fighting.