Jefferson-Designed Chemistry Lab Discovered In UVA Rotunda (virginia.edu) 249
schwit1 writes: An ongoing two-year renovation of the University of Virginia's Rotunda has revealed a chemical lab designed by Thomas Jefferson that dates from the 19th century. Workers uncovered the early science classroom behind a wall on Monday, according to the university. The room was sealed in one of the lower-floor walls of the iconic Rotunda in the mid-1840s and protected from a fire in 1895 that destroyed much of the building's interior. The chemical hearth inside was originally built as a semi-circular niche in the Rotunda, with two fireboxes that provided heat. Brick tunnels underneath the building led fresh air to fireboxes and workstations, while ducts carried away the fumes and smoke. Students at the time worked at five workstations cut into stone countertops.
A truly rare find (Score:5, Funny)
An American politician who understood and respected science - this must have been the last time in nation's history that this occurred.
Re:A truly rare find (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed. I wonder if it is possible to ever go back to having intelligent people running the government. The trend seems to have been the obverse.
Oh man (Score:2)
Agreed. I wonder if it is possible to ever go back to having intelligent people running the government. The trend seems to have been the obverse.
You still think the problems for US is not have the right people to have the power? The biggest problem is the system.
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Re:Oh man (Score:4, Insightful)
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The bigger the country (or the bigger the jurisdiction smaller than a country, where any kind of federalism applies) the bigger the pool of sociopaths to draw from, and the more likely you'll have really horrible ones rise to the top.
It shows.
not really (Score:2)
While we had W and reagan, and most of the presidents since nixon has had some pretty blind spots ( O did decently with domestic, but his foreign situation needs a lot of work ), we also had FDR->LBJ, which was one of America's great lines. Considering how corrupt our congress is, I think that O has done fairly decently, esp. in getting us out of the GOP great recession.
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Don't see how you change the system with the wrong people in power. They feed the system, and it feeds them. Getting intelligent people in charge who wants to change the system is a start, then the people that elect them are going to have to help those in power push for change. Because rich folks don't want change. They like things just the way they are right now.
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The Koch brothers political contributions tend to be pro-freedom. Buffet is pretty consistent about contributing to the anti-freedom side, and using political influence to continue the practice of shipping crude oil on his trucks. Buffet is corrupt.
Gates' record is mixed. The anti-malaria campaign is good. The development of Common Core, which Gates contributes to, aims for politically ignorant worker-drones.
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Chris, you are clearly picking up your talking points from the likes of Milton Friedman with his bullshit line about preferring freedom over fairness. He claimed falsely that "freedom" was preferable because someone that he might not agree with would have to determine what was fair. Of course the same exact thing holds for determining what freedom is. Both freedom and fairness are human concepts and are not based on any natural phenomenon. They are human constructs, and both must therefore be defined by peo
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The Koch brothers political contributions tend to be pro-freedom.
If you define freedom purely as the absence of obstacles to making money, I suppose that's true enough.
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Indeed.
Fix [youtube.com] the broken first past the goal post [youtube.com] voting system.
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Don't you mean the reverse? I thought obverse was the front... which makes it seem like you're saying we are already going back to intelligent people running the government.
Not trying to be pedantic, but you seem to have chosen a fancy word on purpose here and I want to know (in a non-sarcastic way) if it has an alternate meaning.
Sam
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You are right, obverse is the front side. I was thinking it meant opposite, rather than front.
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Cool beans, thanks for clearing that up.
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Hell, under each of these leaders, most made spending cuts while increasing science spending.
And all of them were considered intelligent. [usnews.com]
Interesting that support for the general sciences does appear to correlate to IQ of the presidents.
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Congress determines how much money the NIH and NSF get. The president can push them but he can't allocate funds. Many recent presidents including Obama have made their legacy about things other than science, including force projection in the Middle East and Asia, oil and gas extraction, international IP deals masquerading as "free trade" and helping the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries to increase their bottom lines. I have not seen a big push in support for basic science funding from any rece
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There are plenty of them in today's world too. The thing is, they do not worship science like some seem to unknowingly do and they do not ignore the dangers of unrestricted access to dangerous chemicals.
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Re:A truly rare find (Score:5, Insightful)
You could still purchase another man then.
Like it or not, it's statistically likely you had to be a tiny bit pro-slave back then to make ends meet as a southern farmer.
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I have to agree. Though it's quite common to use 21st century thought and practice to pass judgment on someone from another era where thought and practice differed greatly, there's some logic lacking in that. We might say that we're glad society has advanced since earlier times (to the extent that it has; I see both gains and losses), but to claim that someone such as Jefferson should be condemned for being a man of his era is a bit much.
Of course for some people (I'm thinking of a poster just below this th
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To be fair, a gentleman of our generation judging another gent's behavior a century and a half ago is a bit presumptive.
You could still purchase another man then.
Like it or not, it's statistically likely you had to be a tiny bit pro-slave back then to make ends meet as a southern farmer.
Plenty of civilised people both in the US and elsewhere had decided that slavery was morally unacceptable by that stage in history.
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"Plenty of civilised people both in the US and elsewhere had decided that slavery was morally unacceptable by that stage in history."
I suspect that is as late as you'd want to post to get an instantaneous upmod with a marginal opinion. I'll have my eye on you.
Re:A truly rare find (Score:5, Insightful)
I know it's fun to be holier-than-thou, but moral absolutism has just as many problems as moral relativism. Everybody was doing lots of things throughout history that they thought were OK. Today, we do things we think OK. Why are you so positive that the clock of ethics has stopped as of Friday October 16 2015 and will not change in the future? Let's pick a plausible-enough example... What if in 200 years there is such a population crunch that we need a "cap and trade" on new babies, and procreation and birth control are such that... I don't know, unsafe sex without a permit was as morally risky as driving drunk and for similar reasons? If you had a stance that such things as the choice to have a child are individual concerns and not the governments', that might be viewed as just as backwards, wrong, and dangerous as slavery. Your descendants might think "how could he be so stupid? why didn't he see the evil? it's so obvious!"
There are at least as many ethical standards that might change in 200 years as those that probably won't. I assume you're just as happy to be called evil then for your stances that seems downright progressive today.
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Let's pick a plausible-enough example... What if in 200 years there is such a population crunch that we need a "cap and trade" on new babies, and procreation and birth control are such that... I don't know, unsafe sex without a permit was as morally risky as driving drunk and for similar reasons?
No need to go that far. Driving a gaz-guzzing car, smoking tobacco, killing and eating animals. Although I must admit that using a woman's body for reproduction is discusting, we have tanks for that.
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>procreating
>sin
Oh ye who is ignorant of the Bible. Procreation is one of God's first commands to man.
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While you're not wrong you forgetting one key thing.
Consciousness grows at different levels. (Both at an individual and national level.)
An analogy: You don't place a child in Grade 12 until they have had time for their mind to grow, understand, and internalize the concepts started in Kindergarten (or Grade 1), ALONG WITH demonstrating that they understand all of the preceding prerequisites.
It look Americans ~200 years to spiritually grow up and realize slavery was wrong.
Sometimes the only way to learn whe
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Thanks for the clarification; I'm not interested in debating the actual legalistic time frame.
Regardless, the greater point still stands.
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Jefferson might have said: "All slavery is violence, but I try to minimize the violence". Not that slavery is in any way the same thing as eating meat, and perhaps you are trying harder than he was, but it does make you as big a coward as he was by your own standards.
By the way, it's worth reading up a bit on Jefferson. The matter of his stance on slavery while owning some himself was by no means as simple and clear cut as "he was agai
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Show us the proof that the sex was non consensual. The slave in question was his dead wife's half sister. I doubt he would rape one of her relatives.
He thought long and hard on the subject, and came to the conclusion that simply dumping slaves out onto the street with no training was a recipe for disaster for everyone involved, and indeed he spent time and money training his slaves up and then freed them. But training is expensive and time consuming, and they breed very quickly.
He
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Jefferson had children from non-consentual sex with his slave mistress which were then treated not as sons or daughters, but as slaves.
Really? Then you should hurry on over to the historical societies and put up your evidence, because nearly all other evidence from back then, refutes that.
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Big brains work to give us an advantage. Beyond that advantage, bigger brains become a liability. More delicate, more resources, and all that. Yes, once we've solved all those problems of big brains (helmets for all and sufficient food), one would presume natural selection would again favor larger brains, but solving all those problems also reduces the overall pressure of natural selection.
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lots of Americans at the time that were opposed to slavery. Quakers existed, abolitionists existed.
These people mostly lived in the north, where plantation slavery was not economical. It is easy to be opposed to something that doesn't serve your interests anyway.
Jefferson and other slaver founding fathers lived in denial.
Jefferson was not in denial. He described slavery as "holding a wolf by the ears", being able to neither subdue the wolf nor let it go. He saw it as an evil institution, but also also saw it as economically necessary, and didn't see an easy path to abolition.
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I'm sure plenty of factory owners had their profits cut when anti child labour laws were introduced.
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Which is why I look upon a Trump vs. Clinton campaign with such anti-glee.
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The whole thing stinks of another Hillary smear campaign.
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I'm not voting for Hillary. I d
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Seems only idiots want to see the Clintons hang. They've been trying for 20 years, and haven't made anything stick. Either the haters are the dumbest people on the planet, or the Clintons are much smarter than the lying idiot haters assert.
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Do you have some credible references to Trump committing rape
Didn't Ivana Trump say that she was raped by him when they were married?
Of course, his real crime is that rug.
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No, you're a troll for posting obnoxious opinions and then reveling in the response you get.
Why is it obnoxious to say that he had sex with his slave, which by definition was non-consensual and therefore (in modern terms) rape?
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not much different from a typical modern "American politician".
How many modern American politicians could write the Declaration of Independence and found a University?
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Jefferson also was an actual free market capitalist. In today's America he would not be electable by this mob.
To say nothing of his insistence that individual people not only could but should all own firearms, and indeed take one on walks into the woods because it's good exercise and practice.
Remember when... (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember when it was not only permissible, but actually admirable to perform chemical experiments? To the point where even legislators would do so, as part of their well-rounded intellectual life?
No? Neither do today's legislators and law-enforcement officials, apparently.
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Re:Remember when... (Score:5, Funny)
Jefferson is well know to have grown marijuana. This was probably a meth lab, which explains why it was so well hidden.
"Pray, sayeth my name."
"Jefferson."
"Thou art correct, by Jove!"
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"Let us go, Jesse. It is time to legislate."
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Re:Remember when... (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, I mean, Ben Carson, who is not only a medical doctor but has conducted extensive scientific medical research, is being lynched for not acting the way that liberal white people on CNN have decided a black man should act.
Oh, wait, you don't think he counts because there's an "R" next to his name, which makes racism OK.
Ben Carson is an amazingly intelligent and successful man. Yet he has come up with the most spectacularly bone-headed statements since he entered political life.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/... [chicagotribune.com]
http://thinkprogress.org/polit... [thinkprogress.org]
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Why do the clueless always try to "correct"? (Score:2)
I've got no idea why people feel inspired to "correct" others based on wild guesses instead of reality in situations as trivial as my post above. Care to enlighten us "jordanjay29". At least your own motivations will be something that you will actually kn
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He probably had some nuclear knowledge, just like I have some chemistry knowledge. I wouldn't call myself a chemist, though.
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I've got no idea why people feel inspired to "correct" others based on wild guesses instead of reality in situations as trivial as my post above. Care to enlighten us "jordanjay29". At least your own motivations will be something that you will actually know about.
Hmm. Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] has a very different account. He attended non-credit classes at Union College after joining Rickover's program and never graduated. Maybe you should check your facts?
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That's enough for my point, so I really don't know why there are thin skinned fanboys or whatever the fuck they are trying a bit of Soviet style revisionism over something so trivial.
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The fact is that it was his job title on a sub in the Navy - plenty of evidence of that.
Can you provide such evidence? Some sources say otherwise.
That's enough for my point, so I really don't know why there are thin skinned fanboys or whatever the fuck they are trying a bit of Soviet style revisionism over something so trivial.
Let me understand you correctly: When someone questions your facts, you lash that they are "thin skinned fanboys"? Kettle, meet pot?
WTF? (Score:2)
When someone equates their gut feeling and a desire to run down the opposing team in a pissing contest to an actual fact there's no point pretending that such a lie is real - especially over something so incredibly trivial as my example of people with differen
I already did (Score:2)
A couple of posts up I provided the link, a quote, and bolded some text for the slow.
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A couple of posts up I provided the link, a quote, and bolded some text for the slow.
No you did not. You presented a link which was immediately challenged. To that challenge, you insulted people and present the same link?
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Read a book kid instead of making shit up.
So linking to wikipedia is making things up? Do you know "making things up" means?
There are things called libraries that have those things called books, including some books called encyclopedias where you can look up historical figures and learn about them.
And I referenced an Internet version of an encyclopedia called wikipedia. You have heard of the Internet right?
When someone equates their gut feeling and a desire to run down the opposing team in a pissing contest to an actual fact there's no point pretending that such a lie is real -
Wow you seem pretty hurt when someone publishes a link that directly questions your facts. Either you have facts on your side or you don't. Getting upset does not make your facts right or wrong.
especially over something so incredibly trivial as my example of people with different skill sets above. It appears that by saying something that could be considered positive about a democrat I've pierced through a very thin skin. -
Again you seem to be the only here with thin skin. You posted facts that doesn't agree with other sources. When questioned
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So now it's pathetic little head games? (Score:2)
Now that is even more pathetic - it takes a special sort of "define your own reality" type to have "their own facts". It's not some shit I've made up or bent out of shape for some "mass debate" game but instead just a link to something I don't "own", a historical footnote that is nowhere near contraversial just to illustrate
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You are clearly just here for an argument and have now driven off into a contentless realm far from the actual topic, which was never important in the first place. Pathetic.
In the context of this discussion you asserted that Carter was a nuclear engineer and said dumb things. I have pointed out discrepancy whether he was. You continue to ignore the discrepancy. If your premise is incorrect, your conclusion is incorrect.
Now that is even more pathetic - it takes a special sort of "define your own reality" type to have "their own facts". It's not some shit I've made up or bent out of shape for some "mass debate" game but instead just a link to something I don't "own", a historical footnote that is nowhere near contraversial just to illustrate a point that could have been made other ways.
Again you seem so hurt when people point there are discrepancies. I take it you do not work in the hard sciences. "My data disagrees with your conclusion" happens all the time. Scientists don't generally accuse each other of living in different realities whe
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The challenge came nowhere close to refutation and was just a silly word game and straight out dishonesty.
Using wikipedia and Jimmy Carter's library site == word games and dishonesty to you?
.The only thing interesting at this point is why people stoop so low over something so trivial and why you jumped in to try to play some silly little troll argument game debating against reality.
Basically no one can challenge your facts because in your mind only your facts are acceptable. So you'll just insult whoever challenges you rather than look to see whether your facts and conclusions are indeed correct.
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Then you've laid on the petty bullying bullshit in the hope of tormenting some poor kid with low self esteem into believing some sort of trivial fantasy is real- what an utter piece of shit you are! I can take that shit, but you appear to be looki
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Thus somewhat tangential to reality as we both know.
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I've been here for years. It's not a fucking high school debating site even if that is what you want it to be.
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Yes - you jumped on to call me a liar and then
And when did I do that? Point out to anywhere above where I said that. I said you need to check your facts. That's it. You took offense immediately when someone points out you had a discrepancy.
assert a different version of reality to the one that exists based upon
Again, pointing out there are different facts which contradicts yours does not mean I live in a different reality. It happens every day in the sciences. Why are you so hurt when someone points out that you have a discrepancy?
twisting the definition of some words out of shape when the context was completely and utterly obvious from the comment and then the quote later.
You said Carter was a "nuclear engineer". Those are your EXACT words. Quoting you word fo
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Your wordgame required ignoring that it was a job title and a perfectly valid description for the purpose of my comparison.
A nuclear engineer has a nuclear engineering degree. Plain and simple. A chemical engineer has a chemical engineering degree. And so on. People call themselves software, network, whatever "engineer" these days. But nuclear engineering is an actual discipline of engineering. I take it that you don't have an engineering degree or you would know that.
Second, you completely misinterpreted what was written. Carter worked on the nuclear propulsion of the Seawolf. He was training to be an engineering officer.
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I've been here for years. It's not a fucking high school debating site even if that is what you want it to be.
Yet you are so hurt when someone challenges your facts, assumptions, or conclusions.
IT WAS HIS JOB DESCRIPTION (Score:2)
Why?
Are you paid for the word for political propaganda - or do you call it "social media work" these days?
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Actually I do. However who are you to make such pronouncements and tell the Navy what they should be doing?
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Carter was a nuclear engineer but came off as dumber than Reagan. Not saying stupid shit in public is a different skill to others.
Carter was a wonky southern slow-speaker. Reagan was a washed-up B-movie actor. Both were successful politicians, but it's no secret who was the better "communicator" -- it was the actor.
Nevertheless, as far as who sounded dumber or said stupid shit in public, Reagan wins hands-down. Without a script, he was a gaffe-machine.
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I'm not a huge Trump fan, but if he does win it'll be amusing to watch all the people with pee dribbing down their pantsleg sputter and fume and latch onto anything 'dumb' that a microphone can capture him as having said.
Trump specialises in saying spectacularly unpleasant things, not dumb ones. They're not accidental.
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Carter was a nuclear engineer but came off as dumber than Reagan. Not saying stupid shit in public is a different skill to others.
Speaking as a non American I can tell you that the only politician who ever came off as dumber than Reagan was George W Bush.
Carter always seemed like someone who was too thoughtful to be a politician.
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Since Ben Carson isn't actually a legislator, I think you're supporting my point.
To be fair, we do have a very few contemporary counterexamples to my cynical comment [wsj.com]:
The retirement of Rep. Rush Holt (D., N.J.), who for 16 years was the House’s resident astrophysicist, represents the latest in a string of departures by members trained in the sciences.
His exit leaves Reps. Bill Foster (D., Ill.) and Jerry McNerney (D., Calif.) as the only remaining members who hold doctorates in the natural and hard sciences out of the 535 senators and representatives in the 114th Congress, according to the Congressional Research Service.
One caveat: this information is taken from that liberal rag, The Wall Street Journal, which is probably just parroting "reality's well-known liberal bias".
But that wasn't all! (Score:5, Funny)
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If you are going to do that old joke,
There was also in that all the unix code that linus stole and put into Linux.
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There was also in that all the unix code that linus stole and put into Linux.
Shh... Don't wake the trolls [wikipedia.org]
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It's the Utah Jazz which infuriates New Orleans.
Anti-Governent Racist's Chemical Stockpile (Score:3)
Obviously a domestic terrorist threat.
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No, I'll bet if the folks from "CSI: Charlottesville, Virginia took some samples from the lab, they would find that Jefferson was distilling moonshine and cooking meth.
Good 'ole southern gentlemen pastimes.
Note that NASCAR had not been invented yet in Jefferson's times.
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He cooks that crystal meth because the shine don't sell
You know he likes that money, he don't mind the smell!
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It's called Choctaw Bingo by the James McMurtry and the Heartless Bastards. See it performed live on Austin City Limits- there's some smokin' guitar work...
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Cool beans, I'll look it up and watch it. I was only joking when I'd read your post - I was like, "Hey, that'd be a great song potentially."
I went and found it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
I could not find the specific version mentioned but it was still a nice listen - thanks. I was pleased. I know the area, well. I've been all over that area - often, I've gone and sat in a bit with various groups or open mic nights at the blue grass fests. I enjoy that whole area - the people are people.
Anyhow, m
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Listen to it on "Live in Aught Three"- much higher energy!
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Will do. I listened to quite a few more of his tracks. I'd never heard of him before. Thanks! He's not bad. I dare say, I like him.
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It's just a hearth, not a lab (Score:3)
"Lab" sounds like a whole room. This is a hearth that was built in a corner of a room, and subsequently covered up.