Today I Learned

Basically prior to the being sold the paper was profitable every year except the last year. Then in 1976 Murdoch bought. I put an excerpt that explains the market challenges of running the paper. Despite these market challenges he ran it for a long time at a loss. It's my opinion that the purpose of owning the paper which loses money every year is influence and power, not just numbers on a balance sheet. That's why Murdoch ran it at a loss for so long. Likely he believed the influence and power netted more money for him overall.

The article says:

The Post at this point was the only surviving afternoon daily in New York City and its circulation under Schiff had grown by two-thirds, particularly after the failure of the competing World Journal Tribune; however, the rising cost of operating an afternoon daily in a city with worsening daytime traffic congestion, combined with mounting competition from expanded local radio and TV news cut into the Post's profitability, though it made money from 1949 until Schiff's final year of ownership, when it lost $500,000.

When you own a newspaper you can do things like this: https://www.dailydot.com/debug/new-york-post-writer-resigns-kamala-harris-book-story/

Started an argument with my much smarter wife because she said North and South America are not two separate continents. She was right, because continents are only defined by convention.

Well... What happened next?

(Excerpt from Wikipedia:)

Tennessee state law required that the name of a candidate who died before the election be removed from the ballot, and it did not allow the candidate's party to replace a deceased candidate who died within 30 days of the election. Accordingly, after Burks's death, Looper became the only candidate listed on the official ballot for Burks's senate seat.

Several people tried to have Looper's name stricken from the ballot, claiming that Looper's arrest constituted moral turpitude. The state Republican Party distanced itself from Looper. To prevent Looper from winning the state senate seat on a technicality, Burks's widow, Charlotte was put forth as a write-in candidate for her husband's seat. Dozens of volunteers helped her campaign, including some Republicans. On election day, Charlotte Burks, as a write-in candidate, won the seat with 30,252 votes (95.18%) against Looper's 1,531 votes (4.82%). One of her first initiatives as state senator was to introduce legislation to ensure that the name of any candidate who dies within 40 days of an election could remain on the ballot, thus preventing the situation that occurred after her husband's death. Charlotte Burks won re-election in 2002, 2006, and 2010. She retired after the 2014 election.

Yea... I read this and just WTF'ed at this. Imagine if the dude never got caught.

Like why run a campaign if you could just a little crime.

Also, dude was so stupid, could've hired an assassin instead of doing it himself.

(Also, if he were a former president instead, he would've been immune from the criminal prosecution. Rookie mistake.)

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron_Looper#Assassination_of_Tommy_Burks

If you needed yet another reason to quit smoking, here it is.

Well... If this isn't a TIL, I don't know what is 🙃

Just in case you're like me living under the mistaken belief that the only Rapid Antigen Tests available are for COVID.

Despite, only this year they will finally make the bald eagle the national bird. Which, I also learned that they are not official symbols until a President signs a document for them to be. It is just a recognized symbol but not official. (Just my opinion but why do they really need a bill for this? What changes would making anything like this official really do?)

Here is a list of other US symbols (article includes links to other countries of the world national symbols, some official, some not made official) if you are interested:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_symbols_of_the_United_States

Now that's some irony!

Filming began in December 1987. With Christmas approaching, director Richard Donner asked if the production could have Christmas Day off, but Paramount Pictures executives refused, insisting that filming should continue on Christmas Day. However, Donner outwitted them. At the end of the day on December 24th, he fired the entire cast and crew. Two days later, on December 26th, he rehired everyone. The break allowed the cast and crew members to spend Christmas with their families.

This is funny to me because san-disk literally means no disk, same as how sans serif means no serifs.

https://www.westerndigital.com/

https://shop.sandisk.com/

It was also noted that while under the Health Act 2006 it is illegal to give out free tobacco in the United Kingdom, Parliament is exempt from this as the Palace of Westminster is a royal palace, and therefore legally exempt from the legislation.

I never knew and got curious and looked it up. I guess it makes more sense than slamming your testicals against the wall.

The Crabtree effect is where Saccharomyces and Brettanomyces yeasts digest carbohydrates both anaerobically – producing ethanol, an antiseptic – and aerobically. Most yeasts in the presence of both sugar and oxygen prefer to only convert these to carbon dioxide and water, which is considerably more efficient but doesn't deter competitors for that sweet, sweet sugar.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/08/03/why-isnt-bread-alcoholic/

Also, if anyone has been to the national park named after him in Missouri, how is it?

Edit: Since it's come up a couple times in the comment, I'll add that there's evidence use of a water flosser is more effective than dental floss.

Also works for searches 'Times new roman' and 'Courier new font', but not for 'Lucida console font' or 'Dejavu sans font'.