Interesting If True

Welcome to Interesting If True, the podcast that always hits a home run… as long as no one is in the stands to see it!

I'm your host this week, Aaron, and with me are Steve & Shea!

I'm Steve, and I find myself unable to NOT focus on what’s happening in Ukraine right now, and as a result, I now realize how much I thought I knew that I didn’t and how much more there is to learn. Okay, Aaron and Shea, good luck making funny from that.

I'm Shea, and this week I learned that if you have trouble remembering whether or not you should slam your nuts in the car door or not, just remember that “Genital” sounds like “Gentle”.

Round Table

So round table this week doesn’t have much, but in doing some number crunching this week I can say with some accuracy that thanks to the support of our patrons we were able to donate an amazing $1473.70 to WyoAIDS in 2021! Thanks to all of you for your support and if you’d like to kick on that you’ll hear WyoAIDS info in the mid-show bumper as well as our Patreon pitch!

We also need to say thanks to Dr. Eric who wrote in to let us know that the discussion on Art and Arpad was, apparently, spot on. He’s a professional knower of Anthropological facts with a CV longer than I am tall, so it’s safe to say we got an approving email from a proper expert. Thanks for listening, sorry you have to deal with these idiots on a professional level. He also sent an article from Forensic Magazine he describes as “awful” and yeah… Check the notes for a link https://www.forensicmag.com/583512-Adding-Scat-to-the-Missing-Persons-Identification-Forensic-Toolbox/

Speaking of professional things, let’s talk about sports!

Escape From Wyoming

Today I'm going to talk about America’s pastime… no, not exporting violence and ignorance — its old-timey, traditional, pastime. The Great American Pastime as it were. Deathball!

Err, no, sorry…

Better Baseball!

I’ve always contended baseball, and other stand-around sports like cricket, golf, and — while decidedly less standy-aroundy — soccer, would be dramatically improved by the random placement of land mines.

I don’t remember who made that joke originally, but indeed, nothing adds that little touch of Jeux devives like arbitrarily placed explosives.

Or at least, that was my hope. In reality, making people play sports for their lives a la Snake Plissken in Escape from New York is just kinda sad and reprehensible.

Still, against that backdrop of … some kind of sportsmanship anyway, we need to talk about Wyoming’s favorite baseball team, the Death Row All-Stars.

Basically, if you win, the government won’t kill you that week.

We’ve talked briefly before about Laramie having the territorial prison. Butch Cassidy and other famous outlaws lived there and, if you own a handmade broom, it’s almost certainly from Laramie Wyoming… or China. Our little prison became the hub of yee-oldie broom manufacturing after they set out to make some money off those lazy, good-for-nothing, inmates. I have one for sweeping my shop counter, it’s nice.

These days the profits go to keeping up the prison as a historical site so I feel a little better about that twelve bucks, but ya know.

Wyoming also has another relatively famous prison, though for decidedly less quaint reasons.

Welcome to Interesting If True, the podcast that makes do with what it can find.

I'm your host this week, Aaron, and with me is Steve!

I'm Steve, and I’m what you have to deal with this week since Shea is still unwell and well, I’m available. Also, I was reminded today why I don’t get beer drunk anymore.

This Week’s Beer

This week’s beer is… whatever we’ve got on hand cause it’s another remote record!

Round Table

You might have noticed this is a remote record again, and that the yeti is, as is his cryptid way, missing. Aaaaand that’s because the rona got him. Not to worry, he does seem to be doing as well as one can with a breakthrough case. If all goes well, he’ll be back in a few weeks.

We have a correct of sorts from friend-of-the-show Kevin who says that “the Toronto Maple Leafs are the arch-enemy of the Montreal Canadians” so that’s something, apparently, they’re called the Montreal Canadians… makes me wonder how the rest of Canada feels about that but ok. Concluding with, what I assume to be the battle-cry of the correct team, “Go Habs Go!”

Headlines

HL1: Science Says It’s Not The Science.

Our first headline comes from Hemant Mehta, The Friendly Atheist, whose reporting on secular issues has provided this, and several other secular podcasts, headlines for years. Make sure you visit his new blog on OnlySky — as it, only sky up above. Music! — where he writes about religious issues, well, issues with religion, now with 1000% fewer sewer ads. Because Pathos has long been a dumpster fire of terrible.

Anyway, despite the fervent argumentation of American Evangelicals, it’s not exposure to science that leads kids away from religion. I’d go so far as to say it’s all the bigotry and rape, but according to Sociology of Religion by Professor John H. Evans of the University of California, San Diego, it’s exactly what we always thought it was: teaching kids how to ask good questions and encouraging them to ask those questions of people who don’t want to answer them — like priests.

From his paper… long quote:

The traditional literature on the secularizing effect of the natural sciences assumes that any religious belief is incompatible with science, and therefore all science will be secularizing for all religious students… I find no effect of the distinction between science and non-science disciplines for religious students in general or conservative Protestants in particular. On the other hand, pure fields lead to more secularization than do applied fields, particularly for white conservative Protestants. This suggests that when science, social science or the humanities secularizes, it is the result of inquiry itself, not the content of that inquiry. This new way of looking at the impact of science explains the typical outlier in such studies — engineering — a field that has many of the trappings of physics, but with a much more religious constituency.

So basically, it's not that becoming scientifically literate necessarily pushes religion out of your life — though if you’re honest about the scientific process it should — rather it’s teaching kids how to ask questions, evaluate the information they get back in an intellectually honest way, and support their conclusions with vetted information.

Basically, once you’ve taught people how to think, it’s a lot harder to sell them on the idea of letting your cabal of tax-free zealots do their thinking for them.

Welcome to Interesting If True, the podcast that will eventually be recorded in the annals of history, sorry I said that wrong, the anals of history.

I'm your host this week, Shea, and with me are:

I'm Aaron, and this week I learned cleaning the floor is routine, but cleaning the ceiling means that something disastrous has happened… Like bottle-bombs or a defective O-ring on your keg…

I’m Steve and I’ve not been sleeping well lately on top of that it’s been really busy at work, so I’m having a hard time forming a complete sentence without stumbling over my dick. So, please bear with me.

This Week’s Drinks

Steve: I’m drinking the Voodoo Ranger Juicy Haze IPA this week. Brewed in lovely Ft. Collins, CO at 7.5% abv. This is a spiced IPA, which honestly isn’t my favorite, but it’s a nice change of pace. 7 of 10

I am finishing a bottle of Cabernet that I opened to make… Au Jus, maybe, or a schezwan sauce, who remembers.

Shea: I'm drinking a smorgasbord of beer from the back of the fridge, right now it’s another Alaskan midnight haze IPA.

Round Table

From Patreon with Love commented on your post.

The measurement of one billion trillion would be represented in factors, not with zero's. it would be 10 to the power of 12 to the power of 9.

Kevin Rowlands commented on your post.

Love the predictions but the best Nostradamus show was The First Wave filmed in Vancouver from 1998 to 2001

Headlines…

Pensions At Bernie’s

So far, our headlines have been largely science-based. But what is science really if not testing a theory?

Theories like listener Louise’s “can Irish Post Offices tell the difference between some dude, and some dude’s corpse?”

The answer is, it seems, yes.

Last week, as of recording anyway, an Irish man stopped by the County Carlow post office to collect a pension. Not his pension mind you. The office staff of course refused him, stating that only the pension holder could collect it.

So our enterprising hero returned later that day with a friend… and the pension holder. Problem is, he’s dead.

The man and his friend fully Weekend At Burney’s’ed him. According to witnesses, they entered the Post Office with the man “propped up” between them, an arm over each shoulder, feet dragging lifelessly behind them. From a woman who didn’t want to be named, “she was leaving my house at the time and said the man looked unwell as his feet were dragging [along] the ground,” which was because he was a corpse.

The mayor of Carlow, Fianna Fáil councilor Ken Murnane said “I was absolutely shocked to hear about what happened. I cannot believe anyone would do something like that. It beggars belief, I’m just shocked.”

For their part, they got arrested and the local constabulary, called Gardaí, was investigating the nature of the man's death.

Local Fine Gael councilor Fergal Byrne said: “The staff in the shop are very shook up from it. I’d like to offer my sympathies to the man’s family also. It’s a bizarre and upsetting situation.”

* https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/22/two-men-take-corpse-into-irish-post-office-to-claim-dead-mans-pension

Five Letter Words

Welcome to Interesting If True, the podcast that really lights your fire.

I'm your host this week, Shea, and with me are:

I'm Aaron, and as I lose my hearing and am forced to start learning sign language, which I am in fact terrible at, I’ve realized that a hand job from a deaf person technically counts as oral…

I'm Steve, and I was exposed to covid again last weekend, but this time I did not get it, so yea for vaccines MFr’s.

Round Table

Go here: https://www.covidtests.gov

This Week’s Beer

I dunno about you lot but I’m drinking a Guinness-Bodington’s black and tan in honor of one of my headlines… kind of. - 10

Steve: Tommyknocker’s Blood Orange IPA Idaho Springs, CO at 6% 55 IBU -7

Shea: Alaskan Midnight Hazy IPA Juneau, Alaska, 6% -8

Headlines

HL1: Found The Jedi

I’m willing to bet that everyone who listens to this show has not only seen Star Wars but at some point in your life had an epic lightsaber battle when the wrapping paper roll ran out.

Because the real gift of the season is an empty cardboard tube and someone to whack with it.

One YouTuber, Alex Lab, has taken things to the next level, winning a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records for creating the world’s first, properly “retractable” lightsaber.

Now, before we get all mired in the physics of it, no, it’s not a “light” saber in the literal sense, it uses hydrogen. But it does do a lot of lightsaber-y things, including really looking the part! It’s based on Starkiller’s saber from The Force Unleashed — and he did a hell of a job, it looks screen-ready.

Using an electrolyzer, a device that generates and compresses hydrogen and oxygen without a mechanical compressor, he was able to pack 30 seconds of hydrogen into the handle. The saber generates a three-ish-foot plasma stream of roughly 2,800°C (5,072°F) which is hot enough to cut steel - albeit not as quickly as in the films. And, per Alex, “plasma is a stream of high ironized particles so this lightsaber can also attract lightning and other high voltage charges,” which he demos in the video with a small arc of electricity.

It’s not perfect yet though, only running for 30 seconds, not cutting as cleanly as a real lightsaber — or even the much hotter Hacksmith version — and there’s that little drawback of, as Alex explains “sometimes the lightsaber just blows up in your hand because of hydrogen flashback.”

So, other than that, lightsaber. Done. Check out the video in the show notes, it’s pretty impressive.

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAL6BUl6-rM&list=PLWDlqkmKieaqgtG0Oc8EoC5TmTUoxPOa3* https://www.iflscience.com/technology/youtuber-wins-world-record-for-worlds-first-retractable-lightsaber/?fbclid=IwAR0GjhtnVQiZIyuSNxSjcEYwXYB4NteNBxLILuSpzjg2Ui7oD3ARr6KVBb0

HL2: Rarities.

Flash is fast, so fast that he, “can perceive events that last for less than an attosecond,” or roughly the time it takes light to traverse a water molecule. The shortest time we can measure. Though his top speed is measured in The Human Race as something like 23.8 tredecillion times the speed of light. Dr. Manhattan has “witnessed events so tiny and so fast they can hardly be said to have occurred at all.”

Welcome to Interesting If True, the podcast that isn’t the worst podcast, it’s just a tribute.

I'm your host this week, Aaron, and with me is Shea!

I'm Shea, and this week I learned that horses get farted on more than any other animal.

Round Table

Quick announcements. The last few shows have come out a few days after our stated Friday release. Part of this is because, due to work and life schedules, Thursday has become the de facto recording day, and getting the show recorded, edited, reviewed, documented, and prettied is usually more than one evening’s work — especially as we’ve exceeded our 30min target runtime now… for like 2 months solid. With that in mind, our new plan is to release Monday mornings. Patrons are likely to get their episodes — complete with exclusive stories and outtakes — Sunday or whenever the production process is completed.

This week asks a simple question: if you tickle a yeti, does he grunt? … Shea?

This Week’s Beer

Is the Salt Creek Citra IPA From friend-of-the-shows Brendon! Thanks, buddy.

* https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/54696/400897/

America IPA at 7.7% ABV and too few scores to do the math on.

* Aaron: 9* Shea: 9

The Worst Year

So, 2021 was not ideal, but everything’s relative. Let’s talk about the worst year.

Some of you may have an idea of where I’m going with this because you listen to Scathing Atheist and thereby Citation Needed.

1816 — The Dawn Of Jussssstinian’s Suckage

To be clear, 1816 sucked. Nearly 2020 levels of suckage. Per Noah, it led to famine, mass migration, and Mormonism. Mount Tamboura in Indonesia erupted in 1815 and put 100 cubic Kilos of Mount Tamboura into the atmosphere. The island basically just died. The dust that entered the atmosphere caused lowered global temperatures, known today as the “little ice age” for good reason. Sulfuric fog, acidic rain, and massively polluted water killed crops and starved entire contents. India lost its monsoons. China found them. Even artwork from the time got… bleak. So anyway, millions of people died and that’s a real downer.

Still not the worst.

For the worst year, we need to go back another thousand and change…

Welcome to 536 A.D. The world is a gross, illiterate, dumpster fire. The revival of the Roman Empire was… not going as planned. There was famine, plague, oh, and the sun was blocked out to a near-biblical degree for 18 months. Real cats and dogs living together, real wrath of god stuff.

536 is such a terrible year, in the middle of a terrible decade, that I’m not even going to try to bury the surprise of it all in my usual low-hanging comedic fruit way. There’s no need. Each day in 536 was worse than the previous, delivering a nearly endless supply of terrible to punctuate this essay.

A lot of what we’ll talk about comes from records made during Justinian’s attempt to reunify the empire. He traveled with poets and scholars to record what he hoped would be his exploits — rather than the string of seemingly unending uprisings and secessions it actually was.

Well… ye-olde writers and ice cores, dendrological records, and historical metallurgy.

It should be noted that when I say “reunify,

Welcome to Interesting If True, the podcast that’s cooler than your uncle. 

I'm your host this week, Shea, and with me are my two favorite people, Steve and Aaron 

I'm Aaron, and this week I learned that all moms are, technically, bodybuilders…

I'm Steve, and yesterday I learned about Wordle and it’s a damn good thing you can only do one puzzle a day.

Headlines

HL1: Burning Ring of Fire!

Good news everybody! The leader of Turkmenistan, President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov — you may remember him as the guy who was too mean to a puppy, for Putin — has urged the lawmaker to finally close the Gates of Hell now that he’s done doing donuts on Satan’s lawn.

Look at your phones now for a pic.

Gurbanguly, in 2019, shot his shot for YouTube fame by doing donuts next to the Gates in a bid to disprove rumors he was dead. 

The Gates of Hell opened in 1971 during a Soviet drilling operation looking for natural gas. Uninterested in a skylight, Satan just collapsed the whole damn operation, drilling equipment and all, leaving a 230 foot wide, gaping hell-mouth that’s been burning ever since.

The Gates of Hell, or as they’re less Biblically known, the Darvaza gas crater, is a roughly 65-foot-deep crater. The collapse of the drilling equipment left all that gas they were after venting into the atmosphere. Fearing the noxious methane leak geologists at the time decided to fix the problem by adding fire. They expected it to burn out in a day or two… it’s still burning.

Of course, it smells like a burning Hell pit so living nearby is not ideal, but the pit is Turkmenistan’s largest tourist sight. The president is betting that putting out the flame and collecting the gas is worth more than the foot traffic so… we’re finally going to do something about the environmental mess that is, essentially, a man-made eternal flame-hole.

* https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019–08–07/turkmenistan-president-rally-car-hells-gate-dispel-death-rumours/11392246* https://www.sciencealert.com/turkmenistan-s-president-wants-to-close-the-gates-of-hell-which-has-been-burning-for-50-years?fbclid=IwAR3fPezAV5WAIAf38xjKTZnfQlE-QtNX-nh8VVXKFk8f9Nyp-8Xc3npDYb4

3 Centuries Later…

I’ve often said of the Catholic Church that if you put something in their complaint box today, they’ll get to it in a few short centuries…

Turns out I was right.

In 1730 the church was made aware of a grave injustice — no, not the kiddie diddling, we’ll have to wait until 2312 for them to do anything about that if this timeline holds — I’m referring to that most evil of topics, most sinful of events, Vivaldi’s “Il Farnace.”

The Opera was banned in the northern-Italian city of Ferrara in 1739 by Cardinal Tommaso Ruffo because Vivaldi, a conscripted Priest, had stopped going to Mass and was said to be in a relationship with those most vexing and depraved of creatures, a woman, called Anna Grio.

This effectively ended Vivaldi, leaving one of, if not the, most influential Baroque composers to die in exile a pauper.

Now, some 300 years later, Ferrara Archbishop Giancarlo Perego attended the opening of “Il Farnace” in Ferrara — which is as close to a mea culpa as you’re going to get from the Catholic Church.

* https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/vivaldi-opera-gets-premiere-italian-city-nearly-300-years-late-rcna1043...

Welcome to Interesting If True, the podcast that’s kicking 2022 off right — by taking the piss out of the ’80s!

I'm your host this week, Aaron, and with me are:

I'm Shea, and this week I learned that there are literally no rules saying your New Year’s resolution can’t be for evil. 

I'm Steve, and you should rewatch Highlander too.

Round Table

Round table this week starts with a very good Happy New Year to all our fantastic listeners.

It’s pretty cool that we’re still able to do this and despite changes in hosts, branding, topics — really all the things — you’re still with us. Thanks to everyone who listens, shares, and supports the show! Your support means the world to us of course, but it also allows us to donate to a good cause like WyoAIDS. If you’d like to find out how to join the ranks of our good year-having, charity-helping, supporters check out https://www.patreon.com/IIT and, for as little as a buck a show, you’ll get a patin-exclusive story each week! It’s basically twice the weekly us, and that is, apparently, something you enjoy ;)

And with 2022’s inaugural Patreon pitch out of the way, let’s have a beer!

Headlines!

Speaking of new things, it’s Headlines 2.0!

I wanted to restore the headline segment to talk about the nonsense, of course, there will be a bunch of that in 2022 I’m confident. But also to talk about some cool stuff. So, in keeping with the format of the show, these will be brief, fun, and hopefully, not entirely depressing.

That’s No Moon…

An international team of astronomers has released an image of what, at first glance, is a star-filled night’s sky.

It’s (not) Full of Stars

The image is actually of some 25,000 supermassive black holes! The giant star-eaters live at the center of galaxies. Now, I know what you’re thinking — how do you take a picture or something that devours light? Well… you watch the stars it eats and image the accretion disk around it with a network of 52 radio telescopes using LOWFAR (Low-Frequency Array). Then you spend years working the data out. 

This is the result of many years of work on incredibly difficult data. […] We had to invent new methods to convert the radio signals into images of the sky.”Francesco de Gasperin

Lead researcher Francesco de Gasperin, Universität Hamburg, Germany.

The LOWFAR signals can be in the 3MHz range and distorted by signals up to 30MHz.

It’s similar to when you try to see the world while immersed in a swimming pool, when you look up, the waves on the water of the pool deflect the light rays and distort the view.”Reinout van Weeren

Study co-author Reinout van Weeren, of the Leiden Observatory.

The image, which is massive but still only makes up 4% of the night sky in the northern hemisphere, was created with supercomputers correcting each portion of the image, every 4 seconds, over the course of 256-hour observation.

* https://www.techradar.com/news/those-arent-stars-theyre-black-holes

American Gods…

The Pew Research Center has released new figures on American religiosity and, surprising no one I’m sure, it continues to wane. 

Basically, the Trump administration and their brazen bigotries combined with god’s apparent impotence in the face of Covid have left folks questioning organized religion.

Welcome to Interesting If True, the podcast that looks like Santa

I'm your host this week, Shea, and with me are:

I'm Aaron, and this week I learned that the Bible specifically forbids Christmas Trees, thanks, Joshua.

I'm Steve, and I'm recording remotely because of reasons…

This Week's Beer

Fruitcake Dunkle from Altitude

* Aaron: 5* Shea: 6?

Christmas Carol Quiz Time

* #1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Hj3U18FHgQ* #4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVzOve8T39w* #7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is4NQkUN3AI* #8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqfIEQKnkJU* #11 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpfHSqLXePI* #12 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhTnDaEmA5k* #15 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTrWyQbhQRE* #18 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca5wXojemRM

Christmas Carol

* Thurl Ravenscroft sang "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" . . . and was also the voice of a very popular cereal mascot for over 50 years. Disneyland fans will know him as the bust second from the left on the Haunted Mansion! Who was the mascot?* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Hj3U18FHgQ* Hint: He was great at it. * Tony the Tiger* The Roman Catholic Church condemned what 1952 song because they thought it promoted ADULTERY?* "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus"* They backed off after 13-year-old singer Jimmy Boyd explained that "Santa" is really just the kid's dad.* One of the most recognizable holiday tunes, this carroll was originally sung around Thanksgiving when it was written in 1857.* Jingle Bells* We have all heard this song but we may not have heard this version. On the Heavy Metal Christmas album who is heard singing a little drummer boy?* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVzOve8T39w* Hint: he had to take time off killing hobbits to record it. * Christopher Lee * What do the songs; Winter Wonderland, The Christmas Song, Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer, I'll Be Home For Christmas, Let It Snow!, and Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree all have in common? * They were all written by Jewish people.* Benjamin Hanby's classic christmas song written in 1864, was inspired Clement Moore's 1823 poem "A Visit from Saint Nicholas," and was the first song to mention Santa Clause.* Up on the Housetop* Rockin Around the Christmas Tree has been covered by tons of different artists but it's original recording was from 1958 by Brenda Lee who was surprisingly young. How old was Brenda when she recorded this classic hit?* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is4NQkUN3AI* 13* According to the Guinness World Records, the first song ever played in space was what christmas song on December 16, 1965? Astronauts Walter Schirra and Tom Stafford used a harmonica and a bell — also the first instruments in space — to perform the song aboard NASA's Gemini 6A space flight. It was part of a prank — they claimed the music was coming from a strange, flying object that looked a lot like Santa Claus.* Jingle Bells* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqfIEQKnkJU* What band currently has the record for most Christmas number 1 singles?

Welcome to Interesting If True, the podcast that doesn’t clown around…

I'm your host this week, Aaron, and with me are:

I'm Shea, and this week I learned that gonorrhea would have been a good name for a diarrhea medicine.

This weeks beer:

Green Chili Ale - Soulcraft Brewing

* Style: Chile Beer* ABV:5.2%* Score: Needs more ratings* Aaron: 7* Shea: 8

Notes:

Green Chile Ale captures all that you love about fresh roasted chiles. A deep, roasted aroma greets you and a wonderful chile flavor follows. Serrano chiles are added to create a bright flavor and heat. English hops provide light bitterness and floral notes that let the big chile flavor shine. The finish is crisp and slightly spicy. Many people know Colorado for it’s majestic beauty, but not many know of the deep affection for chilies. Of the most coveted are Pueblo Chiles, enjoy with breakfast, lunch, or dinner and taste the difference.Beer Advocate... or the can... can't remember... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

A Clown, a Firefighter, and a Policeman, walk into a brothel…

No, that’s not the start of a joke… but the start of a series of jokes that I cannot believe I haven’t made before.

I grew up not far from here. I’ve been to here.

So, I’m going to tell this epic Snyder style — that is, in too many, long, disjointed, nonsensical parts. And thanks to Shea, this show will also be in unsettling monochrome.

Part 1 - Ill-Fame

The year is 1855 — unless you’re a political history blogger on Medium — the place is Toronto, and the topic at hand is drinking, fighting, whoring, clowns.

But before we bring in the clowns, we need to talk about Toronto. I’ll assume most folks know it’s in southern Ontario, Canada. At least, when I talk about where I grew up most people seem to know where Toronto is, from local cowboys to colleagues in Taipei (I use it as a nearby landmark for the inevitable introduction-question “so, where are you from?”).

What you may not know is that it was settled in 1750 as Fort Rouillé, a French trading post. Established properly in 1793 it has a current population of 2.7m (6.5-ish if you count the surrounding area), sits a mighty 250 feet above sea level, is the capital of Ontario, has long been a hub of Canadian commerce, culture, and politics — and has Yonge Street.

Yonge St. is a major thoroughfare connecting Lake Ontario to Lake Simco. Which sounds impressive I suppose, Guinness Records certainly thought so, until 1999… The road is 56km, or 35mi, long but is known for being “the longest street in the world” at 1,896km (1,179mi) because it was confused with Highway 11.

And with that myth put to bed, let’s talk about Yonge Street circa 1855 and the bar our clowns are walking into.

Still a long way from being “Toronto The Good” — because of its Victorian sensibility and temperance — Toronto was then a thriving trade town with hundreds of bars and brothels, most conveniently located on Yonge Street. This is the bit that you won’t find on the board of tourism website but was the reason a bunch of ye-oldie, horny, clowns were checking it out.

S.B. Howes’ Star Troupe Menagerie and Circus had jumped in and lead Joey, the clown Meyers, just got his cut of the take.

Welcome to Interesting If True, the podcast that slaps... I dunno, I work at a high school and this was some new slang I learned and am probably using incorrectly.

I'm your host this week, Shea, and with me is:

I'm Aaron, and this week I learned that the Descendants are a band. Apparently.

Round Table and Beer

The round table this week... is that we're back in the studio and can finally have another beer together.

Soulcraft Brewing: Raspberry porterSalida Colorado

* Aaron: 8* Shea: 8

40 Elephants

I’m not sure what the impetus to do a story on female gangsters was but I found myself in an internet hole filled with awesome stories of female gangsters that made some pretty big waves in their day, I would be remiss if I didn’t bring them back into the light and entertain you all with some badass ladies.

We could start with some more contemporary women such as Griselda Blanco, recently played by Catherine Zeta-Jones in 2017’s Cocaine Grandma. Griselda has a terrifying and bloody story complete with torture and hired hits during the heyday of cocaine use in the 70/80’s. But I was feeling something a bit less bloody and a whole gang of women sounded cooler than just one angry bloodthirsty drug queen. I went back pretty far in history to find a notorious syndicate run exclusively by working-class women.

PICTURED -Top row, left to right, Alice Diamond, "Queen of Thieves"; Maggie Hughes, deputy; Laura Partrdige; bottom row, left to right, Bertha Tappenden; Madeline Partridge, Gertrude Scully.

One all-female gang ruled part of the gangland underworld for almost two centuries, the 40 Elephants. Definitive records show that the Elephants operated between 1873 and the 1950s, but there is some evidence to suggest that the gang’s origins can be placed as early as the end of the 18th century. The gang’s name is not as cryptic as it may sound: the number

is a rough estimate of its membership and the choice of animal is due to two factors: that they all lived around the Elephant and Castle pub in Southwark, and – more significantly – on leaving shops with their stolen goods under their clothes, the sheer volume of garb made them look like elephants. Only women were allowed to be members and they were almost all exclusively from a working-class background; they rejected the jobs that people like them were condemned to do and instead, similarly to the suffragette movement, they took matters into their own hands. However, instead of fighting for the right to vote, the Elephants wanted something more immediate: financial independence. They would steal clothes and jewelry, sell them on for far less than they were worth, and distribute the earnings amongst their community, providing their families with a lot more than they could otherwise hope to.

Photographs from a 1916 article in Popular Mechanics show the garments shoplifters wear to make their work easier. Via/ Internet Archive

Many a husband lounged at home while his missus was out at work, and many an old lag was propped up by a tireless shoplifting spouse. Some of these terrors were as tough as the men they worked for and protected,"Brian McDonald

Said Brian McDonald, who uncovered details of the criminals when researching for his new book, Gangs of London. Cool aside,