on this day in 1980

At 8:32 a.m. PDT, Mount St. Helens, a volcanic peak in southwestern Washington, suffers a massive eruption, killing 57 people and devastating some 210 square miles of wilderness.

Called Louwala-Clough, or "the Smoking Mountain," by Native Americans, Mount St. Helens is located in the Cascade Range and stood 9,680 feet before its eruption. The volcano has erupted periodically during the last 4,500 years, and the last active period was between 1831 and 1857. On March 20, 1980, noticeable volcanic activity began again with a series of earth tremors centered on the ground just beneath the north flank of the mountain. These earthquakes escalated, and on March 27 a minor eruption occurred, and Mount St. Helens began emitting steam and ash through its crater and vents.

Small eruptions continued daily, and in April people familiar with the mountain noticed changes to the structure of its north face. A scientific study confirmed that a bulge more than a mile in diameter was moving upward and outward over the high north slope by as much as six feet per day. The bulge was caused by an intrusion of magma below the surface, and authorities began evacuating hundreds of people from the sparsely settled area near the mountain. A few people refused to leave.

On the morning of May 18, Mount St. Helens was shaken by an earthquake of about 5.0 magnitude, and the entire north side of the summit began to slide down the mountain. The giant landslide of rock and ice, one of the largest recorded in history, was followed and overtaken by an enormous explosion of steam and volcanic gases, which surged northward along the ground at high speed. The lateral blast stripped trees from most hill slopes within six miles of the volcano and leveled nearly all vegetation for as far as 12 miles away. Approximately 10 million trees were felled by the blast.

The landslide debris, liquefied by the violent explosion, surged down the mountain at speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour. The avalanche flooded Spirit Lake and roared down the valley of the Toutle River for a distance of 13 miles, burying the river to an average depth of 150 feet. Mudflows, pyroclastic flows, and floods added to the destruction, destroying roads, bridges, parks, and thousands more acres of forest. Simultaneous with the avalanche, a vertical eruption of gas and ash formed a mushrooming column over the volcano more than 12 miles high. Ash from the eruption fell on Northwest cities and towns like snow and drifted around the globe within two weeks. Fifty-seven people, thousands of animals, and millions of fish were killed by the eruption of Mount St. Helens.

By late in the afternoon of May 18, the eruption subsided, and by early the next day it had essentially ceased. Mount St. Helens' volcanic cone was completely blasted away and replaced by a horseshoe-shaped crater--the mountain lost 1,700 feet from the eruption. The volcano produced five smaller explosive eruptions during the summer and fall of 1980 and remains active today. In 1982, Congress made Mount St. Helens a protected research area.

Mount St. Helens became active again in 2004. On March 8, 2005, a 36,000-foot plume of steam and ash was expelled from the mountain, accompanied by a minor earthquake. Though a new dome has been growing steadily near the top of the peak and small earthquakes are frequent, scientists do not expect a repeat of the 1980 catastrophe anytime soon.

Oddly enough, I have not read any reports of the Sierra Club attempting to sue Mother Nature for the resulting damages which vastly exceeded the impact which would result from drilling in ANWR, the Alaskan region officially set aside by the federal government for the sole purpose of oil exploration.

on this day in 1792

Traders make deal under a buttonwood tree on Wall Street

The early 1790s were not a good time for New York's burgeoning class of speculative traders. Their collective reputation had been badly tarnished by the fall of William Duer, a powerful speculator who illegally parlayed privileged information into successful speculative trades. Along with an extended jail term, the maneuver left Duer broke, which all but destroyed the traders' nascent market. However, rather than give up on speculative trading, the dealers and auctioneers decided to clean up their operations. On this day in 1792, a group of twenty-four traders gathered under a buttonwood tree at 68 Wall Street in lower Manhattan to mete out the conditions and regulations of the speculative market. The result was the Buttonwood Agreement, a modest, two-sentence contract that gave birth to the New York Stock Exchange, which would become the world's largest forum for trading stocks and securities. Where speculators had previously conducted their auctions twice a day in various locations, including street corners and coffeehouses, the Buttonwood Agreement established stricter rules and parameters to more effectively govern trading.

Bad joke du jour

Three old men are discussing their sex lives.

The Italian man says, " Last week, my wife and I had great sex. I rubbed her body all over with olive oil, we made passionate love, and she screamed for 5 minutes at the end."

The Frenchman boasts, "Last week when my wife and I had sex, I rubbed her body all over with butter. We then made passionate love and she screamed for 15 minutes.

The old Jewish Man says, "Well, last week my wife and I had sex too. I rubbed her body all over with chicken schmaltz (kosher chicken fat), we made love, and she screamed for 6 hours.

The Italian and Frenchman were stunned. They replied, "What could you have possibly done to make your wife scream for 6 hours?"

"I wiped my hands on the drapes."

It might be cheaper for you to drive to Venezuela to fill up your tank

It's almost the start of the summer driving season in the United States. Most drivers are becoming increasingly alarmed at the cost of gas. In many parts of the country, a gallon of gas costs $3.12. Compare that to Venezuela where gas costs a bit less. Like, $3 a gallon less.

The current street price for a gallon of gas in Caracas is just 12 cents a gallon. You could fill up your whole tank for about $2.

Why is it so cheap? Because the Venezuelan government nationalized the oil industry there, and sets the price at whatever they want. Would I want to pay 12 cents a gallon for my gas? Sure! But not if that's what everyone is going to pay, too. I'm not trying to be greedy, but I know that if the government undercuts the price of any commodity or service, somebody is going to have to make up the difference. And in the United States, that somebody is Joe Taxpayer.

Venezuelans might be enjoying their cheap gas, but you can bet they're paying for it another way. Jose Luis Cordeiro, a petroleum engineer who writes about energy issues, estimates Venezuela would have taken in at least an additional $8 billion last year -- almost 8 percent of the nation's GDP -- if Venezuelans had paid market rates for fuel.

Like father, like son

Police labor union officials asked acting Chief Christopher McGaffin this afternoon to allow a Capitol Police officer to complete his investigation into an early-morning car crash involving Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.), son of Sen. Ted Kennedy.

ROLL CALL reports: According to a letter sent by Officer Greg Baird, acting chairman of the USCP FOP, the wreck took place at approximately 2:45 a.m. Thursday when Kennedy's car, operating with its running lights turned off, narrowly missed colliding with a Capitol Police cruiser and smashed into a security barricade at First and C streets Southeast.

“The driver exited the vehicle and he was observed to be staggering,” Baird’s letter states. Officers approached the driver, who “declared to them he was a Congressman and was late to a vote. The House had adjourned nearly three hours before this incident. It was Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy from Rhode Island.”

Baird wrote that Capitol Police Patrol Division units, who are trained in driving under the influence cases, were not allowed to perform basic field sobriety tests on the Congressman. Instead, two sergeants, who also responded to the accident, proceeded to confer with the Capitol Police watch commander on duty and then “ordered all of the Patrol Division Units to leave the scene and that they were taking over.”

"It was apparent that the driver was intoxicated (stumbling) and claimed he was in a hurry to make a vote. When it became apparent who it was, instead of processing a normal DWI, the watch commander had the Patrol units clear the scene. The commander allowed other building officials drive Kennedy home."

This morning's incident comes just over two weeks after Kennedy was involved in a car accident in Rhode Island.

"I was involved in a traffic accident last night at First and C Street SE near the U.S. Capitol," Kennedy said in a written statement released by his office. "I consumed no alcohol prior to the incident. I will fully cooperate with the Capitol Police in whatever investigation they choose to undertake."

Happy Birthday, Audrey

Audrey Hepburn-Ruston is born on this day in 1929 near Brussels. She dropped the "Ruston" from her name when she started acting.

Hepburn's father, an English banker, left Hepburn and her mother, a Dutch baroness, when Hepburn was six. Hepburn attended school in England, but when World War II erupted, her mother brought her to Holland, thinking her daughter would be safer there. During the war, the Nazis occupied Holland. Delicate-looking Audrey continued to attend school and study ballet-while reportedly smuggling messages to the Resistance in her ballet shoes.

After the war, Hepburn studied ballet in Amsterdam and London, and went on to study acting. She played bit parts on stage and screen until 1951, when she met the French writer Colette. Colette insisted Hepburn be cast in the title role of the Broadway version of her novelGigi. Hepburn's Broadway debut in 1951 brought her enormous attention, and she was cast as the lead in Roman Holiday (1953), co-starring with Gregory Peck. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance. She continued to win lead roles in strong films, including Sabrina (1951), opposite Humphrey Bogart, Funny Face (1957), The Nun's Story (1959), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), and My Fair Lady (1964).

Hepburn married actor and director Mel Ferrer in 1954, and he produced her Oscar-nominated 1967 film, Wait Until Dark. The couple divorced in 1968, and she married an Italian psychiatrist in 1969. The couple moved to Europe, and Hepburn largely retired from Hollywood, devoting her time to charitable causes. She became a special ambassador for UNICEF in the 1970s.

In 1976, after a nine-year hiatus, Hepburn appeared as a middle-aged Maid Marian in Robin and Marian, opposite Sean Connery. She made a handful of film appearances in the 1970s and 1980s, including one as an angel in Always (1989), her final film appearance. Hepburn continued to work for charitable causes until her death in 1993.

Male vs. Female orgasms

Here's a pretty accurate online simulator of male and female climaxes.

Before you get that DirectTV dish installed...

You might want to be aware that DirectTV lies to their customers about the need for a phone line to be connected to their receivers. The simple answer is no, it's not at all necessary.