BagOfNothing.com

• “It’s a reimagined Louvre, restored, enlarged, which fully becomes the epicenter of art history for our country and beyond,” Macron said during his speech in front of the “Mona Lisa” painting. The project, called the Louvre New Renaissance, will create an additional entrance to accompany the museum’s famous glass pyramid, which was completed in 1989, along with a new home for Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa.”
• To view the “Mona Lisa” once the renovation is complete, guests will need to purchase an “access ticket” that’s separate from their general museum admission, which Macron said would help minimize overcrowding and create a “different and more peaceful attendance, which will go with what the ‘Mona Lisa’ deserves.”

• The second portion of the bill, if passed, would prohibit pornography in general. This marks the second attempt by the senator to outlaw pornography throughout the state.

• At age 27, Karoline Leavitt is the youngest ever to be named White House press secretary. She’s the sixth working mother in a row to hold the post.
• Leavitt attended Saint Anselm College, a liberal arts school in Manchester, New Hampshire, on an athletic scholarship. She played on the softball team and graduated in 2019 with a bachelor’s degree in politics and communication.
• She wanted to be a reporter, and even worked for local TV station WMUR, but ultimately was “glad I didn’t continue down that path, working on the dark side.”
• When she was 25, she won a 10-way primary for the Republican nomination in 2022, including defeating Trump administration alum Matt Mowers, before losing to Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas in the general election.
  

• “I have known Bobby my whole life; we grew up together,” Caroline Kennedy wrote. “It’s no surprise that he keeps birds of prey as pets because he himself is a predator.”
• “I watched his younger brothers and cousins and cousins follow him down the path of drug addiction. His basement, his garage, his dorm room were always the center of the action where drugs were available and he enjoyed showing off how he put baby chickens and mice in a blender to feed to his hawks. It was often a perverse scene of despair and violence.”

Giraffe helping a little turtle friend go faster..

[image or embed]

— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@amazingnature.bsky.social) January 26, 2025 at 9:02 PM

• See that flag hanging on the left? It has 31 stars. Why was it there? It flew over Commodore Perry’s ship in that exact location in 1853–54 when he led the U.S. Navy’s Far East Squadron into Tokyo Bay to force the opening of Japan’s ports to foreign trade. He was also a distant MacArthur relative, which was why MacArthur requested it to be there. A replica of this historic flag can be seen today on the Surrender Deck of the Battleship Missouri Memorial in Pearl Harbor.
• The U.S. flag flown was just a regular flag, nothing special about it, though there are rumors it was the same flag that flew over the White  House the day Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. However, MacArthur took it to Tokyo and flew it over his headquarters there.
• Since Five-Star Admiral Chester W. Nimitz was on the ship, a blue flag with five white-pointed stars in a circle flew. Five Star General MacArthur also wanted his flag flown, basically the same, but red, also flying but demanded it be flown at the same height, not below. Sailors had to weld an additional flagpole to make this happen.
• Japan’s foreign minister, the guy in front with the top hat, had a wooden leg. When sailors had a rehearsal the day before, the stand-in for him used a wooden mop handle.
• The British sent a table for the signing, but the Americans didn’t want to use it, and it wasn’t big enough anyway. So they got a table from the officers’ mess and overlaid it with a green felt cloth the ship’s officers used for playing cards.

So this is what they look underwater…

[image or embed]

— Nature’s masterpiece (@nature-view.bsky.social) January 24, 2025 at 11:07 PM

The emaciated American hero stood silently in tattered clothing. The OSS men stared at each other with stunned disbelief.

Wainwright broke the silence. “Are you really an American?” he asked.

“General, you are no longer a prisoner of war. You’re going back to the States,” Lamar responded.

Wainwright, however, was conflicted. He had survived over three years of brutal captivity and was afraid of what his fellow Americans thought of him. Would he return to the United States in disgrace and live the remainder of his life in shame?

Wainwright responded slowly, his voice cracking with emotion, and asked the question he had agonized over for three terrible years. “What do the people in the States think of me?”

“You’re considered a hero,” Lamar replied. The tired old general nodded silently but was still not convinced.

It’s one thing to be found and technically free; it was a whole other adventure getting out of there, which involved three days traveling over 100 miles avoiding rogue Japanese infantry, working with uncooperative Russian troops driving U.S. military vehicles that got stuck in the mud, and riding in a train that derailed.

On the August 31, Wainwright landed in Yokohama to meet with General MacArthur. Wainwright was apprehensive, fearing his old commander’s reaction to the general who had surrendered American armed forces in the Philapeens to the Japanese. When MacArthur spotted the weary old soldier, he rushed across a crowded dining room and embraced him. The tough veteran soldiers fought back tears, and spoke in whispers for several moments.

Per Wikipedia: He later received the Medal of Honor, an honor which had first been proposed early in his captivity, in 1942, but was rejected due to the vehement opposition of General MacArthur, who felt that Corregidor should not have been surrendered. MacArthur did not oppose the renewed proposal in 1945.

Wainwright retired on 31 August 1947, upon reaching the mandatory retirement age of 64, stating that he was reluctant to do so. He became a Freemason in May 1946 at Union Lodge No. 7. in Junction City, Kansas, and a Shriner soon after. He died of a stroke in San Antonio, Texas on 2 September 1953, aged. Wainwright was buried in Arlington National Cemetery, next to his wife and near his parents. Present during the funeral were Omar Bradley, George Marshall, and Edward King, with a conspicuous absence of MacArthur.

One other thing I discovered about the Formal Japanese Surrender on the deck of the USS Missouri. As the Japanese are led away the victors put on one final display of Triumph: 1,500 planes, Boeing Superfortresses and navy fighters roar across the sky

Ever wonder what snow in the swamp would look like? This is 5 miles into the Louisiana swamps in the Atchafalaya basin… it’s unreal… having lived down there for the first 28 years of my life, we never saw anything like this.

Smashed records.

Curtesy of Garrett Roberts.

[image or embed]

— Erin Reed (@erininthemorning.com) January 25, 2025 at 3:56 PM

Chiefs-Bills IV

No holds barred at Arrowhead
pic.twitter.com/AvnAMFo7Au

— Kyle Brandt (@KyleBrandt) January 26, 2025

• Republican House members have rushed to introduce bills that would codify Trump’s vision for expanding the U.S. borders by acquiring Greenland and the Panama Canal,
• The measure is an extreme long-shot: It would need a two-thirds vote in both chambers of Congress and be ratified by 38 states to be added to the Constitution.
• Ogles’ amendment would allow any president to serve a third term if their first two terms were non-consecutive.
• The text of the amendment would still prohibit a third term if the first two were consecutive — prohibiting former Presidents Bush, Obama, and Clinton from running again — or a third full term for anyone who has served more than two years of someone else’s term.

• An aide to House Speaker Mike Johnson advised Republican colleagues against subpoenaing former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson as part of their investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack in an effort to prevent the release of sexually explicit texts that lawmakers sent her, according to written correspondence reviewed by The Washington Post and a person familiar with the effort.

• The Ohio State Buckeyes were just crowned the best team in the country. According to an analysis of what each team would be worth on the open market, they’re also the most valuable program in the sport.
• The valuation considers factors such as revenue, growth, cash flow, and sustainability, and accounts for the recent changes in college sports, including the introduction of player compensation.
  

David Byrne and Choir! Choir! Choir! singing David Bowie’s Heroes is exactly what I needed to hear tonight
youtu.be/w7HJZPlJn_U?…

[image or embed]

— Eric Stangel (@ericstangel.bsky.social) January 23, 2025 at 9:17 PM