The favorite alcoholic beverage of Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski, played by Jeff Bridges in the 1998 Coen Brothers cult-favorite film The Big Lebowski, is the White Russian.
White Russia (now Belarus) and Ukraine were awarded seats as founding members of the United Nations, the only members of the UN that were not sovereign nations. They were constituent republics of the USSR at the time, and were granted the status to balance the UN membership between eastern and western bloc nations.
Cats who like White Russians might consider this Wikipedia quote:
Prussian Blue was an American white nationalist pop preteen sibling musical duo formed in early 2003 by April Gaede, mother of Lynx and Lamb Gaede, fraternal twins born on June 30, 1992. The twins referred to the Holocaust as a myth and their group was described as racist and white supremacist in nature. In 2011, in an interview, the twins renounced their previous politics. Lamb was quoted saying, “I’m not a white nationalist anymore. My sister and I are pretty liberal now.”
Swedish band Blue Swede had two hits, “Hooked on a Feeling”, a cover of British singer Jonathan King’s cover of BJ Thomas’s original, followed by a cover of The Association’s “Never My Love”.
Swede Risberg, when he died at age 81, was the last survivor of the “eight men out”, the players banned from baseball for the 1919 Chicago Black Sox scandal. Risberg and several of his Chicago teammates continued to play semi-professional ball for a decade after being banned from professional play.
The root vegetable known as a swede in England, a neep in Scots and a rutabaga in the US is a cross between the cabbage and the turnip. The term rutabaga comes from the old Swedish dialectal word rotabagge, from rot (root) + bagge (short, stumpy object; probably related to bag)
According to this Guardian article, it’s nae so clear:
Unlike neeps, yams and sweet potatoes are completely different, and not related to each other at all botanically. Sweet potatoes are native to the Americas and have huge amounts of vitamin A and Beta carotene. Yams, with much lighter flesh, are native to the old world, and have low-to-moderate nutritional value. The USDA prohibits the labeling of sweet potatoes as yams.
Arctic predators such as polar bears have a greater capacity to store vitamin A in their liver than most other animals. It is thought to be because of the effect of naturally occurring vitamin A in marine algae being passed up the food chain to the polar bear. So great is the polar bears ability to store this vitamin that consuming the liver can cause Hypervitaminosis A, too much vitamin A for the human body to handle, causing vitamin A poisoning, which can lead to death.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) guidelines, eggs are graded and labeled as AA, A, and B. U.S. Grade AA eggs are nearly perfect. The whites are thick and firm and the yolks are free from any defects. The shells are clean and without cracks. U.S. Grade A eggs appear to be the same as Grade AA, but the difference is a slightly lower interior quality. U.S. Grade B eggs are noticeably different. They may have slight stains and be irregular in shape and size. The quality of the interior is further reduced. Grade B eggs are not sold in supermarkets, but are used commercially in powdered egg products or liquid eggs.
“Hooked on a Feeling” was prominently featured in both the Quentin Tarantino film Reservoir Dogs and the Marvel Comics sf adventure Guardians of the Galaxy. The USDA is not referred to in either movie.
ETA: Ooops! New page.
Norwegian-born Swedish singer and songwriter Anni-Frid Synni likely is best known as one of the lead singers of the Swedish pop band, ABBA (ᗅᗺᗷᗅ). In 1975 she recorded the duet “Med varann” with Swedish singer Björn Skifs who in 1972 had sung with a band named Blåblus. In 1974, Björn Skifs, with the Swedish band Blue Swede, had a #1 hit on Billboard Hot 100 with a cover of “Hooked on a Feeling”. This was the first time ever any Swedes had come that far with a song in America.
Ooga Chaka Ooga Ooga Ooga Chaka…
A popular song written in 1914, “Aba Daba Honeymoon” enjoyed its greatest popularity when released by Debbie Reynolds in 1951. It went
“Abba, daba, daba, daba, daba, daba, dab, Said the Monkey to the Chimp”.
During the American Civil War, Maj. Gen. John F. Reynolds is believed to have turned down command of the Army of the Potomac when offered it by President Abraham Lincoln. The President could not assure him that there would be no political interference in the army’s orders, given the risk posed by Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Confederate Army of Northern Virginia to the capital, Washington, D.C. Within weeks, Reynolds was killed on the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg, July 1, 1863.
Reynolds Wrap aluminum foil wrap was first produced in 1947 in Louisville KY. Prior to that, tin foil was produced in the late 1800s. It imparted a tin taste to food. Aluminum foil first replaced tin foil in 1910 when it was created and produced in Switzerland. The first use of foil in the United States was in 1913 for wrapping Life Savers, candy bars, and gum.
Aluminium foils thicker than 25 µm (1 mil) are impermeable to oxygen and water. Foils thinner than this become slightly permeable due to minute pinholes caused by the production process. Standard household foil is typically 0.016 mm (0.63 mils) thick, and heavy duty household foil is typically 0.024 mm (0.94 mils).
In 2003, annual production of aluminium foil was approximately 880,000 tons in Europe and 660,000 tons in the USA.
The capstone of the Washington monument is itself topped with aluminium, at that time a very rare substance.
It was only the development of major sources of electricity which allowed for mass refinement of aluminium from bauxite ore.
American poet Walt Whitman wrote a short poem to commemorate the February 1885 dedication of the Washington Monument:
*Ah, not this marble, dead and cold:
Far from its base and shaft expanding—the round zones circling,
comprehending,
Thou, Washington, art all the world’s, the continents’ entire—
not yours alone, America,
Europe’s as well, in every part, castle of lord or laborer’s cot,
Or frozen North, or sultry South—the African’s—the Arab’s in
his tent,
Old Asia’s there with venerable smile, seated amid her ruins;
(Greets the antique the hero new? ‘tis but the same—the heir
legitimate, continued ever,
The indomitable heart and arm—proofs of the never-broken
line,
Courage, alertness, patience, faith, the same—e’en in defeat
defeated not, the same) :
Wherever sails a ship, or house is built on land, or day or night,
Through teeming cities’ streets, indoors or out, factories or farms,
Now, or to come, or past—where patriot wills existed or exist,
Wherever Freedom, pois’d by Toleration, sway’d by Law,
Stands or is rising thy true monument.
*
On or about August 1, 2008, a metric ton of aluminum had a market price of about (US) $3,050. A year-and-a-half later, on or about February 1, 2010, the price had fallen to about (US) $1,030, a two-thirds drop —based on IMF graph at Aluminum - Monthly Price - Commodity Prices - Price Charts, Data, and News - IndexMundi
Ninja’d—disregard last post of mine.