Some reactions have to be run at very low temperatures. This is one of them. If you mix this stuff together at room temperature your internal organs would be found in several time zones.
tl,dr; Remdesivir is one of the more promising drugs for coronavirus. It is also a king hell b—h to synthesize.
You could do a lot worse than browse through some of Mr. Bloom’s other articles if you’re bored, especially the ones about meth chemistry and fentanyl. We’ve all heard of fentanyl and some of us have probably heard of carfentanil. But have you ever heard of ohmefentanyl?
(I know some of these are a couple of years old. I only discovered Mr. Bloom and the ACSH site over the weekend, when Hacker News linked to his Remdesivir article.)
Shifting gears here, since I brought everyone down earlier. These go out to great and good FOTB RoadRich, who is to submarines and aircraft what Lawrence is to tanks.
Have you ever said to yourself, “Self, I wonder how I can get out of a submarine that’s under water?” Of course you have.
(I actually learned somewhat similar techniques when I was taking scuba training.)
Bonus video #1: I’m putting these next two in as bonus videos because they’re a bit longer than my 15 minute target. With our Saturday night movie group in lockdown, we’ve been reduced to watching broadcast TV. Interestingly, H&I is showing “12 O’Clock High” (the TV series) at 10 Central on Saturday nights. We watched the movie a little less than a year ago, and I thought it was an extraordinary film. I don’t have enough episodes under my belt to be able to judge the series yet.
Anyway: how do you fly a B-17?
Bonus video #2: how do you stop flying a B-17? For example, if you have to ditch at sea?
For those of you who don’t read the YouTube notes: both of these videos feature Arthur Kennedy, who played “Jackson Bentley” (the journalist based loosely on Lowell Thomas) in “Lawrence of Arabia”.
Okay, bonus video #3, which I just happened to stumble upon: for the moment, the pilot episode of “12 O’Clock High”, “Golden Boy Had 9 Black Sheep” is available on YouTube. Those of you who have seen the movie might recognize some similarities in plot.
On November 8, 1970, Mr. Dempsey kicked a 63 yard field goal on the last play of the game to beat the Detroit Lions 19-17. It was one of two wins for the Saints that year. It was also a NFL record which stood for 43 years: several other players tied it in that time, but it wasn’t until 2013 that Matt Prater of the Broncos kicked a 64 yard field goal in Denver.
According to the statement from his family, Mr. Dempsey died of corona virus complications. He was 73 years old and in a nursing home after being diagnosed with dementia in 2012.
Edited to add 4/6: as Lawrence points out, while YouTube will let you embed the videos, you can’t play them here because the NFL is a bunch of mindless jerks who’ll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes. I’ve left the embeds in place because you can click through and watch them on YouTube directly. Sorry about that: I should not have underestimated the stupidity of professional sports leagues.
Fifty years ago today, just before midnight on April 5, 1970, two California Highway Patrol officers, Walt Frago and Roger Gore, stopped a car with two men in it. There had been reports that a similar vehicle had been involved in a road rage incident a short time before.
The two men in the car, Jack Twinning and Bobby Davis, were heavily armed criminals. They had been planning the theft of explosives from a construction site near where they were stopped. Davis had dropped Twinning off earlier in the evening to scope out the construction site (other sources say that they were testing walkie-talkies they planned to use in the robbery, and that Twinning was taking some target practice), made an illegal U-turn across a highway median, and brandished a firearm at a driver he nearly hit. The display of the firearm was what prompted the call to CHP: the responding officers had no knowledge of Twinning and Davis’s criminal past, their plan to steal explosives, or of the weapons they had in the car. As a matter of fact, the initial report stated that there was only one occupant in the car.
When they were stopped, the two men initially refused to exit the vehicle. Gore managed to clear Davis from the car and started to frisk him. But before they could get Twinning out of the car, he shot and killed Officer Frago. Officer Gore shot back at Twinning, but was shot by Davis at close range.
Two other officers, James Pence and George Alleyn, were nearby and responded as backup for Gore and Frago. They got to the scene just after Office Gore was killed and immediately came under fire from Twinning and Davis. Alleyn fired on Davis with his issue shotgun, but was unable to score an incapacitating hit before running out of rounds. He then drew his issue sidearm and continued to fire on Davis, but was hit with multiple rounds of 00 buckshot from Davis’s sawed-off shotgun and killed.
A nearby citizen, Gary Kness, tried to help the officers, returning fire with Alleyn’s service revolver, but was also unable to score an incapacitating hit before running out of ammo.
Officer Pence emptied his revolver at Twinning and had to reload. CHP did not issue speed loaders at the time. He loaded six rounds and was closing the cylinder on his revolver when Twinning snuck up behind him and killed him.
Twinning and Davis fled as a third CHP unit arrived. Davis broke into a camper, pistol-whipped the occupant, and stole the vehicle. CHP was informed, stopped the camper, and Davis (who at this point had no loaded guns) surrendered. He was sentenced to death, but that was commuted to life in prison. He apparently committed suicide in his cell in August of 2009.
Twinning broke into a house and took an occupant hostage. The house was surrounded by police, and after a several hour standoff, they deployed tear gas and stormed the house. Twinning killed himself with a shotgun he had taken from Officer Frago.
None of the officers had been with CHP for more than two years. Three out of the four probably would have survived if they had been wearing soft body armor, but this was 1970: bulletproof vests at the time were heavy and bulky, and Richard Davis didn’t design the first Second Chance vest until 1976.
This is one of those moments in history that justifies the use of the phrase “agonizing reappraisal”. After the incident, CHP authorized, and then started issuing, speed loaders. CHP also reevaluated their training, and shared their investigative findings widely. Ultimately, the Newhall incident was one of the events that kicked off the “officer survival” movement in the US.
Mr. Ayoob’s followup, “New Info On Newhall“, is available online at the AH website, as is a third article focusing on Gary Kness and Daniel Schwartz (the camper owner): “The Armed Citizens Of Newhall”.
I’ve been looking at California newspapers thinking there would be a retrospective, but I haven’t found one. If I do, I’ll add it here.
As best as I’ve been able to determine, Gary Kness is still alive (he’d be around 82 today). He was honored by CHP for his efforts to save the officers, and is regarded as a hero by the California Highway Patrol to this day.
If anybody has anything to add about this incident (hi, Karl!) please feel welcome to leave a comment. I’ve tried to be as accurate as possible, but some of the information out there is contradictory, incomplete, or inaccurate.
Back to real police work. While it wasn’t on my radar when I started this last week, it turns out that I am building up to a post tomorrow. (I’m not going to stop after tomorrow, though.)
Interestingly, there are two major events that took place in different years, but within a week of each other in April, that I want to make note of. There’s also a third event that took place in early May 40 years ago that I plan to note as well.
Bonus video #1: great and good FOTB (and official firearms trainer of WCD) Karl Rehn sent me this one, and I already had it on the list. I’ve been a little hesitant to post it, because the quality isn’t all that great, but it has two things I can’t resist:
Bonus video #2: “Shotgun or Sidearm?”, another police training film explaining when it is appropriate to use each weapon. This might be educational for some of my readers who are not people of the gun.
Steven Levy’s book on the case, The Unicorn’s Secret: Murder in the Age of Aquarius is available in a Kindle edition, and that’s probably the way to go if you want to read it. (As far as I know, that’s the only book about the case, though it was written before Einhorn’s capture and extradition: I don’t know if Levy updated subsequent editions or the Kindle version.)
Great and good FOTB Borepatch tipped me off to the death of Bill Withers. The paper of record has a preliminary obit up, which will probably be replaced with a full one later.
The NYT does have what I think is a fascinating obit for William Frankland. Dr. Frankland was a pioneering allergist.
I’ve been an irregular reader of Terry Teachout’s “About Last Night” blog for a while now. I don’t watch that much theater, in NYC or elsewhere, but I enjoy reading his writing. And I also enjoy the historical videos he posts on a regular basis.
I’ve been following him more closely in the past few weeks. Mr. Teachout’s wife has been mortally ill with pulmonary hypertension, and (after months of waiting) received a double lung transplant in early March.
She passed away on Tuesday. I’m heartbroken for Mr. Teachout (even though I don’t know him personally), and extend my condolences to him from afar.
Lawrence sent over the obit for Adam Schlesinger, Fountains of Wayne guy and film and television composer.
Last night, I realized that we are coming up on the 50th anniversary of a historic (and awful) event. I’m working on a post that will go up on that date, which is a few days away.
In the meantime, I thought maybe I’d post some things that are thematically appropriate for the anniversary of that event.
Have you ever said to yourself, “Self, what’s the right way to do a felony vehicle stop?”
Well, now you know. Or at least, now you know what the recommended procedure was in 1973.
I would ordinarily say, “Don’t try this at home”, but if your home life is such that you’re thinking about doing felony vehicle stops there, nothing I can say is really going to make any difference.
Continuing with the “random stuff that popped up in my YouTube recommendations” theme, here’s one of those Navy training videos. This one is actually better quality than some of the other ones I’ve been watching, and contains a lot of nice action shots: “The Job Of The EA-6B Prowler”:
Bonus video #1: this actually wasn’t a random YouTube recommendation, but something McThag linked to a while back that might be interesting to some folks: “Defensive Electronic Countermeasures”, a 1962 training film about various then current ECM gear. It is a little longer than I’d like (close to 30 minutes instead of 15), but I think it is a nice historical artifact.
Bonus video #2: also not random, and nothing to do with military aviation. I actually saw this on whatever the broadcast game show channel was this morning, and was amused: Robert Moog (and two other guys) on “To Tell the Truth”:
It particularly amuses me that the first question asked…is about P.D.Q. Bach.
…I’m gonna go have me some fun!
And what do you consider fun?
Fun, natural fun!”
–Tom Tom Club, “Genius of Love”
Now that I’m on indefinite home confinement (like the rest of Travis County) I’ve found myself not just reading more, but also watching more crap on YouTube.
“Crap” may not actually be fair. I’ve enjoyed the USCSB videos for a while now. AOPA’s Air Safety Institute videos are educational as well. And, yes, I’ve been watching my share of Ian’s videos in these times of struggle. Shamefully, I’ve also been watching clips from “Bar Rescue”.
My point, and I do have one, is: some interesting things have been showing up in my YouTube recommendations, and I thought I’d start highlighting those. At least, until the crisis passes.
Rules: I want to keep them short, and ideally want to pick ones that people haven’t heard of. So no “Surviving Edged Weapons”, because that’s close to an hour and half and has been highlighted on Red Letter Media. But I think at least some of these will be vintage police training videos…
…let’s start with this one, “Vehicle Ambush: Counterattacks”. If for no other reason than that awesome 1970’s wakka jawakka opening soundtrack.
Tomorrow: I’m trying to decide if I want to go with Jack Webb (although I don’t think the video quality is all that great) or possibly a vintage US Navy training film. (Nothing about VD, though.)
I check out Uncle’s site somewhere between every other day and every day: he’s been on top of what’s going on in the gun sphere for as long as I’ve been following him. I join with everyone else in that sphere in extending my condolences to him and to his people.
He was probably most famous for “Re-Animator” (which, as you know, Bob, was based on an H.P. Lovecraft story). He also directed “From Beyond”, and some less well known works (“Space Truckers”, “Robot Jox”).