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#11
Non Hunting/Fishing Photos / Re: Venezuelas New President!
Last post by nastygunz - January 08, 2026, 02:01:42 AM
Show me the oil!
#12
Non Hunting/Fishing Photos / Re: Venezuelas New President!
Last post by FinsnFur - January 07, 2026, 09:22:18 PM
The Venezuelans would be down for it  :laf:
#13
The Tailgate / Today in history 1-7
Last post by remrogers - January 07, 2026, 12:48:54 PM
1789
Jan 7
First U.S. presidential electors chosen

Congress sets January 7, 1789 as the date by which states are required to choose electors for the country's first-ever presidential election. A month later, on February 4, George Washington was elected president by state electors and sworn into office on April 30, 1789.

As it did in 1789, the United States still uses the Electoral College system, which today gives all American citizens over the age of 18 the right to vote for electors, who in turn vote for the president. The president and vice president are the only elected federal officials chosen by the Electoral College instead of by direct popular vote.

Today political parties usually nominate their slate of electors at their state conventions or by a vote of the party's central state committee, with party loyalists often being picked for the job. Members of the U.S. Congress, though, can't be electors. Each state is allowed to choose as many electors as it has senators and representatives in Congress. During a presidential election year, on Election Day (the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November), the electors from the party that gets the most popular votes are elected in a winner-take-all-system, with the exception of Maine and Nebraska, which allocate electors proportionally. In order to win the presidency, a candidate needs a majority of 270 electoral votes out of a possible 538.

On the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December of a presidential election year, each state's electors meet, usually in their state capitol, and simultaneously cast their ballots nationwide. This is largely ceremonial: Because electors nearly always vote with their party, presidential elections are essentially decided on Election Day. Although electors aren't constitutionally mandated to vote for the winner of the popular vote in their state, it is demanded by tradition and required by law in 26 states and the District of Columbia (in some states, violating this rule is punishable by $1,000 fine). Historically, over 99 percent of all electors have cast their ballots in line with the voters. On January 6, as a formality, the electoral votes are counted before Congress and on January 20, the commander in chief is sworn into office.

Critics of the Electoral College argue that the winner-take-all system makes it possible for a candidate to be elected president even if he gets fewer popular votes than his opponent. This happened in the elections of 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000 and 2016.
#14
Non Hunting/Fishing Photos / Re: Venezuelas New President!
Last post by nastygunz - January 07, 2026, 11:55:45 AM
Hes a suave looking cat!
#15
Non Hunting/Fishing Photos / Re: Venezuelas New President!
Last post by msmith - January 07, 2026, 07:07:52 AM
I think he'll be a good one  :biggrin:
#16
The Tailgate / Today in history 1-6
Last post by remrogers - January 06, 2026, 12:27:28 PM
1838
Jan 6
Samuel Morse unveils the telegraph, revolutionizing communication

On January 6, 1838, Samuel Morse's telegraph system is demonstrated for the first time at the Speedwell Iron Works in Morristown, New Jersey. The telegraph, a device which used electric impulses to transmit encoded messages over a wire, would eventually revolutionize long-distance communication, reaching the height of its popularity in the 1920s and 1930s.

Samuel Finley Breese Morse was born April 27, 1791, in Charlestown, Massachusetts. He attended Yale University, where he was interested in art, as well as electricity, still in its infancy at the time. After college, Morse became a painter. In 1832, while sailing home from Europe, he heard about the newly discovered electromagnet and came up with an idea for an electric telegraph. He had no idea that other inventors were already at work on the concept.

Morse spent the next several years developing a prototype and took on two partners, Leonard Gale and Alfred Vail, to help him. In 1838, he demonstrated his invention using Morse code, in which dots and dashes represented letters and numbers. In 1843, Morse finally convinced a skeptical Congress to fund the construction of the first telegraph line in the United States, from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore. In May 1844, Morse sent the first official telegram over the line, with the message: "What hath God wrought!"

Over the next few years, private companies, using Morse's patent, set up telegraph lines around the Northeast. In 1851, the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company was founded; it would later change its name to Western Union. In 1861, Western Union finished the first transcontinental line across the United States. Five years later, the first successful permanent line across the Atlantic Ocean was constructed and by the end of the century telegraph systems were in place in Africa, Asia and Australia.

Because telegraph companies typically charged by the word, telegrams became known for their succinct prose–whether they contained happy or sad news. The word "stop," which was free, was used in place of a period, for which there was a charge. In 1933, Western Union introduced singing telegrams. During World War II, Americans came to dread the sight of Western Union couriers because the military used telegrams to inform families about soldiers' deaths.

Over the course of the 20th century, telegraph messages were largely replaced by cheap long-distance phone service, faxes and email. Western Union delivered its final telegram in January 2006.

Samuel Morse died wealthy and famous in New York City on April 2, 1872, at age 80.
#17
Non Hunting/Fishing Photos / Re: My Eyes!
Last post by nastygunz - January 05, 2026, 11:12:04 PM
 :alscalls:
#18
Non Hunting/Fishing Photos / Re: My Eyes!
Last post by FinsnFur - January 05, 2026, 09:12:01 PM
 :doh2: I'm skipping this one
#19
Big Game / Re: Looking for tracks in the ...
Last post by nastygunz - January 05, 2026, 05:15:17 PM
I tawt I taw a puddy tat.
#20
Big Game / Re: Looking for tracks in the ...
Last post by Okanagan - January 05, 2026, 03:35:06 PM
Finally got a cougar track pic I took the other day to show up here.

It ain't much of a pic!  The track is about 4 inches across.  The most interesting thing about it, for me, is that the cat was walking in my cousin's boot prints made two days before.  The cousin and my son had hunted there a couple of days earlier and the cousin had walked up an unplowed road a couple of hundred yards to check a place where lions often cross the road.  This cat had walked in the cousin's tracks a day or so later.  Easier walking in snow almost belly deep to the cat. 

I can't get rid of the big empty spaces above and below the pic. :shrug: