Sincx presents: Fun California Facts! A daily dose of sunshine for the rest

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > Sincx presents: Fun California Facts! A daily dose of sunshine for the rest

sincx: Jul 13, 2012; furiously masturbating to anime titties

of you miserable lot that will be stuck with the Trumpkins when this country inevitably shatters once Sessions sends in US Marshals to shoot black people in Chicago. Bookmark this thread to learn about California's exciting culture and history, so when you arrive at our border checkpoints in 2018 asking for asylum, you can say a few nice things and we won't send you back to Arizona.

Fun California Fact #1

The name California (probably) originally derived from "caliph" as in "caliphate."

quote:

The name California is surmised by some writers to have derived from a fictional paradise peopled by Black Amazons and ruled by Queen Calafia, who fought alongside Muslims and whose name was chosen to echo the title of a Muslim leader, the Caliph, fictionally implying that California was the Caliphate.

The story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandi�n, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodr�guez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a remote land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts, and rich in gold.
. . .
When Spanish explorer Francisco de Ulloa was exploring the western coast of North America, his initial surveys of the Baja California Peninsula led him to believe that it was an island rather than part of the larger continent, so he dubbed the "island" after the mythical island in Montalvo's writing. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, lasted as late as the 1700s.

No wonder the Ninth Circuit is so pro-Muslim. Inshallah!

_{Actually London, not San Francisco, but whatever.}

That leads right to Fun California Fact #2

People used to think California was an island!

quote:

The Spanish Conquistador Hern�n Cort�s de Monroy y Pizarro made an expedition to Cabo San Lucas on the tippy tip of Baja California in the mid-1500s. The explorers saw water separating California from the mainland, and they presumed that it must hold true all the way north to Oregon. Wouldn�t you?

For that matter, mapmakers back in Europe presumed California must be HUGE compared with North America. �No one knew,� McLaughlin mused. �They just made it up!�

So it went over the next two centuries.

In the early days, Spanish sailors resisted extensive maritime exploration of the West Coast. Prevailing winds blew ships away from the land, making it hard going. Also, the men had no interest in dallying about on the land. Baja California was desert, so the men presumed that was true north of San Diego, too.

�That was about as far as they wanted to go,� McLaughlin said. They had lost hope of spotting Amazonian women covered in gold jewelry. �Oh, I think sailors were very disappointed.� You would think the disappointment would lead the early explorers to question other presumptions, too. No.

In 1603, the Spanish government funded an expedition farther north. But even then, the sailors didn�t understand what they were looking at. For instance, they passed by San Francisco Bay, socked in with summer fog. Nobody saw massive rivers draining into the Pacific Ocean, which would suggest a substantial connection to a major land mass to the East. �They made it as far as Point Arena before turning back,� McLaughlin said.

Undeniable proof of geographic reality would come from the East Side. Jesuit priests stationed in Baja California traveled as far north as what we know today as Tucson, and they couldn�t help but notice the southern tip of the Colorado River draining into the Gulf of California.

The Jesuits wrote back to the Vatican, but European mapmakers still clung to their romantic presumptions. McLaughlin said there was even one prominent London cartographer who insisted he had ship captains � in his office! � who swore they�d sailed completely around the island. (Wouldn�t you like to be a fly on the wall for that conversation?)

Finally, as the preponderance of evidence grew too great to ignore, Spain�s King Ferdinand VI put an end to the debate with an official proclamation in 1747.

Come back daily(-ish) for more FUN CALIFORNIA FACTS!

# ¿ Feb 10, 2017 04:09

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# ¿ May 7, 2024 02:23

sincx: Jul 13, 2012; furiously masturbating to anime titties

Welcome back to another edition of Sincx's Original "often imitated, never duplicated" Fun California Facts!

Fun California Fact #3

I wasn't kidding about those border checkpoints.

California has 16 border checkpoints that covers every major roadway into the state.

While a few other states like Florida inspects trucks and vans, California is the only state that asserts a right to stop every single vehicle, including passenger cars, and perform a physical inspection in the name of protecting agriculture:

quote:

The sight of a cooler will prompt a carefully worded question from an inspector. Asking generally about a container's contents can make drivers feel they are being called liars after initially saying they have no fruits or vegetables, Du Bose said.

"You want to have the public on your side so they cooperate with you instead of opposing you," he said.

Cars from other states are sometimes physically checked. A driver recently was asked to open the trunk of his Tennessee-registered sports car, not because the inspector thought he was hiding anything, but to check for stowaways in the insulating strip around the trunk's edge.

"Sometimes, pests can fall from trees and get in there without the driver even knowing it," Du Bose said.

Likewise, inspector Andrew Maes opened the back of a trailer towed by a truck with Texas plates. Ignoring the jumble of furniture inside, he checked the rubber door gasket for the fire ants that proliferate in Texas.

Any animal cages or food bring questions. Most pets are fine, but animals banned in California, such as ferrets, are seized and placed with a shelter.

Fruit is profiled: Foreign oranges have thin rinds. Fuzzy navels or bruised skin prompt an examination with a microscope in a small room near the inspection lanes, and reports to headquarters in Sacramento.

Contaminated pieces are double-bagged for disposal in the deepest part of a county landfill to prevent pests from escaping, Du Bose said.

Stumbling across other substances - I-15 is a major cocaine trafficking corridor, Du Bose noted - will not prompt an arrest but perhaps stalling while notifying the CHP or other officers.

"We are not law enforcement," Du Bose repeatedly tells his crew.

One night on the graveyard shift, Du Bose recounted, a driver insisted the trailer he was towing was empty. But Du Bose noted an unusually tiny gap between the tires and fenders, so he opened the back and found 22 illegal aliens inside. At that point, he turned the matter over to the CHP.

Some commercial trucks can roll through nonstop, such as those working for Macy's or some of Wal-Mart's fleet. Others must present paperwork showing their load meets California standards.

Luis Camargo had to take an unexpected break at the station, as he hauled moving containers filled with people's possessions on a trip that had started in New York state. Without proper documentation, he wasn't going anywhere.

"Only California and Florida are like this," he said, as he struggled to get a cellphone signal to his home office.

But to show up without papers, said supervisor Elliot Morris, "They should know better than that."

Papers please, bitches.

Fun California Fact #4

In addition to fruits and vegetables, those border stations also check for pests, which in California include ferrets. California is the only state in the continental US that bans ferret on a state-wide basis. (Ferrets are also prohibited in Hawaii, New York City, and Washington, D.C.)

Of course, this has led to a decades-long movement by ferret owners to get the ban overturned. After getting no where with the state, ferret owners have been trying to get a ferret legalization proposition on a statewide ballot. _{(California's referendum system will definitely be a recurring feature of Fun California Facts...)}

In the meantime, ferret lovers have banded together and found ways around many of the border checkpoints so they can smuggle their ferrets into the state.

They have 8 of these maps for their bootleg runs.

In any case, the ban doesn't seem to be too successful. Even though ferrets are illegal, apparently 25% of ferret supplies sold in the US are sold to California.

Remember to check in over the weekend for another installment of Sincx's Original Fun California Facts!

sincx has issued a correction as of 22:32 on Feb 10, 2017

# ¿ Feb 10, 2017 22:30

sincx: Jul 13, 2012; furiously masturbating to anime titties

Mayor Dave posted:

these are good fun facts, maybe you could do one about lake tulare since i'm waaay too lazy

As can be seen from the last week's events, California's water issues can fill an entire forum. But if any one want to do a GUEST Fun California Fact, go right ahead!

Fun California Fact #5: A Confederate general designed California's state seal

California's seal was actually designed by a Virginian who was briefly sent to California around 1849 as part of the U.S. Army. Afraid that his design would be rejected by California's constitutional convention, Garnett asked Caleb Lyon, one of the participants in the convention, to submit the design on his behalf.

Garnett quickly returned to the east coast, and when the Civil War started in 1861, he resigned his commission in the US Army and became a brigadier general in the Confederate Army. He died that same year, becoming the first general officer killed in the Civil War.

Garnett and the California State Seal design in 1849

Fun California Fact #6: Various California state seals are not identical

As soon as the seal was adopted in 1850, people started arguing as to whether the body of water in the seal is San Francisco Bay or the Sacramento River. The designer, Garnett, wrote in a letter to Lyon that his design was a view of San Francisco Bay with Mt. Diablo in the background. However, the official dispatch from the convention was that the seal depicted the waters of Sacramento. Printers in various cities would "nudge" the elements of the seal to favor their personal interpretation.

Eventually, in 1937, the state legislature decided the split the difference and standardize the seal as follows: the gap between the mountains would be similar to the proportions of the Golden Gate, but the mountains themselves would be snow-capped, like the Sierras visible form Sacramento.

Redesigned seal in 1937

But this hasn't stopped the proliferation of different seal designs.

For example, this 1955 seal on the Employment Development Department headquarters has the Golden Gate Bridge:

This 1998 seal in the Hiram Johnson State Building has hills instead of mountains, a terrifying bear, and also only 26 stars instead of 31 (Fun California Fact #6a: California was the 31st state to join the Union!):

The designer of this 1950 seal got a bit creative with the Greek letters:

And my personal favorite rendition, the 1894 statute where Athena and the bear have escaped from the seal and are now grimly surveying the gritty streetscape of the Tenderloin.

sincx has issued a correction as of 10:49 on Feb 19, 2017

# ¿ Feb 19, 2017 10:46

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > Sincx presents: Fun California Facts! A daily dose of sunshine for the rest