PEERLESS PLANES, QEII, BLT AND BTS

The largest airplane, Stratolaunch (by wingspan), flew for the second time last month, a decade after first imagined by someone I mentioned this past Sunday, Paul Allen, who with Bill Gates founded Microsoft.  Unfortunately, Allen never saw it take flight.  Read the details here.

That plane will be reminiscent of Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose, the wooden (made of birch, not spruce) Flying Boat that was originally designed to ferry American troops to Europe to avoid being sunk by German submarines.  It was six times larger than any aircraft of its time, and made only one flight, in 1947.  The plane can today be found, of all the places, in McMinnville, Oregon, where volunteers are trying to restore it.

Did you know the USA has a Doomsday Plane?

The following video indicates the power of Queen Elizabeth II.  Donald Trump is not mentioned, but the Queen cannot be arrested and pays her taxes...even though she legally does not need to do this.  She is the largest landowner in the world with 6.6 billion acres.  

The Queen makes around $100 million/year and has a net worth of $88 billion, only #5 of royal leaders.   The House of Saud, now headed by Mohammed bin Salman, is the wealthiest at $1.4 trillion.  No wonder we are so deferential to him.  But here is that clip about QEII:

Next, the story of BLT:

They lived together as brothers for 15 years, but Leo the lion died in 2016 and Shere Khan the tiger in 2018.  You can still visit Baloo the bear at Noah's Ark Animal Sanctuary in Locust Grove, Georgia.  He weighs 800 pounds and likes Tootsie Pop and Oreos.  You know, I always thought the male lion had an impressive mane of hair around the neck.  I guess not.

BTS just released Butter.  Watch it hit #1 on Billboard.  Already, there have been 137 million You Tube views.  Maybe not for most of you, but you gotta admit it's more bearable than Gangnam Style of nearly a decade ago, which has now received more than 4 billion pings.

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