No, it never happened
The topic’s title sounds very nice and, in another time, I would’ve put something more relaxing or funny.
Unfortunately, times are tough now in Russia. The country, led by an incompetent maniac, obsessed by the fake West’s (or NATO) threat, has invaded Ukraine.
Putin has cooked up a whole mythology to have ideological grounds behind his moves. Its centerpiece is that the West’s main purpose is to destroy Russia. Many people in Russia believe this BS. Many don’t even think that the whole propaganda building is built on fake bricks.
Let’s see one of numerous examples.
Recently, Madeleine Albright died; she was a head of the State Department in the Clinton years, from 1997 to 2001. She was a sharp personality, a very strong diplomat, a refugee from Czechoslovakia in the late 40s. Her original name was Marie Jana Korbelova, of Czech-Jewish origin. This is why she had natural suspicions towards any potentially imperialistic Russian moves and has always been tough on this.
In Russia lots of people, who are somehow interested in politics and international relations, including 100 percent of pro-Kremlin ‘political experts’, are sure that once Madeleine Albright said something like this:
‘It is not fair that Siberia, full of natural resources, belongs to just one country, Russia’.
Putin has several times mentioned this statement, pointing out the West’s aggressive intentions. Funny, but in his first-time reference to it, in 2007, he said: ‘I don’t know if Albright is the author of this but I know lots of people in the West who think like that’.
Later, in 2014 after the Crimea annexation, he directly mentioned Albright’s name in regards to this quotation.
A whole bunch of pro-Kremlin ‘experts’ have been repeating this ever since, drumming the propaganda drums.
But, in fact, these words have never been spoken by Albright.
Albright herself has repeatedly claimed that she’d never said it. No traces of this statement in her official records have ever been found.
Finally, Julia Latynina, a profound Russian opposition journalist and writer, now in exile, has done an investigation. She found out, that the first time this quotation was mentioned was in June 2005, at a website forum.germany.ru, by an anonymous person under the nickname Nataly1001; looking very much like some internet troll.
One year later, in 2006, a former FSB general, Boris Ratnikov, said: ‘Back in the 90s, using Albright’s photo, Russian security services has scanned her brain and found there some pathological hatred towards Slavic people, and her desire to grab Siberia.’
They ‘scanned her brain’ by using her newspaper picture!
Then it was Putin, plus then-FSB chief Patrushev and lots of propagandists who have been repeating this fake thing ever since.
What a classic false flag operation!
No, it never happened
Brigadoon
There are still some tourists, among the huge number of visitors that find the Scottish Highlands absolutely enchanting, who, every year, vainly seek out the village of Brigadoon. Apparently, it only appears visible to outsiders for just one day every hundred years.
The saying goes that on this one day only, if a visiting couple manage to discover the village, then they can be invited to stay if their love is true enough that they are willing to give up the outside world and live there together forever. However, the village and everything in it will disappear for good if any resident decides to leave.
You won’t find it in Google Maps, (though there is a Brigadoon in Australia, a suburb of Perth on the edge of the Darling Scarp. About as far from Scotland as you can get.)
The legend was popularly represented in a Broadway musical, called Brigadoon, back in 1947, written and composed by Lerner and Loewe. It tells the story of two American tourists who stumble across the village, one of whom falls in lover with a Brigadoon resident.
Hollywood continued the myth with a 1954 film starring Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse, which was largely based on the earlier musical.
I have heard a whisper that the village becomes visible on a February 22, in case you fancy a shot at proving that it does, actually, happen. But take it from me – it didn’t, except on stage and screen. Mind you, there’s plenty of folk who will keep looking!
No, it never happened
When I was young, some smart people did a study and figured out that the planet would run out of oil in thirty years. This was an established fact: we were using oil and it could never be replaced. On September 23rd, 1976 Jimmy Carter was in a Presidential Debate with Gerald Ford when he said the world would run out of oil by 2011.
If you’re younger than thirty or forty, you may have never have heard these predictions, but they were common and they were made by some serious people. I admit it, it sounded true to me. I mean logically, if you have a certain amount of something and you use it at a certain rate, then it has to run out, right?
Of course, it never happened, we didn’t run out of oil and now I don’t think we ever will. Back in the cave man days, we relied on the Middle East for oil. Now they are awash in cash, flashy cars and yachts. That’s your money they are wasting – well except maybe Dubai. Those guys seem to understand that someday they really are going to run out of oil.
Today the US is the world’s top producer and Russia was number two. Of course, nobody knows where that’s going to end-up. Regardless, the unstable nations of sand no longer dictate the price of oil to the planet and those days are not coming back – ever.
I also think we will never completely run out of oil. Consider this: most of the nations of Europe and North America have passed laws dictating we will only buy electric cars in fifteen or twenty years. Even China has jumped on the battery powered bandwagon.
Airbus is developing hydrogen powered jets. The engine has already been built and they bolted the thing to the side of an A380. This is not some dream that will never leave paper. Global shipping seems to be a little behind but even there it’s an issue being worked on.
So no, that never happened and I don’t think it ever will. Not because oil is not finite but because we will use so much less of the stuff. Of course, there is one huge force working against this: big oil. Some companies, like Shell, are working to diversify, while others, like Exxon, have decided they will stick with only doing fossil fuels. I assume that means they believe they can use their considerable political clout to stop the shift away from oil. I think that diesel powered super-yacht has already left the harbour.