Mahogany Bathtub

If you go to the WordPress home page, you will see a selection of blog posts they like. One day, they featured Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub.
MFB ( please, no acronym jokes, except by the blogowner) is another gem of the blogosphere. As you may have guessed, it is named for Millard Fillmore. MF was POTUS ( and many POTUS are MF) between 1850 and 1853. The last whig to serve as POTUS ( history does not record whether he wore one), Mr. Fillmore helped delay the War Between the States for ten years.
After he left office, Mr. Fillmore visited Atlanta GA in 1854, becoming the first POTUS to do so. A road in San Francisco was named Fillmore Street, and loaned the name to a famous concert hall. Johnny Carson made him a punch line to many jokes. And, there is the bathtub.
In 1917, with America mixed up in a European war, H.L. Mencken published a column in the New York Evening Mail. He claimed that the bathtub had been invented in 1842, and was a controversial device. ( The first model was made of mahogany lined with lead.) President Millard Fillmore installed a bathtub in the White House in 1850, and greatly increased the acceptance of the invention. The story was a lie, but was believed without question by the (unwashed) public.
The present day Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub is one of millions of DYI internet portals. Recently someone found a letter, written by Alexander Stephens, the Vice President of the Confederate States of America.
In 1860, the election of Abraham Lincoln was seen by many as a disaster. Mr. Stephens disagreed :
“I know the man [Lincoln] well,” [Stephens wrote], “he is not a bad man. He will make as good a President as Fillmore did and better too in my opinion.”
MFB is a versatile facility, and takes an interest in the issue of carbon pollution. Maybe a blog named for a political hoax should take an interest in hot air. The post in question deals with one of the “tipping points” in the downhill slide the planet seems to be on. There is apparently methane gas trapped in the frozen arctic regions. When these waters are heated, they will release methane, which is a strong greenhouse gas. Apparently, the arctic methane problem is worse than previously thought. This is something that cannot be blamed on cattle or Al Gore.