• While working as an advertising writer for Macy’s, Margaret Fishback discovered that the famous department store had a two-foot cake tester on sale. She thought that the idea of a two-foot cake tester was ridiculous, so she wrote, “This cake tester will come in handy the next time you bake a cake two feet high.” However, this advertisement brought in more orders than Macy’s had two-foot cake testers. From this experience, Ms. Fishback and Macy’s learned that humor sells.
• Simon and Schuster once published a children’s book titled Dr. Dan the Bandage Man. As a publicity gimmick, they decided to include a half-dozen band-aids in each book, so publisher Richard Simon sent this telegram to a friend at Johnson and Johnson: “PLEASE SHIP TWO MILLION BAND-AIDS IMMEDIATELY.” The following day Mr. Simon received this telegram in reply: “BAND-AIDS ON THEIR WAY. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO YOU?”
• When horror writer Stephen King decided to live in England for a year, he knew exactly the kind of house he wanted to live in, so he put this advertisement in an English newspaper: “Wanted, a draughty Victorian house in the country with dark attic and creaking floorboards, preferably haunted.”
• G.K. Chesterton visited Broadway and Times Square at night when the scene was brightly lit by advertising signs. He gazed at the sight for a while, then said to a friend, “How beautiful it would be for someone who could not read.”
Alcohol
• In their book, The Perfect London Walk, writers Roger Ebert (the movie critic) and Daniel Curley (a short-story writer) describe what they consider to be the best walk in London — one that lasts for hours and takes the walker through the Hampstead Heath, the Spaniards Inn, Highgate Cemetery, etc. However, Mr. Curley warns the reader that the walk will take you past several pubs, and so you may be tempted away from your walk. In one memorable case, a man named John McHugh stopped at a pub and abandoned the walk after covering scarcely 150 yards.
• While traveling abroad, Mark Twain heard of an American student who had struggled to learn German for three whole months, but who had learned to say only “zwei glas,” which means “two glasses” (of beer). Still, the student reflected, he had learned those words very thoroughly.
• Percy Hammond, the drama critic, grew up in Cadiz, Ohio, in the late 19th century. One of his favorite memories was marching in a temperance parade as a small child and carrying a banner inscribed with this slogan: “Tremble, King Alcohol, for I shall grow up.”
Animals
• As a teenager, Gary Paulsen, author of the young adult novel Hatchet, was the favorite victim of a bullying street gang. Late one night, as he left his job at a bowling alley, he tried to find a new route home by leaving from the roof. As he climbed from the roof into an alley, he stepped on a ferocious dog. Frightened, he threw the dog half of a hamburger he was carrying, then he ran from the alley — right into the hands of members of the bullying street gang, who immediately started to beat him. Suddenly, the ferocious dog jumped out of the alley and began biting gang members. Gary gave the dog the rest of his hamburger, and after the dog bit the gang leader in another encounter, the gang left Gary strictly alone. (Eventually, Gary found the dog, now friendly to everyone except Gary’s enemies, a new life on a farm.)
Talc is a clay mineral, composed of hydrated magnesium silicate with the chemical formula Mg3Si4O10(OH)2. Talc in powdered form, often combined with corn starch, is used as baby powder. This mineral is used as a thickening agent and lubricant; is an ingredient in ceramics, paint, and roofing material; and is a main ingredient in many cosmetics. It occurs as foliated to fibrous masses, and in an exceptionally rare crystal form. It has a perfect basal cleavage and an uneven flat fracture, and it is foliated with a two-dimensional platy form.
The Mohs scale of mineral hardness is based on scratch hardness comparison, ranging from 1 to 10, a value of 10 being the hardest of minerals. The hardness of talc, the softest of minerals, defines the value of 1 on the scale. (Any mineral with a value less than 2 can be scratched by a fingernail.) When scraped on a streak plate, talc produces a white streak; though this indicator is of little importance, because most silicate minerals produce a white streak. Talc is translucent to opaque, with colors ranging from whitish grey to green with a vitreous and pearly luster. Talc is not soluble in water, and is slightly soluble in dilute mineral acids.
Soapstone is a metamorphic rock composed predominantly of talc.
Source
Mark. was first, and correct, with:
Talc.
Mac Mac said:
Talc
David of Moon Valley wrote:
….the MightMightyWiki tells me it’s Talc….
i’ll try to keep answering as best i can…but like Deborah, The Master Gardener, (were just a wee tad west of her) i am a bit anxious about the predicted incoming electrical storms…have bags and foods and waters and guitars packed, or almost, ready to go if evacuation is necessary, here in the Valley of the Moon….
ain’t dis some shit?…3 of the past 4 years have been this way, pack bags of essentials and have them ready by the door, or in already in the car….from late July through mid-October, at least….way it’s going there are going to be A Lot more climate refugees from around here pulling up stakes and heading north…
all about the fire and water…too much of the former and not enough of the latter…….Peace...Out!
Deborah, the Master Gardener replied:
The softest mineral is talc. I loved Johnson’s baby powder until the cancer scare, and now I avoid talc. Cornstarch works okay.
Found out about another friend who managed to escape her burning home with her purse and dogs. The rest burned up. What a shit-show 2020 has been, and it’s still not over.
Dave responded:
Talc.
Cal in Vermont wrote:
Talc. It takes longer to kill you from cancer than radium does.
Dave in Tucson said:
The softest mineral is talc. Speaking of which there's a lot of
ambulance chasers advertising on TV regarding the Johnson & Johnson's
baby powder with talc causing cancer lawsuit.
mj answered:
If it were any mohr soft
It would be a cloud. Talc.
Jacqueline responded:
Talc?
Daniel in The City replied:
Talc (1 on the Mohs hardness scale)
Stuck inside because of smoke.
zorch said:
Talc is the softest with a hardness of 1.
DJ Useo wrote:
Minerals, eh? Now you're talking. That's one of my best areas. I say "Talc".
Joe ( -- Vote Blue, No Matter Who -- ) answered:
I know that one, it's talc. Carla taught me that, she knew everything about minerals. And here was no math involved.
Randall replied:
talc
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~~~~~
Info: Brian Miller, a fan, wrote, “I think Laura does such a nice job of telling beautiful stories with beautiful songs that are both unbelievably personal and somehow universally relatable. Favorite track: ‘Low Slow.’”
Price: $1 (USA) for track; $7.99 for 10-track album
CBS opens the night on the East Coast with a FRESH'Love Island', followed by LIVE'Fluffing Lumpy'.
CBS opens the night extra early on the left coast with LIVE'Fluffing Lumpy', followed by a FRESH' Love Island', then the local crap that usually airs at 7pm.
Scheduled on a FRESHStephen Colbert are Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Tommy Vietor, Tim McGraw, and Laura Benanti.
Scheduled on a FRESHJames Corden, OBE, are Maisie Williams and Bright Eyes.
NBC begins the night on the East coast with a RERUN'American Ninja Warrior', followed by LIVE'Fluffing Lumpy'.
NBC begins the night extra early on the left coast with LIVE'Fluffing Lumpy', followed by a RERUN'American Ninja Warrior', then the local crap that usually airs at 7pm.
On a RERUNJimmy Fallon (from 8/4/20) are Jesse Eisenberg, Blake Griffin, and Gracie Abrams.
On a RERUNSeth Meyers (from 7/27/20) are Sen. Kamala Harris and Pete Carroll.
On a RERUNLilly Singh (from 11/5/19) are Ewan McGregor and Rebecca Ferguson.
ABC begins the night on the East coast with a RERUN'Holey Moley', followed by a RERUN'To Tell The Truth', then LIVE'Fluffing Lumpy'.
ABC starts the night extra early on the left coast with LIVE'Fluffing Lumpy', followed by a 'Holey Moley', then a RERUN'To Tell The Truth', followed by the local crap that usually airs at 7pm.
Scheduled on a FRESHJimmy Kimmel, with guest host David Spade, are Dan Levy and Elle King.
The CW offers a FRESH'Whose Line Is It Anyway?', followed by a RERUN'Whose Line Is It Anyway?', then a FRESH'Penn & Teller: Fool Us'.
Faux fills the night with the movie 'The King's Speech'.
MY recycles an old recycles an old 'L&O: SVU', followed by another old 'L&O: SVU'.
A&E has 'Hoarders', followed by a FRESH'Hoarders', then a FRESH'Intervention'.
AMC offers the movie 'The Goonies', followed by the movie 'The Day After Tomorrow', then the movie 'Fast & Furious'.
BBC -
[6:00AM] STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE - Hard Time
[7:00AM] STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE - Shattered Mirror
[8:00AM] STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE - The Muse
[9:00AM] STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE - For the Cause
[10:00AM] STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE - The Quickening
[11:00AM] STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE - To the Death
[12:00PM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - Second Chances
[1:00PM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - Timescape
[2:00PM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - Descent
[3:00PM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - Descent
[4:00PM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - Liaisons
[5:00PM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - Interface
[6:00PM] LAW & ORDER
[7:00PM] LAW & ORDER
[8:00PM] LAW & ORDER
[9:00PM] LAW & ORDER
[10:00PM] LAW & ORDER
[11:00PM] LAW & ORDER
[12:00AM] LAW & ORDER
[1:00AM] STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE - Hard Time
[2:00AM] STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE - Shattered Mirror
[3:00AM] STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE - The Muse
[4:00AM] STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE - For the Cause
[5:00AM] STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE - The Quickening (ALL TIMES ET)
Bravo has 'Below Deck Mediterranean', another Below Deck Mediterranean', followed by a FRESH'Below Deck Mediterranean', and another 'Below Deck Mediterranean'.
Comedy Central has all old 'The Office' all night.
Scheduled on a FRESHThe Daily Show it's The Daily Social Distancing Show.
FX has the movie 'Transformers: Age Of Extinction', followed by the movie 'Transformers: Age Of Extinction'.
History has 'American Pickers', another 'American Pickers', followed by a FRESH'American Pickers', then a FRESH'Pawn Stars'.
IFC -
[6:00A] The Three Stooges - Monkey Businessmen
[6:30A] Mystery Science Theater 3000 - Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders
[8:45A] Pompeii
[11:15A] The Expendables
[1:30P] The Expendables 2
[3:45P] John Wick
[6:00P] Two and a Half Men
[6:30P] Two and a Half Men
[7:00P] Two and a Half Men
[7:30P] Two and a Half Men
[8:00P] Two and a Half Men
[8:30P] Two and a Half Men
[9:00P] Two and a Half Men
[9:30P] Two and a Half Men
[10:00P] Two and a Half Men
[10:30P] Two and a Half Men
[11:00P] Two and a Half Men
[11:30P] Two and a Half Men
[12:00A] Two and a Half Men
[12:30A] Two and a Half Men
[1:00A] The Expendables
[3:15A] The Expendables 2
[5:30A] The Expendables (ALL TIMES ET)
Sundance -
[6:00am] hogan's heroes
[6:30am] hogan's heroes
[7:00am] hogan's heroes
[7:30am] hogan's heroes
[8:00am] hogan's heroes
[8:30am] hogan's heroes
[9:00am] hogan's heroes
[9:30am] hogan's heroes
[10:00am] hogan's heroes
[10:30am] hogan's heroes
[11:00am] hogan's heroes
[11:30am] the mexican
[2:30pm] the bank job
[5:00pm] scarface
[9:00pm] the silence of the lambs
[11:30pm] the silence of the lambs
[2:00am] fargo
[4:00am] gomer pyle, u.s.m.c.
[4:30am] gomer pyle, u.s.m.c.
[5:00am] gomer pyle, u.s.m.c.
[5:30am] gomer pyle, u.s.m.c. (ALL TIMES ET)
SyFy has the movie 'Ghost In The Shell', followed by the movie 'Trick 'r Treat', then the movie 'Halloween'.
TBS:
On a RERUNConan Conan: (from 7/20/20) is Don Cheadle.
During the most recent episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver unpacked the racial disparities that come with the jury selection process in Connecticut and at one point, dragged the city of Danbury saying “If you’re going to forget a town in Connecticut, why not forget Danbury? Because, and this is true, f*** Danbury!” It didn’t take long for Danbury’s Mayor Mark Boughton to retaliate on Facebook.
“John Oliver, don’t mess with Danbury,” Bougton wrote in the caption to a video on Facebook. At first, he thanked Oliver for all the positive things he said about the town. This includes being ranked the second best city to live in by USA Today in 2015 as well as their railway museum and its Hearthstone Castle. He then brought us to the town’s sewage plant and said, “We are going to rename it the John Oliver Memorial Sewer Plant…Why? Because it’s full of crap just like you, John.”
During last week’s episode Oliver also said that Danbury was once the center of the American hat industry and then said, “If you’re from there you have a standing invite to come get a thrashing from John Oliver — children included — f*** you.”
In 2017, Boughton was part of another story on Last Week Tonight when Oliver poked fun at the lengths mayors were going to in order to get Amazon to build facilities in their cities. Boughton did a call back to that in his Facebook video saying, “Oh by the way, thanks for showing that Amazon video. We did get Amazon here in Danbury.”
Sean Penn, whose emergency relief organization CORE has provided additional COVID-19 testing through out Los Angeles, said he doesn’t see the value in giving Admiral Brett Giroir advice on how to improve testing capacity.
“I don’t have faith in giving advice to the White House testing czar or to the President of the United States,” Penn said to CNN’s Ana Cabrera. “The former is a flat-out liar and an incompetent pawn.”
Penn sat down virtually with Cabrera to talk about his disaster response nonprofit. During the CNN Newsroom interview, the Oscar-winning actor said he finds inspiration in his CORE staff, volunteers and the frontline workers facing the coronavirus pandemic head-on. He continued to call out lack of leadership or clear information from government officials, including those in the White House.
During the interview Penn went on to explain that Angelenos and other U.S. citizens should treat coronavirus as they would any other natural disaster. He explained that a person, upon receiving a positive COVID-19 test, should immediately reach out to contact tracers or head to a place where they can safely self-quarantine.
The conversation then moved to the topic of government funds allocation. Cabrera said that “that billions of federal dollars authorized by congress back in April for COVID testing and contact tracing” have not been spent.
Bette Midler has issued a typically blunt criticism of Good Morning Britain host Piers Morgan, after he called out Meghan Markle for her involvement in the forthcoming US election.
The actor and singer, who has clashed with Morgan before, was apparently not a fan of his reaction to Markle’s political speech at a Michelle Obama event.
Appearing in Obama’s When We All Vote campaign, Markle said that being complacent about voting was tantamount to complicity.
“If you aren’t part of the solution, you’re part of the problem,” she said in her speech. “If you are complacent, you are complicit.
Morgan responded by calling for Markle and her husband, Prince Harry, to have their royal titles removed.
Admiral Lord Nelson expected the Royal Navy to carry on funding his life once the Napoleonic wars ended, a letter has revealed.
In the note penned a year before his death at Trafalgar it shows how he contemplated life in peace time when his Royal Naval pay would have been half of what he was used to.
At the time he had a three year old daughter by his mistress, Emma Hamilton, to care for and had just bought a large family home in Merton, Surrey, for them.
His Bronte Estate in Sicily, his reward for defeating Napoleon's navy at the Battle of the Nile in 1798, was also losing money.
The one page letter, written on October 8, 1804, while the British fleet were blockading the French at Toulon, was addressed to friend Sir John Acton, the Prime Minister of Naples and detailed how his administrator, Abraham Gibbs, was working on his future finances.
A majority of Republicans surveyed in a national poll believe the number of deaths from the coronavirus is “acceptable,” and hold positive views of the US response to the pandemic.
The new poll showed a significant partisan divide over how each party sees the health emergency, which is killing some 1,000 Americans every day.
Fifty-seven percent of Republicans surveyed agreed with the statement that the number of coronavirus deaths in the US — which this week reached over 176,000 — was “acceptable.”
Conversely, 90 percent of Democrats said the number of deaths was unacceptable, as did 67 percent of independents.
The poll was carried out by YouGov on behalf of CBS News, using a representative sample of 2,226 registered voters interviewed between August 19-21, 2020.
Chris Wallace got into another heated exchange with a member of the Trump administration on Sunday, as the Fox News anchor asked White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows about the conspiracy theory group QAnon.
“The president was asked this week about QAnon, a conspiracy theory group that the FBI has called a domestic terror threat,” Wallace said on “Fox News Sunday.” “The president said that he was thankful of the support of the people in QAnon. You can end this controversy right now: Does the president disavow, does he condemn QAnon?”
“Well, listen, we don’t even know what it is,” Meadows replied. “I find it appalling that the media, when we have all of the important things that are going on, a list of top twenties, that the first question at a press briefing would be about QAnon that I had to actually Google to figure out what it is.”
Wallace responded: “The point is, it’s a hate group. It’s a group that’s called by the FBI, a domestic terror threat.”
Meadows replied, “This president is not for hate! So I can tell you, if it’s a hate group that is there, let’s look at domestic terrorism and look at Antifa and a number of other areas and quit spending time on something that 81% of Republicans don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
A "staggering" 28 trillion tonnes of ice has disappeared from the surface of the Earth since 1994, a group of UK scientists has found.
Scientists from Leeds and Edinburgh universities and University College London analyzed satellite surveys of glaciers, mountains, and ice sheets between 1994 and 2017 to identify the impact of global warming. Their review paper was published in the journal Cryosphere Discussions.
Describing the ice loss as "staggering," the group found that melting glaciers and ice sheets could cause sea levels to rise dramatically, possibly reaching a meter (3 feet) by the end of the century.
The dramatic loss of ice could have other severe consequences, including major disruption to the biological health of Arctic and Antarctic waters and reducing the planet's ability to reflect solar radiation back into space.
The findings match the worst-case-scenario predictions outlined by the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the scientists have confirmed.
Israeli authorities on Sunday erased a "Peeping Toms" mural that had long been a fixture at a Tel Aviv beach, responding to public outrage over the suspected gang rape of a 16-year-old girl in the southern resort of Eilat.
Painted 18 years ago and often criticised as sexist, the mural was removed by a municipal worker with a paint roller from the exterior wall of a women's changing room. The image showed two young men in bathing suits peering inside.
It was a nod to the beach's name - "Metzizim", Hebrew for "Peeping Toms" - identical to the title of a 1972 Israeli cult film about a lifeguard who spies on his friends' sexual escapades at the seashore.
The mural, located at what the Lonely Planet guide describes as "actually a family-friendly beach" on the Mediterranean, had previously survived defacement by women's rights groups, which complained that sexual assault cases in Israel are not prosecuted thoroughly.
A rare Mike Trout-autographed baseball card set a record as the highest-selling sports card of all time Saturday night when an unnamed bidder purchased it during an online auction for $3.936 million.
The 2009 Bowman Chrome Draft Prospects Superfractor rookie card, sold at Goldin Auctions, broke the previous record of $3.12 million for a 1909 Honus Wagner T-206 card, which was sold in 2016.
The Trout card was previously purchased in 2018 on eBay for $400,000 by Dave Oancea, a Las Vegas-based sports betting consultant who appears on ESPN, Fox Sports, Yahoo Sports, USA Today and Showtime TV. The current auction began in July with an opening bid of $1 million.
Trout, a three-time American League most valuable player and an eight-time All-Star, was a first-round pick of the Angels out of Millville (N.J.) High School in 2009.
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