Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Democrats for Family Values (NY Times Column)
Elizabeth Warren has another very good proposal.
Helaine Olen: Falling tax refunds highlight the Republican tax scam (Washington Post)
Finally, as millions of Americans grapple with their smaller-than-expected refunds, they are hearing more and more about the big winner of the tax-reform scam: corporate America. Amazon (whose founder, Jeffrey P. Bezos, is the owner of The Post) owed zero corporate income tax last year. And as Axios reported earlier this week, General Motors, which made $11.8 billion in profit last year, filed for a refund of slightly more than $100 million. … the GOP tax scam was always designed to benefit one group and one group only - the richest and wealthiest among us.
#Quora: Nate White Hilariously Answers the Query -"Why Do British People NOT Like Trump?" (World of Wonder)
Nate White, a witty writer from England wrote the perfect response: "A few things spring to mind… Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace - all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed. …
Mary Beard: Oxbridge outrage (TLS)
If you have cohorts of students whom you have admitted at the same standard and promise, if you have taught these students for four years and are convinced of their broad parity - and then if different sub-groups perform significantly differently in the final assessment, you have a problem that demands attention. (To use an extreme analogy, just imagine that you had a final exam in Latin that lasted 8 hours with no food or loo break allowed, you might think that those who did well were good at Latin, but that something else, not relevant to that skill, was being tested… and if you really wanted to home in on the Latin, you might redesign the test!)
Mary Beard: What's going on in the Roman Forum (TLS)
The general idea of my stay in Rome is that I don't leave the American Academy (until the book is basically done . . . if that happens, I am allowed to have a complete Roman Holiday, but I suspect it will be a close thing). That said, they have weekly "Walk and Talk"s around the city, organised at the Academy, and led by the resident or temporary experts. And often they get you to see things that would otherwise be impossible or very inconvenient to do on your own.
Stephen Rutledge: "#BornThisDay [Feb 22, 1892]: Poet, Edna St. Vincent Millay" (World of Wonder)
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends
It gives a lovely light!
Joe Reid: All 52 Movies Nominated for Oscars, Ranked (Slate)
Don't just watch the Best Picture nominees!
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David Bruce has over 100 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Presenting
Michael Egan
answered:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
from Bruce
Anecdotes - Gambling
• Dave Marr and Tommy Bolt used to play against each other after making a friendly wager. Dave often lost, but despite not having much money, he was always able to pay off his losses by using merchandise he had won in amateur matches. After yet another loss to Tommy, Dave remembered that he had a shotgun in his trunk that he won at an amateur contest recently, and he thought that Tommy might be interested in it. So he got the shotgun and walked back to the clubhouse. Dave relates, "Tommy took one look at me coming through the door with a shotgun and almost died on the spot."
• A man and his wife went to Las Vegas for a vacation. While the husband was taking a shower, the wife went into the casino to play roulette. She put $2 on number 17 and won. In fact, she let the money ride and kept winning - number 17 came up 17 times in a row on the wheel she was playing and turned her $2 into $50,000. Unfortunately, she continued to let the money ride and played number 17 one more time, but a different number came up and she lost all the money. She went back to her hotel room, where her husband asked her, "How'd you do?" She replied, "I lost $2."
• According to legend, a gambler once found a way to recoup his losses at Monte Carlo. He turned his pockets inside out to show that they were empty, covered himself with a blood-like substance, then pretended to shoot himself with a revolver loaded with blanks just outside the casino. The casino authorities came running, recognized the man who was playing dead as a gambler who had suffered big losses in the casino, and were convinced that he had committed suicide because of his gambling losses. Fearing bad publicity, they stuffed money in his pockets and then went away to call the police. The "suicide" then jumped up and ran away.
• As an unimportant actor in Hollywood early in his American career, Walter Slezak was surprised to learn that his contract had been transferred to another talent agency. After making inquiry, he discovered that the heads of the two talent agencies had been playing golf. Being bored with betting money, they had started betting their unimportant clients on each hole. The head of Mr. Slezak's agency had missed a putt, and suddenly Mr. Slezak's contract was transferred to another agency. (Mr. Slezak later played the German submarine captain in Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat.)
• Chico Marx loved to gamble and so he never saved a dime of the hundreds of thousands of dollars he made and had to be supported in his old age by his more thrifty brothers: Groucho and Harpo. Once, Groucho's financial advisor Salwyn Shufro asked Chico to guess how much money he had lost through gambling. Chico replied that he could tell exactly how much money he had gambled away, and then he asked how much Groucho in the bank. The reply came back: "Approximately $750,000." Chico smiled and then said, "That's how much money I've lost gambling."
• Mr. Justice Hawkins (1817-1907) enjoyed attending the races. While sitting as judge, Mr. Hawkins saw a prisoner say something to a constable, and he asked the constable what the prisoner had said. The constable replied, "I - I would rather not say, your lordship." However, Mr. Hawkins insisted, and the constable said, "He asked me, your lordship, who that heathen with the sheepskin was, as he had often seen him at the racecourse."
• Damon Runyan used to gamble, and as he lay dying, he gave his son this advice about gambling: "Son, as you go around and about the world, some day you will come upon a man who will lay down in front of you a new deck of cards with the seal unbroken, and that man will offer to bet you he can make the jack of spades jump out of the deck and squirt cider in your ear. Son, do not bet that man, because just as sure as you do, you are going to get an ear full of cider."
• Labinsky was a ballet dancer who tried very hard to control his expenses. He budgeted very carefully and wrote down every cent he spent in a little book - then he went out and lost all his money gambling. Once, he was playing poker backstage. When he went onstage, he was supposed to be carrying a large platter, but through carelessness and his hurry to meet his cue, he walked onstage carrying the poker table.
• Wilson Mizner was a card sharp, and he knew a lot of other gamblers who were also card sharps. Once, he brought a deck of cards consisting of all aces to a card game, and after dealing a hand from the deck, watched with amusement as all the other players attempted to get rid of their extra ace.
• While making The Hustler with Paul Newman, Jackie Gleason challenged Mr. Newman to a game of pool. To make it interesting, they made a bet. Mr. Gleason ran 50 straight balls, and Mr. Newman owed him $50. The next day Mr. Newman paid his debt - with 5,000 pennies.
• Herbert Ransom was an actor who was a terrible poker player. Because Mr. Ransom was so bad, fellow poker player Franklin Pierce Adams once proposed a new rule: "Anyone who looks at Ransom's face is cheating."
• Lou Costello enjoyed gambling, although he lost a lot of money that way. Once, he bet $50,000 on a horse that had a big lead. Mr. Costello turned to a friend, smiled, then said, "The only way my horse can lose is if it stumbles and falls down." The horse stumbled, fell down - and lost.
• In H. Allen Smith's humor book titled Lost in the Horse Latitudes, the shortest chapter is titled "How to Play Stud Poker All Night." In its entirety, the chapter reads, "I don't feel good today. The hell with writing anything."
• George White, a revue producer during the Roaring Twenties, thought it was a good day when he lost $100,000 at a horse race because he immediately stopped betting on the horses.
***
© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
***
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Reader Comment
Current Events
Sweet dreams
Just fantasizing about Judge Amy Berman Jackson slapping a PERMANENT gag rule on Predator to get him to STFU the way the way Roger Stone did yesterday as he came out of her courtroom. The blessed silence from Stone's hideous mouth today!
Now take that idea and paste it onto Predator--mute for the rest of his life. SO SWEET! Going to hold that scenario in my head as I drift off to peaceful sleep. Never to have to hear anything from that POS--no twitter, no using photo ops to insult and denigrate people, no more word salad, no love-me rallies.
Maybe I can dream about gag rules on the Southern Cow (no more lies) and Miss Lindsey (no more angry tirades). So many people (Republicans) I would love never to hear speak again!
Thursday's Seth Meyers program features scenes from a new movie (cough, cough) White Savior--biting and very funny:
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
JD is on vacation.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Running late, again.
Renewed For Two More Seasons
'Young Sheldon'
CBS announced today that it has renewed hit comedy "Young Sheldon" for seasons three and four.
The single-camera comedy serves as a prequel to the hit sitcom "The Big Bang Theory," which is preparing to air its series finale this spring, wrapping up a 12-season run.
"Young Sheldon" follows precocious 10-year-old Sheldon Cooper (played by Iain Armitage) as he struggles to fit in with his family and friends in a small town in East Texas.
The series also stars Zoe Perry, Lance Barber, Montana Jordan, Raegan Revord, and Annie Potts.
'Young Sheldon'
Backs Eradication Of Animal Testing
Procter & Gamble
Personal care giant Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) is taking a bold stance against animal testing.
The conglomerate, which counts Olay, Pantene and SK-II among its brands, has teamed up with the animal protection organization the Humane Society International (HSI) to back its #BeCrueltyFree campaign fighting to ban animal testing for cosmetics in all major global beauty markets by the year 2023.
P&G will lend its support to the campaign -- which has been running since 2012 -- via joint education and capacity-building programs for non-animal alternatives as well as by continuing to explore animal-free approaches to safety assessment, and advocating for legislative change in key markets. The campaign will also focus on getting new methods accepted by regulators, and enrolling businesses and governments to adopt cruelty-free public policies and practices.
P&G -- which does not use animal testing unless in countries where it is required by law -- has been working with the HSI for more than two decades on the development of animal-free cosmetics testing methods, with Kitty Block, President of Humane Society International and the Humane Society of the United States, commenting "This partnership represents an important milestone in our efforts to end animal testing for cosmetics worldwide through our #BeCrueltyFree campaign. By working together with forward-looking companies like Procter & Gamble, we can make this ambitious goal a reality."
Procter & Gamble
Solar System's Most Distant Object
'FarFarOut'
For most people, snow days aren't very productive. Some people, though, use the time to discover the most distant object in the solar system.
That's what Scott Sheppard, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C., did this week when a snow squall shut down the city. A glitzy public talk he was due to deliver was delayed, so he hunkered down and did what he does best: sifted through telescopic views of the solar system's fringes that his team had taken last month during their search for a hypothesized ninth giant planet.
That's when he saw it, a faint object at a distance 140 times farther from the sun than Earth-the farthest solar system object yet known, some 3.5 times more distant than Pluto. The object, if confirmed, would break his team's own discovery, announced in December 2018, of a dwarf planet 120 times farther out than Earth, which they nicknamed "Farout." For now, they are jokingly calling the new object "FarFarOut." "This is hot off the presses," he said during his rescheduled talk on 21 February.
For the better part of a decade, Sheppard and his collaborators-Chad Trujillo at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff and Dave Tholen at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu-have methodically scoured the night sky with some of the world's most powerful and wide-angled telescopes. Their insistent search has netted four-fifths of the objects known past 9 billion kilometers from the sun.
This is not stamp collecting. Clustering in the orbits of these objects can serve as indicators of Planet Nine's influence. Like Farout, FarFarOut's orbit is not yet known; until it is, it's uncertain whether it will stay far enough away from the rest of the solar system to be free of the giant planets' gravitational tug. If it does, the two could join another of Sheppard's recent distant discoveries, "the Goblin," which dovetails with projections of the Planet Nine's possible orbit.
'FarFarOut'
How "Fairy Circles" Form
Australia
In two corners of the world, a massive swath of land has long held a natural formation that has continued to stump scientists since their initial discovery in the 1970s. Known as fairy circles, "extremely ordered" round patches of bare soil appear to have been strategically placed in the grasslands of southwestern Africa and northwestern Australia. These landscape-scale vegetation patterns look like polka dots from above - but how did they form and why are they there?
Attempting to solve the mystery, a team of multidisciplinary scientists think they may have found an answer in Australia. Though separated by more than 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles) from their much larger Namibian cousins, Australia's fairy rings measure, on average, about 4 meters (13 feet) across. First discovered in 2014, theories explaining their origin ranged from poisonous Euphorbia plants and rising gases to ants and termites, infestation, and plant competition for water.
Writing in the journal Ecosphere, the researchers analyzed soil compaction and texture within 48 circles, the surrounding vegetation, and in nearby large areas of bare soil. They found that when compared to soil with grass cover, fairy circles had nearly three times more clay and lacked the kind of sediment that would be in its place if termites were the cause. Instead, they surmise that the strange circle patterns are created by weather processes like rainfall events, particle dispersion, surface heat, and evaporation, among other things, that inhibit plants from growing.
"The vegetation gaps caused by harvester termites are only about half the size of the fairy circles and much less ordered," explained study author Stephan Getzin in a statement. "And in most cases, we didn't even find any hard subterranean termitaria that elsewhere in Australia prevent the growth of grasses."
The team then mapped three plots with a drone and compared their images against aerial photos of typical vegetation gaps created by two different species of termites. These differ from the unique differences found between circles, further proving that termites are likely not the culprit.
Australia
'Decreases In Value'
New York
A "Trump Place" sign is to come down from a New York building's facade for the second time in four months, after condominium owners at 120 Riverside Boulevard voted to have the name removed.
The building's condominium board announced the decision on Thursday, according to an email to building owners obtained by The Washington Post. The email said that, after a vote of the building's condo owners, the tally was about 55 per cent in favour of removing the large sign over their front door.
The decision follows a similar one by condominium owners at 200 Riverside Boulevard, a few blocks north, in October.
Both buildings sit on the former site of a rail yard on the Upper West Side that Donald Trump helped develop in the 1990s. The area was named Trump Place in his honour, and six buildings once bore signs with that name.
Since election day 2016, the owners of five buildings have decided to remove it - a stark demonstration of Mr Trump's unpopularity in the city that gave him his start, and which he still calls home.
New York
Ministry of Health
Spain
A Spanish magistrate has opened an investigation after one woman died and 28 other diners fell ill after eating at a Michelin-starred restaurant in Valencia.
A 46-year-old woman died Sunday after eating at the restaurant RiFF the previous evening with her husband and 12-year-old son, both of whom also fell ill. A Valencia court statement Friday said the magistrate is awaiting forensic reports and the results of an autopsy.
Ana Barceló, the head of Valencia's Ministry of Health, told reporters Thursday that investigators had interviewed 75 people who had eaten at the restaurant from Feb. 13 to Feb. 16 and learned that a total of 29 had suffered food poisoning, including the woman who died. The other 28 people suffered symptoms including vomiting and diarrhea.
Food safety officials inspected RiFF on Monday but were not able to find an obvious cause. Samples from the restaurant's tasting menu were sent to the National Institute of Toxicology and Forensic Science for analysis.
Some reports have suggested that morel mushrooms may have been to blame, but Barceló said it was "irresponsible to establish the origin" before an autopsy and other tests were completed.
Spain
"Bilateral Gynandromorph"
Cardinal
Male cardinals are red. Female cardinals are tan. The odd bird that's been roosting outside John and Shirley Caldwell's kitchen in Erie, Pennsylvania, is an even split of both.
Divided down the middle like a winged black-and-white-cookie, the rare cardinal is plumed in feathers that are scarlet on its right side and taupe on its left. When Shirley Caldwell photographed the bird on a recent winter morning, she knew it was unusually beautiful. She did not realize the bird's quirks went beyond its unusual plumage, though.
Ornithologists call birds like this one "bilateral gynandromorphs" - meaning half the bird's body is male and the other half is female. [Image Gallery: Stunning Dual-Sex Animals]
"This remarkable bird is a genuine male/female chimera," Daniel Hooper, a postdoctoral fellow at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, told National Geographic.
Gynandromorphs, or "half-siders," exist in many bird, crustacean and butterfly species. According to Hooper, cardinal half-siders are especially easy to spot because male and female birds of the species display such clearly contrasting colors.
Cardinal
With 4 Additional Letters
Hachimoji DNA
Earth might have a dizzying array of life forms, but our biology ultimately remains a solitary data point - we simply don't have a reference for life based on DNA different from our own. Now, scientists have taken matters into their hands to push the boundaries on what life could be like.
Research funded by NASA and led by the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution in the US has led to the creation of an entirely new flavour of the DNA double helix, one that has an additional four nucleotide bases.
It's being called hachimoji DNA (from the Japanese words for 'eight letters') and it includes two new pairs to add to the existing partnerships of adenine (A) paired with thymine (T), and guanine (G) with cytosine (C).
This work to expand on nature's own genetic recipe might sound a little familiar. The same scientists already successfully squeezed in two new letters in 2011. Only last year yet another version of an extended alphabet, also with six letters, was made to function inside a living organism.
Hachimoji DNA
Little Mother
"Mary"
A little stickleback fish (Gasterosteus aculeatus) nicknamed "Mary" appears to have leapt across a major reproductive divide on the evolutionary tree of life. Stickleback females, like most female fish, lay unfertilized eggs that males then fertilize in the nest. But Mary, somehow, got pregnant with healthy live young, which survived delivery via C-section.
This is the third time that scientists have found an unfertilized egg-laying fish with developing embryos in her belly, the researchers reported in a paper published yesterday (Feb. 20) in the journal Nature Scientific Reports. But it's only the first time that those embryos were birthed and developed into healthy adults
"Although this almost accidental find revealed a vanishingly rare phenomenon, it might help us to understand a really important change that has happened throughout the tree of life," Andrew MacColl, an evolutionary biologist and part of the team at the University of Nottingham in England that made the discovery, said in a statement. "Most animals lay eggs, but some (including almost all mammals, but few fish) retain their eggs inside and give birth to live young. Although this appears to be a difficult thing to achieve in evolution, this one little fish seems to have got there almost by itself." [Photos: The Freakiest-Looking Fish]
Researchers aren't sure exactly how Mary, who is now dead, ended up pregnant this way, given that sticklebacks like her don't have sex with each other. One possibility was that she had cloned herself, and another was that she was a hermaphrodite and so had fertilized her own eggs. But genetic analysis revealed that her babies had two separate parents.
Their best guess is that Mary wandered into a nest where a male had recently ejected a bunch of sperm to fertilize normal, loose eggs that were already there. Somehow, a bit of that sperm must have traveled up Mary's egg tube and fertilized the un-laid eggs inside her.
"Mary"
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