from Bruce
Anecdotes
Alcohol
• At a caddie tournament at the Royal and Ancient Golf Club at St. Andrews in Scotland, first prize was a turkey and second prize was a bottle of whiskey. Andrew “Andra’” Kirkaldy and his brother, Hugh Kirkaldy, were ahead of the pack at the last hole. To win the tournament, Hugh needed a five, but instead he deliberately took seven, saying, “Andra’ can have the turkey — the bottle of whiskey is more in my line!”
Animals
• Canadian figure skater Toller Cranston once lived in a house in a very bad part of Toronto. On the street outside his house, prostitutes freely worked their trade. One day, Mr. Cranston’s pet dog, Minkus, an English setter, turned up missing. Mr. Cranston was frantic, and as he searched the neighborhood, he enlisted the help of every prostitute and every street person he could find. He remembers one Danish prostitute telling a john who tried to buy her wares, “I can’t. I’m looking for a dog,” as she teetered down an alley on stiletto heels. Eventually, the dog, which had been stolen, was found, and Mr. Cranston had a cocktail party for all the prostitutes and street people who had helped him in the search. At the party, all the guests — men and women — were on their best behavior, saying, “Can I pass this?” and “Can I wash that?” Even though the house was filled with works of art — Mr. Cranston was an artist and an art collector — nothing was stolen.
• In 1971, Bill Pickett became the first African American to be inducted into the National Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame, which is located at the Western Heritage Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Mr. Pickett invented the rodeo event known as bulldogging, in which a cowboy grabs a steer by the horns, twists them, and forces the steer to fall to the ground. Mr. Pickett’s style of bulldogging was different from that used today. He used to grab the steer by the horns, bite into its upper lip, then throw himself to the ground. Invariably, the steer would follow. He came up with this idea by watching dogs handle longhorn cattle, which often hid in brush where a cowboy could not lasso them. The dogs would bite into the steer’s upper lip and hold the steer until the cowboy arrived. Today, biting into a steer’s upper lip is banned as being cruel to the steer.
• Back in the 1970s, a race tracker was envious of jockey Mary Bacon’s car, a Toronado, so he asked her, “You got some man supporting you to be able to afford a car like that?” Ms. Bacon worked hard riding horses to be able to afford that car, so she replied, “Yeah. He’s got four legs and he’s standing in barn 43. Name’s John the Hiker. All you got to do is hit him on the *ss and he runs. You hit a two-legger in the *ss and he just stands there.”
Audiences
• As a competitor, the most extraordinary moment of figure skating that Toller Cranston ever saw involved a very ill Bob McAvoy and his pairs partner, Mary Petrie. Mr. McAvoy’s dream was to go to the World Championships, and he had the opportunity to do just that in Ljubljana, Yugoslavia, in 1970. Unfortunately, he became very ill on the plane trip to Yugoslavia and went straight to a hospital as soon as he arrived. Nevertheless, he forced himself to compete on the ice. The first half of the performance went well, but then Mr. McAvoy’s illness caught up with him, making him weak, and he dropped his partner on the ice as he himself fell. The two lay on the ice for a few seconds as their music continued playing, then they got up, bruised and bleeding from their fall. Mr. McAvoy made a gesture to his partner that asked, “Would you like to continue?” Ms. Petrie did, and at this point the audience came alive, cheering them on with such enthusiasm that they skated the performance of a lifetime, followed by an enormous ovation from the crowd. Their scores reflected their fall, but Mr. Cranston says, “It was a moment when skating took a back seat to integrity, sportsmanship, and the belief that nothing is impossible to a willing heart.”
***
© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
***
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Presenting
Michael Egan
U.S.A. said:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "Nitro"
Album: BARBWIRE HEART
Artist: Danny B. Harvey and Annie Marie Lewis
Artist Location: Austin, Texas
Info: This album contains two instrumentals, of which this is one.
“Danny B. Harvey is best known as the lead guitarist, and founding member of Headcat, Lemmy Kilmister's ‘other band.’ However, he has also played guitar with Wanda Jackson, Nancy Sinatra, Levi Dexter, Linda Gail Lewis, The Rockats, 69 Cats, Bow Wow Wow, 13 Cats & Annie Marie Lewis. He is also a noted film composer having competed the soundtrack to THE RAGE CARRIE 2 for MGM.”
“Danny B. Harvey (Headcat, Rockats) & Annie Marie Lewis’ (niece of Jerry Lee Lewis) first album. Originally released on Lanark Records, this is the remastered re-release which contains the bonus track ‘Blue Moon of Kentuck,’ which a duet with Annie Marie's mama, Linda Gail Lewis.”
Price: $1 (USD) for track; $10 (USD) for 13-track album.
Genre: Americana, Country
Links:
BARBWIRE HEART
Danny B. Harvey on Bandcamp
Danny B. Harvey on YouTube
Other Links:
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog #1
David Bruce's Blog #2
David Bruce's Blog #3
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
New Venture
Michael Egan
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Extra toasty.
Seems Scandalized
Tucker Carlson
For nearly two weeks, Fox News host Tucker Carlson (R-Rupert's Sock Puppet) has been claiming on air that the National Security Agency is "monitoring our electronic communications and is planning to leak them in an attempt to take this show off the air," as he alleged on his June 28 broadcast, citing a "whistleblower within the U.S. government." The NSA denied Carlson's allegations in a rare, carefully worded statement.
The NSA spying on an American and a member of the journalism profession would be big news and scandalous behavior by the government, but Carlson's story has some puzzling gaps — what did he say that plausibly threatens to "take this show off the air"? — he hasn't provided any supporting evidence, and Fox News lawyers successfully argued in court last year that viewers shouldn't take Carlson's statements as fact. So reporters have dug around.
Axios' Jonathan Swan reported Wednesday that "Carlson was talking to U.S.-based Kremlin intermediaries about setting up an interview with Vladimir Putin shortly before" he accused the NSA of spying. If Swan's anonymous sources are correct, the NSA might have scooped up Carlson's texts and emails while monitoring a suspected foreign agent he was communicating with. "Of course, the recipients of Carlson's texts and emails also knew about their content," and they could have shared the information, too, Swan notes.
After Carlson said he filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the NSA, BuzzFeed News FOIA ninjas Jason Leopold and David Mack and The Intercept's Ken Klippenstein filed FOIA requests for Carlson's FOIA request. Carlson's three-sentence request "did not contain any detailed information and was extremely broad," Leopold and Mack report, "in effect forcing the massive federal agency to search the communications of every one of its employees to see if they had ever mentioned Carlson in passing" back to "Jan. 1, 2019 — long before Biden was president."
On Thursday night's show, Carlson appeared scandalized that Klippenstein, known for filing FOIAs and exposing government surveillance abuses, would FOIA his FOIA. He called Klippenstein a pro-NSA "stooge" and The Intercept "some joke billionaire-funded website."
Tucker Carlson
Election Fraud Hotline Inundated
Rudy
A hotline that former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani set up to document instances of purported election fraud in the 2020 race drew in "thousands of dick pics" and animal pornography, according to "Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency," by Michael Wolff.
Giuliani created the hotline shortly after Election Day with Bernie Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner and a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump (R-Lock Him Up). Kerik pleaded guilty to eight felony counts of false statements and tax fraud in 2009 but was pardoned by an outgoing Trump in February.
The hotline was meant to receive "reports of what someone had seen, or might have seen, or knew that someone else had seen," including allegations of "dead voters, double names, machine malfunctions, and far deeper conspiracies," said the book, an early copy of which was obtained by Insider.
It went on: "Lots more came tumbling in: thousands of dick pics, animal porn, and virulent screeds, with nearly everybody who was manning the phones begging for other duties."
The election fraud hotline was so overrun, in fact, that the Trump campaign had to set up multiple new numbers.
Rudy
Harsh Test
West Coast Vineyards
The heat wave that recently hit the Pacific Northwest subjected the region’s vineyards to record-breaking temperatures nine months after the fields that produce world-class wine were blanketed by wildfire smoke.
But when temperatures began climbing close to 120 degrees Fahrenheit (49 Celsius) in late June, the grapes in Oregon and Washington state were still young, as small as BB’s, many still shaded by leaf canopies that had not been trimmed back yet.
The good news for grape growers, wineries and wine lovers is the historic heat wave came during a narrow window when the fruit suffered little, if any, damage. Earlier or later in the growing season, it could have been disastrous.
The bad news is that extreme weather events and wildfires are apt to become more frequent because of climate change. A less intense heat wave again hit parts of the U.S. West just about a week after extreme temperatures gripped the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia on June 25 and lingered for several days, causing what could be hundreds of heat-related deaths.
In recent years, wineries worldwide began hedging their bets against global warming and its fallout by moving to cooler zones, planting varieties that do better in heat and drought, and shading their grapes with more leaf canopy.
West Coast Vineyards
Behind The Orange Curtain
'America First'
A California hotel booted an 'America First' event when it found out Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene were the featured speakers
A hotel in Laguna Hills, California, canceled a July 17 event after it realized it was hosted by GOP Reps. Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Orange County Register reported.
The staff at the Pacific Hills Banquet & Event Center on Moulton Parkway believed they were hosting a "gathering," Javad Mirtavoosi, the hotel's general manager, told the Orange County Register. Instead, they were hosting one of Gaetz and Greene's "America First" rallies, according to the report.
"As soon as we found out who the speakers were we immediately canceled it," Mirtavoosi told the outlet. The manager declined to tell the outlet whether political differences were responsible for the venue canceling the event.
"We just want to stay clear of that," he told the outlet.
'America First'
Foppish Fabulist
Madison
Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-This Space For Rent) said President Joe Biden's call to offer COVID-19 vaccines door-to-door could lead to the government taking people's guns and bibles.
Cawthorn, a Republican from North Carolina, was speaking Friday during an interview at the Conservative Political Action Conference event in Dallas, Texas, taking place this weekend. He was speaking with Right Side Broadcasting Network, a conservative media outlet.
"And now they're sort of talking about going door-to-door to be able to take vaccines to the people. The thing about the mechanisms they would have to build to be able to actually execute that massive of a thing," Cawthorn said, in reference to Biden's latest community-based vaccine push.
"Think about what those mechanisms could be used for. They could then go door-to-door to take your guns. They could go door-to-door to take your bibles," Cawthorn said.
Biden's remarks on Tuesday drew immediate pushback from some conservatives, including Rep. Lauren Boebert, who called the door-to-door vaccinators "needle Nazis." GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene also made a Nazi reference, calling the vaccinators "medical brown shirts," a reference to Adolf Hitler's militia and paramilitary force.
Madison
Lying, Again
Mo
Representative Mo Brooks (R-Pro Sedition) asked the crowd at the 2021 Conservative Political Action Conference whether they are willing to “sacrifice” themselves as their “ancestors” did during the American Revolutionary War encampment at Valley Forge, where hundreds of soldiers died of disease.
The Alabama congressman – running for a Senate seat in the state with the endorsement of former President Donald Trump (R-Lock Him Up) – is facing a censure effort and a lawsuit from Democrats in the House of Representatives after he joined a months-long campaign to undermine the results of the 2020 presidential election, culminating in a speech telling the former president’s supporters to “start taking down names and kicking a**” before the riot at the US Capitol.
Continental soldiers at Valley Forge “didn’t fight the British – they fought for survival”, he said at the political conference. “Twelve thousand Continental soldiers arrived. Five, six months later, 2,000 died. Think about what they went through. Burying your brothers, your fathers, your sons, 10 to 15 a day, every day for six months.”
He added: “That’s the kind of sacrifice we have to think about, and I ask you – are you willing to fight for America?”
No fighting occurred at Valley Forge, a winter encampment under then-General George Washington, who ordered the “immediate” inoculation of its population from smallpox.
Mo
Smashed Heat Records
June 2021
If the melting power cables in Portland, Oregon, weren't enough of an indication, new satellite data confirms what many sweat-drenched Americans could have guessed: June 2021 was the single hottest June on record in North America.
The new data comes courtesy of the European Union's Copernicus program, which produced climate measurements from billions of observations taken by satellite, aircraft and weather stations around the globe. According to the program's new June 2021 report, last month was also the fourth-hottest June recorded worldwide and the second-warmest June recorded in Europe.
While human-induced climate change has been steadily bumping up average summer temperatures year after year (2020 tied 2016 for the planet's hottest year on record, Live Science previously reported), a weather anomaly also contributed to the broiling temperatures in North America. The month saw record heat waves blast the Pacific Northwest and western Canada, with stagnant air bearing down on densely populated cities, like Seattle and Portland, for several days in a row. The culprit was a dangerous weather phenomenon called an omega block, which is essentially a dome of hot air trapped in place by atmospheric currents.
On June 28, Seattle saw its hottest day ever — a scorching 108 degrees Fahrenheit (42 degrees Celsius), or roughly 34 F (19 C) above the normal highs this time of year, according to The Washington Post. Not to be snubbed by American exceptionalism, Canada recorded national all-time high-temperature records three days in a row, culminating with a 121 F (49 C) day in British Columbia on June 29.
These records are not surprising, however; scientists have long predicted that global warming will result in ever-rising temperatures around the world. But the extreme June heat waves shed light on a new concern: The high-temperature records set in North America didn't just surpass the old records; they utterly smashed them. During the heat waves, several cities in the U.S. and Canada saw temperatures rise more than 7 F (4 C) above previous records, Peter Stott, a climatologist at the U.K. Met Office, told the BBC — a far larger temperature increase than expected.
June 2021
Sells For $870,000
Legend of Zelda
An unopened copy of Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda that was made in 1987 has sold at auction for $870,000.
The auction house said it was a rare version that was created during a limited production run that took place during a few months in late 1987. The Legend of Zelda is a popular fantasy adventure game that was first released in 1986.
“The Legend of Zelda marks the beginning of one of the most important sagas in gaming; its historical significance can’t be understated ... it is a true collector’s piece,” Valarie McLeckie, Heritage’s video game specialist, said in a statement.
In April, the auction house sold an unopened copy of Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. that was bought in 1986 and forgotten about in a desk drawer for $660,000.
Legend of Zelda
Bendy And Flexible
Ice
Water ice isn't exactly known for its flexibility. In fact, it's quite the opposite: rigid and brittle, easily fracturing and snapping. It's why avalanches and sea ice fragmentation occur.
It's also why new research is so fascinating. Scientists have just grown microfibers of water ice that can bend in a loop – breaking the previous maximum strain by a significant percentage and opening up new opportunities for the exploration of ice physics.
Ice doesn't always behave the way we expect, and its elasticity – or rather, lack thereof – is a perfect example. Theoretically, it should have a maximum elastic strain of around 15 percent. In the real world, the maximum elastic strain ever measured was less than 0.3 percent. The reason for this discrepancy is that ice crystals have structural imperfections that drive up their brittleness.
The experiment consisted of a tungsten needle in an ultracold chamber, sitting at around minus 50 degrees Celsius, much colder than has been previously attempted. Water vapor was released into the chamber, and an electric field was applied. This attracted water molecules to the tip of the needle, where they crystallized, forming a microfiber with a maximum width of around 10 micrometers, smaller than the width of a human hair.
At minus 150 degrees Celsius, they found that a microfiber 4.4 micrometers across was able to bend into a nearly circular shape, with a radius of 20 micrometers. This suggests a maximum elastic strain of 10.9 percent – much closer to the theoretical limit than previous attempts.
Ice
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