Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Hadley Freeman: From Seinfeld to bagels, it was always easy to be a Jew in America. What changed? (The Guardian)
My ancestors fled from danger to a place of safety. But many US Jews are now finding they are less assimilated than they thought
Marc Dion: Humor Is Dead, And I Don't Feel Too Good, Either (Creators Syndicate)
Ten years ago, a talented writer might have written an explosively comic novel about a leering, crooked, pus-mouthed anti-intellectual, city bumpkin who becomes president. It would have been funny as hell, too, funny like the Three Stooges were funny. Of course, we elected that guy, so the joke is flatter than a room full of actresses who never met a plastic surgeon.
Ted Rall: Terror Starts at the Top, Trickles Down (Creators Syndicate)
There are no eye sockets big enough for the eye-rolling I want to do when I hear American politicians express shock at political violence like the last week's domestic terror trifecta: A racist white man murdered two black people at a Kentucky grocery store, a white right-winger stands accused of mailing more than a dozen pipe bombs to Democratic politicians and celebrities and a white anti-Semite allegedly gunned down 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue.
Froma Harrop: Forget About Cheaper Drugs on Trump's Watch (Creators Syndicate)
Although tying drug prices to levels set by other countries would save Medicare money, we must also question why America the Great would rely on the likes of Belgium and Greece to do its bargaining. Isn't Trump supposed to be the master negotiator? Medicare is the world's largest buyer of drugs. Why can't the United States, with its massive market, negotiate its own prices? Like Trump's promise to replace Obamacare with "something terrific," this one is almost surely headed for oblivion.
Froma Harrop: Funny How the Stock Market Tweets Come and Go (Creators Syndicate)
After a long absence, another "Stock Market up" tweet was issued Wednesday by Donald Trump. He'd been the troubadour singing his own praises when the Dow Jones industrial average hit new highs, but when falling stock prices wiped out most of the gains for 2018, the music stopped. He was back even though the Dow was still sharply down for October.
Mark Shields: You Can't Choose Your Relatives (Creators Syndicate)
At the St. Patrick's Day breakfast he hosted, Bulger's lightning wit was on view. When Boston Brahmin Elliot Richardson, a hero for having resigned as Richard Nixon's attorney general rather than carry out Nixon's order to fire the special prosecutor investigating the Watergate scandal, was running for Massachusetts governor, Bulger saluted him by predicting The Boston Globe's editorial endorsement: "Vote Elliot: He's Better Than You." When Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, a man not indifferent to his appearance, was tardy showing up, Bulger explained the delay by saying, "Here is Sen. Kerry, who was unavoidably detained by getting caught in front of a mirror."
Ted Rall: Who's to Blame for Political Violence? Terror Starts at the Top, Trickles Down (Creators Syndicate)
There are no eye sockets big enough for the eye-rolling I want to do when I hear American politicians express shock at political violence like the last week's domestic terror trifecta: A racist white man murdered two black people at a Kentucky grocery store, a white right-winger stands accused of mailing more than a dozen pipe bombs to Democratic politicians and celebrities and a white anti-Semite allegedly gunned down 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue.
Lenore Skenazy: "Boo! You're Under Arrest!" (Creators Syndicate)
These rules are turning a holiday that used to celebrate childhood independence - out they went, on their own, in "grown-up" clothing to get to know their neighbors, to get brave by facing the dark, to get goodies by being bold and ringing doorbells - into an orgy of adult supervision and anxiety. The time frame gets shorter as the regulations grow, all seemingly based on the idea that anyone who's 13 or older is a potential hooligan and anyone 12 or younger is a potential victim, and any semblance of fun must be thrown out faster than a slightly tampered-with Snickers bar.
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 Lulu Storefront
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
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
marty reviews a movie
House Of Long Shadows
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• Nadia Comaneci's very first gymnastics teacher, when she was in kindergarten, was Mr. Duncan, a master of motivation. When his young gymnasts did well, he would appear before them at the end of their exercises with his hands behind his back and ask, "Who thinks they did well today?" All hands would go up into the air, and Mr. Duncan would reveal the bag of chocolates he was hiding behind his back and allow each gymnast to have a chocolate. (But if the young gymnasts did not perform well, then there were no hands behind Mr. Duncan's back, and no chocolate.)
• When the Romanian junior women's gymnastics team flew to New York to participate in the 2000 Pontiac Women's Gymnastics Team Championships, the flight attendants were happy to have such celebrities on board and took photographs of the team. Later, the flight attendants brought coloring books to the Romanian gymnasts, offending them deeply. The gymnasts, who were tiny 14- and 15-year-olds, said, "Hey, we're small, but we're not that young."
• After gymnast Kurt Thomas won a gold medal in floor exercise at the 1978 World Championships - thus winning the United States its first gold medal ever at this level - he became an instant celebrity and even appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. During his appearance, Johnny asked him, "Kurt, have you ever had any injuries in gymnastics?" Mr. Thomas replied, "Nothing serious, although I did fracture my neck once."
• In 1972, Nikolai Andrianov competed for the Soviet overall title in men's gymnastics. Going into the last event, he had a commanding lead and his coach suggested that he do a less difficult routine so that there would be less chance of slipping up, but Mr. Andrianov refused to water down his routine. He hit the routine and became national champion.
• The best gymnasts know not to quit, no matter what. Larissa Latynina competed during a storm at the 1968 European Championships. The storm knocked out all the electricity, causing the lights to go out, but Ms. Latynina continued her floor exercise even though the judges and audience could see her only when lightning flashed.
• Some gymnasts do odd exercises. In the late 1970s, to build up the strength in their legs, some of coach Muriel Grossfeld's young girl gymnasts used to push cars up a slightly slanted driveway. Sometimes, drivers would see them and stop, thinking that they needed help because their car was stalled.
• At the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, American gymnast Mary Lou Retton won the all-around competition with a vault that scored a perfect 10. Under the rules of the time, there was no need for her to attempt a second vault, but she did - and earned another perfect 10 score.
• Gymnasts have different ways of motivating themselves before meets. Soviet champion Ludmilla Tourischeva used to mark the days of the World Championships on her calendar - and on each day she would mark "VICTORY!"
• People tend to have a lot in common no matter what country they are from. When 14-year-old Nadia Comaneci of Romania was asked what was her favorite place in the United States, she replied, "Disneyland."
***
© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
***
Reader Comment
Current Events
British trolling.
The street outside the Saudi embassy in London has been renamed.
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
THE RAT-FUCKERS ARE LOOSE!
THE RAT-FUCKERS CRAWL OUT OF THEIR RAT-FUCKER HOLES.
THE LIARS, THE CHEATERS AND THE THIEVES!
PARASITE!
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Bit of a heat wave.
'Delivering'
Stephen King
Stephen King is ramping up his criticism of President Donald-for-now Trump (R-Fabulist) ahead of Tuesday's midterm elections.
In a tweet Friday, the horror writer blasted GOP ads claiming Trump "is delivering results" for the country:
"The ads say President Trump is delivering results," wrote King. "He's also delivering hate speech, a pack of lies, and a national debt that's going to crush our grandchildren."
King has in recent days been similarly critical of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), whose seat is being challenged by Democratic Congressman Beto O'Rourke.
Stephen King
Conducts Brutal Fact Check
Anderson Cooper
CNN's Anderson Cooper tore into President-for-now Donald Trump (R-Grifter) for "making stuff up" during his address on immigration from the White House on Thursday.
"I mean, it could be funny if it was just some pundit on a Fox morning show making stuff up, but this is the president making stuff up," said the "Anderson Cooper 360°" host.
Cooper mocked Trump's claim about being "pretty good at estimating crowd size" with regards to guessing the number of people in the migrant caravan traveling through Mexico toward the U.S. border.
"Of all the claims for this president to make, do we really need to get into the whole crowd size thing with this president? I mean, do we?" Cooper asked. "Just google 'Trump inauguration crowd size' and let's just leave it there."
Cooper also shot down Trump's claims on asylum seekers' missing court dates, his fearmongering about the caravan being "an invasion," his suggestion that Middle-Eastern terrorists were amid the group, and his administration's progress on the U.S.-Mexico border wall.
Anderson Cooper
ESPN Apologizes
James Carville
ESPN issued an apology Saturday for comments made by political figure James Carville during "College GameDay."
Carville, a noted LSU fan, has accused the SEC of helping Alabama via targeting calls against other teams. LSU linebacker Devin White is set to miss the first half of Saturday night's game against the Tide for a targeting penalty he received against Mississippi State. He reiterated the accusations on GameDay.
"We have an apology to make on behalf of ESPN," ESPN host Chris Cotter said. "While appearing as a guest on College GameDay earlier today James Carville offered his thoughts on SEC commissioner Greg Sankey. As we regularly demonstrate here on ESPN, diverse opinions are encouraged, however these actions were over the top and we'd like to apologize to Commissioner Sankey for that."
ESPN and the SEC have a tight relationship. The SEC Network is an ESPN property. But what did ESPN expect when Rece Davis asked the Democratic strategist about the debatable targeting penalty that was issued against White two weeks ago against the Bulldogs? Carville wrote an op-ed alleging collusion between Alabama and the SEC on Oct. 21.
"Tennessee's best defensive player couldn't play against Alabama because of the SEC," Carville said. "Missouri's best defensive player couldn't play against Alabama because the SEC kicked him out. A&M's best defensive player couldn't play against because Alabama because he was taken out and now the best defensive player in the conference is not going to play in the first half for nothing. For nothing."
James Carville
'Junk News' Still Flourishes
Social Media
Despite an aggressive crackdown by social media firms, so-called "junk news" is spreading at a greater rate than in 2016 on social media ahead of the US midterm elections, according to researchers.
Oxford Internet Institute researchers concluded that Facebook and Twitter remain filled with "extremist, sensationalist, conspiratorial, masked commentary," and other forms of "low-quality" news.
In analyzing some 2.5 million tweets and 6,986 Facebook pages over a 30-day period, the study found that less than five percent of the sources referenced on social media were from public agencies, experts or political candidates themselves.
"We found that the proportion of junk news circulating over social media has increased in the US since 2016, with users sharing higher proportions of junk news than links to professional content overall," the report released Thursday said.
It added that "junk news once concentrated among President (Donald) Trump's support base has now spread to include communities of mainstream political conservatives."
Social Media
Vows To Protect Women
'Grabby Hands'
What do women want? President-for-now Donald Trump (R-Deplorable) thinks he knows.
"Women want security," Trump said about the caravan of migrants heading to the U.S. border with Mexico during a rambling press conference on Thursday. "Women don't want them in our country. You look at what the women are looking for: They want to have security."
He again proclaimed, without evidence, that the migrants were "tough people," and warned that if they throw rocks at troops he's sending to the border, "I say, consider it a rifle."
Many on Twitter were less than thrilled that the man who boasted about grabbing women's genitals whenever he pleased believes he knows what women want or what to do to make them feel secure. To date, more than 20 women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct.
Besides the patronizing assumption that women need his protection, Trump's message also echoed racist sentiments of America's past that minorities were out to rape white women:
'Grabby Hands'
Newly Released Emails
Roger Stone
Newly released emails from the 2016 presidential campaign appear to show political operative Roger Stone presenting himself as a WikiLeaks insider to Steve Bannon, who was at the heart of then-candidate Donald Trump's run for president.
The emails, which were published Thursday by The New York Times, touch on a central question of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation: Did Stone have advance knowledge of WikiLeaks' plans to release hacked material damaging to Democrat Hillary Clinton?
Stone says no, and the emails do not provide a definitive answer to that question. But the correspondence suggests that Stone wanted Bannon to see him as plugged in to WikiLeaks as it was planning to publish documents that would upend the campaign.
American intelligence agencies have concluded that Russian agents were the source of information released by WikiLeaks during the 2016 campaign. And Mueller, who is investigating potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign, has focused on Stone recently.
Mueller's team questioned Bannon last month about his exchanges with Stone, according to a person familiar with the interview. Bannon's interview was with prosecutors, though other people close to Stone have been called before a grand jury to discuss his ties to WikiLeaks.
Roger Stone
Scientists Create
Fifth Form of Matter
For a few minutes on Jan. 23, 2017, the coldest spot in the known universe was a tiny microchip hovering 150 miles over Kiruna, Sweden.
The chip was small - about the size of a postage stamp - and loaded with thousands of tightly-packed rubidium-87 atoms. Scientists launched that chip into space aboard an unpiloted, 40-foot-long (12 meters) rocket, then bombarded it with lasers until the atoms inside it cooled to minus 459.67 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 273.15 degrees Celsius) - a fraction of a fraction of a degree above absolute zero, the coldest possible temperature in nature.
While the rocket bobbed in low gravity for the following 6 minutes, scientists were given a rare opportunity to study in-depth the weirdest, least-understood state of matter in the universe - the Bose-Einstein condensate. For the first time ever, scientists had created one in space.
Unlike the other four states of matter (solids, liquids, gases and plasmas), Bose-Einstein condensates can form only when clouds of gassy atoms cool to within a few billionths of a degree above absolute zero. When groups of atoms are cooled to such unfathomably low temperatures, they stop moving as individuals and meld into one big "super atom." Tens of thousands of atoms suddenly become indistinguishable from one another, slowly vibrating on a uniform wavelength that can, theoretically, pick up the tiniest gravitational disturbances around them.
That hyper-sensitivity makes Bose-Einstein condensates promising tools for detecting gravitational waves - disturbances in the curvature of space-time created by collisions between supermassive objects like black holes and neutron stars. The trouble is, when scientists create Bose-Einstein condensates in terrestrial labs, they have just a few seconds to study them before the blob of homogenous matter falls to the bottom of its container and breaks apart.
Fifth Form of Matter
Repels Biting Bugs
Coconut Oil
The natural fatty acids present in coconut oil are more effective at repelling biting flies, ticks, and other pest arthropods than the harsh chemical DEET, according to a new study headed by the US Department of Agriculture.
Writing in the journal Scientific Reports, the researchers explain that they were motivated to look into new plant-based insect repellents by the increasing safety regulations and public concern over DEET (N,N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide). Developed in 1944, DEET has been the most widely used repellent in the decades since. However, DEET-based products can lead to skin irritation and have been linked to seizures and toxicity in children and pregnant women.
As to the plant-based repellent products already available, many are quite effective - after all, they are composed of extracts or synthetic versions of extracts from plants that people all over the world have been using, in less high-tech preparations, as repellents for thousands of years. But unfortunately, most of these work for less than 2-4 hours after application.
After characterizing all the different fatty acids present in coconut oil, the team grouped the molecules according to the length of their carbon chains. In a series of laboratory-based tests, medium-chain-length fatty acids with eight to 12 carbons were found to be potent against two types of biting flies - stable flies and horn flies - and bed bugs. At least 90 percent of these bugs were deterred for a full two weeks after application to cloth or paper elements put inside the insect enclosures. In contrast, a 10 percent DEET product began to lose its effect against bed bugs by day three.
The compounds also repelled lone star and brown dog ticks for at least one week. Tests with yellow fever Aedes aegypti mosquitos also showed an impressive rate of deterrence (93 percent), but the fatty acids needed to be applied at a higher concentration than for the other arthropods. Overall, preparations of medium-chain fatty acids were better than DEET preparations of the same concentration for both types of flies and bed bugs, and were equally effective for ticks. They were also matched at high concentrations for mosquitos.
Coconut Oil
Redefining
The Kilogram
The kilogram is shrinking.
The official object that defines the mass of a kilogram is a tiny, 139-year-old cylinder of platinum and iridium that resides in a triple-locked vault near Paris. Because it is so important, scientists almost never take it out; instead they use copies called working standards. But the last time they did inspect the real kilogram, they found it is roughly five parts in 100 million heavier than all the working standards, which have been leaving behind a few atoms of metal every time they are put on scales. This is one of the reasons the kilogram may soon be redefined not by a physical object but through calculations based on fundamental constants.
"This [shrinking] is the kind of thing that happens when you have an object that needs to be conserved in order to have a standard," says Peter Mohr, a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), who serves on the committee that oversees the International System of Units (SI). "Fundamental constants, on the other hand, are not going to change over time."
The redefinition of the kilogram will be part of a planned larger overhaul to make SI units fully dependent on constants of nature. Representatives from 57 countries will vote on the proposed change this month at a conference in Versailles, France, and the new rules are expected to pass. Along with the kilogram, the ampere (the unit of electric current), kelvin (temperature) and mole (amount of a substance) will get new definitions. The four will be based on Planck's constant, the elementary charge, the Boltzmann constant and the Avogadro constant, respectively. All these constants are determined by laboratory measurements, which have some inherent uncertainty. But if the vote is successful, countries using SI will agree on a fixed value for each constant based on the best data available and use them to derive the units.
What will happen to the old kilogram artifacts after the redefinition? Rather than packing them off to museums, scientists plan to keep studying how they fare over time. "There is so much measurement history on these," says physicist Stephan Schlamminger of NIST. "It would be irresponsible to not continue to measure them."
The Kilogram
| CURRENT MOON lunar phases |
