• Voltaire was controversial and thought to be impious. Because of the attacks against him, he lived at Ferney, close to the border with Switzerland, where he could escape if necessary. While on her deathbed, Queen Maria Lecszinska wanted his impiety to be punished. However, her husband the King answered, “What can I do? If he were in Paris, I should exile him to Ferney.”
• Sometimes, people try to censor books before they have read them. Some parents once tried to have the book Making It with Mademoiselle removed from a school library, but when they actually looked at the book, they discovered that it was a sewing book from Mademoiselle magazine.
Children
• One of Humankind’s greatest inventions is law. Even people who seem to live outside the law invent their own laws, although they may call them rules instead of laws. As a child, Maya Angelou ran away from home and found a car in a junkyard to sleep in. When she woke up, she found a number of children looking at her. They were runaway children who lived in the junkyard. The children accepted Maya into their group and told her of the rules they had created for themselves. No. 1: No stealing, as stealing would bring police. No. 2: Each child slept alone, in his or her own junked car, unless it was raining — only a few cars were able to keep out the rain. The children lived by collecting the deposits on returnable bottles. They washed their clothing at a Laundromat. On Fridays, they went to one child’s home (when the family was at work) and took baths and ironed their clothing. They also made money by entering and sometimes winning jitterbug dance contests. Maya stayed with the group for one month before moving on.
• When she was a child, young people’s author Peg Kehret suffered from polio, being completely paralyzed from the neck down until one day she felt an itch in her leg and reached one hand down to scratch it. She was so excited that she yelled, “I can move my hand!” Nurses came running to share in the excitement and the happiness. For a while, as Peg regained more mobility, she moved around in a wheelchair she named “Silver” after the Lone Ranger’s horse — she even learned to pop wheelies in the wheelchair! Peg learned to walk again and was able to return home, grow up, get married, and write books. Eventually, she wrote an autobiography titled Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio about her experiences with polio. One boy started crying after he had finished reading the book. When his mother asked him why he was crying, he replied, “Because the best book I’ll ever read is over.”
• Essayist David Sedaris occasionally writes about relatives such as his brother, aka “The Rooster,” who lives in North Carolina; however, he doesn’t think it would be right to write about people such as The Rooster’s young daughter, his niece. Mr. Sedaris says, “I think it’s perfectly OK to write about your parents, but I think it’s creepy to write about your children. So, I told myself I would not write about Madeline. But when I went to my brother’s house last spring, I was thinking, ‘God, I hope she doesn’t do anything memorable. Please let her be boring.’” Of course, this doesn’t mean that he thinks any less of Madeline because she won’t be source material for his humorous essays. Instead, he admits that “when other people say, ‘Well, my niece is the best,’ I feel sorry for them a little bit, because I know that they’re wrong.”
• Beverly Cleary has written many, many books for children, including the Newbery Award-winning Dear Mr. Henshaw; however, she didn’t start out as a reader. Of course, her mother read many exciting books to her that made her eager to learn to read, but the books at school were boring and not what she wanted to read. Fortunately, her mother kept many books, including children’s books, around the house, and one boring, rainy Sunday, Beverly picked up The Dutch Twins by Lucy Fitch and began to read it. That was the kind of book she had always wanted to read. The characters were children much like herself, and their adventures were funny. She read the entire book in one day — she was allowed to keep on reading past her bedtime — and she soon became an avid reader.
First recorded by Martha and the Vandellas in 1964, the Mamas & the Papas did a cover version of this song in 1966, and so did David Bowie and Mick Jagger in 1993. What is the title of this chart topping song?
Gephyrophobia is the anxiety disorder or specific phobia characterized by the fear of bridges. As a result, sufferers of gephyrophobia may avoid routes that will take them over bridges, or if they are a passenger, will act very apprehensively when passing over a bridge. The term gephyrophobia comes from the Greek (gephura), meaning "bridge", and (phobos), meaning "fear".
Some possible manifestations of gephyrophobia may be fear of driving off the bridge, fear of a gust of wind blowing one off the bridge, or fear that the bridge will collapse when crossing it (e.g., fear that the bridge lacks structural integrity). The fear overlaps with acrophobia (the fear of heights) as gephyrophobia tends to be exacerbated in taller bridges as compared to those closer to the water or ground beneath.
Source
Mark. was first, and correct, with:
Fear of crossing bridges.
Billy in Cypress said:
Bridges
Alan J answered:
Bridges and Tunnels.
Randall wrote:
fear of bridges
Doug in Albuquerque, New Mexico, replied:
Gephyrophobia is the fear of bridges and tunnels. I had an Aunt who suffered with this malady. My Uncle would blindfold her when coming to visit since we lived on the other side of the river.
Dave responded:
Bridges and tunnels.
Deborah, the Master Gardener wrote:
Gephyrophobia is the fear of bridges.
The wind and cold showed up; still waiting on the rain. Dammit.
zorch said:
It’s the fear of bridges and tunnels.
Cal in Vermont answered:
It is the fear of bridges and tunnels. My wife's sister-in-law suffers from this phobia. It's good for her. She's also fun to watch. Also is a Trumpster. Bye bye President Bloated Orange Baboon's Asshole! Ha ha ha ha!
Jim from CA, retired to ID, replied:
hot damn..they should have called Pennsylvania 2 days ago...Gephyrophobia is the anxiety disorder or specific phobia characterized by the fear of bridges
Barbara, of Peppy Tech fame responded:
The answer is fear of bridges and tunnels. Something you really don't want to have if you live in the San Francisco Bay Area!
Joe ( -- Vote Blue, No Matter Who -- ) wrote:
OMG I have that, or most of it anyway. Going through tunnels doesn't bother me, I've gone through tunnels in the Appalations with no problem. And I have to cross the Manistee river via a bridge to get from one side of town to the other, but Mason had to drive me across Big Mac and I couldn't look down.
Mac Mac took the day off.
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Roy the (now retired) hoghead (aka 'hoghed') ( Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid. ~Frank Zappa ) took the day off.
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BttbBob has returned to semi-retired status.
~~~~~
Album: PRIMEIRO CAMPEONATO MINEIRO DE SURFE - 20 ANOS [FIRST MINAS GERAIS SURFING CHAMPIONSHIP - 20 YEARS]
Artist: Frank Simata
Record Company: Reverb Brasil
Record Company Location: Brazil
Info: “Twenty years ago we couldn’t imagine that our little excuse to meet with our surf music friends from around the country would still be happening. We also couldn’t imagine how crazy 2020 would be. Nothing could stop us from celebrating though, so we are doing the festival anyway, but in an online format. Here is the final line-up of the 20th anniversary of Primeiro Campeonato Mineiro de Surfe, the oldest running surf music festival in the world and the most important one in South America.
“There will be 60 bands from 10 different countries and 12 Brazilian states, with exclusive performances ranging from newly recorded material, video clips, quarantine-style videos, historic festival performances and much more.
“This compilation has almost every band participating in the live festival plus a few extras.”
CBS starts the night, as usual, with '60 Minutes', followed by a RERUN'NCIS: The Expendable One', then a RERUN'NCIS: The 3rd One', followed by a RERUN'NCIS'.
NBC fills the night with LIVE'Sunday Night Football', then pads the left coast with local crap and maybe an old 'Dateline'.
ABC begins the night with a RERUN'America's So-Called Funniest Home Videos', followed by a RERUN'Supermarket Sweep', then a RERUN'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?', followed by a RERUN'Card Sharks'.
The CW offers a FRESH'Pandora', followed by a RERUN'Whose Line Is It Anyway?', then another RERUN'Whose Line Is It Anyway?'.
Faux has a RERUN'The Simpsons', followed by a RERUN'Bob's Burgers', then a FRESH'The Simpsons', followed by a FRESH'Bless The Harts', then a FRESH'Bob's Burgers', followed by a FRESH'Family Guy'.
MY recycles an old 'Big Bang Theory', followed by another old 'Big Bang Theory', then still another old 'Big Bang Theory', followed by yet another old 'Big Bang Theory'.
A&E has the movie 'Jack Reacker: Never Go Back', followed by the movie 'The Magnificent Seven'.
AMC offers the movie 'White House Down', 'Fear The Walking Dead', followed by a FRESH'Fear The Walking Dead', then a FRESH'The Walking Dead: World Beyond'.
BBC -
[6:00AM] HIDDEN HABITATS - SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS
[6:30AM] WILD SINGAPORE - FOREST LIFE
[7:30AM] PLANET EARTH - JUNGLES
[8:30AM] PLANET EARTH - SHALLOW SEAS
[9:30AM] PLANET EARTH - SEASONAL FORESTS
[10:30AM] PLANET EARTH - OCEAN DEEP
[11:30AM] I AM NUMBER FOUR
[2:00PM] HANCOCK
[4:00PM] THE DARK KNIGHT RISES
[8:00PM] TOP GEAR
[9:00PM] THE DARK KNIGHT RISES
[1:00AM] HANCOCK
[3:00AM] I AM NUMBER FOUR
[5:30AM] MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS - SPAM
[5:45AM] MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS - SALAD DAYS (ALL TIMES ET)
Bravo has 'Real Housewives Of Potomac', followed by a FRESH'Real Housewives Of Potomac', then another FRESH'Real Housewives Of Potomac', followed by a FRESH'Watch What Happens: Live'.
Comedy Central has the movie 'Grown Ups', followed by the movie 'Step Brothers', then the movie 'Grown Ups'.
FX has the movie 'The Fate Of The Furious', followed by the movie 'Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle', then a FRESH'Fargo'.
IFC -
[6:00am - 10:00am] Saved By The Bell
[10:30am] The Patriot
[2:00pm] Braveheart
[6:00pm] Transporter 2
[8:00pm] John Wick
[10:15pm] John Wick
[12:30am] Braveheart
[4:30am] Baroness Von Sketch Show - I've Got A Date With A Gnome And He Is Hawt!
[5:00am] Sherman's Showcase - Black History Month Spectacular (ALL TIMES ET)
Sundance -
[6:30am] monk - Mr. Monk And The Earthquake
[7:30am] monk - Mr. Monk Meets The Red-Headed Stranger
[8:30am] monk - Mr. Monk And The Airplane
[9:30am] monk - Mr. Monk Goes Back To School
[10:30am] monk - Mr. Monk Goes To The Ballgame
[11:30am] fight club
[2:30pm] dragon: the bruce lee story
[5:00pm] the outsiders
[7:00pm] the karate kid
[10:00pm] the karate kid part ii
[12:30am] the karate kid
[3:30am] the karate kid part iii (ALL TIMES ET)
SyFy has the movie 'John Wick: Chapter 2', followed by the movie 'Hunter Killer'.
Mick Jagger celebrated the future of the United States with a message on Twitter on Saturday (Nov. 7).
"I’m so looking forward to coming back to an America free of harsh words and name calling and be amongst people who I know have common ground and harmony," he wrote to his 2.2 million followers. "It’s a challenge but it can be done!"
Jagger's tweet came just hours after Joe Biden was called the president-elect of the United States, defeating Donald Trump in the 2020 election.
The comment from the Rolling Stones frontman follows the band's objection to Trump's unauthorized use of their music at a campaign rally over the summer. In June, they released a statement after "You Can't Always Get What You Want" was played as Trump left the stage at a campaign stop in Tulsa.
Donald Trump (R-Snake Oil) didn’t just lose his current job on Saturday when he was defeated by Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. He also lost a promising offer for what could have been his next gig after being kicked out of the White House: Serving as a “racist buffoon” for “Borat” star Sacha Baron Cohen.
Now we understand the last week has lasted for at least a decade, so just in case you forgot: Back in October Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, humiliated himself in a scene late in Cohen’s latest film, “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm,” where he appeared to shove his hand down his pants while lying down on a hotel-room bed after being interviewed by Baron Cohen’s co-star Maria Bakalova. Giuliani claimed he was only tucking his shirt in, though plenty of people noted how the actions he made don’t really resemble how the vast majority of people do that.
When asked about the fiasco, Trump called Cohen “a creep,” which prompted Cohen to make his job offer. “Donald–I appreciate the free publicity for Borat! I admit I don’t find you funny either,” Cohen said Oct. 24. “But yet the whole world laughs at you. I’m always looking for people to play racist buffoons, and you’ll need a job after Jan. 20. Let’s talk.”
Alas, when it rains, it pours and it is very much raining on Donald Trump. Saturday afternoon, amid impromptu street parties celebrating Trump’s defeat, and a seriously huge amount of Trump dunking on social media, Baron Cohen rescinded his offer.
“Donald–you’re out of work and I know I offered you a job,” Baron Cohen tweeted. “But your performance this past week was tragic and sad. Offer rescinded.”
Queen Elizabeth II donned a face mask in public for the first time during the coronavirus pandemic when attending a brief ceremony at Westminster Abbey last week to mark the centenary of the burial of the Unknown Warrior.
While the 94-year-old has been seen in public on several occasions over the past few months, she had not been pictured wearing a face covering until now.
On Wednesday, during her first public engagement in London since March, she wore a black mask that was edged with white. Pictures of the ceremony were officially released late Saturday.
The brief service was attended by just the dean and the queen’s equerry, Lieutenant Colonel Nana Kofi Twumasi-Ankrah. The queen left a bouquet of orchids and myrtle, based on her own wedding bouquet from November 1947. She bowed her head after a prayer from the dean.
The queen had requested a ceremony take place as the pandemic had derailed plans for the centenary of the interment of the Unknown Warrior.
Rock climber Emily Harrington has become the first woman, and fourth person, to free-climb the Golden Gate route on Yosemite National Park’s 3,000-foot (914-meter) granite wall in a single day.
While most of the country was focused on the results of the U.S. presidential election early Wednesday, the 34-year-old began to scale El Capitan, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Friday. She reached the top 21 hours, 13 minutes and 51 seconds later. Only three people — all men — have made the free climb on that route in a day.
Free climbers use ropes to catch them if they fall, but not to help them ascend.
El Capitan is one of the world’s most famous climbing spots. It has been a proving ground for the best climbers for decades in the national park, which many consider the birthplace of modern rock climbing.
Harrington had climbed a particular route on the wall, called Golden Gate, many times, but never in a single day. Nearly a year ago, she endured a scary fall and was taken to the hospital with injuries. She vowed to try again and spent months training in her home gym in Tahoe City, California.
The Trump administration has fired the heads of three federal agencies, in the wake of the 2020 US election.
The administration fired Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Bonnie Glick, deputy administrator of the US Agency for International Development, and Neil Chatterjee, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
Ms Gordon-Hagerty, who was on Donald Trump (R-Grifter)’s shortlist to replace former national security adviser John Bolton in 2019, was forced to resign on Friday, according to the New York Post. She was the first woman to oversee the National Nuclear Security Administration.
Republican senator Jim Inhofe, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, issued a statement on Friday, in which he said that the energy secretary Dan Brouillette “effectively demanded” Ms Gordon-Hagerty’s resignation.
He added that Mr Brouillette’s decision “during this time of uncertainty demonstrates he doesn’t know what he’s doing in national security matters and shows a complete lack of respect for the semi-autonomous nature of NNSA”.
Israel has come under heavy criticism after the military demolished several homes and other structures in a Bedouin community in the occupied West Bank this week as much of the world's attention was focused on the U.S. election.
On Friday, a group of European diplomats visited the community of Khirbet Humsu in the northern Jordan Valley in a show of support for the Palestinian community against what an EU representative said was a violation of international law.
Israeli troops with bulldozers and heavy equipment on Tuesday — U.S. Election Day — demolished 18 tents and other structures that housed 74 people, including 41 minors, according to the Israeli rights group B'Tselem. The Israeli military said the structures were built without permission.
B'Tselem said the troops also demolished livestock enclosures, storage sheds, cooking tents, solar panels, water containers and feeding troughs, and that they confiscated 30 tons of livestock feed, a vehicle and two tractors.
Yvonne Helle, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, said in a statement earlier this week that it was the single largest demolition of its kind in the past decade.
The asteroid in question, called (101429) 1998 VF31, is part of a group of trojan asteroids sharing the orbit of Mars.
Trojans are celestial bodies that fall into gravitationally balanced regions of space in the vicinity of other planets, located 60 degrees in front of and behind the planet.
Most of the trojan asteroids we know about share Jupiter's orbit, but other planets have them too, including Mars and Earth too.
What makes (101429) 1998 VF31 (hereafter '101429') interesting is that among the Red Planet's trailing trojans (the ones that follow behind Mars as it orbits the Sun), 101429 appears to be unique.
The rest of the group, called the L5 Martian Trojans, all belong to what's known as the Eureka family, consisting of 5261 Eureka – the first Mars trojan discovered – and a bunch of small fragments believed to have come loose from their parent space rock.
The afterglow of the mineral hackmanite (or tenebrescent sodalite) is a fascinating natural phenomenon that has long been a mystery to scientists – even if we're now able to engineer synthetic materials that glow in the dark more effectively than anything in nature.
Geologists first described the mineral in the 1800s, who were intrigued by its tendency to softly glow a bright pink hue when broken or placed in the dark and lose it in the light. Later research would narrow down the chemistry behind this characteristic, but the precise nature of the reaction has proven elusive.
Now a new study outlines exactly how certain types of hackmanite retain some of their glow as they move from bright to dark settings. The key is the delicate interplay between the mineral's natural impurities, determined by how it was formed.
Getting a better understanding of how hackmanite can emit white luminescence in dark conditions will further help scientists develop our own synthetic materials able to glow in the dark without any source of power, as on an emergency exit sign, for example.
Psychedelic drug researchers at Johns Hopkins carefully curated a seven-hour-long playlist to help participants in their most recent study have the trips of their lives.
The study looked at how psilocybin, the psychedelic compound in "magic" mushrooms, could reduce depression symptoms.
The study was published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry on November 4 — incidentally, the day after Oregon became the first US state to legalize psilocybin for therapeutic use.
It was the first randomized controlled trial to look at how psilocybin administered in a clinical setting could affect people with long-term, clinically diagnosed depression. They found psilocybin to be four times as effective as traditional anti-depressant medications for treating depression.
The researchers studied 24 people who had depression for an average of 21.5 years and found, after two facilitator-assisted psilocybin trips and post-trip debrief sessions, that 67% of them reported more than a 50% decrease in depression symptoms after the first drug-trip session. After the second session, 71% of the participants said they noticed a 50% decrease in symptoms.
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said:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
