Marc Dion: A Smooth Stone (Creators Syndicate)
After the presents, after the huge Irish breakfast, after we watched the Downton Abbeymovie, I went to the beach. I went by myself. The beach, a small one, is maybe 30 minutes from my house, just over the line into Rhode Island. I live in Massachusetts.
Ted Rall: The Articles of Impeachment Should Have Been These Instead (Creators Syndicate)
Here are the articles of impeachment I would have drafted instead. No. 1: Racist foreign policy. President Donald J. Trump's comportment as head of state and top official in charge of foreign policy has brought shame, contempt and opprobrium upon the United States of America.
Lenore Skenazy: "The Top 10 Worst (and Best) Parenting Moments of 2019" (Creators Syndicate)
HOPPIN' DOWN THE PAPER TRAIL. Hard-boiled lawyers made sure no kids could participate in the University of California, Berkeley's campus Easter egg hunt without parents first signing a waiver acknowledging the potential risk of "catastrophic injuries including paralysis and death."
The Stimpmeter is a device used to measure the speed of a golf course putting green by applying a known force to a golf ball and measuring the distance traveled in feet.
It was designed in 1935 by golfer Edward S. Stimpson, Sr. (1904-1985). The Massachusetts state amateur champion and former Harvard golf team captain, Stimpson was a spectator at the 1935 U.S. Open at Oakmont near Pittsburgh, where the winning score was 299 (+11). After witnessing a putt by a top professional (Gene Sarazen, a two-time champion) roll off a green, Stimpson was convinced the greens were unreasonably fast, but wondered how he could prove it. He developed a device, made of wood, now known as the Stimpmeter, which is an angled track that releases a ball at a known velocity so that the distance it rolls on a green's surface can be measured.
In 1976, it was redesigned from aluminum by Frank Thomas of the United States Golf Association (USGA). It was first used by the USGA during the 1976 U.S. Open at Atlanta and made available to golf course superintendents in 1978. The 1976 version is painted green.
Official USGA stimpmeters are not sold to the public.
Source
Alan J was first, and correct, with:
Golf.
Randall wrote:
Measures the speed of putting greens
on a golf course
Mark. answered:
Golf.
Dave said:
Golf. It measures the "speed" of a golf green. Originally a wooden device that released a golf ball from a known angle and distance, the distance a golf ball travels from the Stimpmeter is information about whether the green is fast or slow. In theory a skilled golfer can adjust how hard he strokes his putts based on the speed of the greens.
The speed of the greens is maintained by a regimen of cutting and rolling, while keeping the weather in mind. A dried out green will tend to be fast.
Stephen F responded:
Golf (Pasture Pool)
Mac Mac replied:
Golf
Jim from CA, retired to ID, said:
A Stimpmeter is a simple tool used to measure the speed of putting greens: how easily a golf ball rolls across the surface of the green
Roy, the Libtard in Tyler, TX wrote:
It's Golf! Golf is the sport that makes use of the Stimpmeter. Every golfer needs to know how their Stimp is working before teeing off! I've always thought of it as something golf tournament announcers talk about to fill time. The darn thing is used to measure how far a golf ball is going to roll when rolled down a ramp. It give golfers pretty much the same information they could get after two putts on the practice green while waiting for their tee time. Crazy, no?
Adam answered:
Golf- but isn't 'sport' an overstatement? To my mind it's barely a game, like hoop&stick or cup&ball.
zorch responded:
Golf uses a stimpmeter. It sounds like something a fymp farmer would use.
Deborah replied:
One of my least-favorite sports uses a Stimpmeter: Golf.
Second day in a row of sun. Got a quick bike ride yesterday afternoon, planning a longer one today, and fingers crossed that rain holds off Sunday until after a ride. Gotta make up for all those rainy days.
John I from Hawai`i says,
golf
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~~~~~
Song: "Keeps on Dancing" from the album PEOPLE TALK
Artist: The Cocktail Slippers
Artist Location: Oslo, Norway
Info: Executive producer: Steven Van Zandt
Piper: keys and backing vocals
Aurora de Morales: bass and backing vocals
Hope: lead vocals
Bella Donna: drums and percussion
Rocket Queen: guitar and backing vocals
Price: $1 (USD) for song; $8.99 (USD) for 10-track album
• Avant-garde composer John Cage created a piece titled 4'33" in which the musician sits without playing for four minutes and 33 seconds. This piece was first performed on 29 August 1952, by pianist David Tudor in Woodstock, New York. (The piece can be played by any instrument and by any ensemble.) Mr. Cage also created a piece titled Imaginary Landscape No. 4 - in it, 12 radios are tuned to 12 different radio stations. The stations are randomly chosen by tossing a coin.
• George Frideric Handel occasionally "borrowed" from other composers. After being told that something he had supposedly composed was actually written by Bononcini, Handel merely remarked, "It was much too good for Bononcini."
Conductors
• Occasionally, conductors have trouble with singers. Once, Arturo Toscanini instructed soprano Geraldine Farrar in how to sing a particular aria, but she ignored his instructions. When he told her again how to sing the aria, she replied, "You forget, Maestro, that I am the star." Maestro Toscanini shot back, "I thank God I know no stars except those in heaven which are perfect." By the way, the premiere of Maeterlinck's Pelléas et Mélisande with music by Debussy was given at La Scala - to the hooting of the audience. Throughout the performance, Maestro Toscanini conducted with dignity, ignoring the noise made by the audience, even though it was impossible to hear one note of the music.
• Sir Adrian Boult once accepted an invitation to conduct British music with a famous American orchestra that was known for a few eccentric qualities. Sir Adrian and the orchestra practiced well together, and he was able to remove the eccentric elements of the orchestra's performance and replace them with elements of nobilmente. However, at the concert, the orchestra played with all of its original eccentricity and with none of Sir Adrian's nobilmente. Following the concert, an annoyed Sir Adrian asked the concertmaster why the orchestra had played one way during rehearsal and a very different way during the concert. The concertmaster replied, "The rehearsal's all yours - but the concert's all ours."
• Anton Horner was first horn of the Philadelphia Orchestra for decades. Because of his great competence on the horn, he was secure enough to stand up to famous conductors. When Leopold Stokowski began to conduct the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1912, he always criticized each performance and told the musicians what they had done wrong. After a few weeks of constant criticism, Mr. Horner spoke up, telling Maestro Stokowski that he should tell the musicians what they had done right as well as what they had done wrong. Shortly afterward, Mr. Horner was moved from first horn to third horn. However, he was so competent a musician that he soon returned to first horn.
• Thomas Beecham once conducted Camille Saint Saëns' Third Symphony in C Minor. Beecham thought that Saint Saëns' tempi had become depressingly slow in his later years, and so he livened things up through accentuation as much as possible during the performance. Later, he asked Saint Saëns what he had thought of the performance. Saint Saëns replied, "You mean, what do I think of your interpretation? My dear young friend, I have lived a long while, and I have known all the chefs d'orchestre. There are two kinds; one takes the music too fast, and the other too slow. There is no third!"
• Sir Thomas Beecham was once asked to conduct the orchestra on a ship. Afterward, the ship's captain asked him his opinion of the orchestra. Sir Thomas replied, "Wait until I get ashore first." By the way, Sir Thomas joked sometimes at the expense of great composers. After Sir Thomas had conducted an opera by Mozart, Fritz Reiner congratulated him, saying, "Thank you for a delightful evening with Beecham and Mozart." Sir Thomas replied, "Why drag in Mozart?"
• Conductor Arturo Toscanini once wrote composer Richard Strauss for permission to give the first performance in Italy of Strauss' Salome. After receiving permission, Toscanini began to prepare the piece. However, he later discovered that Strauss himself was going to conduct Salome in Italy the week before Toscanini was scheduled to conduct it. Immediately, Toscanini took the train to Vienna, where he called on Strauss and said to him, "As a musician I take off my hat to you, but as a man, I put on 10 hats."
CBS starts the night with '60 Minutes', followed by a RERUN'The Unicorn', then another RERUN'The Unicorn', followed by a RERUN'Carol's Second Act', then another RERUN'Carol's Second Act', followed by a RERUN'All Rise'.
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'Kids Say The Darndest Things', then a RERUN'Shark Tank'.
The CW offers a RERUN'Batwoman', followed by a RERUN'Batgirl'.
Faux fills the night with LIVE'NFL Football', followed by a FRESH'Flirty Dancing'.
MY recycles an old 'How I Met Your Mother', followed by another old 'How I Met Your Mother', then 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 all old 'Live PD Presents: PD Cam' all night.
AMC offers the movie 'Taken', followed by the mvoie 'Forrest Gump'.
BBC -
[6:00AM] DOCTOR WHO: A CHRISTMAS CAROL
[7:20AM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 6 - EPISODE 9-Night Terrors
[8:20AM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 6 - EPISODE 10-The Girl Who Waited
[9:20AM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 7 - EPISODE 1-Asylum of the Daleks
[10:25AM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 7 - EPISODE 2-Dinosaurs on a Spaceship
[11:30AM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 7 - EPISODE 3-A Town Called Mercy
[12:35PM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 7 - EPISODE 4-The Power of Three
[1:35PM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 7 - EPISODE 5-The Angels Take Manhattan
[2:40PM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 7 - EPISODE 6-The Bells of Saint John
[3:45PM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 7 - EPISODE 7-The Rings of Akhaten
[4:50PM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 7 - EPISODE 8-Cold War
[5:50PM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 7 - EPISODE 9-Hide
[6:55PM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 7 - EPISODE 10-Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS
[8:00PM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 7 - EPISODE 11-The Crimson Horror
[9:05PM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 7 - EPISODE 12-Nightmare in Silver
[10:10PM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 7 - EPISODE 13-The Name of the Doctor
[11:15PM] DOCTOR WHO: A CHRISTMAS CAROL
[12:35AM] DOCTOR WHO: THE DOCTOR, THE WIDOW AND THE WARDROBE
[1:55AM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 6 - EPISODE 8-Let's Kill Hitler
[3:00AM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 6 - EPISODE 9-Night Terrors
[4:00AM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 6 - EPISODE 10-The Girl Who Waited
[5:00AM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 6 - EPISODE 11-The God Complex (ALL TIMES EST)
Bravo has 'Real Housewives Of Atlanta', followed by a FRESH'Real Housewives Of Atlanta', then a FRESH'Married To Medicine', followed by another FRESH'Married To Medicine'.
Comedy Central has the movie '21 Jump Street', followed by the movie 'Wedding Crashers'.
FX has the movie 'Kingsman: The Golden Circle', followed by a FRESH'The Weekly', and another 'The Weekly'.
IFC -
[6:15A] The Three Stooges - Beer Barrel Polecats
[6:30A] Admission
[9:00A] Drillbit Taylor
[11:30A] Here Comes the Boom
[2:00P] Galaxy Quest
[4:30P] I Love You, Man
[7:00P] Trading Places
[9:30P] Trading Places
[12:00A] I Love You, Man
[2:30A] Admission
[5:00A] Pee-wee's Playhouse - Tango Time
[5:30A] Pee-wee's Playhouse - Playhouse Day (ALL TIMES EST)
Sundance -
[6:30am] Face/Off
[9:30am] Catch Me if You Can
[12:30pm] Ocean's Eleven
[3:00pm] Ocean's Twelve
[6:00pm] Ocean's Thirteen
[9:00pm] GoodFellas
[12:00am] GoodFellas
[3:00am] Catch Me if You Can (ALL TIMES EST)
SyFy has the movie 'Doctor Strange', followed by the movie 'King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword'.
Ad-supported cable business' fortunes continue to decline unless it's live programming - news and sports.
Cable news networks Fox News and MSNBC and sports-focused ESPN repeated as 1-2-3 atop all basic cable networks in total viewers in Live+7 Nielsen ratings for 2019. That is all the more impressive because live non-entertainment programming gets very little delayed viewing, and even more important for advertisers who put a premium on ad-supported content where commercials can't be skipped.
Fox News was the top-rated basic cable network among total viewers for a fourth year in a row, with an average of 2.57 million in L+7. In second place was a news network on the other side of the deepening partisan fault line, MSNBC, with 1.80 million, according to Nielsen. CNN notched an average of 1 million.
Fox News also reported its highest-rated primetime in history with an average of 2.5 million viewers. Hannity was the top-rated program in cable news for a third year in a row with 3.3 million viewers.
Even as they were far behind Fox News in total viewers, MSNBC and CNN talked up program highlights. MSNBC's Deadline: White House with Nicole Wallace topped the 4 PM time slot in total viewers, while The 11th Hour with Brian Williams ranked first in that category for a third year in a row. Morning Joe, a frequent President Donald Trump target, averaged 1.1 million total viewers for what the network said was a record for the fourth year in a row, albeit it still trails Fox News' Fox & Friends.
As if interrupting your boss during an important meeting isn't awkward enough, imagine having to be the one to tell Comedy Central executives that Dave Chappelle, the network's biggest star, "is gone" - as in, isn't coming to work ever again.
That's exactly what happened to comedian John Mulaney, who reveals in an interview for Netflix's comedy YouTube channel Netflix Is A Joke that as an assistant at the network, he's the one who answered the phone call where it was explained that Chappelle "went missing."
Chappelle, who has since made a comeback on Netflix, famously fled for South Africa in 2005 in the middle of season 3 of his lauded comedy sketch series, Chappelle's Show. At the time, it made headlines everywhere and created a bit of a problem for Comedy Central.
"They were like 'you have to interrupt the meeting and tell them'," he says about the person on the phone, referring to network executives who were behind closed doors. "I was like 'Okay.' So I went in and was like 'So, Dave Chappelle's gone.'"
Like the boy who cried wolf fable, the network heads didn't entirely believe Mulaney at first. Because yes, Chappelle wasn't at work yet, but he'd done this before, Mulaney explains. Chappelle would often be three or four hours late, so this was just another day at the office. But Mulaney, who was the temporary assistant to the then-head of development, knew this time was just a little bit different. When execs asked if this was a "health and safety issue," the person on the phone confirmed just as much.
Liberal filmmaker Michael Moore feels that President Donald Trump (R-Unqualified) is on track to win the 2020 election, claiming support in the Midwest has not declined.
"If the vote were today, I believe, he would win the electoral states that he would need, because, living out there, I will tell you, his level of support has not gone down one inch,' Moore said in an interview with Democracy Now! "In fact, I'd say it's even more rabid than it was before, because they're afraid now. They're afraid he could lose, because they watched his behavior. So they are voracious in their appetite for Donald Trump. That's the bad news."
Moore has a history of being correct with his predictions. In 2016, on an online broadcast of RealTime With Bill Maher, he said that Trump would win by carrying Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Moore's home state of Michigan. The prediction proved accurate.
This time around, Moore claimed that Trump would again lose the popular vote, as he did in 2016. But the number of people voting against the President would increase.
"Hillary won by 3 million popular votes. I believe whoever the Democrat is next year is going to win by 4 to 5 million popular votes. There's no question in my mind that people who stayed home, who sat on the bench, they're going to pour out. There's going to be a much higher percentage of people voting against him."
Donald Trump (R-Unfit) has continued to use America's homelessness crisis to attack his political opponents in California and New York, tweeting on Saturday that homelessness should be "easy" to handle and that the governors of the two liberal states should ask him for help.
Workers and activists on the front lines of the crisis have repeatedly said that Trump's "tough talk" on homelessness is concerning, and that some of his proposed policies will only make the situation worse.
As the number of homeless people has increased sharply in cities across California, some local politicians have already tried to try to penalize people for being homeless, rather than addressing root causes of the crisis, including unaffordable rents and evictions pushing people on to the streets.
Meanwhile, Trump has continued to fuel anxiety by repeatedly suggesting he might try to implement some kind of police crackdown in California to clear the streets of encampments.
Trump's repeated tweets about homelessness have been labeled "vile and reprehensible" by activists.
Nearly three quarters of Americans don't care about the religious affiliation of their hospital or healthcare network, but an equal number say they expect their healthcare preferences to take priority over the facility's religious doctrine, a new study finds.
The survey comes at a time when the number of Catholic-owned healthcare systems are on the rise, researchers note. And, perhaps unknown to many patients, physicians at those facilities are expected to follow the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' "Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services," which places limits on reproductive and end-of-life care methods.
"We are seeing the composition of the U.S. healthcare system shifting," said the study's lead author, Dr. Maryam Guiahi, an associate professor in the department of obstetrics and gynecology and the center for bioethics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, in Aurora.
"The number of Catholic-owned or affiliated healthcare facilities grew by 22% between 2001 and 2016," Guiahi said. "And this contrasts with the overall number of acute-care hospitals, which decreased by 6% and the number of other nonprofit religious hospitals decreased by 38%. What this means is that increasingly more U.S patients will be seeking care in health facilities that may follow religious rules rather than evidence-based guidelines for care."
For example, "prior research has shown that the vast majority of religious-affiliated institutions offer birth control appointments, but in the office, the patient might find some of the most effective birth control methods are not offered," she said. Healthcare providers at these institutions are, according to the religious guidelines, "only permitted to offer counseling on natural family planning to heterosexual families."
Donald Trump (R-Deranged) has promoted a post claiming he is "heaven sent" and suggesting Barack Obama "kicked" Jesus out of the US in a string of tweets just days after Christmas.
The president spent some of his Friday evening retweeting praise for himself, including one post from January 2018 with a picture of a man who appears to be Jesus Christ and a caption saying: "Obama kicked me out. Trump invited me back."
"I truly believe this man was heaven sent in order to save and protect the most gracious, benevolent, and in turn, prosperous country ever," the caption to the post said, referring to the president.
Mr Trump's decision to share the post follows a number of current and former Trump administration officials who have suggested the president was sent by God.
The suggestion about Jesus Christ, a man who is thought to have been from the Middle East, also comes as refugee resettlement in the US has dropped to "historic lows" during the Trump presidency.
It was a "dirty war" waged by French colonial troops but it never made headlines and even today goes untold in school history books.
The brutal conflict unfolded in Cameroon, which on January 1 marks its 60th anniversary of independence -- the first of 17 African countries that became free from their colonial masters in 1960.
Many decades on, those who witnessed the violence recall events that shaped countless lives in the central African country yet remain unchronicled today.
"My life was overturned," Odile Mbouma, 72, said in the southwestern town of Ekite.
On the night of December 30, 1956, French troops arrived in the town and slaughtered dozens of people, perhaps as many as a hundred, she said.
When it comes to organ transplant surgery, doctors are racing against the clock - and time is not on their side.
A team of clinicians must first remove the organ from its donor, sets of gloved hands coordinating to deftly cleave tissue from the body. Doctors then prep the harvested organ for transport to its recipient, who may be hours away by plane. Once the organ reaches its destination, the transplant operation can finally commence; again, surgeons must work swiftly to ensure both the patient's safety and the organ's viability.
This description may make organ transplant surgery sound like a TV drama, with medical personnel sprinting through hospital corridors carrying coolers packed with body parts. But all the rushing about raises a question that's much more important than a TV show: How long can an organ last outside the body and remain fit for transplantation?
It depends on the organ. For now, the time window can be between 4 and 36 hours. But someday, doctors hope to be able to maintain organs for weeks on end.
In 2018, more than 36,500 organ transplants took place in the U.S. alone, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS). By far, kidneys were the most commonly transplanted organ, with more than 21,000 transplants taking place last year. The next most commonly transplanted organs were the liver, heart and lung, in that order, followed by pancreas, intestine and multiorgan transplantations.
Two miles under a grassy plain in South Africa, pockets of water lie trapped in the rock. Scientists think the pockets might have been isolated from the surrounding environment for 2 billion years. These liquid time capsules are hot, salty, and devoid of nutrients from the surface, and they may be chemically similar to water deposits on Mars.
Now, researchers think they may have found things living in this long-sequestered water.
"There is a potential that [the pockets] were isolated over that long time scale. So this would be a unique opportunity to see life, essentially, evolving in a bubble," said Devan Nisson, a graduate student at Princeton University in New Jersey, who conducted the research with colleagues, including Esta van Heerden from North-West University in South Africa. Nisson presented preliminary findings from the ongoing research project this week at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.
Supported by funding from NASA and the National Science Foundation, the researchers collected samples in 2018 and 2019 by descending into a gold and uranium mine operated by Harmony Gold. The water lies in rock fractures accessed through boreholes, allowing the researchers to release some of the pressurized water and filter out material for analysis.
When they examined the material under a scanning electron microscope, they saw rodlike shapes that appeared to be bacteria or similar-looking microbes called archaea. One of the cells was pinched in the middle, apparently in the process of dividing.
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