I like to end the blogging day with a nice image, such as this one via mineraliety.
27 May 2018
Where to live in this alternate world?
The map has been generated by reversing land and water and elevations. The ocean trenches become mountain chains. The verdant/desert attributions are presumably extrapolated from current terrestrial patterns.
So... where would I want to live in this reversed world? That Mediterranean Peninsula would probably get hammered by wicked tropical weather. I think maybe near the shores of Lake Madagascar, with the mountains on one side and the African Sea on the other.
Addendum: Oops - this is a repost from six years ago.
Via.
Who was "the noblest Roman of them all" ?
A closing oration in the final scene of a Shakespeare play (that need not be identified here) includes these laudatory words:
This was the noblest Roman of them all...
His life was gentle, and the elementsSo mixed in him that Nature might stand upAnd say to all the world, “This was a man.”
To whom was the speaker referring?
a) Marcus Brutusb) Augustus Caesarc) Marc Antony
Answer here. Posted because I chose the wrong one earlier this week (très embarrassing for an English major...)
"Christian Nationalists" explained
First from Wikipedia:
Christian nationalism is Christianity-affiliated religious nationalism. Christian nationalists focus primarily on internal politics, such as passing laws that reflect their view of Christianity and its role in political and social life. They are actively promoting religious (Christian) and nationalistic discourses in various fields of social life, from politics and history, to culture and science. In Europe and the United States, Christian nationalism ranges from conservative to far right-wing.And some excerpts from a NYT op-ed column:
America’s Christian nationalists have a new plan for advancing their legislative goals in state capitols across the country. Its stated aim is to promote “religious freedom.” Not shy, they call it “Project Blitz.”...More at the link. I'll defer commentary and close comments for this post.
The idea behind Project Blitz is to overwhelm state legislatures with bills based on centrally manufactured legislation. “It’s kind of like whack-a-mole for the other side; it’ll drive ‘em crazy that they’ll have to divide their resources out in opposing this,” David Barton, the Christian nationalist historian and one of four members of Project Blitz’s “steering team,” said in a conference call with state legislators from around the country that was later made public...
In their guidebook for state legislators and other allies, the authors of the Project Blitz program have grouped their model legislation into three categories, according to anticipated difficulty of passage. The first category consists of symbolic gestures, like resolutions to emblazon the motto “In God We Trust” on as many moving objects as possible (like, say, police cars)...
The second, more difficult category for Project Blitz consists of bills intended to promote the teaching and celebration of Christianity in public schools and elsewhere...
The sponsors of Project Blitz have pinned their deepest hopes on the third and most contentious category of model legislation. The dream here is something that participants in the conference call referred to in awed tones as “the Mississippi missile.” The “missile” in question is Mississippi’s HB 1523, a 2016 law that allows private businesses and government employees to discriminate, against L.G.B.T. people for example, provided that they do so in accordance with “sincerely held religious beliefs.”
About the "close door" button in elevators
The one in the photograph here fell off, revealing that there was no connection to an electrical circuit behind it. Hmmmm....
Image trimmed for size from the original here.
Smelling disease
In the world of medicine, smell is an underutilized sense. Experienced clinicians can learn to detect the odor of ketones on the breath of a diabetic in ketoacidosis (and presumably this is the basis for using sentinel dogs to alert their diabetic owners to check their status). Dogs have been reported also to identify impending hypoglycemia by detecting isoprene.
From a BBC science podcast this week I learned that researchers have found that malaria can be detected by smell. It has been known that mosquitoes can locate malaria carriers and will bite them more often than unaffected people - an ability presumed to be mediated by their sense of smell. A team of researchers tested this by giving children in a malaria-endemic area socks to wear, to absorb their sweat and body odor. They found that socks from children carrying the malaria parasite smelled different from those worn by normal children, that mosquitoes favored those socks, and most importantly that when they treated the children for malaria, their sock smell reverted back to normal. One implication of this is that it might be possible to detect subclinical malaria noninvasively, without requiring phlebotomy and a microscope. I found some discussion of the research at NPR.
Less intuitive is the reported ability of some humans to detect Parkinson's disease by smell.
From a BBC science podcast this week I learned that researchers have found that malaria can be detected by smell. It has been known that mosquitoes can locate malaria carriers and will bite them more often than unaffected people - an ability presumed to be mediated by their sense of smell. A team of researchers tested this by giving children in a malaria-endemic area socks to wear, to absorb their sweat and body odor. They found that socks from children carrying the malaria parasite smelled different from those worn by normal children, that mosquitoes favored those socks, and most importantly that when they treated the children for malaria, their sock smell reverted back to normal. One implication of this is that it might be possible to detect subclinical malaria noninvasively, without requiring phlebotomy and a microscope. I found some discussion of the research at NPR.
Less intuitive is the reported ability of some humans to detect Parkinson's disease by smell.
... Joy Milne from Perth, whose husband Les was told he had Parkinson's at the age of 45. About a decade before her consultant anaesthetist husband was diagnosed, Joy noticed she could detect an unusual musky smell... Joy said: "We had a very tumultuous period, when he was about 34 or 35, where I kept saying to him, 'you've not showered. You've not brushed your teeth properly'.No time to search today. I bet there are a lot more things that could be added to this post.
"It was a new smell - I didn't know what it was. I kept on saying to him, and he became quite upset about it. So I just had to be quiet." The retired nurse only linked the odour to the disease after meeting people with the same distinctive smell at a Parkinson's UK support group.
She told scientists at a conference, and subsequent tests carried out by Edinburgh University's Dr Tilo Kunath confirmed her ability...
Joy was given 12 unmarked T-shirts to smell - six worn by Parkinson's patients and six worn by volunteers without the disease. She correctly identified the six worn by Parkinson's patients, but could also smell the odour on a T-shirt worn by someone in the control group without Parkinson's. Joy was told three months later that this person had in fact been diagnosed with Parkinson's after the T-shirt tests.
The aging of the United States
"As baby boomers age, the nation has substantially aged as well. In 1970, the median age in the US was 28.1. In 2016, it was 37.9."
The second map doesn't show "movement" of individuals, but the changing age distributions are equivalent to movement of populations.
Lots of implications, which I don't need to elaborate on.
Note the maps at the source are interactive (zoomable, and if you hover over your county the raw data pop up).
Trump clump #4
This is the fourth "Trump Clump," designed to cluster Trump-related links into a single post so that Trump supporters can easily skip over one post rather than encounter them on a daily basis, and even more importantly to free up the blog from this often-depressing subject matter. Three weeks ago I went on a two-day road trip up to Minnesota to watch my cousin's daughter compete in her final collegiate golf match. As I fell asleep the night after the competition, I realized that I had gone an entire 24 hours without ever encountering the word "Trump" in print, on television, radio, online, or in conversation - probably for the first time in several years. It felt great. I will continue to do my best to keep TYWKIWDBI Trump-free except for these every-three-month clusters.
(as of Jan 2018): Global confidence in US leadership has fallen to a new low, and the country now ranks below China in worldwide approval ratings, according to a new Gallup poll.
The survey of opinion in 134 countries showed a record collapse in approval for the US role in the world, from 48% under Obama to 30% after one year of Donald Trump – the lowest level Gallup has recorded since beginning its global leadership poll over a decade ago.
"Before moving into the White House, first lady Melania Trump took 21 flights on Air Force jets over a three-month span that totaled more than $675,000, according to newly revealed military records.
Trump was flown to and from New York City, Florida and Washington, D.C. in the early months of her husband's presidency, while she held off on moving to the nation's capital in order for the couple's son, Barron Trump, to finish the school year. The records, obtained by The Wall Street Journal, cover the inauguration through April of last year, in which "Air Force jets made at least 19 trips to LaGuardia Airport in New York and nine trips to Florida’s Palm Beach International Airport to drop off or pick up Mrs. Trump." A spokesperson for the first lady defended Trump's travels and said that it exemplifies her ability to juggle "dual roles.""
He really said this.
“Right now in a number of states the laws allow a baby to be born from his or her mother's womb in the 9th month. It is wrong. It has to change.”
Mark Hamill offers a response to Trump's tweet about one of this critics:
And speaking of diplomacy and statemanship, this is an exact quote from his letter to Kim Jong Un:
"You talk about your nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used."
"The President of the United States, whose Bill of Rights bans the government from making a law "respecting...the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances," has told the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, birthplace of the Magna Carta and signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the freedom of assembly, that he will only visit the United Kingdom if the residents of that country are legally barred from protesting his visit."
Sign in London Underground re American energy policy:
"The Trump administration has signed a $24,000,000 contract with Boeing to replace two food chilling systems aboard Air Force One, the president’s plane, according to reports. The systems are two of five such “chillers” aboard Air Force One, which must be equipped with a refrigeration capacity to handle 3,000 meals, according to military specifications. That’s enough to feed the president and 50 of his closest friends three meals a day for three weeks.
The U.S. unemployment rate:
"Supporters of President Donald Trump used racist language against dark-skinned public servants while rallying against immigration, the Arizona Capitol Times reported Saturday... One dark-skinned Arizonian who was asked if he was in the country “illegally” was Rep. Eric Descheenie (D-Chinle).
Rep. Descheenie is a Navajo lawmaker."
In response to a mass shooting at a school:
"On Twitter this fine February morning, the President of the United States claimed that his State of the Union speech, watched by 46 million people, was seen by "the highest number in history.".. Two of Obama's earlier SoTU addresses won more viewers (48m in 2010 and 53m in 2009), too. Bush Jr. got 63m for his one after the Iraq War. Clinton got 53m in 1998 and 67m in 1993. But it's likely that an earlier president holds the record, from the era when nothing else was on..."
"For the whole nation [for 2017], Trump had an average job approval in 2017 of 38% and disapproval of 56%. There were 12 states that showed significant job approval for Trump, while 32 states showed significant disapproval. The other states had approval/disapproval within the margins of error."
This graph compares presidential job approval ratings after 14 months on the job.
However, Trump's approval rating among white evangelicals reached an all-time high in April (graph at the link).
February article discusses Trump's request for a military parade. “The marching orders were: I want a parade like the one in France,” said a military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the planning discussions are supposed to remain confidential. “This is being worked at the highest levels of the military.”
"The revelation that the US housing secretary, Ben Carson, and his wife selected a $31,000 dining set for his office at taxpayer expense has caused outrage. But Carson is far from alone among Donald Trump’s cabinet in causing controversy over use of public money... treasury secretary [Steve Mnuchin], a former Wall Street executive and Hollywood producer who is worth as much as $35m, managed to run up bills in excess of $800,000 in his first six months in office for travel on military jets... The health and human services secretary [Tom Price] was forced to resign last September following revelations that he used at least $400,000 and probably more than $1m in taxpayer funds on private and military flights for himself and his staff..."
"More than at any time in history, the president of the United States is actively using the power and prestige of his office to line his own pockets: landing loans for his businesses, steering wealthy buyers to his condos, securing cheap foreign labor for his resorts, preserving federal subsidies for his housing projects, easing regulations on his golf courses, licensing his name to overseas projects, even peddling coffee mugs and shot glasses bearing the presidential seal. For Trump, whose business revolves around the marketability of his name, there has proved to be no public policy too big, and no private opportunity too crass, to exploit for personal profit... In fact, although Trump refuses to disclose the details of his myriad business operations, he continues to enjoy access to every dime he makes as president. Instead of setting up a blind trust to avoid conflicts of interest, as other presidents have done, Trump put his two grown sons in charge of his more than 500 business entities. His sons regularly brief Trump about how the enterprises are doing, enabling him to personally monitor how his decisions in office affect his bottom line. What’s more, only 15 days after this “eyes wide open” trust was set up, Trump amended the fine print to allow him to take money out of the operation any time he pleases." Lots of details at the link.
Trump explains what his attorney Michael Cohen does: “Michael is a good person. Let me just tell you that Michael is in business. He’s really a businessman. Fairly big businesses, as I understand it. I don’t know his business. But this doesn’t have to do with me. Michael is a businessman. He has got a business. He also practices law. I would say probably the big thing is his business. And they are looking into something having to do with his business. I have nothing to do with his business..."
"Donald Trump’s former personal physician, Harold Bornstein... said that it was “black humor” that “takes the truth” in “a different direction” when he issued a medical report calling Trump a man of “extraordinary” strength who would be “the healthiest individual ever elected,” and that Trump had dictated the report to him..."
"President Trump boasted in a fundraising speech Wednesday that he made up information in a meeting with the leader of a top U.S. ally, saying he insisted to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that the United States runs a trade deficit with its neighbor to the north without knowing whether that was true... “So, he’s proud. I said, ‘Wrong, Justin, you do.’ I didn’t even know. ... I had no idea. I just said, ‘You’re wrong.’ You know why? Because we’re so stupid. … And I thought they were smart."
Two photos highlight the difference between Obama and Trump based on their public responses to mass shootings.
It never ends. But my tolerance for writing this does. Done for another 3-4 months. I expect this post will bring out the trolls who take pleasure in vilifying me and those who disagree with Teddy Roosevelt. But I've got my "delete" button ready to go...
(as of Jan 2018): Global confidence in US leadership has fallen to a new low, and the country now ranks below China in worldwide approval ratings, according to a new Gallup poll.
The survey of opinion in 134 countries showed a record collapse in approval for the US role in the world, from 48% under Obama to 30% after one year of Donald Trump – the lowest level Gallup has recorded since beginning its global leadership poll over a decade ago.
"Before moving into the White House, first lady Melania Trump took 21 flights on Air Force jets over a three-month span that totaled more than $675,000, according to newly revealed military records.
Trump was flown to and from New York City, Florida and Washington, D.C. in the early months of her husband's presidency, while she held off on moving to the nation's capital in order for the couple's son, Barron Trump, to finish the school year. The records, obtained by The Wall Street Journal, cover the inauguration through April of last year, in which "Air Force jets made at least 19 trips to LaGuardia Airport in New York and nine trips to Florida’s Palm Beach International Airport to drop off or pick up Mrs. Trump." A spokesperson for the first lady defended Trump's travels and said that it exemplifies her ability to juggle "dual roles.""
He really said this.
“Right now in a number of states the laws allow a baby to be born from his or her mother's womb in the 9th month. It is wrong. It has to change.”
Mark Hamill offers a response to Trump's tweet about one of this critics:
And speaking of diplomacy and statemanship, this is an exact quote from his letter to Kim Jong Un:
"You talk about your nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used."
"The President of the United States, whose Bill of Rights bans the government from making a law "respecting...the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances," has told the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, birthplace of the Magna Carta and signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the freedom of assembly, that he will only visit the United Kingdom if the residents of that country are legally barred from protesting his visit."
Sign in London Underground re American energy policy:
"The Trump administration has signed a $24,000,000 contract with Boeing to replace two food chilling systems aboard Air Force One, the president’s plane, according to reports. The systems are two of five such “chillers” aboard Air Force One, which must be equipped with a refrigeration capacity to handle 3,000 meals, according to military specifications. That’s enough to feed the president and 50 of his closest friends three meals a day for three weeks.
The U.S. unemployment rate:
"Supporters of President Donald Trump used racist language against dark-skinned public servants while rallying against immigration, the Arizona Capitol Times reported Saturday... One dark-skinned Arizonian who was asked if he was in the country “illegally” was Rep. Eric Descheenie (D-Chinle).
Rep. Descheenie is a Navajo lawmaker."
In response to a mass shooting at a school:
"On Twitter this fine February morning, the President of the United States claimed that his State of the Union speech, watched by 46 million people, was seen by "the highest number in history.".. Two of Obama's earlier SoTU addresses won more viewers (48m in 2010 and 53m in 2009), too. Bush Jr. got 63m for his one after the Iraq War. Clinton got 53m in 1998 and 67m in 1993. But it's likely that an earlier president holds the record, from the era when nothing else was on..."
"For the whole nation [for 2017], Trump had an average job approval in 2017 of 38% and disapproval of 56%. There were 12 states that showed significant job approval for Trump, while 32 states showed significant disapproval. The other states had approval/disapproval within the margins of error."
This graph compares presidential job approval ratings after 14 months on the job.
However, Trump's approval rating among white evangelicals reached an all-time high in April (graph at the link).
February article discusses Trump's request for a military parade. “The marching orders were: I want a parade like the one in France,” said a military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the planning discussions are supposed to remain confidential. “This is being worked at the highest levels of the military.”
"The revelation that the US housing secretary, Ben Carson, and his wife selected a $31,000 dining set for his office at taxpayer expense has caused outrage. But Carson is far from alone among Donald Trump’s cabinet in causing controversy over use of public money... treasury secretary [Steve Mnuchin], a former Wall Street executive and Hollywood producer who is worth as much as $35m, managed to run up bills in excess of $800,000 in his first six months in office for travel on military jets... The health and human services secretary [Tom Price] was forced to resign last September following revelations that he used at least $400,000 and probably more than $1m in taxpayer funds on private and military flights for himself and his staff..."
"More than at any time in history, the president of the United States is actively using the power and prestige of his office to line his own pockets: landing loans for his businesses, steering wealthy buyers to his condos, securing cheap foreign labor for his resorts, preserving federal subsidies for his housing projects, easing regulations on his golf courses, licensing his name to overseas projects, even peddling coffee mugs and shot glasses bearing the presidential seal. For Trump, whose business revolves around the marketability of his name, there has proved to be no public policy too big, and no private opportunity too crass, to exploit for personal profit... In fact, although Trump refuses to disclose the details of his myriad business operations, he continues to enjoy access to every dime he makes as president. Instead of setting up a blind trust to avoid conflicts of interest, as other presidents have done, Trump put his two grown sons in charge of his more than 500 business entities. His sons regularly brief Trump about how the enterprises are doing, enabling him to personally monitor how his decisions in office affect his bottom line. What’s more, only 15 days after this “eyes wide open” trust was set up, Trump amended the fine print to allow him to take money out of the operation any time he pleases." Lots of details at the link.
Trump explains what his attorney Michael Cohen does: “Michael is a good person. Let me just tell you that Michael is in business. He’s really a businessman. Fairly big businesses, as I understand it. I don’t know his business. But this doesn’t have to do with me. Michael is a businessman. He has got a business. He also practices law. I would say probably the big thing is his business. And they are looking into something having to do with his business. I have nothing to do with his business..."
"Donald Trump’s former personal physician, Harold Bornstein... said that it was “black humor” that “takes the truth” in “a different direction” when he issued a medical report calling Trump a man of “extraordinary” strength who would be “the healthiest individual ever elected,” and that Trump had dictated the report to him..."
"President Trump boasted in a fundraising speech Wednesday that he made up information in a meeting with the leader of a top U.S. ally, saying he insisted to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that the United States runs a trade deficit with its neighbor to the north without knowing whether that was true... “So, he’s proud. I said, ‘Wrong, Justin, you do.’ I didn’t even know. ... I had no idea. I just said, ‘You’re wrong.’ You know why? Because we’re so stupid. … And I thought they were smart."
Two photos highlight the difference between Obama and Trump based on their public responses to mass shootings.
"President Donald Trump attacked The New York Times in a tweet Saturday, claiming the paper made up a “senior White House official” for its story about the canceled North Korea summit. The official, a member of Trump’s National Security Council, actually does exist and led a briefing at the White House on Thursday for reporters. The White House even provided its own transcript of the briefing that Trump essentially dismissed as fake news."
It never ends. But my tolerance for writing this does. Done for another 3-4 months. I expect this post will bring out the trolls who take pleasure in vilifying me and those who disagree with Teddy Roosevelt. But I've got my "delete" button ready to go...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
