Stay home, police say, as Longmont hit with more than 8 inches of snow
Longmont is currently on accident alert, and police are recommending people stay home if possible as a winter storm has dropped several inches of snow on the city, knocking down tree branches and causing power outages.
City officials said roads are mostly passable, with accumulations between 2 and 3 inches on roadways, but another 3 to 4 inches is expected heading into the afternoon.
Times-Call weather consultant Don Lewis said 8.4 inches of snow have fallen on Longmont as of 8:40 a.m., adding that the city saw some rain Tuesday night before it turned into snow. …
DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY: I have three very bored parrots who spent the last two days enjoying balmy spring weather out on the patio.
THIS DAY IN HISTORY: MARCH 23RD- OK
This Day In History: March 23, 1839
OK is an expression that almost all of us, young or old, rich or poor, sprinkle throughout our sentences all day, every day. We use it so often and with so many shades of meaning that most of us assume it’s been around since the Big Bang. Surprisingly, the expression isn’t even two hundred years old. The first known time OK ever appeared in print was on March 23, 1839 in the Boston Morning Post during the course a humorous article written by the paper’s editor.
OK began, or at least was popularized, as a lame election year political joke. Here’s the deal. It’s a shortened version of “Oll Korrect”, a misspelled version of “All Correct”, following the then popular trend of deliberately basing abbreviations on misspellings. Other examples from this period include “KY” for “Know Yuse”, “OW” for “Oll Wright” (the predecessor of “Oll Korrect”), “KG” for “Know Go”, and “NS” for “Nuff Said”, among many others. …
Why we should scrap state primaries in the presidential race
America uses complex methods to choose who will represent each party in the general election. This doesn’t actually reflect voter preferences
The question on everyone’s lips these days seems to be: how do we stop Donald Trump’s push toward the nomination? It should be: is our current primary system the best way to choose a presidential candidate?
Over the past 225 years, America has changed how it selects its nominees many times. With the 2016 election season shaping up as one of the most chaotic in modern history, it’s time to cast off the last vestiges of our archaic nominating system and embrace more modern and egalitarian voting methods.
Despite another evening of primary and caucus victories on Tuesday night, no one really knows if Trump will make the threshold of 1,237 delegates necessary to tie up the nomination right away. If he doesn’t, it could lead to a contested convention, multiple rounds of delegate voting and a nomination for Ted Cruz, John Kasich or some party-backed candidate not even in the race such as Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan. To many Republicans, the rise of Trump is an indication that the party’s nominating process is broken. …
Jeb Bush endorses Ted Cruz, who he says will help ‘overcome the divisiveness and vulgarity’ of Donald Trump
Former Florida governor Jeb Bush endorsed Ted Cruz for president on Wednesday, the latest sign that the Texas senator is eagerly seeking to unite Republican Party leaders behind his campaign in an attempt to stop Donald Trump.
Securing the Bush endorsement is a coup for Cruz, who may not be well-liked by many GOP colleagues in Washington, but can now boast the support of a key political family and its vast, unrivaled donor network.
The endorsement comes despite Cruz’s calls on Tuesday for law enforcement to “patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods” in the wake of terrorist attacks in Belgium. When Trump called for a database to track American Muslims after terrorist attacks in Paris last November, Bush called the front-runner’s comments “abhorrent.” …
10 Strange Robots That Could Potentially Save Lives
Hollywood movies often portray robots as evil and frightening. Sci-fi films like Terminator and The Matrix were so successful and influential that they spawned robophobia—the irrational fear of robots and artificial intelligence—among many people.
But robots are perfectly harmless in real life. With numerous advances in technology, intelligent robots will soon make our lives more comfortable, our jobs easier, and our world a better place in which to live.
10. Tru-D
If a fluorescent light and a Star Wars droid ever got married and had a baby, it would look like Tru-D. A robot that kills viruses and bacteria, Tru-D is used in more than 300 hospitals around the world.
This strange-looking robot was invented by Jeff Deal and his brother. They tested a prototype in their garage by using several plates filled with bacteria. After the prototype emitted ultraviolet light for a few minutes, the plates were completely free of bacteria.
In 2014, Tru-D was tested during the height of the Ebola crisis in Africa. The results were astounding. The robot was able to eradicate the virus completely—but only on facilities and equipment. …
How the Senate Foils Obama Even When It’s in Recess
Pro forma sessions keep the president from slipping in a surprise appointment while the senators are out of town.
With the Senate on spring break for two weeks, the north side of the Capitol felt pleasantly drowsy Monday morning. A smattering of staffers and journalists wandered the echoing hallways, along with the occasional tour group. Capitol police officers looked a little more relaxed than usual. On the Senate floor, all 100 mahogany desks stood vacant. The visitors’ galleries had only two observers, a gray-haired, pink-faced couple who looked to be dozing off in the stillness. Most senators had long since fled the building, having far better places to spend their down time.
But not everyone was out enjoying the recess. As 10 a.m. neared, the parliamentarian, two clerks, and a couple of other Senate officers took their places at the front of the empty chamber. “Who’s doing this thing?” one asked. “Cornyn,” another answered. Then everyone sat around chatting, as a few more tourists trickled into the upper decks. Just before the hour, Senator John Cornyn of Texas sauntered in. Charcoal suit sharp, white hair gleaming, the Republican whip greeted the assembled few as he made his way to the presiding officer’s chair. At 10 a.m. on the dot, he gaveled the empty room to order, and, per the short script someone had thoughtfully left him, directed the legislative clerk to read “a communication to the Senate” from Senate president pro tempore Orrin Hatch. The lanky, bespectacled clerk rose and delivered a one-sentence order appointing Cornyn chairman for the day. And with that, Cornyn declared the body adjourned until 11 a.m. Thursday, gave the gavel a closing bang, and made for the door.
All told, Monday’s session lasted a whopping 35 seconds. No business was conducted, and no member besides Cornyn bothered showing up. …
Why security experts called Donald Trump’s response to the Belgium attacks ‘preposterous’
For months now, Americans have wondered whether Donald Trump’s most controversial foreign policy proposals — such as closing U.S. borders to Muslims and extracting information from terrorism suspects using techniques deemed to be torture — were anything more than campaign bluster.
In the hours after bombings that killed dozens in Brussels on Tuesday, those statements took on new gravity, as the Republican front-runner was asked how he would respond to a similar attack if he were president.
“I would close up our borders to people until we figure out what’s going on,” Trump said Tuesday morning on Fox News. “We have to be smart in the United States. We’re taking in people without real documentation, we don’t know where they’re coming from, we don’t know what they’re — where they’re from, who they are.” …
10 Criminals Who Spent A Lifetime Outwitting Law Enforcement
Throughout the world, police departments spend significant time and energy tracking down wanted fugitives. When those efforts are combined with federal most wanted lists and TV shows that specialize in publicizing wanted criminals, most fugitives run out of luck, time, and freedom quickly.
But once in a while, a fugitive slips through the cracks and outwits law enforcement. Here, we look at 10 fugitives who have spent at least 25 years on the run from the police and may never be caught.
10. Donald Eugene Webb
In 1980, Donald Eugene Webb shot and killed Gregory Adams, police chief of the small town of Saxonburg, Pennsylvania. A routine traffic stop escalated into an altercation, and Webb beat Adams badly before shooting him. Webb fled the scene but left behind a fake driver’s license that investigators used to identify him. What they couldn’t do was catch him.
Webb was already a hardened criminal who was adept at robbing jewelry stores and creating fake identities. He used these skills to stay one step ahead of the FBI, who placed him on their Ten Most Wanted list in 1980. After failing to catch him, the FBI took him off the list 26 years later. …
What Trump and Cruz Should Learn From Belgium
In calling for policies that alienate Muslims, the Republican candidates are trying to make America more like Europe.
Right after the attacks in Brussels on Tuesday, Donald Trump did something bizarre. He spoke the truth. Appearing on Fox and Friends, the GOP presidential frontrunner declared that, “This all happened because frankly there is no assimilation.”
OK, Trump’s comment wasn’t entirely true. The attacks are also likely related to the fact that Belgium is participating in the U.S.-led bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria. ISIS said so when it claimed responsibility. And terrorism scholars have shown that the group doesn’t attacks Western targets at random. It targets countries—in monstrous and utterly unjustifiable acts of murder—that are fighting it militarily in the Middle East.
Still, Trump’s point about assimilation was important. If many European countries struggle to integrate their Muslim immigrants, Belgium does a particularly poor job. …
Government keeping its method to crack San Bernardino iPhone ‘classified’
Revealed: After postponing a court hearing with Apple, the FBI is testing a new technique which Apple says they will pressure government to reveal
A new method to crack open locked iPhones is so promising that US government officials have classified it, the Guardian has learned.
The Justice Department made headlines on Monday when it postponed a federal court hearing in California. It had been due to confront Apple over an order that would have forced it to write software that would make it easier for investigators to guess the passcode for an iPhone used by San Bernardino gunman Syed Farook.
The government now says it may have figured out a way to get into the phone without Apple’s help. But it wants that discovery to remain secret, in an effort to prevent criminals, security researchers and even Apple itself from reengineering smartphones so that the tactic would no longer work. …
IZZY EINSTEIN, THE LITTLEST PROHIBITION AGENT
During the first five years of Prohibition in New York, there was one name that struck fear in the hearts of every bootlegger- Isadore “Izzy” Einstein. A man who a 1922 edition of The Literary Digest noted was the “master hooch-hound, alongside whom all the rest of the pack are but pups.” This hooch-hound was a Prohibition agent with a 95% conviction rate and over 4000 arrests, a record made all the more impressive when you realise Einstein was a 5 feet 5 inch tall 225 pound Austro-Hungarian immigrant with no previous background in law enforcement.
Born in 1880 somewhere in Austria before immigrating to the states in 1902 seeking a better life, Izzy worked as a clerk in the postal office to support his wife, five children and ageing father. When Prohibition came into effect in January of 1920, the then 40 years old Izzy was amongst the first to apply for a job at the Southern New York Federal Prohibition Bureau. As he said, it seemed “a good chance for a fellow with ambition”. The pay was $40 per week (about $536 per week today). …
Does the Realistic Humanoid Robot Sophia Want to Destroy Humans?
There’s a phenomenon called the “uncanny valley” that describes the reaction of revulsion humans automatically have when they see humanoid robots that resemble us too much.
Now, meet “Sophia,” the newest creepy robotic head that has sparked controversy in recent days. Sophia has been equipped with human-like facial expressions and her skills include responsive speech, among others.
According to her creators at Hanson Robotics, Sophia is meant to help people with therapy, healthcare, education and customer service, as she learns to interaction with humans in the most natural way possible at this point. …
The Reason Our Minds Wander
Why do people spend so many hours per day worrying, daydreaming, or focusing on anything but the present?
You probably aren’t living in the moment. Most people spend their leisure time in imaginary worlds—reading novels, watching television and movies, playing video games and so on. And when there isn’t a book or screen in front of us, our minds wander.
This seems to be the brain’s natural state. Neuroscientists describe the brain regions involved in mind wandering as the “default network,” so-called because it’s usually humming along, shutting down only when something demands conscious attention.
How does all of this mind wandering affect our happiness? …
5 Reasons You Can’t Convince Anyone That They’re Racist
People have a lot of interesting excuses when they’re caught being racist. “I’m not racist,” they say …
“… I have lots of black friends!”
“… you’re the racist for making it about race!”
“… I’m just being honest about the facts!”
“… I was just making a joke!”
Why do they tell these obvious, transparent lies? Do they think you’re that dumb? Maybe. But maybe they aren’t lies at all. Maybe they really believe this stuff, as crazy as that seems. Here’s how that might happen.
#5. They’re Not Sure What Your Endgame Is
So the goal of calling out someone on their racism, theoretically, is to get the “I’m Not A Racist!” person (let’s call her Natasha Not-A-Racist) to acknowledge her own racist attitude or action and change it. Let’s say the confronter (Yvonne Yes-You’re-Racist) wants to get Natasha to stop saying “wetback.” She’s not trying to punish Natasha; she just wants her to stop calling all the Latinos in the office by a word that implies the only reason they could possibly be in the U.S. is they illegally swam across the Rio Grande, and all will proceed as before.
So she’s confused when Natasha goes ballistic, shouting, “This is what’s wrong with society today!” and going on about “PC police” calling everything “hate speech” and “crucifying” anyone who “isn’t tolerant enough for them.” She makes a mental note that her Fuck SJWs forum friends are going to love this one.
“Get this: She had the gall to suggest that social norms had changed in the last 30 years!”
…
Justices grapple with bankruptcy law in Puerto Rico case
Supreme Court justices on Tuesday wrestled with whether Puerto Rico can use bankruptcy to avert a likely default on billions of dollars in debt, as the territory appealed for a way out of what it called a legal “no man’s land.”
The justices seemed to be struggling with the confusing language of a 1984 federal bankruptcy law that stripped Puerto Rico (and the District of Columbia) of their status as equivalent to “states” — making it impossible for the commonwealth to either use Chapter 9 of the federal bankruptcy code or adopt bankruptcy legislation of its own.
After Congress rebuffed Puerto Rico’s appeal for bankruptcy protection last year, the island’s government passed legislation that would make it easier to restructure its roughly $72 billion in debt, which includes $20 billion owed by its electricity, water and road-maintenance divisions. …
‘The man in the tree’ mesmerizes Seattle — from 80 feet
Seattle’s lofty sequoia tree has seen its share of hardships over the years.
Since 1973, it has valiantly stood at a cramped street corner at a three-way intersection, an urban space dwarfed by the leafy tower’s 80-foot stature. It was once the official downtown Christmas tree, shouldering sparkling lights against the city’s often gray skies.
In 2006, a violent windstorm stripped the sequoia of its top 10 feet, the Seattle Times reported. Over the next four years, the tree’s health deteriorated, prompting an examination by an internationally known tree expert and emergency soil treatment from the city Transportation Department’s Urban Forestry unit.
Through all this, the tree has stood its ground, undeterred by life’s cruel whims. But on Tuesday the Seattle icon was confronted with its greatest challenge yet: a bearded, wool-cap-wearing, orange-peel-throwing man. …
10 Important Expeditions Of Forgotten Explorers
Our understanding of the world would not be where it is today without the brave people who were willing to face the unknown and venture into the deepest, darkest regions of our planet. History is littered with these explorers, but few of them are remembered today for their efforts.
10. Alexander MacKenzie’s Transcontinental Trek
Alexander MacKenzie is remembered as a great explorer in Canada and his native Scotland, but he doesn’t get the global recognition that he deserves. He is not on the same level as some of his contemporaries, such as Lewis and Clark.
In 1804, after the Louisiana Purchase, Captain Meriwether Lewis and Second Lieutenant William Clark set out on an expedition to explore the new American territories, claim the Pacific Northwest for the US, and reach the Pacific Ocean.
They completed their transcontinental trek in 1806, ensuring their place in the history books. But Alexander MacKenzie had done the same thing more than a decade before them. In 1793, MacKenzie became the first European to cross North America. He could have done it even sooner if his first trip had been successful. …
Urban birds may be smarter than their country cousins, new study suggests
A new study suggests that modern cityscapes may be turning birds into better problem solvers. The McGill University research, published recently in Behavioral Ecology, found that city birds studied were different from their rural counterparts in several ways.
“We found that not only were birds from urbanized areas better at innovative problem-solving tasks than bullfinches from rural environments, but that surprisingly urban birds also had a better immunity than rural birds,” first author Jean-Nicolas Audet, a PhD candidate at McGill, said in a statement. …
Adorable Prairie Dogs Brutally Kill Baby Ground Squirrels
Because everything is awful.
The first time it happened, it was over so quickly that John Hoogland almost missed it. It was a spring day in 2007. Hoogland was sitting in a two-meter-tall observation tower near Walden, Colorado, watching a colony of white-tailed prairie dogs. During his stakeout, he saw one of the small, burrowing rodents—a female called “Head 6”—jump on something. She grabbed it, shook it for a few minutes, and then walked away.
Hoogland assumed he had just seen a case of infanticide, that the female had killed a neighbor’s baby. But when he walked over to investigate, he realized he was wrong. The victim was actually a baby ground squirrel—a completely different species of burrowing rodent, about half the size of a prairie dog.
“We had never seen anything like this,” he says. Not in 35 years of observing wild prairie dogs, and not in four years of watching the white-tailed species specifically. “But once we knew what to look for, it seemed like it was going on everywhere. The next day, I saw another kill. And then more.” …
NOTE TO SELF: Adopt some adorable prairie dogs to combat enemy squirrels.
THE TRUTH ABOUT DIAMONDS
An expensive meal at a fancy restaurant, a declaration of romance, and a big, fat diamond ring- this is a pretty standard formula for an engagement proposal. After all, it has been ingrained in all of us that a diamond ring equals love and the bigger the diamond, the more love there must be. Well, believe it or not, diamonds really aren’t all that rare. In fact, the reason diamonds cost so much is more due to savvy (and sometimes unethical) business practices and incredibly successful advertising campaigns than the actual inherent value of the stone based on supply and demand, something anyone who has actually tried to sell a diamond quickly comes to realize. Here now is the story of how and why we all fell in love with diamonds.
The first known diamonds discovered by humans happened about 700 or 800 BCE in India by the Dravidian people (who are still found today in southern India and Sri Lanka). In fact, this is where we get the unit of weight for diamonds, carats, from; they would weigh the diamonds in relation to the seeds of carob tree. …
Video Goodnesses
(and not-so-goodnesses)
(and not-so-goodnesses)
CAUTION: May not be appropriate for work or children.
URK!!!
CAUTION: Some language may not be appropriate for work or children.
Oops…….
P.S. We’re experiencing blizzard conditions in Northern Colorado today
This has been an interesting morning to cobble these shenanigans together. The lights flicker and the DSL modem then takes several minutes to reconnect me with the outside world.
Finally had that lightbulb over the head EUREKA moment: Open every story I would be cobbling up today in a separate tab… and quit worrying about whether or not my connection is active.
Now I get to go outside and start shoveling…….