June 11, 2016 in 4,251 words

BUBBLES!!!

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: JUNE 11TH- SELF IMMOLATION

This Day In History: June 11, 1963

On June 11, 1963, a 67-year-old Buddhist monk named Thich Quang Duc walked into the middle of a busy intersection in South Vietnam and calmly sat in the lotus position. With the assistance of several accompanying monks, he doused himself in gasoline.

He was very clear about the reasons for what he was about to do in a letter he had left:

Before closing my eyes and moving towards the vision of the Buddha, I respectfully plead to President Ngo Dinh Diem to take a mind of compassion towards the people of the nation and implement religious equality to maintain the strength of the homeland eternally. I call the venerable, reverends, members of the sangha and the lay Buddhists to organize in solidarity to make sacrifices to protect Buddhism.

After he was completely drenched in gasoline, Thich Quang Duc lit a match, and immediately burst into flames. …

^{Google can be a little creepy. Off the top of my head, I did not remember the term self immolation… so I started typing the search query ‘term for se’ and Google auto-completed with ‘tting oneself on fire’}

California Senator Barbara Boxer joins Bill to discuss her growing support for marijuana legalization and whether Elizabeth Warren is overshadowing Hillary Clinton in this clip from June 10, 2016.

Bill Maher and panelists – Andrew Ross Sorkin, Ana Marie Cox, Katie Packer, and Tom Morello – discuss Bernie Sanders’ accomplishments, and Hillary Clinton’s decisive victory in the primary campaign in this clip from June 10, 2016.

In his editorial New Rule, Bill Maher helps millennials make the distinction between socialism and “Santa-ism.”

Bill Maher and his guests – Andrew Ross Sorkin, Ana Marie Cox, Katie Packer, and Tom Morello– answer viewer questions after the show.

THANKS to HBO and Real Time with Bill Maher for making this program available on YouTube.

Ryan grilled at Romney summit, where a CEO compares Trump to Hitler

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) faced tough questioning here Friday for his decision to endorse Donald Trump, and he tried to explain to an audience hostile to the New York mogul the factors that led him to back the presumptive GOP nominee.

Ryan’s appearance briefly brought into the open the issue that has shadowed the annual ideas summit hosted by 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney — the alarm with which many establishment Republicans view Trump’s pending nomination and the potential damage it could do to the party in November and beyond.

Ryan’s closed-door session — attended by about 300 elite Republican donors and business executives — also highlighted his differences with his friend and ally, Romney, who tapped him as his vice-presidential running mate and is now an avowed leader of the Never Trump movement. …

In shocking twist, senators scrutinize cable companies instead of FCC

^{Congress takes break from castigating FCC to focus on cable TV’s bad behavior.}

When US lawmakers hold public hearings about the cable TV and broadband industries, their main goals are usually to criticize regulators and try to strip the Federal Communications Commission of its consumer protection powers.

But in an unusual twist, senators are actually planning to force cable companies to explain why they offer such poor customer service. US Senators Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) yesterday announced a hearing in which cable TV and satellite TV companies will answer questions about “practices involving billing, fees, refunds, and other customer service issues.”

Comcast, Charter, Time Warner Cable (now owned by Charter), DirecTV (owned by AT&T), and Dish Network were all called to testify at the June 23 hearing of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. These companies account for more than 70 million TV subscribers, more than half of all US households, and over 70 percent of homes with TV service, the senators said. …

10 Pop Culture Tattoos (And Their Secretly Ridiculous Meanings)

Tattoos and popular culture have had a long and somewhat complicated relationship. Sure, they make for a great way to add a dash of intrigue to a movie character or to help obscenely wealthy athletes blow their cash, but things don’t always go according to plan. Sometimes, those characters end up looking less like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and more like your idiot friend after a tequila-fueled run-in with a less-than-ethical tattoo artist. If you plan to add a little ink to something that will be seen by millions, maybe do your homework first.

10. God Is Kind Of A Hypocrite

In the 2010 action/horror film Legion, God decides he’s sick of mankind’s wickedness and sends his army of angels on the rather ironic mission of killing absolutely everyone. The archangel Michael catches wind of this and steps in to stop the coming angelic apocalypse. Michael, branded with heavenly tattoos placed by his creator, comes to Earth to defend the helpless humans from a disappointed God. The thing is—God doesn’t seem to have any idea what he wants.

Astonishingly, the characters scribed on Michael’s torso are part of an actual language allegedly used by angels. Called Enochian, this tongue was invented by British occultist John Dee and makes several appearances in the film. However, the fact that it’s an actual language means that it can be translated, which presents some issues. It turns out that Mikey is carrying around a Bible verse on his chest. That’s not terribly surprising, but the choice of verse certainly is. …

Justin Trudeau may have made the best case for legal pot ever

Speaking Wednesday at an economic conference, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made one of the more buttoned-down, straight-edged arguments for marijuana legalization I’ve heard in recent years. It’s worth quoting at length so I’ve done that below:

Look, our approach on legalizing marijuana is not about creating a boutique industry or bringing in tax revenue, it’s based on two very simple principles:

The first one is, young people have easier access to cannabis now, in Canada, than they do in just about any other countries in the world. [Of] 29 different countries studied by the U.N., Canada was number one in terms of underage access to marijuana. And whatever you might think or studies seen about cannabis being less harmful than alcohol or even cigarettes, the fact is it is bad for the developing brain and we need to make sure that it’s harder for underage Canadians to access marijuana. And that will happen under a controlled and regulated regime.

The other piece of it is there are billions upon billions of dollars flowing into the pockets of organized crime, street gangs and gun-runners, because of the illicit marijuana trade, and if we can get that out of the criminal elements and into a more regulated fashion we will reduce the amount of criminal activity that’s profiting from those, and that has offshoots into so many other criminal activities. So those are my focuses on that.

I have no doubt that Canadians and entrepreneurs will be tremendously innovative in finding ways to create positive economic benefits from the legalization and control of marijuana, but our focus is on protecting kids and protecting our streets.

Trudeau made these remarks in response to a conference participant who said that “Canada could be to cannabis as France is to wine.” These enthusiastic predictions about the burgeoning marijuana industry — billions of dollars in revenue and taxes, thousands of jobs created — should be familiar to anyone who’s followed efforts to legalize pot here in the United States.

But Trudeau’s argument for legalization is concerned less with creating benefits, and more with reducing harms. He starts from the same place that many legalization opponents start from — concern for the safety of children. …

Sacrificing One Species to Change the Color of Another

^{Bird breeders pushed a Venezuelan finch to the brink of extinction so that canaries could be red.}

Almost a century ago, bird breeders turned canaries red. They repeatedly hybridized the bright yellow birds with a striking Venezuelan finch called the red siskin, and so moved the gene responsible for the siskin’s vermillion plumage into the canaries. In the process, the canary became “the first organism to be manipulated by genetic technology.”

I wrote about this story last month, after scientists finally identified the gene responsible for the birds’ red colors. What I didn’t mention was that the siskins gave more than their genes. They also gave their lives.

To meet the insatiable demand for red canaries, bird-catchers captured red siskins by the thousands, shipping them out of Venezuela—to Germany at first, and then around the world. An official ban in the 1940s did little to block the wave of exported birds. Within decades, siskin numbers had plummeted. Large flocks of them once graced the skies of northern Venezuela, but in the 1960s two eminent ornithologists said that they hadn’t seen a single one in 25 years. By the end of the 20th century, the birds were down to between 250 to 1,000 individuals, restricted to a few isolated groups. They were in danger of extinction, and all because people in distant continents fancied making red canaries. …

10 Apocalypses That We Survived

It seems we’re obsessed with the end of the world some days. Zombies, massive meteors, or nuclear annihilation—we run the gamut in our fiction and in our fears. But what if we’ve already been through the end of the world? What if we’ve already survived not one, not two, but 10 different doomsday scenarios? Humans are nothing if not resilient and tenacious.

10. The Dust Bowl

Lasting eight years, the Dust Bowl was a severe drought in the 1930s, the roughest time of the Great Depression. It affected parts of Texas, Colorado, Nebraska, and Oklahoma, driving thousands from their states to seek a better life elsewhere.

The combination of over-farming, reliance on a small number of crops, and lack of rainfall led to soil depletion, which turned normally fertile topsoil into fine-particle dust. The storms kicked up by the prevailing west-to-east winds of the Great Plains caused dust clouds to bury entire towns in suffocating grit.

But lest you think it was confined to the Midwest, on April 14, 1935, the dust storms were so massive that they blotted out the Sun in several states (as well as Washington, DC) and ships in the Atlantic Ocean reported dust falling upon their decks. Ironically, a member of Franklin Roosevelt’s cabinet was testifying before Congress on the need for soil conservation when the storm hit. He reportedly pointed out the window and stated, “This, gentlemen, is what I’ve been talking about.” …

The psychopath in you

^{Psychopathic traits are not reserved for prisons or psychiatric hospitals – we’re all somewhere on the spectrum}

There is a questionnaire, the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale, which assesses psychopathic traits in the general population. There are twenty-nine statements, and the respondent indicates the extent to which each statement applies to them, from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”. Early in my PhD, a friend asked if he could see the questionnaire. He read out one of the items: ‘I sometimes tell people what they want to hear.’ He looked concerned. ‘But I would agree with that – I do that sometimes,’ he said. ‘Does that make me a psychopath?’ I reassured him no, it did not – only someone who scored very highly on most of the statements might meet criteria for what we think of as a “psychopath”. But he had hit on something important: very few people score zero on the questionnaire.

Have you ever lacked empathy in certain situations, or for certain people? What about lying, or cheating, or breaking the rules for the fun of it? Almost all of us can identify with at least some element of psychopathy. In fact, in some situations, moderate levels of psychopathic traits can even be helpful. For example, a surgeon who is able to be emotionally detached from his patient may operate on them more effectively. In the business world, manipulating and cheating others while promoting yourself may be one strategy to reach the top. Whether it is a tendency to charm others, a desire to take risks or an inclination to have one night stands, most people endorse some aspect of psychopathy. …

Can an online quiz spot a psychopath?

^{Online quizzes claim to unmask the psychopaths among us. But just how accurate are these tests?}

People are fascinated by the nature of the psychopathic personality. Lurid tales of con men and serial killers capture our imagination and feature prominently in films like No Country For Old Men and Silence of the Lambs. Recent popular books on the topic like The Psychopath Test and The Wisdom of Psychopaths have brought psychopathy into the public consciousness, claiming to unmask the psychopaths among us or show how psychopathic traits can be advantageous.

Psychopathy is a rare and serious personality disorder, which is primarily diagnosed in criminal justice settings. Individuals with psychopathy lack empathy and remorse, do not emotionally connect with other people, are manipulative, use other people to their own ends and are often aggressive or violent. Psychopaths are estimated to make up approximately 1% of the population, but comprise up to 20% of the prison population.

So could you or someone you know be a psychopath? Lately there has been a proliferation of online tests that claim to settle this question once and for all. …

How Sexism Held Back Space Exploration

^{America’s early aerospace engineers ignored computers because they considered programming to be women’s work.}

^{Helen Ling, one of JPL’s “computers,” at work on calculations for the American space probe Mariner 2, in 1962}

They were considered outsiders, both skilled in performing mathematical equations quickly, yet neither of them received a warm reception when they arrived at the laboratory. One was human and one a machine. But both Janez Lawson and the IBM she programmed were known as computers.

In 1952, Lawson had just completed her bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles. The president of her sorority and a straight-A student from a prestigious university, everyone expected greatness from the 21-year-old African American woman. Yet as Lawson perused the job board on campus, there wasn’t a single engineering position open to someone of her race and sex, no matter her qualifications. When she applied to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, she saw the job of a “computer”—that is, a person responsible for the lab’s calculations—as a way to work in the field, even if she couldn’t have the coveted title of engineer. …

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: JUNE 11TH- CATHERINE AND HENRY

This Day In History: June 11, 1509

On June 11, 1509 the new king, Henry VIII, took as his bride Catherine of Aragon, who had briefly been married to his older brother Arthur, Prince of Wales, several years earlier. Henry waited long to marry his princess, and could have no idea how long he would wait – and how hard he would fight – to end his marriage two decades later.

Catherine was the daughter of the mighty Spanish monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. Securing their daughter as Prince Arthur’s bride was quite a coup for King Henry VII, who had very recently won his crown by conquest. His heir marrying the Spanish princess was a validation of his power. …

Microsoft’s Windows 10 push is effective, damaging, desirable, and deceptive

^{Op-ed: A free Windows 10 upgrade is good. Forcing people to have it is not.}

^Danger!

Offering Windows 10 as a free upgrade to non-enterprise users of Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 was a sensible move on Microsoft’s part. Microsoft wants developers to create applications for the Universal Windows Platform and to do that, it has to ensure that there are many people using this platform. The company has told the developer community that it expects 1 billion Windows 10 systems within the first two-to-three years, putting an end to the usual chicken-and-egg situation surrounding new Windows releases: developers never use the latest and greatest features, because there’s nobody using the latest-and-greatest operating system; there’s no reason to use the latest-and-greatest operating system, because software runs just fine on the current one.

Knowing that few people will actively seek out a new operating system to upgrade their computers, Microsoft offered the Windows 10 upgrade through Windows Update. It also distributed updates that advertised the existence of the Windows 10 update to Windows 7 and 8.1 users. Initially, this merely allowed people to “reserve” their Windows 10 upgrade, but Microsoft has become progressively more aggressive. In the early days, this upgrade was found to be downloading the new operating system even before users opted in, and it was then accused of installing automatically.

In past weeks, the complaints have stepped up. Microsoft has been accused of changing the dialogs advertising the availability of the upgrade. Initially, pressing the X in the corner of the window canceled the upgrade; however, this was changed so that pressing the X merely delayed the upgrade. …

Fiat: Affordability, Heritage Spider Strengths

A starting price for all three grades under $30,000 and nostalgia for the original model are seen as key purchase motivators for the new 124 Spider roadster, Fiat executives say.

Based on the same platform as the new Mazda MX-5 Miata, the 124 Spider hits the U.S. market this summer with its Abarth performance grade going on sale in the third quarter.

“The history of this car is something that I think is really an important part of the story,” Bob Broderdorf, director-Fiat brand North America, says here at a media drive for the roadster.

The original 124 Spider bowed in 1966 and holds the record as the best-selling Fiat in the U.S. Some 170,000 were sold and 8,000 still are registered in the country.

“It was an affordable, rear-wheel-drive sports car and a convertible at an excellent price point,” Broderdorf says. “This was a rare opportunity for the timeframe.” …

4 Epic Moments In The History Of Suicidally Bad Ideas

The past is not short on nightmarish images, crushing oppression, weird customs, and horrifying practices that make you want to put a hand on the past’s shoulder and say, “Oh no, honey, no, please don’t do that; you look ridiculous, and I’m concerned for you.” Here are some of them.

#4. 1890s Australia’s “Whale Cure”

Hello, welcome to the last moment of your life where you don’t know what a “whale cure” is.

Go ahead, savor it.

During the last decade of the 19th century, Australian health experts decided it might be great if everybody with achy joints climbed into dead beached whales for up to 30 hours at a time, all the while inhaling gusts of ammonia gas escaping its bloated corpse. It was believed this would relieve symptoms for up to a year.

^{Suddenly going to the walk-in clinic doesn’t seem so bad.}

In order to cure rheumatism, Australians in 1896 were gaga for the latest craze in “Oh my God who would do that” curatives, known as the whale cure. There was no scientific evidence that it worked, but people claimed to “feel better after being in the whale,” as put by Michelle Linder, who curated an exhibit on the short-lived practice at an Australian museum. Australian writer Louis Becke describes the experience thusly: “Sometimes the patient cannot stand this horrible bath for more than an hour, and has to be lifted out in a fainting condition, to undergo a second, third, or perhaps fourth course on that or the following day.” …

Light Pollution Hides Milky Way From 80 Percent Of North Americans, Atlas Shows

The luminous glow of light pollution prevents nearly 80 percent of people in North America from seeing the Milky Way in the night sky.

That’s according to a new atlas of artificial night sky brightness that found our home galaxy is now hidden from more than one-third of humanity.

While there are countries where the majority of people still live under pristine, ink-black sky conditions — places such as Chad, Central African Republic and Madagascar — more than 99 percent of the people living in the U.S. and Europe look up and see light-polluted skies.

The country with the worst light-pollution is Singapore, where researchers found that “the entire population lives under skies so bright that the eye cannot fully dark-adapt to night vision.” …

Revealed: Cambodia’s vast medieval cities hidden beneath the jungle

^{Exclusive: Laser technology reveals cities concealed under the earth which would have made up the world’s largest empire in 12th century}

Archaeologists in Cambodia have found multiple, previously undocumented medieval cities not far from the ancient temple city of Angkor Wat, the Guardian can reveal, in groundbreaking discoveries that promise to upend key assumptions about south-east Asia’s history.

The Australian archaeologist Dr Damian Evans, whose findings will be published in the Journal of Archaeological Science on Monday, will announce that cutting-edge airborne laser scanning technology has revealed multiple cities between 900 and 1,400 years old beneath the tropical forest floor, some of which rival the size of Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh. …

10 Unique Burial Sites With Amazing Histories

Over the course of history, people have spent many a different way figuring out how to properly and respectfully remove the dead from the living. Testaments to their work still survive to this day—from the Valley of the Kings to the necropolises in Greece. Although they are strong examples of the interesting ways in which people buried their dead, they are definitely not the only ways.

In addition to the burial sites that everyone knows about, there exist smaller yet still very interesting examples of how people treated the dead. Here are 10 unique burial sites that have their own stories to tell.

10. Plain Of Jars

The mysterious Plain of Jars in Laos has been of archaeological interest since its discovery, estimated to have been created around 3,000 years ago. In itself, it is unique, as we covered back in 2011 in our list of unique places around the world. At the time, the exact nature of why the jars existed was unknown, bar a few burials found in the jars. A little more digging, however, has revealed that the burials may not have been a one-off occurrence.

A discovery in April 2016 revealed evidence that the pots were used in a specific burial practice, meaning the burials found earlier were related to the purpose of the Plain of Jars and weren’t simply an isolated occurrence. These included the discoveries of a bone pit with a limestone block placed on top, bones found in special ceremonial vessels for burial, and a traditional grave.

This leads archaeologists to confirm that the Plain of Jars was used for preparation and burial of the deceased. …

I Quit Showering, and Life Continued

^{We spend two full years of our lives washing ourselves. How much of that time (and money and water) is a waste?}

12,167 hours of washing our bodies.

That’s how much life you use, if you spend 20 minutes per day washing and moisturizing your skin and hair (and you live to be 100, as we all surely will).

That adds up to nearly two entire years of washing every waking hour.

Not to mention water usage and the cost of cosmetic products—which we need, because commercials tell us to remove the oil from our skin with soap, and then to moisturize with lotion. Other commercials tell us to remove the oils from our hair, and then moisturize with conditioner.

That’s four products—plus a lot of water and time— and few people question whether it’s anything short of necessary.

It’s not just the fault of advertising, but also because most of us know from personal experience that if we go a few days without showering, even one day, we become oily, smelly beasts.

But what if you push through the oiliness and smelliness, embrace it, and just go forward?

Out of curiosity—not laziness—I tried it. …

New Parenting Trend Involves Just Handing Children Bulleted List Of Things To Accomplish By 30

Saying the popular new practice appears to be growing in popularity particularly in coastal states and within more affluent suburbs, several family experts confirmed Friday that the latest parenting trend involves just handing children a bulleted list of things they need to accomplish by the age of 30. “An increasing number of moms and dads are taking a more direct style of parenting that involves simply printing out a list of life achievements, handing it to their child, and telling them to get it all done before they turn 30 years old,” said Parents magazine editor Mallory Schneider, adding that the new technique encourages independence and has a built-in flexibility, as parents can customize their lists according to whatever specific expectations they have for their child. …

DAVID LETTERMAN STARTED HIS BROADCASTING CAREER AS A RADIO NEWSCASTER

Today I found out David Letterman started out his broadcasting career as a radio newscaster. This was at the WBST radio station, which, at the time, was a college run 10 watt radio station and is now an Indiana public radio station. After being fired from that radio station for making fun of classical music, he helped found another campus radio station, WAGO AM 570, which is today WCRD FM 91.3.

After graduating college, Letterman took another radio job as a radio talk show host on AM WNTS and more famously as a weatherman on the TV station WLWI in Indianapolis, which is now WTHR. His trademarks as a weatherman included: frequently making up cities and reporting made up high and low temperatures and congratulating tropical storms when they were upgraded to hurricanes. …