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Issue #567 - 5th June 2020
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| Contents | — – o o O o o – — |
^ WORD OF THE WEEK
oology |
Friday 5th June - Artist Peter Wtewaal born, 1596. The Tethys' Festival masque was performed at Whitehall Palace to celebrate the investiture of Prince Henry as Prince of Wales, 1610. Composer Orlando Gibbons died, 1625. The trial of Lizzie Borden for the murder of her father and step-mother began, 1893. Actress Sheila Sim born, 1922. Fashion designer Kate Spade died, 2018. World Environment Day. Saturday 6th June - Emperor Go-En'yū of Japan, died, 1393. Swedish regent Gustav Vasa was elected King of Sweden, 1523. Writer Alexander Pushkin born, 1799. The Allied invasion of Normandy began with the D-Day landing of 155,000 troops, 1944. Singer and voice-actress Emelie-Claire Barlow born, 1976. Table tennis player Ruth Aarons died, 1980. Sunday 7th June - The Siege of Jerusalem by the First Crusade began, 1099. Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland, died, 1329. Dandy icon George "Beau" Brummell born, 1778. The RMS Lusitania was launched on Clydebank, 1906. Mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing committed suicide, 1954. Adventurer and broadcaster Bear Grylls born, 1974. Monday 8th June - Elizabeth Woodville, queen consort of King Edward IV of England, died, 1492. The Laki volcano in Iceland began an eight-month eruption, 1783. Artist John Everett Millais born, 1829. Actress Sarah Siddons died, 1831. George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four was published, 1949. Singer-songwriter Bonnie Tyler born, 1951. World Oceans Day. Tuesday 9th June - Roman emperor Nero committed suicide, 68. Jacques Cartier became the first European to map the Saint Lawrence River, 1534. Tsar Peter the Great of Russia born, 1672. Suffragist Victoria Woodhull died, 1927. Donald Duck debuted in The Little Wise Hen, 1934. Author Patricia Cornwell born, 1956. Wednesday 10th June - Alexander the Great died, 323 BCE. William Barents and Jacob van Heemskerk discovered Bear Island, 1596. Engineer Nicolaus Otto born, 1832. Dr Robert Smith and Bill Wilson founded Alcoholics Anonymous, 1935. Nobel laureate writer Sigrid Undset died, 1949. Model and actress Elizabeth Hurley born, 1965. Thursday 11th June - The marriage of King Henry VIII of England and Catherine of Aragon, 1509. Writer Ben Jonson born, 1572. Brewer Samuel Whitbread died, 1796. Photographer Julia Margaret Cameron born, 1815. Actress Brigitte Helm died, 1996. The Cassini-Huygens space probe made its closest flyby of Phoebe, a moon of Saturn, 2004.
This week, Theodore Roosevelt:Patriotismn means to stand with the country. It does not mean to stand with the President.
A selection of quotations from films by the same director. Answers next issue or from the regular address.Last issue's quotations were from films directed by Sydney Pollack:
- We are the Martians now.
- People first, things second.
- I walked the streets, brooding on the bitter irony that all I wanted to do for humanity, for life, would be cheated by death... unless I could cheat death.
- I'm a space pilot, not a mechanically-minded wet nurse.
- Working with the mentally disturbed... can lead to a breakdown.
- Dr Brewster tried to seduce several nurses in this unit, claiming to be the throes of an uncontrollable impulse. Do you know what? I'm going to give every nurse on this floor an electric cattle prod and instruct them to just zap them in his badubies!
-- Tootsie [1982]- He even took the gramophone on safari. Three rifles, supplies for a month, and Mozart.
-- Out of Africa [1985]- Maybe it's just the whole world is like central casting. They got it all rigged before you ever show up.
-- They Shoot Horses, Don't They? [1969]- Maybe there's another CIA, inside the CIA.
-- Three Days of the Condor [1975]- You think you're easy? Compared to what, the Hundred Years' War?
-- The Way We Were [1973]
Strange stories from around the world, some of which might be true...
- Unlike many languages where usage defines the language, and dictionaries update to reflect new words and usage the French language is, at least as far as public bodies are concerned, set by the Académie Française and the Commission for the Enrichment of the French Language, which issues guidelines on words and phrases to use instead of ones borrowed from other languages. Its most recent update includes "information fallacieuse" or "infox" to be used instead of "fake news", "audio à la demande" (audio on demand) instead of 'podcast', "piège à clics" (click trap) instead of 'clickbait' and "videotox infox" instead of 'deepfake'. The Académie has also relented to demands for female gendered terms for jobs, so a woman teacher, instead of being "professeur" can be referred to as a "professeure".
- This week saw the first American commercial manned rocket launch, carrying astronauts Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken to the International Space Station. Video from the SpaceX rocket was streamed live to the Internet, including a reverse view of the Earth, much to the probable dismay of flat Earth conspiracy theorists. As Twitter user @USMCNoggin posted, "Hey #FlatEarth, we just launched two Americans into space completely live, with tons of live footage. Absolutely no way it could have been fake. Suck it, flerfs." One flat Earther tried to argue that the visible curve of the Earth was not the edge of the spheroid, just the furthest the camera could see... [We are guessing they are not an optics scientist -Ed]
- The Austrian government came very close to signing off a drastically slashed budget last week. They were due to vote on the proposed budget bill when Jan Kreiner, an MP for the Social Democrats party, realised that the key table had omitted the phrase "figures in millions", leaving the proposed national budget at €102,389.24 (£91,684.44; $114,106.15), a millionth of the correct total. The opposition benches erupted in laughter at the lapse while Kreiner later responded to the question "What's the best thing you said to someone today?" with "There are six zeros missing from your budget."
- Police alerted to a black bear wandering around Fort Myers, Florida, last week, realised that they could not tranquilise it, because larger animals like bears do not fall asleep immediately and often run away, putting themselves and citizens at risk. Instead they deployed a humane trap, baited with doughnuts from Krispy Kreme and a blueberry pie-scented spray. The lure worked and the bear was safely relocated to a state-managed wildlife area.
- With the housing market slumped because of the pandemic a real estate agent in California decided to come up with a novel idea to attract buyers. Daniel Oster bought a $250 (£199) Sasquatch costume and his wife took photos of 'sasquatch' engaging in typical homely activities like baking cookies, gardening and doing yoga in a Santa Cruz Mountains property that was for sale. The pictures were posted to the house's listing on the Zillow real estate website where it was viewed almost 500,000 times in the first few days, and led to offers in excess of the asking price.
- Like many tech companies, Microsoft displays a selection of news stories on its MSN homepage, which are curated by a team of 50 contract news producers, but the company has now announced it plans to replace all but a handful of them with an artifical intelligence (AI) system. One of the journalists told The Guardian that "I spend all my time reading about how automation and AI is going to take all out jobs - now it's taken mine", while others warned that the AI might be unfamiliar with strict editorial guidelines leading to inappropriate stories being published on Microsoft's site.
- James Ruffel is a fan of Monty Python. To bring some lockdown amusement to his neighbours in the Berkshire village of Sonning he posted signs on the pavement in front of his house declaring that they were entering the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Silly Walks, and filmed their responses with a motion-activated webcam. The video of residents doing silly walks in front of his house was then uploaded to a local group on Facebook, from where it went national.
- A company calling itself BioShield Distribution Ltd is riding on the coattails of the anti-5G brigade by selling an "5GBioShield" described as employing "propietary holographic nano-layer catalyst technology" to provide a "remediation from all harmful radiation, electro-smog and biohazard pollution" that has a claimed operating range of 8 or 40m (26' or 131'). The device, according to Pen Test Partners staff who dismantled one, is actually nothing more than a £5 ($6.29) USB stick with an LED light on one end and a sticker, such as can be bought at any stationer. The stick is preloaded with marketing documents and a manual that describes it as being "always on" whether or not it is attached to a computer and the LED is lit. The company is selling the devices for £339 ($426). Caveat emptor...
Coronavirus Roundup: Theme parks might be closed because of the pandemic, but they still have to run their rides from time to time for maintenance. The Walibi Holland park, which reopened this week, has posted a video of its Untamed rollercoaster on a maintenance run, but it was not empty. The ride's operators put 22 large teddy bears in the seats and the resulting video shows the bears seemingly enjoying the five inversions, 116' (35.4m) drop and top speed of 57mph (91.7km/h). You can watch them here. ● Brazil's response to the pandemic is, possibly, even worse than America's, with President Jai Bolsonaro joining anti-lockdown protesters, and a former health minister claiming that the head of the Superintendence of Private Insurance, part of the finance ministry, said that "It's good that deaths are concentrated among the old. That will improve our economic performance as it will reduce our pension defecit." ● Thousands of shoppers queued for hours outside 19 IKEA stores across England and Northern Ireland when they reopened this week, some arriving as early as 05:40 (the stores opened at 09:00), meanwhile a B&Q DIY and home improvement store in Wallasey, Merseyside, had to be evacuated and closed again after a staff member began displaying signs of infection. ● Staff at RAF Valley, a military base on Anglesey, allowed a private plane to land believing there to be an emergency, only for the pilot to tell fire crew that "he had flown from London to go to the beach" according to the official report. ● Jennie Stejna, 103, "always had that feisty fighting spirit" according to one of her granddaughters, and showed it by beating COVID-19. Staff at the Massachussetts nursing home where she lives posted a picture of her celebrating - with an ice cold Bud Light beer. ● There has been much political argument in the U.K. about testing levels for COVID-19 but at least we do not have the problem seen in India recently, where a troop of monkeys attacked a lab technician walking across a campus and stole testing kits including blood samples.
Eleven year after his first tweet (promoting his then-upcoming appearance on David Lettterman's talk show to read the top 10 list) Trump responded to Twitter fact-checking one of his posts and hiding another behind a warning, for "glorifying violence" (Twitter also hid the White House retweet in the same way), by signing a draft executive order to remove social media companies' liability protections for users' posts under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, something he tried to do last year, before the Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission told him it was unconstitutional. There can be no doubt that Trump is not concerned with free speech despite his inaccurate tweets against Twitter. He wants the freedom to spread misinformation and lies to support his views without them being challenged. Ironically, if section 230 were to be repealed social media companies would have to become far stricter in policing users' posts because they would be liable themselves. ● One of Trump's frequent complaints against Twitter is that they suppress conservative views in favour of more liberal ones. On Wednesday the U.S. Appeals Court dismissed a lawsuit claiming that Apple, Twitter, Facebook and Google violated the First Amendment, antitrust laws and discriminated against conservative users. ● Only hours after Trump's threat to "closely regulate or close them [social media companies] down" Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the government's partnership with the Freedom Online Coalition, tweeting "The U.S. stands against, and will not tolerate, government-imposed Internet shutdowns and other forms of censorship." [Perhaps he should talk to his boss... -Ed] ● Trump's executive order is already facing a legal challenge brought by the Center for Democracy and Technology on the grounds that it violates social media companies' right to free speech in factchecking erroneous and misleading posts. ● While signing his order Trump said that "There's nothing I'd rather do than get rid of my whole Twitter account" prompting a massive display of encouragement on Twitter...
Facebook is facing criticism from civil rights groups, its users and staff after founder Mark Zuckerberg told Fox News that "I just believe strongly that Facebook shouldn't be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online. Private companies probably shouldn't be, especially these platform companies, shouldn't be in the position of doing that." At least one engineer resigned in protest at his refusal to fact check Trump's posts (identical to those on Twitter) and several senior staff staged a 'virtual walkout'. Organisations including the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Color of Change and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights issued a joint statement that "We are disappointed and stunned by Mark's incomprehensible explanations for allowing the Trump posts to remain up. he did not demonstrate understanding of historic or modern-day voter suppression and he refused to acknowledge how Facebook is facilitating Trump's call for violence against protesters."
Trump and his supporters' arguments against voting by mail continue to fall apart. Kellyanne Conway compared voting with buying cupcakes, saying that "They wait in line at Georgetown Cupcake for an hour to get a cupcake, so I think they can probably wait in line to do something as consequential and critical and constitutionally significant as cast their ballot." As people - including Georgetown Cupcake themselves - pointed out, the bakery is currently only open for delivery, not everyone wants to, or is able to, stand in line for an hour, and if the government can mail people cheques they can mail ballot papers. ● Trump claimed, without evidence, that children in California are stealing ballots from mailboxes and giving them to other people "down the end of the street" to fill in. Twitter responses ranged from fact checking to jokes including "It's been well known for years that teens' misbehaviour centers on their overwhelming desire to vote" (@JRehling) and "STAFFER: Who let the President watch Little Rascals again?!" (@dandrezner). ● Of course Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany joined in, despite being a Florida resident working in Washington who has voted by mail eleven times in the past ten years. ● Attorney General William Barr claimed that foreign powers could forge mail-in ballots and was immediately shot down by experts pointing out all the safeguards built in including precinct details for each voter, barcodes and the envelopes containing the envelopes holding the forms and signatures.
In 2014, as protesters demonstrated against the police killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, in Ferguson, Missouri, one Donald Trump tweeted that "Our country is totally fractured and, with our weak leadership in Washington, you can expect Ferguson type riots and looting in other places." and "Can you imagine what Putin and all of our friends and enemies throughout the world are saying about the U.S. as the watch the Ferguson riot. As China and the rest of the World continue to rip off the U.S. economically, they laugh at us and our president over the riots in Ferguson!" Needless to say, there were a few more recent replies, our favourite being @charito_lee's "Nostradumbass strikes again. #ResignNow". ● After a night of violent protests across America following the police killing of the unarmed George Floyd in Minneapolis, in Washington, D.C., police used tear gas and rubber bullets to push protesters away from the White House so Trump could deliver an address to the press - vowing to use the U.S. military against U.S. civilians - in the Rose Garden without being drowned out by the noise, before retreating to an underground bunker. The next night he had police use tear gas and rubber bullets to clear protesters from St John's Episcopal Church opposite the White House. The protesters that night were peaceful and included clergy from the church and elsewhere, but were gassed and shot at just so Trump (who has claimed to be "an ally of peaceful protesters") could be photographed in front of it holding up a Bible. He drew criticism from Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, who said "I am outraged. The President did not pray wen he came to St John's, nor did he acknowledge the agony of our country right now. [..] We align ourselves with those seeking justice for the death of George Floyd and countless others. And I just can't believe what my eyes have seen." Other religious leaders joined in the condemnation. ● As many have pointed out, Trump's attempts to look strong, his threats to unleash the U.S. military against civilians and his hiding in a bunker are the actions of a tyrant, not a democratically-elected (even if not by the popular vote) President, and history has recorded the ultimate fate of tyrants. ● Vanity Fair summed up Trump's actions with the headline "Man Who Spent the Weekend In A Bunker Demands "Weak" Governors "Dominate" Protesters". ● Even far-right evangelist Pat Robertson is critising Trump for his response to the riots, while Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo told CNN "Let me just say this to the president of the United States on behalf of the police chiefs in this country. Please, if you don't have anything constructive to say, keep your mouth shut. Because you're putting men and women in their early 20s at risk. It's not about dominating, it's about winning hearts and minds. [..] And it hurts me to no end because whether we vote for someone or we don't vote for someone, he's still our president, but it's time to be presidential and not try to be like you're on 'The Apprentice.' This is not Hollywood, this is real life, and real lives are at risk."
The COVID-19 pandemic is still rampant across America. On Wednesday Eric Trump [surely a shoe-in for the Dumbest Member of the Trump Family prize, despite stiff competition] tweeted that it was a "GREAT DAY for the DOW" as the stock market index jumped 2.21%. Wednesday also saw another significant rise, as the total number of COVID-19 deaths in America passed 100,000, something that people quickly pointed out to the Trumplet. ● The EU, Germany and the Republican head of the U.S. Senate's health committee are among those who have criticised Trump for going beyond suspending funding for the World Health Organization and pulling the U.S. out of it in the middle of a pandemic with many agreeing with Chinese Foreign Minister Zhao Lijian that Trump is trying to "shift the blame for [America's] own incompetent response." ● On October 25, 2019, two months before the first diagnosed case of COVID-19 in the world, Joe Biden tweeted "We are not prepared for a pandemic. Trump has rolled back progress President Obama made to strengthen global health security. We need leadership that builds public trust, focuses on real threats, and mobilizes the world to stop outbreaks before they reach our shores." The same day Trump tweeted "To Tim [Cook, CEO of Apple Inc.]: The Button on the IPhone was FAR better than the Swipe!"...
Trump's grasp of reality and statistics is as weak as ever, as he tweeted that he is leading the polls in all swing states. In fact, presumptive Democrat candidate Joe Biden leads in a majority of swing states including traditionally Republican ones like Arizona, is tied with Trump in Ohio and Georgia and nationally has a 10 point lead over Trump. ● Trump's disapproval rating has reached 54.1%, the highest since the Ukraine quid pro quo scandal last November. ● Conservative commentator George Will is going beyond just calling for voters to oust Trump and is urging the electorate to vote against Trump's "enablers", especially in the Senate. ● Republican voters are turning on Trump, with a new campaign called Republican Voters Against Trump, who tweeted the view of one voter: "I'd vote for a tuna fish sandwich before I'd vote for Donald Trump again." ● Another Republican anti-Trump group, the Lincoln Project, released a new campaign video about Trump's supporters' use of the Confederate flag: "The men who flew this flag 150 years ago knew what it meant. Treason against their country. Death of the United States. What does it say that they're all in for Trump?"
State attorneys general, environmental groups and cities in 23 states are suing Trump for dismantling Obama-era climate change laws, describing Trump's new rules as "a job-killer and public health hazard [which] will increase costs to consumers and allow the emissions of dangerous pollutants that directly threaten the health of our families." ● The UK and Canada continue to block Trump's plan to bring Russia back into the G7 for its delayed summit due to be held in America in September. ● Conservative commenter Tom Nichols writing in The Atlantic asked "But since his first day as a presidential candidate, I have been baffled by one mystery in particular: Why do working-class white men - the most reliable component of Donald Trump's base - support someone who is, by their own standards, the least masculine man ever to hold the modern presidency? The question is not whether Trump fails to meet some archaic or idealized version of masculinity... Rather the question is why so many of Trump's working-class white male voters refuse to hold Trump to their own standards of masculinity - why they support a man who behaves more like a little boy." ● Trump has whined that the Republican National Convention will move out of North Carolina because the Democrat state governor Roy Cooper and other officials refuse to guarantee that they can use an arena without having to implement social distancing rules and face mask requirements. ● The White House will break with tradition and not release its updated economic forecasts this summer for the first time since the 1970s. Even during the global recession Barack Obama's administration released unflattering mid-session forecasts.
Guitarist Bob Kulick (Kiss, Meatloaf, Lou Reed, 70), actor Tony Scannell (The Bill, Flash Gordon, Waking the Dead, 74), actor Anthony James (Unfogiven, In the Heat of the Night, High Plains Drifter, 77), actor Michael Angelis (Boys From the Blackstuff, Thomas the Tank Engine, The Liver Birds, 76), artist Christo (famous for wrapping buildings and landmarks in fabric or plastic, 84), playwright and AIDS activist Larry Kramer (The Normal Heart, Women in Love Oscar-winning screenplay, Act Up, 84), Herb Stempel (contestant who blew the whistle on American TV game show rigging in the 1950s, 93), supercentenarian Bob Weighton (the world's oldest living man since February 2020, 112).
^ DUMBLEDORE BEAR'S LOTTERY PREDICTOR!
Dumbledore Bear, our in-house psychic predicts that the following numbers will be lucky:2, 11, 34, 42, 48, 55[UK National Lottery, number range 1-59]
You can get your very own prediction at http://www.simonlamont.co.uk/tfir/dumbledore.htm.
Little Jennifer was sitting at the dining table writing a thank-you letter to her grandmother when her mother came into the room and looked at the letter. "That's a sweet letter, Little Jennifer," she said, "but why are you writing everything so big?"
Little Jennifer looked up and smiled as only she could. "Granny's deaf isn't she, Mummy? I'm writing loudly!"
^ ...end of line