AdamSmith

Riveting (if you like this kind of thing) 1980 documentary on Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project. First segment:

Notwithstanding his fondness for tree rats you missed a treat. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Ross

Jimmy Carter calls for fresh moratorium on death penaltyCarter says it amounts to cruel and unusual punishment and justices should reintroduce ban that stood from 1972 to 1976 Ed Pilkington in New York theguardian.com, Monday 11 November 2013 09.08 EST Jimmy Carter said: 'The only consistency today is that the people who are executed are almost always poor, from a racial minority or mentally deficient.' Photo: Reuters Former US president Jimmy Carter has called for a new nationwide moratorium on the death penalty, arguing that it is applied so unfairly across the 32 states that still have the death sentence that it amounts to a form of cruel and unusual punishment prohibited under the US constitution. In an interview with the Guardian, Carter calls on the US supreme court to reintroduce the ban on capital punishment that it imposed between 1972 and 1976. The death penalty today, he said, was every bit as arbitrary as it was when the nine justices suspended it on grounds of inconsistency in the case of Furman v Georgia 41 years ago. “It’s time for the supreme court to look at the totality of the death penalty once again,” Carter said. “My preference would be for the court to rule that it is cruel and unusual punishment, which would make it prohibitive under the US constitution.” Carter’s appeal for a new moratorium falls at a time of mounting unease about the huge disparities in the use of capital punishment in America. Recent research has shown that most of the 1,352 executions that have taken place since the supreme court allowed them to recommence in 1976 have emanated from just 2% of the counties in the nation. Amid a critical shortage of medical drugs used in lethal injections caused by a European boycott of US corrections departments, death penalty states are also adopting increasingly desperate execution methods. The new techniques range from deploying previously untested sedatives in lethal injections, to concocting improvised batches of the chemicals through compounding pharmacies. Carter’s main concern is what he sees as the injustice in the kinds of individuals who are most likely to be sentenced to death and executed. He will be raising his concerns at a national symposium on the death penalty held by the American Bar Association and hosted by his Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia on Tuesday. “The only consistency today is that the people who are executed are almost always poor, from a racial minority or mentally deficient,” he told the Guardian. “In America today, if you have a good attorney you can avoid the death penalty; if you are white you can avoid it; if your victim was a racial minority you can avoid it. But if you are very poor or mentally deficient, or the victim is white, that’s the way you get sentenced to death.” He added: “It’s almost inconceivable in these modern days to imagine that a rich white man would be executed if he murdered a black person.” Carter’s call for a renewed moratorium is particularly significant given his role, paradoxically, in helping to restore the death penalty in the 1970s. In 1973, as governor of Georgia, he signed into law a new set of guidelines that were designed to meet the objections of the supreme court over the inconsistencies in the death penalty set out in the Furman case. Those new guidelines were reviewed by the supreme court, and on the back of that case – Gregg v Georgia – the nine justices removed their previous injunction and allowed the death penalty to resume. Carter now looks back on the part he played with frank regret. “If I had to do that over again I would certainly be much more forceful in taking actions that would have prohibited the death penalty,” he said, referring to his signing of the 1973 guidelines. “In complete honesty, when I was governor [of Georgia] I was not nearly as concerned about the unfairness of the application of the death penalty as I am now. I know much more now. I was looking at it from a much more parochial point of view – I didn’t see the injustice of it as I do now.” In recent years Carter has striven to make up for what he sees as his past weakness on the issue in his home state, which has carried out some of the most controversial judicial killings in modern times. He campaigned vociferously against the execution of Troy Davis in September 2011 amid serious doubts about the prisoner’s guilt . He continues to campaign in the case of Warren Hill, a Georgia death row inmate who has been declared intellectually disabled (or “mentally retarded” in US jurisprudence) by all the psychiatrists who have examined him, yet still faces execution despite a US supreme court ban on executing intellectually disabled people. “I would hope Georgia would commute Warren Hill’s sentence completely,” Carter said. At Tuesday’s symposium, the ABA will present the findings of its eight-year examination of the fairness and accuracy of several of the leading death penalty jurisdictions in the US. It has carried out a series of assessments of the way capital punishment is applied in Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Tennessee, and Texas – states that represent 65% of all executions that have taken place since 1976. The ABA has identified 12 areas in which the practice of capital punishment in the US continues to experience serious problems. They include the use of ill-equipped, poorly trained and under-paid lawyers to defend people facing capital prosecutions; racial disparities in the pursuit of cases – in Georgia, those suspected of killing whites are almost five times more likely to be sentenced to death than those suspected of killing blacks; huge variations in the rules relating to DNA testing; widespread confusion among jurors sitting at death penalty trials; and the fact that all the assessed states continue to allow people with severe mental illness to be sentenced to death and executed. Ed Pilkington will be acting as a moderator at the American Bar Association symposium at the Carter Center on Tuesday http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/11/jimmy-carter-supreme-court-death-penalty

In Defense Of Rob Ford: The World’s Greatest Mayor Don’t let the media deceive you! posted on November 8, 2013 at 4:14pm EST Benny Johnson BuzzFeed Staff So, the Mayor of Toronto smokes some recreational crack. He is not an addict. So, GET OVER IT. Via blogto.com And he wants to kill people. SO WHAT?!? Via blogto.com Why is everyone forgetting that Rob Ford is the BEST mayor on the planet? Via blogto.com The media is NOT telling you the whole story. Did you know he is a spectacular bongo player? Via blogto.com Probably not. You are just focused on that one time he accidentally smoked crack. He kicked Hulk Hogan’s ass without even trying. Via blogto.com Don’t front, Hulk. He is very culturally sensitive. Even when he has no clue what is going on. He holds events with girls in cabbage bikinis. Did you hear me?! CABBAGE BIKINIS. Eat your heart out. During that event he weighed himself, then he tripped off the stage and rolled his ankle. blogto.com blogto.com He coaches a football team! Via vice.com When was the last time your mayor coached a sports team? And, like, he is really good at football. Via joeydevilla.com So shut your mouth. He MEANT to do this. It’s his move. Did you need that action from another angle? He never shies away from the media. He is the best campaigner ever. His supporters photobombed this live taping of a Toronto morning show. He made himself Superman stopping a train in a campaign ad. When a reporter calls him a bad name… Via orwellsbastard.blogspot.com He chases the reporter out of the building while questioning his manhood. orwellsbastard.blogspot.com orwellsbastard.blogspot.com ...Continued at http://www.buzzfeed.com/bennyjohnson/in-defense-of-rob-ford-the-worlds-greatest-mayor

I loved watching this guy. 12 Ways Bob Ross Improved Your Childhood Little known fact: TV painter Bob Ross was actually an undercover agent specializing in management of childhood anxiety. The man was a genius. posted on March 26, 2013 at 6:21pm EDT Leonora Epstein BuzzFeed Staff If you were a child in the mid-’80s or early ’90s, chances are you spent several afternoons with Bob Ross and his PBS show, The Joy of Painting. This show was amazing and had the uncanny ability to calm even the most ADD child. The man was basically an undercover babysitter who was responsible for managing most of your childhood anxiety. How, you ask? 1. Dude spoke in silk whispers. 2. The world is so simple and beautiful. 3. Trees = pretty + little. 4. Clouds = happy + little. 5. He offered words of encouragement that weren’t at all vague or empty. 6. The repetitive sound of his knife scraping the canvas. 7. Zzzzzzz. 8. He brought his pet squirrels on the show. This is Pea Pod The Pocket Squirrel. 9. He was all, “It’s okay to be weird.” 10. He was a cool squirrel master and you could watch this little devil for hours. 11. OMG Bob treated his pet squirrels like royalty. Now you are daydreaming about having your own Squirrel Hilton. 12. He’s totally getting into your head. Your parents are snickering and wringing their hands in the background. Totally. Transfixed. http://www.buzzfeed.com/leonoraepstein/12-ways-bob-ross-improved-your-childhood

Spectral evidence. And sewerboarding! Your scheme if broadly applied would unclog the courts almost immediately.

You don't mean to say that when you serve and bill customers, you are necessary screwing them?

Exactly! I first saw 'Rebel Without a Cause' just about the time I began Figuring Things Out. It was a great help, in its inimitable way.

Imagine that! It is. I once bought a fancy one with several interchangeable blades for various cutting operations -- slicing, thick & thin julienne-ing, etc. The device -- either German-made or Dutch, something like that -- looked so alarming to my hubby that he urged me to return it. I didn't listen to him, but should have. Unlike the simple ones, this fancy model had a hand guard to prevent you from slicing your fingertips when using it. BUT -- changing the blades themselves was such an engineering challenge that it almost inevitably resulted in sliced fingers. P.S. It was in fact the one below. Swiss-made. Wouldn't you know. http://www.zyliss.com/our-products/ProductDetails.aspx?Id=408&CategoryId=2

In the Brazil threads here, some have mentioned (and the pictorial evidence seems to support!) a trend among many guys to shave the pits & privates.

Having used an electric shaver since the beginning, the rare occasions when I have to resort to a razor leave my face looking like it encountered one of these gimcracks.

Remember this... ...and these... ...and these!

That would explain it!

...by A. Scott Berg. Looks good. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/10/woodrow-wilson-scott-berg-conspiracy

So exit polling of those departing the city at Penn Station, the airports and Port Authority -- brilliant! The results would doubtless have high market value if we can think of the right venue for them. P.S. Who knew Queens was so randy?! ...Nothing else to do there?

Article by the book's author in today's NYT: For Gore Vidal, a Final Plot Twist http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/fashion/In-a-final-plot-twist-Gore-Vidal-leaves-his-estate-to-Harvard-Universtity.html?hpw&rref=fashion&_r=0

More on this... In G.O.P., a Campaign Takes Aim at Tea Party By ERIC LIPTON The New York Times Published: November 5, 2013 WASHINGTON — Open warfare is breaking out among rival Republican groups, with one, Main Street Advocacy, set to start an ad campaign on Wednesday that blames conservative groups like the Tea Party for the recent series of political losses in critical elections across the United States. The ad cites what it calls a “Hall of Shame,” including Representative Todd Akin, Republican of Missouri, who lost his bid for the Senate last year, despite a Tea Party endorsement, after he said a “legitimate rape” rarely causes pregnancy. It also pokes fun at conservative groups like the Club for Growth and Freedom Works — stamping the word “Defund” over their names — because they recently pushed Congress to shut down the federal government in an effort to block financing for President Obama’s health care program. “We want our party back,” said former Representative Steven C. LaTourette of Ohio, who is leading Main Street Advocacy. “And we are going to do what it takes to accomplish that.” The ad was previewed Tuesday during a fund-raiser in New York City hosted by Mr. LaTourette. Main Street Advocacy is trying to raise $8 million to help eight Republican moderates either defend their congressional seats in the 2014 midterm elections or to oust Tea Party-endorsed candidates already in office, like Representative Justin Amash of Michigan. The 14-year-old Club for Growth has become an increasing force in Republican races. It spent $17 million in the last election cycle to help select extremely conservative candidates — including Senator Ted Cruz of Texas — in congressional races that Republicans were likely to win. The Club for Growth opened the offensive against moderate Republicans earlier this year with a website it calls Primary My Congressman! The site lists 10 House Republicans it calls RINOs (Republican in Name Only) that it wants to see replaced by more conservative party members. Some are the same Republicans, like Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, that Main Street Advocacy is preparing to defend. Barney Keller, a spokesman for the Club for Growth, said that Mr. LaTourette’s group was wasting its money going after a rival political action committee. Mr. LaTourette, he added, has been working as a lobbyist since he left Congress and so now is trying to help corporate America reassert its control over Congress. “They can attack the Club all they want, and I hope they spend their money doing so,” Mr. Keller said. “We look forward to adding to the ranks of pro-growth conservatives in Congress next year.” He added that the Club had not endorsed all the candidates featured in the ad. The challenge for Main Street Advocacy, the group’s organizers said, is to build a network of moderate Republicans who are as motivated and politically active as Tea Party enthusiasts have been since Mr. Obama was elected to his first term. Party primary results are often difficult for pollsters to predict because the outcomes largely depend on who turns out to vote, and Mr. LaTourette acknowledged that the most conservative candidates had traditionally had much more reliable supporters. “We are behind the curve with our more conservative counterparts,” Mr. LaTourette said. “They have built grass-roots networks and databases of conservative voters. That is part of this project.” Mr. LaTourette stepped down this year, declaring he was fed up with the confrontational tone of his party and at how partisan Congress had become. Main Street Advocacy has not yet formally picked the eight or so Republican candidates it will spend its money on next year. Besides Mr. Kinzinger and a Republican challenger to Mr. Amash, other possibilities include Representative Mike Simpson of Idaho and Representative Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, who is vying for a Senate seat. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/06/us/politics/in-gop-a-campaign-takes-aim-at-tea-party.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-thecaucus&_r=4&