Category: General

Turn down the thermostat to 65 °F (18.3 °C) to fall asleep easier, and sleep better, says the science about sleep.  The body’s core temperature actually needs to drop by 2 or 3 °F to initiate sleep.  And what I suspect many of us in warmer climates know : the body tries to lose heat through the hand and feet, so stick one or two out from under the blanket if the room temperature is a little too high.

The Jeb Bush for the 2016 Republican nominee for President campaign is over : a spectacular failure of the very high expectations of all his donors that had amassed a $103 million campaign war chest just a year ago.  Earnest, thoughtful and modest, Jeb might well have been the best of the Bush presidents. If only he hadn’t been the third one, writes Matt Latimer on Politico.com, here.

Hey, I don’t agree with the man’s politics and policies, but now we are left with candidates such as Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.   As political observer Ezra Klein says here, we need to stop laughing at Trump (and take him seriously); he’s downright dangerous.  Or : never mind Trump.  Watch out for Ted Cruz, and do not vote for him.  See what Robert Reich, Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, says about him, here.

On Saturday I took the street car down to Seattle’s Japan Town (it really occupies just a few city blocks, adjacent to the much larger Chinatown).  I ended up buying this 2008 poster called ‘Nihontown’.  It is from a local artist called Ken ‘Enfu’ Taya, and here is a full explanation of the mash-ups of American and Japanese icons that had been crammed into the poster, from his website.

Check out this cartoon tweeted by Jimmy Margulies.  This is what it is all about : Apple can help the FBI open San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook’s iPhone, which could lead to information to track down other terrorists. Apple has declined. Farook’s iPhone 5c was legally obtained by the FBI with a search warrant for Farook’s Lexus. The FBI is suing Apple, and Apple has vowed to appeal if it loses its case.  I think I side with Gabriel Malor’s point of view, here.

Here is a boerboel*, a ‘new’ breed that debuted at the 2016 Westminster Dog Show held over the weekend in Madison Square Garden in New York City. The picture is from the CBS News website.  (‘New’ because we had neighbors in South Africa with such a dog, and this was several decades ago!).

*Boerboel is the South African name for the breed, and it is pronounced boo-r-bull in Afrikaans. A simple translation is ‘farmer’s bull dog’.  A more accurate translation might be a ‘Boer’s bull dog’.

Well ! It has been an eventful Presidents’ Day weekend.  The country learned on Saturday that one of the nine Supreme Court of the United States had died (Antonin Scalia, of an apparent heart attack, at the age of 79).  On Saturday night, there was a raucous debate among the six (down from 17) Republican candidates for the 2016 Presidential nomination. Donald Trump slaughtered a sacred Republican cow by accusing former Pres. George W. Bush of lying about weapons of mass destruction, and of not keeping the country safe – since 9/11 happened on his watch.  (The word lying or lie was used so many times in the debate that it must be some kind of record).    And then to top it all off, former Pres. George W. Bush made his first big appearance in public since leaving office, to campaign for his younger brother’s sinking Presidential campaign in South Carolina.   Once deemed the inevitable candidate against the presumable Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, the campaign of Jeb Bush now seems to be completely doomed.   The Bushes are very well regarded in South Carolina, a state with air force bases, army bases, marine core bases and navy bases (!) .. but all of that still appears not to be good enough to make a difference for the Jeb Bush campaign.  Forecasters give Trump a 73% chance of winning the SC primary and Bush all the way down in 4th or 5th place with a 1% moonshot.

It takes a fine instrument to detect gravitational waves : the the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory or LIGO.  Check out this report in the Science section of the New York Times, of the first confirmed reading of gravitational waves (in Sept 2015). Einstein predicted that gravitational waves could come about during some cataclysmic events in the universe, such as two black holes that collide.

I see Meryl Streep’s remark ‘We are all Africans’ (she was responding to diversity questions at the Berlin Film Festival, and questions as to why, for the second year in a row, the Oscar nominations failed to recognize any minority actors), was panned .. the criticism being that it is a non-answer.  That’s like saying ‘We are all humans’, which is true. Check out this fascinating picture that shows how modern humans migrated all over the continents, starting out in Africa.  A bigger version of the picture is here.

The New Hampshire US Presidential Primary results are in, and it’s Trump and Sanders by wide margins .. somewhat expected in both cases (cannot trust those polls until the results actually do come in), and somewhat shocking as well.  (That Trump could win.  Time for some of those Republicans that split the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th places, drop out?).

Election results and maps are from the New York Times.

Here it is : the Year of the Monkey starts today in the twelve-year cycle of the Chinese zodiac.   People born in the Year of the Monkey are characterized as lively, quick-witted, curious, innovative and mischievous – but it is also believed to be one of the most unlucky years in the Chinese calendar !

So there it is : the Denver Broncos surprising the pundits, and the North Carolina Panthers, with a 24-10 win.  For me, the half-time show with Coldplay (and Beyonce and Bruno Mars) was definitely a highlight.  And the Jeep commercial made me cry.

P.S.  The Denver Broncos are from the old American Football League. So if the Superbowl Indicator is to be believed, we are likely in for a declining stock market for the coming year!  .. but fortunately, as Investopedia points out, correlation does not mean causation.

The next stop in the 2016 US Presidential race is the New Hampshire Primary, also known as the first-in-the-nation primary. (The Iowa primary was a caucus and technically not a primary election where people cast a vote).

To that end, there was another Republican presidential debate :’a bit like the final act of a horror film’, says this BBC reporter Anthony Zurcher. ‘The monster had already eaten half the teens at the summer camp, and those left were wondering who was next to go.  Some of the candidates seemed like they were ready to fight.  Some of them looked like they wanted to hide or run.  And Ben Carson acted like he didn’t care whether the monster got him or not’.

There was a time when the only jeans I wore were Levi’s 505 Regular Fit Jeans, but nowadays I prefer jeans with a little stretch in.  Anyway : Levi’s Stadium is the high-tech stadium in the city of Santa Clara in Silicon Valley where Sunday’s Superbowl 50 game will take place.  Check out the countdown to the big event here.

With ticket prices reportedly averaging $5,000 (whoah), the sponsors are pulling out all the stops to make for a good ‘fan experience’.  An estimated 75,000 beers, 50,000 hot chocolates & coffees, and 75,000 chicken tenders will be scarfed up by the fans during game time.   Oracle built an app for ordering food that can be delivered to your seat. There is also an instant replay function available on the app. That is going to take some serious connectivity and bandwidth hardware to beam video out to those thousands of iPads and iPhones out there!

The El Rey theater was built in 1905 and served as a vaudeville theater in Chico’s early days.  (Vaudeville theater was popular in the early 20th century, featuring a mixture of specialty acts such as burlesque comedy and song and dance).  The El Rey served as a first-run movie theater until 2005, but was then closed for awhile.  It now serves as a venue for showing cult and classic films, and for live music.  The ‘Keep Chico Weird’ event advertised on the board was a local talent show.

Alright .. the Iowa Republican race’s results are in, and it’s Ted Cruz over Donald Trump, by a margin of 4%.   The Democratic race is too close to call, and the final results will likely not come in before morning.   And so it’s off to bed with me, since I have to travel out to Sacramento on Tuesday morning.

The world learned this week of the sad ending to Antarctic explorer Henry Worsley’s attempt to cross the continent on foot (he died in a hospital in Chile after being airlifted there).  That also made me recall a stamp issued in South Africa, commemorating the 1961 Antarctic Treaty (my mom took me to the post office so that I could buy the special first day of issue envelope as well).  The Antarctic is a fascinating continent : the only one with no native human population.  So what does the treaty say? Here are the articles [Source : Wikipedia].

Article 1 – The area is to be used for peaceful purposes only; military activity, such as weapons testing, is prohibited but military personnel and equipment may be used for scientific research or any other peaceful purpose;
Article 2 – Freedom of scientific investigations and cooperation shall continue;
Article 3 – Free exchange of information and personnel in cooperation with the United Nations and other international agencies;
Article 4 – The treaty does not recognize, dispute, nor establish territorial sovereignty claims; no new claims shall be asserted while the treaty is in force;
Article 5 – The treaty prohibits nuclear explosions or disposal of radioactive wastes;
Article 6 – Includes under the treaty all land and ice shelves but not the surrounding waters south of 60 degrees 00 minutes south;
Article 7 – Treaty-state observers have free access, including aerial observation, to any area and may inspect all stations, installations, and equipment; advance notice of all activities and of the introduction of military personnel must be given;
Article 8 – Allows for good jurisdiction over observers and scientists by their own states;
Article 9 – Frequent consultative meetings take place among member nations;
Article 10 – All treaty states will discourage activities by any country in Antarctica that are contrary to the treaty;
Article 11 – All disputes to be settled peacefully by the parties concerned or, ultimately, by the International Court of Justice;
Articles 12, 13, 14 – Deal with upholding, interpreting, and amending the treaty among involved nations.

There was yet another Republican Presidential candidate debate, this one in Des Moines, Iowa on Thu night.  Mr Donald Trump was AWOL, the result of a tiff between him and the Fox News TV Channel.   The pundits say it’s between Trump and the Texan senator Ted Cruz (that was born in Canada, as Trump reminds voters every day now).  The Iowa caucuses are on Monday, officially kicking off the 2016 USA Presidential election.

The problem with Iowa’s way of voting is that you have to physically show up at the caucus events. As the Des Moines Register (local newspaper points out), the caucus process takes two hours and inadvertently disqualifies a lot of voters.    ‘When you go to the caucus, if you go, on Monday night, look to your left and your right and imagine the people who are not there, the ones not participating in this so-called great example of “participatory democracy.” You will not see the voter who has too many health issues, the shift worker, the emergency services worker, the voter with social anxiety, the voter who got sick the last time they caucused, the voter who wants to vote in private, the abused woman who is still in hiding, the snow bird who is gone every winter, the voter on a business trip, the person in the hospital and the voter without child care’.

One would think that what happened in Flint, Michigan, the last 18 months or so, is surely out of the question, and just not possible in the United States of America.  But check out this recent article in the The Flint Journal that chronicles the series of bad decisions, bad governing and utter lack of care for the well-being of people, that resulted in the lead poisoning of the residents of Flint – and particularly its most vulnerable ones : young children.

Check out this New York Times article that gives pointers as to how to see five planets all at once in the night sky.  This sighting will be possible only for the next three weeks or so . .. but then from Aug 13 to 19 there will be an opportunity for Southern Hemisphere stargazers to see the five planets in the dusk sky.