BEST BOOK ! A Christmas Carol: A Facsimile of the Original 1843 Edition

 Just before Christmas I found a book that reprinted the original Charles Dickens' classic "A Christmas Carol" as it appeared when it was published! Same cover, same print, same artwork! It was one of the best books I've ever purchased. I finished reading it earlier this month, and there was so much I didn't remember from when I read it decades ago. Movies just don't do it justice. You need to read the original book and see the original artwork. It's of course 5 of 5 stars. This version is a treasure worth keeping and re-reading every year. Its available on Amazon for $19.95 and it's hardcover .What more could you ask?

A Christmas Carol: A Facsimile of the Original 1843 Edition in Full Color Hardcover – September 12, 2016 by Charles Dickens (Author), John Leech (Illustrator)

This classic 1843 tale by Charles Dickens has all your favorite characters in their original telling: Scrooge, Tiny Tim, Bob Cratchit, and the rest. This hard cover edition is a FACSIMILE of "A Christmas Carol" as first published in 1843, which means it includes the original illustrations, in full color, by John Leech. While the cloth cover cannot be reproduced exactly, the cover of this edition is nearly identical in appearance to the original. If you want to read "A Christmas Carol" exactly as it was when it was first written, this edition is for you.

Also available in hard cover: 9781936830886 And as a soft cover edition: 9781936830916

LINK TO BUY:

[PER THE PUBLISHER: These two options have been gently updated layout to conform with modern printing methods, with easier to read text compared to the facsimile and similar very minor adjustments.]

Note: THIS EDITION IS A FACSIMILE. That means it is EXACTLY as was originally published. For that reason, it has the magic of the original, but also contains all the blemishes and defects which were common to books printed almost 200 years ago. Reader beware. Further, the original illustrator, John Leech, did not use a computer or graphic editing to create his illustrations. llustrations at the time were created as engravings which had to be colored by hand, or through wood cuts. They were not mofidied or enhanced for this edition. It is a FACSIMILE!

Idiot of the Week! Florida Doctor ‘Lost Everything’ After Storming the Capitol on Jan. 6

Most doctors are super-intelligent, but there are some quacks (like Rand Paul, optometrist in Congress for example), and this week's idiot. The idiot of the week is a now former ER doctor who broke into the U.S. Capitol, bragged about it, also misidentified the building, and as a result of his stupidity and treason, he lost his wife, kids, home and job. No sympathy.  Here's the story:

  

(Image:  Kenneth Kelly in front of the Washington Monument on Jan. 6; inside Capitol on Jan. 6. Credit: FBI) 

Florida Doctor Who ‘Lost Everything’ After Storming the Capitol on Jan. 6 and Bragging About Forcing Senators to Hide Gets 12 Months Probation 

MARISA SARNOFF, Law and Crime

Jan 14th, 2022

The Florida doctor who lost his marriage, job, and home after he entered the Capitol on Jan. 6 and later bragged about it has been sentenced to one year of probation, including two months of home detention.

Kenneth Kelly, 59, and his friend Leonard Gruppo had traveled together from Florida to attend Donald Trump’s rally on Jan. 6. They were later seen on surveillance video footage inside the Capitol building.

Kelly wasn’t among the front lines of rioters who broke through the doors, but prosecutors say he had to be “hoisted over a wall” to get into the building because the stairs were too crowded with people. Once inside the building, prosecutors say, he ignored a police officer’s direction to exit the building, and instead walked around for a few more minutes before finally leaving.

In a series of text messages, Kelly bragged about his exploits that day. “Inside White House via breaking in windows!” Kelly said in a text message that was sent along with a picture that appeared to be taken from inside the Capitol building, which he mistakenly identified as the White House. “Tree of liberty was watered today!”

“Patriots stormed the White House [sic], broke in while Senate (with a little s) was in sessiondenating [sic] Arizona. The [sic] were hiding under ther [sic] desks. Forced into recess. Patriots took back our capital today,” he also texted, again erroneously identifying the Capitol as the White House.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly cited those text messages when she sentenced Kelly, an emergency room doctor from Florida, to a year of probation that included two months of home detention.

“I debated back and forth about the length of probation,” Kollar-Kotelly said when she announced Kelly’s sentence. “I’m still a little concerned, based on his texts, as to what his understanding of the seriousness of his participation [is], as opposed to just that it’s had dire consequences for him.”

“I’d like to also feel more comfort in feeling that he really understands this was not the way to challenge an election,” she continued. “You don’t do it this way. You don’t try and overturn the government.”

Kollar-Kotelly, a Bill Clinton appointee, said that Kelly was “clearly happy that the [certification] process was stopped, that the insurrection cowed senators hiding under their desks. Those comments give me great pause.” “I think those comments merit some home detention,” she added.

Kelly pleaded guilty in September to parading, demonstrating, or picketing in the Capitol building. He also faced additional charges, including disorderly conduct and entering and remaining in a restricted building, which have since been dismissed pursuant to his plea deal.

Prosecutors had asked for 36 months of probation, including 60 days of home detention. Kelly had asked for probation only, and said that home detention would prevent him from getting hired.

Gruppo, Kelly’s friend, had pleaded guilty in August and was sentenced in October to 24 months of probation, including 90 days of home detention.

The fallout for Kelly since his participation in the Capitol siege, when mobs of Trump supporters overran police and breached the building in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 presidential election, has been significant.

His wife, who he married in 2004, has filed for divorce, and moved to Hawaii with the couple’s three children. He lost his job as an ER physician, and he said that he hasn’t been able to get a job since then due to his criminal case.

“He has lost everything because of this,” Kelly’s lawyer George Tragos said at the hearing.

Kelly said he is currently living in an RV, which he also uses to go between New Mexico, where he is also licensed to practice, and Florida. He also participates in nonprofit projects providing medical treatment to underserved communities.

Kollar-Kotelly said Kelly, who has been licensed to practice medicine in three states, should have known better than to join a violent mob at the Capitol.

“The violence of Jan. 6 is an unacceptable way to resolve political differences,” she said, adding: “As an educated man, you should have appreciated that.” Kollar-Kotelly said that Kelly’s sentence could start on Feb. 4.

Hero of the Week: Pandemic Whistleblower Rick Bright

There are a lot of unsung heroes that have been amazing during the multiyear pandemic we've been enduring and one in particular was chastised and even punished by the Trump administration for trying to help people curb the pandemic. His name is Rick Bright and you likely never heard of him. Rick Bright drew the ire of former President Donald Trump with a whistleblower complaint and congressional testimony about the federal response to COVID-19.   Trump spread lies about him, and Trump followers sent death threats to Rick Bright, and tried to discredit him and even attacked his personal life. (Basically, they are deplorables.). But Bright persevered and is now a leader in the current Administration where he should be. This is his story from SCIENCE Magazine>>>>>

 THE PANDEMIC WHISTEBLOWER 

SCIENCE MAGAZINE Jan 7, 2022

Rick Bright raised the alarm about the Trump administration’s response to COVID‑19. Now, he wants to build an alert system for future threats

In May 2020, with anonymous callers vowing to kill him and similar threats mounting on social media, Rick Bright gave up his cellphone and went into hiding for more than a month. “If I heard tires rolling over the road in the middle of the night in the driveway where I was staying, it was panic,” says the 55-year-old immunologist, who until that month had been a powerful, if obscure, U.S. government public health official.

HE REACTED TO THE BAD COVID RESPONSE -  The threats began after Bright filed a whistleblower suit alleging he had been demoted from the top job at the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) for protesting the government’s COVID-19 contracts and what he saw as its misguided, plodding response to the growing pandemic. He accused his bosses of trying to steer taxpayer dollars to firms run by “cronies” or “for political purposes.” The “straw that broke the camel’s back,” the complaint stated, is that he publicly criticized hydroxychloroquine—the antimalaria drug then-President Donald Trump had touted as a coronavirus remedy—as useless.

The suit and his congressional testimony that soon followed catapulted Bright into the public eye. A 60 Minutes story described him as “the highest ranking government scientist to charge the federal government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has been slow and chaotic.” 

TRUMP BADMOUTHED HIM -  Trump took to Twitter to assail him, but many of Bright’s peers in public health cheered him. “He was one of the very early people to tell the American people what was going on,” says Nicole Lurie, who during former President Barack Obama’s administration oversaw BARDA as assistant secretary for preparedness and response (ASPR) at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). “He had a lot of guts.”

Bright’s abrupt, tumultuous exit from BARDA, where he had for 4 years overseen a $1 billion–plus research budget aimed at protecting the country from pandemics and bioweapons, marked but one more dramatic chapter in a rough-and-tumble life. Now, in a bold gamble on his ability to make something from nothing, the Rockefeller Foundation has hired Bright to head a new bid to protect the world from future pandemics.

Rockefeller will give the Pandemic Prevention Institute (PPI) $150 million in seed money over the next 3 years to tap and quickly share pathogen surveillance data gathered by myriad sources. “We’re setting out to build an environment for sharing data around the world at all levels—not just governments—that will allow us to make smarter decisions,” Bright says. “I’m wildly supportive that the Rockefeller’s doing this,” says Eric Lander, director of the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, which recently issued its own ambitious, multibillion-dollar prescription to better address pandemics. Rajiv Shah, Rockefeller’s president, is certain Bright can turn PPI into a powerful force. “Rick is absolutely the best person on the planet to lead it,” Shah says. Bruce Gellin, an epidemiologist who for 15 years led HHS’s National Vaccine Program Office and is one of PPI’s first 16 employees, says, “Rick is a 50-year-vision person. That’s what he does.”

But even some admirers wonder how Bright’s new venture will stand out among efforts by governments, academia, industry, and the World Health Organization (WHO) that share PPI’s elusive aspiration, including several new ones with similarly large backing. And his detractors charge that Bright can be arrogant. “His ego is bigger than his managerial skills,” says physician Robert Kadlec, Lurie’s successor as ASPR under Trump and the main target of Bright’s blistering whistleblower complaint.

Lurie sees it differently. Bright, she says, has no fear of speaking what he perceives as truth to power. “Even when it was unpopular, it was something he did, whether it was about programmatic stuff or individuals,” she says. “If Rick didn’t respect somebody, it was difficult for him to play along without saying something.”

BRIGHT’S HARDSCRABBLE ROOTS  (See article for his full career) -  Bright   also helped shape the government’s response to epidemics at home and abroad, represented the country at WHO, and regularly briefed Congress. -   FULL STORY IN SCIENCE

BRIGHT SAYS TENSIONS with Kadlec predated the pandemic. The former Air Force officer, he asserts, believed BARDA should emphasize protecting against bioweapons over emerging infectious diseases. But COVID-19 made simmering bad blood boil. Bright and Kadlec battled about whether to fund specific masks, drugs, and vaccines to thwart SARS-CoV-2. Discord also grew after Bright visited the White House at the invitation of Peter Navarro, a trade adviser to Trump who early on advocated for more aggressive actions to stop the emerging virus. Bright says he lobbied for a crash program to make COVID-19 vaccines—a pandemic “Manhattan Project”—which Navarro spelled out in a memo on 9 February 2020 to the White House’s Coronavirus Task Force. It took 2 months before HHS endorsed the concept, when it formed Operation Warp Speed.

Kadlec, Bright contends, was livid about the meetings with Navarro, which spurred the White House to push HHS to ramp up mask production, purchase potentially helpful drugs, and invest billions in vaccine development. “Kadlec was very uncomfortable with it,” Bright says. “He actually could see that pressure was mounting. There were jokes in the hallway about Rick and his new friend, Peter.”

Bright also convinced Congress that to better respond to the pandemic, BARDA needed a substantial infusion of funding that it could control—without ASPR’s oversight. And then Bright shared with a reporter concerns about what he later called in his complaint HHS’s “reckless and dangerous push” of hydroxychloroquine and its analogs as COVID-19 treatments. On 20 April 2020, Kadlec transferred him from BARDA to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to oversee a new project on COVID-19 diagnostics.

Bright recognized the importance of ramping up diagnostics, but he charged that the transfer amounted to retaliation. In his richly detailed, 63-page complaint—which included Navarro’s memo as one of 61 exhibits—Bright made allegations of fraud, cronyism, waste, and abuse of power within the federal COVID-19 response. According to Bright’s lawyers, the Office of Special Counsel—an independent federal agency that oversees the Whistleblower Protection Act—promptly concluded that Bright’s complaint documented a “substantial likelihood of wrongdoing” and referred the matter to HHS for an investigation.

TRUMP ATTACKS BRIGHT - On the morning of 14 May 2020, shortly before Bright was set to testify at a congressional hearing, Trump attacked. “I don’t know the so-called Whistleblower Rick Bright, never met him or even heard of him,” Trump tweeted. “But to me he is a disgruntled employee, not liked or respected by people I spoke to and who, with his attitude, should no longer be working for our government!”

BRIGHT'S WARNING COMES TRUE IN 2020, 2021 - At the hearing, Bright warned that the U.S. response to the pandemic had gone awry. “Without better planning, 2020 could be the darkest winter in modern history,” he said. Asked about Trump’s downplaying the pandemic’s threat in the preceding months, Bright minced his words—but the criticism was plain: “I believe Americans need to be told the truth,” he said. “And I believe that the best scientific guidance and advice was not being conveyed to the American public during that time.”

Kadlec, who was not allowed to respond to Bright’s allegations while he was ASPR, was outraged. “You want to talk about some hurt feelings? You got it here, buddy,” says Kadlec, who now works on the minority Republican staff of the U.S. Senate health committee. He acknowledges that they had different views about BARDA’s role from the start, but says his mandate required addressing both bioterror and infectious disease equally. Kadlec says shifting Bright to NIH wasn’t retaliation, but rather part of the war on COVID-19. “This is my military background. The mission was to save lives, and the immediate mission is, ‘We need diagnostics—Rick, go over there.’”

“None of [Bright’s] allegations have been substantiated,” asserts a former HHS lawyer who helped evaluate the whistleblower complaint and asked not to be identified. Many come down to what that lawyer, who was appointed by the Trump administration, sees as professional judgment calls. “Rick did not play well with others,” the lawyer says. “He wanted to be the guy that called the shots, and he didn’t want any criticism or oversight or accountability or checks on that authority.”

MORE UGLY REPUBLICAN SLAMS (and They referred to COVID as the "China Virus") - After Bright’s congressional testimony, Navarro called his former ally “a deserter in the war on the China virus.” When Bright appeared on 60 Minutes a few days later, Trump lashed out at him again, tweeting that he “fabricates stories,” “spews lies,” and is “a creep.” Bright says unknown people subsequently began to call his relatives about his personal life, trying to dig up dirt about boyfriends, even though he is openly gay. “It was disgusting,” he says.

FINALLY REDEEMED - Bright’s fall from grace didn’t last long. President-elect Joe Biden made him an adviser on a COVID-19 transition team. In August 2021, HHS settled the whistleblower suit with Bright, agreeing to back pay and damages for “emotional stress and reputational damage,” according to his lawyers. They add that HHS has a separate, ongoing investigation into his allegations about contract improprieties and inappropriate responses to the pandemic. (HHS would not confirm or deny this.) And Bright is trying again to head off pandemics, this time from outside government.

PPI’S VAST OFFICE SPACE in Washington, D.C., isn’t just pandemic empty—it’s startup empty. As Bright begins to fill its cubicles with disease modelers, global health specialists, political scientists, epidemiologists, and health economists, he recognizes that his vision for PPI also still has many blanks to fill in—and knows he is entering an increasingly crowded and well-funded field. With backing from Germany, WHO will supplement its long-standing outbreak alert network with a hub in Berlin to analyze the incoming data and better plan responses. CDC is similarly launching a new group to aid local U.S. officials facing a spreading pathogen. “No one can do it all,” Bright says. “We have to now come together to decide how we divide and conquer this ecosystem.”

BRIGHT LOSES HIS MOTHER - URGES VACCINES AND BOOSTERS -  In August 2021, Bright’s mother was living with a relative who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. She had received two doses of a vaccine, but she was at high risk of severe COVID-19. On 17 August, his mother died of what he is certain was COVID-19. “I’m heartbroken beyond words that this pandemic has now taken my mom,” Bright tweeted. “Please get vaccinated, tested & please wear a high quality mask (over mouth & nose). I’m in so much pain from losing my mother, trust me, I don’t want anyone else to feel this pain.”

Interesting Film: The Courier (2021) - A True Cold War Story

Last weekend we watched a film on Netflix that turned out to be non-fiction... and it provided a surprising insight into what happened leading up to the Cuban Missle Crisis of 1962. We had no idea about this story, and it was fascinating to learn about!  It also stars Benedict Cumberbatch, which made it easier to watch. :) It is well-worth watching! 

  Here's the summary of the film and a trailer. 

ABOUT THE MOVIE The Courier is a 2020 historical spy film directed by Dominic Cooke. The film stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Greville Wynne, a British businessman who was recruited by the Secret Intelligence Service to be a message conduit with a Russian spy source Oleg Penkovsky (played by Merab Ninidze) in the 1960s.

GOOD  REVIEWS:  The Washington Post's Ann Hornaday gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, saying: "The Courier makes a smart, stylish stand for the kind of old-fashioned period spy thriller that is increasingly being turned into bingeable series for streaming services. Its modesty and carefully managed ambitions define its strong suit at a time when such films are scarcer every day."

BOX OFFICE NOTE - - I don't take stock in box office rankings- After all, films like Justice League  made 659 MILLION was considered a "Flop." (How ridiculous is that?). The Courier grossed $6.6 million in the United States and Canada, and $19.4 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $26 million.  That dollar figure is absolutely NO reflection on the quality of the film-  it's worth watching and you'll learn HISTORY. 

MOVIE TRAILER: https://youtu.be/Qeo8qs9xohM

 

SCIENCE: Why is the sea salty? 5 things to know

 Here's an interesting article that solves the question of why the sea is salty! 

Why is the sea salty? 5 things to know 

By Rick Adams El Segundo 

PUBLISHED 7:39 AM PT Jan. 05, 2022

The ocean. It’s a big salty blue thing. But have you ever wondered how it got so salty in the first place? Don’t worry, because we’re going to do a deep dive.

Here are five things to know: Let’s start at the top. When it rains, carbon dioxide in the air gets dissolved, making the raindrops a little bit acidic. And, when it reaches rocks on land, it weathers and erodes them, releasing salt minerals that flow into the rivers and eventually into the sea. It’s estimated that globally rivers carry around 4 billion tons of dissolved salts into the ocean each year.

Salt also comes from cracks in the seafloor, hydrothermal vents where the magma from the Earth’s core hyper-heats the seawater carrying minerals. There are also underwater volcanic eruptions that do the same and massive salt deposits known as salt domes — it’s the dissolved salts that create about 3.5% of the weight of seawater.

The minerals deposited into the sea have built up over millions of years — becoming more and more concentrated. Scientists estimate that there’s so much salt in all our oceans that if we removed it and spread it over the Earth’s surface evenly, it would make a layer around 500 feet thick.

The level of salinity of the oceans is hugely important because the saltier sea is actually heavy and can affect ocean current movement, which is how heat is transported around the globe, helping to regulate the Earth’s climate.

Even more important is the salinity level’s impact on marine life. Too much salt can be disastrous. There’s a reason why one of the saltiest seas on the planet is called “The Dead Sea.”

VIDEO: https://youtu.be/ts8OOybc53I 

 

So now you know how our seas became so salty and why it’s imperative to protect and take care of these vast blue watery reserves as they surely hold the future of our planet and all living things within their briny deep.

A Great, Classic Collection of Mystery/Horror Stories; DC Showcase: House of Secrets Vol. 2

 Back in the 1970s when I began reading comic books (and I still do in 2022) I never read any of the horror or paranormal comics. Since I've been writing my own true paranormal books (since 2009) I've begun to explore those 1970s and 1980s stories and they're really imaginative, interesting, and have great artwork. One of the collections I recently enjoyed (now out of print) is DC Showcase "House of Secrets Vol. 2." It's a 500 pager of reprints in black and white, and it's full of great stories!!  I always like to read one story each night (although they were so good, it would be a lot more than that). IF you can find a copy, get it and enjoy it! - Rob 

(DC Showcase House of Secrets Vol 2, cover by the famous Bernie Wrightson who drew Swamp Thing!. Credit; DC Comics)

Showcase Presents: The House of Secrets, Vol. 2

(Showcase Presents: The House of Secrets #2)

by 

E. Nelson Bridwell,

 

Ed Brubaker,

 

Bernie Wrightson,

 

Michael Wm. Kaluta,

 

Alex Niño (Illustrator),

 

Sergio Aragonés (Illustrator)

 3.84  ·   Rating details ·  44 ratings  ·  6 reviews

DC's Showcase series collected the 1970s horror series HOUSE OF SECRETS continues with this new, second volume of terror tales! These stories features work by notable comics talents including horror master Bernie Wrightson, Michael Kaluta, animator Alex Niño, MAD Magazine artist Sergio Aragonés and many others. 

Hungry badger accidentally unearths hundreds of ancient Roman coins in Spain

 Usually discoveries of ancient artifacts come from archaeologists. In this case, a badger decided to take up the profession in Spain and found a trove of ancient Roman coins! Here's the story from LiveScience.

Hungry badger accide
ntally unearths hundreds of ancient Roman coins in Spain 

By Harry Baker LIVE SCIENCE Jan 11, 2022

The coins came from multiple locations across the Roman Empire.

A hungry badger searching for food seems to have uncovered what turned out to be hundreds of Roman coins in a Spanish cave, according to a new study.

Archaeologists first discovered several coins laying on the ground at the entrance to a small cave in the woodlands outside Grado in northern Spain in April 2021. The researchers suspect that the coins were unearthed by a European badger (Meles meles) from a nearby den after a heavy storm dumped several feet of snow on the ground, making it harder for animals to find food. The hungry badger probably ventured into the cave looking for something to eat but came across the coins instead.

(Image: Badger.  Credit: CC0 Public Domain)

PHOTOS OF THE CAVE: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-10386551/Badger-uncovers-200-Roman-coins-Spanish-cave.html

After fully excavating the cave, researchers collected 209 coins dating to between the third and fifth centuries A.D., according to Spanish news site El Pais. Further analysis revealed the coins, which were mostly made from copper and bronze, had been minted at various locations across the Roman Empire including Constantinople (now Istanbul), Thessaloniki in Greece and London. The team published their findings Dec. 21, 2021, in the journal Notebooks of Prehistory and Archeology of the Autonomous University of Madrid.

To date, this is the largest treasure trove of Roman coins found in a cave in northern Spain,” the researchers wrote in their paper. They described the discovery as an “exceptional find.”

Enjoyed the Film: Val (Val Kilmer's film about his life)

 We recently watched an autobiographic film called "Val" on Amazon Prime video, about the life and career of actor Val Kilmer. It was an interesting film and worth watching. Today's blog will give you my take on the film (and I'm a fan of many of his movies). 

     I'm a fan of several of his movies- especially his portrayal of Doc John Holliday in the movie "Tombstone," the comedic singer Nick Rivers in the hysterical spy spoof "Top Secret," Iceman in "Top Gun," Chris Knight in "Real Genius," as Madmardigan in "Willow"  and even as Batman in "Batman Forever." The film weaves bits of these appearances together in addition to other films he's been in and shows his personal life story 

   - He lost a lot of money trying to help his father. Then his wife divorced him and cleaned him out (my take on it). After all that, he lost his voice to cancer and speaks through a voice-box while holding a finger over the opening of a tube embedded in his throat. 

      In flashbacks to earlier eras, Kilmer's narration is read by his son Jack, whom he dotes on in past and present footage. There are bits from childhood home movies, Hollywood productions; the archives of Julliard (where he studied acting); assorted entertainment TV programs, electronic press kits, and DVD supplements; and Kilmer's own library of handheld camcorder and phone footage, which he's been accumulating for decades. 

        He had to sell his dream property in New Mexico to pay all the debts incurred by helping others and the divorce. I will always admire him for his film roles. 

       One thing that disturbed me though was that no one seemed to be taking care of him in the physical sens (Although he is physically capable of taking care of himself). His current house is a mess and in the recent footage of him he desperately needs a haircut, shave, and always looks rumpled. It's an alarming change from the handsome, muscular, in-shape actor that I had come to know. He just needs someone to take care of him, and I hope he finds that. He obviously still has a lot of talent to share. 

  The bottom line is that this is an interesting autobiographic film, and worth watching.

TRAILER: https://youtu.be/YqNnhgEyQCU

Idiot of the Week: Lawmaker apologizes after apparent try to ‘pants’ referee

 This week's Idiot is a parent who lost his temper at a basketball game and assaulted a referee. He's also a well-known politician in Tennessee. Here's the story from the Associated Press.

Tenn.  Rep. Jeremy Faison attempts at pulling down the official’s pants, according to video footage

 Lawmaker apologizes after apparent try to ‘pants’ referee 

By JONATHAN MATTISE and KIMBERLEE KRUESI Assoc. Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A top Tennessee House Republican lawmaker has apologized for losing his temper and being ejected from watching a high school basketball game after a confrontation with a referee. The dustup included what appeared to be either a feigned or failed attempt at pulling down the official’s pants, according to video footage.  

On Tuesday, Rep. Jeremy Faison, 45, posted on Twitter that he “acted the fool tonight and lost my temper on a ref.”

“I was wanting him to fight me. Totally lost my junk and got booted from the gym,” Faison wrote. “I’ve never really lost my temper but I did tonight and it was completely stupid of me.

“Emotions getting in the way of rational thoughts are never good. I hope to be able to find the ref and ask for his forgiveness. I was bad wrong.”

Providence Academy, a private religious school in Johnson City, livestreamed the boys game Tuesday against Lakeway Christian Academy, a private religious school in White Pine. Faison’s son is on the Lakeway team.

The video feed shows Faison sitting in the stands before players hit the ground on a loose ball in the third quarter, spurring the referee’s whistle and a brief scuffle between the two teams.

(Image: Tenn.  Rep. Jeremy Faison attempts at pulling down the official’s pants )

According to a report provided by the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association, Faison showed up on the court and was then told by a referee to leave. Faison then pointed a finger at the referee’s face and said, “You can’t tell me to leave the floor this was your fault,” the report stated.

Faison then grabs the ref’s pants and tugged down on them, the report says.

eferee’s pants stayed up and Faison subsequently walked away.

Since 2019, Faison has been the House caucus chairman for Republicans, who have supermajorities in both legislative chambers. The GOP caucus chairman is among the most influential position in the House.

In his apology, the lawmaker from Cosby wrote that “for years” he has thought it is wrong for parents to lose their temper at sporting events, saying it is “not Christian and it’s not mature and it’s embarrassing to the child.” Faison did not specifically mention the pants-pulling-down gesture in his post.

News of Faison’s actions quickly sparked criticism.

″‘Pantsing’ a ref on the gym floor is next level bullying…not even the stuff of middle school locker rooms,” Rep. Gloria Johnson, a Knoxville Democrat, tweeted Wednesday.

___ This story has been corrected to show that the school is Lakeway Christian Academy, not Lakewood Christian Academy.

55-foot-long Triassic sea monster discovered in Nevada

Another sea-dweller during the prehistoric age was discovered, a new species called Cymbospondylus youngorum- this one in Nevada (which was underwater of course, millions of years ago). A bus is usually between 35 and 45 feet long, and this ichthyosaurs (with very sharp teeth) is longer than that! >

The size of the new ichthyosaur is perhaps best illustrated with a human for scale. (Image credit: Photo by Martin Sander)

55-foot-long Triassic sea monster discovered in Nevada 

By Laura Geggel , LIVESCIENCE

 The beast shows that ichthyosaurs grew big really fast.

A sea monster that lived during the early dinosaur age is so unexpectedly colossal, it reveals that its kind grew to gigantic sizes extremely quickly, evolutionarily speaking at least.

The discovery suggests that such ichthyosaurs — a group of fish-shaped marine reptiles that inhabited the dinosaur-era seas — grew to enormous sizes in a span of only 2.5 million years, the new study finds. To put that in context, it took whales about 90% of their 55 million-year history to reach the huge sizes that ichthyosaurs evolved to in the first 1% of their 150 million-year history, the researchers said.

"We have discovered that ichthyosaurs evolved gigantism much faster than whales, in a time where the world was recovering from devastating extinction [at the end of the Permian period]," study senior researcher Lars Schmitz, an associate professor of biology at Scripps College in Claremont, California, told Live Science in an email. "It is a nice glimmer of hope and a sign of the resilience of life — if environmental conditions are right, evolution can happen very fast, and life can bounce back."

Researchers first noticed the ancient ichthyosaur's fossils in 1998, embedded in the rocks of the Augusta Mountains of northwestern Nevada. "Only a few vertebrae were sticking out of the rock, but it was clear the animal was large," Schmitz said. But it wasn't until 2015, with the help of a helicopter, that they were able to fully excavate the individual — whose surviving fossils include a skull, shoulder and flipper-like appendage — and airlift it to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, where it was prepared and analyzed.

Caption: An illustration of Cymbospondylus youngorum in a Triassic ocean teeming with life. Ammonites and squid were abundant in this open ocean environment.  Image credit: Illustration by Stephanie Abramowicz, courtesy of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHM).)

The team named the new species Cymbospondylus youngorum, they reported online Thursday (Dec. 23) in the journal Science. This big-jawed marine reptile lived 247 million years ago during the Triassic period. Like other creatures from that time, it was weird. "Imagine a sea-dragon-like animal: streamlined body, quite long, with limbs modified to fins, and a long tail," Schmitz said. With a nearly 6.5-foot-long (2 meters) skull, this full-grown C. youngorum would have measured over 55 feet (17 m), or longer than a semitrailer, the researchers found.

When the 45-ton (41 metric tons) C. youngorum was alive, C. youngorum would have lived in the Panthalassic Ocean, a so-called superocean, off the west coast of North America, Schmitz said. Based on its size and tooth shape, C. youngorum likely ate smaller ichthyosaurs, fish and possibly squid, he added.

WHAT MAKES THIS MORE IMPRESSIVE -

There are many huge beasts that lived during the dinosaur era, but C. youngorum stands out for several reasons. For instance, C. youngorum lived just 5 million years after "the Great Dying," a mass extinction event that occurred 252 million years ago at the end of the Permian period, which killed about 90% of the world's species. That makes the ichthyosaur's huge size all the more impressive, as it took about 9 million years for life on Earth to recover from that extinction, a 2012 study in the journal Nature Geoscience found.

Some Winners from the Comedy Pet Photos Website

 Comedy Pet Photography Awards has published their winners for 2021. Here are a couple I really enjoyed !

(For all of them click this link)

Junior Pets Who Look Like Their Owners Category Jakub Gojda: ...

That was a good one!! “This photo was taken by accident during the photography of my ex-girlfriend with her beloved mare. For this cheerful moment, I thank the fly that sat on the horse's nose and he instinctively shook his head. And so it seems that the humor between a horse and a woman is definitely not missing :)).”

Junior Category Suzi Lonergan : Sit. “Our granddaughter gave the command to sit. Beau is very obedient.”

Luke O'Brien: Muttford and Chum “Losing the opportunity to play with my human band mates during lockdown, Flint my rescue dog soon taught me that we didn't just have sharp bones in common, but musical ones too. He soon became the perfect substitute for a collaborative stomp up at home, so much so that we felt we deserved our own band name (Muttford and Chum). With my camera set up remotely during this shoot, I think it's fair to say that the image is proof that his conviction as a performer matches my own - well, we were covering "treats and tugs and dinner bowls" by Ian Puli and the Boneheads.”

Manel Subirats Ferrer : Ostrich style “Little Nuka playing hide and seek one day at the beach”

Diana Jill Mehner: Crazy in love with fall “This is Leia. As you can see, she definitly love playing with all the leaves in autumn - and yes it was really tricky to take this picture because you never know where the dog will act and what it is going to do next :D”

CDC UPDATE: January 20, 2022 When should you end COVID isolation after omicron?

 Having recovered from a (vaccinated) breakthrough case of the Omicron variant of COVID, one of the questions I had was about the length of time to quarantine. Today's blog is and update from the CDC that addresses that question. 

  My experience:  I quarantined 8 days and re-tested. Getting a second positive test that day, I continued my quarantine for 5 more days.  (You can read about TIPS from me and my experience by day #8 by clicking here)   By Day 14, I re-tested and got a negative antigen test, indicating no more virus in my system. NOTE: You can still show virus in your system up to 90 days (according to my doctor) but are not contagious after 5-10 days.  **My personal feeling is to quarantine 5 to 10 days, depending on your health. If you're still feeling unwell after 5 days, stay in quarantine 5 more days -

SIDE NOTE:   A vaccination doesn't ensure you won't get something. It just means if you do contract it, it will be less severe. Isolation is to protect everyone. People who get it and don't isolate are selfish.

CDC SAYS on January 20, 2022:

• Children and adults with mild, symptomatic COVID-19: Isolation can end at least 5 days after symptom onset and after fever ends for 24 hours (without the use of fever-reducing medication) and symptoms are improving, if these people can continue to properly wear a well-fitted mask around others for 5 more days after the 5-day isolation period. Day 0 is the first day of symptoms.
• People who are infected but asymptomatic (never develop symptoms): Isolation can end at least 5 days after the first positive test (with day 0 being the date their specimen was collected for the positive test), if these people can continue to wear a properly well-fitted mask around others for 5 more days after the 5-day isolation period. However, if symptoms develop after a positive test, their 5-day isolation period should start over (day 0 changes to the first day of symptoms).
• People who have moderate COVID-19 illness: Isolate for 10 days.
• People who are severely ill (i.e., requiring hospitalization, intensive care, or ventilation support): Extending the duration of isolation and precautions to at least 10 days and up to 20 days after symptom onset, and after fever ends (without the use of fever-reducing medication) and symptoms are improving, may be warranted.
• People who are moderately or severely immunocompromised might have a longer infectious period: Extend isolation to 20 or more days (day 0 is the first day of symptoms or a positive viral test). Use a test-based strategy and consult with an infectious disease specialist to determine the appropriate duration of isolation and precautions.
• Recovered patients: Patients who have recovered from COVID-19 can continue to have detectable SARS-CoV-2 RNA in upper respiratory specimens for up to 3 months after illness onset. However, replication-competent virus has not been reliably recovered from such patients, and they are not likely infectious.

NOTE: I Left ISOLATION with 1 negative COVID test after feeling fine for 5 days**

NOTE: My doctor told me you could test positive for up to 90 days, but the Contagious aspect wanes after 10 days.    

Discovered! A Family of Ice Age Mammoths in England!

 If you're lucky enough to live in the United Kingdom where you can enjoy all BBC Television, you may have seen the television special on the most amazing prehistoric mammal find in ages - a family of mammoths were discovered recently in England!  Near a busy road in Britain’s Cotswolds, Sally and Neville Hollingworth, a couple who spends part of their time hunting fossils, made an extraordinary find: The skeletons of five prehistoric mammoths that are about 220,000 years old. The mammoths are in a remarkable state of preservation, with Neanderthal tools. 

Here's the story:

(Photo: Sir David Attenborough with some of the mammoth bones featured on Attenborough and the Mammoth Graveyard (Image: Julian Schwanitz/BBC/Windfall Films)_

Ice Age mammoths discovered in Cotswolds on Wiltshire-Gloucestershire border

GloucestershireLive UK Online Dec 21, 2021 
 

Five mammoths who got stuck in the mud on what was later to become the Wiltshire-Gloucestershire border will play a starring role in a Sir David Attenborough documentary this Christmas.

The discovery of the Ice Age beasts, in a quarry and gravel pit near the village of Latton, between Swindon and Cirencester, has astonished archaeologists as told in a programme called Attenborough and the Mammoths Graveyard, on BBC 1.

Five woolly mammoths were discovered in an extraordinary state of preservation in an area that’s now part of the Cotswold Water Park - a flat, gravelly plain from which the infant River Thames emerges.

The site, close to the main A419 dual carriageway, has been excavated by archaeologists for the past five years or more, and the site’s owners - Hills Waste - gave them more time when they realised what a gold mine for ancient fossils it is.

(Image: An artist’s impression of the Steppe mammoth. Photograph: Beth Zaiken/Reuters)

As well as the complete remains of two adults, two juveniles and an infant mammoth that roamed the Cotswolds around 200,000 years ago, they found tools and weapons used by Neanderthals, who would have lived there too and hunted the mammoths.

The palaeontologists and archaeologists from DigVentures also found giant elks, twice the size of the modern-day elk, with antlers 10ft wide, as well as tiny fossils of insects and plants that provide a perfect picture of what life was like there tens of thousands of years ago.

After the astonishing discoveries, there is hope that some kind of visitors centre can be built at the site one day, with other finds expected to go to the Bristol Museum.

The BBC documentary is being shown on December 30 on BBC1, and will follow Sir David Attenborough and evolutionary biologist Prof Ben Garrod visiting the site and talking about what has been found.

Lisa Westcott Wilkins, from DigVentures, told The Observer: “Exciting doesn’t cover it. Other mammoths have been found in the UK but not in this state of preservation. They’re in near-pristine condition. You can’t take it in.”

Found! Ancient Egyptian tomb 'Garbage dump' Reveals a Lot

 The old adage of "One man's trash is another man's treasure" seems apt for the newest archaeological discovery in Egypt, where a "garbage dump" from ancient Egyptians yielded a lot of information about their culture. Here's the story from LiveScience. 

(Photo: The dump of rubble and artifacts in the Middle Kingdom tomb.  Image credit: PCMA UW )

'Garbage dump' discovered in ancient Egyptian tomb dedicated to fertility goddess 

By Laura Geggel  LIVE SCIENCE (click for link to source story)

 The dump is 3,500 years old.

An ancient Egyptian "garbage dump" discovered within a temple honoring the powerful female Pharaoh Hatshepsut is piled high with offerings to a fertility goddess, archaeologists report.

Archaeologists unexpectedly found the rubbish heap in a tomb within the 3,500-year-old Hathor cult complex, a three-temple complex that sits within the Hatshepsut Temple at Deir el-Bahari (also spelled Deir el-Bahri), near Luxor. Even though the dump was hidden in an early Middle Kingdom tomb, many of the artifacts in the dump date to the New Kingdom, which includes the 18th, 19th and 20th dynasties that ruled from the 16th century B.C. to the 11th century B.C.

Many of these artifacts are votive offerings — special objects, like figurines, purposefully left for deities, religious leaders or establishments — that people in ancient Egypt gave to Hathor, the goddess of fertility.

"The deposit of votive offerings to Hathor discovered in this tomb indicates that this part of Hatshepsut's temple was not used for worship and was treated as a place to dump rubbish," said Patryk Chudzik, the director of the Polish-Egyptian Archaeological and Conservation Expedition to the Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari, and an archaeologist with the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology at the University of Warsaw (PCMA UW).

The female ruler Hatshepsut often invoked Hathor, so it's no surprise she had a chapel dedicated to the goddess at the temple, according to the World History Encyclopedia.

Chudzik's team discovered the Middle Kingdom tomb with the rubbish heap in spring of 2021, while investigating the Hathor cult complex, and working to conserve and reconstruct it, especially for its public opening to the Hathor Shrine.

(Photo: 

Queen Hatshipsuit's Temple Credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Queen_Hatshipsuit%27s_Temple_02_977.PNG 

"When we found it, the tomb was filled with rock debris," as well as a vast number of artifacts from the early Middle Kingdom, votive offerings to Hathor from the New Kingdom and the remains of a late 20th-dynasty burial, Chudzik told Live Science in an email. "The oldest materials from the votive offerings to Hathor are dated to the 18th dynasty, while the others were made during the reign of the 19th and 20th-dynasty pharaohs," he said.

The garbage dump is huge, he noted. The debris fills the tomb's roughly 50-foot-long (15 meters) corridor, with its highest point at 1.6 feet (0.5 m). Despite the dump's size, other archaeologists have missed its importance. Swiss archaeologist Édouard Naville originally discovered the tomb in the late 1800s, but beyond noting the excessive rubble, he didn't investigate the garbage dump, according to Science in Poland, a Polish news website jointly run by independent media and the government. An American expedition excavating the temple in the 1920s also skipped over the deposit.