Archive for 2017

MEMOIRS OF A PLAYBOY BUNNY in 1970s New York.

JOURNALISM: (1)

(2)

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: No Students Are Proficient in Math And English At Six Baltimore City Schools.

Six schools in Baltimore have exactly zero students who are proficient in math and English.

WBFF reports Project Baltimore led an investigation and discovered five Baltimore City high schools, along with one middle school, do not have any students who scored high enough to be deemed “proficient” in math and English on state testing.

The schools that did not have a single proficient student are Booker T. Washington Middle School, Frederick Douglass High School, Achievement Academy at Harbor City, New Era Academy, Excel Academy at Francis M. Wood High, and New Hope Academy. . . .

WBFF notes Baltimore City Schools spends $16,000 per student per year, making it the fourth highest spending district in the country per student.

The solution obviously involves more funding.

REDUCE YOUR RISK OF PROSTATE CANCER by eating carrots? Well, I like carrots anyway.

DARK SKIN NO PROTECTION AGAINST MELANOMA: “The misconception that the sun is responsible for all cases of melanoma leads to lower survival rates because of delayed diagnosis, particularly among people of color. . . . Only 10 to 15 percent of melanomas are caused by excessive sun exposure, typically in heavily freckled and sun-damaged skin, he noted.”

INNOVATION: Air Force cadet creates bulletproof breakthrough.

Air Force cadet Hayley Weir had an idea that turned out to be a game changer. “It was just the concept of going out there and stopping a bullet with something that we had made in a chemistry lab.”

The 21-year-old Weir approached Air Force Academy Assistant Professor Ryan Burke with the idea. He was skeptical.

“I said, ‘I’m not really sure this is going to work, the body armor industry is a billion-plus-dollar industry,” he noted.

Weir’s idea was to combine anti-ballistic fabric with what’s known as a shear thickening fluid to create a less heavy material to use in body armor. She demonstrated the principle to Burke by combining water and cornstarch in a container and asking the professor to jam his finger into the paste-like goo.

“I jam my finger right into this bowl, and I almost broke my finger! Hayley’s laughing because I’ve got this finger that I’m shaking and I’m saying, ‘You know, that’s pretty impressive stuff.'”

Read the whole thing.

MILLI VANILLI COULD NOT BE REACHED FOR COMMENT:

Shot: “The virtuoso performances of cellist Yo-Yo Ma and violinist Itzhak Perlman heard around the world during President Barack Obama’s inauguration were in fact recordings made two days earlier.”

“Barack Obama inauguration music was mimed,” the London Telegraph, January 23, 2009.

Double shot: “Singer Beyonce has admitted miming during her rendition of the American national anthem at the inauguration of President Obama last month. She told reporters that she was a ‘perfectionist’ and — due to lack of rehearsal time — ‘did not feel comfortable taking a risk’. ‘I wanted to make him [Obama] and my country proud, so I decided to sing along with my pre-recorded track.’ ‘I’m very proud of my performance,’ she said.”

“Beyonce admits inauguration miming,” the BBC, February 1st, 2013.

Chaser: “Scheduled to open in 2021, the Obama Presidential Center will rise in Jackson Park on the South Side. In a break from tradition, former President Barack Obama’s official papers and artifacts will not be housed there but will be digitized and stored elsewhere by the National Archives and Records Administration and made available through loans. The cost of the center is expected to be at least $500 million.”

—The Chicago Tribune, May 31st, 2017.

No word yet if one of the digital artifacts will be a recreation of Teleprompter XD-235.