Archive for 2017

FINALLY: After 500 years, Leonardo da Vinci’s music machine is brought to life.. “His marvelous viola organista sounds like a chamber orchestra due to its design.”

Rather than tapping the strings, as a harpsichord would, this instrument, called the viola organista, lowers the strings onto spinning wheels which are wrapped in horse hair. This acts as a bow would on a violin. The resulting sound gives the impression of a group of string instruments. The project took Zubrzycki 3 years and 5,000 hours to complete.

You’ve never heard anything quite like it.

OF COURSE NOT. THEY’RE DEMOCRATIC PARTY OPERATIVES WITH BYLINES. Eddie Scarry: Trump Can’t Win The Press.

The mania over James Comey’s firing would carry more weight if the press didn’t behave this way every time President Trump signed an order, wrote a tweet or flushed a toilet.

Political commentators, news organizations and lawmakers on both sides had been calling for Comey’s ousting for months for his bizarre, inconstant approach in conducting the sensitive investigations into Hillary Clinton’s emails and then Trump’s election campaign.

But now that he’s gone, the media act like America just lost its favorite uncle.

Everyone is now used to the simple fact that no matter what he does, Trump cannot win the press. And that’s why no one should look to it for an indication of whether he’s doing anything right.

Depending on what mood the Washington media wake up in on any given day, Trump is either dumb and expected to screw up (i.e. Charles Blow wittily referring to Trump in every column as “president” in quotes) or it’s, Hey, why isn’t he doing everything like a normal president? Constitutional crisis!

Most of them don’t actually seem to know what a “constitutional crisis” is, but then, most of them couldn’t pass a simple quiz on the Constitution.

WAR TO THE KNIFE: The media have already impeached Trump.

Many in the news media have already indicted President Trump for breaking some unspecified law by firing former FBI Director James Comey, which they theorize is an attempt to cover up his ties to Russia.

In the immediate days and hours following Comey’s unexpected firing, some news outlets and TV commentators have indicated that they’re convinced Trump is guilty of something.

Mostly of being a Republican who doesn’t respect them. The ultimate crime. Everything else is just justification.

THOUGHTS ON DEPRESSION AND MEN, from Charlie Martin and from the InstaWife.

OH, GOODY: New Ebola Epidemic Declared. Let’s hope the response this time is faster and more competent than last time.