Tom Faranda's Folly

"Trump Indicted for removing matress tag in 1997"

Hey why not? anything to get him. From the BB.

NEW YORK, NY — District Attorney Alvin Bragg is reportedly set to indict Trump this coming Tuesday for the removal of a mattress tag back in 1997. According to sources, new evidence was discovered in the mattress tag cold case by grizzled Detective Harry Jakes, who utilized modern advances in forensic science to place former president Donald Trump at the scene of the crime.

The mattress tag in question belonged to a Spring Air Conforma Foam mattress from '97, which historians claim featured a warning label advising mattress tags to not be removed:

Do Not Remove by Penalty of Law Except by the Consumer

In a surprise move, Trump has not denied the troubling accusation, though he maintains doing so was not illegal. "The tag says 'except by consumer.' I am a huge consumer. Probably the greatest consumer ever, and I had every right to remove that tag. The deep state is trying to dig up anything they can just to keep me from reclaiming the presidential throne."

"Witch hunt!"

Independent fact checkers have rated Trump's claim "a bald-faced lie," citing the fact that the president does not sit on a throne. Also, he is Trump and that is bad. The fact-check article does not make mention of the mattress tag issue directly, but does note, "[Trump] broke both federal and international laws probably."

A United Nations committee has been assembled to investigate whether the matter qualifies as a war crime.

"This is an open and shut case. Now he'll never be president. I did it!" Bragg claimed before quickly correcting himself. "I mean, no one is above the law."

At publishing time, Trump's approval polling surged among mattress consumers who have long been befuddled by the mattress tag warning.

Thursday wordle

A cool and great twist on Ravel's "Bolero"

From my sweetheart Brigid.

Wednesday wordle

"The Ultimate ‘Lord of the Rings’ Fan Collection. One reading list 'to rule them all'."

Not for everyone but Farandaville - BIG FANS

Worth perusing even if you have only a mild interest in all things about the Rings

The reach of J.R.R. Tolkien’s writing is hard to surpass. With millions of books sold, his literary creations have spawned several blockbuster hits, a new TV series, and the naming system for an entire genus of wasps. More than 80 years after The Hobbit was first published, countless devoted fans—bookish teenagers, Hollywood producers, and Pocket editors alike—are self-professed Tolkienites with a seemingly insatiable thirst for Middle-earth discourse.

Tuesday wordle

Nashville shooter sent messages to a friend right before entering the school

All the politically motivated "theories" from all sides about this act I find quite despicable.

This is from The Daily Wire. For the full article hit the link .

The shooter — whom the Daily Wire will not name in accordance with company policy — sent the messages to her former middle school basketball teammate Averianna Patton over Instagram. Patton saw the disturbing messages, which she provided to News Channel 5, at 9:57 a.m., around 15 minutes before the shooter entered the school.

“I’m planning to die today. THIS IS NOT A JOKE!!!!” the shooter wrote to Patton. “You’ll probably hear about me on the news after I die.”

The messages show that Patton pled with the shooter, a biological female who claimed to be a man, telling her that she had so much to live for, but the killer responded with even more chilling texts.

“My family doesn’t know what I’m about to do,” she said. “One day this will make more sense. I’ve left more than enough evidence behind. … But something bad is about to happen.”

Patton told News Channel 5 that she asked her dad what to do and then reached out to authorities immediately after messaging the shooter.

Incomprehensible.

The "Population Bomb" appears to be fizzling

This from the hyper leftist Guardian (UK) so they put a particular spin on it.... Hit the link for the whole story. For people who actually study the science - and demographics - it's no surprise. There was never a "bomb".

The study, commissioned by the Club of Rome, projects that on current trends the world population will reach a high of 8.8 billion before the middle of the century, then decline rapidly. The peak could come earlier still if governments take progressive steps to raise average incomes and education levels.

The new forecasts are good news for the global environment. Once the demographic bulge is overcome, pressure on nature and the climate should start to ease, along with associated social and political tensions.

But the authors caution that falling birthrates alone will not solve the planet’s environmental problems, which are already serious at the 8 billion level and are primarily caused by the excess consumption of a wealthy minority.

Declining populations can also create new problems, such as a shrinking workforce and greater stress on healthcare associated with an ageing society, as countries like Japan and South Korea are finding.

One of the authors of the report, Ben Callegari, said the findings were cause for optimism – but there was a catch. “This gives us evidence to believe the population bomb won’t go off, but we still face significant challenges from an environmental perspective. We need a lot of effort to address the current development paradigm of overconsumption and overproduction, which are bigger problems than population.”

Monday wordle

Bad boy... or good boy?

Thanks to my cousin Kenny for putting this on his facebook page.

Two young women - HS students in New Orleans - say they've solved a 2,000 year old mathematical problem

It has been believed that the Pythagorean Theorem (remember? A squared + B squared = C squared) could not be solved using trigonometry. However... Be fun to see if this passes peer review. The article is from the Guardian (UK).

Two New Orleans high school seniors who say they have proven Pythagoras’s theorem by using trigonometry – which academics for two millennia have thought to be impossible – are being encouraged by a prominent US mathematical research organization to submit their work to a peer-reviewed journal.

Calcea Johnson and Ne’Kiya Jackson, who are students of St Mary’s Academy, recently gave a presentation of their findings at the American Mathematical Society south-eastern chapter’s semi-annual meeting in Georgia.

They were reportedly the only two high schoolers to give presentations at the meeting attended by math researchers from institutions including the universities of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana State, Ohio State, Oklahoma and Texas Tech. And they spoke about how they had discovered a new proof for the Pythagorean theorem.

The 2,000-year-old theorem established that the sum of the squares of a right triangle’s two shorter sides equals the square of the hypotenuse – the third, longest side opposite the shape’s right angle. Legions of schoolchildren have learned the notation summarizing the theorem in their geometry classes: a²+b²=c².

As mentioned in the abstract of Johnson and Jackson’s 18 March mathematical society presentation, trigonometry – the study of triangles – depends on the theorem. And since that particular field of study was discovered, mathematicians have maintained that any alleged proof of the Pythagorean theorem which uses trigonometry constitutes a logical fallacy known as circular reasoning, a term used when someone tries to validate an idea with the idea itself.

Johnson and Jackson’s abstract adds that the book with the largest known collection of proofs for the theorem – Elisha Loomis’s The Pythagorean Proposition – “flatly states that ‘there are no trigonometric proofs because all the fundamental formulae of trigonometry are themselves based upon the truth of the Pythagorean theorem’.”

But, the abstract counters, “that isn’t quite true”. The pair asserts: “We present a new proof of Pythagoras’s Theorem which is based on a fundamental result in trigonometry – the Law of Sines – and we show that the proof is independent of the Pythagorean trig identity sin²x+cos²x=1.” In short, they could prove the theorem using trigonometry and without resorting to circular reasoning.

Johnson told the New Orleans television news station WWL it was an “unparalleled feeling” to present her and Jackson’s work alongside university researchers.

 

Sunday wordle

In two days - rare convergence of five planets - here's the way to see it

Pretty cool. Mentioned below is an app called Sky Tonight. However I recently got the app Sky View Lite which you can get free in any of the app stores. It's excellent (Thanks to my neighbor Chris for recommending it) and fun. We will use it March 28th. I have no trouble using it (the app is idiot proof) as you just open the app and point your phone to whatever section of the sky you fancy.

Those lucky enough to see the display will spot Jupiter, Mercury, Uranus, Mars and Venus all line up in a small part of the sky shortly after sunset on March 28.

This visual phenomenon differs to an astronomical alignment, which is when planets gather simultaneously on the same side of the sun. 

Last year, stargazers in the northern hemisphere were able to witness Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn all at once.

***********************

To help identify the planets, experts have recommended using the app Sky Tonight.

The app can be pointed at any area of the night sky to give a live display of what is going on up there - even if it's daylight. 

Stargazers mustn't be too disappointed if they don't witness the display this time around.

That's because there are a number of other planetary alignments that are expected to take place this year.

The next one is forecast to arrive as soon as April 24, where a 40-degree sector will take place seeing Mars, Venus, Uranus and Mercury come together.

Saturday wordle

Quick. 90 seconds.

BB: Startling footage of who was behind January 6

"What you are about to see is shocking," Carlson warned viewers before airing the video. "Parties from both inside and outside the government have tried desperately to keep this footage from ever being seen. Now we know why."

Friday wordle

Close.

Starwood Capital CEO - economy will have a hard landing

Barry Sternlicht and this guy is pretty sharp. He was interviewed yesterday on CNBC's Squawk Box. The problem: the banks (if they had to mark their bonds to market many of them would be insolvent) and commercial real estate.

Here's a 4 minute brief excerpt (and he makes the point "the banks were following the rules"). Unfortunately the full 16 Minute interview is for pay only. But you will get the gist.

Short version of Sternlicht interview

Thursday wordle

Good news! Alcohol and dementia

From my MD friend, PN.

From JAMA

 

Alcohol and dementia.

 

 

Conclusions

In conclusion, our analyses indicate that maintaining mild to moderate alcohol consumption is associated with a decreased risk of dementia, whereas maintaining heavy drinking is associated with an increased risk of dementia. Notably, our analyses stratified by the initial amount of alcohol consumption indicate that reduction of drinking from a heavy to a moderate level and initiation of mild drinking were associated with a decreased risk of all-cause dementia and AD.

AD =Alzheimer’s 

Daily intake :

Mild 1/2 drinks 

Moderate 3

Heavy 4 

 

Wednesday wordle

No picture! Forgot to take one. Got it in four lines - can't remember the word.

Donald Trump's attorney speaks

Joe Tacopina - Don Imus used to have this guy on his show and he's a real flame throwing, take no prisoners attorney

 

Tuesday wordle

Pigs Fly. Steve Forbes agrees with Senator Elizabeth Warren

But for different reasons. Three minute video.

 

Monday wordle

Three minutes.

Sunday wordle

"The Chosen" & a young girl with Asperger's

Love this. It's a three year old video done after the first season of The Chosen. Beautiful.

 

Dan Niles - very good record - on the banks, the economy & the markets

This guy has been right for the last 18 months. His prediction for the stock market - in the last half of the video. Niles company is a hedge fund.

 

Saturday wordle

Tough one. Took 11 minutes.

Carl Icahn: "Net worth of median household is basically nothing"

So Icahn (net worth over $50 billion. He is a major philanthropist.) is saying that the bottom 50% of households have no net worth. They may have income, they may own a house, but when you pile on debt, they have nothing. I'm sure he's not too far wrong.

That was Wall Street billionaire investor Carl Icahn, speaking to CNBC’s Closing Bell on Tuesday, in the aftermath of emergency action taken by the government to mitigate the impact of one of the largest bank failures in U.S. history. The co-founder of Icahn Enterprises says that his investment portfolio is set up for more pain in the U.S. economy, which he notes is being buffeted by rapidly rising interest rates and escalating concerns about its overall health, as the Federal Reserve attempts to prevent inflationary pressures from becoming entrenched.

Friday wordle