Idiots (female division) for the day

NBC News has an article about three girls headed for disaster:

British counter-terror officials were urgently searching for three teenage schoolgirls they feared had run away from home to travel to Syria, police said recently.
The girls, all good friends aged fifteen to sixteen, boarded a Turkish Airlines flight at London's Gatwick Airport and arrived in Istanbul, Turkey later that evening, police said in a statement. Thousands of wannabe ISIS rebels have crossed into Syria through Turkey since the civil war there started four years ago.
The girls were last seen at their homes that morning, where they made plausible excuses to their families as to why they would be out for the day, officials added.
Surveillance photos (above) of the three teenage girls, who were last seen at Gatwick Airport in London, England; from left to right, sixteen-year-old Kadiza Sultana, a fifteen-year-old whose name was withheld by authorities, and fifteen-year-old Shamina Begum.
"We are extremely concerned for the safety of these young girls and would urge anyone with information to come forward and speak to police," said Richard Walton, counterterror commander of the Metropolitan Police. "Our priority is the safe return of these girls to their families."
Launching an appeal for information about the three, officials in London also said they were concerned about how many of young women traveling to the part of Syria controlled by the extremist group ISIS. "It is an extremely dangerous place," Walton said.
The girls were identified as Shamima Begum, Kadiza Sultana, and a fifteen-year-old who has not been named at the request of her family. Begum and the third girl were reported missing to police by their families later that evening when they did not return home. Sultana was reported missing by her family on Wednesday morning.
All three went to school in Bethnal Green in East London, according to police. Police said that Begum and Sultana had London accents, and also spoke Bengali, the unnamed fifteen-year-old spoke English and Amharic, a language native to Ethiopia.
Police said they were attempting to reach out to the girls through social media and the Turkish press.

Rico says they'll find out, unfortunately too late, that this was a dumb idea... (Rico had them, too, when he was fifteen, but never acted on them, fortunately.)

History for the day

On 21 February 1965, Malcolm X was shot and killed by assassins as he was about to address a rally in New York City; he was 39.

Winter

Rico says his friend Kelley sends an ugly satellite image:

Chinese New Year

Rico says his old Apple friend, Joe Bosurgi, sends felicitations for the New Year:

Another great one gone

Rico says there are few writers he both envies and admires (okay, Hemingway, too), but Stephen Becker is one of them. Having just finished the last of at least a dozen magnificent novels the man wrote, including The Last Mandarin, The Blue Eyed Shan, and The Chinese Bandit, Rico says you should search them out and read them all.

Texas for the day

Rico says ya gotta get the History Channel to see it, but it'll be good:

Apple for the day

Brian Chen and Mike Isaac have an article in The New York Times about Apple's (maybe) car:

While Apple has been preparing to release its first wearable computers, the company has also been busy assembling a team to work on an automobile.
The company has collected about two hundred people over the last few years, both from within Apple and from potential competitors like Tesla, to develop technologies for an electric car, according to two people with knowledge of the company’s plans, who asked not to be named because the plans were private.
The car project is still in its prototype phase, one person said, meaning it is probably many years away from being a viable product and might never reach the mass market if the quality of the vehicle fails to impress Apple’s executives.
It could also go nowhere if Apple struggles to find a compelling business opportunity in automobiles, a business that typically has much lower sales margins than the products the company currently sells, like the iPhone.
Many of Apple’s newer employees have come from companies that specialize in battery and automotive technologies. Apple has hired many engineers from A123 Systems, Tesla, and Toyota to work on advanced battery technologies.
Apple’s hiring spree of automotive experts more recently accelerated as the company’s plans came into sharper focus, according to a lawsuit filed this month in Massachusetts federal court.
A123 Systems, a company in Livonia, Michigan that makes batteries for electric cars, said in its complaint that Apple “embarked on an aggressive campaign” in June of 2014 to poach its employees. A123 is accusing five former workers of violating their non-compete agreements by leaving their jobs to perform similar roles for Apple.
“Upon information and belief, Apple is currently developing a large scale battery division to compete in the very same field as A123,” the lawsuit said. Michael Rosen, A123’s lead attorney, declined to comment.
The Financial Times first reported that Apple had been hiring automotive experts to form a secret research lab. An Apple spokesman declined to comment. Apple has long had partnerships with automakers like BMW and Volkswagen to offer systems compatible with iPods inside cars. Last year, Apple introduced CarPlay, a system that allows users to link iPhones directly with the infotainment systems in some cars.

Rico says making cars will cause stocking problems at the Apple Stores...

A king and his money

Ben Hubbard has an article in The New York Times about the Saudi king and his money:

European leaders are still battling over austerity. Congress is gearing up for another fight over the budget. But in Saudi Arabia, there are no such troubles when you are king; you just dole out billions and billions of dollars to ordinary Saudis by royal decree.
Not surprisingly, Saudis are very happy with their new monarch, King Salman.
“It is party time for Saudi Arabia right now,” said John Sfakianakis, the Riyadh-based director of the Ashmore Group, an investment company, who estimates that the king’s post-coronation giveaway will ultimately cost more than thirty billion dollars.
That is a lot of cash, more, for example, than the entire annual budget for Nigeria, which has Africa’s largest economy.
Since King Salman ascended the throne of this wealthy Arab kingdom last month, he has swiftly taken charge, abolishing government bodies and firing ministers. But no measure has caused as much buzz here as the giant payouts he ordered to a large chunk of the Saudi population.
These included grants to professional associations, literary and sports clubs; investments in water and electricity; and bonuses worth two months of salary to all government employees, soldiers, pensioners, and students on government stipends at home and abroad. Some private companies followed suit with comparable bonuses for their Saudi employees, putting another few billion dollars into people’s pockets.
Some of the government spending will come over years, but most will hit the Saudi market this month, including the bonuses. About three million of Saudi Arabia’s five million-person work force are employed by the government, Sfakianakis said.
So, for the moment at least, there is little talk about human rights abuses or political reform. Saudis are spending. Some have treated themselves to new cellphones, handbags, and trips abroad. They have paid off debts, given to charity, and bought gold necklaces for their mothers. Some men have set aside money to marry a first, second, or third wife. One was so pleased that he showered his infant son with crisp bills.
“The first thing I did was go and check my storerooms,” said Abdulrahman Alsanidi, who owns a camping supply store in Buraida, north of Riyadh. He expected a thirty percent jump in sales.
Saudi rulers have long used the wealth that comes from being the world’s top oil exporter to lavish benefits on their people, and many Saudis describe royal largess as part of a family-like social contract between rulers and loyal citizens.
But the new spending comes amid change and uncertainty for the kingdom. King Salman ascended the throne after the death of King Abdullah and announced the bonuses as a good-will gesture to his people.
But because about ninety percent of government income comes from oil, the drop in world prices has reduced state revenue by about twenty percent, said Rakan Alsheikh, a research analyst at Jadwa Investment. His company projected that the government would run a record deficit of over forty billion dollars in 2015. The new spending could increase that deficit to nearly seventy billion dollars, or nine percent of gross domestic product, Alsheikh said.
Those worries seem far from the SUV-clogged streets of the Saudi capital, where gas costs 45 cents a gallon because of huge state subsidies, and people are used to repaying government generosity with public displays of fealty.
“We pledge allegiance to you, hearing and obeying,” declare billboards for phone and construction companies.
Average government salaries are about $2,400 per month, with some workers earning additional allowances for transportation, housing, overtime and the holy month of Ramadan. Student stipends are less, while employees with years of service can earn $4,800 per month or more, Sfakianakis said.
As the bonuses have arrived, Saudis have pondered what to do with the cash. Many said government salaries had not kept pace with rising prices, so the bonuses merely helped to fill the gap. “Mostly rent and traffic tickets,” said Shakir Mohammed, an elementary schoolteacher, when asked how he would spend his bonus.
Others said the tradition of patriarchal distribution extended into their own homes, where children and wives expected the bonuses to trickle down. Abdelrahman Alhadlaq, an adviser to the interior minister, said he would like to invest his bonus, but guessed that he would face family pressure to spend it. His wife, a university professor, would get her own, as would three of his nine children. “So it is the young kids who will benefit,” he said, adding that he might treat his wife to a new watch or a trip to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.
Many Saudis have taken to social media to express their joy, thanking the king with the hashtag #two_salaries in Arabic and posting jokes. One image showed a blue sky full of outbound airplanes with a caption reading “Saudi airports after the two salaries.”
One comedy video showed functionaries cheering, women ululating, and an gray-haired man dancing after the bonuses were announced. It ended with a reminder not to forget the mothers “who have given what has no equal”.
Such royal gifts are far from unprecedented. King Abdullah announced a fifteen percent raise in government salaries after his coronation in 2005, and he issued a one-month salary bonus in 2011 after returning from medical treatment abroad.
Western analysts noted that the last bonus came during the Arab Spring uprisings, when Saudi rulers worried about possible dissent at home.
“We are a welfare society, so the population depends a lot on government subsidies, directly and indirectly,” said Abdullah al-Alami, a Saudi writer and economist. “But one day we are going to run out of oil, and I don’t believe it is wise to be pampered and subsidized.”
Still, with more than seven hundred billion dollars in foreign reserves, the Saudi government faces no immediate crunch. The importance of government patronage is even clearer outside the cities, where non-government employment for Saudis is scarce.
Sitting in his vast salon in the village of Butain, north of Riyadh, Prince Moteb bin Fahed bin Farhan al-Saud, who lives in the village, asked the twenty or so men visiting who had received a two-month bonus. All raised their hands. “Now we are asking that the king forgive all the citizen’s debts,” said one visitor, Mohammed al-Sahli, adding that his bonus would help him marry a third wife.
Over the years, government money had transformed the village. While its residents once mostly farmed and raised animals, few bother to anymore. Electricity and phone service arrived in the 1980s. Now, there is power in every home and 4G data coverage throughout. Every weekday, a bus gives dozens of female students a free ride to the university in town, which is also free, Prince Moteb said. Driving his SUV through town, Prince Moteb pointed to construction crews building tree-lined roads and roundabouts and a pedestrian area with swing sets and picnic tables. Downtown stood some of the village’s main employers: the local office of the prince of Qassim Province; the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, which monitors public morals; and a towering new fire station with shiny new engines.
“The government treats us very well here,” said Abdullah al-Sahli, the head of the local government office, who said he had distributed his bonus to his wife and children.
His son Moteb, six, said he already had two iPads, so he spent the money on a new toy Jeep. “We have nothing to complain about,” Sahli said.

Rico says it may be good to be the prince, but better to be the king... This all makes Rico hear these songs in his head:

History for the day

On 20 February 1962, astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth, as he flew aboard the Friendship 7 Mercury capsule (photo).

Explosions in Mogadishu

The BBC has an article about the latest terror attack:

Some twenty people, including senior officials, have been killed in an attack on a hotel in the Somali capital, witnesses tell the BBC. The Central Hotel (photo), often frequented by politicians, was hit by a car bomb and a suicide attack. Gunmen then stormed the hotel mosque and opened fire during Friday prayers.
An MP and Mogadishu's deputy mayor were among the dead, the government says.
Islamist militant group al-Shabab has said it was behind the attack. The al-Qaeda-linked group has been driven out of the country's major towns but still controls many rural areas in the south.
The BBC's Mohamed Moalimu says the area around the hotel has been cordoned off.
"First the car bomb exploded at the gate of the hotel, then a suicide bomber blew himself up in the hotel compound," police Major Nur Mohamed told Reuters.
Information Minister Mohamed Abdi Hayir Mareeye told the BBC that Somalia's deputy prime minister and other ministers had been at the hotel at the time, but had survived the attack.
An al-Shabab spokesman told BBC Somali analyst Mary Harper it had killed the officials while they were praying, because they are "apostates". It has previously said it would target members of the government.
Earlier this month, al-Shabab shot dead an MP in a drive-by shooting in Mogadishu.

Rico says that MP as in Member of Parliament, not Military Police...

Black holes

Noah Rayman has a Time article about space farts:

Shouldn't have eaten that entire galaxy...
Researchers say that new data from a black hole two billion light years away indicate that it emits powerful winds in all directions that help to regulate its growth as well as the growth of the galaxy around it.
The research, based on observations from a NASA and a European Space Agency (ESA) space telescope, was published in the latest issue of the journal Science. NASA released an artist’s conception of the radiation and winds emitted by a black hole (above).
The study found that the black hole, labelled PDS 456, sustains winds blowing up to a third the speed of light that carry more energy per second than the amount emitted by a trillion suns. These winds, produced as the black hole sucks in matter, push gas outward and thereby help restrict both the growth of the black hole and the formation of stars in the galaxy.

Rico says that 'fart' was a joke, of course, but what else do you call 'emitting fierce winds'?

Overly generous definition

President Obama recently referred to the war with Islam as a 'clash of civilizations'. That would require that both sides be civilized, of course, and Rico says he is not sure that's true... (Actually, we need to be a little less civilized in this fight. Rico has already suggested a twofer solution, where we take those stricken with Ebola from Africa and drop them on certain people in the Middle East, but nobody asked him...)

Scam for the day

 

-----Original Message-----
From: "Mr Alex White" <mgrlakhpurbazar@krishibank.org.bd>
Sent: Thursday, 19 February, 2015 14:51
To:
Subject: RE. YOUR ABANDONED CONSIGNMENT!!!

Attn: My Friend

 

My name is Mr.Alex White,i am the Director Inspection Unit, United Nations Inspection Agent. We are currently in  Boston Logan International Airport, Boston, United States for official inspection while i discovered an abandoned shipment from UK via Diplomat with your name/email tagged on it, when i personally scanned it, it revealed an undisclosed sum of money in a Metallic Trunk Boxes weighing approximately 65kg each. On my assumption, each of the 3 boxes will contain more than $5M or above in each.

 

On further investigation, i discovered that the consignment was abandoned due to wrong declaration of the content, also the Diplomat inability to pay for Non Inspection Fees, because he did not know the content of the boxes.

 

I will arrange for the boxes to be moved out of this Airport to your address, once we are through I will deploy the services of a secured shipping Company geared to provide the security it needs to your doorstep.

 

Now i want to strike a deal with you, in your acceptance i will proceed on this. I have the capacity to secure the release of your consignment with my status as an United Nations\Inspection Agent. You will give me 40% of the amount in the consignment and you take the remaining 60%. Consequently.when i cleared it,

 

If you are not in agreement with this proposal, please disregard it. But if you can meet with my condition, then we have a deal.  I can get everything concluded within 24 to 48 hours and proceed to your address for delivery upon your acceptance. Write me on this email:  mralex_white001@yahoo.co.nz if you accepts to work with me.Send me your cell phone number and your address and your full name.

                                  

Signed,

Mr.Alex White

Director Inspection Unit

United Nations Inspection Agent.

Boston Logan International Airport,t.

Unicef Boston - Harborside Dr, Boston, MA 02128

USA.

---

This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active.

Idiots for the day

Sam Frizell has a Time article about bad behavior by Lenovo:

Chinese computer manufacturer Lenovo is getting flak for selling laptops with marketing software that experts say opens up a door for hackers. The software, called Superfish, analyzes users’ internet habits and displays third-party ads based on that activity, The Next Web reports.
Troublingly, Superfish also impersonates certificates for encrypted websites in order to monitor users’ behavior, even on protected sites. That can open a door for hackers targeting sensitive information like passwords or banking details, because users’ data isn’t being protected as well as it ought to be.
In a statement, Lenovo said it stopped preloading the software in January of 2014, and won’t preload it in the future. Lenovo also defended itself from criticism over installing Superfish in the first place, but it didn’t address the false certificate problem.
“We have thoroughly investigated this technology, and do not find any evidence to substantiate security concerns,” Lenovo said. “But we know that users reacted to this issue with concern, and so we have taken direct action to stop shipping any products with this software.”

Rico says that, if Apple did this, people would march on Cupertino with torches and pitchforks...

A hard way to make a living

The BBC has an article by Brett Berk about Bobby Holland Hanton:

Do you enjoy getting thrown through plate-glass windows, falling off buildings, and generally smashing things up? Bobby Holland Hanton (photo, center) does. That is why Hanton is a stuntman and the rest of humanity is not.
In his time in Hollywood, Hanton, thirty, has faked injuries, havoc and near-death for many stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Christian Bale, Daniel Craig, Ryan Reynolds, Channing Tatum, and Jake Gyllenhaal. His resume includes work in many blockbusters, including The Dark Knight Rises, Quantum of Solace, and films in the Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean franchises. At present, he is abusing himself on the set of directors Andy and Lana Wachowski’s latest movie, Jupiter Ascending.
Bobby comes by his skills naturally, meaning through an impossible regimen of monomaniacal task-oriented achievements, including a 2009 Guinness World Record for the most targets hit with a back somersault throw in one hour. (His impetus was partly fed by sponsorship deals with Dove Mens + Care and Nuffield Fitness Gym.) BBC Autos chatted with him about his time spent driving, diving, and dying for a living.

Brett Berk: What kind of training does one have to undergo to become a stunt double? Do you begin by jumping off roofs and bridges as a child and then just work your way up (or down) from there? Do you train with a master stuntman? Do you attend danger school?
Bobby Holland Hanton: Becoming a stunt double requires training in certain disciplines, such as kickboxing, swimming, high diving, gymnastics, trampolining, and scuba diving. I trained full-time for nearly four years to master each discipline. It helps fundamentally if you have a skill that you've acquired from a young age, like martial arts, trampolining, or vehicle experience. In my case, it was gymnastics. These activities and trainings always put you in good stead for a stunt career.
Berk: What was the first vehicle you stunt-drove in a movie?
Hanton: Though my driving experience is limited, I had the chance to film as a driver in Quantum of Solace and Skyfall. Everyone talks about the Bond cars throughout the franchises’ various instalments, so to be behind the wheel of one of these iconic vehicles was one of the many surreal moments in my career.
Berk: What was your favorite of all the vehicles you've stunt driven in a film?
Hanton: Of all the notable cars I’ve been around in filming, having the opportunity to sit in the Aston Martin and simulate driving on Quantum of Solace. At twenty-three years old, not many people can say they’ve driven James Bond’s car, and I’m so glad I had the chance to film that shot.
Berk: What was the biggest mistake you ever made while driving on set?
Hanton: There’s always a certain risk in stunt-doubling. It’s the nature of the job, otherwise the position wouldn’t be available. In my limited on-camera driving experience, I’ve been lucky enough to have not made a mistake in a vehicle or cause any accidents.
Berk: Have there been any actors you've worked with/doubled for who were really great drivers?
Hanton: Aside from being an incredible actor, Daniel Craig is a great driver. I remember watching him film a scene on Quantum of Solace that had him driving down a very narrow tunnel in the dark. That kind of driving takes precision, and he nailed it every time.
Berk: We're familiar with the term "busman's holiday". What does a stunt driver drive on his days off?
Hanton: I'm very lucky to own an Aston Martin DB9, which I recently bought as a thirtieth birthday present to myself. Previous to that I owned a Range Rover Sport that I dearly miss, and an Audi A4 before that. Whether I’m doubling in a film, or even playing myself, it’s very important for me to have a comfortable car to show up on set relaxed and confident.  

Hanton's '007 edition' Aston Martin DB9:

Rico says WHAT

Big horse that needs a name

Tommy Rowan has an article at Philly.com about a yet-unnamed police horse:

The New Castle County, Delaware police department is asking county-based elementary school students, in grades three through eight, to come up with a new name for their Clydesdale, a five-year-old draft horse, which joined the department's Mounted Unit in December of 2014.
The department wanted to rename the dark bay Clydesdale (photo), originally named Tyson, due to a clash with the similar-sounding name of another horse.
"Although we like his name, we are changing it so that there won't be any confusion when it comes to feeding or medicating them,"according to the contest flyer.
Students are asked to include an essay that explains the reason behind their suggestion.
The deadline for submissions is 9 March 2015 at 4 pm.

Rico says he hopes they come up with a good one. (Nothing silly, please.)

Cables from Iwo Jima

Time has an article by Lily Rothman about one of the most famous battles of World War Two:

On Iwo Jima last week, at least forty thousand Marines fought to the death with twenty thousand entrenched Japanese in an area so constricted that the troops engaged averaged twelve men to an acre. Ashore with the Marines, Time correspondent Robert Sherrod radioed his account of the battle...

With those words, the 5 March 1945, issue of Time launched into a description of the horror and bravery that Sherrod had witnessed in the days since the Americans struck the island of Iwo Jima— seventy years ago, on 19 February 1945— in what would be one of the Allies’ most crucial World War Two victories. As the magazine explained the readers, the island itself wasn’t much, just a few square miles of beach and cliffs, but it was one of best-defended locations in the world. Going in, it was known that the Marines who fought there would likely take heavy casualties, but that there was no other option: winning Iwo Jima— site of airfields used by the Japanese, which would be game-changers if put to use for American airstrikes on Tokyo— was absolutely necessary.
Seven decades after the battles, Sherrod’s cables to his editors provide unusual insight into the experience at Iwo Jima. They’re written during the fighting, and the man behind them was uniquely qualified to comment on what he was seeing: Sherrod had covered battles throughout the Pacific, and in 1944 had published a book, Tarawa: The Story of a Battle, about what he experienced on that atoll. (He would go on to write a book about his later experiences too, On to Westward: the Battles of Saipan and Iwo Jima.)
Sherrod had gone ashore with a combat team on the day the battle began and, in the 26 February issue, Time was able to quote from a message that he had radioed from before the attack. Typically, issue dates are a week ahead of publication, which means it would have been printed pretty much as soon as his 19 February message arrived. In describing the fighting that had begun, the magazine passed on his warning to readers that “there is little over optimism to be found among admirals, generals, or their troops.” In fact, Sherrod’s cable had been a warning to his editors, not to readers: “I suggest that you confine this week’s action report to a simple statement that we have landed on Iwo Jima,” he also wrote, cautioning that the magazine should not rely on reports from any newer journalists among those present, who might “endeavor to win the war in the first flash”.
The next message from Iwo Jima came on 21 February, with the note that it would arrive in time to be printed in Life magazine (Time's sister publication) but not in Time itself; Life did end up printing nearly the entire cable, about twenty-five hundred words long, pretty much verbatim. (Interestingly, the magazine cut out some of his less objective passages, which are highlights in hindsight: “But the ultimate factor in the fall of Iwo Jima can be attributed only to the character and courage of the United States Marines. In war there comes a time when power alone has reached its limits, when planes no longer can be called upon to deliver bombs effectively, when ships have no more shells to fire, when defenses will no longer yield before fire power, however heavy. That is the time when men on foot must pay for yardage with their lives. That is when they call on the Marines,” he wrote. Life printed only the first sentence.)
Further messages arrived over the next few days, as the Marines captured Mount Suribachi and a Japanese airfield, among other objectives. “This is a record of twenty-four hours in Iwo Jima,” the 24 February missive began. “It covers the period between 1600 of the fifth day and 1600 of the sixth day, but it might apply to any twenty-four hours in the day following our landing and capture of Motoyama airfield Number One. After that early capture, the Iwo Jima battle settled down in the same grueling routine described herein– the slow advance of the front lines, the incessant booming of our artillery and naval gunfire, the monotonous whine of the Jap snipers’ bullets.”
That cable, combined with some details from the earlier messages, became the main 5 March report on the situation, which ran under the headline It Was Sickening to Watch… accompanied by the map above.
Not every detail of that twenty-four hour period made it to print, including his sign-off, telling his editors that he could look forward “to another twenty-four hour period of creeping warfare, and to other similar periods after that.” Many such days would follow: the battle would last more than a month.
Read the full story, here in the Time Vault: It Was Sickening to Watch…

Rico says besides being an important place (the first airfield that B-29s could reach when returning, damaged, from raids on Japan), it also was the site of one of the most famous photos of the War, taken by Joe Rosenthal:

Starving sea lion pups in California

Katy Steinmetz has a Time article about sea lions not doing well in California:

There are now so many young sea lions being stranded on the West Coast that Federal officials say they can’t keep up. As a result, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued some brutal advice recently: If you see a beached sea lion pup, call the authorities, but be prepared for them not to come, at least for a while.
Normally the marine mammal stranding network, a series of facilities dotted along the US coastlines, will send staff to take in any seal or sea lion pup found stranded and do their best to rehabilitate it. But many facilities in the network are nearing capacity as sea lions wash ashore at a much higher than average rate. Since 1 January 2015, rescuers in California have taken in about a thousand pups; nearly four times the typical total for the first four months of the year. “The reality is that we can’t get to all of these animals,” says NOAA stranding coordinator Justin Viezbicke.
So what’s going on? Experts at NOAA say that the culprit is rising ocean temperatures. (On a call with reporters recently, a NOAA climate expert said that they do not believe the stranding increase is tied to climate change.) The warm temperatures are somehow affecting the squid, sardines, and other animals that are the core diet of sea lions, perhaps driving the prey deeper into the water or farther offshore. So, when mothers swim off to forage from the Channel Islands, where pups are weaned every year, they are having to stay away longer before they can come back to nurse. With less frequent nursing, pups are losing weight at unprecedented rates, and experts suspect that these weak, under-grown animals are being driven to look for food on their own before they are ready.
“They’re not really capable of diving deep or traveling far,” says Sharon Melin, a NOAA wildlife biologist. “They’re not really capable of being out on their own.” And so the pups are washing up on shore, emaciated.
The root cause of the crisis, officials believe, is the odd wind patterns that aren’t cooling the ocean like they normally do. They aren’t certain of what’s behind the lack of cold winds, but they believe the patterns are creating a ripple effect through the food chain. The sea lions, at the top of that chain, are signaling that bigger things may be amiss among the larger marine food web. “There are a lot of puzzles here that we’re trying to put together,” says Nate Mantua, a NOAA climatologist. “We don’t understand it. It’s a mystery.”
This is the third bleak year in the past decade for sea lion pups. In 2013, up to seventy percent of all the sea lion pups born the previous year may have died due to environmental events, according to Melin, twice the amount that might not make it to maturity in a normal year. Officials say this year’s pups appear more under-nourished than any they’ve observed in the past forty years.
And even when pups do get to a rehabilitation facility, they might not make it back to sea. The Marine Mammal Center, the largest facility in California’s stranding network, saved about sixty percent of the animals who came to them in 2013. “The sea lion pups arriving at the Marine Mammal Center may look like barely more than skin and bones,” says Shawn Johnson, the facility’s director of veterinary science, “but these are the lucky ones.”
The mass strandings have not diminished the overall population of California sea lions, which has been thriving since becoming a protected species in the 1970s. Now around three hundred thousand in number, NOAA’s Melin says that another factor at work in the current crisis may be that the species is approaching its resource limit in the environment. “Based on what we’re seeing at the colonies,” she says, “we should be bracing for a lot more animals to be coming in.”

Rico says the cute ones get saved...

Record-breaking cold

Eliana Dockterman has a Time article about the weather:

Meteorologists are predicting parts of the eastern United States could experience historically low temperatures over the next few days, thanks to a cold spell called the Siberian Express.
The National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center says that temperatures in the upper and middle Mississippi Valley and Tennessee Valley, all the way to the Carolinas and lower Great Lakes, will be twenty to fifty degrees below average. That could mean record-low February temperatures for Tennessee, Virginia, Ohio, and West Virginia.
The air responsible for the shift has been traveling in from Siberia, over the North Pole, and down into North America over the past week.
According to the Washington Post, the nation’s capital didn’t drop below six degrees last year. But this week, the region’s NWS office noted that Washington, D.C.’s temperature may fall below zero for the first time since 19 January 1994.
The center also expects more “heavy snow” for parts of New England, making for unwelcome news after successive storms dumped several feet of snow in the region over the last few weeks.

Rico says he's, fortunately, going on vacation to someplace warm while all this is happening...

Paris abuse victim calls for punishment

The BBC has an article about racist soccer fans:

The man prevented from boarding a Metro train in Paris, France (photo) by Chelsea soccer fans chanting racist slogans has called for them to be punished. The 33-year-old, named only as Souleymane S, told France's Le Parisien: "These people, these English fans... should be locked up."
A video with the article shows him trying to get on a Metro carriage, but being pushed off. A group of people can be heard singing: "We're racist, we're racist, and that's the way we like it."
The footage was obtained by The Guardian, which reported that the incident happened at Richelieu-Drouot station in the center of the French capital ahead of a Champions League match.
In an interview with Le Parisien, Souleymane S said he had not been particularly surprised by the abuse because he "lives with racism". The father of three, a French-Mauritanian born in Paris, said he had not understood what the fans were saying, but that he knew he was being targeted because of the color of his skin. Transport officers arrived, but only wanted to make sure there was not a fight taking place.
Souleymane said he had no idea he was being filmed, and had not told anyone about the incident. "What could I tell my children? That daddy was shoved around on the Metro because he is black? That would be pointless." But he said that now the incident had emerged publicly he had the confidence to file a police complaint. "These people, these English fans, need to be found and punished, and should be locked up," he added.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron said the incident appeared to be "extremely disturbing and very worrying". It follows long-standing controversy over racism in soccer generally.
Although the episode is believed to have involved British fans, the comments made by Souleymane S also come amid disquiet over increasing intolerance in France.
Publishing a report recently, Nils Muiznieks, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, said France needed to take "urgent" action to combat abuse. "Despite advances in legislation and measures to combat intolerance and racism, discrimination and hate speech not only persist in France, but are on the rise," he said.
London's Metropolitan Police has said it is taking the Metro incident "very seriously". It said it would assist the French authorities to identify the people involved, and support them in any action they chose to take.
Chelsea FC said it would also help police, and any fans involved faced a ban. A spokesman for the club said the fans' actions had "no place in football or society".
British expatriate Paul Nolan, who filmed the incident on his phone, told the BBC it was an "ugly scene" and "very aggressive". Speaking on Radio 4's Today program, he said he could hear mention of World War Two as well as the racist chanting. One voice is heard on the video singing: "Chelsea, Chelsea, Chelsea."

Rico says, no, no, not Chelsea Clinton... (And, to spare his American readers any confusion, Rico has changed 'football' to 'soccer' throughout the article.)

Jay Leno on Corvettes, Challengers, and charity

The BBC has an article by Brett Burk about Jay Leno and his car collection:

Jay Leno knows a thing or two about cars. In addition to collecting, restoring, and customizing a garage filled with literally hundreds of rare and valuable vehicles, the comedian has written regularly about the topic for a range of publications, and produced dozens of videos for his YouTube channel, Jay Leno’s Garage. He is also generous with his vehicles. As a consistent supporter of organisations that help care for American soldiers, Leno has auctioned a number of cars, with all proceeds going to charity.

I like everything that rolls, explodes, and makes noise.

Jay Leno

Leno got an early start to the giving season, donating a 2008 Dodge Challenger SRT, one of the very first built, to Gooding & Company’s January of 2015 sale in Scottsdale, Arizona. It would go on to sell for $360,000, and other bidders would add another $205,000 in donations, for a total benefit to the USO– an organization providing entertainment to American soldiers– of $565,000.
Leno recently took time to discuss charity, his coming program on cable news channel CNBC, and the controversy around his recent encounter with the police in a new Chevrolet Corvette Z06.

Brett Berk: How did your charity consignment for the Scottsdale auctions come about?
Jay Leno: We’ve sold a lot of vehicles to raise money for the Wounded Warrior program, or the Fisher House [nonprofit organizations that benefit wounded American veterans]. This will be the first one that we’ve done for the USO. I went over to Afghanistan a few months ago and did some shows with the USO at Bagram Air Base, and it was great fun meeting everybody. People kind of forget about the USO a little bit. Not that it’s fallen by the wayside, but they need money, too. I think that entertaining the troops is as important as any of the other things. Plus, a hundred percent of the money we raise goes to the charity. We don’t deduct for the transportation of the car. I don’t think Gooding even takes a commission on it. Something that really annoys me are these charities where only ten or twenty percent go to the soldiers and the rest goes to “administrative costs”. You know what kind of sleazy, crooked thing that is.
Berk: Tell us a little bit about the car you sold.
Leno: It’s car number four, it’s one of the very first Challengers built. We put new tires on it.
Berk: Assuming you drove the old ones right off of it?
Leno: No, not really. The car only had twenty-two hundred miles on it. It’s like a brand new car. It’s a collector car. It was one of the first batch of Challengers built. But the tires are now eight years old, or whatever it is, so we put new tires on it before we sold it to somebody. And changed the oil. And I sent it to Chrysler to have them go over everything and make sure it’s fine, and it is.
Berk: You don’t buy at the auctions, do you?
Leno: I… I’ve kind of got everything I need.
Berk: But is there anything you’re looking for, or looking at?
Leno: I like everything that rolls, explodes, and makes noise. But there’s nothing I’m really looking for.
Berk: What is the basis of the show you’re doing for CNBC?
Leno: It’s gonna be a car show, so that will be fun. It’s still all pretty new. It’s not going to be one of these restore-a-car-in-a-week shows. We’ll do a lot of history and driving.
Berk: You had an adventure recently in a Corvette Z06 that seemed to go a bit wrong.
Leno: Yeah, that was great fun. That’s a great car. A terrific car. It is the best value car for the money that there is. It’s really unbelievable.
Berk: You got pulled over, correct?
Leno: Ah, there’s all kinds of rumors. You never know what to believe.

Rico says that, as ever, it's good to be the prince, especially if you like expensive cars...

Apple for the day

The BBC has an article by Leo Kelion about Motorola & Apple:

Motorola's president has defended its "build-your-phone" programme after harsh words from Apple's lead designer, Jony Ive (photo), who appeared to attack the Moto Maker scheme in an interview in which he criticized the idea of giving consumers huge choice over how their handsets were made to appear.
Rick Osterloh, president of Motorola, told the BBC his company had a "different philosophy", and he criticized Apple in turn, calling its prices "outrageous".
Sir Jonathan specifically asked The New Yorker magazine not to name the company he had been "scathing about", but a campaign launched by Motorola in late 2013 matches the description he gave. "Their value proposition was, 'Make it whatever you want. You can choose whatever color you want,'" Ive is quoted as saying. "And I believe that's abdicating your responsibility as a designer."
Motorola promotes Moto Maker as offering shoppers "thousands of ways" to customize its Android-powered Moto X handsets. Choices include the color of the model's back, the type of metal trim used, and the option to include a variety of leathers in its design.
Osterloh said of the scheme: "Our belief is that the end user should be directly involved in the process of designing products. We're making the entire product line accessible. And, frankly, we're taking a directly opposite approach to Apple." He added that he believed this difference in strategy went wider than design. "We do see a real dichotomy in this marketplace, where you've got people like Apple making so much money and charging such outrageous prices. We think that's not the future," he said.
"We believe the future is in offering similar experiences and great consumer choice at accessible prices. The mobile phone industry's greatest failure is also its greatest opportunity: to make really good, affordable devices for people who don't want to spend a lot of money. A great smartphone, and a great mobile internet experience, shouldn't be an expensive luxury. It should be a simple choice for everyone."
Motorola launched Moto Maker while it was owned by Google, but it has since become a division of China's Lenovo.
Ive, who was knighted in 2012 for his services to design, was also critical of another brand in The New Yorker article, suggesting Toyota's Echo model was "shocking. It is baffling, isn't it? It's just nothing, isn't it? It's just insipid," he said of the vehicle, which is also sold as the Yaris.
A spokeswoman for Toyota declined to comment.
Ive did, however, praise Bentley's vehicles, saying he "loved" their designs. According to reports by the Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal, Apple is working on a car as a possible follow-up to its forthcoming smartwatch.

Rico says that Apple's car won't look anything like a Bentley, sorry... (But not a Yaris, either.)

History for the day

On 19 February 1945, during World War Two, some thirty thousand American Marines landed on the island of Iwo Jima, where they encountered ferocious resistance from Japanese forces. The Marines took control of the strategically-important island after a month-long battle.

Sarcasm from The New York Times?

Rico says the NYT is not known for its sense of humor, but there's gotta be some here:

Microsoft Has Suddenly Gotten Serious With Mobile by Nick Wingfield: 

There's a new strategy afoot at the company, which has brought apps and services to the Apple and Android devices people actually use, rather than ones that run Windows.

The song (unfortunately) in Rico's head

Rico says he doesn't know why these things happen, but they do:

DHS shutdown: a threat to national security?

Betsy Woodruff has a Slate article about the DHS:

During the October of 2013 government shutdown, an American friend of my brother’s who works with refugees got an urgent question from a Middle Easterner: “Is your family safe?” asked the refugee, who had fled from his home country to Southeast Asia because of violent turmoil. “I hear your country is being held hostage!”
Any type of government shutdown, even if only of a single agency, has real and significant consequences. But many of the politicians who talk about these consequences use the kind of hysterical rhetoric that suggests a shutdown would result in ISIS setting up a new branch office in El Paso, Texas.
“Republicans dislike Dreamers more than they dislike ISIS,” New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer said a few weeks ago, referring, respectively, to the undocumented immigrants who are currently shielded from deportation and the terrorist army beheading Coptic Christians on the shores of the Mediterranean.
But your friendly neighborhood TSA agents aren’t going anywhere. Neither is the Secret Service (photo).
At issue is funding for the President’s executive action on immigration, a unilateral move he made last year to defer deportations for millions of undocumented immigrants. Republicans, who are typically divided among themselves on the issue, have come together in opposition to the President’s order. They concur that it’s an unconstitutional abuse of executive power and that it’s a “poison pill” for bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform legislation. Democrats say that kind of legislation wasn’t happening anyway (probably a safe guess on their part) and that the President was well within his rights.
This fight is incredibly high-stakes for both sides. If Republicans cave and decide to fund the President’s executive action, then a substantial portion of their voting base will be irate. Tea Party activists’ opposition to pathway-to-citizenship comprehensive immigration reform is comparable to their opposition to the Affordable Care Act, and many of the Republican candidates who won their midterm bids campaigned on opposing the president’s then-impending immigration move. If they renege on those promises, things will get very tense very fast back in their home districts.
Democrats are in a similar pickle. When the President postponed his immigration move until after the midterm elections (in a largely unsuccessful bid to protect vulnerable Democrats from the political repercussions of his controversial executive action), he won scorching criticism from Hispanic activists and comprehensive immigration reform advocates alike. Hispanic voters are an essential part of the Democratic coalition, and snubbing them in such a public way would be the political equivalent of jumping in front of a cement truck.
So here we are: nine days away from a Department of Homeland Security shutdown, with little hope of an easy way out. What does this mean? Does this mean our homeland will no longer be secure?
Short answer: No, the homeland is going to be okay. Specifically, a missed funding deadline means a small fraction of the department’s employees would be furloughed. As Alexandra Jaffe notes at CNN, a Congressional Research Service report says that Federal employees “whose work is necessary for the preservation of the safety of human life or the protection of property” get their salaries paid outside of the appropriations process. So that takes care of a significant chunk of DHS employees: During the October of 2013 government shutdown, eighty-five percent of the department’s payroll stayed on the job. That report estimates that a little more than thirty thousand employees were furloughed, and Jaffe notes that they were mostly those with managerial and administrative jobs. This potential DHS funding snafu would likely follow a similar course.
Big Brother might take a hit, though. A statement from DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson laying out the effect of the shutdown said that as long as the department is funded by temporary continuing resolutions, it can’t issue new grants to help states and municipalities pay for security issues. Current grants pay for a host of projects, including the NYPD surveillance cameras and Idaho bomb squads. The department also can’t upgrade “obsolete remote video surveillance systems” near the Texas-Mexico border in the Rio Grande Valley. Johnson says his department needs a full-year appropriations bill instead of another short-term fix like last year’s CRomnibus (the funding measure that expires at the end of this month and got us into this mess in the first place) so it can keep issuing more of those grants.
“The reality is that a department shutdown would have a very limited impact on national security,” write Erica Werner and Alicia Caldwell at The Associated Press. It’s probably even a bit of a misnomer to call a funding lapse a “shutdown”. Such a lapse would certainly be tough for the DHS employees who would get furloughed. And that would put substantial pressure on lawmakers to figure out a solution amenable to both parties. But it also would not be the Apocalypse.

Rico says aw, darn, we were all so looking forward to the Apocalypse.

Old gold, new chumps

Slate has an article by Ben Mathis-Lilley about some guys who got screwed out of a lot of money:

In February of 2015, some members of an Israeli scuba-diving club had what is one of the most amazing possible human experiences: they randomly discovered a giant underwater ancient treasure, in the form of some two thousand gold coins that are a thousand years old. Then they had one of the most quintessentially depressing and common human experiences: some bureaucrats came along and ruined everything.
The divers in the port city of Caesarea, which dates back to Roman times, found the coins on the Mediterranean seabed. “At first they thought they had spotted a toy coin from a game, and it was only after they understood the coin was the real thing that they collected several and quickly returned to the shore in order to inform the director of the dive club about their find,” the Israel Antiquities Authority said.
Experts from the authority called to the site uncovered “almost two thousand gold coins in different denominations” circulated by the Fatimid Caliphate, which ruled much of the Middle East and North Africa from 909 to 1171.
It's only the last paragraph of an article about the discovery that delivers the real kick in the pants:

The find was “so valuable that it's priceless,” spokeswoman Yoli Schwartz told AFP, adding that the haul was now the property of the state, and that there was no finder’s fee.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaat? No way! No way, buddy! I don't know what Israeli law or international maritime conventions say about this kind of thing, and I don't care; if someone discovers a giant ancient sunken treasure, they get to become a rich person. That is how it should work. 

Rico says that'll teach 'em to be honest... (Let's do the math. Ignoring the antiquity value, and figuring at least an ounce apiece, two thousand ounces on today's market is just under two and a half million US dollars. Dumb...)

Guns on campus

Slate has an article by Amanda Marcotte about trying to solve campus sexual assaults:

In case the public discussion around campus sexual assault wasn't enough of a circus, now we have the gun people getting involved. The New York Times reports that pro-gun advocates are hijacking the issue of campus sexual assault to advocate for the long-standing goal of getting more colleges to allow guns on campus, arguing that women need them to be safe from rapists. “If these young, hot little girls on campus have a firearm, I wonder how many men will want to assault them," Nevada assemblywoman Michele Fiore, who is sponsoring a bill to force colleges to allow guns on campus, told The New York Times.
That kind of contemptuous language is a good indicator of what is going on here, which has little to do with sincere concern about campus safety and everything to do with finding angles, any angles, to inject guns into every walk of life. "The gun lobby has seized on this tactic, this subject of sexual assault,” Andy Pelosi, the executive director of the Campaign to Keep Guns Off Campus, told The New York Times.
That gun lobbyists would be keenly interested in college campuses makes a lot of sense. As The New York Times reported in 2013, the gun industry is deeply worried about young people's declining interest in guns, and is constantly seeking new ways to market to the younger set, hoping to turn them into lifelong customers. Getting guns onto campus would absolutely help that cause.
But would it actually improve campus safety? No. Most rapes, especially among college students, are acquaintance rapes, and defy the burglar-coming-in-the-window fantasy of self defense that gun advocates like to invoke. “If you have a rape situation, usually it starts with some sort of consensual behavior. By the time it switches to nonconsensual, it would be nearly impossible to run for a gun," John D. Foubert, anti-rape activist at Oklahoma State University told The New York Times. "That's a best case scenario. There's also a concern that allowing guns on campus would make it easier for rapists to rape: get a girl to your room, start messing around, and when you want to attack, show her the gun you're now allowed to have on campus."
Then there's the problem of mixing guns and alcohol. "From what I’ve seen, sexual assault is often linked to situations where people are drinking, so it’s not a good idea to have concealed weapons around that," Stetson University sophomore Mariana Prado told The New York Times, showing more thought about the realities of rape than every politician who has floated this idea put together. 

Rico says he's all for arming the 'young, hot little girls on campus', but doubts it'll catch on... (But why can't you shoot an acquaintance who's trying to rape you? Oh, yeah, doing it after the fact would be a problem...)

Misdirection

Stephen Becker, a writer that Rico greatly admires, threw out what appeared to be a clue in Covenant with Death:
"I have not even told you what state we were part of, because it did not matter; think of a small and sunny state between New Mexico and Arizona."

Rico says he had to check, just to be sure, but there is no state, small and sunny or otherwise, between Arizona and New Mexico...

How pilots impress chicks (not)

Rico says the video is a nice piece of special effects, but not true, alas:

Cold is good, sometimes

The BBC has an interactive article by Steven Johnson about the development of cold:

This is the chilling story of men who changed the planet forever by dropping the temperature.
Life without artificial cold is hard to imagine in the developed world, but it all started two hundred years ago with some giant ice cubes.
In the early summer months of 1834, a three-masted bark vessel named the Madagascar sailed into the port of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, its hull filled with the most implausible of cargo: a frozen New England lake.
The Madagascar and her crew were in the service of an enterprising and dogged Boston businessman named Frederic Tudor.
As a well-to-do young Bostonian, Tudor’s family had long enjoyed the frozen water from the pond on their country estate, Rockwood; not just for its aesthetics, but also for its enduring capacity to keep things cold.
Like many wealthy families in northern climes, the Tudors stored blocks of frozen lake water in ice houses, two hundred pound ice cubes that would remain marvelously unmelted until the hot summer months arrived, and a new ritual began. Chipping off slices from the blocks to freshen drinks, make ice cream, cool down a bath during a heat wave.
At the age of seventeen, Tudor’s father sent him on a voyage to the Caribbean. Suffering through the inescapable humidity of the tropics in the full regalia of a nineteenth century gentleman suggested a radical (some would say preposterous) idea to young Frederic Tudor: if he could somehow transport ice from the frozen north to the West Indies, there would be an immense market for it.
In November of 1805, Tudor dispatched his brother William to Martinique as an advance guard, bought a brig called the Favorite, and began harvesting ice in preparation for the journey.
In February of 1806, Tudor set sail from Boston Harbor, the Favorite loaded with a full cargo of Rockwood ice, bound for the West Indies.
“No joke,” the Boston Gazette reported. "A vessel with a cargo of 80 tons of Ice has cleared out from this port for Martinique. We hope this will not prove to be a slippery speculation.”
The Gazette’s derision would turn out to be well-founded, though not for the reasons one might expect. Despite weather-related delays, the ice survived the journey in remarkably good shape. The problem proved to be one that Tudor had never contemplated: the residents of Martinique had no interest in his exotic frozen bounty, because they simply had no idea what to do with it.

REMOVE

The indifference to ice’s magical powers had prevented Frederic Tudor’s brother William from lining up an exclusive buyer for the cargo.
Even worse, William had failed to establish a suitable location to store the ice.
Tudor had made it all the way to Martinique but found himself with no demand for a product that was melting in the tropical heat at an alarming rate.
The trip was a complete failure.
The bleak pattern of the Martinique voyage would repeat itself in the years to come, with ever more catastrophic results.
Tudor’s fledgling business had a demand and a storage problem. But there were also advantages.
Ships tended to leave Boston harbour empty, heading off for the West Indies to fill their hulls with valuable cargo, which meant that he could negotiate cheaper rates for transporting his ice on the otherwise empty vessels.
Furthermore, the ice itself was basically free. Tudor needed only to pay workers to carve blocks of it out of the frozen lakes.
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New England’s economy generated another product that was equally worthless. Sawdust – the primary waste product of lumber mills.
After years of experimenting, Tudor discovered that sawdust made a brilliant insulator for his ice.
Blocks layered on top of each other with sawdust separating them would last almost twice as long as unprotected ice.
This was Tudor’s frugal genius. He took three things that the market had effectively priced at zero - ice, sawdust, and an empty vessel - and turned them into a flourishing business.
Tudor’s initial catastrophic trip to Martinique had made it clear that he also needed on-site storage in the tropics.
He tinkered with multiple ice house designs, finally settling on a double-shelled structure that used the air between two stone walls to keep the interior cool.
Tudor didn’t understand the molecular chemistry of it, but both the sawdust and the double-shelled architecture revolved around the same principle.
For ice to melt, it needs to pull heat from the surrounding environment to break the tetrahedral bonding of hydrogen atoms that gives ice its crystalline structure.
(The extraction of heat from the surrounding atmosphere is what grants ice its miraculous capacity to cool us down.)
The only place that heat exchange can happen is at the surface of the ice, which is why large blocks of ice survive for so long - all the interior hydrogen bonds are perfectly insulated from the exterior temperature.
Fifteen years after his original hunch, Tudor’s ice trade finally turned a profit.
By the 1820s, he had ice houses packed with frozen New England water all over the American South.
By the 1830s, his ships were sailing to Rio and Bombay. (India would ultimately prove to be his most lucrative market.)
By his death in 1864, Tudor had amassed a fortune worth more than $200m in today’s dollars. And in New York 2 out of 3 homes had a daily delivery of ice.
In less than a century, ice had gone from a curiosity to a luxury, to a necessity.

Ice-powered refrigeration began to change the map of America, nowhere more so than in the transformation of Chicago.
Stockyard in Chicago, circa 1913
Stockyard in Chicago, circa 1913
Its fortuitous location as a transportation hub enabled wheat to flow from the bountiful plains to the Northeast population centres.
But meat couldn’t make the journey without spoiling.
As the century progressed, a supply/demand imbalance developed between the hungry cities of the Northeast and the cattle of the Midwest.
As immigration fueled the population of New York and Philadelphia in the 1840s and 50s, the supply of local beef failed to keep up with the surging demand.
Meanwhile, the conquest of the Great Plains had enabled ranchers to breed massive herds of cattle, without a corresponding population base of humans to feed.
It was ice that ultimately provided a way around this impasse.
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In 1878, Gustavus Franklin Swift hired an engineer to build an advanced refrigerator car.
Ice was placed in bins above the meat; at stops along the route, workers could swap in new blocks of ice from above, without disturbing the meat below.
“It was this application of elementary physics,” Donald Miller, in his history of nineteenth century Chicago, Illinois writes “that transformed the ancient trade of beef slaughtering from a local to an international business, for refrigerator cars led naturally to refrigerator ships, which carried Chicago beef to four continents”.

Rico says ice is good, but not outside...

Movie review for the day (KTFM)

Rico says he and the ladyfriend watched Kiss Them For Me, a Cary Grant movie with the buxom Jayne Mansfield and an unknown redhead (at right in the poster, above) who turned out to be Suzy Parker (photo, middle):

Three decorated Navy pilots finagle a four day leave in San Francisco. They procure a posh suite at the Fairmont hotel and Commander Crewson (played by Grant), a master of procurement, arranges to populate it with party people. Lieutenant Wallace (played by Werner Klemperer, photo, bottom, of Hogan's Heroes fame) is trying to get the pilots to make speeches to rally the homefront at shipyard magnate Eddie Turnbill's plants, but they're tired of the war and just want to have fun. While Crewson begins falling in love with Turnbill's fiancée Gwinneth Livingston (played by Parker), he tries to ignore the distant call of war.

Rico says it was great to see San Francisco as it was, with no high-rises to block the view from the Fairmont of Coit Tower, the newly-built Bay Bridge, and the Ferry Building...