Pollyanna wishes you a happy Midsummer Day

Pollyanna says hi and takes you to Stonehenge for Midsummer Day:
 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ARI!
On Midsummer Day in 1999 our Ari came into the world. He had a medically rough early few years, but he is our delightful teenager today. Pollyanna, Titan and YandA join in wishing him a very happy birthday with much love.

Ari

For starters, let us refer you to the Miriam Shlesinger Human Rights action blog. Over a year has gone by without Miriam and we continue to realize what we have lost. She got us into the human rights struggle. Please act on behalf of people who are so much in need of support in their trials and tribulations at the hands of oppressive regimes and corporations.

CHARITY CORNER

This week Pollyanna refers you to Because I am a Girl, a charity sponsored by PlanUSA to help girls around the world. There are several projects for helping girls and Pollyanna and the rest of us here ask you to watch the video and then choose the project that fits you best.

DOWN WITH THE DEGRADING TEAM NAME. 
The Washington DC team in the National Football league is known as the Redskins, which is certainly demeaning to Native Americans.
 
Pollyanna is pleased to pass on to you the news that the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, part of the United States Patent and Trademark Office,  has ruled that the name is disparaging and has stripped it of copyright protection. The fight will go on, but this is a step forward.

WE SALUTE THE WHISTLEBLOWERS WHO TOOK ON TOYOTA AND GENERAL MOTORS
Pollyanna says cheers to Betsy Benjaminson, the Israeli-American translator who blew Toyota's cover on the lethal flaws in the accelerator system of its cars that cost the lives of many people.

Betsy Benjaminson flanked by her lawyers Dor Heskia (left) and Amos Hacmun. Photo by Tomer Appelbaum

Toyota has paid out billions to settle lawsuits. It gives you pause to think that a corporation will risk your life to enhance profits. The mass recall by General Motors is making news now. The flawed ignition switch in the Chevrolet Cobalt could easily slip into the “off” position—cutting power, stalling the engine, and disabling airbags just when they’re needed most. The part has been linked to at least 13 deaths and 54 crashes.

In 2006 the wreck of a 2005 Cobalt killed two and injured one

The whistleblower was silenced and pushed out of his job.The “Valukas Report,” named for former U.S. Attorney Anton Valukas, who assembled it at GM’s request from interviews with 230 witnesses and 41 million documents, blamed a culture of complacency for the more than decade-long delay before the company recalled millions of faulty vehicles. Cheers also to the GM hero Courtland Kelley.

THE RANT 
This week Pollyanna is ranting about infringement of a woman's right to choose in matters involving pregnancy and abortion. Her focus is on two countries in particular, Spain and Argentina. The law that guarantees women and girls access to safe and legal abortion services in Spain is at risk of being significantly amended, taking the country back decades to a precarious time. There are serious concerns for their health and lives if these changes are introduced. The government must withdraw the bill immediately. Pollyanna asks you to open the link and take action. She also calls your attention to the work of Socorristas En Red - Socorro Rosa: A Feminist Practice For The Right To Choose In Argentina. Abortion is illegal in Argentina, with three exceptions: when the pregnancy was the result of a rape, abuse against a woman with a mental disability and when the pregnant woman’s life or health are at risk. However, even these cases often end up before the Courts and women continue to undergo surgical clandestine abortions that put their lives at risk. AWID talked to feminist activist Dahiana Belfiori about the feminist collective that is implementing safe accompaniment for women opting for medical abortion.

Photo: La Revuelta Colectiva Feminista

Pollyanna would also like to remind you of her rant on a similar issue in El Salvador in her last blog posting.

SPECIAL RANT 
Pollyanna is venturing into the minefield of the local conflict to express her protest over the kidnapping of three teenage yeshiva students by unknown Palestinian militants. She joins the protest of Amnesty International along with their call to refrain from collective punishment of the Palestinian population.

Israeli soldiers interrogate a Palestinian family during a raid in the West Bank refugee camp of Jalazon, north of Ramallah, June 16, 2014. Photo by AFP

While Pollyanna understands the need for the victims' families to seek consolation in prayer, she agrees with Uri Misgav that the mass prayer meeting going on in the media and everywhere else is revolting and enhances the religious ideology that is eroding our national identify. We quote Ambrose Bierce in The Devil's Dictionary: “Pray, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy.” She also agrees with Gideon Levi that it is hypocritical for us to cry foul over the hostage-taking in view of our actions in the past. It also would be helpful if we had a security establishment that was worth more than a "a bucket of warm piss" to paraphrase the late John Nance Garner's description of the vice-presidency of the US. The media tell us that the PM and the CoC are "evaluating the situation blah blah" while their  incompetence  screams to the high heavens.  Here are our great heroes in all their glory.

Netanyahu and senior defense officials wanking off on camera

 One of the victims even managed to call the police to say that they had been kidnapped. The police brushed it off as a joke.

THE HIDDEN PICASSO 
Picasso's The Blue Room was among the first paintings produced during the legendary artist's "blue period," a multi-year span that saw him focus on somber works using mostly shades of blue.
 

But this early work contains a fascinating mystery of its own: a hidden portrait of a man that art experts are hoping to identify.

The portrait of the mysterious man on the right was discovered under Picasso's 'The Blue Room.' (AP/ EVAN VUCCI)

GOODIES FROM SCIENCE

COMPUTERS PASS AND FLUNK 

Alan Turing from archive of papers relating to the development of computing at the National Physical Laboratory between the late 1940s and the early 1970s. (Science Museum, London/SSPL)

We are told that a computer program has passed the Turing test. Can a computer trick a human into thinking it is actually a fellow human? That question gave birth to the “Turing Test” 65 years ago. You might wonder if the humans that tested it were up to it...

OTOH, we also have a failure. Quantum computers have been long touted as the Holy Grail of computer speed and efficiency. Google spent $15 million on such a device and after rigorous tests it was found to be no faster than conventional computers. Read all about it in Science. Our hearts weep peanut butter for poor baby Google.

DENTISTRY GOES PAINLESS 
You all recall "Painless Pole" the dentist in M.A.S.H. with his hilarious sex problems. It now appears that painless dentistry will soon be with us. Scientists have developed a new pain-free filling that allows cavities to be repaired without drilling or injections. The tooth-rebuilding technique, developed at King's College London, does away with fillings and instead encourages teeth to repair themselves.

The new treatment, Electrically Accelerated and Enhanced Remineralisation (EAER), could be available within three years. Photograph: Hermes Morrison 2/Alamy

 Pollyanna is all in favor of it and is glad indeed.

WHO NEEDS FOOD? 
A new food substitute has come out of the Silicon Valley and it seems to be gaining popularity. Rob Rhinehart was getting fed up on the hassle of food expenses and preparation. He is twenty five, studied electrical engineering at Georgia Tech, and he began to consider food as an engineering problem. “You need amino acids and lipids, not milk itself,” he said. “You need carbohydrates, not bread.” Fruits and vegetables provide essential vitamins and minerals, but they’re “mostly water.” He began to think that food was an inefficient way of getting what he needed to survive. “It just seemed like a system that’s too complex and too expensive and too fragile,” he told Lizzie Widdicombe, the New Yorker writer who interviewed him. If the New Yorker link does not open, you can read about it in the Guardian. The product known as Soylent is a drinkable mix of vegetable oil and nutrients.

Tasters have compared Soylent to Cream of Wheat and “my grandpa’s Metamucil.” Photograph by Henry Hargreaves.

 It is open source on the Web and you can make your own if you wish. It is obviously not for everyone and the name evokes a disgusting movie, but who are we to judge?

IS HANDWRITING IMPORTANT?
When we were in school we suffered reprimands and hassle because of our bad handwriting. We seem to have passed this mild alexia on to our progeny.

Our handwriting did not lead us to medical school and our grades went up when we learned to type and started submitting typed (yes children, there once were machines called typewriters before computers and printers) homework. Now we are told that handwriting is good for our cognitive processes, which is quite interesting, although not everyone agrees.

MAGNETIC MOMENT OF THE PROTON 
Pollyanna is sure that you all have been losing sleep, as she has, over the matter-antimatter asymmetry in the universe. If at the time of the Big Bang equal amounts of matter and antimatter had come into being, they should have annihilated one another and there would have been no matter, no stars, no us, nothing. A major step towards understanding why this did not take place is the recent accurate measurement of the magnetic moment of the proton. The magnetic moment is one of the fundamental properties of protons, which combine with neutrons to form the nucleus of atoms. In principle, the method can also be used to measure the magnetic moment of an antiproton with a similarly high precision, making it possible to investigate matter/antimatter asymmetry. Pollyanna proposes a toast or antitoast to the researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) for their beautiful experimental work.

The oscillating proton (red) generates a tiny current which is recorded using highly sensitive electronic detectors. The red arrow represents the magnetic moment of the proton; the green lines indicate the magnetic field in the trap.

Credit: © Georg Schneider, JGU

[Click to enlarge image]

SILLY TIME

What If? asks: As plastic is made from oil and oil is made from dead dinosaurs, how much actual real dinosaur is there in a plastic dinosaur? Steve Lydford

Interesting question and answer.

Randall has a good illustration of what is meant by global warming and this is not funny:



 Poor Barney has a moral problem. Maybe he should turn atheist...



 We should be careful in our use of words.