tryin to stay awake till guy lombardo & his royal canadians play auld lang syne

click maybe gets bigger

cheesy cardboard anaglyph 3D glasses / "Nothing bad ever happens in Claymation." -- A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas / RealD / Puff the Magic Dragon / Molly Ringwald extincts 3D movies

 

 

Click images to enlarge.

Click FULLSCREEN for video.

Okay, if you are Real Old (like me) you used to go to the movie theater to see these old-format 3D (almost all horror) movies, and when you bought your ticket they'd give you a pair of cardboard cheesy 3D glasses.

They have a fancy technical name: anaglyph glasses, with a red cellophane or plastic lens over your left eye, and a blue (technically cyan) lens over your right eye. Your anaglyph glasses "decoded" red and blue images on the movie screen or in a comic book image for your brain, and thus appeared to let you see the color-prepared 2D image in what fairly successfully seemed like a 3D image.

This complex rotating thingamabob (a mathematical term) is real pretty just as it is, but if you get yourself a pair of anaglyph glasses, your brain will be fooled into seeing an extra dimension to this thingamabob.

The thingamabob, in n or, with your cheesy cardboard anaglyph glasses, (n+1) dimensions, is a production of the wonderful (and FREE!) Knotplot software.

VAMRI (Vleeptron Advanced Mathematics Research Institute) wishes to point out that "Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone," (1983) starring young Molly Ringwald, seems to have been the movie that killed old-style anaglyph 3D. No studio released a 3D movie for decades after that. In the plot, a horrible ancient ugly cyborg monster had a way to live forever by sucking the Youth Essence out of feisty minors like Molly. Totally disgusting, in a way to delight Saturday kiddies matinee audiences.

Hitchcock's "Dial M For Murder" (1954) was shot in anaglyph 3D, but by the time it was released, the 3D fad was over, so it was just released as an ordinary 2D color film. But that's why "Dial M" is filled with screwy weirdly-skewed outsized camera shots (e.g. giant scissors) seemingly flying directly at your eyeballs.

New Format 3D -- the 3D effect in RealD is far superior to old anaglyph 3D, and in its first few years it was clear that a RealD movie draws in twice the audience as the same flick without RealD -- has tickled the crap out of Cahiers du Vleeptron. 

We first saw and loved "Journey to the Center of the Earth," a RealD project starring and produced by Brendan Fraser. Swear to god there were scores of pretty blue birds flying out of the screen all over the theater.

But to date, the most wonderful achievement of the new RealD technology is "A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas" (2011), which S.W.M.B.O. grudgingly agreed to see with me at the Multiplex Cine-Odeon 14, but only while wearing a paper bag with eyeholes over her head. (It's the Christmas season, so watch for limited theater showings, maybe midnight cult showings, and GO SEE IT.)

RealD bought an earlier pioneer in 3D movie technology, StereoGraphics, founded by Lenny Lipton, who wrote the lyrics for "Puff the Magic Dragon." 

THE TYRANNY OF COMMON SENSE HAS REACHED ITS FINAL STAGE / THE BIGGEST HOPE WE HAVE ... IS THAT HE REALLY DOESN'T BELIEVE IN ANYTHING.

Click image to enlarge.

First Day Issue: BjörkGuðmundsdóttirPost / computer-printer wi-fi test scrawl by S.W.M.B.O.

Click to enlarge stamp.

First Day Issue: BjörkGuðmundsdóttirÞost
computer-printer wi-fi test scrawl by S.W.M.B.O.

BjörkGuðmundsdóttir is the most recently discovered planet in the Vleeptron system in Galaxy Dwingeloo-2. 

BjörkGuðmundsdóttirÞost is its postal issuing authority. Stamps and postal material from BjörkGuðmundsdóttir are very rare.

Everything -- shops, trademarks, brands, etc. -- is called 66 because Iceland lies at 66° North Latitude. (The Arctic Circle wobbles a bit, and was 66°33′46.5″ as of 5 December 2016.)

All Iceland's coins have a fish on them, because the King of Iceland is a fish. 

Vleeptron wishes Earth, Hoon, Mollyringwald, Yobbo & BjörkGuðmundsdóttir High Holy Days & Merry Christmas / J******* x E*** x H*** want to skolemize all the evars / parse this early draft of "Lucky's Speech" from "Waiting for Some Guy" / Greeks don't say "It's all Greek to me" that would make no sense / ipse dixit

Click to enlarge

Leave A Comment.  No Belize real estate or viagra ads pls. No Anonymous Driveby Comments. Show some credible kind of i.d. or link to an authentic living carbon-based sentient.

Gibberish and surrealism, Pataphysics/Pataphysique, Anagrams Puns & Ciphers (with or without fabulous treasure upon solution) welcome. Stop making sense. Wear a big suit.

But 4 slices mozzerella endives & shallots if your Comment

* treats this as a Real Meme in Our World and

* pretty accurately describes what J******* & E*** & H*** are  rapping about. There's no quiz on this stuff tomorrow morning, just pizza for the deserving.

HINT: Sentients what talk like this all the time like to convene in beachfront resorts in Cyprus (Larnaca and Limasol) during MY brutal New England winter. I see a seminar by around February. I see tall iced drinks with little parasols poolside.

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

Thanks for your help, J*******.

Is there any way to search a term to find all the evars in it, so I can skolemize all of them? I would like to do something like this, where R is a typeclass that only has an instance for non-dependent function types:

Ltac prove_R :=
  lazymatch goal with
  | |- R (forall x:?A, ?B) => skolemize_all_evars B; apply R_nondep_fun_instance
  end.

Thanks again,
-E***

> On Dec 2, 2016, at 1:15 PM, J******* L****** wrote:
> On 12/02/2016 03:50 PM, E*** W******** wrote:

J*******
>>
>> Thanks for the reply, and for the suggested workaround. I’ll see if I can get something like that to work.
>>
>> The reason this looks like a bug to me, though, is that I think, if I’m not mistaken, that what I am actually trying [to] solve is the problem
>>
>> ?T2 x = ?B
>
> FYI - You can "skolemize" ?T2 with respect to x in the goal by doing this:
>
> Goal { T:Type | T=T }.
>  refine (exist _ (forall (x:?[T1]), ?[T2]) _).
>  instantiate (T2:=ltac:(revert x)). (*skolemize ?T2 wrt x*)
>
>>
>> (Technically, I think Coq writes the left-hand side as something like ?T2@{__:=x}, but it’s the same thing.) This problem has the solution ?T2 = (fun _ => ?B). It falls into the higher-order pattern fragment, since ?T2 is fully applied to distinct bound variables, and I thought Coq would solve this fragment.
>
> I don't think Coq can solve such fragments.
>
>>
>> Also, either way, the fact that the unify tactic is not commutative also seems like a bug...
>
> I think the problems with commutativity of unification with evars is a known issue that H*** has attempted to (and is continuing to attempt to) deal with.
>
> -- J*******
> 

How will I know / in thicket ahead / is danger or treasure / when Body my good / bright dog is dead

May Swenson

I got into a polite, respectful e-xchange with a fellow from NYU-Bellevue Med School who's in its program of introducing doctors to dimensions and conditions of human life which are normally or exclusively found not in medicine, but in literature. To my knowledge, this very interesting curriculum is unique in the world of medical education.

Today, instead of structure and function of the spleen, we will discuss "Dubliners," a collection of short stories by James Joyce.

You there in the fifth row -- did you ask "Why? I'm trying to learn to fix spleens."

For an answer, find the NYU-Bellevue office that does this thing, ask them. But I think it traces to the rare belief that, to treat, comprehend and encompass the total human condition, a physician must probe and comprehend the human soul, human passions, things which humans race toward, things they flee from.

But we e-xchanged about This Poem by May Swenson. He'd posted that the poem was about Fear of Death. I objected strenously, and said it's about her perception and fear of failing health and strength, usually from inevitable Growing Old. 

(To be fair to NYU-B guy, my stuff usually or always precedes his stuff. I can stand on a chair and see his stuff from here, if it's a clear day.)

Please Leave A Comment, something youse bums have been lax in doing lately. Vleeptron tallies these numbers and carefuly analyzes all Comments. Vleeptron knows if you're just trying to sell me Viagra.

But one thing NYU-B Guy and I are in perfect agreement about is the power, the greatness of this poem.

(But you don't have to agree. If you think it sucks, Leave A Comment. No Anonymous Driveby Comments Allowed. Show some i.d.)

* * * * * *

Question

by May Swenson (1913 - 1989)

Body my house
my horse my hound
what will I do
when you are fallen

Where will I sleep
How will I ride
What will I hunt

Where can I go
without my mount
all eager and quick
How will I know
in thicket ahead
is danger or treasure
when Body my good
bright dog is dead

How will it be
to lie in the sky
without roof or door
and wind for an eye

With cloud for shift
how will I hide?

from Nature: Poems Old and New

Copyright © 1994 by May Swenson, All rights reserved.

Entirely New Thing to scare the crap out of you from now on (because you read this -- but if you don't read this, the Scary New Thing's still there, so you might as well read about it) / Being & Not Being / Existence & Essence / ontology / I'm Real, but everybody else is somewhat Less Real

Click images to enlarge.

The world is a horrible, scary, frightening, dangerous place. We all know that. Vleeptron isn't telling you anything you didn't already know.

Now the Vleeptron Ministry of Surprise Unknown Terrors (MoSUT) takes this opportunity to tell you about a horrible, scary, frightening thing you probably never heard of.

(Leave a Comment if you know stuff about This Thing. What do you know, and how do you know it?)

As far as I can tell from this First Quick Scan, This Thing is invisible, imperceivable, unpredictable, and emanates no warning whatever, not to an Average Jane or a Regular Joe, not to the world's top Nobel Prize-winning expert in This Thing.

Until This Thing strikes. Sometimes it kills you and a bunch of your neighbors.

=================

The news story is from The Age, a daily broadsheet (I think) from Victoria state in Australia.

But it seems more and more clear, even certain, that This Thing might next pop up

[ enter your ZIP code or Latitude/Longitude ]

here. The Antipodes aren't the only bailiwick where This Thing might suddenly decide to Manifest Itself. Wallabies and puggles are not reliable warnings that This Thing is about to jump all over your ass.

And contrariwise: If you're surrounded by caribou, you shouldn't relax because you think This Thing never happens in places lousy with caribou.

Unrelax.

(I've been in a place that's lousy with caribou. Earth has lots of caribou if you know where to look, more caribou than you can shake a stick at.)

NIMBY is a modern-day acronym for "Not In My Back Yard." This Thing could be In Your Back Yard 5 seconds from now.

=================

My brother served in the U.S. Air National Guard. Their unofficial motto, whispered in giggles to each other, was 


"Sleep Well Tonight, Your National Guard Is."

================================

The only reason ions exist is that your teacher or professor said they exist, and your test score would drop if you implied you didn't think ions exist. 

If you have personally proven that ions exist, and aren't just taking it on Faith or Fear Of Bad Test Score, please Leave A Comment. We'll need details.


FOMO, another modern-day acronym: Fear Of Missing Out.

================================

The study of Existence -- its attributes, what or who Exists, who or what Doesn't Exist, how anybody knows one way or the other -- is Ontology. I don't know if there are university Departments of Ontology, but I know for sure you can take a 1-semester, maybe a whole year of Ontology.

Google "ontology" and then click the [buy] button, and you can fill your garage with ontology books. 

Lots of them differ in significant ways about 

* Existence in General, or about whether

* You Exist, or whether

* You Certainly Exist, but other people Don't Exist As Certainly As You Exist. 

There's a huge argument about the distinction (if any) between Existence and Essence.

==============

Just Leave A Comment. Vleeptron hasn't been getting enough Comments lately. Don't just wait for a post that affects or offends or moves you deeply. 

(Vleeptron REALLY offended Anonymous a few posts ago. First she [I'm guessing] wallowed in Happy Nostalgia when Vleeptron played Patience and Prudence singing "Tonight You Belong to Me" on the old Perry Como TV show. Then, apparently believing that all Vleeptron music videos would be Happy & Innocent, she clicked on Neil Young singing "Piece of Crap." She Left A Comment. She felt betrayed, she felt slimed.)

But don't Leave A Comment to get me to buy your herbal things.

If you're reading Vleeptron -- a certified Good Thing -- but not Leaving A Comment because you're still staggering around in malaise and disbelief (or curled up in a ball, like the person at the top of this post said she was on Wednesday 9 November 2016) at the recent election of Donald Janfu Trump to the Presidency of the United States of America,

1. Vleeptron feels your pain.

2. Leave A Comment.


================
UPDATE: 6 deaths from thunderstorm asthma in Melbourne have been confirmed as of Sunday 27 November.
================

The Age
daily broadsheet
Victoria, Australia  
Wednesday 23 November 2016 

Thunderstorm asthma:
4 dead, hospitals pushed to limits, 
government review ordered

by Beau Donelly, Emily Woods, Benjamin Preiss

183 reading now

At least four people have died after the sudden outbreak of "thunderstorm asthma," prompting an investigation into the emergency response to the medical crisis that swept across Melbourne on Monday.

Forty-eight hours after the massive asthma event pushed the city's healthcare system to its limits, two more people were confirmed dead.

Noble Park father-of-two, Clarence Leo, and 35-year-old man, Apollo Papadopoulos, died after suffering asthma attacks that are believed to be due to the unprecedented weather event.

As more information about the emergency response came to light on Wednesday -- including details of after-hour clinics, doctors and pharmacies struggling to cope with a surge in patients -- questions were raised about why a public warning was not sent out to asthma sufferers.

Health Minister Jill Hennessy, who commissioned the Inspector-General for Emergency Management to review the emergency response, said the thunderstorm asthma event could not have been predicted, but that work was underway to create new models to anticipate the effect of extreme weather on health.

"Unpredictable weather patterns and the impact on health I think is a new emerging frontier for public health risks," she said.

The National Home Doctor Service sent doctors to more than 100 asthma sufferers between Monday night and Tuesday morning.

Doctor Mark Hotusaid arrived at 16-year-old Angelique's Altona home about 4 am Tuesday after she had woken up "unable to breathe" and been turned away from hospital. He sent her back to hospital with a note for a doctor to see her immediately and she was finally admitted.

On Wednesday morning, Ms Hennessy said there were two confirmed deaths -- 20-year-old law student Hope Carnevali and Greenvale high-school student Omar Moujalled. But within hours, the grieving families and friends of two other men spoke of their loss after thunderstorm asthma struck.

Mr Leo, a bouncer, was well known in Melbourne's nightclub scene. His business partner, Andrew Christodoulou, described him as a "gentle giant."

Friend Danny Saddoo remembered Mr Leo as a doting father and husband and "a really lovely, kind-hearted man." He said he suffered a "massive" asthma attack at 4.30 am on Tuesday and died before paramedics arrived.

Mr Papadopoulos' sister, Bianca Becker, said her brother was "the best man you'll ever meet. We're devastated."

His mother, Emma Papadopoulos, said the "chaos" she witnessed at the hospital on Monday night was unlike anything she had ever seen. "I can't believe the amount of people there that were having problems breathing," she told Channel 10.

Charles Guest, chief health officer for the Department of Health and Human Services, would not comment on the number of fatalities, saying the department was aware of a "number of deaths" that may be associated with the event.

He declined to comment further until a cause of death had been "attributed" for these cases. 

At least eight people were still in intensive care on Wednesday evening. It is understood one man is in a critical condition after suffering a cardiac arrest during the thunderstorm asthma.

Hospitals were inundated with more than 1000 people seeking help on Monday night after the sudden change in weather triggered respiratory problems in people across the city. There were almost 2000 calls for ambulances in five hours and about 30 people were admitted into intensive care units.

Sunshine Hospital was one of the worst hit, with 18 ambulances banked up in the early hours of Tuesday morning as crews frantically worked on patients.

A Western Health spokeswoman said it was "unheard of" to have that many ambulances waiting outside the suburban emergency department at one time.
After-hours clinics and pharmacies were also swamped with patients as they struggled to treat people with dwindling drug supplies.

The Age spoke to 10 Melbourne late night pharmacies, six of them completely sold out of Ventolin on Monday night. Staff at 24-hour Mill Park Superclinic described the night thunderstorm asthma hit Melbourne as like "a bomb had gone off."

Ambulance Employees Australia acting general secretary, Danny Hill, said ambulance crews were flat out during the emergency. "It's almost the equivalent of a major terrorist attack," he said, adding that crews reported the system functioned well.

"So while there would have been quite a lot of ramping across the city, [paramedics] were pretty happy the crooker patients got dealt with quite quickly."

Asthma Foundation Victoria chief executive Robin Ould said he would write to Ms Hennessy calling for an action plan to deal with future asthma events. But asthma sufferers also needed to ensure they were managing their condition, Mr Ould said. "We need to make people aware of what their own triggers are so they can manage their asthma." 

- 30 -

==========

[Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]

Thunderstorm asthma

Thunderstorm asthma is the triggering of an asthma attack by environmental conditions directly caused by a local thunderstorm. During a thunderstorm, pollen grains can absorb moisture and then burst into much smaller fragments with these fragments being easily dispersed by wind. While larger pollen grains are usually filtered by hairs in the nose, the smaller pollen fragments are able to pass through and enter the lungs, triggering the asthma attack.[1][2][3][4]

There have been reports of thunderstorms causing widespread asthma attacks across city populations which have overwhelmed emergency services and hospitals and led to deaths. The phenomenon was first recorded in Melbourne, Australia in 1987, and since then there have been further reports of widespread thunderstorm asthma in Wagga Wagga in Australia; London and Birmingham in the United Kingdom; Naples, Italy,[5] Atlanta, Georgia, USA,[6] and southwest Iran.[7]

It has been found 95% of those that were affected by thunderstorm asthma had a history of hayfever, and 96% of those people had tested positive to grass pollen allergies, particularly rye grass.[8] As a rye grass pollen grain can hold up to 700 of these tiny starch granules, measuring 0.6 to 2.5 um, which is small enough to reach the lower airways in the lung.[9] Even so, the conditions surrounding thunderstorm asthma are so strong that a number of those affected during a thunderstorm asthma outbreak may have never experienced an asthma attack before.[10]

On November 21, 2016, Melbourne experienced another asthma epidemic during and after a local thunderstorm that overwhelmed the ambulance system and some local hospitals. Four people died after experiencing respiratory issues during the thunderstorm.[11]

References

Suphioglu C. Thunderstorm Asthma Due to Grass Pollen. Int Arch Allergy Immunol 1998;116:253–260. doi:10.1159/000023953
Taylor, P.E. & Jonsson, H. Thunderstorm asthma. Curr Allergy Asthma Rep (2004) 4: 409. doi:10.1007/s11882-004-0092-3
Dabrera G, Murray V, Emberlin J, Ayres JG, Collier C, Clewlow Y, Sachon P. Thunderstorm asthma: an overview of the evidence base and implications for public health advice. QJM. 2013 Mar;106(3):207-17. doi: 10.1093/qjmed/hcs234. PMID 23275386
D'Amato G, Vitale C, D'Amato M, Cecchi L, Liccardi G, Molino A, Vatrella A, Sanduzzi A, Maesano C, Annesi-Maesano I. Thunderstorm-related asthma: what happens and why. Clin Exp Allergy. 2016 Mar;46(3):390-6. doi: 10.1111/cea.12709. PMID 26765082
D'Amato, G., Liccardi, G. and Frenguelli, G. (2007), Thunderstorm-asthma and pollen allergy. Allergy, 62: 11–16. doi:10.1111/j.1398-9995.2006.01271.x
Grundstein A, Sarnat SE, Klein M, Shepherd M, Naeher L, Mote T, Tolbert P. Thunderstorm associated asthma in Atlanta, Georgia. Thorax. 2008 Jul;63(7):659-60. doi: 10.1136/thx.2007.092882. PMID 18587040
Forouzan A, Masoumi K, Haddadzadeh Shoushtari M, Idani E, Tirandaz F, Feli M, Assarehzadegan MA, Asgari Darian A. An overview of thunderstorm-associated asthma outbreak in southwest of Iran. J Environ Public Health. 2014;2014:504017. doi: 10.1155/2014/504017. PMID 25093023
"What is thunderstorm asthma? - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)". Abc.net.au. Retrieved 2016-11-23.
Peter Dockrill (2015-08-21). "Thunderstorm asthma is a real thing that's killed 2 people in Australia". ScienceAlert.com. Retrieved 2016-11-23.
Reed Alexander and James Griffiths (November 23, 2016). "'Thunder asthma:' Deadly illness caused by freak weather". CNN. Retrieved November 23, 2016.
"'Thunderstorm asthma': Four people now believed dead, could have been more, minister says" ABC News, 23 November 2016. Accessed 23 November 2016.

"Infinite Acres" / a solid with Finite Volume and Infinite Surface / you can fill it with This Much olive oil, but you can never buy enough paint to paint it

Sound ON / FULL SCREEN mode

A recent post was my preliminary design sketch for the USA's Wars Without End Memorial in Washington D.C. This is the 15th year of continuous warfare in Afghanistan and Iraq involving USA military (and intelligence) personnel. Both wars were declared by President George W. Bush, and have continued throughout the 8-year presidency of Barack Obama. 

Barring some kind of "November/December/January Miracle," warfare involving US military personnel will continue when the presidency of Donald Trump begins on 20 January 2017.

All previous USA wars, however protracted, ended. 

But so far as we can tell or test, these are America's first and only Wars Without End. We can clearly date the starts of the War in Afghanistan and the War in Iraq.

But there is no End in sight, for either war. (If you can stand on a chair and see an End to either or both wars, please Leave A Comment. Please provide details more substantive than Wishin' and Hopin'.)

My design for the Memorial uses a mathematical solid with a strange property: It has a Finite Volume (e.g., for filling it with liquid), but has an Infinite Surface (i.e., you can never buy enough paint to paint its outside). The name of this odd solid is, alternatively, Gabriel's Horn or Torricelli's Trumpet. (The Archangel Gabriel blows this magic horn to announce Judgment Day.)

Some years ago I saw the above film and -- well, I was smote. It was astonishing enough to encounter this strange solid, but the math that defined it was comfortably within my modest comprehension of the differential and integral calculus.

At that time, I couldn't find this cartoon film on the Internet. But I was so astonished by this clear explanation of what surely (to calculus dumpkopfs) must be an impossible object that, via e-mail, I asked permission of the film's author to post it. And Professor Melvin Hendrikson of Purdue University (Indiana USA) graciously granted his permission.

Professor Hendrikson explains the rest of this magic far better and more entertainingly than I could.

The Wars Without End Memorial post's nature was military and political, and Vleeptron will have more to say about the implications and consequences of America's Wars Without End.

This animated cartoon explains the quite simple math behind this strange object. (It must be quite simple, because I understand it.)

Final Score, Blue's first loss / NOT basketball this time!

Click to enlarge maybe.

preliminary design for Wars Without End Memorial, Washington D.C. / Veterans Day and Remembrance Day / In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Click to enlarge.

Eventually -- many years after the USA military skeedaddled (diddimaued) out of Vietnam in 1975 -- a very slow, reticent realization materialized like unwanted fog upon the spaces reserved for the great monuments of my hometown, Washington D.C. Somewhere between 52,000 and 58,000 members of the U.S. military had been killed, had died from combat, during the U.S. phase of a war that the other side had been fighting continuously since around 1924 -- first against France which possessed Indochina as a rubber plantation colony, and then, after France was defeated in the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, against the United States, which took over colonial possession of the Southern half of Indochina.

North Vietnam belonged to the anti-colonial Communist/Nationalist forces, and South Vietnam was a sovereign protectorate of the United States, which shored up its corrupt fragility first with U.S. Army Special Forces (the Green Berets) and then increasingly with large numbers of conventional ground, naval and air forces.

Now it was finally time to add a Vietnam War Memorial to the enshrined spaces of Washington D.C.

A competition was held for designs, and the winner was 21-year-old architecture student Maya Lin. I've seen thousands of photographs and television images of it, but despite DC's being my hometown, I've never been to the Vietnam War Memorial. 

Vietnam was my war, I was drafted and served two years (the draftee's absolute minimum) during it, high school pals were killed and died in ghastly ways -- I don't want to see any names I know on the Black Wall. I have no feelings for the public memorial of that war.

I felt ever since that Vietnam had one great benefit: It taught the American people and their decision-making elite to be very cautious about starting or declaring new overseas wars. Maybe so cautious that Vietnam would be our last fucked-up, liars' and scoundrels' overseas war, our last massive spilling of human blood for great lies.

I'm smart. But on that score, I was naive. George W. Bush waited just long enough for the memory of the Vietnam War to have blurred into Rambo movies and TV show cliches, waited just enough time so that the majority of Americans had no direct and certainly no clear memories of the Vietnam War.

And then Bush, as Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. military, declared war on Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, soon followed by our invasion of Iraq, ruled by the despot Saddam Hussein.

(Previously, Hussein had been the USA's pet Mad Dog, because the USA hated its neighbor and traditional enemy, Iran, much worse.)

The U.S. military and intelligence community have been waging Bush's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for 15 years -- the longest wars in United States history.

By comparison, the USA declared war on Japan, Germany and Italy -- the Axis powers -- in the week following Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. 

The last Axis holdout, Japan, surrendered in August 1945, after the U.S. Army Air Corps dropped two fission bombs on the cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The USA's war against the Axis powers -- which resulted in unconditional surrender -- lasted 3 years, 8 months and 9 days.

Above -- because 15 years, with no end in sight, is about time -- is my preliminary sketch of Washington D.C.'s Memorial to our Wars Without End.

The Finnish architect Eero Saarinen's world-famous Gateway Arch (St. Louis, Missouri) takes the shape of the mathematical curve known as the catenary. The symbolism is that, after Jefferson's purchase from France of a huge area of land west of the Mississippi River, St. Louis became the Gateway to the new American West.

Maya Lin's Vietnam War Memorial (to howls of controversy) is a long, stark, ominous black wall with the names of nearly all American combat deaths engraved. (As new military deaths are identified and confirmed with the cooperation of the government of Vietnam, more names are still being engraved on the Memorial.)

My preliminary design for The Wars Without End Memorial takes the shape of a geometrical object known variously as Gabriel's Horn or Toricelli's Trumpet.

It has an odd property.

Notice the liquid fill tube at top left.

If you pump liquid into this tank, eventually it tops off -- the tank can only hold a finite volume of liquid.

Having filled the tank, now we want to paint its outside. We "guesstimate" how many cans of paint this will require, drive a big truck to the paint store, return with many paint cans, and begin painting the outside of the tank (starting at the high end at left).

(A) Eventually we run out of paint. We return to the paint store and fill our truck with many many more cans of paint, and continue to paint the tank.

(B) Return to (A).

We can never buy enough paint to finish painting the exterior of the tank. Gabriel's Horn is a solid which has Finite Volume, but Infinite Surface.

(I am indebted to a film, "Infinite Acres," for acquainting me with this bizarre object. I have subsequently secured, via e-mail, the professor-creator's permission to blog about it.)

My Memorial never ends because its descending curve gets narrower and narrower, unto infinitessimal height. Thus its right-side asymptote goes on and on unto infinity.

Please Leave a Comment about my preliminary design for the United States of America's Wars Without End Memorial for Washington D.C.

These Wars have gone on through most of George W. Bush's presidency, and for the entirety of Barack Obama's presidency.

On 20 January 2017, Donald Trump will take the oath to become the next President of the United States.

Leave A Comment if you know How or When President Trump will end the USA's Wars Without End.

Oh, that red color in the tank and the paint cans is human blood. In an hourly ritual -- like the Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier across the Potomac River -- an Honor Squad climbs a ladder to the fill pipe, and pours more cans of human blood into the Memorial. Eventually the tank will fill up, because there's only a finite amount of human blood, no matter how long the wars last. Eventually the human race -- which, though very populous, is Finite -- eventually our side and our enemies run out of dead people and blood.

But another Honor Squad continuously paints the exterior with human blood. And they can never stop. The Wars Without End Memorial in my hometown, Washington DC, has an infinite surface.

Leave A Comment.

==================

Oh ... Friday 11 November is

* Remembrance Day in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth nations

* Veterans Day in the United States.

Veterans, and those who wish to honor veterans, wear a red Poppy. I'm a vet, I'm wearing my Poppy. If you want to wear a Poppy today, go to any American Legion or Veterans of Foreign Wars post, make a modest donation, pin your Poppy on your chest.

The Poppy is the symbol because of this poem, by a Canadian WWI medical officer. His friend had just been killed in Flanders.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

-- John McCrae

It's this date because in 1918, largely by accident, the generals agreed that the guns would fall silent on the Western Front (France, Belgium) on the 11th Hour of the 11th Day of the 11th Month. For much of the 20th Century, the holiday was first called Armistice Day.

Pussy Riot's latest hit: "Make America Great Again" / Happy Erection Day!

national vote-swapping aims to keep spoiler candidates from aiding Trump

Copyright © 2016 by Ron Bizer

Click to enlarge.

Reuters
UK wire service
Monday 7 November 2016

 

U.S. voters look to game election system by 'trading' ballots

by Joseph Ax | NEW YORK

 

Sophy Warner wanted to vote for third-party U.S. presidential candidate Jill Stein. But she worried that her ballot, cast in the swing state of Ohio, might help Republican Donald Trump capture the White House.
 
Through the website "Trump Traders," the 20-year-old biology student at Cleveland State University got in touch with Marc Baluda, 44, a Republican corporate lawyer in California who opposes Trump's candidacy and planned to vote for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

The two strange bedfellows made a deal worthy of congressional horse-trading: Warner would vote for Clinton in Ohio, where polls show a tight race, while Baluda would cast a ballot for the Green Party candidate Stein in California, where Clinton is assured of winning the state's electoral votes.

Tens of thousands of voters, the vast majority seeking to prevent a Trump presidency, have signed up on "vote-swapping" exchanges in advance of Tuesday's Election Day. There is no way to verify the ballots are cast as agreed, though some people are taking "ballot selfies" in states where such photos are legal.

The swaps take advantage of a unique feature of U.S. presidential elections. The winner is decided not by the national popular vote. Rather, the outcome depends on what are known as electoral votes, which are awarded to the victor of each state's presidential election, with rare exception.

The overall electoral vote winner becomes president, and the national contest thus often comes down to votes in a handful of states.

"Swing states" such as Ohio are hotly contested because their voters can swing either to Republicans or Democrats year after year and so play a decisive role. By contrast, pollsters view states such as California as reliably Democratic.

40,000 MATCHES

Trump Traders had matched 40,000 voters as of Monday, according to co-founder John Stubbs. Although that may be a small fraction of the electorate, a few hundred votes could make a difference in a state where the race is close.

The practice appears to be legal. In 2007, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that swapping votes is a protected form of free speech, even if some disagreed with the tactic.

Vote trading first gained attention in 2000, when some voters sought to ensure Ralph Nader, the Green Party candidate, did not siphon off enough support from Democrat Al Gore to hand the election to Republican George W. Bush.

The so-called "Nader Traders" failed when Bush famously won the election after capturing Florida by only 537 votes. Nader drew more than 97,000 votes there.

Stein and Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson together are drawing nearly 7 percent in opinion polls, far more than normal for those parties and enough to raise the specter of another Nader-style outcome in 2016.

The digital exchanges seek to solve a quadrennial conundrum for voters "trapped" in one of the 40 or so noncompetitive states: how can I make my vote count?

For supporters of third-party candidates like Stein and Johnson who have almost no chance of capturing electoral votes, however, all that matters is their raw national totals.

That difference is what allows the type of vote trading that occurs on Trump Traders and #NeverTrump, a mobile app launched this fall by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Amit Kumar.

"Living in California, our votes aren't that important in determining who wins," he said in a phone interview.

Kumar said the app has been downloaded 20,000 times, with around 8,000 active users.

Trump Traders' Stubbs, a Republican, said technology advances since 2000, including social networking sites and mobile phones, made vote-trading exponentially easier.

For Republican voters like Baluda, even saying aloud that he is supporting Clinton is difficult. But he said he had no regrets about trying to maximize the power of his vote by commoditizing it.

"Votes do matter, and Floridians found that out 16 years ago," he said.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Howard Goller)

- 30 -

today's nostalgia on the Big Screen in Altekackerhaus / Patience & Prudence "Tonight You Belong To Me" on Perry Como / can i get some form of cannabis in this place

about 2 hours ago Tiffani wheeled me into the social room of Altekackershaus, and this was on the Big Screen to amuse us Senior Citizens, to waft us to our Happy Place, and keep us Happy.

Somebody please wipe this drool off my mouth.

Diabetics and Perverts are prohibited by Federal Law from viewing this video. For Nostalgia Purposes Only.

Goodman Ace (of the radio smash "Easy Aces") wrote the jokes. Note the last joke, about the Fun Side of taking physical liberties with minors (or minors taking physical liberties with Perry Como).

The food here sucks.

PLAY IT FULLSCREEN MODE

Crummy Old Wine Dept: Walk-in-the-Park solution to Volume of Great Halvah Pyramid of Ciudad Vleeptron / also Sweetest Treat in Pindi

Click to enlarge blackboard.
 ==============

"Math is hard!"

........-- Talking Barbie

if u have an extremely rare Talking Barbie, Do Not Take It Out Of Its Box, store in Safe Deposit Box, wait. Eventually you can sell it and be Rich. 

(Also Barbie's Very Much Younger Australian Surfer bf, Blaine, for whom she ditched wrinkled old Ken. But just for a few months, then she went back to wrinkled old Ken, and Mattel stopped manufacturing Blaine the Surfer Boy.)

==============

When you take the Zeta Beam to the Akira Kurasawa ZetaDrome in Ciudad Vleeptron, the first place you'll want to go via free jitney to CV UnderWay is Fudge Tunnel station, right next to the fabulous Club Drek, whose music acts do not discriminate between Living Artists & Dead Musicians.

But every tourist to CV wants to take a selfie at The Great Halvah Pyramid (nearest stops: Greune, Rue Jarry), one of the Seven Wonders of Galaxy Dwingeloo-2. This awesome pyramid is constructed entirely of extremely thin squares of halvah.

Above, only slightly modified, is some Crummy Old Vleeptron Wine: Central American Rockwell's Solution to the ancient mystery of the Volume of any pyramid made of very thin slices of halvah.

(Central American Rockwell is Vleeptron's and Planet Mongo's Prime Contractor in Deep Space & Intergalactic activities.)

How Old is this Crummy Wine? Well, here's a clue -- the 1-1 Final Score by Team USA vs. Italy in semifinals of World Cup Football ... which was particularly amazing because Team USA had only just learned the Rules of this alien un-American game 1 month earlier.

What follows is all just 1st Year integral calculus, a Walk in the Park for any female (except Talking Barbie) or any male willing to wake at 4 am, study every page, do every problem (including Optionals), and go to bed the next 2 am to get a passing grade on the midterm exam.

Follow it step by step until you come to The Miracle at the bottom. Say "Wow!" and continue on to The Halvah Pyramid Volume Solution.

=====================

Earthers think the Turks invented halvah, but actually halvah was invented by the vanished jungle people of Planet Hoon, the Vodeeodo. I brought some back on the Zeta Beam, then travelled back in time in my Heathkit TM-212, and gave it to a Turkish guy in 1050 AD.

The Vodeeodo considered Halvah a Sacred Food, and only Royalty and the Priests were allowed to eat it. If they caught an Ordinary Guy eating halvah, they would immediately seize and disembowel him, and eat any undissolved halvah they found in his intestines.

They made halvah into square sheets of such incredible thinness that when you put a piece on your tongue, Taste was the only sensation -- your tongue and teeth could detect no mass or bulk, there was no chewing required, it just melted into deliciousness on your tongue.

Eventually they began building their Sacred Pyramids by stacking gazillions of incredibly thin halvah sheets one on top of the other. This Fairly Small Flat-Top Pyramid is the only one left; travellers and tourists long ago ate all the other Pyramids.

Given such a Pyramid built of incredibly thin square halvah sheets, how can we derive the Volume Formula which won Jim the pizza slices?

If the LENGTH of a side of each square sheet is s units, then its AREA is s² units squared.

Each sheet is so incredibly thin that it's impossible to assign a number to its thickness, so we just call the thickness dx .

Make no mistake -- dx IS really a dimension, it's Not Nothing. But if we insisted on assigning it a number like 0.000000000000000002 units, it would be cumbersome and unwieldy -- and still too large a number to accurately express the incredible thinness of a halvah slice.

So the VOLUME of each sheet of halvah is

s² x dx

or

s² dx units cubed

Now if

h = the height of a Pyramid

b = the length of a side of its square base

a = the length of a side of its square roof
we want to derive the simple Volume Formula

V = (h/3)(a² + ab + b²)

Step 1. Kick the Pyramid and knock it over on its side.

Step 2. Skewer the centers of the bottom and top halvah sheets with a long, incredibly thin knitting needle. If you want to call this knitting needle the x-Axis, that's okay with me and Rene Descartes.

Now we want to juggle the measured lengths a, b and h to find the equation

y = f(x)

for the straight line from the midpoint of the side of the base to the midpoint of the side of the roof.

With this equation, no matter which halvah sheet we choose, we'll know exactly what the length of a side of it is at that height of the Pyramid: 2y units

And that sheet's AREA will be (2y)² = 4y² units squared

and that sheet's VOLUME will be 4y² dx units cubed.

If we could Sum the Volumes of All These halvah sheets, we'd know the VOLUME of the whole Pyramid.

That's what that screwy Integral Symbol is -- a Sum. That's why Leibniz made it look like a stretched out S.

We're going to Sum the Volumes of all halvah sheets
from the Pyramid's Base (x = 0) to its Roof (x = h) .

Get a Big Bottle of Extra Strength Aspirin. (Canadians may use Over-The-Counter Aspirin with Halvah. Americans need a doctor's prescription for all medications containing Halvah.)

The y equation isn't too hard to figure out. Things start to get algebraically jiggy when we multiply it by itself to find y² . Now take the first 3 aspirin.

Down by the Smiley Face, we Evaluate The Definite Integral.

The Face Is Smiling because the Lower Limit x = 0 . Because each of the 3 terms contains a factor x , and 0 times anything = 0 , this effectively halves the Algebra Nightmare we have to endure. We only have to evaluate this nasty expression for the Upper Limit x = h .

Four lines below, A Wonderful Algebra Miracle Happens, and the whole verkakte mess collapses nicely into the simple Volume formula. Please do not eat the Pyramid.

P.S. If you don't kick the Pyramid over on its side, then you end up with

x = f(y)

which is perverted and Against The Law, and I don't know how to evaluate stuff like that.


posted by Vleeptron Dude | 19:41
2 Comments:

Blogger Abbas Halai said...

    halva in my language and culture has been synonymized with any sweet dessert/confectionery.

    hmmm well wait, now that i think about it, it hasn't but theres a very specific type of sweet that its synonymous with and i don't know the english translation for it. i'm not a big fan of most halva's but i do have a favourite. its barfi that you get in rawalpindi.

    13:49  
Blogger Bob Merkin said...

    okay soon as i get thru customs at Pindi Airport, I buy the barfi, eat it -- and then promptly drop dead from diabetic sugar overload. that halvah stuff man that is so sweet that my endocrinologist doesn't even put it on the Forbidden Foods list, but lists it on another page: How A Diabetic Can Commit Suicide.

    (But maybe if I can find an incredibly thin sheet of barfi, just dx units thick, I'll give it a try. How much harm can that do?)

    DID YOU SEE MY REVISED IMAGE? It's my Homage to TEAM USA, which is still Mathematically Alive in the World Cup after tying Italy the other day. "Mathematically Alive" is a charitable way that the ESPN World Cup commentators can remain in Reality Denial for a few more days.

    The Agence-Vleeptron Presse Sports Team will shortly have more to say about Team USA, which Americans pay about as much attention to as they pay to Vleeptron's free calculus lessons.

    But the guy making that super kick in the game against Italy is named McBride or MacBride. He might even be an American, who knows, stranger things have happened. I will check this out. In the stands is a largely nude fan who painted himself as our Flag.

oh boy are you Clinton voters in for Big Posthumous Surprise

 

Click for bigger Hell

Wikipedia:
Mortal sins (Latin: peccata mortalia) in Catholic theology are wrongful acts that condemn a person to Hell after death if unforgiven. These sins are considered "mortal" because they constitute a rupture in a person's link to God's saving grace: the person's soul becomes "dead", not merely weakened. A mortal sin is not necessarily a sin that cannot be repented, unlike an eternal sin. Thus, even after a mortal sin has been committed, there is a chance for repentance. [more details at wiki.]

=============================
 
The San Diego (California USA) Union-Tribune
daily broadsheet 
Wednesday 2 November 2016

Catholic parish's bulletin says Democratic voters are doomed to hell, Clinton is satanic

by Joshua Stewart

Between requests for prayers for the sick and a notice for an upcoming chastity luncheon, a newsletter from a Catholic church in Old Town that doubles as an election-day polling site included a flier that told parishioners they’ll go to hell if they vote for Democrats.

Two Sundays later, the message had changed: Satan was working through former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The  Sunday 16 October bulletin from the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church was stuffed with a flyer written in both English and Spanish that cited five legislative policies — support for abortion, same-sex marriage, euthanasia, human cloning, and embryonic stem cell research — that will doom a politician and their supporters to eternal damnation.

“It is a mortal sin to vote Democrat … immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell,” the flyer said. It cited the five public policy issues from the “Voters Guide for Serious Catholics” and said that Democrats violate each of them, while Republicans cross  none.

The political messages continued as early voting began and the election drew closer. An article in the 30 October church bulletin claimed that Clinton is influenced by Satan.

The bulletin took a quote from a 2015 speech by Clinton out of context to make it appear that through Satanic intervention the Democratic nominee, using techniques from trailblazing community organizer Saul Alinsky, was telling Christians to change their religious beliefs to support abortion.

“The devil does this through tactics outlined by Saul Alinsky with the outcome as Hillary Clinton stated ‘And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed,’ to draw us away from God’s teachings regarding the sanctity of life to those of the world and its prince,” the bulletin said.

Clinton, speaking at the Women in the World Summit, was actually talking about eliminating cultural barriers that prevent girls from attending elementary school and women from attending college, as well as obstacles that stand between enforcement of domestic violence laws and access to reproductive and maternal healthcare.

Lawyers who study churches and other nonprofit organizations said the statements violate regulations that prevent tax-exempt groups from speaking in support or against political candidates.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego on Wednesday said the messages in the flier and bulletin do not reflect Catholic teaching or diocese policies, are inappropriate, and that voters should use their conscience to determine which candidates to support.

“It’s not a mortal sin to vote for Democrats, number one. And number two, the church doesn’t take positions on this, and we’re not going to,” diocese spokesman Kevin Eckery said.

In a speech Tuesday at the Center for Catholic Thought and Culture at the University of San Diego, Bishop Robert McElroy stressed the importance both for his faith and for the country of religious leaders like himself staying out of candidate elections.

“I speak to you tonight as a bishop who is part of a long tradition in Catholic episcopal leadership in the United States which holds that both the Church and society are best served when bishops refrain from publicly endorsing or favoring, either directly or indirectly, specific candidates in partisan elections,” a transcript of his address says.

The diocese said the flier was not authorized by the parish, but it was somehow inserted into the 16 October bulletin.

“For all I know someone thought that they were doing a service,” by putting it into the bulletin, Eckery said. “The pastor said it was not something he had reviewed or approved.”

In his homily three weeks before the flier appeared in bulletins the church’s pastor, the Rev. Richard Perozich, discussed those same five points from the flier and how they’re relevant in this upcoming election but didn’t mention political parties, candidates, or damnation.

“In the church, we have what we call the five non-negotiables, things that are most important, and they’re around life issues. There’s life, from conception to natural death. There’s marriage and sexuality, embryonic stem cell research, cloning and euthanasia. When we vote, we don’t vote for candidates who support these things, even if they support other things that we really like,” said Perozich, according to a recording of the Sept. 25 homily posted on the church’s website.

Eckery said Perozich was not available for comment.

Francine Busby, the head of San Diego County Democrats, said she saw the flier and thought it was absurd to the point it didn’t seem like something the faith she grew up in would publish.

“My initial reaction was that this was extreme and completely over the top in the accusations,” she said. “I thought it was important to bring it to the attention to the diocese, just as a friend. I know that they didn’t mean it. … Clearly this was something that the diocese would never ever approve.”

While the bulletin cites “The Voters Guide for Serious Catholics” from El Cajon-based Catholic Answers Press to claim that voting for a Democrat results in eternal damnation, the guide references neither Democrats nor Republicans, and says voting by political party is an ineffective way to align with Catholic teachings.

“Do not just vote based on your political party affiliation, your earlier voting habits, or your family’s voting tradition,” the guide says. “Years ago, these may have been trustworthy ways to determine whom to vote for, but today they are often not reliable. You need to look at the stands each candidate takes. This means that you may end up casting votes for more than one party.”

The Clinton-as-Satan comment was in an article from the 30 October bulletin headlined “Voting Catholic” that discusses contemporary issues that Catholics have long stood against like abortion and same-sex marriage, plus ones that Eckery said are not a part of Catholic teachings and out of line with diocesan policy.

The article, which was written in the bulletin and not an insert, listed 10 “sins” that have “enslaved” American society created by politicians, judges and the voters who support them.

Besides long-standing matters the church has opposed, it also spoke against the “importation of immigrants whose religious values are to eradicate every belief except those of their own prophet and god, and to impose this on America” and public assistance for immigrants adding to the public debt “while paying Americans to sit home and not work.” The article also criticized “regulating the right to bear arms for free citizens in a nation where criminals and terrorists will always have weapons, and where government is now in opposition to the citizens.”

The article goes on to criticize clergy and politicians who think Christians who are concerned about these issues are homophobic or Islamophobic. “We are called by politicians such as Hillary Clinton, deplorables,” it said.

This article does not reflect the Catholic church’s stance, Eckery said.

“There’s no Catholic teaching to national debt, there’s no Catholic teaching on the Second Amendment. Those are civil issues, not Catholic issues,” he said. “It doesn’t reflect official church teaching. We’re a welcoming church, welcoming to immigrants.”

Eckery said the article came from within the parish, but it’s not clear who the author was, or who approved it for the bulletin.

Legal experts said that flier and bulletin run afoul of U.S. federal Internal Revenue Service regulations that prohibit nonprofit organizations, including churches, from backing or opposing political campaigns as a condition of receiving a tax-free status.

“This is absolutely blatant. I would use that word. It is a blatant violation on the ban on campaign activity,” said Richard Schmalbeck, a law professor at Duke University who specializes in nonprofit regulations. “It’s among the worst. Really, when you’re threatening eternal damnation, there really aren’t bigger guns than that.”

But the infraction couldn't be fairly blamed on the church if it were inserted by a rogue actor, he said.

Bruce Hopkins, a law professor at the University of Kansas, said he didn’t think that the flier about Democrats is a problem because it mentions a party, not a specific candidate. The 30 October bulletin — the one that says Satan is working through Clinton — is an issue, he said.

“I think it is a problem, as a matter of law, when you have her mentioned, specifically, that close to an election day,” Hopkins said. “It’s an obvious criticism of her in the context of the campaign.”

They both also said it’s unlikely that the IRS will investigate or impose any sort of sanction, however.

“The IRS these days is not enforcing much in this area,” Hopkins said. “It doesn’t have the resources, and its been criticized so much on (Capitol) Hill and elsewhere that it's kind of skittish about moving in certain areas, and this is one of them.”

When there have been sanctions, they’ve been mild, Schmalbeck said. In 2004 the IRS audited All Saints Church in Pasadena for a sermon that depicted a hypothetical debate between Jesus and then-Sen. John Kerry and President George W. Bush. It didn’t say specifically who to vote for or against, but it could be inferred, and compared to Immaculate Conception, it was much milder, he said.

The IRS investigated, found that the Pasadena church had violated regulations for non-profits and gave it a warning, Schmalbeck said.

Churches aren’t entirely sidelined from the political process. The IRS says they can hold candidate forums and publish election guides and organize voter registration drives, but their efforts must be “conducted in a non-partisan manner.”

The Old Town parish has hosted a polling site for the last four elections, and the flier is not a problem for Tuesday’s general election because voting will take place in a hall adjacent to the church and the polling area will be politically neutral, county spokesman Michael Workman said.

Approximately 250 houses of worship across San Diego County are used for polling places, amounting to around one of every six voting locations. Of those, all but around 10 are Christian churches. There are also at least two synagogues and one Buddhist temple used for voting, but it does not appear that any mosques are used.

The morality of either political party is far from agreed upon among the Catholic clergy and lay people, and likewise, there are Catholics in all levels of government across party lines. There have been two priests in Congress — both were Democrats. There have likewise been two Catholics in the executive branch, Vice President Joe Biden and President John F. Kennedy, also Democrats. Also, Rep. Juan Vargas, D-San Diego, and California Governor Jerry Brown, also a Democrat, both studied to become Jesuit priests.

In 1989 then-San Diego Bishop Leo Maher became the first in the country to deny the Eucharist to a politician when the sacrament was refused to state Senate candidate Lucy Killea. She won her race, and years later worshiped with Episcopalians.
 

In 2004, John Kerry was the last Catholic to receive the Democratic Party’s nomination for president and while he was campaigning he was denied communion because of his abortion rights stance. Besides him and Kennedy in 1960, the only other Catholic to receive the nomination from one of the two major parties was Al Smith in 1928, a Democrat and three-time New York governor. Smith is still a figure in presidential politics as the namesake of a charity dinner where the two candidates appear together to roast each other and themselves to raise money for Catholic organizations that assist children.

 

Critics weighed in on Clinton and Trump’s comedic speeches, giving them both boos and praise, but Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of the Diocese of New York, laughed at them both.

Twitter: @jptstewart
joshua.stewart@sduniontribune.com
(619) 293-1841

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