Did You Know.....

[Warph]

....that if we were strictly following both the letter of the U.S. Constitution and the intentions of those who wrote it, we would now have 9,380 members of the House of Representatives instead of 435.

That is because the Constitution speaks of one representative for every thirty thousand citizens to insure a direct and personal connection between congressmen and their constituents—in order to achieve truly democratic involvement. This point was so important to George Washington that he required a change from forty thousand down to thirty thousand on the last day of the Constitutional Convention:

"The minimal size of a House district was reduced from 40,000 to 30,000 on the very last day of the Convention, and only then with an unprecedented direct endorsement from George Washington, speaking from the chair, who rightly foresaw that many Americans would be disturbed by the large number of constituents each member of the House would represent. No constitutional requirement limits the size of the House to 435 representatives (as set in 1911), which makes it a smaller body than the British House of Commons. (....Prof. Jack Norman Rakove)

"Based on the count in 2000 of America's population, 9,380 is the number of representatives Congress would be permitted to create. The apportionment following the 2000 census left each House member representing an average of 646,952 people. The current size of the House, 435 seats, dates to a 1911 law that authorized 433 representatives, with room for two more when Arizona and New Mexico were admitted as states. The House eventually swelled to 437 seats with the additions of Alaska and Hawaii, but was adjusted back to 435. ...

"The first House of Representatives was to include as many as sixty-five members. Madison urged that the number be doubled, as it 'was too small a number to represent the whole inhabitants of the U. States; They would not possess enough of the confidence of the people, and wd. be too sparsely taken from the people, to bring with them all the local information which would be frequently wanted.' Others called for fewer members, with Roger Sherman of Connecticut urging fifty on the grounds that 'the great distance they will have to travel will render their attendance precarious and will make it difficult to prevail on a sufficient number of fit men to undertake the service.' After the first apportionment, which followed the 1790 census, the House was expanded to 105 seats, with each seat representing about 33,000 inhabitants as counted for apportionment purposes.

.....Seth Lipsky, the author of "The Citizen's Constitution: An Annotated Guide"

[Warph]

.....that Beer and Ale are regarded as more or less synonymous in the modern world, but they are very different things in Elizabethan times.

Beer is made from malt barley, water and hops and keeps well -- and the longer you keep it before it goes stale, the better it will be. Ale is not made with hops and has to be drunk quickly, within three days at the most; and is much less popular as a result. However, it can be made quickly to a great strength, using a high ratio of malt to water, and so it is still brewed. It is also regularly used by cooks in their sauces.

"The quantities drunk will no doubt surprise you. When entertaining the queen in 1577 Lord North orders 3,996 gallons of beer and 384 gallons of ale. The daily allowance for a man -- whether he be a servant or a nobleman -- in many large houses is a gallon of beer, and this is not a notional amount: people really do drink that much on a regular basis. And some of it is strong stuff. The best beer is called March beer, because that is when it is brewed, and if you drink a gallon of that in a day you will not be good for much else. In some places you find it called 'double beer', because double the amount of malt is used, which means it can be as intoxicating as wine. Small beer for the servants is made with less malt in relation to the quantity of water; it is therefore not as strong, nor does it keep for more than a month.

"As with wine, beer is stored in barrels and decanted into leather jacks or earthenware bottles as required. Bottled beer can be purchased in stoneware bottles bearing the face of a rotund bearded man. However, if you buy one, drink it quickly for the yeast in the beer will continue to ferment, the pressure will build up and the bottle will eventually explode. If you want to taste a good range, you can find them at any country fair. They have poetic names like their modern equivalents. William Harrison lists Huffcap, The Mad Dog, Father Whoreson, Angels' Food, Dragon's Milk, Go-by-the-Wall, Stride Wide and Lift-Leg. While these have the power to turn those who drink them into 'ale-knights who ... will not dare to stir from their stools but sit pinking with their narrow eyes, as half-sleeping, until the fume of their adversary be digested', beer and ale are not without their healthy connotations. Some beers are brewed with herbs, thereby containing the essence of something health-giving. Others are made into restorative possets, through the addition of spices and mille Alternatively you might want to add an egg yolk and sugar or honey, thereby making caudled ale, which is often recommended for the sick.

"Not everyone approves of English ale and beer. Mediterranean visitors in particular cannot understand the Englishman's love of it. Alessandro Magno writes in his journal that English beer is 'healthy but sickening to taste. It is cloudy like horse's urine and has husks on top.' Andrew Boorde is even more disparaging about Cornish ale: 'it will make you spew ... it is like wash that pigs have wrestled in'."

....Author: Ian Mortimer

[Diane Amberg]

Ya,but one didn't dare drink the water in most places, it was so polluted. So other drinks had to do. Gee, what a shame.

[Warph]

'I listened to Marilyn die': Private eye who bugged Monroe's house reveals details of her final hours in his diary 
Documents belong to notorious private detective Fred OtashHe claimed Monroe did have a sexual relationship with the brothersBy Leon Watson

Files shedding new light on Marilyn Monroe's last night alive and her relationships with President John F Kennedy and his younger brother Bobby have emerged 51 years after her death.

Documents belonging to the late Fred Otash, one of Hollywood's most notorious private detectives, were uncovered by his daughter Colleen after being found in a suburban storage unit.

According to Otash, who died in 1992, Monroe had a sexual relationship with the brothers and complained about being 'passed around like a piece of meat'.

'Passed around': President John F Kennedy and his brother Bobby (left) with Marilyn Monroe

Otash, who had installed bugging devices in her Los Angeles home, has long been derided by Kennedy admirers for his claims to have listened to a tape of Monroe and JFK in bed together.

But the notes published by The Hollywood Reporter magazine last week contained a detailed account of his bugging activities and what he heard.

Shortly before his death, he told an interviewer: 'They were having a sexual relationship ... but I don't want to get into the moans and groans.'

And in his notes, Otash claimed: 'I listened to Marilyn Monroe die.'

He recorded that on August 5 1962, she had a violent argument with the Kennedys and that she felt that she had been 'passed around like a piece of meat'.

The notes read: 'She was really screaming and they were trying to quiet her down.

'She's in the bedroom and Bobby gets the pillow and he muffles her on the bed to keep the neighbors from hearing. She finally quieted down and then he was looking to get out of there.'
Otash only found out she had died later on.

Notorious: Private detective Fred Otash (right) on the stand before a state legislative committee in Los Angeles about photographs he ordered several of his employees to take of actress Anita Ekberg

Marilyn Monroe singing Happy Birthday to the President at Madison Square Gardens, in New York, in May 1962, shortly before she died

At that point Otash was the most famous private eye in Hollywood and the first choice for any celebrity with a potential problem.
Otash, a former Los Angeles detective, had set up his own bureau in Hollywood where he specialised in 'fact-checking' for a celebrity gossip magazine called Confidential.

Among the stars he bugged was Rock Hudson, whose wife apparently confronted him about his homosexuality decades before the public knew he was gay and told him to 'grow out of it'.

Hudson, who died in 1985 aged 59 due to complications related to AIDS, had been considered one of the most desirable men of his day, starring alongside female screen icons such as Doris Day in classics such as 'Pillow Talk'.

His other files include information on Judy Garland and how in 1963 he cleaned her Beverly Hill apartment out of all the pills and alcohol she had stashed during her bitter split from third husband Sid Luft.

The late U.S. President John F Kennedy (left) and his wife, late Jacqueline Kennedy (right) riding in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas, moments before his assassination on November 22, 1963

Otash died in 1992 having been used as the inspiration for the shady PI played by Jack Nicholson in the Oscar-winning 1974 film Chinatown.

James Ellroy, the crime novelist and author of LA Confidential, who met Otash several times, turned his career into a novel, Shakedown, published online and is now writing the script for a television version.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, it was the negative portrayal of Otash in Ellroy's book that persuaded Colleen to search through her father's old records and make some of them public.

'I was very aggrieved,' she said. '[I thought]: what can we do to stop [Ellroy] from taking my father's life and turning it into just a horrible fictional depiction?'

The Otash notes published so far do not reveal what, if anything, the detective discovered when he searched Monroe's house and the tapes of the Hollywood star's alleged encounters with the Kennedys have never surfaced.
A red filing cabinet that contained Otash's most sensitive material was removed from his apartment by his lawyer after he collapsed from an apparent heart attack. Its contents were never seen again.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2338425/Marilyn-Monroe-death-Confession-inside-diary-Hollywoods-famous-private-detective-Fred-Otash.html#ixzz2Vqe6Bo8A
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[Warph]

...that:

[Warph]

....that on May 17, 1902, a Greek archeologist noticed precision gear wheels embedded in an ancient artifact of corroded bronze and wood. The device would come to be known as the Antikythera mechanism, the oldest known complex scientific instrument.

Discovered in 1900 on the wreck of an ancient Roman merchant vessel near the island of Antikythera, the 2000-year-old device was designed to calculate astronomical positions, predict eclipses, and calculate the timing of the ancient Olympics. It is now regarded as the world's first mechanical computer.

Enclosed in a wooden box roughly 30-cm tall and 20-cm wide, the mechanism contained more than 30 bronze gear wheels crafted with the precision and complexity of a modern clock.

Because of its condition, the mechanism wasn't investigated until 1951 when English physicist Derek J de Solla Price began studying it with x-rays. Price used the mechanism fragments to develop a model incorporating the ancient Metonic cycle of the sun and moon, which was key to understanding the device.

Recent use of 3-D x-ray and photography techniques have allowed researchers to see the gears in layers and study the fragments in greater detail to learn more about the mechanism's purpose and origin.

The mechanism could be from as early as 140 BC and is technically more complex than any known device for at least a millennium afterward. Months inscribed on the dials were identified as Corinthian, meaning it is likely from northwestern Greece or Syracuse in Sicily. Syracuse was also the home of Archimedes, a renowned ancient scientist and mathematician who later built similar devices.

The mechanism featured front and back output dials that predicted lunar and solar eclipses on the basis of Babylonian arithmetic-progression cycles. Included were dials using the Metonic cycle, a Saros eclipse-prediction dial, and a dial that followed the four-year cycle of the Olympiad and its associated Panhellenic Games.
The creators of the Antikythera mechanism took theories about how astronomical bodies move, and made a machine that would calculate them, which was a revolutionary idea. It is still being studied, and is now at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.

Below is a video of a working model of the Antikythera mechanism:

In 1900, a storm blew a boatload of sponge divers off course and forced them to take shelter by the tiny Mediterranean island of Antikythera. Diving the next day, they discovered a 2,000 year-old Greek shipwreck. Among the ship's cargo they hauled up was an unimpressive green lump of corroded bronze. Rusted remnants of gear wheels could be seen on its surface, suggesting some kind of intricate mechanism. The first X-ray studies confirmed that idea, but how it worked and what it was for puzzled scientists for decades. Recently, hi-tech imaging has revealed the extraordinary truth: this unique clockwork machine was the world's first computer. An array of 30 intricate bronze gear wheels, originally housed in a shoebox-size wooden case, was designed to predict the dates of lunar and solar eclipses, track the Moon's subtle motions through the sky, and calculate the dates of significant events such as the Olympic Games. No device of comparable technological sophistication is known from anywhere in the world for at least another 1,000 years. So who was the genius inventor behind it? And what happened to the advanced astronomical and engineering knowledge of its makers?

[Warph]

...that:

A Top Exorcist Sends 160,000 Demons Back to Hell.
ACLU, Bishop Schori File Lawsuits.

"So where am I supposed to put
all these guys? I swear, just when
you think you've got some living
space, they all move back home..."

So the Roman Catholic Church's top exorcist claims to have sent 160,000 demons back to hell. Now that's some strict bookkeeping, because I would have stopped counting after the first fifty or sixty. And no word on whether amnesty is in the works for some of the less belligerent types.

Father Gabriele Amorth, 88, who also heads the International Association of Exorcists, told The Sunday Times that he will ask Pope Francis to allow all priests the right to do exorcisms without the church's approval. According to the report, priests currently need special approval from their bishop to perform the rite and it is rarely granted.

"I will ask the pope to give all priests the power to carry out exorcisms, and to ensure priests are properly trained for these starting with the seminary. There's a huge demand for them," said Father Amorth.

He explained that he was inspired to make the request after watching Pope Francis perform what he insists was an exorcism on a man "possessed by four demons" in St. Peter's Square.

"The pope is also the Bishop of Rome, and like any bishop he is also an exorcist," Amorth reportedly told La Repubblica newspaper.

See?  Now this guy knows what he's talking about.  He's "head" of the International Association of Exorcists, which is harder to get into than the Teamsters.  I mean those blackballing bastards make you jump through so many hoops... have you ever seen the paperwork?  Reams of questionnaires, eyewitness testimony, a reference from at least two senior devils.  It's ridiculous, I tell you.  But OH the benefits.  Fifteen percent off every coffee at Starbuck's, you can fly Coach on any airline but Virgin, a bowling jacket, free dental...

Now here's another thing: Fr. Amorth says all bishops are exorcists.  Is this only in the RCC?  How about Orthodox bishops?  Anglican?  What about Bishop Schori, who believes possession is an alternative lifestyle?  Is exorcism a sin against diversity?   Can Fr. Amorth be sued for intolerance?

I think we should all be grateful to the Fr. Amorths of the world.  Anyone who does not believe in demons has never been to a midnight showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show or sat in traffic on the Long Island Expressway.  The more of those troublemakers we send back south of the border (and by border, I mean the one that divides terrestrial life from the nether regions, like Amsterdam), the better for property values.

Although we don't want them to be too successful.  The last thing we need is a bunch of unemployed exorcists bumming demons off of hyperactive high schoolers or Hollywood show runners.

...Father Belligerent

[Warph]

 
...that Swiss researchers have released futuristic designs for attachable modular aircraft that will allow passengers to board a plane at a railway station and disembark at their destination without ever setting foot in an airport.  EPFL says its Clip Air project is no flight of fancy. Jim Drury reports.

Clip Air brings air travel by train (2:35)

...that DNA extracted from cigarette butts and bubble gum found on the streets of Brooklyn is being used by artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg to create realistic portraits of anonymous New Yorkers. The artist says her project is designed to spark debate about the use - or potential misuse - of DNA profiling in society.

Artist stirs privacy debate with portraits from DNA

...that Researchers at the University of Tokyo are developing indoor projection technology that incorporates a sense of touch for interactive devices of the future. The system emits ultrasonic waves to generate pressure a user can feel and could one day render keyboards, smartphones, and even pens obsolete.

Researchers project the future of smart phones...
Published on Jul 1, 2013

[Diane Amberg]

 Warph,did you know that a  number of large airports do indeed have multi denominational Christian chapels for public use? Some have had them for many years...including Sky Harbor. Folks who fly a lot usually know about them. Imagine them being used by people on lay overs to a family funeral or on the way to see about loved ones who have died in a plane crash. Some even have chaplins.

[Warph]

How to Decipher a Social Security Number

...that each Social Security number has three parts, though the first is the most informative. The first three digits can tell you what geographical area the person had a connection to and when he received his number. The last two parts can help you judge whether a Social Security number is a real, valid number. While a person is still living, the Social Security Administration keeps other information confidential, but after a person dies, you can also find out a little more.


Instructions

#1
Compare the first three digits to the "Chart of SSN Assignments by State" on the Social Security Administration's website. If the person received her number before 1972, the state indicates the location of the office that issued her card. After 1972, the area number reflects the mailing address that the person used when he applied for his card.


#2
Check the Social Security Administration's current "High Group List" to see the highest group numbers issued for each area number. The two-digit group number follows the three-digit area number. However, group numbers don't run in normal numerical order. The Social Security Administration issues odd group numbers for each area from 01 to 09, then switches to even numbers starting with 10 and ending with 98. Then they start over with 02 and use the even numbers to 08, switching again to the odd numbers from 11 to 99.

The Social Security website shows the highest group numbers currently being issued for each area, so if someone gives you a Social Security number that's sequentially beyond that, you know it's fake. The final four digits are the serial numbers. They run in numerical order beginning with 0001. When someone in an area receives 9999, that area begins a new group number and begins again with a serial number of 0001.


#3
Check the Social Security Death Index if you suspect the number belongs to someone who died after 1962. The list is incomplete for people who died before 1962, but some numbers for those people may appear on the index as well. If the person has died, you can find her name, birth date, death date and place of death in the Social Security Death Index.