The theremin is perhaps the first truly electronic instrument. It is played without actually being touched. Instead, by moving one’s hands near the instrument, one changes the inductance of the circuitry and thus the resonant frequency, and so can control the pitch and the volume. It is not an easy instrument to master.
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I did not see the film Zero Dark Thirty (2012) about the mission that resulted in the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011, an action that many of president Obama’s supporters hailed as the finest moment of his presidency, showing his toughness in the face of Republican charges that Democrats are wimps. In fact, in the 2012 election, vice president Joe Biden adopted the slogan that thanks to president Obama, “General Motors is alive and Osama bin Laden is dead.”
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The internet is great for quickly spreading news all over the world. Unfortunately, it also makes it possible to spread false stories and I too have been burned by taking seriously stories that later turn out to be hoaxes. But how does one tell truth from fiction? One option is to simply wait. The more widespread a story becomes, the more likely it is that someone will investigate it and issue a debunking if warranted. But if you do feel the need to act on the story quickly, Pete Brown, a research fellow at the University of Oxford, supplies six ways for you to investigate it yourself.
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Ben Carson is under fire for saying that he “absolutely would not agree” with electing a Muslim as president. In the time-honored tradition of politicians confronted with their own words, he tries to make out that it did not mean what it clearly meant. It is the old reliable “taken out of context” ploy.
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Stephen Colbert takes stock of the current Republican campaign ads and finds them wanting and comes up with his own.
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The pest who will not go away Kim Davis is back in the news because she is being sued again by couples for altering the marriage licenses issued by her county. They have asked the federal judge to hold her once again in contempt for not following his order to refrain from interfering with the license issuing process.
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Regular readers know that from time to time I wander over to the website known as The Thinking Housewife, a kind of online salon where hostess Laura Wood presides over a Downton Abbeyish genteel world in which the atmosphere suggests people daintily eating biscuits and drinking tea out of fine china, all the while politely discussing how hard it is to get good help these days and how these ghastly foreigners are ruining the country. All the usual tropes of conservative right-wing ideology are lauded, feminism and homosexuality and socialism are seen as horrible evils, and traditional Catholicism is venerated to such an extent that pope Francis is seen a subversive, Commie, usurper anti-pope who should be rejected. He is invariably referred to with ironic quote marks as “pope” Francis or by his street name Jorge Mario Bergoglio.
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I have long been a fan of the Muppets, going back to Sesame Street and the old Muppet Show on TV and the films. There was always a silly innocence and goofiness to the humor that appealed to me and I did not realize until yesterday that they are going to be back on regular weekly network TV starting today (Tuesday) at 8:00pm on ABC.
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The rapid fall of Scott Walker was something to behold. Of course, you would not expect an arrogant person like him to accept the fact that his demise was due to a combination of being an incompetent debater, a lousy campaigner, and having a smarmy and odious personality. No, of course not.
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Bertie is now the world’s fastest tortoise. He was clocked at 0.28 meters per second, easily smashing the previous world record of 0.125 meters per second that had stood since 1977. Bertie’s story as told in this video is a heartwarming one.
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