Friday, May 29, 2015

Veterans, Veteran's or Veterans'?
Veterans Memorial Stadium (Long Beach, California)
Veterans Bridge (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
Veterans Bridge (St. Cloud, Minnesota)
Veterans International Bridge at Los Tomates  (between the cities of Brownsville, Texas, and Matamoros, Tamaulipas)
Veteran's Bridge (Pueblo, Colorado)
Veterans' Glass City Skyway (Toledo, Ohio)
According to the preceding list, the first nine structures honor or memorialize veterans.  Veteran's in the name of the tenth structure indicates "possessed or owned by a veteran."  Veterans' in the name of the last structure indicates "possessed or owned by more than one veteran."

"Cadillac tax" IRS notice regarding the Affordable Care Act
Section 4980I — Excise Tax on High Cost Employer-Sponsored Health Coverage Notice 2015-16   This notice is intended to initiate and inform the process of developing regulatory guidance regarding the excise tax on high cost employer-sponsored health coverage under § 4980I of the Internal Revenue Code (Code).  Section 4980I, which was added to the Code by the Affordable Care Act, applies to taxable years beginning after December 31, 2017.  Under this provision, if the aggregate cost of “applicable employer-sponsored coverage” (referred to in this notice as applicable coverage) provided to an employee exceeds a statutory dollar limit, which is revised annually, the excess is subject to a 40% excise tax.  Read the 24-page notice at http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-15-16.pdf

Any time you cut fruits like bananas, pears, and apples that you don’t want to turn brown, simply squeeze fresh or bottled lemon juice over them and toss the fruit to coat.  Make sure to cover the fruit tightly with plastic wrap, or place it in an air-tight container until you are ready to eat it.  http://www.centercutcook.com/how-to-prevent-fruit-from-turning-brown/

"Ex Machina” is a 2015  movie about men and the machines they make.  Alex Garland, who wrote and directed, has named the search engine in the futuristic film after Ludwig Wittgenstein’s 1930s "Blue Book."  Wittgenstein's Blue Book begins "What is the meaning of a word?"  Find the 120-page manuscript at http://digital.library.pitt.edu/u/ulsmanuscripts/pdf/31735061817932.pdf

A proposal by the head of the Federal Communications Commission on May 27, 2015 would strengthen consumers' rights and give phone companies the green light to offer technologies to block most robocalls and spam text messages.  Under Wheeler's plan, consumers could more easily stop these robocalls by simply telling the caller “in any reasonable way at any time” to stop calling.  Currently, companies often require written notification if consumers want the calls to stop.  The rules would also prevent a consumer with a new phone number from being subjected to robocalls authorized by the previous owner.  Companies that use automatic dialing technology would have to stop after making just one call once learning the number has been reassigned.  There would be limited exceptions for free robocalls or texts to alert consumers of possible fraud to their bank accounts or remind them to refill medication.  Consumers could opt out of those calls and texts as well.  The Do Not Call Registry was established in 2003 and had 218 million actively registered phone numbers as of Sept. 30, 2014.  In most cases, telemarketers are not allowed to call numbers on the list.  And most telemarketing robocalls have been illegal since 2009.  Jim Puzzanghera  

May 29, 2015  Eating chocolate every day can help you lose weight?  If it sounds too good to be true--that's because the chocolate diet study that made headlines around the world last year was all an elaborate hoax.  Now those responsible are going public with the story behind the bogus diet study and the media frenzy that followed.  It was a carefully planned effort to expose the prevalence of junk science and unchecked, hype-driven press coverage.  "The world is just drowning in all this pseudoscience" about diet and nutrition, science journalist John Bohannon, one of the collaborators in the project, told CBS News, "and when there is science, it's very poorly reported.  We [journalists] should be doing a better job, and the only way to do it is to kind of shock the system."  In an article posted on the website io9.com, Bohannon explains how the chocolate diet story came about.  He was first approached by a German TV producer, Peter Onneken, who was working with Diana Löbl and others on a documentary film about junk science.  It's a topic Bohannon--who has a Ph.D. in molecular biology--has covered extensively.  He previously conducted a sting operation, published inScience in 2013, exposing how some unscrupulous open-access journals would publish fake scientific studies for a fee without subjecting them to peer review.  Bohannon and the filmmakers concocted a plan to prove just how easy it is to turn bad science into big headlines.  They created a website for the Institute of Diet and Health (a group they made up), recruited a doctor and analyst, and paid research subjects to take part in a small clinical trial they would run to test the effects of eating chocolate.  Then Bohannon would use his media savvy to get the results published and publicized.   "I know what you're thinking,"  Bohannon writes. "The study did show accelerated weight loss in the chocolate group--shouldn't we trust it?  Isn't that how science works?"  Then he explains:  "Here's a dirty little science secret:  If you measure a large number of things about a small number of people, you are almost guaranteed to get a 'statistically significant' result.  Our study included 18 different measurements--weight, cholesterol, sodium, blood protein levels, sleep quality, well-being, etc.--from 15 people.  (One subject was dropped.)  That study design is a recipe for false positives....We didn't know exactly what would pan out--the headline could have been that chocolate improves sleep or lowers blood pressure--but we knew our chances of getting at least one 'statistically significant' result were pretty good."  Brent Hofacker  Read extensive article at http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-the-chocolate-diet-hoax-fooled-millions/

Memphis, the city where B.B. King got his musical start, paid final tribute to the blues guitar master May 27, 2015, as thousands walking in the rain with his hearse shouted, "long live the king!"  King died May 14 in Las Vegas at the age of 89.  At the head of the procession was a Gibson guitar given the name Lucille, just like all the others King accumulated over the course of his 60-year career.  A band played "When The Saints Go Marching In," as the mourners proceeded down Beale Street.  After getting his start in its clubs, King became known as the "Beale Street Blues Boy," which eventually became B.B. King.  His real name was Riley B. King.  https://fiostrending.verizon.com/news/read/category/News/hashtag/News/article/afp-memphis_pays_final_tribute_to_blues_legend_bb_king-afp


http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1303  May 29, 2015  On this date in 1919, Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity was tested (later confirmed) by Arthur Eddington and Andrew Claude de la Cherois Crommelin.  On this date in 1942, Bing Crosby, the Ken Darby Singers and John Scott Trotter and his Orchestra recorded Irving Berlin's White Christmas, the best-selling single in history.

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