Primaries and Caucuses

In the United States presidential elections, a primary is a statewide voting process in which voters cast secret ballots for their preferred candidates; a caucus is a system of local gatherings where voters decide which candidate to support. Both systems culminate in the selection of delegates who will vote on behalf of the electorate at a party’s national convention.

On closer inspection, the system is incredibly convoluted and even undemocratic. Consider the following news report:

“We’re putting up right now a graphic Bernie Sanders wins 56 to 44 percent in Wyoming the delegates rewarded Hillary Clinton 11 Bernie Sanders 7. Why does the Democratic Party even have voting booths? This system is so rigged!” – MSNBC

And it is not just the Democrats, when Donald Trump won Louisiana beating Ted Cruz by more than 3 percent he was upset to discover Ted Cruz could potentially get as many as 10 more delegates or as he put it:

“I end up winning in Louisiana, and then when everything is done I find out I get less delegates and this guy that got his ass kicked, OK. Give me a break!” – Donald Trump

There is no clearer piece of evidence that this system is broken than when Donald Trump is actually making sense. Confronted with results like these, the process appears counter-intuitive.

My Ass

[An American General (Stephen Fry) is seated at a large desk, smoking a huge cigar: a Stars and Stripes flag hangs behind him.]

General: Jacobson! Get your ass in here right now!
A Colonel (Hugh Laurie) enters, also in uniform.
Colonel: Sir!

General: Jacobson, what the hell am I going to do with your ass?
Colonel: My ass, sir?
General: Can you think of one goddamn reason why I shouldn’t kick your ass all the way back to New Mexico?
Colonel: Well, sir if this concerns…
General: You know what the hell it concerns, Jacobson. It concerns your ass! What does it concern?
Colonel: My ass, sir.

General: Do you recall what it was I said to you the last time you were in this here office?
Colonel: Well sir. You told me to move my ass, and haul my ass, and not to sit on my ass, because if I did, you would personally rearrange my ass.
General: Uh uh. Wrong, Mr Jacobson. I was not going to rearrange your ass – I was going to boil your ass in a bag, and have your ass for breakfast.
Colonel: – Have my ass for breakfast, sir.

General: Read the sign on my desk boy.
Colonel: “The buck stops at my ass.”
General: See, that’s why I have this here star on my shoulder and you don’t. Because my ass is on the line.
Colonel: The bottom line?
General: The bottom line.
Colonel: I understand.

General: Well, I am glad you got your ass straight on that one. Now Jacobson, I’ve got myself a problem.
Colonel: A problem, sir?
General: Yes. It seems that some goddamn college boy on the fifth floor wants a piece of my ass…
Colonel: Your ass, sir?
General: You bet your ass, my ass.

Colonel: Sir?
General: Yes, Jacobson?
Colonel: How does my ass fit into all of this?
General: It’s very simple, Jacobson. You are aware that your ass is mine?
Colonel: It is sir?
General: Oh yes, your ass is mine, mister. The day you joined this man’s army, you signed your ass over to me.

Colonel: I get it, sir.
General: Oh you do, do you?
Colonel: This guy wants a piece of your ass, so you’re thinking that, being as my ass is yours, maybe you could give him a piece of my ass as a way of saving your ass.

General: Jacobson, shut your ass. Nobody likes a smart Alec.

– Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie: A Bit of Fry & Laurie (1989-1995)

French Paradox

The French have a diet in which they consume a comparatively high amount of fat and drink quite a lot of wine; yet, in comparison to the U.S., they have half the rate of heart disease, have a lower obesity rate and live 2.5 years longer.

Traditionally, cardiologists and dieticians have considered the staples of the French cuisine to be the worst possible diet choices for the cardiovascular system. It therefore begs the question: what is this (apparent) French paradox?

“After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.” – Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance

Firstly, the French have a culture of actually enjoying food. It has been found that during the day the French spend more time with food than Americans. Taking the time to eat more slowly in a leisurely atmosphere may be part of the reason why people in certain societies such as France have a better digestion.

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” – J.R.R. Tolkien

Secondly, saturated fat (which contains vitamin A, D and B8) maintains our teeth, bones, gums, hair, skin, liver and kidneys. Scientists universally accept that trans fats – found in almost all fast foods, many bakery products, and margarines – increase the risk of cardiovascular disease through inflammatory processes. But the mantra that saturated fat must be avoided in order to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease has been proved erroneous. In fact, scientific evidence shows that reducing the saturated fat intake has increased cardiovascular risks.

The people with the highest longevity in France live in the Gers region, a Midi-Pyrénées department in the south-west of the country. It is no coincidence that the traditional regional fare is very high in saturated fats: duck fat is used for cooking, often combined with ingredients such as pork, goose, duck, foie gras and cheese.

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.” – Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

Thirdly, wine improves cardiovascular health. The average French person consumes 16 gallons of red wine per year. On average, that comes down to quite a small glass of red wine a day. Red wine contains substance called piceatannol which inhibits the formation of new fat cells and prevents them from developing into mature fat cells. The compound blocks insulin’s ability to store fat. In fact, several researches have found that moderate wine drinkers show the lowest accumulation of abdominal fat among all drinkers.

As for the red wines of the Gers region in south-west France, the Madiran, Cahors, Bergerac and Saint-Mont are exceptionally rich in procyanidins, a flavonoid that functions as a saturated fat scraper in the bloodstream.

“I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.” – W.C. Fields

In short, the French paradox is not a paradox at all. There are proven reasons why red wine and food with saturated fat – from avocados to grass fed beef – are good for you. With intelligent habits, everyone can eat the most delicious dishes, taste the most amazing wines and generally indulge in culinary epicurean delights, and still be healthy.

“Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the ‘Titanic’ who waved off the dessert cart.” – Erma Bombeck

Christians, Sex and Misery

‘Consider, for instance, the human papillomavirus (HPV). HPV is now the most common sexually transmitted disease in the United States. The virus infects over half the American population and causes nearly five thousand women to die each year from cervical cancer; the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that more than two hundred thousand die worldwide. We now have a vaccine for HPV that appears to be both safe and effective. The vaccine produced 100 percent immunity in the six thousand women who received it as part of a clinical trial. And yet, Christian conservatives in our government have resisted a vaccination program on the grounds that HPV is a valuable impediment to premarital sex. These pious men and women want to preserve cervical cancer as an incentive toward abstinence, even if it sacrifices the lives of thousands of women each year.

There is nothing wrong with encouraging teens to abstain from having sex. But we know, beyond any doubt, that teaching abstinence alone is not a good way to curb teen pregnancy or the spread of sexually transmitted disease. In fact, kids who are taught abstinence alone are less likely to use contraceptives when they do have sex, as many of them inevitably will. One study found that teen “virginity pledges” postpone intercourse for eighteen months on average—while, in the meantime, these virgin teens were more likely than their peers to engage in oral and anal sex. American teenagers engage in about as much sex as teenagers in the rest of the developed world, but American girls are four to five times more likely to become pregnant, to have a baby, or to get an abortion. Young Americans are also far more likely to be infected by HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. The rate of gonorrhea among American teens is seventy times higher than it is among their peers in the Netherlands and France. The fact that 30 percent of our sex-education programs teach abstinence only (at a cost of more than $200 million a year) surely has something to do with this.

The problem is that Christians like yourself are not principally concerned about teen pregnancy and the spread of disease. That is, you are not worried about the suffering caused by sex; you are worried about sex. As if this fact needed further corroboration, Reginald Finger, an Evangelical member of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, recently announced that he would consider opposing an HIV vaccine—thereby condemning millions of men and women to die unnecessarily from AIDS each year—because such a vaccine would encourage premarital sex by making it less risky. This is one of many points on which your religious beliefs become genuinely lethal.’

– Harris. S. 2006. Letter To A Christian Nation p. 10-11

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Anthropologies believe that man has known how to use fire for 500,000 years, but only learned how to make it himself 12,000 years ago.

Prior to 1962, sodomy was illegal in every US State.

The flag of Paraguay is the only current national flag whose obverse and reverse sides are neither identical nor mirrored.

Legendary Cuban Communist revolutionary Che Guevara was born in Argentina.

Until 1857, in the UK, a husband wishing to end an unhappy marriage could sell his wife. The cost was about £3,000 – roughly £223,000 in today’s money.

See other: Quite Interesting Facts

The Ten Commandments

‘Admonishments of this kind [the Ten Commandments] are found in virtually every culture throughout recorded history. There is nothing especially compelling about their presentation in the Bible. There are obvious biological reasons why people tend to treat their parents well, and to think badly of murderers, adulterers, thieves, and liars. It is a scientific fact that moral emotions—like a sense of fair play or an abhorrence of cruelty—precede any exposure to scripture. Indeed, studies of primate behavior reveal that these emotions (in some form) precede humanity itself. All of our primate cousins are partial to their own kin and generally intolerant of murder and theft.

They tend not to like deception or sexual betrayal much, either. Chimpanzees, especially, display many of the complex social concerns that you would expect to see in our closest relatives in the natural world. It seems rather unlikely, therefore, that the average American will receive necessary moral instruction by seeing these precepts chiseled in marble whenever he enters a courthouse. And what are we to make of the fact that, in bringing his treatise to a close, the creator of our universe could think of no human concerns more pressing and durable than the coveting of servants and livestock?

If we are going to take the God of the Bible seriously, we should admit that He never gives us the freedom to follow the commandments we like and neglect the rest. Nor does He tell us that we can relax the penalties He has imposed for breaking them.

If you think that it would be impossible to improve upon the Ten Commandments as a statement of morality, you really owe it to yourself to read some other scriptures. Once again, we need look no further than the Jains: Mahavira, the Jain patriarch, surpassed the morality of the Bible with a single sentence: “Do not injure, abuse, oppress, enslave, insult, torment, torture, or kill any creature or living being.” Imagine how different our world might be if the Bible contained this as its central precept. Christians have abused, oppressed, enslaved, insulted, tormented, tortured, and killed people in the name of God for centuries, on the basis of a theologically defensible reading of the Bible. It is impossible to behave this way by adhering to the principles of Jainism. How, then, can you argue that the Bible provides the clearest statement of morality the world has ever seen?’

– Harris. S. 2006. Letter To A Christian Nation p. 9

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Babelavante [Noun.] One who makes feeble jokes.

Cows have about 25,000 taste buds – two and a half times as many as people – but all they eat is grass.

If anything, Greenland is white.

Passengers in Tokyo train stations generate energy every time they take a step. Special flooring tiles capture the vibrations generated by footfalls, which can be stored as energy. Enough energy is captured during the day to light up electronic signboards.

According to Gallup, the religiosity of the US state of Alabama is as high as that of Iran. Ironically, the religiosity of the US state of Georgia, is as high as that of the sovereign nation of Georgia located in the Caucasus.

See other: Quite Interesting Facts

5

In order to celebrate Knowledge Guild’s 5th anniversary we are going to take a closer look at the number 5. Do not worry, it is not as dull as it sounds.

• The number of people killed by sharks since records began is equal to just five per cent of the number of toilet-related injuries in the USA in 1996.
• In the 18th century, 75% of all children died before they were five years old. 90% of children born in workhouses died before they were five years old.
• As a trick, the writer Arthur Conan Doyle once sent a letter to five friends that read, “We are discovered. Flee immediately.” One of his friends disappeared and Doyle never saw him again.
• An enzyme found in pineapples called “Bromelain” destroys fingerprints. It was used as a plotline in an episode of Hawaii Five-O. This enzyme can also get rid of mouth ulcers.
• Chelmsford was capital of England for five days in 1381 during the Peasants Revolt.
• The Punjabi for the number “5” is “4”.
• The most dangerous sport for American women is cheerleading. In 2002, 22,900 children between five and eighteen years of age went to hospital for cheerleading related injuries.
• Charles Darwin is one of only five people who are not royal to be buried in Westminster Abbey.
• Smoking takes five years off your health expectancy on average. However, as a man, removing your testicles adds thirteen years onto it.
• The Hebrew for the number “5” is pronounced “Hey”.
• The average height of an Eskimo is 5’4″ and the average life expectancy is 39. If you put five Eskimos in car, every Eskimo in the world could fit into the Los Angeles International Airport car park.
• The best thing to do with an old Christmas tree is to contact your local zoo and see if they want to give it to their animals for food. In Germany people often feed Christmas trees to elephants, which can eat five of them for lunch. In Dresden Zoo they also give Christmas trees to giraffes, rhinos, camels, deer and sheep.
• In Alexandre Dumas’ novel La Dem Aux Camelias, the main heroine, Marguerite Gautier, wears a white camellia for 25 days of month when she is available for sex, and a red one for five days when she is not available because she is having her period. The novel caused scandal in 19th century France when it was published and the flowers popularity grew.
• The five appendages on most starfish exhibit pentamerism.
• Only five people died in the Great Fire of London.
• India has no speed limits and every car in the country within five years will be involved in a fatal road accident. The UK has the largest number of car thefts in the world.
• Five pound notes are made out of a mixture of cotton and linen. Wooden paper is too fragile.
• There are only five places in America which have an apostrophe in them which are Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts; Ike’s Point, New Jersey; John E’s Pond, Rhode Island; Carlos Elmer’s Joshua View, Arizona; and Clark’s Mountain, Oregon.
• In the British Army, you can tell which branch of the Brigade of Guards a soldier is in by the gaps between the buttons. If they are evenly spaced, they are in the Grenadiers Guards. Pairs mean they are Coldstream Guards, threes are Scottish Guards, fours are Irish Guards, and fives are Welsh Guards.
• The ideal way to kiss a Frenchman depends on what region of France you are in. Two kisses are normal in central and southern France and four in northern France. However, in Corsica it can be as many as five kisses. In Belgium and the Netherlands, three kisses is the usual amount.
• Anchovies are now mainly used for feed salmon in fish farms. For every salmon, five kilograms of anchovies are killed. Therefore, salmon farming is not really sustainable.
• Each country in the world has their own idea of how many portions of fruit and veg you should eat every day. The reason it is five in Britain is because doctors are of the belief that you cannot persuade the public to eat more than that. In Japan they recommend eating nine portions of fruit and veg, in Denmark it is six, in France it is ten.
• A Fitzroy is a bastard child of a royal. Charles II had five Fitzroys from his mistress Barbara Palmer.

See other: Anniversaries