We know that mirrors can mislead by seeming to switch left-right symmetry but we do not expect it to change the shapes of things. But Mark Frauenfelder brings to my attention this fine illusion by Kokichi Sugihara that makes what looks like circles get reflected as squares and vice versa.
Can you figure out how this illusion works? The solution is given below the fold.
Rachel Vorona Cote provides a roundup of the way that anti-abortion laws are being targeted following the recent ruling by the US Supreme Court in Whole Women’s Health v. Hallerstadt that struck down laws that are labeled TRAP (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers) that seek to impose on conditions on clinics that provides abortions that are not required for other procedures that might carry similar or even greater risks.
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Athletes playing for teams are expected to wear uniforms and those playing in individual sports have some restrictions too. But what is astonishing in this day and age is when those requirements are aimed at exploiting women’s sexuality. The most notorious were the rules for beach volleyball that at one time required women to wear skimpy bikinis.
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As self-driving cars become more a reality with multiple companies developing them, the issue of who would be responsible for accidents has become an issue. Sadly, that debate has come to the fore because of the crash of a Tesla car that was in self-driving mode with a tractor-trailer in which the ‘driver’ of the Tesla car was killed. This seems to be the first fatality involving such cars.
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Richard Gallagher has written an article reporting on what he has learned about the signs of demonic possession after about 25 years of studying it. He is a practicing Catholic which naturally raises questions about his impartiality so he emphasizes his academic credentials, to assure us that he is not some kind of religious nut. His byline tells us that he is a “board-certified psychiatrist and a professor of clinical psychiatry at New York Medical College.”
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The title of this post is taken from King Lear because the sudden withdrawal of Boris Johnson yesterday from the campaign to become the leader of the Conservative Party, following the victory of his Leave side in the Brexit referendum and the subsequent decision by David Cameron that he would resign shortly, took most observers by surprise and has revealed a web of political intrigue that truly deserves the title of Shakespearean, only with less blood.
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Via reader Norm, I got this short clip to an advertisement for a new game called Knockerball.
It has been no secret that supporters of abortion rights have been on the defensive for the last two decades as opponents passed one legislative action after another in Republican controlled states that limited the availability of abortion services to women. These took the form of long waiting periods, requiring multiple visits to clinics, forcing younger women to notify their parents and the fathers, forcing doctors to issue scary warnings to women about the dangers of abortions and forcing women to listen to them, and so on. The goal seemed to be that if they could not ban abortions entirely, they could make it so hard to get that the right was almost nullified.
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Right wing columnist and Fox News commentator George Will has left the Republican party because of their choice of Donald Trump as presidential nominee. He has also urged that people not provide him with any financial support and that they should work to ensure his defeat at the general election in November, brace themselves for four more years of a Democratic presidency, and seek to return to power with a more acceptable nominee in 2020.
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