Ferri Tales

"Ask Marilyn" of Parade Magazine posed the following problem : A prince asked a king if he could marry his daughter. The king gave him three baskets. “Pick enough apples so you can put half of them plus ½ apple more in the first basket. Then put half of the remaining apples plus ½ apple more in the second one. Then put half of the apples left plus ½ apple more in the third basket. If you have one apple left for my daughter, I will judge you smart enough to marry her.” How many apples should the prince pick? She gave the answer as 15 which is correct, but didn't provide an algebraic method of the solution. Here it is. Assume x is the total number of apples. Basket #1 will contain half of the total # of apples plus half an apple: Basket #2 will contain half of the remaining apples plus half an apple: Basket #3 will contain half of the remaining apples plus half an apple: There is one apple left for the princess, so the final equation is: Basket #1 gets 8, #2 gets 4, #3 get...

According to the Rachel Maddow show, in 1989 the assistant attorney general under George H.W. Bush wrote a controversial legal opinion that supposedly allowed the FBI to enter foreign countries and arrest their leaders without the consent of the foreign state. This was in response to a failed coup attempt in Panama to overthrow Manuel Noreiga . The coup was clumsily sanctioned by Bush who later denied it -- just as clumsily. The L.A. Times reported that the document existed, reported its title as " Authorityof the FBI to Override Customary or Other International Law in the Course ofExtraterritorial Law Enforcement Activities ," identified its author as William Barr (who was then the assistant attorney general), and summarized the documents intent. This is the same William Barr who is the current attorney general under Trump. Congress was alarmed at the new powers claimed by Barr's opinion and opened a hearing titled "FBI Authority to Seize Subjects Abroad."...

Why is Trump's attorney general, William Barr, hiding the Mueller Report from Congress and the American people? If the report truly vindicated and exonerated Trump, Trump and the GOP would have put it on page one of every newspaper in the country, dropped copies from helicopters, and Fox "News" would be reading excerpts 24/7. Yet, Barr released an incomplete summary with conclusions based on evidence that he is hiding from everyone else. Why? Justice Department regulations require that the full report be released to Congress for further action if necessary. No conclusions are necessary in these reports nor is the attorney general required to summarize or interpret it. However, Congress is required to review the evidence and act accordingly. The precedent for this has been set multiple times: Special Counsel John Danforth's report on the Waco Raid during Clinton was released to Congress and the public. Independent Counsel Ken Starr's investigations during the Cli...

(Note - this is a letter I wrote in the Daily Review , the local newspaper of Towanda, PA in response to a Trump supporter, in this case John Fedorchak Sr. His writings are typical of most of Trump's supporters and Fox "News" fans. If you know a Trump supporter, just substitute their name.) The best part of John Fedorchak's letters are under his name -- former Bradford County resident. Who knew that Fedorchak was so sensitive about criticism of his hero Donald Trump? Perhaps John watches only Fox "News" and isn't aware of the following: Trump is a self-admitted sexual predator. Trump, while president, paid a $25 million settlement after a federal court ruled that Trump "University" was a scam and had defrauded students. Trump is a documented racist (along with his father). Trump is a white supremacist who refuses to clearly denounce the movement or even admit that white supremacist terrorism exists. Trump is a well-documented pathologi...

The Caravan "Invasion" - Central American migrants are seeking refuge in the United States. The U.S. military assessment is that only 20% of the 7000, approximately 1400, will arrive at the border in a few weeks at the earliest.  According to Pentagon figures, the cost of the deployment could reach $200 million by the end of 2018. Trump is characterizing this as an invasion. It's a political stunt, regardless of what James Mattis says , by a desperate president in fear of losing one or both of the houses of congress. Trump and the GOP are in a panic at the prospect of real oversight from people who take their oaths "to protect and defend the Constitution" seriously. Politico :  " To find a year with fewer border arrests than 2017, you'd have to go back all the way to 1971 ." The New York Times : " The United States has clear laws governing refugees and well-funded agencies to enforce those laws, and it’s an embarrassing waste of money t...

     "Give me economic liberty or give me death," Patrick Henry never said at the Second Virginia Convention in 1775. However, beginning in the mid-1950s and continuing and escalating to now, and with hundreds of millions of dollars from Charles Koch, Republicans are intent on delivering economic liberty to everyone. Except that Republicans are really Libertarians who hold that  the federal government should maintain civil order and provide military defense -- and nothing else.  And even though everyone would have economic liberty, it would exclusively benefit the Republican's favorite minority -- rich white men -- because economic liberty, when fully implemented, would allow them  to profit at will without government interference and without regulation.      What follows is a summary of Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America , by Nancy MacLean , a professor of history and public policy at D...

The proposed healthcare plan called "Medicare for All" or M4A would save the U.S. more than $2 trillion over the decade from 2022 to 2031. Details are hidden in a July 2018 Koch Brothers funded report by Charles Blahous of the libertarian Mercatus Center at George Mason University titled "The Costs of a National Single-Payer Healthcare System."  The report correctly estimates that federal health expenditures would increase by $32.6 trillion over the decade, but it doesn't clearly explain that this has no effect on the $2 trillion saving. Federal health expenditures (FHE), mentioned above, refers to health spending by the federal government.  Another item, national health expenditures (NHE), refers to all or total health spending -- private spending and federal spending including Medicaid and Medicare.  The report estimates current NHE for the decade under the current healthcare system at $59.653 trillion, and NHE under M4A at $57.599 trillion, for a savin...

Questions and doubts keep arising, needlessly, about vaccine safety such as: there are too many, or too many in combination, or they aren't safe. There have been hundreds of studies that show that vaccines are safe and effective at preventing serious and deadly disease. A quick review shows dozens of studies reported in or by JAMA , Vaccine , the Journal of Pediatrics , Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety, The National Academy of Sciences , Lancet , the British Medical Journal , AMA , Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, N ew England Journal of Medicine, Archives of Disease in Childhood, Psychological Medicine, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, The Annals of Pharmacotherapy, Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, The Canadian Journal of Neurological Science, American Journal of Preventive Medicine, etc . These studies show no link between autism and the MMR vaccine or any other effects as proposed by the anti-vaccine conspiracy crowd, and th...

Projection is a defensive technique used by Trump and his supporters to blame others for their own behavior. Several examples of thousands are:  Michael Flynn, Trump’s ex-director of national security, chanting "lock her up" about Hillary Clinton at Trump's inauguration, then pleading guilty for lying to the FBI and may himself be locked up;  Trump blaming Obama for not stopping Putin from interfering in our election when Trump has done nothing and is encouraging Putin's interference;  Trump claiming that Democrats are using children of migrating families as hostages when Trump is putting them in cages and drugging them;  Trump blaming Hillary and the Democrats for conspiring with Putin to defraud the United States when compelling evidence is accumulating that Trump is guilty;  Jeff Sessions claiming that U.S. Christians are being persecuted while intending to subjugate women and transform the country into "The Handmaids Tale"; Donald Trump Jr. ...

Trump just threatened Iran via an all upper-case tweet with "...  CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE." Some background is in order. In August, 2017, he threatened N. Korea with "fire and fury", then gave Kin Jong-un -- a brutal dictator who murders, imprisons, and enslaves his own people -- a world stage in June 2018, said Kim was "talented" and that he "loves his people."  Trump subsequently halted joint military exercises between the U.S. and S. Korea because Kim said they were threatening.  We got nothing in return, and N. Korea continues with their nuclear program. Incidentally, Russia and China wanted the U.S. / S. Korea exercises stopped too. Trump's meeting with Kim gave the dictator propaganda that he can use to further subjugate his people for decades. In July 2018, Trump met with the "elected" president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, in Helsinki. Putin murders his opponent...