Favorite Link Friday Week of May 6, 2016

Now trending among Alaska's congressional delegation: #AnyoneButHillary

WASHINGTON -- Alaska’s all-Republican congressional delegation has coalesced around an anti-Hillary Clinton sort of support for Donald Trump as he became the last man standing in the GOP race for the presidential nomination this week.

For Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Don Young, both facing elections in November, questions remain about just how to navigate around a candidate at the top of the ticket who remains widely disliked, despite trouncing a seemingly endless number of GOP candidates for the nomination.

“I have always supported the Republican nominee for president,” Murkowski said.

“Elections are about choices and while Hillary Clinton is not my choice -- with her clear record against Alaska’s priorities -- Donald Trump has made numerous inappropriate statements in the past that are troubling,” Murkowski said. “Now, he needs to shift his focus to unite Republicans around conservative policies that will bring economic growth and prosperity back to our nation."

Young, too, responded to an inquiry with his own “anybody but Clinton” brand of tacit support for the presumptive nominee.

“After a hard fought Republican primary, it appears that Mr. Trump will be our party’s nominee,” Young said in a statement. “My motto has always been anybody but Hillary because I believe this nation is being led down a terrible path by those focused on top down policies and ‘Washington, D.C. knows best' solutions, all of which take away individual freedom and liberty."

Just how Trump’s campaign will impact down-ballot races in November is far from clear. Voters could grow to like him, particularly as more party members back his candidacy. He may tone down his rhetoric in the general election.

Murkowski’s seat is not considered to be at high risk, but Trump’s eventual nomination exacerbates what is so far a tightrope walk for the moderate. The senator drew much of her support from moderates and Democrats during her historic 2010 write in campaign, which she launched after losing the Republican nomination to Joe Miller.

But this year, Murkowski has a challenger to her left, independent Margaret Stock. Rumors of a conservative challenger on the Republican ticket have circulated for months, but not yet materialized. The filing deadline is June 1. [Full Source]

Tourists are using Ketchikan homeless shelter for snacks, coffee

KETCHIKAN, Alaska (AP) Tourists have been hanging out at a Ketchikan homeless shelter to get free coffee and a bite to eat, but an employee of the shelter says few of the cruise ship passengers make a donation.

The Ketchikan Daily News reports the shelter operated by First City Homeless Services relies on donations and funding from the city and the Ketchikan Gateway Borough. Evelyn Erbele, chairwoman of the nonprofit's board of directors, told the Borough Assembly about the visits from tourists at a meeting Monday.

Erbele says cruise ship passengers often stop by the shelter looking for a restroom, and some decide to stay for a snack or to watch television.

But she says the tourists are welcome because "we don't turn anybody away."

The nonprofit is requesting $14,000 from the borough.[Full Source]

Legislature passes bill limiting who can teach sex education

JUNEAU -- The Alaska Legislature has passed an education bill limiting who can teach sex education in public schools.

The House Thursday revived the measure, rescinding a vote from a day earlier in which the bill had failed. This time, it narrowly passed.

The bill, from Rep. Wes Keller, deals with parental involvement in education, greater local control and student testing.

Perhaps the most contentious element calls for sex education to be taught by certified teachers under contract with a given school or someone under a teacher's supervision approved by the local school board and whose credentials parents can review. A spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood Votes Northwest and Hawaii has said this would create further barriers for students to receive comprehensive sex education.

It wasn't immediately clear what impact the House's failure to pass an accompanying title change resolution might have.[Full Source]

Dogs' hearts beat in sync with their owners says latest study to show having a pet is good for keeping healthy

The bond between man and dog is so strong that their hearts beat in sync, a study has found.
Australian researchers separated three dogs from their owners, strapped heart monitors on the people and animals and then watched what happened when they were reunited.
Doggy and human heart rates quickly fell – and then began to mirror each other.
Charts showed that despite beating at different rates, they followed the same pattern, with each dog’s heart rising and falling in tandem with its master’s.

The study, which was funded by pet food firm Pedigree, is just the latest to show that having a dog is good for the heart.
For instance, a review of research by the American Heart Association suggested that pet owners have healthier hearts than other people – and dog owners particularly benefit.
This may be because of the necessity to go for walks, whatever the weather.

Dogs have also been found to help keep loneliness at bay and may even guard against glaucoma, one of the most common causes of blindness. [Full Source]

Why are pound and ounce abbreviated as 'lb' and 'oz'?

Lb is an abbreviation of the Latin word libra. The primary meaning of libra was balance or scales (as in the astrological sign), but it also stood for the ancient Roman unit of measure libra pondo, meaning "a pound by weight." We got the word "pound" in English from the pondo part of the libra pondo but our abbreviation comes from the libra. The libra is also why the symbol for the British pound is £ — an L with a line through it. The Italian lira also used that symbol (with two lines through it), the word "lira" itself being a shortened version of libra.

"Ounce" is related to the Latin uncia, the name for both the Roman ounce and inch units of measurement. The word came into English from Anglo-Norman French, where it was unce or ounce, but the abbreviation was borrowed from Medieval Italian, where the word was onza. These days the Italian word is oncia, and the area once covered by the Roman Empire has long since switched to the metric system. [Full Source]

[History Anecdotes] Nazi Pilot Treated at the Same Hospital he Bombed, Right After He Bombed it

It was midafternoon on February 7, 1944, and twenty-year-old Corporal Charles H. Doyle, a member of the U.S. 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion, was reclining on his cot as a patient at the tented 95th Evacuation Hospital on the Anzio beachhead in Italy. Doyle had mixed feelings about his lot. In the tent, he was warm and dry, was fed hot food, and had a reasonably comfortable place to sleep.

But, like other combat men who were patients in the medical facility along the shoreline, Doyle had a creeping suspicion that it might be “safer” in frontier foxholes -- at least during periods of static warfare. For Anzio beachhead had no rear echelon. Anybody could meet sudden death anywhere at any time -- a quartermaster clerk, a female nurse, or an upfront GI or British Tommy.
As Charlie Doyle lay on his cot, he could hear shells screaming to earth around the hospital, blasts that rocked the terrain. And there were regular visits from the Luftwaffe. While the hospital tents were clearly marked with huge red crosses on fields of white, the beachhead was so jammed with troops, supply dumps, command posts, and installations that errant German artillery shells and bombs from the air struck the hospital on occasion.

Now, Doyle’s sensitive ears perked up as he heard a familiar roar in the sky. He could not see the sky from under the canvas, but a Luftwaffe fighter and a British Spitfire were engaged in a dogfight over Anzio. To gain altitude, the German pilot dropped his bombs, and they landed directly on the surgery area of the 95th Evacuation Hospital. Twenty-three persons were killed, including three female nurses, a female member of the Red Cross, and a number of Medical Corpsmen and patients. Sixty-eight were wounded, including Colonel George Sauer, who commanded the facility.
Moments later, the German plane was riddled by Spitfire bullets, and the wounded pilot parachuted onto the beachhead, where GIs took him prisoner.

In a curious twist of fate, he was taken for treatment to the same hospital that his bombs had accidentally struck -- the 95th Evac. Although the surgical facilities were no longer as good as they had been, the American doctors and nurses treated the Luftwaffe pilot with the same professional skill given to the GI patients, and he survived.

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