Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Josh Marshall: Nasim Aghdam's Massacre Is Part of the Crisis of Big Tech (TPM)
Aghdam's story is one of an angry and deranged person. But it's very much a story of the moment, one that connects up with almost every facet of what's happening in the tech world today.
Helaine Olen: Trump is bringing chaos. And the business world hates chaos. (Washington Post)
On multiple fronts, Trump is creating uncertainty through his reckless actions.
Melissa Jeltsen: Everyone Got The Pulse Massacre Story Completely Wrong (Huffington Post)
And another, smaller injustice was obscured: the sadistic prosecution of Noor Salman.
TARA ISABELLA BURTON: What 24 hours in a diner taught me about New York (1853 Magazine)
To stay up all night is the ultimate way to experience the city that never sleeps.
David Naimon: The Imaginative Reality of Ursula K. Le Guin (VQR)
Ursula K. Le Guin left behind a legacy unparalleled in American letters when she passed away this January at the age of eighty-eight.
14 Celebrities Who Owe Their Fame To Other Famous People (Cracked)
It's never surprising to learn that famous people know one another. We picture them going to the same parties and belonging to the same secret societies. But it turns out they're even more interdependent than you thought, to the point that some celebrities completely owe their fame to other famous people.
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
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David Bruce has over 80 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Presenting
Michael Egan
answered:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Reader Comment
Current Events
Video of Predator in the wind!
Janet found the article below it has an embedded slow-mo video of baldie boarding the plane in the wind!
Predator getting on the plane to head out of town and once again, the wind exposed his HUGE old BALD HEAD the whole time he walked up the steps! Stupid vain ass ought to learn to wear one of his dumb caps and style his hair later!
Windswept Honey Bun Boards Presidential Aircraft! Lovely!
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
from Marc Perkel
Marc's Guide to Curing Cancer
So far so good on beating cancer for now. I'm doing fine. At the end of the month I'll be 16 months into an 8 month mean lifespan. And yesterday I went on a 7 mile hike and managed to keep up with the hiking group I was with. So, doing something right.
Still waiting for future test results and should see things headed in the right direction. I can say that it's not likely that anything dire happens in the short term so that means that I should have time to make several more attempts at this. So even if it doesn't work the first time there are a lot of variations to try. So if there's bad news it will help me pick the next radiation target.
I have written a "how to" guide for oncologists to perform the treatment that I got. I'm convinced that I'm definitely onto something and whether it works for me or not isn't the definitive test. I know if other people tried this that it would work for some of them, and if they improve it that it will work for a lot of them.
The guide is quite detailed and any doctor reading this can understand the procedure at every level. I also go into detail as to how it works, how I figured it out, and variations and improvements that could be tried to enhance it. I also introduce new ways to look at the problem. There is a lot of room for improvement and I think that doctors reading it will see what I'm talking about and want to build on it. And it's written so that if you're not a doctor you can still follow it. It also has a personal story revealing that I'm the class clown of cancer support group. I give great interviews and I look pretty hot in a lab coat.
So, feel free to read this and see what I'm talking about. But if any of you want to help then pass this around to both doctors and cancer patients. I need some media coverage. I'm looking for as many eyeballs as possible to read these ideas. Even if this isn't the solution, it's definitely on the right track. After all, I did hike 7 miles yesterday. And this hiking group wasn't moving slow. So if this isn't working then, why am I still here?
I also see curing cancer as more of an engineering problem that a medical problem. So if you are good at solving problems and most of what you know about medicine was watching the Dr. House MD TV show, then you're at the level I was at when I started. So anyone can jump in and be part of the solution.
Here is a link to my guide: Oncologists Guide to Curing Cancer using Abscopal Effect
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
THE RISE OF WHITE GANGS IN AMERICA.
A REPUBLICAN "SON OF A VYCH".
'THE DOVES AND HAWKS' SHOW.
PUBLISHER OR PLATFORM?
TRUMP THE LIAR!
'HIGH LEVER TROLLER.'
LOGIC.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Didn't feel the earthquake at all.
Slams NRA 'Idiocy'
Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro isn't wasting any time on pleasantries with his political commentary these days.
In a new interview with Indie Wire published on Wednesday, the actor weighed in on the hot-button issue of gun control amid the recent nationwide protests sparked by the survivors of the deadly school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
"The people that I care about are those young people who demonstrated," De Niro told Indie Wire. "They're the future. They know. They say, 'We'll remember in November.' They're the ones that feel the way we do, not the way the gun lovers and the NRA do, with all that idiocy to the point of absurdity."
De Niro also criticized President-for-now Donald Trump (R-Pendejo) in the new interview, something he hasn't been shy about since the former reality-TV star announced he was running. The subject of the president came up after a question about Trump-supporting comedian Roseanne Barr, whose revived sitcom has earned solid ratings.
"I've never seen her show before, I didn't know she was supporting Trump, but I have no interest in that," De Niro told Indie Wire. "We're at a point with all of ... this where it's beyond trying to see another person's point of view. There are ways you can talk about that, but we're at a point where the things that are happening in our country are so bad and it comes from Trump."
Robert De Niro
In The 50 Days Since Parkland
Eighty-Six US Teenagers
At least 86 teenagers have been killed by bullets in America in the 50 days since the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High Schoolshooting in Parkland, Florida.
Taken together, the stories of the dead paint a tragic portrait of gun violence that threatens teenagers across the United States. Data detailing accidental discharges, domestic violence, robberies gone awry and a number of other events, appears random in its geography and the cultural class affected, but chillingly predictable in the volume year after year.
The deceased represent the every day victims of the gun epidemic. They are the ones that many of the Parkland kids are trying to draw America's attention to. And, you may not have heard of any of them.
The 86 number - determined through an analysis of data from the Gun Violence Archive, which aggregates local media reports on gun violence and therefore may under-represent the true number of deaths, by The Independent - shows that on average one-and-a-half teenagers were killed each day from the morning of February 14 through April 5, the 50 day mark. Just 14 days saw no reported teenager gun deaths, while 24 days saw two or more deaths, and 12 days saw one death.
Most cases appear to involve a handgun - not a semi-automatic rifle like the one used in Parkland, and which receives a lion's share of media coverage - a fact consistent with general gun death statistics which indicate 65 per cent of gun deaths in the United States involve a hand gun, according to the FBI.
Eighty-Six US Teenagers
Staff Protest
Google
Thousands of Google staff are protesting against the use of the company's technology in the Pentagon's controversial drones programme.
The US Department of Defense's Project Maven, commenced last April, utilises the Silicon Valley search giant's artificial intelligence system to analyse vast amounts of footage captured by the US Army's unmanned surveillance planes around the world.
Around 3,100 staff are thought to have signed a letter to Google boss Sundar Pichai, demanding that the company pulls out of the project.
A copy of the letter published in the New York Times said: "We believe that Google should not be in the business of war.
"Therefore we ask that Project Maven be cancelled, and that Google draft, publicise and enforce a clear policy stating that neither Google nor its contractors will ever build warfare technology."
Google
Cuts Short Farewell Tour
Kenny Rogers
Country legend Kenny Rogers on Wednesday scrapped the final dates on what he has billed as a farewell tour, citing unspecified health concerns.
The 79-year-old singer, best known for the hits "Lady" and "The Gambler," has been "working through a series of health challenges," his management said in a statement.
Rogers, whose easygoing ballads have won him a fan base well beyond the country world, spent much of the past two years on a tour that culminated in a star-studded farewell concert in October in Nashville.
"I didn't want to take forever to retire," Rogers said in the statement.
While primarily active in the United States, he is the namesake of a chicken restaurant chain that remains active in Asia and the Middle East after closing down at home.
Kenny Rogers
To Air On 4 Sinclair Stations
Anti-Sinclair Spot
The viral video showing a dizzying array of local news anchors reciting the same script authored by their stations' conservative owner, the Sinclair Broadcasting Group, is coming soon to the homes of Sinclair customers across the country.
That is, if the broadcaster doesn't reject it first.
Allied Progress, a left-leaning consumer watchdog group based in Washington, D.C., borrows the alarming mashup for a new 30-second spot that takes aim at Sinclair, which is under fire for requiring journalists to read a statement last month parroting some of the anti-media language used by President Donald Trump.
Allied said Thursday it has sunk six figures into an ad buy on four stations in the Sinclair network: ABC affiliates WJLA in Washington and KOMO in Seattle, and Fox affiliates KDSM in Des Moines and WBFF in Baltimore, which also happens to be Sinclair's flagship station.
The spot is slated to run a total of about 175 times over the course of one week, beginning Friday, April 6, Allied Progress Executive Director Karl Frisch told HuffPost. He noted that an uptick in contributions to Allied may allow it to purchase even more airtime ? if it's allowed.
Anti-Sinclair Spot
Dumped By Yet Another Sponsor
Laura Ingraham
The bad news keeps coming for Fox News host Laura Ingraham even while she's on vacation: Another sponsor has reportedly dropped her show.
Ace Hardware will no longer advertise on "The Ingraham Angle," TheWrap reported on Thursday.
TheWrap said Ace had two ads on the show in March, including one on March 28, the day she launched her ill-fated slam against David Hogg, a teen survivor of the Feb. 14 mass shooting in Parkland, Florida.
Nutrish, TripAdvisor, Wayfair, Expedia, Nestlé, Johnson & Johnson, Stitch Fix, Jenny Craig, Hulu, JoS. A. Bank and more have dropped her show. TheWrap said Ace Hardware is the 19th company to ditch Ingraham.
My Pillow said it would continue to advertise on Ingraham's show.
Laura Ingraham
After Suddenly Realizing
The Atlantic
In an email to his staff Thursday afternoon, The Atlantic's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, announced that recently hired opinion columnist Kevin Williamson was fired after Goldberg realized that Williamson did, in fact, believe his own words that women should be hanged for having abortions.
Earlier Thursday, a company-wide event had been scheduled in which Atlantic editor Adrienne LaFrance was set to interview Williamson in front of staff, according to several Atlantic employees, but the meeting was canceled at the last minute. Goldberg announced Williamson's firing just hours later, though a similar interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates scheduled for Friday appears to be going on as planned.
This news comes just weeks after The Atlantic announced Williamson's hiring, which immediately sparked an uproar from people concerned that the publication was giving space to a man who compared a 9-year-old black child to a primate and, now most famously, said that women who get abortions should be hanged.
It apparently wasn't until Media Matters' report on Wednesday, which found that Williamson had defended the sentiment on a podcast, that Goldberg decided to take Williamson's remarks seriously.
In a previous memo to staffers defending Williamson's hiring, Goldberg had said, "I have disagreed with him more than I have agreed with him (an irrelevant metric when you're the editor; not when you're a reader), but I recognized the power, contrariness, wit, and smart construction of many of his pieces." He also took care to note that Williamson was "prolific," which is certainly true.
The Atlantic
Settlements Made Public For First Time
O'Really
A federal court judge in New York made public the confidential settlements reached between Bill O'Reilly (R-Reprobate) and three women who accused the former Fox News host of misconduct.
Judge Deborah Batts, who is presiding over a defamation suit filed last year, rejected O'Reilly's request to keep the agreements private (read the ruling here). She wrote that his concerns about disclosing "embarrassing conduct with no public ramifications" are not sufficient to trump the public's right to view documents the court relied on to reach its decision in the case.
The documents reveal the extent to which O'Reilly went to silence those who came forward with sexual harassment allegations.
Andrea Mackris, a former producer on The O'Reilly Factor who received a $9 million settlement, was required to forfeit all audio recordings and written material - including notes, diaries, photographs, video recordings, letters and emails - and to delete any computer files. She agreed to keep even the existence of such evidence confidential. Should the materials later become public, she would "disclaim them as counterfeit or forgeries."
Former Fox Business News host Rebecca Gomez Diamond received a $3.25 million settlement from O'Reilly, a payout not previously disclosed. Diamond's settlement terms was so strict, she could only disclose the amount of the payout to her tax advisers after the accountant signed a confidentialityagreement. The only person she told about the settlement was her husband. She, too, agreed to turn over any notes, recordings, emails, computer files or other documents dealing with any conversation she ever had with O'Reilly.
O'Really
US Seizes
Pot-Growing Houses
Hundreds of federal and local law enforcement agents have seized roughly 100 Northern California houses purchased with money wired to the United States by a Chinese-based crime organization and used to grow massive amounts of marijuana illegally, authorities said Wednesday.
The raids culminated a monthslong investigation focusing on dozens of Chinese nationals who bought homes in seven counties. Most of the buyers were in the country legally and were not arrested as authorities investigate if they were indebted to the gang and forced into the work, U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott said.
Much of the pot was shipped to Georgia, Illinois, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania through Atlanta, Chicago and New York City, he said. The drug is legal in California but requires permits to grow and can't be sent across state lines. It is still banned by the U.S. government.
Black-market pot-growing houses have proliferated in the inland California region where authorities carried out the raids, and many of them were traced to Chinese criminal organizations from the San Francisco Bay Area in the mid-2000s, Scott said. The high number of grow houses in the area may be because of low property prices compared with the Bay Area and the state's large Chinese population, the prosecutor said.
Authorities tracked at least 125 wire transfers totaling $6.3 million from Fujian Province in China, all just below the $50,000 limit imposed by the Chinese government.
Officials are trying to learn if the homebuyers are what Scott called "indentured servants" - indebted to the Chinese gang and brought to the United States to buy and tend the grow houses. Many speak only Mandarin Chinese.
Pot-Growing Houses
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