Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Michael Gregor, MD: How Smoking in 1956 is Like Eating in 2016 (NutritionFacts)
Given that our diet is the #1 cause of death and disability, surely nutrition is the #1 thing doctors learn in medical school, right? Surely, it's the #1 thing your doctor talks to you about. How could there be such a disconnect between the available evidence and the practice of medicine? Let's do a thought experiment…
Andrew Tobias: Donald Doesn't…Pay taxes - free rides off yours.
Donald Doesn't...Give to charity - yet shows up to take credit!
Release his returns (and no, his 2015 return can't possibly be under audit; not that it would matter if it were).
Susan Burnstine's best photograph: a misty figure on the Brooklyn Bridge (The Guardian)
'Out of nowhere, a small figure approached. It symbolised everything I'd been dreaming about. It was the first good shot after my father died.'
Suzanne Moore: We don't need Bono to tell us how to do Glamour properly (The Guardian)
You might have expected the U2 frontman to politely decline Glamour magazine's woman of the year award - but why miss an opportunity to patronise?
Lucy Mangan on the pleasure of being home alone (Stylist)
I literally can't remember the last time I was this content. I am experiencing a bone-deep bliss while wrapped in a further cocoon of happiness. Or, to put it another way - I have the house to myself.
Jonathan Jones: "Picasso's brown period: was he the first to make art from excrement?" (The Guardian)
Picasso apparently used his daughter's faeces in paintings in 1938, predating the likes of Andres Serrano by 50 years. It's proof there's no end to his defiant genius.
Jonathan Jones: New York's Moma exhibiting emojis? It's like a teacher trying to twerk (The Guardian)
Once, New York's Museum of Modern Art was a temple of profound and serious work - but in acquiring emojis, it's joined the race to the bottom.
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
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David Bruce has over 80 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
wrote:
said:
has returned to semi-retired status.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Team Coco
CONAN - NOW WITH WORKING LINK!
Reader Comment
Melania
OK, who in the Trump organization is setting Melania up? First, the plagiarized speech on national TV. So easy to have checked and stopped before it happened. Then her big speech today where she, who has admitted ON TAPE that she can't control Lumpy, talked about stopping cyber bullying. I almost spit milk out of my nose laughing so hard! Seriously, could anything have been more ludicrous?!
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
Seems to me that Melania would be quite an expert on being bullied.
Gare Says...
November 2016 Astrology Column
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Temp
Reader Comment
Another minority report
I wonder if you would include this as a reader contribution.
T-rump is an ass-end bloviator. however, I really do believe that you
can trust "Lumpy" to do what he says. As with all capitalists (and
law-enforcers), he lies as a part of his "job."
But Hillary? Kankles is not a trusting or trustworthy person. Watch this, then listen to the official alternatives. Ultimately you must
decide.
Avoid crotch-identity voting, instead -- as always -- just choose the
lesser evil.
DanD
Hey Danny -
Long time, no see.
I'll agree that Lumpy is an ass-end bloviator, but that's about all I can go along with.
He's a class-A liar, con-man, and buffoon.
He still hasn't coughed up his tax returns yet, and if I gotta pay 'em, don't try to snow me with he's a genius who can afford lawyers to avoid paying his. Just because he's screwed so many people that he's wealthy isn't a compliment in my book. (And I'm old enough to know that when a charlatan says 'Trust me', you shouldn't.)
For gawd's sake, he bankrupted 4 casinos. Sweet jebus - how do you go broke when you literally have a license to steal?
He's Harold Hill in The Music Man, but without a theme song. And we got trouble, and that starts with 'T', just like Trump.
Then you snark Hillary on her 'kankles' but warn me off crotch-identity voting - nah, nothing misogynist about that.
FWIW, kankles are hereditary, just like tiny penises. And Con-man Donnie wouldn't be bringing up his if it didn't fall into that category.
Take away his goon squad, and his high-priced lawyers, and you'd see a sad, bald, little man with nothing but a yuge ego and nothing to back it up.
Lesser evil? It ain't even close. More like comparing a hangnail to ebola.
I prefer the one who will govern, not the one who will rule.
FWIW, I think the Clinton campaign has shown a lot of class
by
not
bringing
up
Melania's
unladylike
photographic
adventures.
Even after this: Melania Trump: Bill Clinton's past is fair game
OTOH, I'm not that nice.
~ m.
from Marc Perkel
Patriot Act
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
THE SORE LOSER!
TRUMP WANTS HIS "NEW-KKK"!
IT'S OFFICIAL!
"WE'RE TRYING TO STOP THE BLEEDING.
TRUMPKIN HEAD!
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Another day, another molting.
Designated National Mammal Of US
American Bison
The American bison has been designated the national mammal of the U.S. during a ceremony at Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota.
Congress approved the designation last spring, and it became official Tuesday, the Rapid City Journal reported. Federal lawmakers have called the bison - North America's largest land animal - the embodiment of American strength, resilience and the nation's pioneer spirit.
Tens of millions of bison, also known as buffalo, once thundered across a range stretching from central Canada through the Great Plains and northern Mexico. After a century-long slaughter driven by commercial hunting for buffalo pelts, the population dwindled to a thousand or fewer by the late 1800s.
About 30,000 wild bison now roam the country, with the largest population in Yellowstone National Park. Bison also are scattered in public, tribal and private lands in the U.S. and Canada.
American Bison
Kick Off Global Climate Deal
Pacific islands
As clocks passed midnight into Friday, remote islands in the Pacific Ocean, many in danger of rising seas from global warming, kicked off a rolling start as last year's global agreement to slow climate change took effect.
The 2015 Paris Agreement formally started on Nov. 4 after winning support from major greenhouse gas emitters led by China and the United States, but legal texts do not specify a time zone where it begins.
As a result, it came into effect first in the Pacific region, home to low-lying island states on the front lines of storm surges, disruptions to rainfall and a creeping rise in sea levels.
The eastern islands of Kiribati were among the first, followed by countries such as Tonga, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands.
Going into effect in the Pacific "which is home to vulnerable island nations who have all ratified the agreement, makes for one of those serendipitous moments in history," Thoriq Ibrahim, environment minister of the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, told Reuters.
Pacific islands
So Accurate It Folds Into a Globe
World Map
It's a problem that has plagued cartographers for centuries: How do you accurately represent a round world on a flat map?
The most common world map used today, designed almost 450 years ago, is highly distorted-it's that classroom wall map that shows Greenland as absolutely colossal. But a new map called AuthaGraph, created by Tokyo-based artist and architect Hajime Narukawa, just won Japan's distinguished Good Design Award for accurately representing the relative sizes of landmasses and bodies of water on Earth. The map is so proportionally accurate that you can fold it up into a three-dimensional globe.
The key to creating the new map was dividing the globe into 96 equal regions and then transferring the dimensions from a sphere to a tetrahedron before generating the rectangular map. By using multiple steps to change the globe from a rounded sphere to an angular pyramid and finally to a flat map, the area ratios of land and water can be preserved.
"This original mapping method can transfer a spherical surface to a rectangular surface such as a map of the world while maintaining correctly proportions in areas," reads the Good Design Award description. "AuthaGraph faithfully represents all oceans, continents including the neglected Antarctica. These fit within a rectangular frame with no interruptions. The map can be tessellated without visible seams. Thus the AuthaGraphic world map provides an advanced precise perspective of our planet."
The current standard for world maps, the Mercator projection, was developed by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569. The map became the official standard because it is great for nautical navigation. There is one glaring flaw with Mercator's map, however. Areas near the poles are highly distorted and look much larger than they actually are. Greenland, for example, looks about the same size as Africa on a Mercator projection, even though Africa has more than 14 times as much landmass.
World Map
Ancient Cave Lion Cubs Found
Russia
For more than 30,000 years, northern Russia's cold permafrost has preserved the small bodies of two furry and wide-pawed cave lion cubs, one of them in almost pristine condition, a new study found.
The two mummified cubs, nicknamed Uyan and Dina after the Uyandina River where they were found, were just about 1 week old when they died, likely crushed by "extensive collapse of the sediments in the den," the study's researchers wrote in a summary of their research. The report was presented as a poster here on Wednesday (Oct. 26) at the 2016 Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting.
"They were squished to death," said study co-researcher Olga Potapova, the collections curator at the Mammoth Site of Hot Springs, South Dakota.
The last known cave lion lived in what is now Alaska about 14,000 years ago, Potapova said. Little is known about the development of cave lions from cubs into adults, making the finding an extraordinary one, because it tells researchers about how these ancient cubs grew in comparison with their modern-day relatives, the lion (Panthera leo).
For instance, Uyan's body, which was more intact than Dina's, weighs about 6 lbs. (2.8 kilograms), which is about 4.6 lbs. (2.1 kg) heavier than a modern lion newborn, Potapova told Live Science. She added that because newborn lions don't have any identifiable sex characteristics, it's unclear whether Uyan and Dina were male or female
Russia
Pakistan Denies Bail
'Afghan Girl'
A Pakistani court on Wednesday denied bail to Sharbat Gula, who was arrested for illegally living in Pakistan and is best known as the green-eyed Afghan girl who posed for a National Geographic magazine photograph 30 years ago.
Gula, now in her 40s, became a symbol of her country's internecine wars when her photo as a young girl with haunted eyes appeared on the cover of National Geographic.
She has been held in jail in the northwest Pakistani city of Peshawar since her arrest on Wednesday last week following an investigation by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), which accuses her of possessing illegally obtained documents.
The special court for anti-corruption and immigration in Peshawar denied her bail, saying her application to be freed focused on human rights and did not contain any legal arguments.
She faces up to 14 years in prison if convicted of fraud, though it is more common for undocumented Afghan refugees to be deported than to serve time in prison.
'Afghan Girl'
Renews Effort To Toss Charges
Cosby
Bill Cosby on Wednesday renewed his attempt to have sexual assault charges against him thrown out, with the comedian's lawyers arguing in a Pennsylvania court that an 11-year gap between the incident and Cosby's arrest had violated his rights.
The argument was made during a two-day hearing to determine the scope of evidence prosecutors can introduce at Cosby's trial next June, including whether they can call as witnesses more than a dozen other women who have accused him of sexual assault.
Cosby, 79, who once enjoyed immense popularity as a family-friendly entertainer, is facing assault allegations going back decades from about 60 women.
Judge Steven O'Neill in Norristown, Pennsylvania, however, expressed skepticism that losing one's eyesight would be enough to justify dismissing the charges.
Cosby
Catholic Church Says Democratic Voting is 'Mortal Sin'
San Diego
Fliers inserted into a Catholic church's newsletter in San Diego implied that Hillary Clinton was satanic and warned that voting for Democrats would result in parishioners "descending into Hell."
One leaflet, stuffed in a bulletin handed to churchgoers at the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Old Town on Oct. 16, states: "How to vote like a Catholic - it is a mortal sin to vote Democrat!"
The handout goes on to outline several political issues, including abortion, and notes the church's stance on the topic. "Based on the above, it is mortal sin to vote Democrat," adding that sin, if not confessed, "means eternal damnation," the leaflet cautioned.
Two weeks later, parishioners received a second bulletin titled "Voting Catholic," that again discussed social issues and implored them to take a "Catholic view."
As a result of the incident, the diocese says it plans to send out a reminder to churches to refrain from making statements about specific candidates.
San Diego
Class-Action Lawsuit Filed
Johns Hopkins Hospital
One of America's most renowned medical centers - The Johns Hopkins Hospital - intentionally defrauded hundreds of sick coal miners out of compensation and health benefits while pocketing large sums from coal companies, according to a class action lawsuit filed by the families of two coal miners who died of black lung disease.
The lawsuit, which also targets a longtime Hopkins doctor, draws heavily from revelations in an investigative report by the Center for Public Integrity, in partnership with ABC News, about a unit of radiologists who for decades provided coal companies X-ray readings that almost always said the miner didn't have black lung, helping the companies avoid paying benefits under a program administered by the federal government.
In response to a request for comment, a Johns Hopkins spokesperson said, "We are reviewing the complaint."
The Center investigation found that the longtime leader of the unit, Dr. Paul Wheeler, had read X-rays in more than 1,500 cases just since 2000 but never once found a case of severe black lung, despite the fact that other doctors looking at the same films found evidence of the disease hundreds of times. Wheeler's credentials and longtime affiliation with Johns Hopkins often trumped those of all other doctors involved, and administrative judges credited his reports over those of other doctors and denied more than 800 claims.
Yet the Center found that in more than 100 cases, biopsies or autopsies proved Wheeler wrong.
Johns Hopkins Hospital
Evicted From Moscow Office
Amnesty International
Amnesty International, a campaign group which has accused the Kremlin of violating human rights with its bombing campaign in Syria, was evicted from its Moscow office on Wednesday.
The Moscow city government, from which Amnesty leased the premises in the Russian capital's center, said the group was behind on the rent. But Amnesty said it had documents to prove it was up to date with payments.
Staff at the Amnesty Moscow office told Reuters they arrived at work to find the locks had been changed, official seals had been placed over the doors, and the electricity had been cut off.
John Dalhuisen, Amnesty International's Europe director, said the eviction may be part of an official crackdown on civil society groups that criticize the Kremlin, but he said there were other possible explanations.
In a statement sent to Reuters, the Moscow city property department said it had sent written warnings to Amnesty that it was in rent arrears.
Amnesty International
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