Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Greg Sargent: Trump's hard-core base will not rule this country forever (Washington Post)
Here's a big reason the stakes this fall are so high. A Democratic takeover of the House could help curb the outsize influence that the worldview of President Trump's base - or, at least, the fabled picture of this worldview that is often depicted in the media, and also appears to exist in the mind of Trump himself - has in shaping policy on so many fronts, something that is already having deeply destructive consequences that could get a lot worse.
Lucy Mangan: "Women everywhere can relate to the horror of the catcall" (Stylist)
The viral video of a French student being punched in the face by a street harasser is shocking, but - for many women - not surprising, says Lucy Mangan.
Lucy Mangan: The UN Sex Abuse Scandal review - careful, dignified and grueling (The Guardian)
This powerful documentary exposed the culture of impunity among UN peacekeepers, who have been accused of 1,700 crimes of sexual violence
Paul Waldman: The strange ritual of right-wing race baiters(Washington Post)
So try for a moment to imagine what it would look like if the GOP didn't make so many explicitly racial appeals.
Marina Hyde: Steven Seagal is now in charge of Russia-US relations. Is there anything this man can't do? (The Guardian)
He has become a cryptocurrency mascot, made three films, written a novel and floored an aikido team in the past year alone. Soon he will put his diplomatic skills to use for Putin
Alison Flood: "'Elitist': angry book pirates hit back after author campaign sinks website" (The Guardian)
Thriller author Steve Cavanagh, whose books have appeared on pirate sites, said that the issue "further highlights the need for properly funded public libraries". "When I was growing up I couldn't afford to buy new books, so I went to the library and if there was a book I really wanted to own I saved for it," he said. "The real issue is that certain sections of the on-demand culture have a sense of entitlement to content for free … In order to read a pirated PDF you need a computer, e-reader or smartphone and probably access to wifi. My view is that if you can afford to buy an electronic device such as this, you should be able to afford to buy a book."
Alison Food: "'We're told to be grateful we even have readers': pirated ebooks threaten the future of book series" (The Guardian)
With 4m or 17% of all online ebooks being pirated, novelists including Maggie Stiefvater and Samantha Shannon say theft by fans puts their books at risk.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
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
BURN BABY, BURN!
POOR NAZI FILTH.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Running late.
'Overwhelmed' With Emails
Greek Cat Sanctuary
The job advert on Facebook sounded almost too good to be true. A living wage, a car, a lovely house to live in - bills paid - with a terrace overlooking the Aegean, just a short walk from a pristine beach on the Greek island of Syros.
The job? Caring for up to 70 cats amounting to four hours of work per day.
Nearly 1,000 Britons applied for the role after the announcement posted by Greek cat sanctuary owner Joan Bowell on Facebook last week went viral.
They have drafted five volunteers across Europe to narrow down the 3,000 applications from people offering to take their place - mostly Americans and British nationals - to a pool of 50-100.
The position comes with a salary up to €600 (£536) a month, with bills, housing and veterinary expenses paid, starting November 1, after a voluntary two-week transition period in October.
Greek Cat Sanctuary
CNN's "State of the Union"
Giuliani
President-for-now Donald Trump (R-OfPutin) will deny he ever asked former FBI director James Comey to go easy on fired former national security adviser Michael Flynn if made to testify about it under oath, his lawyer Rudy Giuliani (R-Cheap Veneers) said Sunday.
"There was no conversation about Michael Flynn," Giuliani said on CNN's "State of the Union" show, of the February 14, 2017 Oval Office meeting.
Comey testified in Congress last year that Trump sought to pressure him to back off on Flynn the day after the president fired his national security adviser for lying about contacts he had had with the Russian ambassador.
Trump has previously denied Comey's version of the meeting about Flynn, without going into detail.
But the former FBI director's contemporaneous memos of his interactions with Trump, which were leaked and ultimately made public in redacted form earlier this year, are a central feature of Mueller's inquiry into whether Trump sought to obstruct the Russia probe.
Giuliani
'Breathes' Water
California
Researchers at the California Institute of Technology compiled hundreds of satellite images collected between 1992 and 2011 to measure how the ground in California rises and falls during the wet and dry seasons. When the images are put together, the result is a dramatic animated graphic showing the land seeming to inhale and exhale water.
"What we see through the rising and falling of the ground surface is the elastic response of the land to regular changes in groundwater level," Bryan Riel, lead author and geophysicist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a statement.
Riel and his colleagues compiled 18 years of publicly available radar data captured by the European Space Agency. They focused on the area between San Fernando, northwest of Los Angeles, down to Irvine, in Orange County. The aquifers in this area are heavily tapped throughout the year to meet the water demands of the millions of residents and abundant farms in the region. The graphic the researchers made reflects the annual fluctuation of high and low groundwater levels that correspond with California's wet and dry seasons.
The researchers point out that the fluctuation appears less dramatic in more recent years as water- management authorities began focusing on replenishing the aquifers and avoiding depletion. The trend occurred after the passage of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act that California Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law in 2014, which dictates that groundwater managers must avoid permanent ground lowering.
But subsidence, or ground lowering, has already occurred on a more permanent level in many parts of the area by several dozen feet, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, and groundwater levels are likely to continue declining in the future.
California
6.4 Earthquake Hits North Slope
Alaska
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck on Sunday near the native Alaskan village of Kaktovik and part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge where the Trump administration plans to allow oil drilling, but no injuries or damage were reported.
The temblor, which occurred just before 7 a.m. (1500 GMT), was the most powerful on record to hit Alaska's oil-producing North Slope, said Paul Huang, a seismologist and deputy director of the National Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska.
No tsunami alert was generated, though ground motion was felt as far away as Fairbanks, Alaska, nearly 400 miles (644 km) to the south.
The quake had no impact on operations of the Trans Alaska Pipeline system that carries North Slope crude 800 miles (1,300 km) to the marine terminal at Valdez, according to a statement from Alyeska, the consortium that runs the pipeline.
The main earthquake was centered 40 miles (64 km) southwest of Kaktovik, a coastal Inupiat village of about 260 residents at the northern edge of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).
Alaska
Finally Drops Calf
Orca
A grieving orca whale who carried the corpse of her dead calf for an unprecedented 17 days has finally let it go.
The killer whale, known as J35 to scientists monitoring the population in the Pacific Northwest, was spotted swimming without the infant balanced on her head for the first time since July.
"J35 frolicked past my window today with other J pod whales, and she looks vigorous and healthy," Ken Balcomb, of the Centre for Whale Research, told The Seattle Times. "The ordeal of her carrying a dead calf for at least 17 days and 1,000 miles is now over, thank goodness."
The 20-year-old whale, also known as Tahlequah, is an important memberof the critically endangered southern resident orca population. Her relative youth age means she could have years of reproductive ability ahead of her.
But the death of her daughter triggered a grieving process that took longer than any other documented case among killer whales, with Tahlequah carrying her infant night and day, and diving deep underwater to bring the body back to the surface when it slipped off her head.
Orca
Tens Of Thousands Rally
Okinawa
Tens of thousands of protesters in Okinawa vowed to stop the planned relocation of a U.S military base, saying they want it off the southern Japanese island entirely.
Opponents of the relocation say the plan to move U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma from a crowded neighborhood to a less populated coastal site would not only be an environmental debacle but also ignore local wishes to remove the base.
About 70,000 people gathered Saturday at a park in the state capital of Naha under pouring rain ahead of an approaching typhoon and observed a moment of silence for Okinawa's governor, Takeshi Onaga, who died Wednesday of cancer.
Onaga, elected in 2014, had spearheaded opposition to the relocation and criticized the central government for ignoring the voices of Okinawans. He had filed lawsuits against the central government and said he planned to revoke a landfill permit issued by his predecessor that is needed for construction of the new base.
Okinawans are trying to block the government plan to start dumping soil into Henoko Bay within days to make a landfill for the new site of the Futenma base. Environmental groups say construction at the bay risks corals and endangered dugongs.
Okinawa
11-Year-Old Bride
Thailand
An 11-year-old child bride returned to Thailand this week following widespread outcry over her marriage to a Malaysian man 30 years her senior, an official told AFP on Saturday.
Malaysian Muslims below the age of 16 are allowed to wed with the permission of religious courts but news of the union between the girl and the 41-year-old trader went viral on social media, reigniting calls to end child marriage.
The ceremony took place in June over the border in Thailand's Muslim-majority south in Narathiwat province, where the girl returned to Wednesday in the wake of "immense pressure from Malaysian media", provincial governor Suraporn Prommool said.
The 11-year-old, believed to be the trader's third wife, is undergoing mental-health counselling because of the intense level of attention, Suraporn said.
He added that the marriage was not recognised under Buddhist-majority Thailand's civil law but that it took place under the auspices of an Islamic council in Narathiwat with the consent of the girl's parents.
Thailand
Controversial Study
Salt
Consuming twice the maximum daily salt recommended by the NHS may be safe, a controversial new study has claimed.
A major review published in the Lancet suggests that salt is not as damaging to health as previously thought and that official campaigns should focus only on those consuming the most.
The NHS and World Health Organization say adults should not have more than a teaspoon of salt a day, because of the risk of heart attacks and strokes.
But the new study indicates that up to two and a half teaspoons of salt may be safe, and that more than this may still be acceptable as part of a broader healthy diet comprising lots of fruit and vegetables.
The study analysed the data of 94,000 people in 18 countries, whose sodium levels was measured using urine tests.
Salt
Weekend Box Office
'The Meg'
Adding to Hollywood's sizzling summer, the shark thriller "The Meg" opened well above expectations with an estimated $44.5 million in ticket sales, while Spike Lee had his best debut in a decade.
"The Meg" had been forecast by some analysts for closer to half that total. An American-Chinese co-production between Warner Bros. and China's Gravity Pictures, it also debuted well overseas, taking in $50.3 million in China and totaling $96.8 million internationally, according to studio estimates Sunday.
After two weeks at no. 1, "Mission: Impossible - Fallout" slid to second place in its third weekend with $20 million. The Paramount Pictures release starring Tom Cruise has pulled in $162 million in three weeks.
Lee's critically acclaimed "BlacKkKlansman" also opened strongly with $10.8 million in 1,512 theaters. The Focus Features release, which took the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival in May, was timed to the anniversary of the violent clashes between white nationalists and anti-racism counter protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia. Lee's film, produced by Jordan Peele ("Get Out"), is a true-life tale of African-American police detective Ron Stallworth (played by John David Washington, son of Denzel), who in 1979 infiltrated a Colorado Springs, Colorado, cell of the Ku Klux Klan.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to comScore. Where available, the latest international numbers for Friday through Sunday also are included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. "The Meg," $44.5 million ($96.8 million international).
2. "Mission: Impossible - Fallout," $20 million.
3. "Christopher Robin," $12.4 million.
4. "Slender Man," $11.3 million.
5. "BlacKkKlansman," $10.8 million.
6. "The Spy Who Dumped Me," $6.6 million.
7. "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again," $5.8 million.
8. "The Equalizer 2," $5.5 million.
9. "Hotel Transylvania 3," $5.1 million.
10. "Ant-Man and the Wasp," $4 million.
'The Meg'
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