Recommended Reading
from Bruce
John Judis: Some Random Speculations about Trump, Bannon, and Wolff (TPM)
Reagan only came alive on stage and on the hustings. Trump, by contrast, appears to be live only in and for the public - a stance that encourages chaos in his life and administration. The show is always going on. What should be his private emotions are constantly on display. And it's coming out now as he conducts a third grader's feud with Bannon and North Korea's Kim Jong-Un.
Josh Marshall: The End of the Beginning (TPM)
We are still only at the front end of this investigation. We still know only the outlines of what happened and how. But we are past any serious question about whether there was collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. There was. It's no longer a matter of probability, even high probability. We know it from either undisputed facts or sworn statements from Trump associates now cooperating with the Mueller investigation.
Amy Nicholson: All the old rules about movie stardom are broken. (Slate)
… I thought about how most of the famous faces who represent the movies have been dead for 50 years. Marilyn's smile sells shot glasses, clocks, calendars, posters, and shirts in stores from Sunset Boulevard to Buenos Aires, Tijuana to Taiwan. What modern actor could earn a seat at her table? The biggest stars of my lifetime-Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, Nicolas Cage, Sandra Bullock-never graduated past magazine covers to souvenir magnets.
Matthew Jacobs: These 16 Movies Are Vying For Best Picture In The 2018 Oscar Race (Huffington Post)
"Get Out" has the edge on this derby.
Fish (NutritionFacts)
Hexachlorobenzene, another pesticide banned nearly a half century ago, today may be found mainly in dairy and meat, including fish. Perfluorochemicals, or PFCs? Overwhelmingly found in fish and other meats. The contaminants in fish may help explain studies showing an association between fish consumption and diabetes. To lower our pollutant exposure, we should try to eat as low on the food chain as possible.
Samuel Gibbs: Apple says Meltdown and Spectre flaws affect all Mac and iOS devices (The Guardian)
Updates to protect against Meltdown flaw available for supported iPhone, iPad, Mac computers and Apple TV devices, with more protections being developed.
Danny Leigh: Death wears Mickey Mouse ears: how Disney is doing parents a favour (The Guardian)
Ever since Bambi's mother was shot, cinema has been teaching young audiences about mortality. Pixar's new blockbuster, Coco, is the most sobering yet.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
replied:
answered:
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Reader Comment
Current Events
Factivist Resistance
Just saw a story about this on local news. Love the Putin-free Valentines idea.
She donates a portion of her profits to protect the press (We donate 10% of our profits to the Committee to Protect Journalists, an independent, nonprofit organization that promotes press freedom worldwide.):
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
JD took the day off.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Really running late.
Letterman's First Netflix Guest
Barack Obama
David Letterman has lined up former president Barack Obama to be his first guest when he returns to a TV talk show later this month.
Obama will join Letterman on Jan. 12 for the launch of the new "My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman" on Netflix.
Other guests slated to be on the show include George Clooney, Malala Yousafzai, Jay-Z, Tina Fey and Howard Stern. In each hour-long episode, Letterman will conduct a long-form conversation with a single guest and explore topics of his own outside the studio.
It will be the first talk show Letterman has hosted since he stepped down from CBS' "Late Show with David Letterman" in May 2015.
Barack Obama
Won't Return This Year
'Game Of Thrones'
It's official: "Game of Thrones" fans have to wait at least a year for its eighth and final season to find out who will win the Iron Throne.
HBO announced Thursday that new episodes will not be ready until 2019 ? a prospect network brass hinted at when Season 7 concluded last summer. Sophie Turner, who plays the increasingly hardheaded Sansa Stark, let slip that she fully expected the series to return in 2019, but this is the first HBO has affirmed the timeline.
Season 8 will be the shortest yet, consisting of just six episodes, although some could be extra long. Season 7 saw the series' shortest-ever and longest-ever episodes, at 50 minutes and 80 minutes, respectively.
By all accounts, the extended waiting period will be worth it, giving showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss more time to craft what might be the most anticipated series finale in television history. With its fiery battle scenes and a deadly ice dragon, Season 7 has already raised production expectations sky-high.
Along with Benioff and Weiss, the season will be directed by Miguel Sapochnik, who helmed fan-favorite episodes "Hardhome," "Battle of the Bastards" and "The Winds of Winter," and David Nutter, who headed up the infamous "Rains of Castamere," among several other episodes. In short, it's going to be good.
'Game Of Thrones'
Leave Of Absence
Alex Trebek
Alex Trebek, who has hosted the popular game show "Jeopardy!" since 1984, recently underwent brain surgery, but expects to return to taping new episodes soon.
The venerable host and Canadian icon underwent brain surgery in December, but he posted a video message on Thursday saying he expects to return to taping "Jeopardy!" soon. Sony Pictures, which produces the show, said they will return to filming new tapings with Trebek in mid-January.
The show will continue airing new episodes, taped in advance, in the meantime. However, the annual college tournament will now be delayed until April, Sony Pictures said.
Dressed in a yellow sweater and blue "Jeopardy!" cap, the 77-year-old Trebek delivered the news of his surgery and recovery himself in a video posted to the show's Facebook page.
"Some of you may have heard by now that during the holiday break, I had a slight medical problem -- a subdural hematoma, blod clots on the brain, caused by a fall I endured about two months ago," Trebek said in the video. "Surgery was performed. After two days in the hospital, I came home to start recovery. Prognosis is excellent, and I expect to be back in the studio and taping more 'Jeopardy!' programs very, very soon.
Alex Trebek
FX Orders Spinoff
'Sons of Anarchy'
FX says it is ordering a spinoff to "Sons of Anarchy" with Edward James Olmos as part of a nearly all-Latino cast.
The 10-episode "Mayans MC" will premiere later this year, FX Networks CEO John Landgraf told a TV critics meeting Friday. The date was not announced.
The series, focused on characters from "Sons of Anarchy," is poised to show that "hit television and diverse television" can be the same thing, Landgraf said.
Also starring in the drama are JD Pardo, Sarah Bolger, Clayton Cardenas and Richard Cabral.
"Sons of Anarchy" creator Kurt Sutter will produce the show with Elgin James and Norberto Barba.
'Sons of Anarchy'
Crackdown On Pot
Sessions
The Trump Justice Department's crackdown on legalized marijuana could be an issue in this year's midterms - if Democrats choose to make it one.
Multiple outlets reported Thursday that Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the Trump administration were rolling back an Obama era policy to scale back federal prosecution of marijuana-related cases in jurisdictions where it is not illegal under state law. A majority of states - including California, as of Jan. 1 - allow pot use in at least some circumstances, but the growing, selling and possession of marijuana are still federal crimes.
The move, which reflects long-standing Republican antipathy to drug use going back to the 1960s, and Sessions's own view of weed as only "slightly less awful" than heroin, is unlikely to be popular with the solid majority - 64 percent - of Americans who support pot legalization. An October Gallup poll found that for the first time in the organization's history of asking about the issue a majority of Republicans supported legalization, along with 67 percent of independents and 72 percent of Democrats. President Trump himself said during his campaign that he would leave marijuana policy to the states, and Republican senators including Lisa Murkowski (whose state, Alaska, has legalized pot) and Rand Paul (the Senate's leading libertarian and states'-rights advocate) came out against Sessions's decision. Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado, a state that has also legalized pot, was particularly outspoken, threatening to block Justice Department appointments unless Sessions reverses himself.
Gardner also warned that the decision could redound against Republicans in this year's midterm elections, coming on the heels of several other unpopular initiatives by the White House and the Republican-controlled Congress, including the failed health care bill and the new tax law. Last month Trump's appointees to the Federal Communications Commission voted to eliminate net neutrality, a decision with which 83 percent of Americans disagreed. Combined with the low favorability ratings of Trump, Republicans are considered at risk of losing control of at least one house of Congress.
Will weed become another wedge issue for Democrats? Legalization has proved popular at the polls, with eight of the nine 2016 ballot measures passing, including in four states - Arkansas, Florida, Montana and North Dakota - that voted for Trump. (Those four states all voted to approve medical marijuana, not recreational use.) The measure in California to legalize pot was extremely popular among young and African-American voters, two groups Democrats hope to get to the polls in their attempt to win back control of Congress, governorships and state houses.
Sessions
America's Second-Largest Religious Group By 2040
Muslims
America's Muslim population is growing at a steady rate ? so much so that Muslims are projected to one day outpace Jews as the country's second-largest religious group.
New estimates from the Pew Research Center show that there were about 3.45 million Muslims of all ages living in the U.S. in 2017. Combining data from a 2017 Pew survey of U.S. Muslims and from the Census Bureau, the research center found that Muslims make up about 1.1 percent of America's total population.
Muslims have been part of America's religious landscape since the country's founding. The first wave of Muslims arrived in the U.S. as slaves, many of whom were later forcibly converted to Christianity.
Pew first began collecting estimates about the size of the country's Muslim population in 2007. Since then, the religious group appears to have grown at a rate of about 100,000 per year, fueled by high fertility rates and continued migration to the U.S.
Despite American Muslims' fast rate of growth, it is important to note that they will continue to be a religious minority in an overwhelmingly Christian country. Pew's 2014 landmark Religious Landscape Survey showed that Christians made up a whopping 70.6 percent of the U.S. adult population. On the other hand, non-Christian faiths, including Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and others, only made up about 5.9 percent.
Muslims
Eating Australia's Great Barrier Reef
Starfish
A major outbreak of coral-eating crown of thorns starfish has been found munching Australia's world heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef, scientists said on Friday, prompting the government to begin culling the spiky marine animals.
The predator starfish feeds on corals by spreading its stomach over them and using digestive enzymes to liquefy tissue, and the outbreak hits as the reef is still reeling from two consecutive years of major coral bleaching.
"Each starfish eats about its body diameter a night, and so over time that mounts up very significantly," Hugh Sweatman, a senior research scientist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science told Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) radio.
The crown of thorns were found in plague proportions last month in the Swains Reefs, at the southern edge of the Great Barrier Reef, by researchers from the reef's Marine Park Authority, a spokeswoman for the authority told Reuters by phone.
Starfish
Occurs More Frequently
Coral Bleaching
Mass coral bleaching events are happening far more frequently than in the past, giving some of the world's most majestic and fragile ecosystems almost no time to recover, according to a new paper published Thursday in the journal Science.
A team of researchers analyzed rates of coral bleaching around the tropics over the past four decades, events that most often occur when seawater becomes too warm for coral to remain healthy. Scientists discovered that in the 1980s, severe coral bleaching events occurred only about once every 25 to 30 years. But, in the six years after 2010, the rate between bleachings plummeted, and mass events now occur about once every six years.
"Before the 1980s, mass bleaching of corals was unheard of, even during strong El Niño conditions, but now repeated bouts of regional-scale bleaching and mass mortality of corals has become the new normal around the world as temperatures continue to rise," Terry Hughes, the study's lead author and the director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies in Australia, said in a statement.
The paper warns that climate change could eventually lead to such events every year.
While reefs that bleach - so named because once-colorful corals turn white - aren't immediately killed, many of the creatures die in the intervening days and weeks. A mass bleaching event on the Great Barrier Reef in 2016 left up to two-thirds of parts of the reef dead, and a back-to-back event in 2017 left some scientists in shock.
Coral Bleaching
Florida United Numismatists
(FUN)
The annual Florida United Numismatists (FUN) convention was held in Tampa this week. It's considered one of the five largest coin and currency collectors' shows in the nation, experts say, and three historic coins, including the pricey penny, went up for auction Thursday evening. In all, the auction drew $24.9 million in sales.
Mark Borckardt, a senior numismatist with Heritage Auctions in Dallas, said the George Washington-era penny is one of about 500 in existence.
Other high-value U.S. coins sold at auction included a half-dollar minted in New Orleans in 1838. It was one of the first 20 produced there.
A $4 gold piece called a "Flowing Hair Stella," sold for $750,000.
There are only about 15 to 20 of those quarter-sized gold coins in existence.
(FUN)
In Memory
Jon Paul Steuer
Jon Paul Steuer, the Star Trek actor famous for being the first person to play Alexander Rozhenko in The Next Generation, has died this week at the age of 33.
Jon, also known as Jonny P Jewels in his later career as a musician and restaurateur, died on January 1, according to local reports.
Jon was born in California in March 1984 and launched his acting career at the age of 3, going on to play the Klingon Alexander - son of Worf and Ambassador K'Ehleyr - in 1990.
It's said he only got the job because he was the only small child at the audition who was patient enough to sit through the three hours it took to apply his prosthetics and makeup.
In 1991, Jon continued his acting career with the comedy series Late For Dinner, before going on to a guest appearance in an episode of The Wonder Years and When Love Kills: The Seduction of John Hearn.
But it was his star turn as Quentin Kelly in the television series Grace Under Fire that really won him fans.
Jon launched his music career after his last role in the 1994 comedy film Little Giants and formed glam punk band Kill City Thrillers, performing as his new alter-ego Jonny P Jewels.
Later in life, he opened up the highly successful vegan restaurant Harvest at the Bindery in Portland, becoming a restaurateur while continuing his music ventures on the side.
Jon Paul Steuer
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