Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Fraudulence of the Fiscal Hawks (NY Times Column)
There have been many "news analysis" pieces asking why Republicans have changed their views on deficit spending. But let's be serious: Their views haven't changed at all. They never really cared about debt and deficits; it was a fraud all along. All that has changed is the fact that a Republican now sits in the White House.
Jonathan Freedland: "Steven Spielberg: 'The urgency to make The Post was because of Trump's administration'" (The Guardian)
The director dropped everything - including new blockbuster Ready Player One - to tell the story of the Washington Post's decision to publish the Pentagon Papers. He talks about parallels between Nixon and Trump and why Oprah Winfrey would be a 'brilliant' president.
Gwilym Mumford: "Jill Messick: producer's death 'collateral damage' of Weinstein scandal, family say" (The Guardian)
The family of the executive, who was Rose McGowan's talent manager at the time of her alleged rape by Harvey Weinstein, say she killed herself after 'inaccurate accusations and insinuations.'
Jonathan Bernstein: Laurie Metcalf on Lady Bird and the return of Roseanne in the age of Trump (The Guardian)
The actor - best known for playing Roseanne's sister - had not had a film role for 10 years when Greta Gerwig's surprise hit came along - and threw her an unlikely Oscar nomination.
Ryan Gilbey: The whimsical and the grotesque meet in Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water (New Statesman)
Refreshingly, the film doesn't shy away from its characters' unusual desires.
Dan Buettner: Reverse Engineering Longevity (Blue Zones)
To make it to age 100, you have to have won the genetic lottery. But most of us have the capacity to make it well into our early 90's and largely without chronic disease. As the Adventists demonstrate, the average person's life expectancy could increase by 10-12 years by adopting a Blue Zones lifestyle.
Dr. Michael Gregor, MD: Coffee (nutritionfacts.org)
The Beverage Guidance Panel, assembled to provide recommendations on benefits and risks of various beverage categories, found tea and coffee-preferably without creamer or sweetener-tied as the number-two healthiest beverages, second only to water.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
replied:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
David E Suggests
Sci Fi Renaissance
David
Thanks, Dave!
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
Rotten attracts rotten
A good person does not support and serve a racist, misogynistic, narcissistic sexual Predator:
There are no secretly decent people working in this White House. Everyone helping further the Trump agenda took the job because they're as immoral as the man they signed up to work for.
At some point, after John Kelly is fired, demoted or just pushed into the background, a new name will emerge and with it, new hopes of the person being a "rational" force and a "compassionate" leader. That won't be true, either. There's no needle in the haystack, just hay. Racist, misogynist, xenophobic hay.
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
"WHAT THE HELL AM I?"
KA-BLOOWIE!
PUT YOUR THUMBS WHERE THE SUN DON'T SHINE.
"JABBA THE FRAUD."
"BEYOND DISBELIEF."
MOVING TOWARDS FASCISM!
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Running really late.
Major Shortage?
Tequila
There has been a spate of headlines over the past week heralding something pretty awful -- potentially less tequila on the liquor shelves.
"A Tequila Shortage Could Be on the Horizon," a Fortune article announced on Feb. 1. Stories from other news outlets quickly followed, and they all have a similar doom-filled message.
Essentially, tequila producers can't keep up with demand. That's led to the skyrocketing cost for agave -- the Mexican plant from which tequila is distilled -- which has shot up six-fold in the past two years.
That price squeezes the margins for smaller distillers and causes worry that even the bigger companies will be affected, according to Reuters.
Since the plant takes seven to eight years to reach full maturity, the ideal point at which agave farmers harvest them for tequila, some farmers have resorted to pulling their plants early, before the agave is fully mature.
Tequila
Getting Their Own Emoji
Redheads
Redheads are positively thrilled to be getting emoji of their very own.
The Unicode Consortium, which oversees emoji selection, announced the 157 new characters for its new Emoji 11.0 collection Wednesday. And with this fresh new batch comes a key addition: the long-awaited redhead emoji in a range of skin tones. For phone-carrying customers who have long felt excluded from the conversation, this news about red hair cartoon people is raining down like champagne.
Other new emoji: a smattering of superheroes, leafy greens, a paper hat topped-"party" face, a pirate flag, a pink frosted-cupcake, and a mosquito. Users will also be able to choose from bald, curly-haired and others, also in a range of skin tones. They're all set to release in June, but won't likely hit everyone's phones until August or September. Despite the fact that the redhead emoji won't be at our fingertips for months, there's a widespread celebration online.
It may not be Holland's Redhead Days festival, which unites natural born redheads from all corners of the earth, but it is a redhead party. It's truly a new dawn, and a new day.
Redheads
Quits Government Job
Montana
A Montana man became a social media sensation this week after quitting his job in the state's labor department rather than handle paperwork that he said could lead to the arrest of undocumented immigrants.
"There were going to be subpoenas for information that would end up being used to hunt down & deport undocumented workers," Jordon Dyrdahl-Roberts wrote on Twitter Wednesday, adding:
Dyrdahl-Roberts, a legal secretary with the department since 2011, was told on Tuesday that he should help process subpoena requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Independent Record reported.
"I immediately said, 'I don't think I can help with that,'" he told the newspaper. "I began talking with management about what the deal was, but I pretty much understood at that point."
The agency reportedly offered to relocate Dyrdahl-Roberts to another position in the department, but it appears he declined.
Montana
Pacific Nation Getting Bigger
Tuvalu
The Pacific nation of Tuvalu -- long seen as a prime candidate to disappear as climate change forces up sea levels -- is actually growing in size, new research shows.
A University of Auckland study examined changes in the geography of Tuvalu's nine atolls and 101 reef islands between 1971 and 2014, using aerial photographs and satellite imagery.
It found eight of the atolls and almost three-quarters of the islands grew during the study period, lifting Tuvalu's total land area by 2.9 percent, even though sea levels in the country rose at twice the global average.
Co-author Paul Kench said the research, published Friday in the journal Nature Communications, challenged the assumption that low-lying island nations would be swamped as the sea rose.
"We tend to think of Pacific atolls as static landforms that will simply be inundated as sea levels rise, but there is growing evidence these islands are geologically dynamic and are constantly changing," he said.
Tuvalu
Police Pursue 'Anti-Racist' Activists
California
California police investigating a violent white nationalist event worked with white supremacists in an effort to identify counter-protesters and sought the prosecution of activists with "anti-racist" beliefs, court documents show.
The records, which also showed officers expressing sympathy with white supremacists and trying to protect a neo-Nazi organizer's identity, were included in a court briefing from three anti-fascist activists who were charged with felonies after protesting at a Sacramento rally. The defendants were urging a judge to dismiss their case and accused California police and prosecutors of a "cover-up and collusion with the fascists".
Defense lawyers said the case at the state capital offers the latest example of US law enforcement appearing to align with neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups while targeting anti-fascist activists and Donald Trump protesters after violent clashes.
"It is shocking and really angering to see the level of collusion and the amount to which the police covered up for the Nazis," said Yvette Felarca, a Berkeley teacher and anti-fascist organizer charged with assault and rioting after participating in the June 2016 Sacramento rally, where she said she was stabbed and bludgeoned in the head. "The people who were victimized by the Nazis were then victimized by the police and the district attorneys."
California
'Radical Intervention'
Coral
Some of the nation's leading coral scientists stressed Thursday that the situation facing coral reefs is nothing short of desperate - and a drastic cut in global carbon dioxide emissions won't be enough to protect corals from deadly bleaching events and other environmental threats.
In hopes of giving the reefs a fighting chance, a newly formed committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine will review a variety of potential intervention strategies, from genetic modification of coral species to spraying salt water into the atmosphere to shade and cool reefs.
At the committee's first meeting on Thursday, Mark Eakin, coordinator of the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration's (NOAA) Coral Reef Watch, said the "severity" of what has occurred between June 2014 and May 2017 - the "longest, most widespread, and possibly the most damaging" bleaching event on record - has changed the scientific community's perspective about what should be done.
"The dire situation is here now," he told the 12-person committeeat its first meeting on Thursday. "We know that climate change is accelerating and accelerating bleaching. And so we need to make sure that this study isn't something that talks about some nice areas of science but is too little and too late for the corals."
Coral bleaching is a phenomenon in which stressed corals expel algae and turn white, often as a result of warming ocean temperatures. If not given time to recover, bleached corals can perish. The recent event - just the third global bleaching event in recorded history - devastated reefs around the globe. Among the hardest hit was Australia's Great Barrier Reef, where 93 percentof corals were impacted by bleaching and an estimated 29 percent of shallow water corals perished.
Coral
GOP Tactic
Recalls
Nevada's major political parties are locked in a legal battle over a Republican effort to take control of the state Senate by recalling two freshly elected Democratic lawmakers - a tactic that Democrats warn could undermine the validity of elections across the U.S.
Experts and those from both parties say the move could be the way of the future for the losing side to keep control of influential statehouses. In Nevada, no official reason was given for the recalls, and none was required. Some conservatives have been open about hoping Republicans gain partisan advantage.
Republicans in 2016 lost hold of the Nevada Senate, which Democrats now control by an 11-9 margin. The GOP then circulated petitions to recall two Democratic senators and one independent who caucuses with them.
Republicans gathered enough signatures to launch recall elections of the Democrats, Nicole Cannizzaro and Joyce Woodhouse, who had been narrowly elected the previous year from swing districts in the Las Vegas area.
Democrats launched a counteroffensive. They sued in federal court, arguing the recalls violate the U.S. Constitution. They also persuaded thousands of people who had signed the petitions to withdraw their signatures - likely dropping the petitions below the threshold needed to qualify for the ballot.
Recalls
Has A Suggestion
Shep Smith
President-for-now Donald Trump's (R-Corrupt) dream of a big military parade in Washington is getting a lot of pushback from both citizens and the military. But more surprisingly, some people at his beloved Fox News aren't so hot on the idea.
On Wednesday, anchor Shepard Smith openly ridiculed the president's proposed parade during a discussion with Fox News correspondent Jennifer Griffin.
"He could go see the tanks at a military base if he wanted to," Smith offered as a more frugal alternative. "Or they could give him replicas. Little mini replicas. I mean, he wants to see what he has. I had some of those when I was a kid."
Smith later added: "You can get the little plastic ones and lay them out on the table and say, 'Here you go.'"
"Fox & Friends" co-host Brian Kilmeade is another Fox News personality skeptical about Trump's grand parade.
Shep Smith
Top 20
Global Concert Tours
The Top 20 Global Concert Tours ranks artists by average box office gross per city and includes the average ticket price for shows Worldwide. The list is based on data provided to the trade publication Pollstar by concert promoters and venue managers.
1. Paul McCartney; $5,506,696; $131.30.
2. Bruno Mars; $2,876,027; $109.73.
3. Guns N' Roses; $1,986,872; $139.96.
4. Lady Gaga; $1,684,135; $113.56.
5. Depeche Mode; $1,629,499; $87.96.
6. Dead & Company; $1,590,747; $107.73.
7. Jay-Z; $1,499,286; $101.76.
8. The Weeknd; $1,372,385; $91.06.
9. Foo Fighters; $990,177; $90.18.
10. Tim McGraw / Faith Hill; $987,420; $82.92.
11. Little Mix; $984,689; $55.69.
12. Enrique Iglesias / Pitbull; $964,762; $89.58.
13. Katy Perry; $953,087; $97.32.
14. The Killers; $940,347; $73.12.
15. Trans-Siberian Orchestra; $889,185; $60.45.
16. Scorpions; $803,497; $105.67.
17. Imagine Dragons; $760,964; $60.09.
18. Chris Stapleton; $693,403; $52.08.
19. André Rieu; $668,782; $91.69.
20. Janet Jackson; $623,837; $75.54.
Global Concert Tours
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