Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: The Art of the Flail (NY Times Column)
On trade, Trump doesn't know what he wants, except that he can't get it.
Allegra Kirkland: "'Raise Hell': In Trump Era, Blue State Dems Have Made Huge Strides" (TPM)
In the year and a half since President Donald Trump's victory, progressives have sprung into action at the state level, scoring a string of special election victories and triggering widespread expectations of a blue wave-or even a tsunami-in the 2018 midterms.
Josh Marshall: Meet [prominent Republican political consultant] Benjamin Sparks, Would-Be Slave Owner (TPM)
Sparks had his fiance sign a five page contract in which she agreed to be his "slave and property," shortly after they started dating last November. This involved kneeling, looking at the ground while she spoke to him, being nude at all time, engaging in sex on demand at any time and wearing a collar. At the end of March he began to demand that she have sex with other men, while bound and blindfolded, while he watched.
Nicole LaFond: "Report: Police Seek Charges For GOP Adviser Who Made Ex-Fiancee His 'Slave'" (TPM)
In a bizarre series of events, a high-profile political adviser from Nevada, who has worked on prominent Republican congressional and presidential campaigns, is being sought by police for domestic violence and for allegedly making his ex-fiancee his "slave," The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
Andrew Tobias: Fun with Compound Interest
When I used to get paid absurdly well to talk about this stuff, waving my arms with youthful exuberance, one of my favorite riffs was that … "If you had invested just one penny - forget a dollar - one penny! - at just two percent interest - forget five per cent or ten percent - two percent! - [slight pause, as it sank in] - the day Christ was born - [longer pause, for laughter] - how much do you think you would have today? …
Peter Jeppson: Benjamin Franklin's Experiment with Compound Interest Will Astound You (Money Mastery)
Benjamin Franklin died in 1790, however one year earlier he left the equivalent of $4,400 each to the cities of Boston and Philadelphia in his will, under the condition that the money be loaned and invested to young apprentises that had proven worthy of a loan. He stipulated that the cities would have access to a portion of the funds after 100 years and receive the remaining funds after 200 years. When the cities received their balances after 200 years, the combined bequest had grown to $6.5 million! Yes, $6.5 million… astounding.
Roisin O'Connor: "Combat Sports: How The Vaccines bounced back with their best record yet" (Independent)
Justin Hayward-Young and Freddie Cowan speak with The Independent about their brilliant fourth album, hype machines, and a huge upcoming show in London.
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David Bruce has over 80 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Presenting
Michael Egan
(who celebrated another trip around the sun back on the 5th, but I spaced - Happy [belated] Birthday, Joe!) said:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Reader Comment
Current Events
Treasonous asswipe
Why is he not in jail? (Or UNDER the jail? 6 feet under!)
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
WHAT WEAPON WOULD JESUS CARRY?
TRUMPS PARTNER IN CRIME.
KEEP TALKING YOU BLABBER MOUTH.
HOBNOBBING WITH A MURDERER.
TRUMPS' SUPERBOWL!
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Traditional Friday-running-late.
German Scientists Harvest
Antarctic Salad
Antarctica is not the most likely place to find fresh ingredients for a salad.
But German scientists have just collected - and eaten - their first batch of lettuce, cucumbers and radishes from a new greenhouse on the frozen continent.
"It tasted as if we had harvested it fresh from the garden," Bernhard Gropp, the manager of the Neumayer Station III, a German research facility in Antarctica, said in a statement.
The shipping container-size greenhouse, called EDEN ISS, was installed in February about a quarter-mile (400 meters) from the research station, which is located on the Ekström Ice Shelf. The food-growing lab is providing welcome fresh veggies for Gropp and his other isolated colleagues during long missions in Antarctica. But EDEN ISS has a loftier mission; the facility is an experiment led by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) designed to test the best methods for cultivating crops for astronauts.
With such a hostile environment outside, the Antarctic greenhouse indeed has conditions like those of a spacecraft: It has no soil and no natural sunlight, and it has to operate as a totally closed system, with its water distribution, purplish artificial lighting and carbon dioxide levels tightly controlled.
Antarctic Salad
Doors Go To Auction
Chelsea Hotel
More than 50 doors from New York's fabled Chelsea Hotel that guarded the secrets of stars such as Janis Joplin, Leonard Cohen and Jimi Hendrix are going on sale, thanks to an enterprising former homeless man.
The unusual auction comes after the historic bohemian hangout closed in 2011 for extensive renovations, which will leave only the original facade of the 12-story hotel on 23rd Street.
Since opening in 1884, the Chelsea Hotel became a refuge for writers and artists who would stay days, weeks or indefinitely. Among them were Mark Twain, Jack Kerouac, Bob Marley, Humphrey Bogart, Joni Mitchell, Madonna and Andy Warhol.
Cohen immortalized the building in his song "Chelsea Hotel No. 2," later revealed to be about a fling with Joplin, while the hotel gained notoriety when punk rocker Sid Vicious was charged with stabbing to death his girlfriend Nancy Spungen there.
Entering the story is a lesser-known resident, Jim Georgiou, who lived at the Chelsea Hotel from 2002 to 2011 when he was evicted for failing to pay rent. He moved nearly across the street from the hotel with his dog Teddy and tried to make a living by selling records.
Chelsea Hotel
Art Sale
Berkshire Museum
A cash-strapped Massachusetts museum can sell dozens of pieces of art, including works by Norman Rockwell, a judge on the state's highest court ruled Thursday.
Justice David Lowy, of the Supreme Judicial Court, approved an agreement reached by Massachusetts' attorney general and the Berkshire Museum that will allow the museum to sell up to 40 works so it can keep its doors open.
The museum celebrated the ruling, which came after months of legal wrangling over the future of the art.
Under the plan given the green light by the judge, Rockwell's "Shuffleton's Barbershop" will be sold to another U.S. museum.
The Berkshire Museum says it will sell the rest of the artwork until it reaches $55 million in proceeds. Officials say they may not have to sell all 39 other pieces, which include Rockwell's "Shaftsbury Blacksmith Shop" and works by Alexander Calder, Albert Bierstadt and George Henry Durrie.
Berkshire Museum
To Auction
Diamonds
Two flawless white diamonds each weighing in at more than 50 carats are expected to fetch more than $15 million when they are auctioned in May, auctioneers Sotheby's Diamonds said on Friday.
The diamonds, a 51.71 carat round brilliant-cut gemstone and a 50.39 carat oval, are the second-largest of their respective kinds ever to come to auction, Sotheby's said.
The sale of the gemstones, discovered and purchased at tender in Botswana, comes after a 102 carat white diamond sold to an undisclosed buyer in February far exceeded the price paid per carat for any colourless diamond at auction, according to auctioneers, who did not reveal the price paid.
The record price previously paid was for a 118 carat diamond sold in Hong Kong in 2013, which fetched $260,000 a carat.
Sotheby's also said it was auctioning "The Farnese Blue," a roughly 6 carat blue diamond given to the Queen of Spain, Elisabeth Farnese, in 1715, which auctioneers said had been passed down through four European royal families since then.
Diamonds
Assault Weapons Ban
2nd Amendment
Assault weapons and large-capacity magazines are not protected by the Second Amendment, a federal judge said in a ruling Friday upholding Massachusetts' ban on the weapons.
U.S. District Judge William Young dismissed a lawsuit challenging the 20-year-old ban, saying assault weapons are military firearms that fall beyond the reach of the constitutional right to "bear arms."
Regulation of the weapons is a matter of policy, not for the courts, he said.
"Other states are equally free to leave them unregulated and available to their law-abiding citizens," Young said. "These policy matters are simply not of constitutional moment. Americans are not afraid of bumptious, raucous and robust debate about these matters. We call it democracy."
State Attorney General Maura Healey said the ruling "vindicates the right of the people of Massachusetts to protect themselves from these weapons of war."
2nd Amendment
Spent Millions
Pruitt
Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt's concern with his safety came at a steep cost to taxpayers as his swollen security detail blew through overtime budgets and at times diverted officers away from investigating environmental crimes.
Altogether, the agency spent millions of dollars for a 20-member full-time detail that is three times the size of his predecessor's part-time security contingent.
New details in Pruitt's expansive spending for security and travel emerged from agency sources and documents reviewed by The Associated Press. They come as the embattled EPA leader fends off allegations of profligate spending and ethical missteps that have imperiled his job.
Shortly after arriving in Washington, Pruitt demoted the career staff member heading his security detail and replaced him with EPA Senior Special Agent Pasquale "Nino" Perrotta, a former Secret Service agent who operates a private security company.
In his first three months in office, before pricey overseas trips to Italy and Morocco, the price tag for Pruitt's security detail hit more than $832,000, according to EPA documents released through a public information request.
Pruitt
Researchers Boycott University
South Korea
Over 50 top Artificial Intelligence researchers on Wednesday announced a boycott of KAIST, South Korea's top university, after it opened what they called an AI weapons lab with one of South Korea's largest companies.
The researchers, based in 30 countries, said they would refrain from visiting KAIST, hosting visitors from the university, or cooperating with its research programmes until it pledged to refrain from developing AI weapons without "meaningful human control".
KAIST, which opened the centre in February with Hanwha Systems, one of two South Korean makers of cluster munitions, responded within hours, saying it had "no intention to engage in development of lethal autonomous weapons systems and killer robots."
University President Sung-Chul Shin said the university was "significantly aware" of ethical concerns regarding Artificial Intelligence, adding, "I reaffirm once again that KAIST will not conduct any research activities counter to human dignity including autonomous weapons lacking meaningful human control."
The university said the new Research Centre for the Convergence of National Defence and Artificial Intelligence would focus on using AI for command and control systems, navigation for large unmanned undersea vehicles, smart aircraft training and tracking and recognition of objects.
South Korea
Black Hole Party
Our Galaxy
Black holes are hanging out at the center of our galaxy by the thousands, according to scientists who have detected a bunch of them in the neighborhood of a supermassive black hole already known to reside at the heart of the Milky Way.
Researchers said data from the NASA's orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory allowed them to detect a dozen black holes surrounding Sagittarius A*, the mammoth black hole at the center of our spiral-shaped galaxy.
Black holes, which come in a variety of sizes, are extraordinarily dense entities with gravity so powerful that not even light can escape. Based on these findings, the scientists estimated that up to 10,000 black holes dwell within about 3 light years of Sagittarius A*.
"That's a crowd," Columbia University astrophysicist Chuck Hailey, lead author of the study published in the journal Nature, said on Thursday.
The newly detected black holes, all produced by the collapse of massive dying stars, are rare ones that captured and bound themselves to a passing star, forming what is called a stellar binary.
Our Galaxy
Bizarre Behavior
Raccoons
Raccoons are normally shy, nocturnal creatures. But they've been acting out in the US state of Ohio, where police report strange and menacing raccoon behavior in broad daylight.
Over the past two weeks, police in Youngstown, Ohio have responded to some fifteen calls from residents reporting sightings of "zombie" raccoons, according to local TV station WKBN.
Witnesses describe the furry black-masked creatures assuming aggressive postures toward humans, showing no fear and impervious to attempts to scare them off with noises or movements.
Robert Coggeshall, a retired banker turned nature photographer, described the "extremely strange behavior" of a raccoon that entered Coggeshall's front yard as he played with his dogs.
"He would stand up on his hind legs, which I've never seen a raccoon do before, and he would show his teeth and then he would fall over backward and go into almost a comatose condition," Coggeshall told WKBN.
Raccoons
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