Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: It's All About Trump's Contempt (NY Times Column)
His budget and health plan show he despises his voters. Will they notice?
Zack Ford: GOP lawmaker chokes back tears after finding out the impact of the health care bill he helped write (ThinkProgress)
That's what happens when you believe your party's own lies.
Caitlin McNeal: GOPer Gianforte Wins Montana House Race, Apologizes For Alleged Assault (TPM)
Gianforte pulled off a victory despite his alleged assault of a reporter Wednesday night as his campaign headquarters. Ben Jacobs, a reporter for The Guardian, said that Gianforte bodyslammed him after he attempted to asked the candidate a question about the House Republican health care bill. A Fox News reporter who was in the room supported Jacobs' account of the incident, saying that Gianforte grabbed Jacobs by the neck, pushed him to the ground, and punched him.
Emma Brockes: So what if the poor buy avocados - everybody deserves a little luxury (The Guardian)
I have ordered avocado toast a few times in my life, and its mark-up has never particularly appalled me. It is bad value in the same way Starbucks coffee is bad value, or a $20 lipstick, or any of the other extravagances that fly beneath the radar even of those who are trying to save money.
Andrew Tobias: "The Trump Budget: Laff(er)able"
Think of it from the billionaires' point of view. Yes, it transfers $900 billion over a decade from those in need to the affluent few, but what a burden that lifts from their overtaxed shoulders! How it will uplift their souls! Isn't this what Trump was elected to do?
Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett: Stop spending money on avocados? Good idea, I'll have a house deposit by 2117 (The Guardian)
… the theory posited by Australian millionaire and property mogul Tim Gurner is that if young people weren't spending so much money on brunch, they might be able to afford to buy a house (which has nothing to do with luxury property developers such as Gurner, naturellement). He is not the first wealthy man to say this. Anyone my age and younger has become used to it by now.
Catherine Porter: At His Own Wake, Celebrating Life and the Gift of Death (NY Times)
Tormented by an incurable disease, John Shields knew that dying openly and without fear could be his legacy, if his doctor, friends and family helped him.
All Hail the Emperor of San Francisco (Neatorama)
Few monarchs have ruled as kindly or been as revered by their subjects as Joshua Abraham Norton-aka his Imperial Majesty Norton I. Calling himself the "Emperor of these United States" (he later added "Protector of Mexico"), Norton "ruled" from 1859 to 1880 from his home in San Francisco. True, Norton was out of his mind at the time, and by "ruled," we mean "made a lot of laws that no one ever followed." But in San Francisco he was so popular that he's still celebrated to this day.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
took the day off.
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
David E Suggests
Secondhand Smoke
David
Thanks, Dave!
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Team Coco
CONAN
from Marc Perkel
Patriot Act
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
SOME COUNTRIES POSTPONE TRUMPS VISIT.
"TRUMP OF ARABIA."
AN EVIL UGLY MAN.
PAY ATTENTION TRUMP.
"…IT'S A BEAUTIFUL EFFECTIVE TOOL."
THE WAR WITHOUT END!
DEVIL WITH A BLUE DRESS ON.
"WE CAN'T HIDE BEHIND A WALL."
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Mostly overcast and lovely.
Spouses Photo
NATO
If we can take our eyes off of Trump's horrifying shove for one second, we can see that something really amazing happened at the NATO conference yesterday.
For the first time, the group was joined by a man - husband of Luxembourg's first openly gay Prime Minister Bettel, Gautheir Destenay. "While their significant others attended a gathering as part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization conference in Brussels, Belgium, the wives and partners of several NATO leaders gathered for a dinner and group photo opp.
The inclusive moment marked a huge moment for LGBTQ community.
After entering into a civil partnership in 2010, Destenay and Prime Minister Xavier Bettel got married in 2015 following the country's same-sex marriage approval.
Thursday, he proudly took his place beside First Lady of France Brigitte Macron, First Lady of Turkey Emine Gulbaran Erdogan, First Lady of the U.S. Melania Trump, Queen Mathilde of Belgium, NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg's partner Ingrid Schulerud, the partner of Bulgaria's President, Desislava Radeva and the partner of Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, Amelie Derbaudrenghien. Husband of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Joachim Sauer, was not present for the dinner.
NATO
Scientists Watch Star Collapse
Black Hole
Scientists expected to see an enormous star explode in a supernova but they may have watched it collapse into a black hole instead.
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center said astronomers spotted something fishy with the Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona and the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes when they trained the equipment in the direction of the star - or rather they didn't spot anything; the star had simply disappeared. The space agency called it a "massive fail," which may be especially true given that it resides in a galaxy that is nicknamed the "fireworks galaxy" because of the number of supernova explosions that occur there.
If the star, which is 22 million light years away, had exploded in a supernova, it would have turned into a black hole anyway. But this one transformed quietly, without a lot of fanfare.
"It went out with a whimper instead of a bang," NASA said.
Black Hole
Another Round
Guns N' Roses
More than a year after a long-mulled reunion finally materialized, rock greats Guns N' Roses on Thursday extended their tour in North America again.
The group -- which starts a European leg in Ireland on Saturday after hitting the Americas and Asia -- announced an additional 15 shows to already scheduled dates in the United States and Canada this year.
The new concerts include two nights at Madison Square Garden in New York and will close with shows on November 24 and 25 in Los Angeles, the band's home base.
Guns N' Roses, led by Axl Rose's raw, sweeping voice coupled with Slash's intricate guitar, still hold the record for the top-selling debut album in US history, 1987's "Appetite for Destruction."
Guns N' Roses
School District Changes Rule
Feathers
A northern Nevada school district has tentatively reversed a long-standing policy that would have prohibited Native American students from wearing eagle feathers on their graduation caps.
Washoe County Deputy School Superintendent Kristen McNeill's office said in a memo this week that the right to wear eagle feathers is guaranteed under the American Indian Religious Freedom Act.
Quecholli Nordwall, an 18-year-old senior at Reed High School in Sparks, started organizing fellow students in a protest after he was told at a pre-graduation assembly earlier this month that wearing a feather would be a violation of district guidelines.
The rules were put in place to prevent students from inappropriately decorating graduation caps with things such as offensive language or gang symbols, school officials said.
"When we are given an eagle feather, it represents something very significant in our lives," Nordwall told the Reno Gazette Journal.
Feathers
'Germans Are Very Bad'
T-rump
Donald Trump (R-Scheisskerl) launched a salvo against Germany and its car sales in the United States at a meeting Thursday with European Union leaders, German weekly Der Spiegel reported.
"The Germans are bad, very bad," he said during a meeting with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, EU Council head Donald Tusk and other senior officals in Brussels, the news magazine's online edition said.
"See the millions of cars they are selling in the US. Terrible. We will stop this," he reportedly said according to "participants at the meeting".
Juncker then intervened, according to the same source, to defend Germany by saying that free trade benefits everyone.
Trump (R-Fiesling) and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are scheduled to meet Friday at the G7 summit in Taormina, Italy.
T-rump
GOP Senators
Paris Agreement
A group of 22 Republican senators signed a letter urging Donald Trump (R-Corrupt) to make a "clean break" from the Paris Agreement on climate change.
The letter, dated May 25, commends Trump for signing 14 executive orders to roll back regulations established under the Obama administration. It singles out the "Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth" order for beginning the process of dismantling former President Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan regulations.
But the many high-profile Republican leaders - including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Bought & Sold), Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul (R-Dimbulb), Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Evil), Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Weasel), Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Religiously Insane), Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso (R-Pendejo) and Oklahoma Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Buffoon)- argue that remaining in the Paris Agreement would interfere with rolling back the country's "regulatory burdens."
More than 195 countries have signed the landmark international treaty, pledging to reduce their carbon emissions in an effort to keep the average global temperature increase to below 2°C.
The Republican senators argue that environmentalists will try to use the Paris Agreement as a "legal defense" against Trump's efforts to rescind the Clean Power Plan. They say the international accord will only embolden those already citing Section 115 of the Clean Air Act, which is concerned with international air pollution, to advocate for greenhouse gas regulations.
Paris Agreement
T-rump's Statement
Ramadan 2017
Donald Trump (R-Crooked) has issued his first statement commemorating Ramadan as president, and fits mentions of terrorism into nearly half of it.
Mr Trump, who started his first foreign trip in a Muslim country, wished "all Muslims a joyful Ramadan," and said that "the spirit of Ramadan strengthens awareness of our shared obligation to reject violence, to pursue peace, and to give to those in need who are suffering from poverty or conflict." He also noted that Ramadan was starting at a time when the world "mourns the innocent victims of barbaric terrorist attacks in the United Kingdom and Egypt, acts of depravity that are directly contrary to the spirit of Ramadan."
Trump has been talking about the need for counter-terrorism efforts frequently lately, and this week urged Nato allies in Moscow to commit to fighting against Isis in Syria. The recent bombings in Manchester that left 22 dead and dozens more wounded has only added urgency to Mr Trump's strong anti-terror rhetoric.
But some on the internet were quick to note that Mr Trump's Ramadan statement contrasted significantly with the statement released by former resident George W Bush when Ramadan came just two months after the September 11 terror attacks in the US that killed nearly 3,000 people. Mr Bush at that time wrote of the diversity in Muslim communities, and of the teachings of Islam to be charitable, extend mercy, and search for peace.
Ramadan 2017
Skyrocketing
Bitcoin Prices
Bitcoin prices are skyrocketing. Business Insider reported Thursday bitcoin hit a record high, exceeding $2,700 per coin, up from $1,400 on May 1. The world's second most influential cryptocurrency, Ethereum's ether tokens, also broke its record this week. Ether is now evaluated at more than $200 per token, CoinMarketCap
There are a variety of factors driving up the market value of cryptocurrencies.
The past few weeks have seen increased corporate investment in Ethereum, alongside a global "blockchain boom," where companies like Ripple and IBM announce partnerships with leading financial institutions around the world. Japan has even kickstarted the process of recognizing bitcoin as legal tender. "I think it's mostly to do with the fact they may have ended the ongoing political stalemate over scaling may be over," Andrew Keys, head of global business development at blockchain software developer ConsenSys, told CNBC. Many experts say economic shifts in China are another key component behind soaring bitcoin prices.
?
The Chinese yuan is suffering from poor performance in local equity markets and rising interest rates. Jeffrey Gundlach?, CEO of DoubleLine Capital, tweeted about the falling Shanghai Composite Index on Tuesday, theorizing the Chinese are now searching for safe investments outside China. Although Chinese markets are far from crisis, Gundlach's tweet? implied waning prices sent a wave of Chinese buyers to bitcoin. Chinese blockchain expert Patrick Dai, founder of the smart contract platform Qtum, told International Business Times he thinks China's bitcoin market is one of the factors driving up bitcoin prices.
Bitcoin Prices
Ancient Peoples
Hunters And Farmers
Ancient hunter-gatherers and farmers may have had a much closer relationship than previously assumed, according to a new study. Researchers at the University of Potsdam in Germany analyzed four ancient human genomes from the area now known as Romania from between 8.8 thousands and 5.4 thousand years ago to determine just how related the two groups might have been.
In a study published Thursday in the journal Current Biology, researchers said the analysis revealed that the genomes had ancestry relating to Western hunter-gatherers as well as Anatolian farmers.
"We expected some level of mixing between farmers and hunter-gatherers, given the archeological evidence for contact among those communities," said Michael Hofreiter, one of the study's co-authors, according to Phys.org
The findings shed light on the complex nature of relationships between groups of ancient peoples, contributing to a debate about when people switched from hunting and gathering to farming. Past studies argued that ancient hunter-gatherers and farmers, while they lived alongside each other, interbred very rarely.
A 2013 study that analyzed fossil skeletons taken from the Blatterhohle Cave near Hagen in North Rhine-Westphalia showed that hunter-gatherers lived alongside farmers, but coexisted for 2,000 years without mating. Researchers involved in the study said it was evidence that the hunter-gatherer lifestyle died out later than previously assumed.
Hunters And Farmers
In Memory
Jared Martin
Jared Martin, the Dallas actor who portrayed Dusty Farlow, the rodeo cowboy and Sue Ellen Ewing seducer who perished in a plane crash, only to have producers resurrect his character by popular demand, has died. He was 75.
Martin died Wednesday of pancreatic cancer at his home in Philadelphia, his son, Christian Martin, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Martin roomed with Brian De Palma when they both attended Columbia University in New York and appeared in the first and third features of the director's career: Murder a la Mod (1968) and The Wedding Party (1969).
Martin's career also included starring roles on two sci-fi TV series: 1977's The Fantastic Journey at NBC and a 1988-90 adaptation of War of the Worlds, which aired in syndication.
In 1979, the handsome actor signed a contract to appear as the cowpoke Steven "Dusty" Farlow - the adoptive son of Clayton Farrow (Howard Keel) - on three episodes of the third season of the smash CBS primetime soap Dallas.
"They brought Dusty Farlow on to make goo-goo eyes at Sue Ellen [Linda Gray], become moderately involved with her, tempt her and then she basically remembered who she was and went back to J.R. [Larry Hagman]," Martin said a few years ago in an interview for a Dallas fan site.
Born in Manhattan on Dec. 21, 1941, Jared Christopher Martin was the son of famed New Yorker artist and illustrator Charles E. Martin. He attended The Putney School in Vermont and Columbia, then followed De Palma to Hollywood.
The blue-eyed Martin also appeared in such movies as Westworld (1973), The Second Coming of Suzanne (1974) and Pia Zadora's The Lonely Lady (1983) and on TV's The Partridge Family, Dan August, Night Gallery, The Rookies, The Waltons, How the West Was Won, The Incredible Hulk, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, The Love Boat, Hunter and L.A. Law.
After retiring from acting, Martin co-founded and served as creative director of the Big Picture Alliance, a nonprofit group that introduces inner-city kids to the art of filmmaking, and worked as a professional painter and photographer.
And just last year, Martin co-directed the feature film The Congressman, starring Treat Williams.
His son Christian is general manager for video at SiriusXM, and his wife is Liz Cole, an executive producer at Dateline NBC.
Martin's survivors also include his wife, Yu Wei, whom he married in 2000, and grandchildren Charlie and Emilia.
Jared Martin
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