Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Tax-Cut Santa Is Coming to Town (NY Times)
He likes it when you're naughty, as long as you're already rich.
Andrew Tobias: The DEMOCRATIC Tax Plan
First, don't borrow $1.5 trillion to cut taxes. This is not a time to cut taxes. Borrow it, instead, to revitalize infrastructure. That would put far more to work in good jobs that can't be out-sourced, and make America more productive, benefiting us all. Let's build infrastructure, not yachts and mansions. As to the tax code itself, how about: 1. Raising the estate tax rate on amounts above $100 million from 40% to 55% (where it used to be) - and using that extra revenue to lower co-pays and deductibles for health insurance? …
John Judis: "The Politics of the Republican Tax Bill: A Dissenting View" (TPM)
I am not a fan of the new tax bill that the Republican Congress passed. It will widen the gap between the wealthy and everyone else and increase the likelihood over a decade or so of another crash. And it contains all kinds of unpleasant ancillary provisions, such as the one killing the Affordable Care Act's mandate. But I don't buy the argument - voiced by Democratic pundits, political consultants, and even a few economists - that the bill will doom the Republicans to defeat in 2018 and even 2020. Like many things I read or hear these days from liberals, it's wish fulfillment disguised as analysis.
Josh Marshall: A Dissent from Judis' Dissent (TPM)
… polling shows that a majority of Americans think the big payoffs to the wealthy in this bill are coming at their expense. That is a significant difference from the Bush 2001 tax cut bill and the Reagan one twenty years earlier. Whether that is because of the substance of the bill itself or the Trump prism through which voters are viewing it is uncertain. But it's a major difference, a highly significant one and not one I expect to see change.
Brendan O'Neill: In defence of Matt Damon (Spectator)
… Damon is being demonised for saying things which are incontrovertible. Being patted on the bum is not as bad as being raped, and people are generally good. I agree with him. He is right. He is telling the truth. But you can't tell the truth anymore. That's become a risky business. The culture of outrage cares not one jot for such trifling matters as truth or freedom.
Sam Adams: The Greatest Showman Isn't Exactly the Greatest Show on Earth (Slate)
The new movie musical overpromises as much as P.T. Barnum did, but you might not be mad when it swindles you out of your money.
Rachel Withers: Love Actually's Workplace Harassment Feels Especially Egregious at the End of 2017 (Slate)
It's that time of year again: Love Actually season is upon us. The modern holiday classic is full of egregious flaws, from the not-so-romantic cue card scene to the constant body shaming of a healthy, attractive woman-flaws that fans such as myself have had to come to terms with in order to enjoy the holiday season staple.
Brendan O'Neill: "Stop Funding Hate has a simple aim: political censorship" (Spectator)
Here's a law of politics that is about as cast-iron as a law of politics can be: people who hate tabloid newspapers are snobs. Every time. Scratch a Daily Mail basher or those people who seethe daily about the Sun and you will find someone who's really just scared of the throng and of what all this tabloid fare is doing to their brains.
13 Foods that Could Lower Your Risk of Cancer (HealthLine)
Broccoli, fatty fish, tomatoes, carrots, turmeric, citrus fruits, beans, nuts, berries, cinnamon, olive oil, flaxseed, garlic.
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog
David Bruce's Lulu Storefront
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has over 80 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Presenting
Michael Egan
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
David E Suggests
Christmas
David
Thanks, Dave!
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
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
HOT DAMN!
THE SHADOW OF RUIN!
DONALD TRUMP IS THE LOWEST OF THE LOW!
THE OLIGARCHS HAVE NO CLASS.
MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE CAT.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Still sunny and on the brisk side.
We Wish Was Real
A Mashup
Donald Trump just apologized to women everywhere. Just kidding!
A video created by the Divided States of Women mashes up dozens of Trump's speeches to create an apology that we truly wish was real. In the clip, Trump apologizes for "degrading women," and says he's "embarrassed and ashamed" of himself.
"Recently a lot of people have been apologizing and there's one particular person I think we all need an apology from," journalist Liz Plank says at the beginning of the video. "So, since he hasn't done it we decided to say it for him."
In the nearly two-minute mashup, Trump admits he's not a good president and that he realizes women "are smarter than me" and "stronger than me."
The icing on the cake is when Trump quotes famed feminist author bell hooks, saying: "Feminism is for everybody."
A Mashup
Cold War Secret Weapon
Jazz
Almost exactly 60 years ago, in the crisp, early spring of 1958, a young boy from California named Darius shuffled through the streets of Warsaw. He shivered; it still felt like winter, and snow frosted the bullet holes that peppered the city's buildings, a stark reminder that the Second World War had concluded little more than a decade previously. Poland was in Russia's sphere of influence, and Darius was there as part of a mission orchestrated by the U.S. State Department. His brief: to gain exposure to foreign cultures, and not cause any trouble.
This moment was a new experiment in what is known as "cultural diplomacy." Darius was tagging along because his father, the famous pianist Dave Brubeck, was a jazz ambassador.
The State Department hoped that showcasing popular American music around the globe would not only introduce audiences to American culture, but also win them over as ideological allies in the cold war. The Brubeck Quartet's 12 performances in Poland were some of the first in a long tour that would never stray far from the perimeter of the Soviet Union. They passed through Eastern Europe, the Middle East, central Asia and the Indian subcontinent. Other tours would allow jazz legends like Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie to trumpet American values in newly decolonized states in Africa and Asia. The idea was always the same: keep communism at bay by whatever means possible.
In Poland, audiences were used to more formal, Soviet-approved culture like ballet and opera. Early jazz had flourished in the country in the 1930s, but after the Soviet takeover following the end of the war, jazz was forbidden from the airwaves, believed inferior to the high arts that had government support. An underground scene resisted this repression; they tuned in, when they could, to "Jazz Hour," a shortwave radio show broadcast by Voice of America. Brubeck's performances - the first of any American jazz band behind the iron curtain - were an exceedingly rare opportunity for Poles to see jazz played live.
The response to Brubeck's first concert, performed in Szczecin on the border between Poland and East Germany, was rapturous. "It was uplifting and heartbreaking at the same time," Darius Brubeck, now in his 70s, tells TIME. "Our whole era of propaganda and demonization just evaporated in seconds."
Jazz
Bulk Purchase
Holiday Gifts
A routine traffic stop in York County, Nebraska, on Tuesday turned out to be anything but routine.
That's because officers found 60 pounds of pot in the vehicle,which was occupied by an older couple traveling on Interstate 80, according to the York News-Times.
Deputies in York County stopped a Toyota Tacoma after it crossed the center line and the driver failed to signal. Deputies said they immediately smelled what appeared to be raw marijuana.
When drug-sniffing dogs confirmed their suspicion, officers searched the pickup and found the weed in boxes inside the pickup topper, the newspaper reported.
York County sheriff's Lt. Paul Vrbka said the couple told police they were traveling to Vermont from Clearlake Oaks, California, and intended to give out the weed as Christmas presents, according to WOWT.com.
Holiday Gifts
Organization Loses TV Partner
Miss America
Dick Clark Productions says it has cut ties with the Miss America Organization over internal emails by pageant senior leadership that ridiculed past winners' appearance, intelligence and sex lives.
The Huffington Post reported Thursday that the Miss America Organization's CEO, Sam Haskell, exchanged emails with a writer for the televised pageant and others that included harsh and sometimes vulgar comments about past winners.
Dick Clark Productions, which produces the nationally televised pageant broadcasts, tells The Associated Press that it has cut ties with the pageant over the emails, calling them "appalling."
Among the comments included in the report was a reference to former Miss Americas using a vulgar term for female genitalia that Haskell indicated he found to be amusing. Others speculated about how many men one particular former Miss America had had sex with. That same former title holder, Mallory Hagan, also was ridiculed over a bathing suit photo in which she appeared to have gained weight from when she competed in and won the pageant.
The emails have cost the pageant its television production partner, and raised questions about the future of the nationally televised broadcast from Atlantic City's Boardwalk Hall the week after Labor Day each year.
Miss America
What Climate Change
Louisiana
Louisiana officials have chosen a sugar cane farm as the next home for residents of a tiny, shrinking island - a move funded with a 2016 federal grant awarded to help relocate communities fleeing the effects of climate change.
Dozens of Isle de Jean Charles residents are to be relocated about 40 miles (64 kilometers) to the northwest, in Terrebonne Parish, Nola.com|The Times-Picayune and The New Orleans Advocate report.
The state is negotiating to purchase the 515-acre (208-hectare) tract, which is closer to stores, schools and health care - and which is less flood-prone than the island, which has been battered by hurricanes and tropical storms.
Construction on the new settlement could begin in late 2018 or early 2019, meaning island residents likely will have to endure at least one more hurricane season before moving.
Last year, Isle de Jean Charles became the first community in the U.S. to receive federal assistance for a large-scale retreat from the effects of climate change. About $48 million was allotted to purchase land, build homes and move the island's approximately 80 full-time residents.
Louisiana
Vatican Envoy
Callista
Callista Gingrich (R-Adultress), wife of the former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, on Friday became U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, which is at odds with Washington over immigration, climate change and Jerusalem.
Callista Gingrich, 51, an author, documentary filmmaker and former congressional aide, presented her credentials to Pope Francis at the Vatican to officially assume her role.
Her husband Newt Gingrich (R-Serial Philanderer) was an early supporter and vocal ally of President-for-now Donald Trump (R-Serial Philanderer). Newt Gingrich is expected to continue his role as a political contributor to Fox News from his new base in Rome.
Trump's nomination of Callista Gingrich to the post at the Holy See in May caused some controversy because of her marriage to Gingrich, with whom she became involved when he was still married to his second wife. Both are Roman Catholic.
On Thursday they attended the funeral at the Vatican of Cardinal Bernard Law, who resigned as Archbishop of Boston 15 years ago after covering up years of sexual abuse of children by priests.
Callista
Focus Of U.S. Lawsuit
Facebook
Several U.S. employers engaged in age discrimination by placing recruitment ads on Facebook targeting younger workers, according to a lawsuit filed on Wednesday by a communications industry labor union.
Companies including T-Mobile US Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Cox Communications Inc imposed age limits on who could see recruitment ads, limiting some only to people younger than 38, according to the lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco by the Communications Workers of America.
"This pattern or practice of discrimination denies job opportunities to individuals who are searching for and interested in jobs, reduces the number of older workers who apply for jobs with the offending employers and employment agencies, and depresses the number of older workers who are hired," the complaint reads.
The lawsuit is the latest example of criticism leveled at Facebook for so-called micro-targeting, a process that has allowed advertisers to choose who sees their ads based on age, interests, race and even such characteristics as whether they dislike people based on race or religion.
Last month, the company said it was temporarily disabling the ability of advertisers to exclude racial groups from the intended audience of ads, and promised to "do better" at policing discriminatory practices.
Facebook
Growing Number Can't Treat Kids
U.S. Hospitals
A growing number of children who show up in U.S. emergency rooms can't get the treatment they need at their local hospital and need to be transferred elsewhere for care, a new study suggests.
Overall, in California, Florida, Massachusetts and New York - four of the most populous U.S. states - pediatric transfers surged 25 percent: from roughly 64,000 in 2006 to close to 80,000 in 2011, researchers report in Pediatrics.
The biggest increase in transfers was for kids with common health problems like abdominal pain and asthma, offering fresh evidence that even basic pediatric care is disappearing from community hospitals, said senior study author Dr. Michael McManus of Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
"When kids are taken to their local hospital's emergency department, they are increasingly likely to be transferred to more distant referral centers for care they used to be able to get at home," McManus said by email. "We now know that pretty much the same thing is happening across the country."
The researchers examined data on more than 252 million hospital encounters for children and adults, including about 59 million that resulted in admissions.
U.S. Hospitals
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. The Rolling Stones; $9,996,473; $158.81.
2. U2; $8,355,366; $117.39.
3. Coldplay; $5,087,098; $104.75.
4. Bruno Mars; $2,821,219; $110.12.
5. Lady Gaga; $2,455,170; $115.14.
6. Guns N' Roses; $2,448,849; $121.02.
7. Roger Waters; $2,225,025; $117.94.
8. Dead & Company; $1,667,123; $111.11.
9. Jay-Z; $1,662,018; $106.26.
10. Ed Sheeran; $1,404,876; $85.25.
11. Depeche Mode; $1,398,955; $86.87.
12. Ariana Grande; $1,389,133; $111.32.
13. Neil Diamond; $1,313,396; $112.95.
14. Marc Anthony; $1,167,411; $109.27.
15. The Weeknd; $1,157,594; $87.13.
16. Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band; $1,084,704; $89.82.
17. Tim McGraw / Faith Hill; $1,050,287; $83.27.
18. Foo Fighters; $1,001,748; $92.06.
19. Enrique Iglesias / Pitbull; $996,390; $87.20.
20. Little Mix; $944,255; $54.89.
Global Concert Tours
| CURRENT MOON lunar phases |
