Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Alexandra Petri: Trump's budget makes perfect sense and will fix America, and I will tell you why (Washington Post)
This budget will make America a lean, mean fighting machine with bulging, rippling muscles and not an ounce of fat. America has been weak and soft for too long. BUT HOW WILL I SURVIVE ON THIS BUDGET? you may be wondering. I AM A HUMAN CHILD, NOT A COSTLY FIGHTER JET. You may not survive, but that is because you are SOFT and WEAK, something this budget is designed to eliminate.
Paul Waldman: Why is the Trump presidency such a rolling disaster? (Washington Post)
It's already causing consternation among Republicans on Capitol Hill, many of whom like to talk about limited government in the abstract but aren't as happy about the kind of radical cuts the administration is suggesting, setting up a conflict between the White House and Congress. They'll also find that the public, too, thinks "small government" sounds like a good idea until you start cutting the programs they depend on. And that's before we even get to the Russia scandal.
Ezra Klein: Does Donald Trump know what the GOP health bill does? (Vox)
The AHCA does literally none of the things Trump says it does.
Marc Dion: A Rule for Reporters (Creators Syndicate)
Here is the rule for reporters in as short a form as I can provide. If the focus of your reporting is to "catch" a politician doing something wrong because you don't like him or her, or because embarrassing politicians makes you feel important, sooner or later, you will write something stupid.
Froma Harrop: Steve Bannon Failed His Father, Not AT&T (Creators Syndicate)
Marty Bannon did all the right things, mostly. He raised five children, lived modestly, worked hard and bought as much stock in his employer, AT&T, as he could. When AT&T's stock price plunged in the 2008 economic meltdown, Bannon sold at a loss of more than $100,000, he said.
Froma Harrop: Blue America Gets Richer (Creators Syndicate)
"Trumpcare is really a tax break for the rich, not a health care program," Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York said about the Republican House bill to decimate the Affordable Care Act. He was right.
Lenore Skenazy: Playboy's Old Age (Creators Syndicate)
Playboy magazine used to be the illicit thrill that men of all ages hid in their sock drawers.
Clive James: 'Idris Elba is the most kingly British star since Richard Burton' (The Guardian)
To collect an actor's performances is still one of the best reasons for continuing the long search into infinity.
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answered:
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
from Marc Perkel
Patriot Act
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
PLEASE STFU MISTER PRESIDENT!
DON'T PLAY SUBMARINE WITH YOUR iPHONE!
"THEY REPORT, WE REPEAT."
BEST BUDS.
THE CROOKS SMELL THE MONEY.
"THE MOST MORAL ARMY"
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
The sinkhole was fixed, so went in to work.
Mao Portrait To Auction In Hong Kong
Andy Warhol
An Andy Warhol portrait of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong will be auctioned in Hong Kong in a landmark sale that could fetch $15 million -- but mainland buyers may be wary of putting in a bid.
The classic 1973 screen print by the legendary US pop artist will go under the hammer at Sotheby's next month with the highest estimate the auction house has ever seen for a painting in Asia.
It comes as demand grows among collectors in the region for a wider variety of high-profile works, driven by appetite in China.
The auction house describes the event as the first "significant" sale of Western contemporary art in semi-autonomous Hong Kong, which was handed back to China by Britain in 1997.
But while buyers from mainland China have developed massive market clout, Warhol's images of Mao have drawn controversy there.
Andy Warhol
Map Shows Health Affects Across US
Climate Change
Climate change is poised to affect the health of Americans in every part of the country, a new report says.
The report, published today (March 15), comes from a new group made up of 11 medical organizations, including allergists, pediatricians, infectious-disease doctors, OB/GYNs and gerontologists.
"Doctors in every part of our country see that climate change is making Americans sicker," Dr. Mona Sarfaty, the director of the new group, called the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, said in a statement.
But few Americans are aware of the impact climate change has on health, according to the report. Only about a third of Americans can name a specific way climate change affects people's health, according to the report.
In the report, the researchers identified the specific health effects from climate change that will affect each region of the U.S, and created a map to illustrate this. For example, the map shows that people in the Midwest will face an increasing risk of infectious diseases carried by ticks. Meanwhile, air pollution from a growing number of wildfires will increasingly affect the health of those on the Great Plains.
Climate Change
Another 100 Episodes
'The Walking Dead'
Ratings juggernaut "The Walking Dead" revealed on Friday fans can expect to see its increasingly rancid zombies shambling across their screens for years to come.
The AMC show, the most successful basic cable TV series in history, tells the story of sheriff's deputy Rick Grimes, who leads his son Carl and an ever-growing band of survivors in a zombie apocalypse.
Showrunner Scott Gimple reminded fans on the opening night of Hollywood's annual PaleyFest television festival that October's season eight opener would be the 100th episode.
"The first episode, I think, is less about that we've reached 100 episodes; it's more about setting up the next 100 episodes," Gimple said.
Viewers in 125 countries will be able to witness the milestone achievement for AMC, which has aired the series since its premiere on October 31, 2010 and distributes it internationally via a deal with Fox.
'The Walking Dead'
Discovers New System Of Five Particles
CERN
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) may have not have succeeded in discovering particles that can "break" the Standard Model of particle physics, but that hasn't dampened the enthusiasm of scientists associated with it. On Thursday, researchers working with the LHCb collaboration at LHC announced a unique discovery, all in a single analysis - a new system of five particles.
"The exceptionality of this discovery is that observing five new states all at once is a rather unique event," CERN said in a statement.
The particles - described in a paper now available on the preprint server arXiv - are all excited states of a particle called Omega-c-zero (or ?c0), which is a baryon containing two strange and one charm quark.
"From the analysis of the trajectories and the energy left in the detector by all the particles in this final configuration, the LHCb collaboration could trace back the initial event - the decay of the ?c0 - and its excited states," CERN said in the statement. "These particle states are named, according to the standard convention, ?c(3000)0, ?c(3050)0, ?c(3066)0, ?c(3090)0 and ?c(3119)0."
CERN
Senate May Kill Rules Next Week
Broadband Privacy
The Broadband Consumer Privacy Rules, a set of protections that would require internet service providers to get permission before collecting sensitive data from customers, could be targeted for elimination under the Congressional Review Act (CRA), according to open internet advocacy group Public Knowledge.
The consumer privacy protections passed by the Federal Communications Commission last October are likely to be reviewed by the Senate as early as next week.
Under the Broadband Consumer Privacy Rules, internet service providers were required to ask permission from customers before collecting sensitive information from them.
Sensitive information was defined as any data related to a user's finances, health, information from children, precise geolocation data, web browsing history and app usage history. It also included any content from unencrypted messages accessible to internet service providers.
Information not classified as sensitive could be collected by default, but internet service providers would still have to offer customers the option to opt out.
Broadband Privacy
Troll Arrested
Kurt Eichenwald
A Maryland man has been arrested on federal charges that he intentionally used an animated tweet to trigger an epileptic seizure in a Newsweek reporter who had been critical of President Donald Trump.
The reporter, Kurt Eichenwald, was at his home office in Dallas on December 15 when he clicked on a Twitter message sent him by a man using the pseudonym "@jew_goldstein." A blinding strobe light began flashing on his screen, sending Eichenwald -- who has openly discussed his epilepsy -- into a seizure. His wife found him on the floor.
The Justice Department said Friday that it had arrested John R. Rivello, 29, of Salisbury, Maryland, on a criminal complaint from Texas charging him with cyberstalking with the intent to kill or cause bodily harm. If convicted, he could face up to 10 years in prison.
An affidavit filed with the complaint said that a search of Rivello's Twitter account showed he had sent other messages about Eichenwald saying "I know he has epilepsy" and "I hope this sends him into a seizure."
The authorities also found an altered Wikipedia page in Rivello's iCloud account that showed a fake obituary for Eichenwald with a death date of December 16.
Kurt Eichenwald
May Head Antitrust Division
Lobbyist
A former top lobbyist for Anthem will be the next head of the Justice Department's antitrust division, according to two reports citing officials familiar with the matter. Makan Delrahim served as one of the healthcare conglomerate's top lobbyists working on antitrust issues as the company pushed the Justice Department to approve its controversial proposal to merge with Cigna.
Delrahim would head the office that Anthem is pushing to approve the merger, which physicians and consumer groups say could raise healthcare prices and reduce medical coverage for up to 53 million Americans. Delrahim's impending appointment was first reported by Reuters and the Wall Street Journal.
According to federal lobbying records, Anthem paid $370,000 in lobbying fees to Delrahim's firm, Brownstein Farber, between 2015 and 2016. Those fees paid for the lobbying services of Delrahim and William Moschella. Delrahim had previously served in the Justice Department's antitrust unit under George W. Bush, and Moschella was also a top Justice Department official during Bush's presidency. The lobbying records said Delrahim and Moschella were working on "antitrust issues associated with Anthem's proposed acquisition of Cigna." Lobbying records show Delrahim has also lobbied on antitrust issues for Pfizer, Qualcomm, Ardent Health Services and WMG Acquisitions.
Delrahim was last listed as an Anthem lobbyist five months ago. He is currently serving as President Donald Trump's deputy White House counsel.
News of Delrahim's appointment to the nation's top antitrust job comes weeks after Anthem lawyers told a Delaware judge that they are relying on the Trump administration to settle the antitrust division's current lawsuit blocking its Cigna merger. Between those court statements and Delrahim's appointment, President Trump had a personal telephone call with Anthem's CEO, Joseph Swedish. Anthem gave $100,000 to Trump's inaugural committee, and after Trump assumed office, the Securities and Exchange Commission helped Anthem quash a shareholder resolution designed to force it to disclose its lobbying expenditures.
Lobbyist
Found Dead In Mexico
Vaquita Porpoise
Environmentalists said they have found the body of a baby vaquita marina porpoise, one of the last of its kind, washed up dead in northern Mexico.
The newborn was found with its umbilical cord still attached on a beach in the Gulf of California by US environmental group Sea Shepherd, which said it is working with Mexican authorities to determine what killed the animal.
Scientists warned in February that there are only 30 remaining vaquita, the world's smallest porpoise. They warned it faced extinction by 2022.
Sea Shepherd said the most common cause of death for the vaquita is getting caught in illegal gillnets meant to catch another endangered species, a large fish called the totoaba.
A female vaquita gives birth to a calf approximately once every two years, the group said.
Vaquita Porpoise
Vaccine Treats For Prairie Dogs
Ferrets
Feeding peanut butter kibbles to millions of prairie dogs - by flinging the treats from four-wheelers and dropping them from drones - could be the next big thing to help a spunky little weasel that almost went extinct.
Slinky with a robber-like black mask across its eyes, the endangered black-footed ferret is a fierce predator. The up to 2-foot-long weasel feeds almost exclusively on prairie dogs, rodents that live in vast colonies regularly decimated by plague outbreaks.
The disease keeps threatening the food supply of ferrets bred in captivity and reintroduced on the landscape. Biologists are increasingly optimistic that feeding plague vaccine to prairie dogs can improve the ferrets' success rate.
Starting this fall, they hope to ramp up recent plague vaccination experiments to cover as much as 40 square miles of prairie dog colonies in several states in the West.
They plan to treat prairie dog colonies with blueberry-sized vaccine pellets made with peanut butter, using a specially made "glorified gumball machine" to fling the pellets from all-terrain vehicles. They might also drop pellets from drones to avoid trampling the countryside.
Ferrets
In Memory
Chuck Berry
Chuck Berry, rock 'n' roll's founding guitar hero and storyteller who defined the music's joy and rebellion in such classics as "Johnny B. Goode," ''Sweet Little Sixteen" and "Roll Over Beethoven," died Saturday at his home west of St. Louis. He was 90.
Berry's core repertoire was some three dozen songs, his influence incalculable, from the Beatles and the Rolling Stones to virtually any group from garage band to arena act that called itself rock 'n roll.
While Elvis Presley gave rock its libidinous, hip-shaking image, Berry was the auteur, setting the template for a new sound and way of life.
Chuck Berry was a rock and roll original. A gifted guitar player, an amazing live performer, and a skilled songwriter whose music and lyrics captured the essence of 1950s teenage life," The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame said in a statement.
Well before the rise of Bob Dylan, Berry wedded social commentary to the beat and rush of popular music.
Berry, in his late 20s before his first major hit, crafted lyrics that spoke to the teenagers of the day and remained fresh decades later. "Sweet Little Sixteen" captured rock 'n' roll fandom, an early and innocent ode to the young girls later known as "groupies." ''School Day" told of the sing-song trials of the classroom ("American history and practical math; you're studying hard, hoping to pass...") and the liberation of rock 'n' roll once the day's final bell rang.
When NASA launched the unmanned Voyager I in 1977, an album was stored on the craft that would explain music on Earth to extraterrestrials. The one rock song included was "Johnny B. Goode."
Charles Edward Anderson Berry was born in St. Louis on Oct. 18, 1926. As a child he practiced a bent-leg stride that enabled him to slip under tables, a prelude to the duck walk of his adult years. His mother, like Johnny B. Goode's, told him he would make it, and make it big.
A fan of blues, swing and boogie woogie, Berry studied the very mechanics of music and how it was transmitted. As a teenager, he loved to take radios apart and put them back together. Using a Nick Manoloff guitar chord book, he learned how to play the hits of the time. He was fascinated by chord progressions and rhythms, discovering that many songs borrowed heavily from the Gershwins' "I Got Rhythm."
He began his musical career at age 15 when he went on stage at a high school review to do his own version of Jay McShann's "Confessin' the Blues." Berry would never forget the ovation he received.
Meanwhile, his troubles with the law began, in 1944, when a joy riding trip to Kansas City turned into a crime spree involving armed robberies and car theft. Berry served three years of a 10-year sentence at a reformatory.
A year after his October 1947 release, Berry met and married Themetta Suggs, who stayed by his side despite some of his well-publicized indiscretions. Berry then started sitting in with local bands. By 1950, he had graduated to a six-string electric guitar and was making his own crude recordings on a reel to reel machine.
On his 90th birthday last year, Berry disclosed that he would release his first new album in 38 years in 2017, titled simply: "Chuck." The announcement said it would be comprised primarily of new, original songs written, recorded and produced by him.
Openly money-minded, Berry was an entrepreneur with a St. Louis nightclub and, in a small town west of there, property he dubbed Berry Park, which included a home, guitar-shaped swimming pool, restaurant, cottages and concert venue. He declined to have a regular band and instead used local musicians, willing to work cheap. Springsteen was among those who had an early gig backing Berry.
Berry's career nearly ended decades earlier, when he was indicted for violating the Mann Act, which barred transportation of a minor across state lines for "immoral purposes." An all-white jury found him guilty in 1960, but the charges were vacated after the judge made racist comments. A trial in 1961 led to his serving 1 1/2 years of a three-year term. Berry continued to record after getting out, and his legacy was duly honored by the Beatles and the Stones, but his hit-making days were essentially over.
Tax charges came in 1979, and another three-year prison sentence, all but 120 days of which was suspended. Some former female employees later sued him for allegedly videotaping them in the bathroom of his restaurant. The cases were settled in 1994, after Berry paid $1.3 million.
"Every 15 years, in fact, it seems I make a big mistake," Berry acknowledged in his memoir.
Chuck Berry
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