Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Marc Dion: Get the Chicken, It's Good: The Death of Alton Sterling (Creators Syndicate)
Down in Louisiana, where the alligators grow fat and the politicians aren't far behind, where, in some communities, generations of semiliterate people have lived knee-deep in the toxic sewer of the oil industry, the cops shot Alton Sterling in 2016. Recently, the last door closed on Sterling. There will be no charges filed against the officers. Alton Sterling is a golfer's name.
Mark Shields: Helpful Hints for Candidates (Creators Syndicate)
Successful politicians, those who have won election and re-election to office, almost always have an extra olfactory nerve that somehow endows them with the ability to smell which way the political winds will blow in a given election year - and whether a gale-force blast is forming that might sweep them out of office in November. That could explain why more Republican House members have already announced that they will not seek re-election in 2018 than in any year since 1930 …
Mark Shields: Liberal Conscience AWOL? (Creators Syndicate)
Let us pause for just a moment, gentle reader, and consider the moral bankruptcy of that position. An elected representative's duty, the argument goes, is not to diligently research an issue and then exercise her informed conscience and her independent judgment in determining how to vote but instead to figure out how a plurality of her constituents feel about the issue and simply follow their (often uninformed) lead.
Mark Shields: Losers Blame the Voters (Creators Syndicate)
… it's 2018, and because midterm elections are invariably a referendum on voters' approval or disapproval - professionally and personally - of the current president, Republicans are increasingly unconfident about this November. Why? In the post-World War II era, whenever a president's job rating is below 50 percent approval, that president's party loses an average of 43 House seats in the midterm election. Trump's most recent Gallup result is just 39 percent approval.
Froma Harrop: The Fashion of Silicon Knavery (Creators Syndicate)
How did it come to this? How was Mark Zuckerberg able to prance the globe vacuuming up the ad revenues that rightly belonged to the news organizations providing his content? How did he not notice the unauthorized use of Facebook subscribers' data by the Trump campaign? And how did he get away with making billions off the undermining of democracy while playing the carefree adolescent in a T-shirt?
Froma Harrop: Democrats' Votes Come From the Center (Creators Syndicate)
Recent elections give the lie to the notion that America wants fiery liberal activists to run the country - an idea put forth mainly by fiery liberal activists. It turns out that even Democrats don't necessarily want them.
Lenore Skenazy: A Bad Bullying Bill (Creators Syndicate)
A state representative in Pennsylvania has proposed a bill that would fine the parents of "bullies" up to $750 and make them attend parenting classes.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
replied:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Reader Comment
Current Events
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
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
SATAN Y'ALL.
SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO LAUGH AT A COMPLETE IDIOT.
REPUBLICANS LIE!
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Mostly overcast and cool.
Handwritten Manuscript To Auction
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
A handwritten manuscript of one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous Sherlock Holmes stories, "The Adventure of the Dancing Men", is to be sold at auction in Dallas, Texas next month.
The story was written in 1903 for Strand Magazine, a decade after Doyle's first two Holmes novellas were published to enthusiastic reviews.
The hand-written manuscript includes amendments made by Conan Doyle as well as the original text, laying bare how the plot developed.
It also includes original drawings by Doyle of the dancing men cipher, an idea which came to the author after staying at the Hill House Hotel in Norfolk.
The manuscript is expected to fetch more than $500,000 (£350,000) when it is offered for sale by Heritage Auctions on April 18.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
'The World's Worst Boogeyman'
Young Americans
A majority of young people believe President-for-now Donald Trump (R-Pendejo) is racist, dishonest and "mentally unfit" for office, according to a new survey that finds the nation's youngest potential voters are more concerned about the Republican's performance in the White House than older Americans.
The poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and MTV found that just 33 percent of Americans between the ages of 15 and 34 approve of Trump's job performance.
That's 9 points lower than all adults, who were asked the same question on a separate AP-NORC survey taken this month.
"Trump doesn't care about us," said 27-year-old Nicole Martin, an African-American graduate student in Missoula, Montana. "I'm not going to say he's unfit like he has schizophrenia. I do kind of think he's twisted in the head. He just comes off as disgusting to me."
The survey is the first in a series of polls designed to highlight the voices of the youngest generation of voters. The respondents, all of whom will be old enough to vote when Trump seeks re-election in 2020, represent the most diverse generation in American history.
Young Americans
Earliest North American Human Footprints
Canada
Footprints from ice-age humans some 13,000 years ago have been found beneath the sands of a Canadian Island in the Pacific - the earliest prints ever discovered in North America.
The 29 footprints of three different shapes and sizes, which scientists believe were from a child and two adults, were embedded in a layer of clay on Calvert Island in British Columbia. The barefoot prints indicated a variety of activity, so the humans weren't simply passing through, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal PLOS One.
The first North Americans are widely believed to have crossed from Siberia to Alaska via a Bering land bridge. The footprints suggest the early travelers then may have traveled south along the Pacific coast, rather than farther inland.
The findings add to the "growing body of evidence that early peoples in the Americas inhabited the coastal margin and circumnavigated the western edge of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet to move between Beringia [the land bridge] and mid-latitude North America at the end of the last ice age," the authors wrote.
The prints, found during excavations from 2014 to 2016, also suggest the humans may have traveled among islands via primitive boats, though no evidence of boats has been found.
Canada
Splitting in Two
Africa
A piece of East Africa is expected break off the main continent in tens of millions of years. And if you need any proof, look no further than Kenya's Rift Valley, where a giant, gaping tear opened up following heavy rains and seismic activity, according to Face2Face Africa.
The enormous crack appeared on March 19 and measures more than 50 feet (15 meters) wide and several miles along, Face2Face Africa and other news sources reported. Moreover, it's still growing longer.
The rift is likely a sign of things to come as the plate tectonics under Africa rearrange themselves. The majority of Africa sits on top of the African Plate. However, a long, vertical piece of eastern Africa lies on top of the Somali Plate. This juncture where the two plates meet is known as the East African Rift, which stretches an astonishing 1,800 miles (3,000 kilometers), or about the distance from Denver to Boston.
To avoid confusion (given that Africa doesn't just sit on one plate), researchers call the giant African plate the Nubian Plate. In essence, the Nubian and Somali plates are being split in two, according to a piece in The Conversation by Lucia Perez Diaz, a postdoctoral researcher at the Fault Dynamics Research Group at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Africa
333 Whales
Japan
Japanese whaling vessels returned to port on Saturday after catching more than 300 of the mammals in the Antarctic Ocean without facing any protests by anti-whaling groups, officials said.
A fleet of five whalers set sail for the Southern Ocean in November, as Tokyo pursues its "research whaling" in defiance of global criticism.
Three of the vessels, including the fleet's main ship, the Nisshin Maru, arrived in the morning at Shimonoseki port in western Japan, a port official said.
The fleet caught 333 minke whales as planned without any interruption by anti-whaling campaigners, the Fisheries Agency said in a statement.
Japanese whalers have in the past clashed at sea with animal rights campaigners, particularly the Sea Shepherd activist group, which last year announced it had no plan to make offshore protests this season.
Japan
Wins Fight For US Citizenship
Deported Veteran
A deported U.S. Army veteran has been granted U.S. citizenship, a move made possible by California Gov. Jerry Brown's pardon of a criminal offense last year.
Lawyers for Hector Barajas said the government informed them Thursday their client should attend a naturalization ceremony on April 13 in San Diego. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services confirmed the decision.
Barajas, 40, is founder and director of Deported Veterans Support House, which provides housing and other services in Tijuana, Mexico. He said Thursday that he believes his advocacy contributed to his victory and that he planned to commute to Tijuana from the Los Angeles area for at least a year to continue his work. He also plans to find a job and go to school in Los Angeles, while supporting his 11-year-old daughter and her mother.
Barajas was convicted in 2002 of shooting at an occupied vehicle and served two years in prison. Brown removed a major obstacle to citizenship by pardoning him last year, noting his distinguished military service and advocacy work.
Barajas came to the United States from Mexico when he was 7 years old and, after graduating high school, served in the U.S. Army from 1995 to 2001, when he was honorably discharged, according to a federal lawsuit filed in December seeking citizenship.
Deported Veteran
Teachers Prepare For Walkout
Oklahoma
Teachers in Oklahoma still plan to walk off the job next week after state legislators passed an education funding bill that fell apart within hours.
Initially it seemed the legislation, signed Thursday by Gov. Mary Fallin (R), would quell the statewide walkout that educators had set for April 2 to demand more money for schools. But not even a day after the state Senate approved the first tax increase package in years, legislators in the state House voted to undo one of its main provisions, a tax on hotel and motel stays.
After applauding legislators for approving the funding bill, the state's leading teachers union, the Oklahoma Education Association, renewed its call late Thursday for teachers around the state to stay out of school and descend on the Capitol in Oklahoma City on Monday.
"Yesterday, the Legislature passed a historic education funding increase," the union said Thursday in a Facebook post. "Today, they started dismantling it by cutting millions out of the plan. Now they're gone for the weekend. Oklahoma: we'll see you at 9 a.m. April 2 at the Capitol."
Oklahoma is one of a wave of red states now facing a teacher revolt after years of anemic funding for education.
Oklahoma
Gun Restrictions
Vermont
A package of gun restrictions is on track to become law in Vermont after the state Senate on Friday approved raising the legal age for gun purchases, expanding background checks for private gun sales and banning high-capacity magazines and rapid-fire devices known as bump stocks.
The measure, which the House approved this week and Republican Gov. Phil Scott has said he will sign, reflects a remarkable turnaround for a state that has long opposed gun control measures.
Scott acknowledged that many Vermonters would be disappointed by the vote and by his support for provisions that he opposed as recently as two months ago.
"I share it. I know why they are disappointed," Scott said. "But I think at the end of the day, they'll soon learn that what we have proposed, what's being passed at this time, doesn't intrude upon the Second Amendment. It doesn't take away guns, and I believe that we will get accustomed to the new normal, which is trying to address this underlying violence that we are seeing across the nation."
The turning point in this state came one day after the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17 people: A Vermont teenager was arrested on charges he was planning a shooting at the Fair Haven Union High School, which he once attended. Vermont police said tragedy was averted only because a friend of the teenager alerted authorities.
Vermont
Nails Why
Republican Strategist
Republican strategist Steve Schmidt said it came down to one characteristic that led Parkland, Florida, school shooting survivor and gun control activist David Hogg to get an apology from Fox News host Laura Ingraham: fearlessness.
"Maybe that's what happens after you've been down range of an AR-15 that kills your classmates and comes close to killing you," Schmidt said Thursday on Nicolle Wallace's MSNBC show. "You lose all fear. Because this kid's not scared. He's not scared of the NRA. He's not intimidated and scared by Laura Ingraham."
Schmidt said that Hogg and his classmates are not like the elected Republican officials who are "scared to death of Fox News, of Laura Ingraham, of Rush Limbaugh."
Schmidt's comments came as several advertisers announced they would pull their commercials from Ingraham's Fox News show after she mocked Hogg on Twitter for not getting into certain colleges.
As companies announced they would move their commercials, Ingraham issued a rare apology Thursday for her comments.
Republican Strategist
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