Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Marc Dion: Trump Will Win Again (Creators Syndicate)
You want to know why Trump is on the path to winning? Unemployment is down. Way down. It doesn't make any difference if he caused it; he gets the credit. Every elected official, from mayor to president, gets credit for unemployment drops during his/her time in office. He's being investigated? So what? The Republicans investigated Hillary Clinton several hundred times and found nothing. Now, everyone assumes the investigation of Trump is as politically motivated as the investigations of her.
Froma Harrop: Trump Will Sink the Economy, Too (Creators Syndicate)
That was quite a show Donald Trump put on in Canada. Insulting our closest friends and trading partners while sucking up to Russian leader Vladimir Putin - well, that got people's attention. As Guy Verhofstadt, former prime minister of Belgium, tweeted, "Just tell us what Vladimir has on you. Maybe we can help."
Froma Harrop: Weak Environmental Policies Cost Jobs (Creators Syndicate)
"The public will no doubt be surprised at the economic importance of this industry as (we measure) the impact of activities like boating, fishing, RVing, hunting, camping, hiking and more." The speaker is U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. The industry goes under the broad name of outdoor recreation. It was a $374 billion business in 2016, accounting for 2 percent of the gross domestic product. Its revenues had grown that year by 3.8 percent, about 36 percent faster than the overall economy.
Lenore Skenazy: "(Really) Old-Fashioned Fun" (Creators Syndicate)
What's as old as summer? These games. The good ones. Do your kids know them? -Hopscotch. If you were a Roman soldier, you would have hated hopscotch. That's because the game began as a grueling exercise. Soldiers in full armor had to run or hop or somehow make it across 100-foot hopscotch grids, the same way football players have to hop through all those tires. But to kids, it looked like fun - at least if you only had to hop through 10 squares.
Ted Rall: Suicide? No. Society is Murdering Us (Creators Syndicate)
It doesn't require a lot of heavy lifting to come up with major sources of stress in American society. People are working longer hours but earning lower pay. Even people with jobs are terrified of getting laid off without a second's notice. The American healthcare system, designed to fatten for-profit healthcare corporations, is a sick joke. When you lose your job or get sick, that shouldn't be your problem alone. We're social creatures. We must help each other personally, locally and through strong safety-net social programs.
Connie Schultz: This Is Who We Have to Be (Creators Syndicate)
Rep. Pramila Jayapal met with dozens of migrant mothers in a federal prison who described being forcibly separated from their children, many of them infants. In some instances, they could hear their children screaming in the next room. And now McClatchy is reporting that Trump "is looking to build tent cities at military posts around Texas to shelter the increasing number of unaccompanied migrant children being held in detention." One such tent city might hold between 1,000 and 5,000 children. So no, I am not interested in listening to why Trump "isn't all bad," …
Suzanne Moore: I'm in denial about my internet dependence (The Guardian)
Children have gone into rehab due to internet addiction, and Lily Allen says she spends five hours a day on Twitter. How do we deal with this?
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Presenting
Michael Egan
wrote:
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
Reader Suggestion
Father's Day
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
THE FACISTS OF BERKELEY!
MAKING TRUMP UNHAPPY.
WHEN DID THE BIBLE BECOME THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA?
REPUBLICAN CHRISTIAN 'PIMPS OF EVIL'
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Deep marine layer - stayed overcast and cool all day.
Chris Hardwick's Show On Hold
AMC
Chris Hardwick's cable talk show is on hold and he has withdrawn as moderator of AMC and BBC America's Comic-Con panels, AMC Networks said Saturday.
The company said it had a positive working relationship with the host and producer but takes seriously what it calls "troubling" allegations by his former girlfriend, Chloe Dykstra.
In an online post, she lodged claims of sexual assault and emotional abuse against a man whom she didn't identify. But she included details about his age and work history that led some to link her allegations to Hardwick, who acknowledged Dykstra was referring to him as he denied her claims.
AMC Networks said "Talking with Chris Hardwick" won't air on AMC while it assesses the situation and that Hardwick decided to step aside from next month's Comic-Con panels in San Diego.
The initial public fallout to Dykstra's post Thursday involved Nerdist, which Hardwick founded as a podcast and then expanded into a digital network that was acquired by Legendary Entertainment. His name has been removed from the Nerdist website, which said the behavior claimed in the post by Dykstra is contrary to what it stands for.
AMC
Crackdown Over Potter Festivals
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. is cracking down on local Harry Potter fan festivals around the country, saying it's necessary to halt unauthorized commercial activity. Fans, however, liken the move to Dementors sucking the joy out of homegrown fun, while festival directors say they'll transfigure the events into generic celebrations of magic.
"It's almost as if Warner Bros. has been taken over by Voldemort, trying to use dark magic to destroy the light of a little town," said Sarah Jo Tucker, a 21-year-old junior at Chestnut Hill College, which hosts a Quidditch tournament that coincides with the annual suburban Philadelphia festival.
Philip Dawson, Chestnut Hill's business district director, said Warner Bros. reached out to his group in May, letting them know new guidelines prohibit festivals' use of any names, places or objects from the series. That ruled out everything from meet-and-greet with Dumbledore and Harry to Defense Against the Dark Arts classes.
"It was very quickly apparent (we) weren't going to be able to hold festivals like years past," he said. The late October festival drew about 45,000 fans last year to the historic neighborhood's cobblestone streets. This year, they will instead have a "wands and wizards" family night and pub crawl and other magic-themed events - and people can still dress as their favorite characters.
Chestnut Hill isn't the only community to receive cease-and-desist letters from the entertainment company. Festival directors around the country, including in Aurora, Illinois, and Ithaca, New York, were also told the new guidelines would prohibit much of the Potter-themed activities, which are typically free events.
Warner Bros.
New Type Discovered
Photosynthesis
The discovery of a new method that bacteria can use to harvest infrared light and turn it into energy has boosted scientific understanding of the limits of life on Earth and beyond.
Plants and some bacteria use a process called photosynthesis to create sugars from carbon dioxide and water, which they use as a power source.
Most life forms that use photosynthesis are driven by red light, but the new form discovered by an Imperial College London-led team is used by some organisms to power themselves using the infrared spectrum.
This "textbook-changing" revelation has the potential to expand scientists' search for creatures on other planets, which often relies on the presence of life-promoting light.
"The new form of photosynthesis made us rethink what we thought was possible," said Professor Bill Rutherford, a biochemist at Imperial College London.
Photosynthesis
Study Claims
Food
Millennials may be relentlessly mocked for our avocado-on-toast addiction, but a new study has found there's actually a scientific explanation for why the brunch staple is so well loved.
According to research by Yale University, when fat and carbohydrates are combined, a meal or food is more rewarding than if it only contained one or the other.
The reward centre in the brain values foods containing both fats and carbs so highly because we have adapted to think these foods are energy dense.
"The biological process that regulates the association of foods with their nutritional value evolved to carefully define the value of a food so that organisms can make adaptive decisions," says senior author Dana Small, director of Yale University's Modern Diet and Physiology Research Centre.
"Surprisingly, foods containing fats and carbohydrates appear to signal their potential caloric loads to the brain via distinct mechanisms. Our participants were very accurate at estimating calories from fat and very poor at estimating calories from carbohydrate.
Food
EPA Moves To Replace Rule
Drinking Water
The Environmental Protection Agency onFriday inched closer to proposing a regulation to replace an Obama-era rule that clarified which bodies of water qualified for federal protection.
The proposal comes more than a year after EPA administrator Scott Pruitt signed an executive action to revoke the 2015 Clean Water Rule, also known as the Waters of the United States, or WOTUS, rule. The regulation clarified which wetlands and streams could be protected under the Clean Water Act and expanded federal authority to all "navigable" waters. That extended the federal safeguards to 2 million miles of streams and 20 million acres of wetlands, securing the drinking water of more than 117 million Americans.
But a federal judge stayed the Clean Water Rule in 2015; the rule has since bounced around the courts. In January, the Supreme Court volleyed the case back to the district court level. In the meantime, Pruitt began the process of repealing the rule outright.
On Thursday evening, Pruitt said he planned to send the new rule to the White House Office of Management and Budget. In a tweet wishing President Donald Trump a happy birthday, Pruitt said he announced the WOTUS replacement in a meeting with farm interests in Lincoln, Nebraska.
But conservatives began to turn on Pruitt this week. On Wednesday, a dark-money conservative group in Iowa rolled out a new TV ad calling Pruitt a "swamp monster" who is "embarrassing the president." Later that day, conservative pundit and Trump booster Laura Ingraham said in a tweet that Pruitt had "gotta go." Even Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), who counts Pruitt as a friend and protégé, said on Ingraham's radio program that it may be time for Pruitt to step aside.
Drinking Water
He'd 'Be Out Of Office'
'25 Million Mexicans'
President-for-now Donald Trump (R-Racist) reportedly made some bold, and potentially offensive, remarks in private conversations with world leaders at the G7 summit last week.
Trump told Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe he'd be "out of office" if he had to deal with "25 million Mexicans," and told French President Emmanuel Macron that "all the terrorists are in Paris," The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
Claiming that migration is a huge issue in Europe, he reportedly told Abe: "Shinzo, you don't have this problem, but I can send you 25 million Mexicans and you'll be out of office very soon," a senior European Union official in the meeting in Quebec, told the Journal.
But Trump, who has followed up on his campaign promise to restrict immigration into the U.S., didn't stop there.
During talks about terrorism and Iran, the U.S. president told Macron: "You must know about this, Emmanuel, because all the terrorists are in Paris," the EU official said.
'25 Million Mexicans'
Upgrade
CERN
A major upgrade began Friday for the world's most powerful proton smasher to increase the number of particle collisions inside the Large Hadron Collider and help further explore the fundamental building blocks of the universe.
The work involves heavy civil engineering at the LHC's two main sites in Switzerland and France which are run by Europe's physics lab CERN, that will allow it to operate in a high-luminosity mode from 2026.
"By 2026, this major upgrade will have considerably improved the performance of the LHC, by increasing the number of collisions in the large experiments and thus boosting the probability of the discovery of new physics phenomena," CERN said.
The aim is increase tenfold the amount of data which can be picked up by the LHC, which is housed in a 27-kilometre (17-mile) ring-shaped tunnel buried more than 100 metres underground that runs beneath the border of Switzerland and France.
Until now, the LHC has been able to generate nearly a billion collisions per second but the so-called high-luminosity upgrade will allow it to increase the collision rate, thereby allowing for the accumulation of 10 times more data between 2026 and 2036.
CERN
Caught Spewing
Supermassive Black Hole
There's no worse morning after than the one following a hot night of spicy food: Exits are, somehow, always grander than entrances. Perhaps nothing knows this better than a supermassive black hole that's just swallowed up a fiery star, like the one imaged by researchers in a Science paper published Thursday. The hot jet emanating from this greedy gravity pit's dark core does not look comfortable.
In the paper, the team explains that capturing the data that led to this stunning image of a "tidal disruption event" - a fancy name for a black hole's savage star meal - was a project that's been ongoing since 2005, when astronomers caught bright bursts of infrared and radio wavelengths coming from a galaxy called Arp299, about 150 million light-years from Earth. Now, using a decade's worth of data, they've managed to produce an image of its gluttonous source - and better understand where that burst was coming from. As it turns out, it was the electromagnetic signature of the hot burp - a relativistic jet - emanating from the supermassive black hole at Arp299's center.
Arp299 is actually two galaxies: Arp299B is the evil twin of a galaxy called Arp299A, but the two are in the process of merging. The black hole at Arp299B's core apparently got hungry during the merge and sucked up a local star twice the mass of our own sun. It proved to be much more than a snack: The black hole, which has a mass equivalent to 20 million Suns, belched up a blazing jet of fiery star debris, which is ultimately what reached telescopes here on Earth.
Tidal disruption events are rarely spotted, so scientists are still beginning to understand how they work. Fortunately, scientists recently developed a computer model synthesizing that data to show what actually happens when a black hole sucks up a star, which Inverse described in a previousarticle with the help of the diagram below:
First, the star begins disintegrating into a disk of debris called an "accretion disk" because the black hole's gravitational field is so strong. The black hole eats up all the debris (the slim part of the orange-yellow gradient), and once that debris enters the black hole, it gets "spaghettified" - stretched vertically and compressed horizontally into noodle-y streams of atoms - and slurped up.
Supermassive Black Hole
Colliding Wormholes?
Black Holes
When two wormholes collide, they could produce ripples in space-time that ricochet off themselves. Future instruments could detect these gravitational "echoes," providing evidence that these hypothetical tunnels through space-time actually exist, a new paper suggests.
The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) has already detected space-time ripples, called gravitational waves, emanating from merging black holes - discoveries that led to the Nobel Prize in 2017.
But while LIGO's detection was just one of many observations supporting the existence of black holes, these exotic objects still pose theoretical problems. For instance, they seem to be inconsistent with the laws of quantum mechanics. One way to resolve these problems is if black holes were actually wormholes.
One of the main features of black holes is the event horizon, a region of space-time beyond which nothing can escape, not even light. If you throw anything into a black hole, it's lost forever - to an extent. Stephen Hawking discovered that, thanks to a phenomenon known as quantum tunneling, black holes could actually produce a tiny bit of radiation, which would come to be known as Hawking radiation. Over a long time, black holes could even evaporate away due to this radiation.
"But what comes out is random," said Amber Stuver, an astrophysicist at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, who was not involved in the new research. The radiation contains no clue as to what went into the black hole.
"In quantum mechanics, if you know everything about a particular system, then you should be able to describe its past and its future," she said. But because any information that goes into a black hole is gone for good, an event horizon doesn't jibe with quantum mechanics.
Black Holes
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