Josh Marshall: Flynn Doesn't Matter. This Is About Trump (TPM)
If you were Vladimir Putin you could not have done more to help the cause of Donald Trump. And if you were Trump, you could not have done more in actions and statements to repay the favor.
Peter Baker: Trump Was Told Weeks Ago That Michael Flynn Withheld Truth on Russia (NY Times)
President Trump was informed more than two weeks ago that his national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, had not told the truth about his interactions with Russia's ambassador, and the president eventually asked for Mr. Flynn's resignation after concluding he could not be trusted, the White House said on Tuesday.
Mark Morford: The angry orange man in the bathrobe (SF Gate)
For anyone interested in the human capacity for compassion and empathy, the Trump administration presents a unique challenge indeed: A contemptible, savagely inept leader who, by every measure, has traded his capacity for kindness and introspection for something like infantile misanthropy and gluttonous despotism.
Mark Morford: "Nevertheless, she persisted" (SF Gate)
And then came the surreal, extraordinary moment when the sneering old Republican male senator silenced his smart, uppity female colleague from reading, on the Senate floor, the words of Coretta Scott King, wife of one of the greatest civil rights leaders in American history, words that dared to call into question the integrity of the incoming, famously racist old white male Attorney General-to-be of the United States.
The Western Hemisphere is a geographical term for the half of the earth that lies west of the Prime meridian (which crosses Greenwich, UK) and east of the antimeridian, the other half being called the Eastern Hemisphere.
In this sense, the Western Hemisphere consists of the Americas, the western portions of Eurasia and Africa, the extreme eastern tip of Russia, numerous territories in Oceania, and a portion of Antarctica, while excluding some of the Aleutian Islands to the southwest of the Alaskan mainland.
The center of the Western Hemisphere is located in the Pacific Ocean at the intersection of the 90th meridian west and the equator very close to the Galápagos.
Source
Alan J was first and correct with:
The Pacific Ocean.
Jim from CA, retired to ID, said:
The center of the Western Hemisphere is located in the Pacific Ocean at the intersection of the 90th meridian west and the equator very close to the Galápagos.
Deborah wrote:
I think it's near the Galápagos Islands, in the Pacific Ocean.
It's overcast and the first of 3 storms is forecast to blow in later today. Rain is predicted every day through next Tuesday. I'll need pontoons on my bike to slog my way around.
Billy in Cypress responded:
The exact center of the western hemisphere would be 0.00 N latitude and 90.00 W longitude near the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean.
And the exact center of the northern half of the western hemisphere is 45.00 N latitude and 90.00 W longitude in the small town of Rietbrock, Wisconsin.
Joe S replied:
The center of the Western Hemisphere is located in the Pacific Ocean at the intersection of the 90th meridian west and the equator very close to the Galápagos. So sayeth the Wiki. But the Black Hills are the center of the World, Just so you know.
Randall took the day off.
Kevin K. in Washington, DC took the day off.
Dale of Diamond Springs, Norcali took the day off.
Small correction from a bird-watching reader in NM: Those 'geese' flying over that french photographer are Cranes. We have the Sandhill Cranes flying up and down our valley all winter, same profile.
Thanks for the page!
Peter
Thanks, Peter!
The archived page has been corrected. !
Patriot Act NSA Spying Unconstitutional Section 215 National Security Letters Must End
My name is Marc Perkel and I have decided to announce that I will not comply with the so called "Patriot Act" laws requiring me to disclose information about my customers. If I receive a national security letter I will immediately photograph it, post it online everywhere I can, and then make a video of me burning it. I will then await my arrest. If you want to put me in jail then come get me mother fucker.
Sunny and warm, but they're really prepping us for a storm coming in Thursday night/Friday morning - saying it's going to be the biggest, wettest storm this season. Yikes!
Tonight, Thursday:
CBS opens the night with a FRESH'Big Bang Theory', followed by a FRESH'The Great Indoors', then a FRESH'Mom', followed by a FRESH'Life In Pieces', then a FRESH'Training Day'.
Schduled on a FRESHStephen Colbert are Sally Field, Maggie Siff, and Lady Antebellum.
Schduled on a FRESHJames Corden, OBE, are Matt Damon, Will Arnett, and Bibi Bourelly.
NBC begins the night with a FRESH'Superstore', followed by a FRESH'Powerless', then a FRESH'Chicago Med', followed by a FRESH'The Blacklist'.
Schduled on a FRESHJimmy Fallon are Ethan Hawke, Ricky Martin, Robert Irwin, and Rag'n'Bone Man.
Schduled on a FRESHSeth Meyers are Tracy Morgan, Abigail Spencer, Bebe Rexha, and Brann Dailor.
Schduled on a FRESHCarson 'The Scab' Daly are Katy Tur, Mothers, and Amma Asante.
ABC starts the night with a FRESH'Grey's Anatomy', followed by a FRESH'Scandal', then a FRESH'How To Get Away With Murder'.
Schduled on a FRESHJimmy Kimmel are Viola Davis, Jordan Peele, and Fat Joe & Remy Ma.
The CW offers a FRESH'Supernatural', followed by a FRESH'Riverdale'.
Faux has FRESH'MasterChef Junior', followed by a FRESH'My Kitchen Rules'.
MY recycles an old 'Bones', followed by another old 'Bones'.
A&E has 'The First 48', followed by a FRESH'60 Days In', then a FRESH'Nightwatch', followed by another FRESH'Nightwatch'.
AMC offers the movie 'True Grit', followed by the movie 'The Departed'.
BBC -
[6:00AM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 3 - EPISODE 4-Daleks In Manhattan-Part 1.
[7:00AM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 3 - EPISODE 5-Evolution Of The Daleks-Part 2.
[8:00AM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 3 - EPISODE 6-The Lazarus Experiment
[9:00AM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 3 - EPISODE 7-42
[10:00AM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 3 - EPISODE 8-Human Nature-Part 1.
[11:00AM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 3 - EPISODE 9-The Family Of Blood-Part 2.
[12:00PM] PLANET EARTH: LIFE - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 3-Mammals
[1:00PM] PLANET EARTH: LIFE - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 4-Fish
[2:00PM] PLANET EARTH: LIFE - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 5-Birds
[3:00PM] PLANET EARTH: LIFE - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 60Insects
[4:00PM] PLANET EARTH: LIFE - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 7-Hunters and Hunted
[5:00PM] PLANET EARTH: LIFE - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 8-Creatures of the Deep
[6:00PM] PLANET EARTH: LIFE - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 9-Plants
[7:00PM] PLANET EARTH: LIFE - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 10-Primates
[8:00PM] PLANET EARTH: LIFE - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 1-Challenges of Life
[9:00PM] PLANET EARTH: LIFE - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 2-Reptiles and Amphibians
[10:00PM] PLANET EARTH: LIFE - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 3-Mammals
[11:00PM] PLANET EARTH: LIFE - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 4-Fish
[12:00AM] PLANET EARTH: LIFE - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 5-Birds
[1:00AM] PLANET EARTH: LIFE - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 6-Insects
[2:00AM] PLANET EARTH: LIFE - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 7-Hunters and Hunted
[3:00AM] PLANET EARTH: LIFE - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 8-Creatures of the Deep
[4:00AM] PLANET EARTH: LIFE - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 9-Plants
[5:00AM] PLANET EARTH: LIFE - SEASON 1 - EPISODE 10-Primates (ALL TIMES EST)
Bravo has 'Real Housewives Of Atlanta', another 'Real Housewives Of Atlanta', followed by a FRESH'Top Chef', 'Real Housewives Of BH', then a FRESH'Watch What Happens Live'.
Comedy Central has 'Futurama', another 'Futurama', and 3 hours of old 'Tosh.0'.
Schduled on a FRESHThe Daily Show is Ezra Edelman.
Schduled on a FRESH@Midnight are Grace Helbig, Hannah Hart, and Mamrie Hart.
FX has the movie 'Guardians Of The Galaxy', followed by the movie '22 Jump Street', then a FRESH'Blankets', and another 'Blankets'.
History has a FRESH'Swamp People: Blood & Guts', followed by a FRESH'Swamp People', then another FRESH'Swamp People', followed by yet another FRESH'Swamp People'.
IFC -
[6:30AM] KUNG POW: ENTER THE FIST
[8:15AM] ANALYZE THAT
[10:30AM] TOP SECRET!
[12:30PM] MACGRUBER
[2:30PM] ANIMAL HOUSE
[5:00PM] GET SMART
[7:30PM] MEET THE FOCKERS
[10:00PM] PORTLANDIA-Portland Secedes
[10:30PM] MEET THE FOCKERS
[1:00AM] PORTLANDIA-Portland Secedes
[1:30AM] GET SMART
[4:00AM] MACGRUBER (ALL TIMES EST)
Sundance -
[6:00AM] The Andy Griffith Show-Howard, the Comedian
[6:35AM] The Andy Griffith Show-Big Brothers
[7:10AM] The Andy Griffith Show-Opie's Most Unforgettable Character
[7:45AM] The Andy Griffith Show-Goober's Contest
[8:20AM] The Andy Griffith Show-Opie's First Love
[8:55AM] The Andy Griffith Show-Howard the Bowler
[9:30AM] The Andy Griffith Show-A Trip to Mexico
[10:05AM] The First Wives Club
[12:32PM] Groundhog Day
[3:00PM] Law & Order-Everybody's Favorite Bagman
[4:00PM] Law & Order-Prescription for Death
[5:00PM] Law & Order-Subterranean Homeboy Blues
[6:00PM] Law & Order-The Reaper's Helper
[7:00PM] Law & Order-Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die
[8:00PM] Law & Order-Fools for Love
[9:00PM] Law & Order-Trade This
[9:59PM] Law & Order-Black, White and Blue
[10:58PM] Law & Order-Mega
[11:57PM] Law & Order-Surrender Dorothy
[12:56AM] Law & Order-Untitled
[1:55AM] The Fly
[3:55AM] Christine
[5:55AM] The Bob Newhart Show-A Girl in Her Twenties (ALL TIMES EST)
SyFy has the movie 'Red', followed by the movie 'Red 2'.
TBS:
On a RERUNConan (from 11/29/16) are Sen. Bernie Sanders, Pete Holmes, and Shovels & Rope.
One of the 438 collector pieces displayed at the exhibition 'Barbie, beyond the doll', at Canal Foundation in Madrid, Spain, Feb. 15, 2017.
Photo by Fernando Alvarado
Bill Maher's decision to book conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos on his HBO show drew quick condemnation from another guest.
Jeremy Scahill, a journalist who's appeared frequently on "Real Time with Bill Maher," posted on Twitter that he won't appear as a panelist Friday because of Yiannopoulos and what he represents.
"He has ample venues to spew his hateful diatribes. There is no value in 'debating' him," Scahill tweeted. Appearing on Maher's show will give Yiannopoulos a major platform for "his racist, anti-immigrant campaign," wrote Scahill, co-founding editor of The Intercept news website.
Yiannopoulos writes for Breitbart News, considered by many a platform for the so-called "alt-right" movement, an offshoot of conservatism that mixes racism, white nationalism and populism.
His Twitter account was suspended last year after a series of racially insensitive tweets aimed at "Ghostbusters" actress Leslie Jones, who is black. Yiannopoulos has denied he is a white nationalist or racist.
A woman wearing a burka leaves a polling booth after voting during the state assembly election, in the town of Deoband, in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India, Feb. 15, 2017.
Photo by Cathal McNaughton
India successfully put a record 104 satellites from a single rocket into orbit on Wednesday in the latest triumph for its famously frugal space programme.
Celebrations erupted among scientists at the southern spaceport of Sriharikota as the head of India's Space Research Organisation (ISRO) announced all the satellites had been ejected as planned.
The rocket's main cargo was a 714 kilogram (1,574 pounds) satellite for Earth observation but it was also loaded with 103 smaller "nano satellites", weighing a combined 664 kilograms. The smallest weighed only 1.1 kilogram.
Nearly all of the nano satellites are from other countries, including Israel, Kazakhstan, Switzerland and 96 from the United States.
Eighty-eight of them are from Planet Inc - a San Francisco-based Earth imagery company - and weigh 4.5 kilogram each.
Sea ice around Antarctica has shrunk to the smallest annual extent on record after years of resisting a trend of man-made global warming, preliminary U.S. satellite data showed on Tuesday.
Ice floating around the frozen continent usually melts to its smallest for the year around the end of February, the southern hemisphere summer, before expanding again as the autumn chill sets in.
This year, sea ice extent contracted to 2.287 million square kilometers (883,015 square miles) on Feb. 13, according to daily data from the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).
That extent is a fraction smaller than a previous low of 2.290 million sq kms (884,173 square miles) recorded on Feb. 27, 1997, in satellite records dating back to 1979.
In many recent years, the average extent of sea ice around Antarctica has tended to expand despite the overall trend of global warming, blamed on a build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, mainly from burning fossil fuels.
Fourteen year old Sam Vugts getting some air at the "Malmesbury Abbey Skate" now in its 9th year, where the interior of the 12th century abbey in Malmesbury, Wiltshire is turned into a skate park for 3 days during the February half term, Malmesbury, Wiltshire, U.K., Feb. 15, 2017.
Photo by Stephen Shepherd
The world's oceans have lost more than two percent of their oxygen since 1960, with potentially devastating consequences for sea plants and animals, marine scientists said Wednesday.
In those five and a half decades, parts of the oceans devoid of oxygen, called anoxic waters, have quadrupled, said a study in the science journal Nature.
And the production and flow of nitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas, "will probably have increased", it said.
Oceans cover nearly three-quarters of the Earth's surface, provide about half of the oxygen we breathe and feed billions of people every year.
Most oxygen was lost in the Equatorial and North Pacific Ocean, the Southern Ocean, and the South Atlantic Ocean.
Almost 56,000 U.S. bridges are structurally deficient, down slightly from a year ago, with underperforming spans including New York's landmark Brooklyn Bridge, accord to a construction industry report released on Wednesday.
About 1,900 structurally deficient bridges are on interstate highways and vehicles cross underperforming U.S. spans 185 million times a day, the analysis of federal data by the American Road and Transportation Builders Association found.
Rebuilding U.S. infrastructure, including bridges, was a campaign promise of Republican President Donald Trump (R-Grifter), who has backed a $1 trillion infrastructure plan over a decade.
The group's report was based on an analysis of data from the U.S. Department of Transportation's 2016 National Bridge Inventory.
The builders' group said 55,710 bridges, or about 9 percent of U.S. spans, were structurally deficient, a share that is down 0.5 percent from a 2015 bridge report.
A demonstrator dressed as a clown holds a banner with the words "TAFTA/CETA FREE ZONE" as he takes part in a protest against the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) between the EU and Canada, in front of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, Feb. 15, 2017.
Photo by Vincent Kessler
Illinois officials waited more than five months to alert dozens of domestic violence programs that their funding had been eliminated, an omission that has forced layoffs and other cuts at some facilities, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The Associated Press.
No one knows - or is saying - why approximately $9 million in state funding for 62 programs that provide shelter, counseling and advocacy for victims of domestic abuse was left out of a six-month budget that took effect July 1. When providers finally learned they were left empty-handed, they scrambled to make up the lost money by slashing jobs and salaries and expanding client waiting lists.
Although there is no indication officials intended to slice funding for the domestic violence programs, the money won't easily be restored in the state's precarious economic situation. Illinois has operated without a spending plan since July 2015 because of bickering between first-term Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and Democrats who control the Legislature.
Michelle Meyer, executive director of Kane County-based Mutual Ground, a 24-hour shelter and counseling center, laid off four people in November after months of not receiving checks - or answers - from the state. They include a case manager and a sexual assault counselor. That's not counting the six who have left in the last year Mutual Ground can't afford to replace.
t wasn't until Dec. 16 - just two weeks before the temporary budget expired - that Human Services Secretary James Dimas sent a letter to all providers alerting them that the money had been left out.
A Missouri Republican legislator has come under strong criticism for cutting the microphone to silence the head of the state's NAACP chapter, who was speaking out at a public hearing against a bill that would restrict discrimination lawsuits.
A video by liberal advocacy group Progress Missouri shows Pineville Republican Rep. Bill Lant telling NAACP President Rod Chapel, "please contain your speech to speaking on the bill, sir," during the hearing Monday.
"Oh, but I am because this is nothing but Jim Crow," Chapel responded, referring to the bill. "You do not legalize discrimination on an individual basis and call it anything else."
Lant then turned off the microphone for Chapel, who continued speaking until Lant interrupted him and called on someone else to speak.
The bill would require plaintiffs bringing discrimination lawsuits to prove that race, religion, sex or other protected status was the motivating factor for discrimination or being fired, rather than just a contributing factor. It also would prevent employees from suing other employees and cap damages.
A car drives along a road near the Israeli barrier in the Palestinian town of Abu Dis in the West Bank, as Jerusalem is seen in the background Feb. 15, 2017.
Photo by Ammar Awad
Catholic Church Paid $213 Million In Abuse Compensation
Australia
The Catholic Church in Australia paid A$276 million ($212.9 million) in compensation, treatment and other costs to thousands of victims of child sexual offences in the past 35 years, according to a report released on Thursday at an inquiry into institutional abuse.
The barrister prosecuting on behalf of the government-established Royal Commission, Gail Furness, said in the report there was an average delay of 33 years between an alleged abuse and claim made against the church.
"The Royal Commission's experience is that many survivors face barriers which deter them from reporting abuse to authorities and to the institution in which the abuse occurred," Furness said.
A Royal Commission is Australia's most powerful type of inquiry that is able to compel people to testify and recommend legislative changes and criminal charges. The current inquiry was established in 2013 and is investigating child sexual abuse in religious, government and sporting organizations, among others.
Compensation and other payments were made in response to 3,066 of 4,445 child sexual abuse claims between 1980 and 2015, the report found. More than 40 percent of claims were received by a handful of male orders.
Turns out, space poop is a problem that puzzles thousands of people. After NASA asked for solutions to let astronauts urinate and defecate inside a spacesuit for up to six days, more than 5,000 entries (representing 20,000 people) answered the call.
The winner of the $15,000 Space Poop Challenge prize was Thatcher Cardon, for a solution called "MACES Perineal Access & Toileting System (M-PATS)." Details on the system were not immediately available.
"I was really interested in the problem, though, and spent some time lying down, eyes closed, just visualizing different solutions and modelling them mentally," Cardon, a colonel and commander of the 47th Medical Group at Laughlin Air Force Base in Texas, said in a statement by HeroX, which oversaw the challenge for NASA.
"Over time, the winning system of ideas coalesced," Cardon said. "Then, I packed up the family, and we drove around Del Rio, Texas, to dollar stores, thrift stores, craft stores, clothing and hardware stores to get materials for mock-ups."
The second-place prize of $10,000 was awarded to a system dubbed "Space Poop Unification of Doctors (SPUDs) Team - Air-powered," by Katherine Kin, Stacey Marie Louie and Tony Gonzales. The $5,000 third-place prize went to Hugo Shelley's "Spacesuit Waste Disposal System."
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took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
