Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Anthony Painter: "Money problems: why Finland has given up on the basic income dream" (The Guardian)
As Finland's government calls time on a bold experiment in giving citizens cash, can others still attempt such utopian schemes?
Garrison Keillor: Exes, etiquette, and losing a spark
Romances ebb and flow, temperatures rise and fall, and maybe you need to test this one by not being so committed. Take a break. Stop thinking about what's missing and go out and find people you enjoy being with. Don't sit down and have a discussion about what's wrong - that can be a miserable swamp -- better to take a break and give him a chance to think about it. It shouldn't feel like a chore to see the guy twice a week. Bad sign. Don't let your friends push you around. Don't let him bore you. Find people you love to be with.
Jonathan Jones: 'Astonishing, ravishing, sublime' - Rodin and the Art of Ancient Greece review (The Guardian)
The Frenchman made some of the best loved sculptures in the world. But his magnificent work is still no match for the Parthenon Marbles. My god, what art!
Jonathan Jones: "Blue blooms: Matisse is having a fashion moment this spring" (The Guardian)
Sixty-four years after his death, the French artist is this season's style inspiration.
Julia Belluz: It's time to rethink how much booze may be too much (Vox)
Researchers are changing how they study the risks of alcohol - and it's making drinking look worse.
Julia Belluz: Debunking What the Health, the buzzy new documentary that wants you to be vegan (Vox)
The vast majority of Americans don't eat nearly enough fruits and vegetables, and too much of just about everything else. Our food landscape also pushes us away from healthy options and in the direction of overindulging in processed junk. Perhaps we should start by addressing those problems, instead of complicating people's lives with radical diets most can't adhere to.
Robert Beelman: How the lowly mushroom is becoming a nutritional star (Conversation)
In the past, food scientists like me often praised mushrooms as healthy because of what they don't contribute to the diet; they contain no cholesterol and gluten and are low in fat, sugars, sodium and calories. But that was selling mushrooms short. They are very healthy foods and could have medicinal properties, because they are good sources of protein, B-vitamins, fiber, immune-enhancing sugars found in the cell walls called beta-glucans, and other bioactive compounds.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
answered:
took the day off.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Reader Comment
Current Events
Why?
Your husband is a gold-slut. It's reported that EVERYTHING at the State dinner for the Macrons was gold--gold cutlery, gold plates, gold chairs, gold salt & pepper shakers, etc. (Probably noshed on gold ingots!)
Your female guest of honor wore a dress trimmed in gold.
Why would you wear a SILVER dress instead of a gold one?
A president who speaks English!
Andy never uses the name Macron in the article, but that's whose picture is atop the text. I know he ends meaning Obama too, but hearing Predator PAINFULLY straining to read that prepared statement (written at 2nd grade level)yesterday, I was certainly struck by the contrast with Macron's command of English:
Americans Startled by Spectacle of President Who Can Speak English
4/25/18 WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)-Americans who were watching television on Wednesday morning witnessed the startling spectacle of an English-speaking President, viewers have confirmed.
All of the major cable news networks interrupted their regularly scheduled programs to cover the phenomenon, as a man who was identified as "President" spoke in complete, grammatically correct English sentences with no visible sign of strain or discomfort.
Just minutes into the telecast, thousands of viewers called the networks to inquire if they were witnessing a hoax.
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
FUCK THE NFL.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Short page tomorrow and probably again on Saturday. Gotta take care of some stuff outta town.
Ranking Falls Again
U.S. Press Freedom
President-for-now Donald Trump's (R-Crooked) unrelenting attacks on the free press have created a "Trump effect" promoting antagonism against journalists in the U.S. and abroad, the media watchdog and advocacy group Reporters Without Borders said Wednesday in its annual World Press Freedom Index.
The U.S. dropped two spots in the world ranking, to 45th, from last year. The group, also known as Reporters Sans Frontières, attributed the downgrade to Trump's incendiary anti-press rhetoric and his attempts to curtail media access.
The group also warned anti-media hatred is rising in democratic nations like the United States, which is "disappointing for the country of the First Amendment," Margaux Ewen, the group's North America executive director, said at an event unveiling the rankings. Reporters Without Borders blamed Trump, calling him "a media-bashing enthusiast."
"More and more democratically elected leaders no longer see the media as part of democracy's essential underpinning, but as an adversary to which they openly display their aversion," the group wrote.
Trump's "violent anti-press rhetoric" and attempts to block access to government information has influenced local officials, and has led to the arrests of journalists for covering protests or for asking questions of public officials. Reporters also have faced violent attacks by public figures, such as Montana Republican Greg Gianforte's body-slam of Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs last year during a congressional campaign.
U.S. Press Freedom
$69 Million Bet Turning Into Disaster
Megyn Kelly
NBC poached Megyn Kelly from Fox with a three-year contract for $69 million, but her ratings are not consistent with what is expected from that level of network investment.
"Megyn Kelly Today" premiered in September 2017 but has yet to find its audience for its 9 a.m. weekday slot.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Nielsen data shows Kelly averages 2.4 million viewers a day. Kelly's ratings are low in every regard: compared to her own viewership at Fox, compared to her competitors in the same time spot, and compared to her predecessors at NBC.
During Kelly's last year at Fox News, "The Kelly File" averaged 2.7 million viewers despite being on a cable network. Kelly was in prime time and now airs in mornings, but her viewership dropped as she made the transfer from cable to network television.
In the same time slot over at ABC, "Live With Kelly and Ryan" has seen a spike in ratings, partially attributed to Megyn Kelly's performance and partially attributed to Ryan Seacrest being named as Kelly Ripa's permanent co-host.
Megyn Kelly
Scheduling Behind Buckingham Dismissal
Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac has opened up on its dismissal of Lindsay Buckingham, saying its longtime guitarist did not agree on the dates of an extensive tour the band announced Wednesday.
The classic soft-rock group, notorious in its heyday for its internal tumult, jolted fans earlier this month by again parting ways with Buckingham, as Fleetwood Mac's veteran members had recently reconciled for the group's 50th anniversary.
Explaining the move for the first time in an interview published Wednesday in Rolling Stone, singer Stevie Nicks said that the group had planned to start rehearsing in June and Buckingham wanted to wait until November 2019.
Drummer Mick Fleetwood, the only consistent member of the band whose hits include "Don't Stop," "Landslide" and "Dreams," in the same interview said that the group had hit an "impasse."
"To that purpose, we made a decision that we could not go on with him. Majority rules in term of what we need to do as a band and go forward," Fleetwood said.
Fleetwood Mac
'Game of Thrones' Prequel
George RR Martin
Author George R.R. Martin will release Game of Thrones prequel Fire & Blood later this year.
It will serve as a prequel to the A Song of Ice and Fire book series that is the narrative for HBO's Game of Thrones.
But Fire & Blood and its forthcoming companion won't be novels.
According to Martin's publisher Ballantine Bantam Dell, Fire & Blood will be "the definitive history of the Targaryens in Westeros and chronicles the conquest that united the Seven Kingdoms under Targaryen rule through the Dance of the Dragons: the Targaryen civil war that nearly ended their dynasty forever."
Unfortunately fans of Martin's long-awaited book The Winds of Winter won't be getting it this year.
George RR Martin
Spoke Only To Lobbyists Who Paid Him
Mulvaney
Mick Mulvaney (R-Grifter), President-for-now Donald Trump's (R-Corrupt) budget director, raised eyebrows on Tuesday with an anecdote about his time in the House of Representatives.
"We had a hierarchy in my office in Congress," he said at the American Bankers Association conference in Washington, according to The New York Times. "If you're a lobbyist who never gave us money, I didn't talk to you. If you're a lobbyist who gave us money, I might talk to you."
Mulvaney, a Republican who represented a South Carolina district from 2011 through early 2017, said he also spoke with constituents even if they hadn't paid him.
The newspaper reported that he was encouraging the industry to lobby lawmakers:
"Mr. Mulvaney said that trying to sway legislators was one of the 'fundamental underpinnings of our representative democracy. And you have to continue to do it.'"
Mulvaney
Breaks Fundraising Record
NRA
The National Rifle Association (NRA) has received record breaking donations in the aftermath of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February, even as students across the country have led massive demonstrations to promote gun control legislation.
The organisation's political action committee, dubbed the Political Victory Fund, raised $2.4m in March - the first full month following the massacre in Parkland, Florida where 17 people were killed including 14 teenagers.
That is $1.5m more than the $884,000 in donations the organisation received during the same month last year, and $1.6m more than it raised in February this year. The fundraising total is the most the organisation has been able to raise in a single month since 2003, the furthest back that digital records are readily available for their totals, according to an analysis by the Tampa Bay Times.
Most of the funds - $1.9m of the total - were raised by small dollar donors who contributed $200 or less.
While the NRA contributes some of those funds to political candidates, the organisation primarily spends its money on outside operations to help bolster candidates it supports.
NRA
Gawker Slayer
Peter Thiel
Peter Thiel won't be buying Gawker after all.
The billionaire investor who helped bankrupt the once-mighty gossip empire reached an agreement Wednesday with an administrator for the company's remaining assets to withdraw his bid to purchase the website - and its story archive, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.
Thiel's public musings about buying the property he helped destroy had been fiercely opposed by team Gawker and many media critics who feared he would delete the website's archives if he gained control of them.
The conservative Silicon Valley titan famously bankrolled Hulk Hogan's invasion of privacy lawsuit against Gawker after the website published a sex tape between Hogan and the wife of his then-best friend Bubba the Love Sponge.
The years-long effort eventually succeeded in destroying Gawker Media. While Univision ultimately purchased Gawker's suite of sites, including Gizmodo, Jezebel and others, the media company passed on acquiring Gawker.com over fears about its legal liability.
Peter Thiel
'Kippa Marches'
Germany
Thousands of Germans wearing Jewish caps took part in nationwide rallies on Wednesday evening in support of the Jewish community amid concerns about growing anti-Semitism.
Jewish groups are trying to harness public outrage about an attack last week on an Israeli Arab who wore the Jewish cap, or kippa, in Berlin as an experiment. He ended up being subjected to verbal abuse by three people and was lashed with a belt by a Syrian Palestinian. A video was posted on the internet.
That attack followed reports of bullying of Jewish children in schools and prompted the head of the Central Council of Jews, Josef Schuster, to advise Jews not to wear kippas in big cities.
In Berlin, more than 2,000 people participated in the so-called 'kippa march', a police spokesman said. Similar rallies were held in Cologne and other German cities.
The marches followed a decision by Germany's music industry on Wednesday to scrap its prestigious annual Echo awards after a row over anti-Semitism.
Germany
Sells 600,000 Books In First Week
Comey
Former FBI chief James Comey's book "A Higher Loyalty," which details his soured relationship with US President Donald Trump, sold 600,000 copies in its first week, publisher Flatiron Books told AFP on Tuesday.
The highly-anticipated book, released April 17, debuted at the top slot on Amazon's bestseller list, but by Tuesday had slipped to second place.
More than a million copies of "A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership" have been printed to date, Flatiron Books said through a spokesperson.
"Fire and Fury," the explosive tell-all by journalist Michael Wolff, which also focuses on Trump, had a stronger start in January, with over one million copies sold in its first week, according to his publisher.
So far, Wolff's controversial account of life in a chaotic White House has sold over two million copies, according to The New York Times.
Comey
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