Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Tom Danehy: Tom offers up new definitions of the words we'll need during the Trump administration (Tucson Weekly)
No, Donald Trump is more like the knuckleheads who used to stand on the corner, grabbing their genitals and talking about themselves. In later generations, these guys became rappers whose shtick when like: "I'm bad! Yeah, I'm bad. I ain't done sh-t to make me bad. I'm just bad 'cause I SAY I'm bad." That's Donald Trump, except he grabs women's genitals instead of his own.
Suzanne Moore: "Politicians have got what they wanted: more UK workers in poverty than ever before"(The Guardian)
Tories and Labour decided that inequality was a price worth paying for growth. When employment is not a way out of poverty, what is?
Dr. Ruairi Robertson: The Top 9 Nuts to Eat for Better Health (Authority Nutrition)
Nuts are very good for you. While they are high in fat, in most cases, it's healthy fat. They're also a good source of fiber and protein. Many studies have shown that nuts have a number of health benefits, especially in regards to reducing risk factors for heart disease.
Tishani Doshi: A conversation with Martin Amis (Live Mint)
The writer on people losing their grip on reality and voting Donald Trump, the shrinking space for literary culture, and why he does not read anyone younger than him.
M. Allen Cunningham: THOREAU WAS ACTUALLY FUNNY AS HELL (Lit Hub)
THE WALDEN AUTHOR ISN'T A MISANTHROPE-JUST MISUNDERSTOOD.
Anonymous, Ryan Menezes: "I'm A Fugitive From Justice: How I Disappeared From Society" (Cracked)
If you had to disappear, could you do it? Like, what if you were falsely accused of a crime (or, you know, rightfully accused) and wanted to escape trial? Think of how many government and private databases hold your information, how many ways you're being tracked -- shit, the puzzle game on your phone probably knows which restaurants you've visited this week. Think of the sheer number of cameras that exist in the world.
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replied:
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
David E Suggests
Christmas Toys
David
Thanks, Dave!
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
from Marc Perkel
Patriot Act
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
DIE FOTHER MUCKERS!
"NOTORIOUS RBG" STRIKES AGAIN!
THE DAILY FERRET.
REPUBLICANS MAKE ME WANT TO PUKE!
"IF YOU GET TO GREEDY, WE'LL FIRE ALL OF YOU".
"LAZARUS"
"…AND WHO WILL BE THE OTHER KIND OF MONEY?"
WHY IS CONTAMINATED WATER IN THE MIDDLE OF A FLYWAY?!
"DEATH SENTENCE"
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Pulled something in my neck and it hasn't been a fun day.
Long time ago, was rear-ended in a car accident (was working in San Francisco then), and the car (a 60's Mustang) didn't have head rests, so my head whipped back and stuff cracked and chipped.
It was a pal's car - I was running out to pick dinner - and I didn't know that the car had been stolen the month before, and she'd only gotten it back a couple of days earlier.
When the police showed up their records still listed the car as stolen, and there was some sort of red fluid dripping out of the trunk - that I didn't have the key for.
Got to ride in the police car to my pal's place, where she verified my story, and then they drove me to the hospital.
Without a doubt, my most memorable Valentine's Day. Sigh.
Baby News
Mick Jagger
Veteran British rocker Mick Jagger celebrated becoming a father again Thursday aged 73, his publicist said, as his Rolling Stones band look set to top the album charts for the first time in two decades.
The singer's 29-year-old ballerina partner Melanie Hamrick gave birth to a son in New York on Thursday, according to a statement released on behalf the singer.
Jagger's new son is some two and a half years younger than the singer's great-granddaughter, who was born in May 2014.
Jagger already has seven children ranging in age from 17 to 46 from four previous relationships: Karis, Jade, Elizabeth, James, Georgia, Gabriel and Lucas.
He has five grandchildren and, since May 2014, a great-grandchild after his granddaughter Assisi gave birth to a baby girl.
Mick Jagger
Forbes List
'Overpaid' Actors
Johnny Depp and Will Smith topped a list on Wednesday of Hollywood's most overpaid actors, an illustration that star power does not always bring in dollars at the movie box-office.
Fan favorite George Clooney also found himself on the annual Forbes list after the limited commercial appeal of films like "Hail Caesar," "Money Monster" and the 2015 flop "Tomorrowland."
Depp led the list for the second straight year after his movie "Alice Through The Looking Glass" brought in just $300 million at the global box-office after costing about $170 million to produce.
Clooney came in 5th on the list, with a box office return of $6.70 for every $1 he was paid, largely because of the failure of "Tomorrowland" which cost $190 million to produce.
"Magic Mike" star Channing Tatum and comedian Will Ferrell rounded out the top 5 on Forbes list of most overpaid actors.
'Overpaid' Actors
No Gay Priests (No Mention Of Pedophiles)
Vatican't
A decree on training for Roman Catholic priests published on Wednesday stresses the obligation of sexual abstinence, as well as barring gays and those who support "gay culture" from holy orders.
"The Church, while deeply respecting the people concerned, cannot admit to a seminary or into holy orders those who practise homosexuality, show deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support what is called gay culture," said the document.
The new comprehensive guide to the training of Catholic clergy, which runs to about 100 pages, was approved by Pope Francis and published by the Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's official journal.
It updates a previous version dating back 30 years. But the barring of people who present homosexual tendencies was already stipulated by the Catholic Church in 2005.
The new decree does however allow an exemption for "homosexual tendencies which may only be the expression of a transitory problem, such as for example that of adolescence which is not yet complete".
Vatican't
Days Getting Longer, Slower
Earth
Earth's days are getting longer but you're not likely to notice any time soon -- it would take about 3.3 million years to gain just one minute, according to a study published on Wednesday.
Over the past 27 centuries, the average day has lengthened at a rate of about +1.8 milliseconds (ms) per century, a British research team concluded in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society A.
This was "significantly less", they said, than the rate of 2.3 ms per century previously estimated -- requiring a mere 2.6 million years to add one minute.
"It's a very slow process," study lead co-author Leslie Morrison, a retired astronomer with Royal Greenwich Observatory, told AFP.
Earth
Pipeline Company Fighting Small State Fine
Dakota Access
The company building the Dakota Access oil pipeline is fighting North Dakota regulators' efforts to impose a fine of at least $15,000 after working on land where Native American artifacts were found without running it by the commission that oversees pipelines.
The Public Service Commission maintains that Dakota Access LLC, a subsidiary of Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners, failed to get its approval before proceeding with construction on private land in October in southern North Dakota.
Crews diverted construction so the artifacts weren't disturbed - a plan with which the State Historic Preservation Office concurred. North Dakota chief archaeologist Paul Picha has told The Associated Press that the site was properly handled.
The company disputes it did anything wrong, and asked the PSC on Nov. 30 to dismiss the complaint.
Dakota Access
Many Kinds Of Death Increase
US Life Expectancy
A decades-long trend of rising life expectancy in the U.S. could be ending: It declined last year and it is no better than it was four years ago.
In most of the years since World War II, life expectancy in the U.S. has inched up, thanks to medical advances, public health campaigns and better nutrition and education.
But last year it slipped, an exceedingly rare event in a year that did not include a major disease outbreak. Other one-year declines occurred in 1993, when the nation was in the throes of the AIDS epidemic, and 1980, the result of an especially nasty flu season.
In 2015, rates for 8 of the 10 leading causes of death rose. Even more troubling to health experts: the U.S. seems to be settling into a trend of no improvement at all.
"With four years, you're starting to see some indication of something a little more ominous," said S. Jay Olshansky, a University of Illinois-Chicago public health researcher.
US Life Expectancy
Nobel Nominee Predicts Fate
Dr. Johan Galtung
It's been hard to find glimmers of hope in the fallout of Donald Trump's election, and it just got even harder. A Nobel Prize-nominated sociologist has warned that U.S. global power will be in a phase of accelerated decline under Donald Trump, and will collapse before his first term is over.
Norwegian professor Johan Galtung, who is credited with correctly predicting the fall of the Soviet Union, as well as the Tiananmen Square uprising in China, is known as the "founding father" of peace studies as a scientific object. Galtung attracted controversy in 2000 when he predicted U.S. global power would collapse by 2025. Under the Bush administration, he moved the prediction forward to 2020.
Now, Galtung is suggesting that Trump's election has allowed this collapse to materialize. In 2009, Galtung published The Fall of the American Empire-and then What? in which he suggested that there would be a rise of fascism before U.S. power receded. Trump's anti-immigration platform seems to herald this event, as the president-elect has vowed to deport three million illegal immigrants as soon as he enters office.
Galtung explained to Motherboard that Trump's election "speeds up the decline," before qualifying the statement by adding, "Of course, what he does as a President remains to be seen." Galtung continued by explaining that Trump's attitude towards NATO is an indication of the end of the U.S. as a superpower.
"The collapse has two faces," Dr. Galtung explained. "Other countries refuse to be good allies and the USA has to do the killing themselves, by bombing from high altitudes, drones steered by computer from an office, special forces killing all over the place. Both are happening today, except for Northern Europe, which supports these wars, for now. That will probably not continue beyond 2020, so I stand by that deadline."
Dr. Johan Galtung
Put On Extinction Watch List
Giraffes
The giraffe, the tallest land animal, is now at risk of extinction, biologists say.
Because the giraffe population has shrunk nearly 40 percent in just 30 years, scientists put it on the official watch list of threatened and endangered species worldwide, calling it "vulnerable." That's two steps up the danger ladder from its previous designation of being a species of least concern. In 1985, there were between 151,000 and 163,000 giraffes but in 2015 the number was down to 97,562, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
At a biodiversity meeting Wednesday in Mexico, the IUCN increased the threat level for 35 species and lowered the threat level for seven species on its "Red List" of threatened species, considered by scientists the official list of what animals and plants are in danger of disappearing.
The giraffe is the only mammal whose status changed on the list this year. Scientists blame habitat loss.
While everyone worries about elephants, Earth has four times as many pachyderms as giraffes, said Julian Fennessy and Noelle Kumpel, co-chairs of the specialty group of biologists that put the giraffe on the IUCN Red List. They both called what's happening to giraffes a "silent extinction."
Giraffes
Black Death 'Plague Pit' Found
48 Skeletons
A 14th-century mass burial pit full of victims of the Black Death has been discovered at the site of a medieval monastery hospital, according to archaeologists.
Researchers uncovered 48 skeletons - 27 of which were children - at an "extremely rare" Black Death burial site in Lincolnshire, in the United Kingdom, they said. DNA testing of teeth that were uncovered at the site revealed the existence of plague bacteria, the scientists said.
The presence of such a large burial site suggests that the community was overwhelmed by the number of victims of the Black Death, said lead archaeologist Hugh Willmott, a senior lecturer in European historical archaeology at the University of Sheffield. A mass grave would have been the easiest way to cope with the number of people who died during the outbreak.
The bubonic plague (commonly called the Black Death) was one of the worst pandemics in human history, killing an estimated 75 million to 200 million people in Europe and Asia during the 1300s, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Previously identified 14th-century sites with skeletons that showed evidence of the presence of plague were historically documented cemeteries in London. In these instances, Willmott said that local authorities would have been forced to create emergency burial grounds for the large numbers of urban dead.
48 Skeletons
In Memory
John Glenn
John Herschel Glenn Jr., the first American to orbit the Earth and the last surviving of member of the nation's original astronaut corps, died Thursday at age 95.
In 1962, Glenn blasted 162 miles into space atop a volatile Atlas rocket and was launched into the pantheon of American 20th century explorers including Charles Lindbergh and later Neil Armstrong. It was Glenn's risky flight that paved the way for the subsequent Apollo missions that put a man on the moon seven years later.
Glenn was also a wartime hero and public servant, serving with as a Marine aviator in World War II and the Korean War and later a United States Senator.
Born in Cambridge, Ohio in 1921 to a working-class family, Glenn was an engineering student at Muskingum College when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, drawing the United States into World War II.
Glenn joined the Marines and, in 1943, became a fighter pilot. At the controls of powerful Corsair piston-engine fighters over the Pacific, Glenn earned a reputation for precision flying and coolness under pressure.
He fought in Korea, too, piloting F-86 fighter jets -- and famously downed three North Korean MiGs during the last nine days of fighting of the war.
He was also lucky. More than once, Glenn returned to base unharmed, but with scores of bullet holes peppering his plane. In the course of two wars, Glenn completed 149 combat missions and racked up some 9,000 total flight hours - thousands more than most military pilots achieve.
After Korea, he became a test pilot and, in 1957, set a speed record by flying more than 700 miles per hour across the United States in his F-8 fighter, refueling twice in mid-air.
Two American astronauts preceded Glenn into space - nearly. In fact, neither Shepard nor Grissom actually escaped Earth's atmosphere. That distinction would fall to Glenn's Mercury-6 mission. Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space in April 1961, beating the Americans by six months and injecting urgency into Glenn's own mission.
On Feb. 20, 1962, Glenn climbed into a capsule perched 95 feet above the ground atop an Atlas rocket at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Bottom of Form 1
Glenn's beloved wife Annie, whom the astronaut had met when they were both children, was at least as terrified as her husband was.
Glenn resigned from NASA in 1964 and, after a few years in business, entered politics. Inspired by his close friends the Kennedys, Glenn ran as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate in Ohio. He lost in 1970 but won in 1974. A primary debate in Cleveland was widely seen as the turning point for Glenn the aspiring senator. Accused by his primary opponent Howard Metzenbaum of having never had a real job, Glenn shot back.
"I ask you to go with me, as I went the other day to a Veterans Hospital, and look those men with their mangled bodies in the eye and tell them they didn't hold a job.
Glenn served for 25 years in the Senate. Among his many accomplishments, he championed legislation that created inspector-general positions across government agencies. Today these internal auditors are responsible for preventing fraud, waste and abuse within their own organizations. He also helped shepherd the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act of 1978, which required the federal government to limit the spread of weapons-grade nuclear technology.
Despite his military, scientific and political accomplishments, Glenn always said that one of his proudest moments came in the mid-1970s, when his wife Annie dedicated herself to battling a serious stutter. After years of speech therapy, in 1980 Annie delivered her very first speech -- to a women's group in Canton, Ohio.
After being passed over to be Jimmy Carter's vice president in 1976, Glenn ran for president in 1984 but lost the Democratic primary to Walter Mondale.
Glenn retired from the U.S. Senate in January 1999, but not before pulling off one more epic feat. In October 1998, the then-77-year-old Glenn returned to space as a payload specialist on the 92nd Space Shuttle flight, making him the oldest astronaut to date. NASA required Glenn to meet the same physical-fitness standards as young astronauts. He did so handily, crediting a lifetime of jogging and weightlifting.
Glenn is survived by his wife Annie and two children, John and Carolyn.
John Glenn
In Memory
Greg Lake
Musician Greg Lake, a prog-rock pioneer who co-founded King Crimson and Emerson, Lake and Palmer, has died. He was 69.
Born in the southern English seaside town of Poole in 1947, Lake founded King Crimson with guitarist Robert Fripp in the late 1960s. The band pioneered the sprawling, ambitious genre that came to be known as progressive rock.
He went on to form ELP with keyboardist Keith Emerson and drummer Carl Palmer. With Lake as vocalist and guitarist, ELP impressed the crowds at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival, in a lineup that also featured Jimi Hendrix and The Who.
The band released six platinum-selling albums characterized by songs of epic length, classical influence and ornate imagery, and toured with elaborate light shows and theatrical staging.
Emerson, Lake and Palmer's 1973 album "Brain Salad Surgery" included a nearly 30-minute composition called "Karn Evil 9" that featured a Moog synthesizer and the eerie, carnival-like lyric: "Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends."
They filled stadiums and sold records by the millions, but ELP and other prog-rock bands such as Yes and the Moody Blues suffered a backlash with the arrival of punk in the mid-to-late 1970s. They were ridiculed as the embodiment of pomposity and self-indulgence that rock supposedly eschewed.
ELP broke up in 1979, reunited in 1991, later disbanded again and reunited for a 2010 tour.
Lake's songs as a solo artist include "I Believe in Father Christmas," an enduring seasonal staple first released in 1975.
Greg Lake
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