Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Mary Papenfuss: Trump Family Business Worth A Fraction Of What President Has Touted (Huffington Post)
Inflated numbers "flagrantly untrue," says Crain's reporter.
Mary Papenfuss: Top General Says He Would Reject An 'Illegal' Nuclear Strike Order From Trump(Huffington Post)
"We're not stupid people," nuclear commander Gen. John Hyten said at a forum Saturday.
Rob Walker: No holds barred and funny as hell: the fierce humour of Margaret Cho (Guardian)
One of America's most politically outspoken standups is finally bringing her savage brand of comedy to Britain.
Mark Coker: Ten Tips for Autopilot E-book Marketing (Publishers Weekly)
These set-and-forget marketing tricks help make books more discoverable.
Esme Cribb: "Mnuchin: I 'Didn't Realize' Photos Of Me Holding Dollar Bills Would Be Public" (TPM)
"I didn't realize that the pictures were public and going on the internet and viral," Mnuchin said on "Fox News Sunday." He said that "people have the right to do that." "People can express what they want. That's the great thing about social media today," Mnuchin said. "People can say and communicate what they want."
Alice Ollstein: "Republicans Learn The Hard Way: You Break Obamacare, You Own It" (TPM)
"You can make an argument that Obamacare is falling of its own weight, until we repeal the individual mandate," a grave-faced Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told reporters in the halls of the Capitol on Thursday. "I hope every Republican knows that when you pass a repeal of the individual mandate, it's no longer their problem. It becomes our problem."
Ed Mazza: Country Singer Neal McCoy's Anti-Anthem Protest Song Backfires Hilariously (Huffington Post)
"Take A Knee, My Ass (I Won't Take A Knee)" is bringing out the grammar critics.
Andrew Tobias: Exploding Head Syndrome
You've played Monopoly™, right? How about a new rule: when the game ends, the winner gets to keep all his money and houses and hotels (or give it all to his kids) to use at the start of the next game. That's what eliminating the estate tax does. That's what Republicans, the party of the rich and powerful, stand for. And if you think that's a good way to structure the game, more power to you. But it makes my head explode.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
wrote:
wrote:
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
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
"FASTER HORSES, YOUNGER WOMEN, OLDER WHISKEY, MORE MON ...
DON'T LET THE DEVIL CON YOU.
ELEPHANTS NEVER FORGET!
STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES.
REPUGS?
WHY WOULD ANYONE VOTE FOR A REPUBLICAN?
REPUBLICANS ARE CRAZY AS A SHIT SANDWICH!
'A THUG AND A WANNABE DICTATOR'.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny & seasonal.
Facing A Felony Trial
American Journalist
An American photojournalist swept up in a mass arrest of hundreds of demonstrators conducted by security forces in the nation's capital earlier this year during a protest of a regime change ceremony will face a criminal trial here Monday.
Alexei Wood, a 37-year-old freelance photojournalist based in the American southwest, has been charged with multiple felonies. If found guilty, he could face decades inside a mammoth prison system in the world's most incarcerated nation.
Wood was one of more than 200 citizens captured en masse by police forces quelling demonstrations held at the same time as President-for-now Donald Trump's (R-Crooked) inauguration. Just weeks before, the tough-talking real estate magnate and reality television star shocked the nation's political class when his rightward, populist campaign beat out that of a candidate from America's predominant center-left political dynasty.
The continued prosecution of Wood and nearly 200 protesters has raised alarm among many who worry it will have a chilling effect on dissent in America, a country that holds itself up as a beacon of free speech and political expression.
Trump's inauguration here on Jan. 20 sparked mass protest, much of which was peaceful. But police forces quickly moved in when members of a loosely organized far-left rebel group dressed in black smashed business windows in the capital's downtown. Later that day, some set fire to a limousine, which they viewed as a symbol of the country's elites. The unrest resulted in more than $100,000 of property damage, and several members of the security force sustained minor injuries.
American Journalist
Suspended Following Allegations
Charlie Rose
PBS says it is immediately halting distribution of Charlie Rose's interview program and CBS News suspended him following The Washington Post's report of eight women who accused the veteran newsman of multiple unwanted sexual advances and inappropriate behavior.
The women, three of whom spoke on the record in the deeply-reported story, accused Rose of groping them, walking naked in front of them and relating an erotic dream.
Rose told the Post that he was "deeply embarrassed" and apologized for his behavior.
Rose's PBS show features his in-depth interviews with newsmakers. The 75-year-old journalist is one of three hosts of "CBS This Morning" and is also a contributor to "60 Minutes."
Charlie Rose
John Oliver Video of Charlie Rose is Extra Creepy After Sexual Harassment Claims
Gets Brutally Rejected
Hannity
Sean Hannity just got a rejection letter for the ages.
A producer for his Fox News show invited Gloria Deason, one of the women who have accused U.S. Senate candidate Roy Mooreof sexual harassment, onto the show.
The woman's lawyer, Paula Cobia, fired back with a blistering response posted on Twitter by IR.net's Ed Krassenstein:
"Please tell Sean Hannity that I would never submit a survivor of abuse to the inevitable on-camera bullying and persecution by him," she wrote.
She added: "Mr. Hannity has belittled, defamed and engaged in an on-air intimidation campaign against the victims of Mr. Moore. He is totally uninterested in discovering the truth."
Hannity
Gold Leaf From Crown
Napoleon
A gold laurel leaf removed from the crown Napoleon Bonaparte wore to his coronation sold for 625,000 ($735,000) euros at an auction in Paris on Sunday.
The sale price far exceeded the estimate of between 100,000 and 150,000 euros, Osenat auction house said.
The leaf was one of six cut from the crown ahead of the 1804 coronation, because the monarch considered it too heavy.
The goldsmith Martin Guillaume Biennais gave the spare leaves to each of his daughters - with the auctioned gold carving having been passed through the family to present day.
A leaf which was worn during the coronation but was later detached from the crown sold in the 1980s for 80,000 francs.
Napoleon
Keystone XL Pipeline
Nebraska
State regulators in Nebraska narrowly voted to approve the Keystone XL pipeline on Monday, five days after the original Keystone pipeline leaked 210,000 gallons of oil in South Dakota.
The Nebraska Public Service Commission voted 3-2 to give the project the go ahead, but rejected pipeline behemoth TransCanada's preferred route. The decision promises to prolong the nearly decade-long battle over the tar sands pipeline and intensify the fight between the Trump administration and environmentalists.
"Today's decision complicates TransCanada's plans for the Keystone XL pipeline," Greenpeace campaigner Rachel Rye Butler said in a statement. "While it isn't clear what this ultimately means for TransCanada's ability to build, one thing is certain - people who oppose the new pipeline will throw everything they have got at stopping it."
TransCanada must now submit an application for an alternative route or appeal the decision, a process that could take up to two years. The new route could face fresh opposition from landowners whose property wasn't previously in the pipeline's path and require environmental impact assessments.
The five-member commission, which included just one Democrat, was barred from considering the spill under a state law heavily lobbied by TransCanada. Under that 2011 law, the officials were required to weigh "economic and social impacts," compliance with state and local regulations, and evidence that the pipeline would damage or deplete natural resources. Safety issues, such as "the risk or impact of spills or leaks from the major oil pipeline," could not influence the commission's vote.
Nebraska
Larger And More Frequent
Thunderstorms
Summer thunderstorms in North America will likely be larger, wetter and more frequent in a warmer world, dumping 80 percent more rain in some areas and worsening flooding, a new study says.
Future storms will also be wilder, soaking entire cities and huge portions of states, according to a federally-funded study released Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change.
The U.S. in recent years has experienced prolonged drenchings that have doused Nashville in 2010, West Virginia and Louisiana in 2016 and Houston this year. The disasters cost about $20 billion a year in damage.
By the end of century if emissions aren't curbed, these gully washers will be much worse because they will get bigger, said Andreas Prein, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, who led the study.
Prein and colleagues used high-resolution computer simulations to see how global warming will likely change the large thunderstorms that are already daily summer events in North America. Previous studies projected more frequent and wetter storms, but this is the first research to show they likely will be more widespread, covering an entire city instead of just half of it, Prein said.
Thunderstorms
Woman Adds New Sticker
Texass
The owner of the truck with the controversial "F__k Trump" sticker has added a new one: "F__k Troy Nehls."
Karen Fonseca, the truck's owner, says the photo of the new sticker is real and was made for her.
The sticker is slightly smaller and was placed to the right of the Trump one. It states:
"F__K TROY NEHLS AND F__K YOU FOR VOTING FOR HIM."
Nehls serves as the sheriff for Fort Bend County. Fonseca originally made headlines after Nehls threatened to arrest her for the anti-Trump sticker on her pickup.
Texass
Permits Issued
Lion Trophies
One month before the Trump administration sparked outrage by reversing a ban on trophies from threatened African elephants, federal officials quietly loosened restrictions on the importation of heads and hides of lions shot for sport.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began issuing permits Oct. 20 for lions killed in Zimbabwe and Zambia between 2016 and 2018. The agency is also currently studying whether to add three additional countries to the list - Mozambique, Namibia and Tanzania.
Previously, only wild lions killed in South Africa were eligible to be imported.
In a pair of recent tweets, President-for-now Donald Trump (R-Soulless) said he will delay the new policy on allowing elephant trophies, but he made no mention of lions. Trump, whose adult sons are avid big-game hunters, also expressed skepticism about his own administration's claim that killing threatened animals could help save them by helping raise money for conservation programs.
Lion Trophies
Competition For Salmon
Orcas
Harbor seals, sea lions and some fish-eating killer whales have been rebounding along the Northeast Pacific Ocean in recent decades. But that boom has come with a trade-off: They're devouring more of the salmon prized by a unique but fragile population of endangered orcas.
Competition with other marine mammals for the same food may be a bigger problem than fishing, at least in recent years, for southern residYnt killer whales that spend time in Washington state's Puget Sound, a new study suggests.
Researchers used models to estimate that from 1975 to 2015, marine mammals along the U.S. West Coast ate dramatically more chinook salmon - from 6,100 metric tons to 15,200 metric tons, according to a study published Monday in the journal Scientific Reports.
In the same period, salmon caught by commercial and recreational fishing from Northern California to Alaska declined from 16,400 to 9,600 metric tons.
The emphasis typically has been on managing how fishing affects salmon. But this study brings the rest of the ecosystem, including predators, into the picture, Kaplan said.
Orcas
Three Refugees
Japan
The U.N. refugee agency has urged Japan to resettle more asylum seekers, its chief said on Monday, pressuring the country to help solve a global crisis after giving refugee status to just three people in the first half of the year.
Japan is one of the developed world's least welcoming countries for asylum seekers. It accepted 28 in 2016, despite applications from a record 10,091 people.
It has since 2008 given home to limited numbers of refugees through a so-called third-country resettlement scheme, resettling a total of 152 people - mostly ethnic Karen people from Myanmar living in Thai and Malaysian camps.
Japan's reluctance to accept refugees mirrors a wider caution towards immigration in a nation where many pride themselves on cultural and ethnic homogeneity.
Its record at home has drawn sharp criticism from international human rights groups, and has been at odds with its traditional status as a major international donor on refugees.
Japan
What Would Jesus Pack?
Florida
A church in Florida has put up a sign warning those who might to enter with an eye to do harm that the congregation is "heavily armed".
With churches across the country being forced to think deeply about security following the recent assault on a church in Texas that killed 26 people and the 2015 attack on a church in Charleston, the River at Tampa Bay Church has a sign posted on the front door that reads: "Welcome to The River at Tampa Bay Church - right of admission reserved - this is private property."
The message, signed "The Pastors", adds: "Please know this is not a gun free zone - we are heavily armed - any attempt will be dealt with deadly force - yes we are a church and will protect our people."
Associate Pastor Allen Hawes told the Tampa Bay Times the sign had actually been in place for more than a year at the non-denominational church, which frequently live streams its services. However, it earned national attention after another pastor, Rodney Howard-Browne, posted it on his Instagram account.
Mr Hawes has his own concealed-carry weapons permit, and said those armed during services that draw over 1,000 could include parishioners with concealed-carry permits, private plainclothes guards, or uniformed deputies hired for security.
Florida
In Memory
Della Reese
Della Reese, best known for her work on "Touched by an Angel," has died at age 86. The actress and gospel-influenced singer found her greatest fame as Tess, the wise angel in the long-running television drama, when she was in her 60s.
Before "Touched by an Angel" debuted in 1994, Reese was mainly known as a singer, although she had costarred on "Chico and the Man," "Charlie and Company" and "The Royal Family" and hosted her own talk show, "Della."
Reese's singing career also began in church, when she joined the junior gospel choir at the Olivet Baptist Church in her hometown of Detroit. Soon she was singing at other churches, at civic events and on the radio.
When Mahalia Jackson, known as The Queen of Gospel Music, came to Detroit, she needed a singer to replace a member of her troupe. She turned to Reese, who was only 13.
Jackson was so impressed by the teenager's voice that she enlisted her for a summer tour, and Reese went on to tour with her for five summers. In later years she would remark that she would never forget what she learned from the legendary gospel singer, including "how to communicate with people through song."
Reese is survived by her husband, Franklin Lett, and three children.
Della Reese
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