Links

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/13/climate-change-means-hurricane-florence-will-dump-50-more-rain
Sept. 13, 2018
Hurricane Florence is set to bring 50% more rainfall to the US east coast due to human-induced climate change, according to a landmark forecast that has outlined the influence of warming temperatures upon the looming storm.
An attribution study by scientists ahead of Florence’s landfall, expected in North Carolina on Thursday, found that the storm will be about 50 miles (80km) larger in diameter than it would be if human activity had not warmed the planet.
The hurricane is expected to bring about 50% more precipitation, delivering as much as 20in (51cm) of rainfall in coastal areas, due to climate change. The forecast was completed by researchers at Stony Brook University and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
“Dangerous climate change is here, it’s not a problem for future generations,” said Michael Wehner, staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “These risks have been permanently increased and we have to accept that fact.”
“The idea we can’t attribute individual events to climate change is out of date, it’s just no longer true,” said Wehner. “We’ve reached the point where we can say this confidently.”
Climate change fuels hurricanes by increasing the amount of moisture in the atmosphere and heightening the warmth of the oceans. Several storms that form in the Atlantic have intensified to unusual strength in recent years, as part of a trend that scientists say is consistent with a warming world.


https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/13/pollutionwatch-hazy-air-of-cities-reducing-solar-panel-efficiency
Sept. 13, 2018
even modern haze is still reducing sunlight in cities. Scientists find that in Delhi air pollution over the city is reducing the efficiency of solar panels by between 12% and 17%, depending on the type of photovoltaic technology. Losses are between 9% and 13% in Beijing, and around 2% in London and Los Angeles.
In the worst cities air pollution could affect the viability of solar energy. It also means money – Los Angeles’ expanding solar electricity sector could be losing about $6m to $9m a year by 2020.


https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/sep/12/warming-oceans-are-changing-the-worlds-rainfall
Sept. 12, 2018
Scientists found that the rain in the Amazon tropical rainforest has increased 180–600 mm (7–24 inches). They learned about the increase in wet-season rainfall by reviewing old weather data – information from rain gauges for example. They also used satellite measurements to complement the rain gauge readings. The trend they found was clear – the rains are increasing.
So, any good scientist wants to know why. Why are the rains increasing? What is the main cause? By using the results of state-of-the-art climate calculations, the authors showed that the temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean are primarily responsible. The Pacific Ocean water temperature plays a smaller role.

Links

https://money.cnn.com/2018/09/13/news/companies/volkswagen-beetle/index.html
Sept. 13, 2018
The last Volkswagen Beetle will roll off the line next year


https://www.barrons.com/articles/barrons-100-most-sustainable-companies-1517605530?mod=barpkt19
Feb. 3, 2018
Barron’s 100 Most Sustainable Companies


https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/09/13/missouri-mom-stole-dying-daughters-pain-meds-police-say/1296222002/
Sept. 13, 2018
A Missouri woman failed to give her dying daughter pain medications and instead took the meds herself, according to charges announced Wednesday by the Troy Police Department.


https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kidney-transplant-social-share/
Nobody is paying for ailing children's organ transplants or life-saving surgeries based on how often a social media post is shared.


https://www.wunderground.com/news/safety/hurricane/news/2018-09-07-hurricane-florence-inland-flood-risk
Sept. 13, 2018
Hurricanes are categorized based on winds. However, arguably the most dire concern with Florence is with water. Put simply, Florence is a "Category 5 flood threat."
According to the National Hurricane Center, rainfall could total 20 to 40 inches in coastal North Carolina, and rainfall of 6 to as much as 15 inches is possible in several other states in the Southeast and Appalachians.
You don't need rain nearly as heavy as what is being forecast near the coast of the Carolinas to trigger major flash flooding and river flooding in the Appalachians, due to the runoff enhancement of terrain.
Florence may produce heavy rain along the slopes of the Appalachians from north Georgia into West Virginia into early next week. This could lead to numerous rockslides and mudslides.
If that wasn't enough, trees may be more easily toppled by winds than otherwise when soil is saturated from either heavy rain or storm-surge flooding.
According to a National Hurricane Center study, roughly three of every four deaths in tropical cyclones in the U.S. are from water, either from storm surge (49 percent) or rainfall flooding (27 percent). Only 8 percent of U.S. deaths are from wind. 


People sometimes ask what is the use of studying geometry and trigonometry. Besides training the brain to think, if you only remember the basics of right triangles, it is obvious that a rise in sea level, or a storm surge, of a certain height can mean the water will come inland much farther than that.


If republican politicians were decent, honorable, and patriotic, they wouldn't tell such big lies in order to get your vote, to benefit their super-rich donors.

McRaven, who oversaw Bin Laden raid, resigns from Pentagon board following Trump criticism

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2018/08/16/william-mcraven-osama-bin-laden-raid-admiral-donald-trump-revoke-security-clearance-john-brennan/1015408002/

Ryan W. Miller, USA TODAY Published 9:21 p.m. ET Aug. 16, 2018

Retired Navy admiral William McRaven, who oversaw the Navy SEAL operation that resulted in al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's death, penned a short but scathing letter to President Donald Trump asking that his security clearance be revoked after the commander-in-chief revoked former CIA director John Brennan's clearance.
"I would consider it an honor if you would revoke my security clearance as well, so I can add my name to the list of men and women who have spoken up against your presidency," McRaven wrote in the letter published Thursday by The Washington Post.
McRaven, who was commander of the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command from 2011 to 2014 under former President Barack Obama, praised Brennan and called him "one of the finest public servants" with "unparalleled integrity."

The former Navy admiral bashed Trump's leadership and said that Trump used "McCarthy-era tactics" against his critics.

•••••

https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2018/09/13/mcraven-former-socom-head-resigns-from-pentagon-board-following-trump-criticism/

By: Aaron Mehta
Sept. 13, 2018

William McRaven, the retired four-star admiral who led U.S. Special Operations Command from 2011 to 2014, has resigned from the Pentagon’s technology advisory board following a public critique of President Donald Trump, Defense News has learned.
McRaven resigned from the Defense Innovation Board, a group of technology leaders and innovators tasked with advising the secretary of defense on pertinent issues, on Aug. 20, four days after he posted a scathing op-ed in the Washington Post calling out Trump for revoking the security clearance of former CIA director John Brennan.

“Through your actions, you have embarrassed us in the eyes of our children, humiliated us on the world stage and, worst of all, divided us as a nation,” McRaven wrote to Trump in the Post. “If you think for a moment that your McCarthy-era tactics will suppress the voices of criticism, you are sadly mistaken. The criticism will continue until you become the leader we prayed you would be.”

•••••

Florence’s flood waters could be half a foot higher, thanks to climate change

https://www.washingtonpost.com/energy-environment/2018/09/13/no-brainer-climate-change-has-made-hurricane-florence-worse/?utm_term=.b8f26e81c2fd

By Chris Mooney and
Brady Dennis


There is plenty of debate among scientists about the extent to which you can blame climate change for ferocious hurricanes. But one thing they do not disagree on is that climate change contributes to sea surge. In the case of Hurricane Florence and the Carolinas, some six inches of the coming storm surge is attributable to climate change because sea levels have risen in the past 100 years or so.
“Essentially, every coastal flood today is made deeper and more damaging by sea-level rise caused by climate change,” said Benjamin Strauss, chief executive and chief scientist at the research organization Climate Central. “The principle is simple: If you fill a bathtub higher, it’s easier for splashes to get out of the tub.”

•••••

Seas have risen about a foot along the Carolina coast since 1900, according to Rahmstorf and his colleague Andrew Kemp, a Tufts University sea-level rise expert who has studied the Carolinas, in particular. (You can also see this in the tide gauge at Wilmington, N.C.) About a third of that change is due to land sinking, or subsidence, which cannot be blamed on humans or climate change. But the remaining amount — about eight inches, or 20 centimeters — is the result of sea-level rise, a substantial part of which is attributable to humans.

•••••

Kopp also said that this is only the beginning — climate change will directly add more and more water to the seas, and the risk that that causes will only increase.

•••••

Sea-level rise is driven by climate change in multiple ways. First, warmer water expands and takes up more space, and seas are warming as well as rising. Second, melting ice from Greenland, Antarctica and smaller glaciers around the world (Alaska, Patagonia and many other places) adds water to the already expanding ocean.
This does not mean that climate change and sea-level rise are the biggest factors determining how much damage Florence will cause at landfall. Many other factors — the storm’s speed and size, the shape of the seafloor and coastline, whether it’s high or low tide, and more — loom larger in determining that.

•••••

Links

https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/super-typhoon-mangkhut-plows-towards-philippines-taiwan-threatening-damaging-winds-and-flooding-rain/70006031
Sept. 12, 2018
Typhoon Mangkhut is headed toward the Philippines, Taiwan, and China, currently Cat 5.


https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/
Latest tropical storm information for U.S.


https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2018/09/12/Documents-show-10M-moved-from-FEMA-to-ICE/9771536763788/
Sept. 12 (UPI) -- The Trump administration has taken about $10 million away from the Federal Emergency Management Administration and given it to immigration authorities, documents of the plan show.


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/12/north-carolina-didnt-like-science-on-sea-levels-so-passed-a-law-against-it
Sept. 12, 2018
In 2012, the state now in the path of Hurricane Florence reacted to a prediction by its Coastal Resources Commission that sea levels could rise by 39in over the next century by passing a law that banned policies based on such forecasts.
But dire predictions alarmed coastal developers and their allies, who said they did not believe the rise in sea level would be as bad as the worst models predicted and said such forecasts could unnecessarily hurt property values and drive up insurance costs.
As a result, the state’s official policy, rather than adapting to the worst potential effects of climate change, has been to assume it simply won’t be that bad. Instead of forecasts, it has mandated predictions based on historical data on sea level rise.

Links

https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/new-tropical-threat-poses-late-week-flooding-risk-to-texas/70006026
Sept. 11, 2018
Texas is being put on alert for possible flooding and dangerous surf as a new tropical threat is forecast to emerge in the western Gulf of Mexico later this week.
“Following downpours that have been pestering central and coastal Texas since last week, a new potential threat from the tropics may arrive late this week by way of the Gulf of Mexico,” said AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Alex Sosnowski.
"As if there were not enough tropical concerns with Florence bearing down on the Carolinas, Olivia taking a cruise through Hawaii and Isaac on a path through the Lesser Antilles and Caribbean, we have a feisty mass of showers and thunderstorms taking aim at the Gulf of Mexico his week," Sosnowski said.


http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/405950-michigan-asks-trump-administration-to-approve-medicaid-work-requirements
Sept. 10, 2018
Michigan asks Trump administration to approve Medicaid work requirements


https://health.usnews.com/health-care/articles/2018-08-16/research-links-long-banned-insecticide-ddt-to-autism
https://health.usnews. com/health-care/articles/2018-08-16/research-links-long-banned-insecticide-ddt-to-autism
Aug. 16, 2018
High levels of exposure to the insecticide DDT in women seems to more than double the risk of autism in their children, new research suggests.
The study looked for a link between the development of autism and two common environmental chemicals -- DDT and PCBs. PCBs are chemicals that were used in many products, especially transformers and electrical equipment. In this study, they weren't linked to autism.
"DDE, but not PCBs were related to autism in the offspring, especially autism with intellectual disability," Brown said.
The overall odds of autism were almost one-third higher in children born to moms with elevated DDE levels, the study found. For women with the highest DDE levels, the risk of autism with an intellectual disability was more than double.
But while the study found a link between autism and DDT exposure, it did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

Links

https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2018/09/wildfires-turn-forests-into-sci-fi-scenes/
William Anderegg grew up camping and fishing in the forests of Colorado. But in the years since, fires have ripped through much of the land.
Anderegg: “One of the reasons I got into science is I realized that a huge amount of area that I had camped in as a kid, these forests were now dead. It looked like a moonscape.”
Now Anderegg is a professor at the University of Utah and studies the effects of climate change on forests.
He says rising temperatures mean less snow, earlier snow melt, and drier springs. When combined with hot, dry summers, these conditions can turn a forest into a tinderbox.
Anderegg: “What we see are longer fire seasons, longer individual fire durations, more big fires, and in some cases more intense fires that can burn hotter.”
A recent study found that over the past 30 years, the area burned in Western wildfires is almost two times larger than it would have been without the influence of climate change.


There is justice in the fact that major hurricane Florence is headed for North & South Carolina. They have voted for politicians, including Trump, who have blocked action on global warming, which is leading to warmer ocean water, more moisture in the air, and slower movements of weather patterns, which is leading to stronger hurricanes, and heavier rainfall.


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/10/climate/methane-emissions-epa.html
Sept. 10, 2018
The Trump administration, taking its third major step this year to roll back federal efforts to fight climate change, is preparing to make it significantly easier for energy companies to release methane into the atmosphere.
Methane, which is among the most powerful greenhouse gases, routinely leaks from oil and gas wells, and energy companies have long said that the rules requiring them to test for emissions were costly and burdensome.
The Environmental Protection Agency, perhaps as soon as this week, plans to make public a proposal to weaken an Obama-era requirement that companies monitor and repair methane leaks, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times. In a related move, the Interior Department is also expected in coming days to release its final version of a draft rule, proposed in February, that essentially repeals a restriction on the intentional venting and “
Methane makes up only about nine percent of greenhouse gases, but it is around 25 times more effective than carbon dioxide in trapping heat in the atmosphere. About one-third of methane pollution is estimated to come from oil and gas operations.
In addition, the E.P.A. proposal would let energy companies operating in states that have their own state-level methane standards follow those standards instead of the federal ones. That would include states such as Texas, where the pollution standards have been more lax than federal standards.


http://postalnews.com/blog/2018/08/30/trump-orders-postal-privatization-plans-kept-secret-until-after-midterm-elections/
Aug. 30, 2018
Trump orders postal privatization plans kept secret until after midterm elections


https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumps-tweet-economy-false-top-white-house-economic-adviser-says-195318075.html
Sept. 10, 2018
The top official on the White House economic advisory council said on Monday that President Trump’s claim that the quarterly change in the country’s gross domestic product has eclipsed the U.S. unemployment rate for “the first time in over 100 years” is false.
“I can tell you what is true,” Kevin Hassett, chairman of the council, told reporters during a press briefing. “What is true is that it is the highest in 10 years.”
“Trump is completely wrong about how rare this is,” the Washington Post’s Philip Bump wrote. “Out of the 282 full quarters since 1948, the rate of change in the GDP has topped the unemployment rate 64 times, or more than a quarter of the time. So 64 times in the past 70 years. Not quite the same as once in a century.”


https://www.wunderground.com/news/safety/hurricane/news/2018-09-07-hurricane-florence-inland-flood-risk
Sept. 10, 2018
Hurricanes and tropical storms often have significant impact well inland.
In this case, Florence's rain could have disastrous consequences.
Repeated rounds of heavy rain have drenched – and flooded – parts of the East, particularly since mid- to late July. Particularly hard hit were areas around Hershey, Pennsylvania, and Ellicott City, Maryland, to name just a few.
According to a just-released report from NOAA, it was a record-wet summer – June through August – in Hatteras, North Carolina; Washington D.C. (Reagan and Dulles airports); Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania; Williamsport, Pennsylvania; and Concord, New Hampshire.
Overall, it was also a record-wet summer in Pennsylvania in records dating to 1895, according to NOAA.

[Note that global warming is causing more moisture in the air, and also making weather systems more likely to move more slowly and stall.]
https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/hurricane-florence-threatens-to-unleash-catastrophic-inland-flooding-in-carolinas-virginias/70006016
Sept. 10, 2018
With the potential for Florence's forward speed to slow and possibly stall, a current forecast of feet of rain would lead to catastrophic flash flooding and major river flooding in parts of the Carolinas, Virginia and possibly other neighboring states.
“Most of hurricane damage and loss of life occurs not on the coast, but from flooding as the result of heavy rain. And even though Hurricane Florence is a powerful storm, that will be the case here too,” AccuWeather President and Founder Dr. Joel N. Myers said.
“There could be devastating floods well in from the coast back in the hills and mountains of North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia,” Myers said.

Links

https://www.newsweek.com/sackler-family-oxycontin-rhodes-pharma-1112988
Sept. 9, 2018
Richard Sackler and his billionaire family, who have been blamed for fostering the nation's ongoing opioid epidemic, own a second pharmaceutical company.
The Sacklers are the owners of Purdue Pharma, which created the addictive opioid painkiller OxyContin. But the family also own a second company based in Rhode Island, Rhodes Pharma, according to a Financial Times report released Sunday.
Rhodes Pharma is of one of the largest creators of off-patent generic opioids. The company produces several opioid-based painkillers that contain addictive drugs including oxycodone, hydrocodone and morphine.
The Sacklers are worth a combined $13 billion, according to a 2016 Forbes report. The vast majority of their wealth, shared among 20 family members, is derived from drug-making.
Purdue Pharma has faced hundreds of lawsuits over the years for fueling the opioid epidemic. More than 63,000 people in the U.S. died from drug overdoses in 2016, of which 66 percent were related to opioid use.
The Sackler family was also recently found to be behind a new drug aimed to help treat opioid addiction known as Buprenorphine-water, the Washington Post reported.


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/health/jose-baselga-cancer-memorial-sloan-kettering.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage§ion=Health
Sept. 8, 2018
One of the world’s top breast cancer doctors failed to disclose millions of dollars in payments from drug and health care companies in recent years, omitting his financial ties from dozens of research articles in prestigious publications like The New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet.
The researcher, Dr. José Baselga, a towering figure in the cancer world, is the chief medical officer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. He has held board memberships or advisory roles with Roche and Bristol-Myers Squibb, among other corporations, has had a stake in start-ups testing cancer therapies, and played a key role in the development of breakthrough drugs that have revolutionized treatments for breast cancer.
According to an analysis by The New York Times and ProPublica, Dr. Baselga did not follow financial disclosure rules set by the American Association for Cancer Research when he was president of the group. He also left out payments he received from companies connected to cancer research in his articles published in the group’s journal, Cancer Discovery. At the same time, he has been one of the journal’s two editors in chief.
At a conference this year and before analysts in 2017, he put a positive spin on the results of two Roche-sponsored clinical trials that many others considered disappointments, without disclosing his relationship to the company. Since 2014, he has received more than $3 million from Roche in consulting fees and for his stake in a company it acquired.
Dr. Baselga did not dispute his relationships with at least a dozen companies. In an interview, he said the disclosure lapses were unintentional.


https://www.politicususa.com/2018/09/08/senator-admits-trump-leave-gop.html
https://www.politicususa.com/2018/09/08/senator-admits-trump-leave-gop.html
Sept. 8, 2018
GOP Senator Ben Sasse Admits Trump ‘Regularly’ Makes Him Want To Leave The Republican Party
“He is accelerating the trend, obviously,” the Nebraska senator said. “But it didn’t start two years ago.”

Climate March 2018

https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/09/08/thousands-to-march-against-climate-change-in-san-francisco-ahead-of-world-summit/
Sept. 8, 2018
Days before world leaders descend on San Francisco for a highly-anticipated climate action summit, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets calling on those leaders to take action to solve the global climate crisis.
By the time they marched down Market Street toward Civic Center — banging drums, playing instruments, waving colorful signs and burning incense and sage — the crowd was 30,000-strong. It was likely the largest climate rally on the west coast, according to organizers.


https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/08/rise-for-climate-protests-san-francisco-new-york
Sept. 8, 2018
Tens of thousands of people took part in marches and other events across the US on Saturday, calling for a swift transition to renewable energy in order to stave off the various perils of climate change.
The Rise for Climate protests was spearheaded by what organizers called the largest ever climate march on the US west coast. The march, which snaked through the heart of San Francisco, came ahead of a climate change summit in the city next week that will gather mayors and business leaders from around the world.
Hundreds of other actions took place in cities around the world, as part of a coordinated effort to counter what climate activists see as the dangerously regressive policies of Donald Trump’s administration, which has sought to dismantle rules to lower greenhouse gas emissions and has thrown open vast areas of land and water to drilling.
“Today, people across the country are rising up for climate, jobs and justice in their communities to fight back against Trump’s toxic agenda and to send a message to every politician that the time for action is now,” said Michael Brune, executive director of environment group the Sierra Club.
“Families living in the shadows of coal plants and oil refineries, losing homes and livelihoods to wildfires and extreme weather, and struggling to make a living wage are coming together because we know we don’t have time to waste.”


http://time.com/5390923/paris-climate-change-march-california/
Sept. 8, 2018
More than 18,000 people marched Saturday in Paris as part of an international mobilization to show popular support for urgent measures to combat climate change in advance of a San Francisco summit.

Links

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-administration-to-circumvent-court-limits-on-detention-of-child-migrants/2018/09/06/181d376c-b1bd-11e8-a810-4d6b627c3d5d_story.html?utm_term=.d37a66491c34https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-administration-to-circumvent-court-limits-on-detention-of-child-migrants/2018/09/06/181d376c-b1bd-11e8-a810-4d6b627c3d5d_story.html?utm_term=.d37a66491c34
Sept. 6, 2017
The Trump administration took the first official step Thursday toward withdrawing from a court agreement limiting the government’s ability to hold minors in immigration jails, a move that could lead to the rapid expansion of detention facilities and more time in custody for children.
The changes proposed by the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services would attempt to terminate the Flores Settlement Agreement, the federal consent decree that has shaped detention standards for underage migrants since 1997.


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-09-04/secrets-of-las-vegas-s-exclusive-high-roller-cosmopolitan-sweet
Sept. 4, 2018
Secrets of Las Vegas high rollers


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/09/07/she-made-the-discovery-but-a-man-got-the-nobel-a-half-century-later-shes-won-a-3-million-prize/
Sept. 7, 2018
In 1967, Bell Burnell discovered the first pulsars — a groundbreaking revelation that on Thursday earned her the $3 million Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, which was previously awarded to Stephen Hawking, among others.
It’s a recognition that many feel is long overdue. Bell Burnell’s male PhD supervisor won a Nobel Prize for the same discovery — in 1974.
Like the stars of “Hidden Figures” and DNA researcher Rosalind Franklin, Bell Burnell’s personal story embodies the challenges faced by women in scientific fields. Born in Northern Ireland in 1943, she had to fight to take science classes after the age of 12. “The assumption was that the boys would do science and the girls would do cookery and needlework,” she told The Washington Post. “It was such a firm assumption that it wasn’t even discussed, so there was no choice in the matter.”
“Wading through miles of chart, I discovered two more of the mysterious signals,” she told the Guardian. “I had, it transpired, discovered the first four examples of an unimagined kind of star — bizarre astral bodies that transmitted radio beams as they spun, which swept through space like the ray of a lighthouse. We called them pulsars.”
As for the $3 million, Bell Burnell, whose Quaker faith preaches living simply, doesn’t plan on keeping any of it.
“I don’t need a Porsche or Ferrari,” she told The Washington Post. “I don’t have an affluent lifestyle.”
Instead, the money will go to creating scholarships for people from underrepresented backgrounds who want to study physics. The funds will be administered by the U.K.’s Institute of Physics, and Bell Burnell is hopeful that having a more diverse array of people entering the field will lead to even more new discoveries.


https://www.marketwatch.com/story/prominent-health-care-investor-phillip-frost-charged-by-sec-with-pump-and-dump-schemes-2018-09-07
https://www .marketwatch. com/story/prominent-health-care-investor-phillip-frost-charged-by-sec-with-pump-and-dump-schemes-2018-09-07
Billionaire and notable health-care investor Phillip Frost was one of 10 individuals and 10 associated firms charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday with participating in extremely profitable, yearslong pump-and-dump schemes.
Frost, Opko and others were accused of making more than $27 million in stock sales proceeds between 2013 and 2018 by organizing large stock buys and promoting the stock — including through misleading articles and manipulative trading — while failing to properly disclose their stakes.
The scheme left public investors “holding virtually worthless stock,” according to the SEC complaint.


https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/03/amid-drug-price-increases-pfizer-ceo-gets-61-pay-raise-to-27-9-million/
Mar. 16, 2018
Pfizer CEO gets 61% pay raise—to $27.9 million—as drug prices continue to climb


https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/i-knew-brett-kavanaugh-during-his-years-republican-operative-don-ncna907391
Sept. 7, 2018
David Brock: I knew Brett Kavanaugh during his years as a Republican operative. Don't let him sit on the Supreme Court.
We were part of a close circle of cynical hard-right operatives being groomed for much bigger things.
A detailed analysis of Kavanaugh's own notes from the Starr Investigation reveals he was cherry-picking random bits of information from the Starr investigation — as well as the multiple previous investigations — attempting vainly to legitimize wild right-wing conspiracies.
Kavanaugh was not a dispassionate finder of fact but rather an engineer of a political smear campaign. And after decades of that, he expects people to believe he's changed his stripes.
But I can promise you that any pretense of simply being a fair arbiter of the constitutionality of any policy regardless of politics is simply a pretense. He made up his mind nearly a generation ago — and, if he's confirmed, he'll have nearly two generations to impose it upon the rest of us.


https://www.newsweek.com/russia-will-interfere-us-midterm-elections-and-sweden-can-show-us-how-respond-1111902
Sept. 7, 2018
Russia Will Interfere in U.S. Midterm Elections and Sweden Can Show Us How to Respond, Experts Say
With the U.S. midterm elections rapidly approaching, some U.S. policymakers are thinking about new ways to combat Russian interference in the elections. Meanwhile, Sweden, which will hold elections this Sunday, is touting itself as an example of how to counter Russian influence in the lead-up to election day.
Officials in Sweden spent years in the run-up to their election looking at ways to address Russian disinformation and election interference. Journalists have been trained to spot fake news and work to counter disinformation actively. Politicians have been trained to spot phishing attacks and other attempts to infiltrate their computer systems. And local officials have been trained to protect voting booths.
However, preparedness has not stopped the barrage of fake news from arriving in the country. On Thursday, Oxford University released a report demonstrating that as many as one in three news stories shared on Twitter about Swedish politics between August 8 and August 17 were fake news stories, many of them aimed at stoking fear of Muslims and immigrants. The report noted that Swedish officials believed Russia was one of the main actors attempting to influence Swedish politics.
“At the People and Defence conference 2018, the Swedish Prime Minister claimed that Russia were responsible for several influence operations. In a larger political context, Russia has a history of being one of the biggest intelligence threats towards Sweden,” the report read.
“Furthermore, the Totalförsvarets Forskningsinstitut [the Swedish Defence Research Agency] recently released a report on interference campaigns which found that automated bots share URLs of known junk news sites like Samhällsnytt and Fria Tider more frequently than regular accounts; and that the majority of automated accounts that have either been suspended or removed by Twitter expresses traditional authoritarian and nationalistic views,” it continued.

If you were in the White House, how would you tackle Trump?

If all the people who are keeping Trump from damaging us resigned, this would leave him free to do whatever he felt at the moment. It would take time to remove him from office, and in the meantime, he could do great harm.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/07/white-house-donald-trump-revelations-president

Jonathan Freedland
Sept. 7, 2018

•••••

if you’re convinced that the leader you serve is a danger to your country and the world, where does your patriotic and democratic duty lie? Should you resign and sound the alarm – or stay on the inside and do your best to reduce the danger?

The debate triggered by both the mystery op-ed and the Woodward book suggests that most anti-Trumpers prefer the former option. The secret author has been roundly denounced, with the president’s own word, “gutless”, becoming the insult of choice.

•••••

Imagine for a moment you’re the defence secretary, James Mattis, alarmed at Trump’s behaviour. Where are you most useful? You could try invoking the 25th amendment and declaring Trump unfit – but you’d have to get the vice-president, Mike Pence, and a majority of your cabinet colleagues, almost all of them Trump cronies, to agree; and then you’d have to get the Republican-controlled House and Senate to agree too. Given the spinelessness those groups have shown so far, your chances would be slim.

You could call a news conference, resign and denounce the president before the cameras. It would make a massive splash. But then, once again, the matter would revert to a Republican Congress that has shown no willingness to stand up to Trump, let alone impeach him, despite copious evidence of his unfitness for, and abuse of, office. Before long, Fox News would have branded you a closet liberal and Hillary-lover, Trump would have tweeted about something else, and the news caravan would have moved on.
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Or you could stay in your chair, so that when Trump orders a new strategy for Syria – “Let’s kill the fucking lot of them”, according to Woodward – or bans trans people from the military, you’re in position to ensure his orders go nowhere. As it happens, the nuclear button is in the grip of Trump alone – it is among the least checked of presidential powers – but surely we all sleep better at night knowing that the likes of Mattis are at the Pentagon, rather than whichever unqualified but loyal crank Trump might put in his place.

Nor will it wash to cast these internal dissidents as agents of the “deep state”. They are not career civil servants, of the kind that sabotaged Harry Perkins, the fictional lefty British prime minister in Chris Mullin’s A Very British Coup. They are themselves political appointees, picked by Trump himself just last year. It suits Trump to depict their guerrilla action as the work of the machine against the people’s tribune – but it’s false.

If all that stands between us and Trump starting a world war are tricks and subterfuge, I’ll take those every time. But it’s clearly not the democratic way to deal with a president who poses a threat to US liberal democracy. The right way runs through the ballot box – either ejecting Trump in 2020 or electing a Democratic Congress that might hold him to account. Americans will have the chance to do that in less than two months. The world should pray that they take it.

Links

https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/delta-fire-explodes-in-lakehead-california-forces-closure-of-i-5/70005981
Sept. 6, 2018
Firefighters rushed to slow the growth of the rapidly growing Delta Fire, which exploded in size to more than 15,000 acres with zero percent containment near Lakehead, California, on Wednesday.
The fire was initially reported as three fires. However, they merged into one fast-moving fire that exhibits extreme fire behavior with rapid rates of spread up to a mile per hour were observed.
The fire front was up to 3 miles wide on the northern side with approximately 300-foot flame lengths. The fire continues to burn in steep and rough terrain on both sides of I-5, according to the incident report.
"It has been very hot so far this month in the vicinity of the Delta Fire and [it] continues to be dry," according to AccuWeather Meteorologist Evan Duffey.
Thursday is the coolest day of the month so far with a forecast high of 93 F. Conditions may worsen tomorrow and into the weekend as temperatures are forecast to rise into the upper 90s F.


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/06/donald-trump-inauguration-crowd-size-photos-edited
Sept. 5, 2018
A government photographer edited official pictures of Donald Trump’s inauguration to make the crowd appear bigger following a personal intervention from the president, according to newly released documents.
The photographer cropped out empty space “where the crowd ended” for a new set of pictures requested by Trump on the first morning of his presidency, after he was angered by images showing his audience was smaller than Barack Obama’s in 2009.
The detail was revealed in investigative reports released to the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act by the inspector general of the US interior department. They shed new light on the first self-inflicted crisis of Trump’s presidency, when his White House falsely claimed he had attracted the biggest ever inauguration audience.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/judge-orders-independent-candidate-brown-off-the-ballot-in-va-congressional-race/2018/09/05/222b427c-b11c-11e8-aed9-001309990777_story.html?utm_term=.3cf6fc3402a4
Sept. 5, 2018
A Richmond Circuit Court judge on Wednesday ordered independent candidate Shaun Brown removed from the ballot in Virginia’s 2nd District congressional race, finding that her qualifying petition was tainted by “forgery” and “out and out fraud.”
Many of those signatures were gathered by staffers working for the incumbent Republican, Scott Taylor, who is seeking a second term. Five current or former staffers for the congressman declined to answer questions in court, invoking their Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination. A separate criminal probe into the matter is ongoing; a state police investigator attended the civil hearing.
The Democratic Party of Virginia, which brought the civil suit against the State Board of Elections, submitted 41 affidavits from people who said their signatures were forged on petitions to get Brown qualified for the ballot. A handwriting expert testified Wednesday that of 377 signatures collected by Taylor’s staffers, at least 146 appeared to be false.
The Democratic Party had subpoenaed Taylor to appear at the hearing, charging that he wanted Brown on the ballot to siphon away votes from his Democratic challenger, retired Navy officer Elaine Luria.
But Judge Gregory L. Rupe granted a motion to quash Taylor’s subpoena under a state law that shields sitting members of Congress from being compelled to attend civil court proceedings while the U.S. House is in session.


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/climate/outsourcing-carbon-emissions.html
Sept. 4, 2018
Over the past decade, both the United States and Europe have made major strides in reducing their greenhouse gas emissions at home. That trend is often held up as a sign of progress in the fight against climate change.
But those efforts look a lot less impressive once you take trade into account. Many wealthy countries have effectively “outsourced” a big chunk of their carbon pollution overseas, by importing more steel, cement and other goods from factories in China and other places, rather than producing it domestically.
Britain, for instance, slashed domestic emissions within its own borders by one-third between 1990 and 2015. But it has done so as energy-intensive industries have migrated abroad. If you included all the global emissions produced in the course of making things like the imported steel used in London’s skyscrapers and cars, then Britain’s total carbon footprint has actually increased slightly over that time.
Dr. Hasanbeigi is an author of a new report on the global carbon trade, which estimates that 25 percent of the world’s total emissions are now being outsourced in this manner. The report, written with the consulting firm KGM & Associates and ClimateWorks, calls this a “carbon loophole,” since countries rarely scrutinize the carbon footprint of the goods they import.
About 13 percent of China’s emissions in 2015 came from making stuff for other countries. In India, another fast-growing emitter, the figure is 20 percent.
The United States, for its part, remains the world’s leading importer of what the researchers call “embodied carbon.” If the United States were held responsible for all the pollution worldwide that resulted from manufacturing the cars, clothing and other goods that Americans use, the nation’s carbon dioxide emissions would be 14 percent bigger than its domestic-only numbers suggest.
The migration of industries like cement and steel overseas can also shift production to less-efficient factories governed by looser pollution rules. An earlier study that Dr. Hasanbeigi led at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that China’s steel industry, on average, emits 23 percent more carbon dioxide per ton of steel produced than American and German manufacturers do. One big reason? China’s power grid relies more heavily on coal.

Links

Sept. 6, 2018
Regarding comments on the reports on the incompetence and irrationality behaviour of Trump administration, which are not surprising by now.
Removing Trump by impeachment or due to evidence of incompetence would take time, not instantaneously. While this was being argued, what would Trump do? We have already seen him inciting violence against his political opponents. We see a large percentage of the population still supports him.
And many of us are downright scared of Trump. Several people recently have wondered why nobody has tried to assassinate him. These are peaceful people who would never do such a thing themselves. As I pointed out to them, the kind of people who do assassinations usually assassinate progressives. What I think most like is that if Trump does not win re-election, he will encourage violence against the winner, and that one or more of his supporters would try to assassinate the winner. He has already encouraged violence against his political opponents.


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/03/well/live/preventing-muscle-loss-among-the-elderly.html
Sept. 3, 2018
Preventing Muscle Loss as We Age


https://www.npr.org/2018/09/06/645284416/two-million-ford-trucks-recalled-due-to-reported-seat-belt-fires
Sept. 6, 2018
Some two million Ford F-150 pickup trucks are being recalled by the company after more than 20 reports of smoke or fire coming from the seat belts.
The recall, which was announced Thursday, applies to certain Regular Cab and SuperCrew Cab vehicles from model years 2015-18.
The problem, according to the company, is with a part of the driver and front passenger seat belts called a pretensioner. The pretensioner is a component attached to the base of a seatbelt clip. During a crash, it automatically forces the clip down, which is meant to protect the occupant by pulling them into the seat. Sometimes, this piece involves explosives.

Lesson from a Warsaw ghetto survivor

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/05/survived-warsaw-ghetto-wartime-lessons-extremism-europe

Stanisław Aronson
Stanisław Aronson took part in the Polish resistance under Nazi occupation. He lives in Israel
Sept. 5, 2018

Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel stated this summer that “when the generation that survived the war is no longer here, we’ll find out whether we have learned from history”. As a Polish Jew born in 1925, who survived the Warsaw ghetto, lost my family in the Holocaust, served in a special operations unit of the Polish underground, the Home Army, and fought in the Warsaw uprising of 1944, I know what it means to be at the sharp end of European history – and I fear that the battle to draw the right lessons from that time is in danger of being lost.

•••••

Given what I’ve learned over my lifetime I would, first, urge future generations of Europeans to remember my generation as we really were, not as they may wish us to have been. We had all the same vices and weaknesses as today’s young people do: most of us were neither heroes nor monsters.

Of course, many people did extraordinary things, but in most cases only because they were forced to by extreme circumstances, and even then, true heroes were very few and far between: I do not count myself among them.

The same applies to those who failed in their moral obligations during that time. Of course, there were many who committed unspeakable, unforgivable crimes. But it is nonetheless important to understand that we were a generation living in fear, and fear makes people do terrible things. Unless you have felt it, you cannot truly understand it.

Second, just as there is no such thing as a “heroic generation”, there is no such thing as a “heroic nation” – or indeed an inherently malign or evil nation either.

•••••

Third, do not underestimate the destructive power of lies.

•••••

Finally, do not ever imagine that your world cannot collapse, as ours did. This may seem the most obvious lesson to be passed down, but only because it is the most important.

•••••

If disaster comes, you will find that all the myths you once cherished are of no use to you. You will see what it is like to live in a society where morality has collapsed, causing all your assumptions and prejudices to crumble before your eyes. And after it’s all over, you will watch as, slowly but surely, these harshest of lessons are forgotten as the witnesses pass on and new myths take their place.

Links

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2175414-terraforming-mars-might-be-impossible-due-to-a-lack-of-carbon-dioxide/
July 30, 2018
Terraforming Mars might be impossible
“If there is enough carbon dioxide, we could warm up Mars in 100 years once we start,” says Chris McKay at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California. “We know how to warm up a planet – we’re doing it on Earth. The fundamental question is, is there enough stuff?”
No, it turns out. Bruce Jakosky at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and Christopher Edwards at Northern Arizona University used results from several spacecraft to build an inventory of all the carbon dioxide on Mars to figure out whether, if we moved all of it from the ground into the atmosphere, we could create high enough temperatures and pressures for life.
But Jakosky and Edwards found that there’s probably only enough carbon dioxide in the Martian polar ice caps, dust and rocks to raise the pressure to 20 millibars at most. So we can’t terraform Mars with existing technology, because there simply isn’t enough carbon dioxide. “It’s not that terraforming itself isn’t possible, it’s just that it’s not as easy as some people are currently saying,” says Jakosky. “We can’t just explode a few nukes over the ice caps.”
Without enough carbon, we would have to warm up Mars some other way, perhaps by making chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) or bombarding the planet with comets or asteroids. That’s going to be difficult, and it will still not be enough to truly make Mars a home. For that, we need nitrogen – and we’re still not sure how much of that Mars has.
“If there’s not enough carbon dioxide, terraforming would take thousands of years or more but it’s still possible,” says McKay. “If there’s not enough nitrogen, you need Star Trek. You need warp drive and tractor beams, you need to pull nitrogen from the atmosphere of Jupiter. It becomes science fiction.”


https://www.europeanpharmaceuticalreview.com/news/78774/common-painkiller-linked-to-an-increased-risk-of-heart-problems/
Researchers have found that diclofenac is associated with an increased risk of major cardiovascular events such as heart attack and stroke.
Diclofenac is an NSAID (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug), used to treat pain and is used widely across the world.
The authors mention that although the relative risk was increased, the absolute risk remained low for each individual patient.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements/diclofenac-oral-route/description/drg-20069748
Diclofenac, US Brand Name
1. Cambia
2. Cataflam
3. Voltaren
4. Voltaren-XR
5. Zipsor
6. Zorvolex


https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergeorgescu/2018/08/22/americas-real-economy-it-isnt-booming/#6c58521060b7
https://www .forbes. com/sites/petergeorgescu/2018/08/22/americas-real-economy-it-isnt-booming/#6c58521060b7
Aug. 22, 2018
having a job doesn’t exempt anyone from poverty anymore. About 12% of Americans (43 million) are considered poor, and yet they are employed. They earn an individual income below $12,140 per year, and slightly more than that for a family of two. If you include housing and medical expenses in the calculation, it raises the percentage of Americans living in poverty to 14%. That’s 45 million people.
At that level of income, there’s almost no way to pay for food and shelter in any sizeable American city. That means people now can both be employed and homeless. Rajon Menon writes, for The Nation:
In America’s big cities, chiefly because of a widening gap between rent and wages, thousands of working poor remain homeless, sleeping in shelters, on the streets, or in their vehicles, sometimes along with their families.
One-third of all workers earn less than $12 an hour and 42% earn less than $15. That’s $24,960 and $31,200 a year. Imagine raising a family on such incomes, figuring in the cost of food, rent, childcare, car payments (since a car is often a necessity simply to get to a job in a country with inadequate public transportation), and medical costs.
Even in households that combine income from two wage-earners, it’s rarely enough to live on without anxieties about money. It takes an average of a little more than $100,000 per year now for a household to be able to live without anxieties about money.
What’s genuinely astonishing to me is that the private sector doesn’t see the immense danger in all this—not simply the prospect of a collapse from enormous household debt loads, but the prospect of civil unrest after another huge correction like the one in 2008. Our current course is unsustainable. And for all the proposals for changes in public policy to ameliorate income inequality, only the private sector can get the nation on a better track by raising wages, increasing benefits and investing in new ventures and expanded markets.

Links

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-150-days-presidency-trump-golf-club-1090729
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-150-days-presidency-trump-golf-club-1090729
Aug. 25, 2018
Donald Trump’s arrival at the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia, Saturday morning marked 150 days of his 582 days in office that he’s spent at a golf club bearing his own name. That is a quarter of his time in office. 
The visit also marked his 193rd day at a Trump property. Or a third of his time in office. 
On the campaign trail, then-candidate Trump repeatedly said, if elected president, he wouldn’t “have time to go play golf.” He also said he would probably never see his private Turnberry golf resort in Scotland or his Doral golf resort in south Florida.
Just last month, Trump visited his Turnberry property for a weekend in between meetings with NATO leaders and Russian President Vladimir Putin. He said it would “hopefully” include some golf.


https://www.cheatsheet.com/money-career/trumps-eating-tax-dollars.html/
https://www.cheatsheet.com/money-career/trumps-eating-tax-dollars.html/
10 Ways the Trumps Are Eating Through Your Tax Dollars
Samuel Becker
February 22, 2018
2. You might have heard that Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida resort, has the unofficial moniker of “White House South.” Trump likes it and has been spending his weekends there at the beginning of his presidency. But it’s not cheap. With just three visits, he burned through more than $10 million in taxpayer money.
6. One particularly maddening way in which the Trumps seem to be profiting off of the presidency is by paying for members of the family to fly around the world to promote the Trump brand. Case in point: Eric Trump recently took a trip to Uruguay to look over the family’s business interests. That single trip, which, by law, required Secret Service protection, cost taxpayers almost $100,000.
7. The Trumps recently opened a fancy new hotel in Washington, D.C., a location they lease from the government. This has been tagged as a big conflict of interest, with a report from a Republican senator’s office showing Trump was granted $40 million in tax credits.


https://www.cheatsheet.com/money-career/all-the-ways-trump-cashes-in-on-the-u-s-presidency.html/
https://www.cheatsheet.com/money-career/all-the-ways-trump-cashes-in-on-the-u-s-presidency.html/
Here Are Ways Trump Cashes In on Being President
June 21, 2018
Not only do Trump’s frequent golf trips burn taxpayer dollars; they also make the Trumps lots of money. The system is rather simple and, once you see how it works, you can see why Trump spent over 25% of his first year in office at his own golf clubs.
Overall, the easiest mark is the U.S. Secret Service tasked with the job of protecting Trump. As the law stands, the agency cannot receive payments from presidents. This law exists to limit potential conflicts of interest (irony alert). So the Secret Service paid $137,000 to Trump’s Florida and New Jersey properties for golf cart rentals in just the first nine months of 2017.


https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-45406857
Sept. 5, 2018 (their time, Sept.4 here)
Japan has been hit by its strongest typhoon in 25 years, causing at least seven deaths and 200 injuries.
Typhoon Jebi made landfall in western areas, bringing heavy rain and reports of winds up to 172km/h (107mph).
In Osaka Bay it swept a tanker into a bridge and in Kyoto parts of a railway station roof came down.
Officials ordered more than a million people in affected areas to evacuate their homes amid warnings of high waves, flooding and mudslides.
It has already left tens of thousands without power and authorities have urged people to move to safety.


https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/04/politics/north-carolina-court-gerrymander-midterms/index.html
https://www .cnn. com/2018/09/04/politics/north-carolina-court-gerrymander-midterms/index.html
Sept. 4, 2018
A federal court concluded Tuesday there is 'insufficient time' before the November midterm elections to redraw an electoral map that the courts have ruled is unconstitutionally gerrymandered.
"Having carefully reviewed the parties' briefing and supporting materials, we conclude that there is insufficient time for this Court to approve a new districting plan and for the State to conduct an election using that plan prior to the seating of the new Congress in January 2019," the court ruling read.
"And we further find that imposing a new schedule for North Carolina's congressional elections would, at this late juncture, unduly interfere with the State's electoral machinery and likely confuse voters and depress turnout."
In late August, the same panel of federal judges ruled that North Carolina's congressional map favors Republicans and "constitutes an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the First Amendment, and Article I of the Constitution."
Republicans hold 10 of the state's 13 seats in the US House of Representatives, and a redrawn map could potentially affect control of the House.
The court ruled North Carolina cannot use the current gerrymandered congressional map after the Nov. 6 general election.

The Inside Story of Al Gore’s ‘Trump Tower Moment

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-crazy-inside-story-of-al-gores-trump-tower-moment

Sam Stein
08.31.18

Early in the morning on September 13, 2000, a mysterious package arrived at the offices of the lobbying firm Downey McGrath Group, Inc. in downtown Washington D.C.

•••••

Downey’s assistant, Kathy McLaughlin, was summoned by the office receptionist to come retrieve the box. McLaughlin opened it in her office, discovering a massive binder and a set of videotapes inside. She went to find Downey, a New York Democrat who was, at the time, helping out with Al Gore’s presidential campaign. The two of them went into his office, where there was a television set and a VCR.

•••••

On the screen appeared grainy footage of what looked like the inside of a garage. A familiar face showed up on the screen. It was George W. Bush. Only, he was wearing shorts. A second person was there too. It looked and sounded like Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire. They were conducting what seemed to be an interview along the lines of Meet The Press, the famed Sunday political talk show that, at that time, was hosted by the dean of interrogation journalism, Tim Russert.

Hearts were now fully racing.

Not even ten seconds had passed and Downey and McLaughlin knew exactly what they were watching. They had been sent footage of the Bush campaign’s debate prep sessions. It was a veritable cheat sheet for the most important event of the 2000 presidential campaign, a piece of intel that could change the course of the election, win Al Gore the presidency, and fundamentally alter history.

Another five or so seconds went by. Downey jumped up from his chair. He stood in front of the TV and turned to McLaughlin.

“Turn it off!” he demanded. “Turn it off right away.”

•••••

During the heat of the 2016 presidential election, such a moment presented itself to Donald Trump’s campaign in the form of an invitation from Kremlin-linked officials promising dirt on Hillary Clinton. The president’s eldest son, Don Jr., along with key campaign officials, took the meeting. They never intended for it to become public. And when it did, they insisted that the purpose had been to discuss adoption policy in Russia. Only when emails revealed the true reason did Trump, his son, and allies defend the gathering as simply business as usual.

"I think from a practical standpoint most people would have taken that meeting," Trump said last summer. "Politics isn't the nicest business in the world, but it's very standard."

•••••

“It was like a Trump Tower moment in that we had been handed the goods on our opponent,” said Tad Devine, a senior adviser to the Gore campaign. “But, in the end, we actually did the right thing.”

Indeed, instead of using —or even looking into—the surreptitiously-provided material that had landed in their laps, Al Gore’s aides and advisers handed it over to the FBI. To this day, they aren’t entirely sure whether, in doing so, they blew the election.

“That’s some place I prefer not to think about,” Downey told me. “I have. I have thought about it. And I don’t think that doing the right thing is ever wrong. You have to believe that doing the right thing will stand up to the judgement of history.”

•••••

After the debate, Stevens sat down with an FBI agent as part of the inquiry into who had leaked the book and tapes. The agent had watched the debate himself. “I had the book in front of me,” he said to Stevens, “and if [Gore] had the book he would have done a lot better.”

•••••

Links

https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2016/01/14/federal-education-funding-where-does-the-money-go
Jan. 14, 2016
Federal Education Funding: Where Does the Money Go?


Sept. 3, 2018
Finally heard an interview on NPR this afternoon where the person being interviewed was able to point out some of the problems with Kavanaugh besides abortion, such as his likely damage to the environment and workers, and allowing free rein to damaging behaviour by a president. Most of the time since NPR started "reporting" on this, they mentioned only abortion. A day or two ago, they added gun rights. Most of the Democrats I know don't consider these the most important problems with him. This is another example where NPR is able to maintain its credentials with its liberal individual donors while actually serving the interests of its big business donors who control the republican party.


https://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/03/donald-trump-jeff-sessions-tweet-806298
Sept. 3, 2018
Trump has made a habit of tweeting insults at Sessions ever since the attorney general recused himself from oversight of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe in March 2017. But Monday's jabs marked an extraordinarily brazen suggestion by the president that America's chief law enforcement officer should have weighted the political repercussions of the indictments against the basic integrity of the U.S. justice system.
According to a March 2012 Justice Department memorandum from then-Attorney General Eric Holder: "Law enforcement officers and prosecutors may never select the timing of investigative steps or criminal charges for the purpose of affecting any election, or for the purpose of giving an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party."


https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/goddard/2018/mars-terraforming
July 30, 2018
Science fiction writers have long featured terraforming, the process of creating an Earth-like or habitable environment on another planet, in their stories. Scientists themselves have proposed terraforming to enable the long-term colonization of Mars. A solution common to both groups is to release carbon dioxide gas trapped in the Martian surface to thicken the atmosphere and act as a blanket to warm the planet.
However, Mars does not retain enough carbon dioxide that could practically be put back into the atmosphere to warm Mars, according to a new NASA-sponsored study.  Transforming the inhospitable Martian environment into a place astronauts could explore without life support is not possible without technology well beyond today’s capabilities.


https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/03/falling-yields-of-key-uk-crops-could-raise-food-prices-and-leave-farmers-struggling
Sept. 3, 2018
Yields of key crops in Great Britain have fallen significantly in this year’s harvest as a result of the hot summer and massive swings in weather, leaving farmers counting the cost and consumers facing higher prices for food.
After record heatwaves and drought, when rain finally arrived it caused problems in some areas, particularly the north and west, as farmers have struggled to bring in wet crops.
Early indications from the harvest are that yields of wheat are likely to be down by about a quarter, and those of staples such as potatoes, onions and carrots have plunged by as much as 20%.
Yields of key crops have fallen significantly in this year’s harvest as a result of the hot summer and massive swings in weather, leaving farmers counting the cost and consumers facing higher prices for food.
While food price rises have come as a shock to consumers – with prices to go up 5%, adding £7.15 to the monthly shopping bill, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research – little of those increases will return to the farmer. Of the price of a loaf of bread, for instance, flour makes up only about a tenth.
The international picture is also one of economic gloom for farmers. German harvests are forecast to be the lowest in 15 years, while Russia and Ukraine, the third and ninth biggest wheat producers globally, have suffered a combination of heavy rains and heatwaves which has lowered the quality. German farmers are likely to face economic losses of €2.5bn from this year’s weather, according to industry estimates, while the combined drought losses across Europe are estimated at $4bn.
Pig farmers were braced for the impact on feed prices later in the year, said Zoe Davies, chief executive of the National Pig Association. She said the impact of the summer’s heat on pig fertility would not be apparent for at least a month, though many farmers said their sows were well used to dealing with heat.


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/03/moose-swims-vermont-new-york-drowns-crowd-photos
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/03/moose-swims-vermont-new-york-drowns-crowd-photos
Sept. 3, 2018
Vermont wildlife officials said a moose drowned in Lake Champlain on Saturday, after people crowded around the animal in order to take its picture.
The state fish and wildlife officer Robert Currier told the local TV station WCAX the moose swam across the lake from New York state to South Hero, Vermont.
The animal made it on to land near a cycle path, he said, but was forced back into the water, probably feeling threatened by onlookers. The moose then succumbed to exhaustion and drowned.

Links

https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/Reduced-Arctic-Sea-Ice-May-Be-Suppressing-July-Tornadoes
Aug. 30, 2018
A notable drop since the 1990s in the number of July days with significant U.S. tornadoes may be related to the dramatic loss of midsummer Arctic sea ice, according to a study published this month in the open-access journal npj Climate and Atmospheric Science. The new work may help explain a more general drop in U.S. tornado days, part of a recent clustering of tornado activity into highly active periods interspersed with distinct quiet spells.
The new study, by Robert Trapp (University of Illinois) and Kimberly Hoogewind (Purdue University), is the first to delve into potential connections between tornado activity and Arctic sea ice. The two phenomena appear to be more closely correlated in July than in other months, noted the authors, who provide several possible reasons for the connection and its timing.
An analysis published in 2014 in Science and led by Harold Brooks (National Severe Storms Laboratory) found that the number of EF1-or-stronger tornadoes had changed little, but the number of days with such tornadoes has dropped overall since the 1970s, leading to more such tornadoes per tornado day as well as an overall increase in monthly and annual variability.
As Earth’s climate has warmed over the last 20 years, Arctic sea ice extent has dropped substantially, especially during summer and autumn. Several studies—including one in 2017 led by Michael Mann (Pennsylvania State University)—have found a weakening of summer circulation across the midlatitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, with weather patterns more likely to get “stuck” and produce extremes in temperature and precipitation.


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/02/microwave-weapons-us-embassy-cuba-china-new-york-times
Sept. 2, 2018
Doctors and scientists increasingly suspect attacks with microwave weapons are the cause of the mysterious ailments that have stricken more than three dozen American diplomats and family members in Cuba and China, the New York Times reported.
The victims reported hearing intense high-pitched sounds in their hotel rooms or homes, followed by symptoms that included nausea, severe headaches, fatigue, dizziness, sleep problems and hearing loss.
According to the Times, an American scientist, Allan Frey, discovered in 1960 that the brain can perceive microwaves as sound. The discovery opened a new field of weapons research in the US and the Soviet Union.


https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/09/01/641615877/insulins-high-cost-leads-to-lethal-rationing
Insulin's High Cost Leads To Lethal Rationing
Sept. 1, 2018
The price of insulin in the U.S. has more than doubled since 2012. That has put the life-saving hormone out of reach for some people with diabetes, like Smith-Holt's son Alec Raeshawn Smith. It has left others scrambling for solutions to afford the one thing they need to live.
The patent for the discovery was sold to the University of Toronto for only $1 so that live-saving insulin would be available to everyone who needed it.
Today, however, the list price for a single vial of insulin is more than $250. Most patients use two to four vials per month (I personally use two). Without insurance or other forms of medical assistance, those prices can get out of hand quickly, as they did for Alec.
Depending on whom you ask, you'll get a different response for why insulin prices have risen so high. Some blame middlemen — such as pharmacy benefit managers, like Express Scripts and CVS Health — for negotiating lower prices with pharmaceutical companies without passing savings on to customers. Others say patents on incremental changes to insulin have kept cheaper generic versions out of the market.
For Nicole Holt-Smith, as well as a growing number of online activists who tweet under the hashtag #insulin4all, much of the blame should fall on the three main manufacturers of insulin today: Sanofi of France, Novo Nordisk of Denmark and Eli Lilly and Co. in the U.S.
The three companies are being sued in the U.S. federal court by diabetic patients in Massachusetts who allege the prices are rising at the expense of patients' health.
Rationing insulin, as Nicole Smith-Holt's son Alec did, is a dangerous solution. Still, 1 in 4 people with diabetes admits to having done it.
"Young adults are dropping out of college," she told the lawmakers. "They're getting married just to have insurance or not getting married to the love of their lives because they'll lose their state-funded insurance."


https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-hoax-claims-social-network-restricting-news-feed-25-friends-2018-8?IR=T%3Futm_source%3Dfacebook&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=topbar&utm_term=desktop
Aug. 11, 2018
Don't fall for the hoax: Facebook isn't restricting your News Feed to 25 friends
That said, there is an extremely convoluted and twisted kernel of truth in here — Facebook's algorithm does make judgement about which of your friends it thinks you want to see content from, and then prioritizes them in your News Feed. And engaging with these friends' posts (and them engaging with your posts) will make them appear more frequently.
If you feel you are seeing only a limited number of posts from a limited number of people, there is a tried-and-true trick that will give you a different view of your News Feed: have it show you the "Most Recent" posts rather than its default, "Top Stories."
To do this on the desktop click on "News Feed" in the left-hand column and then on "Most Recent."


https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/03/australian-farmers-battle-life-without-rain-drought
Sept. 2, 2018
Drought has dominated the media debate in Australia in the past month after the whole of New South Wales was drought declared. Further north though, a majority of Queensland has been in drought for up to seven years. Myriad charities have sprung up raising cash, fodder and services for farmers. Tradesmen are offering to fix sheds, knitting clubs are making little jackets for orphaned lambs, city residents are travelling inland to inject cash into small towns via a coffee and a pie.



Youtube has restored the ability to cut off unwanted pieces of a video, from the beginning, the end, or in the middle. I didn't find it to be sensitive enough to pinpoint a second or two where I made a mistake, but it would be useful in a lot of situations.
Trim Youtube videos
Edit/Enhancements/Trim/Split
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li_f8Ur9kxY

Links

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/eu-official-winter-summer-time-change-57523986
https://abcnews .go. com/Politics/wireStory/eu-official-winter-summer-time-change-57523986
Aug. 31, 2018
It could be summer time all year long for countries in the European Union.
The European Commission decided Friday it will push the EU parliament and member states to ditch the system of twice-yearly changes to the time following a citizens' consultation.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told the German ZDF network on Friday that "the people want that, and we will make it happen." He said millions were backing a move to summer time.
EU Transport Commissioner Violeta Bulc said that 84 percent of the 4.6 million people who took part in the consultation "do not want the clocks to change anymore." Participation among member states varied widely with 3.79 percent of Germans taking part compared to 0.02 percent in Britain.


https://www.wired.com/story/98-degrees-is-a-normal-body-temperature-right-not-quite/
Aug. 29, 2018
there’s no single number for normal. It’s slightly higher for women than men. It’s higher for children than adults. And it is lowest in the morning.
"A temperature of 99 at six o’clock in the morning is very abnormal, whereas that same temperature at four o’clock in the afternoon can be totally normal," says Jonathan Hausmann, a rheumatologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, who gathered 11,458 temperatures in crowdsourced research using an iPhone app called Feverprints.
The study, published online this month in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, refutes the age-old benchmark of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Instead, Hausmann and his colleagues found an average normal temperature in adults of 97.7 degrees, as measured with an oral thermometer. (The published study uses results from 329 healthy adults.) As for fever, Hausmann found that it begins at 99.5 degrees, on average.
Unless a patient’s temperature is 103 degrees or higher, family physician Leonard Reeves typically doesn’t advocate treating fever. "Your body is going to try to maintain an elevated core temperature no matter what you do," says Reeves, who is on the board of directors of the American Academy of Family Physicians and practices in Rome, Georgia. "It’s best to find the source of the infection and fight that."


https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/economy/2018/08/14/salaries-real-us-wages-back-1974-levels-pew-report/37468497/
Aug. 14, 2018
If you get a $1,200 annual raise on the same day that your rent goes up by $100 a month, you don't need an accountant to tell you that you didn't actually make any financial progress. And while that's an excessively simplified example, it's nonetheless a pretty fair representation of what has been happening to most American workers over the past four decades.
Even though the official unemployment rate has been hovering around record lows in recent years, wage growth has stayed stagnant, a new study from Pew Research reveals. In fact, the real average wage, which Pew defines as "the wage after accounting for inflation" has roughly the same purchasing power as it did 40 years ago. And while some workers have seen gains, most of the increases have gone to those who were already the highest-paid. 


https://crooksandliars.com/2014/10/ok-christian-tries-cut-friends-head
Aug. 31, 2014
Isaiah Zoar Marin, 21, is charged with first-degree murder for the killing of Jacob Andrew Crockett, 19. Marin is accused of using a “long knife or sword” to kill Crockett.
According to a court affidavit, the suspect, Marin, is described as a “religious zealot” and “heavy drug user.”
The victim, Crockett, is the son of an Oklahoma state trooper.
Police report the victim had what appeared to be multiple deep slash and stab wounds and the “head was mostly severed from his body.”
Marin was watching videos on YouTube “related to his Christian beliefs and the Book of Matthew” before the murder, according to the affidavit.
The document also notes that Marin had feuded with Crockett in the past because the victim was practicing witchcraft.
The defendant’s brother, Samuel Marin, said “in the past Jacob and Isaiah had disagreements” because Jacob had been” practicing witchcraft and Isaiah had strong Christian beliefs,” a Stillwater police officer reported.


https://www.ajc.com/news/national/police-suspect-beheaded-girlfriend-front-year-old/OoKGMsEUFgX0drq8kiRkOM/
Aug. 30, 2018
A Mount Vernon, Washington, man is charged with premeditated murder after investigators said he decapitated his girlfriend in front of a 3-year-old girl.
Hernandez was located at the Cascade Mall in Burlington with the 3-year-old daughter he shared with the victim, police said. 
“Timothy advised that he had spoken with God, who told him to strike down his girlfriend … because she did not repent,” a detective wrote in charging documents.
Investigators said Hernandez quoted two Bible verses to them, including a passage from the Book of Revelations. 
“Each of the verses that were quoted had passages in them that spoke about women who did not follow God’s word, so God stuck them down.”
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/man-beheaded-girlfriend-butcher-knife-13162022
Aug. 30, 2018
Charging documents also give disturbing details about how the young girl was forced to watch the incident as it unfolded.