… announced in the very near future. Or never.
I swear, if you told Donald Trump that scientists said don’t lick the metal railing in the dead of winter, he’d lick the metal railing. Then, he’d get stuck, and he’d blame Obama.
At this point, according to Nature, Donald Trump has gone longer sans science adviser than any recent president, by a good margin. The previous record was held by … wait for it … Continue reading Donald Trump’s Science Adviser will be …
I am not from Boston, but I moved there and lived in Dorchester for about six months.
From Dorchester, I moved to Cambridge, then Somerville, then somewhere else in Somerville, then Lexington, then Cambridge, then Somerville then Somerville then …. and so on. The entire time I either worked for, was a student at, or taught at Harvard, which is in Cambridge.
Boston, Somerville, Cambridge, Medford, Alltson, etc. are all mushed together as one big urban zone around and including Boston. And, historically, the smaller cities around Boston have been absorbed into the Beantown Borg over time. Charlestown, where the Battle of Bunker Hill happened (on nearby Breed’s Hill) used to be separate. South Boston was created out of neighboring communities in 1804. East Boston was annexed in 1855, Roxbury in 1867. Then Dorchester, West Roxbury, Brighton, Charleston, and Hyde Park by 1913. Over historical time, a lot of people grew up outside of Boston in a community that, by the time they died, was in Boston. Continue reading Fox News Lies, Dawchestah Rules!
Just a few books that are mostly very current and have been widely recommended. I like about 80% of them. You will too. Probably a different 80%, though. Continue reading Reading Into Trump and the Republican Regime
Donald Trump does not support, or even understand, his presidential responsibilities vis-a-vis the troops in our military. That is an obvious fact. Yesterday, Trump’s chief of staff, Marine General John F. Kelly, stood before the American People and defended Trump’s recent appalling treatment of an aggrieved Marine widow, and told the country to whom he swore an oath of Allegiance that everything is fine in the white house.
The oath taken by all Marines is the same as that taken by all military personnel. So, General Kelly has uttered the following words, now and then: Continue reading How General Kelly Disgraced The Marines and Damaged Our Country
The other day I was engaged in a conversation among people one might assume to have been entirely liberal or progressive (essentially interchangeable terms), but one of the individuals in the conversation kept making suggestions that would likely damage causes or candidates clearly on the left. The reasons given were weak, and over time, they began to remind me a lot of the anti Hillary Clinton rhetoric we see all the time from the Republicans, but dressed up in faux progressive terms.
Then, suddenly, it dawned on me. Continue reading Is someone you know a Russian agent?
We now know that Trump told the wife of a fallen Green Beret that the soldier knew what he signed up for. Technically true, but not what a real president says to a newly minted widow.
We now also know that he told the father of a fallen soldier, one who died in Afghanistan, that he, Trump, would send him $25,000 cash. He never did that.
Trump has claimed that he’s called each of the 30 or so American military personnel who have died since Trump took office. Reports are that he may have not called about half of them.
But that’s OK, because the right wing, who would have crucified a President Clinton over this sort of thing, will not be mad at Trump. Rather, they will simply start to believe that respecting the fallen soldiers is not necessary. Like the same individuals have decided that the NFL is bogus, because they oppose Trump.
This is because Trump’s main reason to exist, in the eyes of his deplorable followers, is to oppose things, mainly Obama. But other things too. Other things including whatever occurs to him.
Trump is truly changing America. He is making American something again. Not sure what that thing is. Or if it really anything again. But, that is clearly how it works now.
The Constitution of Great Britain, which was famously not a thing, defined three entities of what Americans would call government, one elected by the common people, the King or Queen, and in between, the House of Lords, inherited and fancy like the Monarch, but many, and representing the wealth and power of the people.
In a sense, there were three branches of government, the monarchy (king), the aristocracy (we might call them the 1% today), and the democratic branch, aka, the unwashed masses. This conceptualization of the British government is neither new nor mine. In the words of “Massachusettensis,” quoted by John Adams, Continue reading How to replace a US Senator who leaves or dies in office
It is rumored that Donald Trump will pick Doctor Pee as his science adviser. Doctor who? This doctor.
Art Robinson wants to mix all the radioactive waste into water and distribute it in the oceans. He thinks AIDS is made up. Public schools should be abolished. A lot of crazy stuff that has become normal in the White House. He almost won a seat in congress in 2012. He was also the Chairman of the Oregon Republican Party.
He also collects urine. Mine? No not mine, urine! It is part of his super secret research project, which he runs in his own home. He wants 50,000 volunteers to each send him one urine sample every six months, so that he can put the samples in his special machine and cure all diseases.
I believe that for the Trump Administration, Dr Art “Pee” Robinson is the perfect science adviser. What do you think?
California Democratic state Senate president Kevin de León, a youngish progressive representing Los Angeles, and a strong Latino voice, is going to challenge Dianne Feinstein in the California Senatorial election. There will be primary, and the way things work in California, there could be any combination of candidates (across party) running against each other, including Feinstein and de León.
Feinstein is well liked and respected, but she is old-school, and still seems to believe in things like, Republicans can be talked to, and no matter how bad they are every single day, maybe some day one will do something that isn’t totally bone-headed and nefarious. It seems to be Senator Feinstein’s recent comment that maybe Trump could be a good president after all is the straw that set this particular camel’s back in motion, if you will pardon the mixing of metaphors. Also, Dianne Feinstein would be 91 in her last year in office, which is kind of old.
Personally, I think that some of Feinstein’s rhetoric is just the way Senators talk, they pretend things are normal when they are not, and they are all hauty tauty because they are the Senate, after all, and not the House.
One theory I’ve heard is that Feinstein, who is a bit old to run, will win, then in a year or so, step down and be replaced by an appointee of Jerry Brown. That is a really bad idea because it will be so obviously inside trading that it will backfire, and we don’t need that bad will going on right now. The best outcome is probably that de León simply wins. But, I’d love to hear from Californians what they think of all this?
And why not? Minnesota tends to lead when it comes to finding ways for government to do good.
Minnesota State Auditor Rebecca Otto is running for Governor in Minnesota, and moments ago she announced the details of her much anticipated “Healthy Minnesota Plan.”
Here’s the link for the details.
Obamacare was good, better than what was there before, but it came out of the gate as a compromise between the usual opposing forces in Washington. Many of you not in Minnesota may not know this, but Continue reading Minnesota Candidate Proposes Cost-Cutting Single Payer Health Insurance Plan
You need to get a copy of How to Discipline a Toddler: A Parent’s Essential Guide to Disciplining Toddlers, Dealing with Toddler Tantrums, and Addressing Other Toddler Behavior Problems
Things that work on toddlers: Continue reading How to handle your out of control toddler
Facebook apparently knew quite early on that Russian agents were manipulating Facebook feeds and Facebook users in order to influence the American election, favoring Trump and working against Clinton.
But they publicly denied that they had any of this information, and went so far as to delete information about this in a report. The report contained details about Russia that Facebook legal and marketing teams removed before the report’s release.
Then, as you may know, they eventually admitted it.
The result of this long and inexplicable delay may have set back by months our understanding of the whole Trump-Russian scandal.
Watch this for all the gory details:
Continue reading Is Facebook Covering Up Russian Hacking Of The 2016 Election?
In every area of life, but especially in the overlapping realms of technology, science, and health, misunderstanding how things work can be widespread, and that misunderstanding can lead to problems.
In the area of voting, the main problem seems to be the expenditure of great amounts of outrage and concern over things that are not real. At the same time this happens, things that are real matter a great deal.
I’ll give you one example. Remember the special election for the Congressional Representative for Georgia’s 6th district, earlier this year? Several media outlets reported “voting machines stolen,” which, in turn, caused great outrage and concern on The Internet because, well, voting machines had been stolen.
Now, pause for a moment and think what this means.
In every area of life, but especially in the overlapping realms of technology, science, and health, misunderstanding how things work can be widespread, and that misunderstanding can lead to problems.
In the area of voting, the main problem seems to be the expenditure of great amounts of outrage and concern over things that are not real. At the same time this happens, things that are real matter a great deal.
I’ll give you one example. Remember the special election for the Congressional Representative for Georgia’s 6th district, earlier this year? Several media outlets reported “voting machines stolen,” which, in turn, caused great outrage and concern on The Internet because, well, voting machines had been stolen.
Now, pause for a moment and think what this means. What does it mean to have voting machines stolen? What is a voting machine? What would you do about voting machines being stolen? How might you try to solve the problem of voting machines being stolen just before an election was happening (like,the day before)? How might this affect the election? Who likely did it? How would you find them and what would you do to them?
I hope you did not spend a lot of time on those questions because if you did, you probably wasted it (unless you already know about the Cobb County Georgia story). Continue reading Hacking The American Election System: Getting It Right
The Trump Administration has just ended the Clean Power Plan.
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration’s move to start dismantling the Clean Power Plan rule intended to curb carbon emissions that contribute to global warming will not be a quick process.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s announcement Sunday to a group of coal miners in eastern Kentucky that he plans to sign a proposed rule Tuesday rolling back the Obama-era rule is simply the first of a number of steps the agency will have to take.
Proposing a rule to undo a regulation takes the same time-consuming, pain-staking, research-based, legally-defensible process used to adopt the very rule targeted for elimination.
“Today’s proposed repeal of the Clean Power Plan just begins the battle,” David Doniger, a climate change expert with the Natural Resources Defense Council, wrote in a blog Monday. “Pruitt’s EPA must hold hearings and take public comment, and issue a final repeal — with or without a possible replacement. He must respond to all legal, scientific, and economic objections raised, including the issues we lay out here.”