"When you walk into the Smithsonian's Art of the Qur'an exhibition, you're met with a book that weighs 150 pounds. The tome, which dates back to the late-1500s, has giant pages that are covered in gold and black Arabic script." I just love illuminations and calligraphy and this would be something to see. Also, Arabic calligraphy has a long history of producing amazing artwork (much more so than Phoenician, Cyrillic and Kanji based scripts). Now thinking I may need to make a visit to our capital. Also, here is the website for the exhibit.
Nestle develops "hallow" sugar. Ah, yeah. Let's see the lab results on that one (also the real world taste tests).
"The unemployment rate in the city of Seattle – the tip of the spear when it comes to minimum wage experiments – has now hit a new cycle low of 3.4%, as the city continues to thrive… The restaurant business, by all accounts, is booming (in fact, probably reaching a saturation point when one looks at eateries per capita). I think it’s safe to say we’ve got enough data – over almost two years now – to declare that Seattle has not suffered adverse consequences from its increases in the minimum wage, and has certainly not experienced the dire effects foretold by the anti-min wage crowd." Funny how when you pay people and actually decent paycheck, it tends to increase the economy. (Grokked from Chuck Wendig)
"Mathematician Michael Tippett at Columbia University, who tracks these (tornado) outbreaks, says that while the number of tornadoes nationwide varies a lot year to year, the overall average is pretty steady… 'But the number of tornadoes in outbreaks is increasing,' he says. And the number of tornadoes in the most extreme outbreaks — those where at least a dozen tornadoes hit a region within one to three days — is increasing the fastest." Everything is fine. We're all fine here.
"Most recently, BP gave the state of Alabama a $1 billion settlement to help with the state’s recovery. But people in the region are none too happy with the way the state decided to spend it."
Using magnetic pulses to recover memories.
"Vacuum birefringence is a weird quantum phenomenon that has only ever been observed on an atomic scale. It occurs when a neutron star is surrounded by a magnetic field so intense, it’s given rise to a region in empty space where matter randomly appears and vanishes." The universe is stranger than you can imagine. (Grokked from Kameron Hurley)
"Any policies favorable to insurers could be politically treacherous for Republicans, given that they have railed for years against ObamaCare 'bailouts' of insurance companies. It is also unclear if any policy changes would be enough to convince insurers to stay." Turns out unravelling Obamacare is going to be a very tough proposition. And it looks like conservatives are going to give away the store to the insurers to keep the market from collapsing. (Grokked from Kathryn Cramer)
"'One thing that’s been interesting this entire campaign season to watch is that people that say facts are facts. They’re not really facts,' Trump surrogate Scottie Nell Hughes said on The Diane Rehm Show on NPR. 'It’s kind of like looking at ratings or looking at a glass of half-full water. Everybody has a way of interpreting them to be the truth or not true. There’s no such thing, unfortunately, anymore as facts.'" We have always been at war with Eastasia.(Grokked from Kathryn Cramer)
"Donald Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort is back in the fold and involved with the President-elect's transition effort, according to multiple reports." Seems Putin wanted a more hands-on approach. Given that the FBI is looking into Manafort's involvement with "foreign governments", this might be the time the movie announcer says, "Before he was fighting for a paycheck, now he's fighting for his life…"
"Since Carrier still plans to outsource a good number of jobs to Mexico — Fortune reports 600 from an Indianapolis plant and another 700 from a Huntington, Indiana plant are still slated to move south of the border, despite this week’s deal — it remains to be seen whether Trump will follow through with his campaign promise to hit the company with a stiff tariff." And potentially have to admit this victory lap was a 3 card Monte game? Never. (Grokked from Jer)
"It indicates an environment where business decisions are now about how much you please the president." Crony capitalism, the other form of political corruption. Also, while they talk about socialists/communists and their "controlled economy", they forget that while we remember fascism for its social programs, fascism was also about a controlled economy with heavy government interference and nationalization of important industries.
"And for two days, at a Harvard University conference debriefing the 2016 election — an event that brings together political operatives and the press that followed them around — it was clear that everyone was mad at the media. Explosively furious." The GOP is upset that after beating the media into being uncritical of political views and providing an outlet for their rantings, they were uncritical of Trump and gave the vulgar clown all the time he desired to masturbate on camera.
Trump's ignorance is dangerous. (Grokked from Matt Staggs)
Chuck Wendig storifies and expands his comments from yesterday regarding the white working class.
Tweet of my heart: @JimPethokoukis BREAKING: US economy creates 223 Carrier Units of jobs in November. (178,000 net new payrolls to be exact) (Grokked from Lisa N. Morton)
Double dip: @joshtpm Wikileaks has an amazing knack of finding documents from govts with upcoming elections who are opposed by Vladimir Putin. LOL. #beenthere (Grokked from Elizabeth Bear)
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