"14 terabytes of 'highly confidential' data about 5,120 financial aid applications over seven years were exposed in a breach at Stanford's Graduate School of Business -- proving that the school 'misled thousands of applicants and donors about the way it distributes fellowship aid and financial assistance to its MBA students,' reports Poets&Quants." A business school lies about their admission and financial assistance policies? And they're found out because they don't understand basic computer security? Shocked, shocked I am… (Grokked from Dan)
Day one of the NASA Advent Calendar. "The Bubble Nebula, also known as NGC 7635, is an emission nebula located 8,000 light years away in the Cassiopeia constellation. The bubble is created by stellar wind pushing out from a massive hot central star, visible here just left of the center of the image, a purple star partly obscured by blue gas clouds. The nebula is seven light years across—about one-and-a-half times the distance from our sun to its nearest stellar neighbor, Alpha Centauri." Gods I love Hubble. Now here's a story bone. The edge of the nebula, if it was from Alpha Centauri, would have passed through our system (or most likely be deformed or deflected by our own solar wind). What would that look like from our end, what effect might we experience? Imagine for half the year (if it was on the elliptic) we would have a huge glowing cloud in the night sky. Just the religious implications would be enormous. (Grokked from John)
"After filming was complete, the 12-story set was too expensive to dismantle —and too valuable to leave for rival film studios to pilfer. In a move just as ambitious as his filmmaking, DeMille, who created a second version of the film in 1956, ordered the set buried at a location unknown to the public." Unearthing the recent past.
"… but scientists have come to the realization that a particular light source, one assumed to be binary star system in Andromeda, may actually be something far stranger. Like a pair of orbiting supermassive black holes a thousand times further away."
"'Through reducing our attention to the outside world, acetaminophen appears to nudge us into a more psychologically insulated state,'" says Todd Handy, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia in Canada."
"CVS Health said on Sunday that it had agreed to buy Aetna for about $69 billion in a deal that would combine the drugstore giant with one of the biggest health insurers in the United States and has the potential to reshape the nation’s health care industry." That's the highest cost drug store buying an insurance company. To lower prices. Yeah. I don't buy it either.
"Minutes later, he worked the phones between bites of pizza in the cafeteria… The woman had burned bridges by walking out of (heroin) treatment. Williams pounded the table as he talked to a treatment center that didn’t want to see her again. 'This is me groveling,' he said. 'This is me begging. I need that bed ... What do I have to do?'" On fighting the epidemic in America. There aren't enough beds for addiction or psych cases.
"'I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing, as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it's on booze or women or movies,' Grassley, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, told the Register on Saturday." Only rich assholes think this way. Dear Sen. Grassley, most people in America don't have an option to invest (other than a possible 401(k) program) because they don't have the money, access, or even know that it's a possibility. Most Americans live paycheck to paycheck, and many can't even afford that. Please feel free to fuck off and die.
"And the middle class is already struggling. The median household income is roughly $59,000 a year. But around the country, even six-figure salaries for some single-person households don't necessarily furnish financial security." No matter where you are on the income spectrum, it's never enough. Either it's making ends meet, keeping up what what you think is supposed to be your lifestyle, or just having more than the other person.
"In an NPR interview Thursday, Ryan offered a detailed defense of the tax bill. What follows are some of Ryan's statements, in bold — and some of the facts behind them." Yes, Virginia, GOP representatives are out of touch with regular people.
"'The president is capping his celebration of Native American Heritage Month by opening the door to new drilling and mining on land considered sacred by tribal nations,' said (The Center for Western Priorities) executive director, Jennifer Rokala. 'After his appalling remarks at the White House on Monday, President Trump’s assault on tribal interests continues at a staggering pace.'" Yeah, tell me about how both sides are the same. I never get tired of that one.
Word is that as a part of Flynn's deal is he agreed to testify that Trump ordered him to make contact with the Russians. That's a big difference between unwitting dupe and active collaborator.
To wit: "Legal experts said this could be used as evidence that the president was trying to obstruct justice when he allegedly asked James Comey to take it easy on Flynn and then, when he didn’t, fired him as FBI director… On Sunday, Trump’s personal lawyer claimed responsibility for writing the tweet — which he called sloppy." Uh yeah, Bob. Because, you know, lawyers often implicate their clients in the very crimes where they are defending them. So, obstruction of justice, who could have known? We'll ignore that if the president knew Flynn had lied to the FBI and then didn't turn him in, that conspiracy, abetting, and makes the president as responsible for Flynn's lies as Flynn is.
"The Kremlin says a conversation between President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser and the Russian ambassador to the United States did not influence Russian President Vladimir Putin’s response to sanctions imposed by Trump’s predecessor." So the call was meant to influence Putin?
"'Immediately upon learning of the allegations, the Special Counsel's Office removed Peter Strzok from the investigation,' Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller, said in a statement. 'Lisa Page completed her brief detail and had returned to the FBI weeks before our office was aware of the allegations.'" What's sad is this is so far from normal these days that it becomes a big story. This is normal. An investigator demonstrated gross bias and was removed from the investigation. That's how it's supposed to work. It also doesn't help that the president is grasping at straws.
"It was yet another week of outrageous and consequential stories piling on top of one another at a head-spinning pace. A failed attempt to discredit the Washington Post. A bombshell plea from a former Trump official. A secret button. Poison in the Hague. A computer glitch that could ruin Christmas. And the FCC's upcoming vote on "net neutrality," a bureaucratic thicket with potentially catastrophic consequences. All of this, plus radical transparency in journalism, bots bringing down public comment and the history of America's love of hoaxes." The show On The Media with some interesting perspectives from this weekend that they titled, "Flim-flam Nation."
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