Neil Gaiman's 8 rules of writing.
"The revised paper says only that people eating the Mediterranean diet had fewer strokes and heart attacks, not, as the original paper claimed, that the diet was the direct cause of those health benefits." Lies, damnable lies, and statistics. "It turns out approximately 14 percent of the more than 7,400 study participants hadn't been assigned randomly to either the Mediterranean diet or a low-fat one… When the researchers reanalyzed the data excluding the nonrandomized people, the results were the same…"
"Scientists have completed the most exhaustive assessment of changes in Antarctica's ice sheet to date. And they found that it's melting faster than they thought… Ice losses totaling 3 trillion tonnes (or more than 3.3 trillion tons) since 1992 have caused global sea levels to rise by 7.6 mm, nearly one third of an inch, according to a study published in Nature on Wednesday." We're boned.
"Oil companies now help support a cottage industry of consultants and product manufacturers in Alaska, all providing workarounds for the fact that the frozen ground they rely on to produce oil isn't as frozen as it used to be." Climate change as business opportunity.
"With hospitals pushing patients out the door earlier, nursing homes are deluged with increasingly frail patients. But many homes, with their sometimes-skeletal medical staffing, often fail to handle post-hospital complications — or create new problems by not heeding or receiving accurate hospital and physician instructions… Patients, caught in the middle, may suffer. One in 5 Medicare patients sent from the hospital to a nursing home boomerangs back within 30 days, often for potentially preventable conditions such as dehydration, infections and medication errors, federal records show. Such rehospitalizations occur 27 percent more frequently than for the Medicare population at large." Yes Medicaid and Medicare need reforming, unfortunately one side of the political debate simply wants to end the programs so real reform is probably not possible at this time.
Remember Rand Paul being tackled by his neighbor? "The next day, Paul, possibly underestimating the depths of his neighbor’s rage, used his lawnmower to blow leaves from his property onto Boucher’s. Then he piled on the insults: 'During this process, Rand Paul stepped away from his lawnmower, gathered several branches from an adjacent pile of trash, and placed them in the exact location where the last pile had been burned just one day prior.'" It was a lawn waste dispute. Never underestimate the energy people will put into these things (I also suspect it wasn't just the pile of brush). (Grokked from Xopher Halftongue)
Remember when I said earlier this year one of the signs that a recession will happen this year is if the Fed raises interest rates 4 times instead of the predicted 3? "The Federal Reserve increased a key interest rate again Wednesday, which will trigger higher rates on credit cards, home equity lines and other kinds of borrowing… The Fed also signaled that it will raise rates more this year than previously expected — four times rather than three." Insert ominous music here.
When President Donald Trump was pushing Congress to pass his tax plan last year, which focused on lowering corporate rates and the income taxes of high earners, he pulled out a handy statistic: according to the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, the average family would make $4,000 more under the new plan… The true revelation was tucked away at the bottom of the release, in the “Production and nonsupervisory employees” section: 'From May 2017 to May 2018, real average hourly earnings decreased 0.1 percent, seasonally adjusted,' it read." This is my shocked face. (Grokked from Jim Wright)
"Internal briefing documents show FEMA never had 500 generators on (Puerto Rico) before the storm (as FEMA claimed) — it had 25. Its plastic roof program was out of plastic, and the most tarps FEMA ever produced was 125,000 — months after people needed them… FEMA's federal coordinating officer for Maria, Michael Byrne, said blame rests with the storm, not with federal responders contending with taxed resources and complicated geography… Still, as NPR and Frontline traveled the island in the months after the storm, it was clear many of the problems were man-made."
"On Tuesday, the Trenton, a Spearhead-class high-speed transport that is part of ongoing 6th Fleet military operations off the coast of Libya, came upon a migrant boat in distress and disintegrating. People were in the water. Several corpses were already floating. The Trenton called for help and, along with the German non-governmental organization Sea Watch, whose ship was patrolling nearby, the American crew carried out the rescue of 40 African migrants and recovered 12 corpses."
"They have been carrying out a variety of tasks assisting the U.S. Border Patrol in the months since their initial deployment, but all with one thing in common: They’re as far away from the border as possible. In reality, the hundreds of troops deployed in southern Arizona are keeping up the rear, so to speak; in one assignment, soldiers are actually feeding and shoveling out manure from the stalls of the Border Patrol’s horses." Bet you won't see that in a National Guard recruitment ad.
"The undocumented immigrant from Honduras sobbed as she told an attorney Tuesday how federal authorities took her daughter while she breastfed the child in a detention center, where she was awaiting prosecution for entering the country illegally." This is America in 2018.
"Jose Luis Garcia, 62, was watering his lawn and having his morning coffee outside his home in the Arleta neighborhood of San Fernando Valley when ICE agents put him in handcuffs and detained him, according to his daughter, Natalie Garcia… The arrest came as a shock to the 32-year-old Garcia, who said that her father is a law-abiding, legal permanent resident who came to the United States nearly 50 years ago when he was 13 years old." (Grokked from Justine Larbalestier)
Also, it's no safety having citizenship. "The Trump administration is not only doing everything it can to discourage immigration of all sorts, it intends to launch an effort to identify naturalized American citizens it believes cheated the naturalization process and strip them of their American citizenship. The extraordinary process of denaturalizing an American citizen has occurred very rarely, with the Justice Department filing an estimated 300 civil denaturalization cases since 1990." (Grokked from Chuck Wendig)
Sure it's not about racism. "Arizona Representative David Stringer, speaking at the Yavapai County Republican Men's Forum on Monday, called immigration an 'existential threat' to the United States, warning that it will change the face of the country." (Grokked from Dan)
"A senior advisor to the State Department appointed just two months ago has been quietly vetting career diplomats and American employees of international institutions to determine whether they are loyal to President Donald Trump and his political agenda, according to nearly a dozen current and former U.S. officials… Mari Stull, a former food and beverage lobbyist-turned-wine blogger under the name 'Vino Vixen,' has reviewed the social media pages of State Department staffers for signs of ideological deviation." Hydra alert goes directly to 11 (on a scale of 1 to 10). The devastation of our institutions by this administration will take a generation to heal. (Grokked from Xeni Jardin)
"But the announcement earlier this week about Pence’s appearance at the Dallas meeting provoked a remarkable pushback from attendees. Five pastors made formal attempts to pass motions to prevent the vice president from speaking or to bar politicians from speaking at future meetings. A Florida pastor offered a proposal to replace Pence’s appearance with a session of prayer, because the appearance would hurt “our minority brothers and sisters” and confuse the denomination’s Christian message. The measure did not go up for an official vote, but observers in the hall estimated that at least 30 percent of attendees supported it." The magic sauce is wearing off.
"CNN host Chris Cuomo and Virginia Senate candidate Corey Stewart (R) sparred Wednesday night in a heated interview that focused on Stewart’s affiliation with white nationalists."
"In other words, if the IG report faults Comey, Lynch or others, it is not expected to second-guess their decisions not to press criminal charges against Clinton."
"'We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that improper considerations, including political bias, directly affected the specific investigative actions we reviewed,' Horowitz said in the report to be issued Thursday. 'The conduct by these employees cast a cloud over the entire FBI investigation.'" (Grokked from Joy Reid)
"GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) said Wednesday that Republicans aren’t 'cult-like' in their devotion to President Trump, as his colleague Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) charged, because 'you got to be organized' to be a cult." Uh, yeah you are, and no you don't have to be. (Grokked from Fred Clark)
"Press secretary Sarah Sanders and principal deputy press secretary Raj Shah are both heading for the exits, according to sources inside the White House and close to the administration. Sanders, who has become a confidante of President Trump since the departure of former communications director Hope Hicks, has told friends that she plans to leave the administration at the end of the year… Shah is also considering his exit, but he has not yet settled on an exact date." (Grokked from Chang)
"President Donald Trump is apparently not happy about the way his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is being depicted by the media and on Tuesday called 'FAKE NEWS' America's 'biggest enemy.'" While yes "fake news" is a dire threat, unfortunately the president believes NBC and CNN are "fake news." That's the problem here. The Dear Leader is upset the American people and the media aren't as fawning over him as N Korea's people and media are of Kim.
Such as, "Images of hundreds of North Koreans jubilantly clapping and waving flags as Kim Jong Un landed in Pyongyang Wednesday have been broadcast across the reclusive country as part of a lengthy state media documentary about his historic summit with US President Donald Trump."
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