Linkee-poo when I'm lost at sea I hear your voice and it carries me

Gene Wolfe, and so it goes.

"The roof of Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral collapsed Monday as a massive fire ripped through the structure." Although later reports emphasized that it was mostly the roof that was damaged. There are also reports that the large "rose" windows are intact. (Grokked from John)

"On its final flyby of Saturn's largest moon in 2017, NASA's Cassini spacecraft gathered radar data revealing that the small liquid lakes in Titan's northern hemisphere are surprisingly deep, perched atop hills and filled with methane."

"'Over the weekend, due to rough sea conditions, SpaceX's recovery team was unable to secure the center core booster for its return trip to Port Canaveral.'" Not only is space hard, the sea is a tough mistress. (Grokked from Dan)

Water, water everywhere. "Meteorites can strike the moon and cause bursts of water to shoot up out of the ground… That's the main takeaway from a new study announced by NASA that challenges our perceptions of the moon and other rocky orbs out in space."

"When Merdis Wells visited the diabetes clinic at the University Medical Center in New Orleans about a year ago, a nurse practitioner checked her eyes to look for signs of diabetic retinopathy, the most common cause of blindness… At her next visit, in February of this year, artificial intelligence software made the call." Barrelling ahead because why the fuck not. Well, actually, the device is used to detect one pathology. So, yes, AI can be very good at that. Catching multiple pathologies (or interlinking pathologies) is much harder.

"Parenting can be a challenge, but a trio of bald eagles in Illinois have banded together to tackle it… In an unorthodox nest on the Mississippi River in northwest Illinois, two male eagles named Valor I and Valor II and a female eagle named Starr are sharing baby-raising duties." Nature finds a way.

"A girl enrolled at North Pole High School was reportedly suspended for using excessive force on a boy last week after a group of boys entered the girl’s bathroom and blocked the door, according to Rep. Tammie Wilson, R-North Pole." (Grokked from Annalee Flower Horne)

"After years of tension over expanded oil and gas drilling, including a deadly explosion that galvanized critics, Colorado is moving to tighten regulations on the booming industry. In a sweeping overhaul the governor is expected to sign, regulators will now have to consider public health, safety and the environment in decisions about permitting and local land use." Well you can bet the oils and gas industry won't stand for that.

"Dirty words make it to the U.S. Supreme Court only occasionally. One of those occasions came Monday, in a case involving a clothing line named 'FUCT.'"

"But if you know where to look, you might find a mortgage that will save you thousands of dollars a year or discover that you qualify for a loan when you didn't think you could — and that's exciting. You might even find free money to help with a down payment."

"Since World War II, the IMF and World Bank have served as guardians of global capitalism. The IMF, in particular, has a long history of bailing out countries in financial crises and using its power to push a free-market agenda. That's why we were surprised to hear IMF officials suggest capitalism is running amok."

Hanna Rosin on Empathy. "When I was growing up in the '70s, empathy was all the rage. The term was coined in 1908; then, social scientists and psychologists started more aggressively pushing the concept into the culture after World War II, basically out of fear. The idea was that we were all going to kill each other with nuclear weapons — or learn to see the world through each other's eyes. In my elementary school in the 1970s, which was not progressive or mushy in any way, we wrote letters to pretend Russian pen pals to teach us to open our hearts to our enemies." (Grokked from Janiece)

And the Invisibilia (which Hanna Rosin cohosts) on empathy. "Jack was letting me know that I had been so eager to build a bridge, to get to the 'we are all one' place, that I'd missed a few things. Like fundamentally misread the person I was supposed to be empathizing with. I went right past Jack the actual person, to Jack the idea in my head, Mr. 'Reformed Incel'." Empathy can trick you just as much as hate.

I've been thinking about this topic (well, one close enough it doesn't matter to most). I am not as empathetic as I was as a kid. I find myself hardening, forming a shell to allow sociopathy a place outside that shell. You could view it as a defense mechanism.

"Here's what we can — and can't — say about how President Donald Trump's tax cuts have impacted the economy so far." Hmm, let me adjust my rose-colored glasses here and take a look.

"President Trump lashed out at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Sunday night and again on Monday morning on Twitter following a CBS '60 Minutes' interview during which she recounted standing up to him and reiterated her opinion that he is unfit for office and knows it." Pelosi is living rent free in the president's head. (Grokked from Janiece)

"House Democrats on Monday reportedly subpoenaed Deutsche Bank and several other banks, asking for information about President Trump's finances as well as the dealings between the banks and Russia." This shit is about to get real.

Tweet of my heart: @amyewalter I think many have over-learned the lesson of 2016 about responding or not responding to Trump tweets. To me, the issue in 2020 is the exhaustion factor. Can a Dem message on stopping the cycle of outrage be enough to woo non-base Ds and Rs?