Linkee-poo, it's stopped raining everybody's in a play and don't you know it's a beautiful new day

Well, not really.

This will be over by the time this posts, but wow. "Dubbed 'Maharajas & Mughal Magnificence' by Christie's auction house, the trove includes nearly 400 diamonds, gemstones, ornaments and paintings, spanning about 500 years of Indian history from the Mughal Empire to the 20th century."

"More than 20,000 Christians have signed a petition calling for the cancellation of Good Omens, the television series adapted from Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s 1990 fantasy novel – unfortunately addressing their petition to Netflix when the series is made by Amazon Prime." Which slightly proves a point, the people prompting censorship (both against Good Omens and books) don't really know much of what they're talking about.

The return of Boaty McBoatface. "Now, the findings from Boaty's first mission are out — and they shed light on how Antarctic winds that are strengthening due to climate change are impacting sea levels."

"The Himalayan mountain range, home to Mount Everest, holds tens of thousands of glaciers. The study authors looked at 650 (declassified spy satellite images), across a 1,240-mile swath. They found that, on average, the Himalayan glaciers lost 10 inches of ice per year from 1975 to 2000. As average global temperatures increased, the average loss rate doubled to a loss of 20 inches of ice per year from 2000 to 2016." We're boned.

"The number of gray whales washing up dead on West Coast beaches keeps rising. Nearly all of the whales show signs of malnourishment. Now this has led local authorities to make an unusual request to people who own waterfront property." They weren't able to fatten up enough.

"The rate of U.S. adolescents and young adults dying of suicide has reached its highest level in nearly two decades, according a report published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association." And just from an anecdotal side, so has cutting. "If you or someone you know has talked about contemplating suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255, open 24 hours a day, seven days a week."

"In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill last week that, if federal authorities give it their go-ahead — still a very big if — would allow his state to import prescription drugs from Canada. That makes Florida the third state to pass such a law, joining Vermont and Colorado. More such legislative attempts are in the works." If. Or, ya know, we could just let the federal government negotiate drug pricing for Medicare (including Part D) and Medicaid. Or free travel for drugs from Canadian Pharmacies (and wouldn't CVS just love that).

"The study, which looked at interactions between surgeons and their teams, found that patients of surgeons who behaved unprofessionally around their colleagues tended to have more complications after surgery. Surgeons who model unprofessional behavior can undermine the performance of their teams, the authors write, potentially threatening patients' safety." Hey, I got a better idea. They ain't as gifted as they think they are. Yes, abusive doctors (and from personal experience they may have fantastic bedside manners but are atrocious once the patient is under sedation) can cause a team (and surgery is a team effort) to check out. One surgeon I work with I've come to realize this behavior is more of a performance to him, like it's his mental picture of a top surgeon is one who cusses and is misogynistic and so he acts that way (it's still as annoying as fuck). Some doctors act that way until you stand up to them (I work with a few of these). Some doctors reserve it for their residents. And some residents are the worst because they haven't figured out how to work well with others. They also run with scissors.

Let the grifting begin. "Rick Santorum… is getting into cryptocurrency. He’s an adviser on the board of a new company called Cathio, which says it 'provides Catholic organizations with a payments platform that aligns with Catholic values, provides the tools necessary to increase donations and connect with both local and global Catholic communities.' Santorum’s son-in-law is Cathio’s CEO." When the hucksters get into the game setting up Big Stores, you know it's about to become a mature technology. So you have Ricky in a cryptocurrency pyramid scheme, and Boehner pushing pot, and Fox News pundits pushing gold, the true nature of conservatism just becomes apparent. (Grokked from John)

If you prick us, do we not bleed? "In a bid to make robots more lifelike, scientists have created a soft robotic lionfish and have pumped it full of life-giving 'blood.'" The "blood" is an electrolyte hydraulic fluid that acts as both battery and mechanical actuator.

"Trudeau, an ardent supporter of green energy, has found himself defending the 620-mile Trans Mountain pipeline expansion since his government first approved it in 2016. The project is meant to bring petroleum from oil sands near Edmonton, Alberta, to tanks in Burnaby near Vancouver on Canada's Pacific Coast… Trudeau said the pipeline would deliver oil to the Pacific Coast for shipment to Asia, reducing Canada's dependency on selling its petroleum to the United States." Money makes whores of us all.

"One question is -- or should be -- central to any assessment of the state of America: Why, more than a century and a half after slavery ended, does the typical black family remain so much poorer than the typical white family?… A new study on housing in Chicago illustrates a big part of the answer: Generation after generation, the U.S. system of real-estate finance has enriched whites at the expense of blacks." And that's just the "contract-for-deed" part. The article doesn't talk about black communities who started to outshine their white neighbors would be razed to the ground by bands of those white neighbors, the original race riots. (Grokked from Jim Wright)

The On the Media podcast series about The Scarlet E (eviction)." In regards to the Bloomberg article about the redlining in Chicago and the "contract-for-deed" pillaging of black wealth, I recommend Episode 2: "40 Acres".

"In a blow to the Trump administration, a federal trial judge said Wednesday that he believes new evidence presented in a challenge to the 2020 census citizenship question 'raises a substantial issue.'… The decision could lead to reopening one of three federal trials into the citizenship question and lead to further examinations of Republican redistricting consultant Thomas Hofeller's role in developing the question." That's great, except SCOTUS only has a week and a half to put out their final decisions.

"Controversial new (abortion restriction) laws in six states were copied from special-interest group's ideas and 'model legislation.' More than 400 other abortion-related bills were, too, according to our analysis of copycat lawmaking nationwide." (Grokked from Laura J Mixon)

How go the Trade Wars? "Just in case you weren’t there yet, President Trump’s recent threats to impose tariffs on Mexican imports into the US confirm that his trade policy is erratic, chaotic, and reckless."

"Iranian forces have shot down a United States military drone today, a move that could escalate an already tense relationship between the two countries." While this is being portrayed as an escalation or proof that Iran won't be intimidated, it isn't any of that. This is a message being sent. It says, "We can see what you're doing and we have the technical knowhow to stop you." The drone is said to be a MQ-4C Triton, which is a big daddy, Navy version of the RQ-4 Global Hawk (which NPR is still stating it was). These drones fly high and while not small, don't present much of a target. Iran is sending us the message, "We can shoot down your latest aircraft." Drones fly slower than most military aircraft and aren't as good in avoidance or have as many countermeasures, but in this case the altitude would be the technological leap. Iran has the missiles and radar to make an air campaign difficult. In Afghanistan and Iraq we owned the skies.

"'Iran has probably arrived at the conclusion that it has less to lose from acting this way (stacking shipping in the Strait of Hormuz) than from doing nothing,' Aniseh Tabrizi, a research fellow and Iran expert at London’s Royal United Services Institute, told CNBC via phone Tuesday." That's only the case if you look at the issue from a US centric worldview. Iran has a lot to lose as it tries to pressure EU and Asian countries to support its bid to get the US back to the nuclear deal they had before Trump. Attacking international shipping erodes their influence there.