Tom Faranda's Folly

The North Korean defector & his crutches - most powerful moment of Trump's talk

We watched the SOTU speech on tape delay last night. Near the end of the speech there was this -

 

CNN: Melania wearing white outfit at speech - to protest her husband

CNN, as in the Confused News Network.

To demonstrate just how far down the drain their standards for news and analysis were, CNN spent a couple minutes before the State of the Union Tuesday wondering if First Lady Melania Trump’s outfit was designed to protest the President, her own husband.

Great work by Brigid with local media and their March for Life coverage

You can find the story here:

March for Life - coverage on LoHud and Journal News

After giving no coverage - they didn't know about the March, it's only in it's 45th year - Brigid coordinated the effort to get quite substantial follow up coverage in the Journal News and on LoHud. And of the five women who did the Q & A she was the fifth. It was also her photo (of course they didn't have their own) that went onto the top of the print and online versions. 

I strongly encourage hitting the link and reading what all five women had to say.

For dog lovers: German Shepherd can't find his owner (50 second video)!

Haha. Four and a half million views in four months.

 

Singer Joy Villa with another "statement" dress at the Grammy's

Last year it was a "Make America Great Again" dress and before that sheer orange netting; this year "Choose Life". Obviously she never got the memo ...

Joy Villa Wears Anti-Abortion Dress On The 2018 Grammys Red Carpet

Villa, who is also a Fox News contributor, posted on Twitter that she hand painted the wedding dress (baby in the womb) picked from the Bridal Garden, a non-profit with all proceeds going to Brooklyn Charter, a Bedford-Stuyvesant charity.

Sad news: Justin Thyme has closed

Ugh. One of the Faranda go-to places (the other being Memphis Maes). God bless and best wishes to Scott and his family and the other folks at JT.

Here's their posting on the Croton Community facebook page.

After 15 years and 8 months of opening what we call our home to all of our customers it's with a heavy heart that we announce we are closing our doors for the last time . We would like to take this moment to thank all of our customers for your continued support through out the years . We have made some wonderful friends and have customers who became more like family . We have always said that our restaurant was more like our "living room" that we invited people in to come and hang out with all of us . We are so glad that so many people have walked into our "living room" and enjoyed so many wonderful times . We will miss all of our customers and the amazing times we have had . So it's like they always say ...... All good things must come to an end ...... This Sunday January 28th will be our end ...
- Scott and the JThyme Staff

 

Justice Ginsburg, at 85, has no intention of leaving Supreme Court

Former general counsel to the ACLU. Here's her bio.

Justice Ginsburg, nearing 85, signals she won’t retire soon

Outside of court, she’s the subject of a new documentary that includes video of her working out. And she’s hired law clerks to take her through June 2020, just four months before the next presidential election.

Soaking in her late-in-life emergence as a liberal icon, she’s using the court’s monthlong break to embark on a speaking tour that is taking her from the Sundance Film Festival in Utah to law schools and synagogues on the East Coast.

*******

‘‘I think that Justice Ginsburg has made clear that she has no intention of retiring. I am sure she wants to stay on the court until the end of the Trump presidency if she can,’’ said Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley, and a liberal who called on Ginsburg to retire in 2014, when Barack Obama was president and Democrats controlled the Senate.

But Chemerinsky noted ‘‘no one can know whether she will be on the court on Jan. 20, 2021, if President Trump serves one term, let alone Jan. 20, 2025, if he is reelected.’’

A book on the workout by her trainer, with a forward by Ginsburg, came out last year. ‘‘RBG,’’ a documentary about the justice that premiered at Sundance, includes video of her doing pushups and throwing a weighted ball, among other exercises. While pulling on a resistance band, she tells her trainer: ‘‘This is light.’’

That video may surprise visitors to the court, who can be struck by how slowly Ginsburg moves, her head often bowed, when the court session ends for the day and justices leave the bench in full view of the audience.

Justices Samuel Alito and Elena Kagan have taken to waiting until Ginsburg exits because she otherwise would be left by herself as she makes her way to the justices’ robing room.

******

Ginsburg’s friend Ann Claire Williams, a newly retired federal appeals court judge, said sometimes people get the wrong idea from Ginsburg’s small stature and think she is frail.

‘‘She is so spry,’’ said Williams, adding that Ginsburg’s mind is also sharp, and her recall on cases ‘‘extraordinary.’’

Center for Disease Control (CDC): Flu season worst since 2009

Yes experiencing it myself - just recovering from a bad case ...

Federal health officials warned Friday that this year's flu outbreak is more severe than any other since the 2009 swine flu pandemic, and that its intensity is still increasing.

Pope Francis crushes it on euthanasia

As NY State and New Jersey have legislative battles over legalizing suicide.

"Pope Francis: Behind euthanasia lies mentality that values people based on efficiency"

Francis said the process of secularization, “by rendering absolute the concepts of self-determination and autonomy,” has caused a growing demand for euthanasia in many countries “as an ideological affirmation of man’s will to power over life.” He said this has even led to people considering the option of euthanasia as a “civilized” choice, adding this is due to life being valued only for its “efficiency and productivity,” as opposed for its inherent dignity. “In this scenario it must be reiterated that human life, from conception to its natural end, has a dignity that makes it intangible,” Francis said.

A brief video -

 

CNN: "Trump gets rock-star treatment at Davos"

After he's spent years lambasting the type of big money elitists who attend Davos. Trump had never before gone to the annual Davos summit.

And even Trump-hater Fareed Zakaria had good things to say about the end result - Zakaria: Trump we saw in Davos should leave us encouraged

Here's the brief video of his reception -

Chinchilla madness -

Here's a little video about chinchillas - less than two minutes.

Saudi Arabia botox Beauty Contest scandal!

Horrors!

 

WSJ & CNN: USA gymnastics doctor gets 175 year sentence for sex abuse.

What a horror. How in the world was this guy able to get away with this  - 150 young women testified. 150! Abuse for 20 years. No one knew what was happening or came forward?

From the WSJ -

A Michigan judge sentenced Larry Nassar, the longtime former doctor for the U.S. women's national gymnastics team, to up to 175 years in prison on sexual-abuse charges. The sentence followed a week of emotional testimony by upward of 150 women, including decorated Olympians Aly Raisman and McKayla Maroney, who accused him of abusing them under the guise of medical treatment. Mr. Nassar pleaded guilty in November to seven counts of first-degree criminal sexual assault in Ingham County, Mich. He still faces sentencing in Eaton County on 13 other counts. He was sentenced in December to 60 years in federal prison on child-pornography and obstruction charges.

Here is a report on CNN -

 

Over one million at Pope Francis final Mass in Peru

Solidarity the theme of his homily, although he didn't use the word. 

 

Here's the school bus video -

In Massachusetts as it slides on the ice ...

 

Panda twins - first 25 days of their life in 90 seconds

This is really quite neat. From the Atlanta Zoo, off the Wall Street Journal channel several years ago.

 

Pope Francis lunch with indigenous people of the Amazon, while in Peru

I loved this - the center where they had lunch is named the Apaktone Center - named after Jose Alverez Fernandez, a Dominican missionary who spent 54 years in the Amazon last century.

President Obama on the economy

About right.

Pope Francis brief address to Peruvian contemplative nuns

What he said was quite interesting - which is why I've posted it.

Times (UK): "Denzel Washington on prejudice, black power and why America needs to get behind President Trump"

Hollywood dude who's not a Trump-hater. This is actually a very long article about Washington's life, who by the way was born in Mt. Vernon, NY. Not too much in it about politics -the link below is  the next to last paragraph of the article.

In the end, before our time is up, Washington comes back to explain his position on the US presidency. “There’s a pastor who talked about this. I think his name is AR Bernard and it’s Daniel, chapter 10. He says that God puts kings in a place for a season and reason, and we don’t always know the reason, so this is what it is right now. There’s a reason behind it and I say to people that, if nothing else, we should be more unified. All the more reason to work together.”

How the Bishop of Honolulu handled the false nuclear attack alert

Ha! I guess this is what you do when you're expecting a nuclear missile ... Sent to me by my friend Chris.

During Hawaii missile alert, Honolulu Catholic bishop led a penance rite

On Saturday, as Hawaii residents were jolted by an alert of an incoming ballistic missile, a priest was distributing Holy Communion to a group of Catholics celebrating Mass in a chapel owned by the Diocese of Honolulu.

******

Despite the possibility of impending doom, the Rev. Mark Gantley, who was leading the Mass, didn’t mention the alert to worshipers or stop the service. But he did forgo the closing song.

“The first thought that came to me was that I am going to finish Mass,” he told the Hawaii Catholic Herald, the diocese’s newspaper. “I am not going to interrupt it.”

But worshipers instinctively knew something was wrong, the newspaper’s editor, Patrick Downes, told The Washington Post.

“They were wondering what was so important that you would interrupt a priest” during worship, he said.

Some feared the worst. Perhaps the bishop had died, some thought. But then the bishop walked into the room.

Bishop Larry Silva, who has led the diocese since 2005, was in his nearby residence when the alert went out from the Hawaii Emergency Management Center. He opted to head over to the chapel, where he knew about 45 people were attending a gathering for deacon candidates and their wives.

The bishop, still wearing a T-shirt, waited for the Mass to end and then told the group about the alert. He offered the Sacrament of Reconciliation through general absolution — a penitential rite given to a group of people, Downes said.

It was the first time he had ever led the rite, which the Code of Canon Law says can be used in cases of “grave necessity,” as determined by a “diocesan bishop.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that “grave necessity” can occur “when there is imminent danger of death” and not enough time for a priest to hear individual confessions of sins.

“It would be impractical to hear individual confessions with an impending nuclear bomb threat or in cases of soldiers going to battle or an airplane crashing,” Downes explained.

In other words, they examined their consciences and prayed, putting the state of their souls before physical safety.

“I just thought, ‘let’s get this thing done,’ said the bishop, according to the Hawaii Catholic Herald, which reported that he decided to forgo the religious garment and “skip the liturgy that accompanies the rite.”

The newspaper reported that the bishop told the group what he was going to do, then said “the words of absolution” over them.

The priest was quoted as saying some people were “visibly upset” and at least one person cried. A deacon told the newspaper the absolution was “incredibly calming for everyone.”

“In that moment when you really don’t know [if you are going to die], your heart reaches out for that forgiveness,” Eva Andrade told the newspaper. “In that moment everything changed and was made right. You could feel the presence of God in that room.”

Afterward, the bishop ushered them to breakfast. Downes explained that it was the safest building nearby and would provide the best shelter for them because “the walls are like three feet thick.”

“They were faced with the question: what do we do now? Breakfast was already being prepared. It just happened to be the safest building.”

By the time they got there, at least 38 minutes later, the emergency management had sent out an all-clear message.

The initial alert had been a false alarm.

 

4 quick pix from the March for Life

UPDATE: Here's some press overage (90 second video) from British media - The Telegraph. https://youtu.be/32vN9TWocJg

Awesome young crowd. More to follow but here are four pictures.

 

Brigid took lots of pictures and video

We made sure we were at the top of Constitution Ave. to get good pictures. Two hours after the head of the March reached us, there was no sign of the end. We did not hear the President's address by video to the Rally at the Mall, but understand it was pretty good. Will have to find it on youtube.

 

Neat shot put video - "7 things about ..."

That's Tim from several years ago when he was at Stepinac - looks like he's got it tucked in there right. Now of course a junior at St. Thomas Aquinas College - and bigger!

One of Tim's best events - actually his other event when he's not throwing the javelin. He's come back from his hernia surgery and yesterday threw 40'9" - just two inches off his personal best - at the "Gotham Classic" The college and post-college shot weighs 16 lbs. The video is a one minute history of the development of the event. To see it you must click on the video and then click the second link sending you to youtube.

 

SEC says no to bitcoin ETF's and mutual funds

An ETF is an "exchange traded fund" somewhat similar to a mutual fund. By the way there are no bitcoin coins. The photo is just a standard representative image.

Wall Street's top regulator all but shut the door to approving exchange-traded funds that hold bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, questioning whether the products could comply with rules meant to protect mom-and-pop investors. The Securities and Exchange Commission outlined its views in a letter to two Wall Street trade groups whose members envision the profits that could flow from selling exposure to bitcoin through popular investment vehicles such as ETFs and mutual funds. The regulator questioned how bitcoin's volatility and potential illiquidity would fit with funds that must calculate a fair market price for their portfolio at the end of every trading day and allow investors to easily cash out their shares.

Here's the cognitive test the President took

The test was chosen by the physician and is considered a good determinant for any mental decline. All the questions are on one page.

http://dementia.ie/images/uploads/site-images/MoCA-Test-English_7_1.pdf

                        It is also been sensitively designed so that it does “not falsely label someone who is normal as being impaired”.

The MoCA has been found to be useful to detect mild cognitive impairment in many conditions including Alzheimer’s disease, Vascular Cognitive Impairment, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, Huntington’s disease and head trauma.

Test instructions may be repeated once, however items listed in the memory section may not. The MoCA is used in 100 countries around the world.

The standard version of the test is "pretty good" but "not definitive" said Dr. Ronald Petersen, an Alzheimer’s disease expert at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Petersen said he could not comment specifically on the president’s cognitive health.

The test does not assess the president’s psychiatric fitness and the president did not undergo a psychiatric evaluation, according to his doctor.

Apple to pay $38 billion in repatriation tax to bring money back into U.S. - will invest it here

    

Good news. The tax reform is kicking into high gear. From the WSJ -

Apple announced plans to ramp up spending in the U.S. and make a one-time tax payment of $38 billion to repatriate overseas cash holdings, as it seeks to emphasize its contributions to the U.S. economy after years of taking criticism for outsourcing manufacturing to China. Apple said its one-time tax payment was the result of recent changes to U.S. tax law, a reference to the tax bill that passed in December requiring companies pay a one-time tax of 15.5% on overseas cash holdings repatriated to the U.S. The company said in November that it had earmarked $36 billion to cover deferred taxes on roughly half of its $246 billion in overseas cash holdings, assuming that it would eventually pay some tax for bringing that home.

San Francisco: Map to avoid outdoor areas of human defecation - that's how bad things are there

This is really over the top. The link is here - (Human) Wasteland  - and there's a drop down box "about"  with some articles and resource information on helping the homeless in San Francisco.

There is a brief article here -

For those who have maintained that San Francisco is full of . . . whatever, there is now living proof. How much poop is there on the streets of the City by the Bay? Would you believe there is an online map to track human feces on the city’s streets? There is.

What happened to San Fran?  Remember Scott McKenzie? 50 million views on youtube: "Be sure to wear flowers in your hair."

 

President Trump's "Fake News" winners for 2017; he must read my blog

The President Tweeted out his award winners yesterday for fake news. And it's a pretty devastating list. Obviously I have his ear - he stole my #1 as #1. This is mine -  Here's what was the worst past prediction for 2017

Here's the president's top 11- thanks to Drudge for posting this  - Trump Announces 2017 Fake News Award Winners Mainstream media meltdown in 3, 2, 1…

So, NYT's Paul Krugman comes in #1 - his column the day after the election on how the stock market will do:

"If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never."

Very funny: White House media upset that Trump is mentally and physically healthy

One and a half minute video - you have to laugh. Love the British journalist who suggests Trump should follow Obama's example of good health practices (like smoking?).

 

BBC: Crocodile stuck in a car tire -

What to do?

 

Trump's Physician: "...Trump’s Cognitive Exam Results Were ‘Normal’"

Haha. Of course people will say "Normal for Trump." Now if he could just lose 40 lbs....

Dr. Ronny Jackson, the physician who examined President Trump last week, said Tuesday that the president personally requested a cognitive exam and that the results were “normal.” Jackson said he did not feel that such a test was necessary. Additionally, the doctor revealed, Trump is 75 inches tall and weighs 239 pounds.

 

Boycotting Trump (State of the Union)

Good column in yesterday's WSJ - excerpt below the link.

... perhaps the President’s critics should watch Mr. Trump’s remarks later this month and then compare them to those delivered by his predecessor at the same point in his presidency.

Some readers probably recall that on January 27, 2010, President Barack Obama —not for the first or last time—falsely described his signature domestic policy: “Our approach would preserve the right of Americans who have insurance to keep their doctor and their plan.”

But readers may not remember other portions of the speech that also proved to be untrue, such as when he claimed: “We will have all of our combat troops out of Iraq by the end of this August.”

At the time, even the left-leaning Factcheck.org challenged a number of Mr. Obama’s assertions on the economy:

He said “there are about 2 million Americans working right now” because of last year’s stimulus bill. But his own economic advisers say the total could be as little as 1.5 million, and independent estimates range down to as low as 800,000.

He quoted the Congressional Budget Office as saying health care legislation could “bring down the deficit by as much as $1 trillion” over the next 20 years. But CBO has made clear that’s a soft and uncertain estimate.

It is now a hard certainty that the new entitlement is helping to destroy the federal fisc. This brings us to another Obama factual problem cited by the Factcheckers:

He said that when he took office, the deficit already was projected to total $8 trillion over the next 10 years. But the estimate is from his own Office of Management and Budget; the CBO put the figure at trillions less.

Perhaps this Obama error can be excused because it turned out the joke was on both CBO and American taxpayers. Whether he cited the source correctly or not, President Obama understood the spending binge to come during his Presidency. He managed to increase the federal debt by $8 trillion in less than seven years, and by more than $9 trillion over the course of his presidency.

So the speech was wrong on important facts. What about divisiveness? Readers may also recall this Obama gem from the 2010 address:

With all due deference to separation of powers, last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections.

I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests or, worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people. And I urge Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps correct some of these problems.

Georgetown law professor Randy Barnett wrote in the Journal that “the head of the executive branch ambushed six members of the judiciary, and called upon the legislative branch to deride them publicly... No one could reasonably believe in their heart that this was respectful behavior.”

********

And then there are those 2010 Obama comments that have simply not aged well, such as his boast about “building a 21st-century” Department of Veterans Affairs or the progress report on his efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons:

Now, these diplomatic efforts have also strengthened our hand in dealing with those nations that insist on violating international agreements in pursuit of nuclear weapons. That’s why North Korea now faces increased isolation and stronger sanctions, sanctions that are being vigorously enforced.

Clearly, the bar has been set low enough for Mr. Trump to clear it.

 

Pope Francis decries "Ideological colonialism"

This has been on of the themes of his Papacy.

“At a distance of seventy years, it is painful to see how many fundamental rights continue to be violated today. First among all of these is the right of every human person to life, liberty and personal security,” Pope Francis said at the beginning of his address dedicated to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, whose 70th anniversary occurs this year. “It is not only war or violence that infringes these rights. In our day, there are more subtle means: I think primarily of innocent children discarded even before they are born, unwanted at times simply because they are ill or malformed, or as a result of the selfishness of adults,” he added. He also sharply criticized the emergence of “’new rights’ that not infrequently conflict with one another,” that do not respect “social and cultural traditions,” and ignore the “real needs” that many societies face.

He also sharply criticized the emergence of “’new rights’ that not infrequently conflict with one another,” that do not respect “social and cultural traditions,” and ignore the “real needs” that many societies face.

“Somewhat paradoxically, there is a risk that, in the very name of human rights, we will see the rise of modern forms of ideological colonization by the stronger and the wealthier, to the detriment of the poorer and the most vulnerable,” Pope Francis said. Ideological colonialism is a term of art for the aggressive promotion of homosexuality and transgenderism.

But human rights, the Pope said, must be “premised on the nature objectively shared by the human race.” He denounced such a “reductive vision of the human person” that leads to injustice, social inequality and corruption.

Pope Francis also had strong words about the failure of nations and the international community to protect the family described in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as the “natural and fundamental group unit of society… entitled to protection by society and the state.”

“Unfortunately, it is a fact that, especially in the West, the family is considered an obsolete institution,” Pope Francis lamented.

******

As with the recent reform of the Pontifical Academy for Life, Pope Francis interpreted the right to life broadly, not just as referring to a prohibition against the arbitrary deprivation of life, but to include wider social justice and security concerns, including the environment, disarmament, peace, and achieve universal health coverage.

Jon Gruden - the new Oakland Raider head coach

I always liked Gruden (and the Raiders).

He was their former coach and after he left he defeated them in the Super Bowl, while coaching Tampa Bay. He's been doing Monday Night Football commentating for the last nine years.

Interesting interview if you're into football  - he's a bright guy.

 

Canadian PM Justin Trudeau says I'm "out of line with society"

UPDATE: See half minute video below

Along with plenty of other people. Justin, well we will see, won't we ... hit the link for the whole thing.

Justin Trudeau, Canada’s radically pro-abortion prime minister, blasted pro-life advocates Wednesday amid a nation-wide outrage about barring pro-life groups from a federal grant program.

... the prime minister made the remarks Wednesday during a town hall event in Hamilton, Ontario. They came in answer to questions from a college student who attended the meeting.

“If you’re pro-life then you are ridiculed and insulted, but if you’re pro-choice then you’re praised,” the student told Trudeau, according to the National Post. “And I just want to know if this [free speech] is important to you.”

********

In the past, both pro-life and pro-abortion organizations have received grants to offer jobs to young adults. However, pro-abortion political leaders recently cut off grants to groups that will not bow to the altar of abortion on demand.

The new requirement by Trudeau’s government prompted a massive outcry from the public. Hundreds of charities, religious groups and other non-profits are protesting the government’s demand ...

 

sad...

How the world’s fastest ultra-endurance athlete trains (Hint - all the time)

This is a funky video. he likes to do one easy week -- a year. Here is Kilian Jornet's bio - and he's won a whole lot of long races...

"How do I train" is an unconventional training guide. Signed by Kilian Jornet, who started training the day he was born. The mountain was its playing ground and without realizing it he layed the foundations of a philosophy that is based on repeating, trying and failing. Now, he trains outdoors seven days a week with a clear mantra: "If you don't enjoy, you will never improve.

 

Farandaville: Chinchillas run wild

So by way of background reminder, Spiderman is the daughter (oops, son) of Dusty and sister of Toby. Spiderman & Toby's father (may he rest in peace) is Chili. Once Chili departed for Chin-heaven the basic family decision was - no more baby Chins. HOWEVER, a few months ago, Brigid and Joe went back on that and suddenly Rylai joined Farandaville. Rylai is a young lady. Recently she and Spiderman started cohabiting and may be in a relationship. Here is a photo expose' about Spiderman and Rylai (named for a character in the widely popular online game Dota).

They have a spacious residence. Spiderman is the darker of the two; and maybe slightly smaller then Rylai.

Spiderman - being a bit aloof.

And a few of the newbie, Rylai. Along with co-animal keeper, Joe.

Good whisker view

And chinchillas do kiss ... at least Joe ...

No doubt, more to follow.

Another for the dumb comment archives - to go along with the recent Trump one

        

Mr. Trump's comment about "shithole countries" will come back to haunt him So will this one from Mrs. Pelosi - on the tax cut being "crumbs" and "so pathetic." Easy to say when you're net worth is over $29 million. She is not in the real world.

 

And here's how the Wall Street Journal reported the President's comments -

A bipartisan group of senators said Thursday they had reached an agreement to protect young undocumented immigrants, but President Donald Trump roiled the debate by questioning why the U.S. would admit people from "shithole countries."

Mr. Trump made the comments at a private White House immigration meeting in questioning why the U.S. would want to admit people from Africa, the source of many diversity lottery applicants, according to two people briefed on the meeting.

"What do we want all these people from these shithole countries here. We should have people from places like Norway," the president said, according to these two people. Mr. Trump also expressed dismay with granting a legal status, in particular, to people from Haiti. One person said he asked, "What do we want Haitians here for?"

A White House spokesman didn't confirm or deny those comments.

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase, predicting 4% growth this year. And regrets calling bitcoin "a fraud"

Jamie Dimon is no Trump supporter - in fact he's a Democrat - but a realist when it comes to business and the economy.

This from Marketwatch -

‘If we have a couple of years of good growth, that could justify the markets where they are. Four percent economic growth this year is possible’ Those were the thoughts of JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon, who offered a forecast for U.S. economic growth that outstrips even some of the more bullish economists.

Dimon said he expects the “competitive tax rate” to encourage deal-making on Wall Street, pointing to Europe which he said is on pace to grow at a 3% rate. A reading of gross domestic product is slated for Jan. 26.

In the U.S., the economy grew at a 3.1% annual pace in the second quarter and a 3.2% annual rate in the third, according to the Commerce Department, exceeding the postrecession pace of near 2% A fresh estimate of gross domestic product is slated for Jan. 26.

“The economy is doing quite well” @jpmorgan ceo Jamie Dimon “if we have a couple of years of good growth, that could justify the markets where they are. 4% economic growth this year is possible”

My prediction - don't bet the farm on my prediction - Dow most likely to reach 28,000 by end of year. If I had to bet, that would be my bet. 

Here is his comment on bitcoin -

JPMorgan Chase Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon is softening his stance on bitcoin. In an interview with Fox Business, Mr. Dimon said, "I regret making" the comment about the digital currency. In September, Mr. Dimon said during a conference that bitcoin is "a fraud," and he'd fire any trader in his company who was buying or selling it. "The blockchain is real," Mr. Dimon said Tuesday, referring to the open-ledger technology that underpins the trading of bitcoin and other digital currencies.

WSJ - book review of "Fire and Fury"

A short and somewhat amusing review. I've excerpted the beginning and ending paragraphs below the link, since there is a paywall. The reviewer is Barton Swaim.

Michael Wolff has done what the rest of us chump writers can only dream of: He has gotten himself and his book denounced by a sitting U.S. president on live television. That, together with a cease-and-desist letter sent from the president’s attorneys to the publisher, will ensure not only that the book makes Mr. Wolff a truckload of money but also that it gets talked about for a generation. “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House” is thus in a class with Salman Rushdie’s “Satanic Verses”—by itself a forgettable book, certainly not Mr. Rushdie’s best, but remembered forever as having provoked a death sentence from Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini.

In one sense, “Fire and Fury” is a typical piece of “access journalism,” as it’s known, like many titles by Bob Woodward or, on the more gossipy side, like the “Game Change” books by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. Mr. Wolff takes the genre to another level, and perhaps a lower level. If he has employed objective criteria for deciding what to include or exclude, it’s not clear what those criteria are. By the looks of it, he included any story, so long as it was juicy. We’re told, for instance, of Mr. Trump’s supposed method of bedding other men’s wives in his pre-presidential days; of Mr. Trump’s promise to his wife, who had no interest in being first lady, that everything was OK because he wasn’t going to win anyway; of the president’s scolding of the White House cleaning staff for picking up his shirt from the floor (“If my shirt is on the floor, it’s because I want it on the floor”); and many other such weird tales.

Former chief political strategist Steve Bannon was evidently the source of the book’s most staggering revelations—if “revelations” is the right word for the sort of titillating office gossip that Mr. Wolff reports as fact.

******

Mr. Wolff has been hotly criticized by prominent members of the news media for his slipshod reporting, but in this regard his manner isn’t so different from much of today’s political journalism—not just books of access journalism like this one but the day-to-day reporting issuing from our most prestigious news outlets. Reporters, especially though not exclusively political reporters, are more interested in the meaning of facts than in the facts themselves. They’re concerned with interpretation rather than accuracy, with “narrative” rather than detail, with explaining rather than disclosing, with who’s happy or angry about a story rather than whether it’s true, with what’s likely to happen next week or next year rather than with what happened yesterday.

If Mr. Wolff had considered it his job to tell us what happened, and not merely to offer up his own clever interpretation of what happened, he might not have felt emboldened to repeat every unseemly tidbit he could extract from murmuring White House staffers. But then he wouldn’t have gotten rich.

Love this mug: "Kennedy and Reagan"

Pretty cool - being promoted (fundraiser of course) by a group called "No labels" that tries to be non-partisan.

Al Gore: ‘Bitter cold’ is ‘exactly what we should expect from the climate crisis’

Any time it's cold, any time it's hot, any time it's dry, any time it's rainy  - it's climate change.

Former Vice President Al Gore has weighed in on the record cold and snow in the U.S. “It’s bitter cold in parts of the US, but climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann explains that’s exactly what we should expect from the climate crisis,” Gore wrote on January 4 on Twitter.

Amazing: "A look at Washington salaries that may shock you"

Watching this - be sure to watch all five minutes - the line "Nice work if you can get it" came to mind. 30,000 federal employees earning more than the best paid State governor? More than a Senator? 30,000? What are they doing?

 

LIVE: The Clinton home fire after new investigation announced

From my friend Fran, who stays on top of these things.

"EXCLUSIVE: Live look-in on Chappaqua where the home of Bill & Hillary Clinton is currently on fire."

2:48 PM - Jan 3, 2018

New science on ancient migration to the Americas

Good piece in the NY Times. Not a short article so my excerpts don't do it justice. Hit the link if you're interested.

The analysis, published in the journal Nature, shows that the child belonged to a hitherto unknown human lineage, a group that split off from other Native Americans just after — or perhaps just before — they arrived in North America. “It’s the earliest branch in the Americas that we know of so far,” said Eske Willerslev of the University of Copenhagen, a co-author of the new study. As far as he and other scientists can tell, these early settlers endured for thousands of years before disappearing.

The study strongly supports the idea that the Americas were settled by migrants from Siberia, and experts hailed the genetic evidence as a milestone. “There has never been any ancient Native American DNA like it before,” said David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School who was not involved in the study.

******

Xach’itee’aanenh T’eede Gaay, they discovered, was more closely related to living Native Americans than to any other living people or to DNA extracted from other extinct lineages. But she belonged to neither the northern or southern branch of Native Americans.

Instead, Xach’itee’aanenh T’eede Gaay was part of a previously unknown population that diverged genetically from the ancestors of Native Americans about 20,000 years ago, Dr. Willerslev and his colleagues concluded. They now call these people Ancient Beringians.

Beringia refers to Alaska and the eastern tip of Siberia, and to the land bridge that joined them during the last ice age. Appearing and disappearing over the eons, it has long been suspected as the route that humans took from Asia to the Western Hemisphere.

There has been little archaeological evidence, however, perhaps because early coastal settlements were submerged by rising seas. Thanks to her unique position in the Native American family tree, Xach’itee’aanenh T’eede Gaay has given scientists a clear idea how this enormous step in human history may have happened.

Looks like the Weinstein Company sale will wipe out it's owners equity.

From the Wall Street Journal. Too bad, eh? My heart is breaking. The sale price will pay off debt and lawsuits.

Weinstein Co. is nearing the end of a sale process in which the embattled independent film studio could go for less than $500 million and its shareholders may lose all of their equity, said people close to the discussions.

With operating expenses and legal bills mounting for Weinstein Co., the studio’s current owners would receive no cash from a sale at that price, the people added. In addition to co-chairman Bob Weinstein and his brother, Harvey, who was fired as co-chairman in October following allegations of sexual assault and harassment, Weinstein Co. investors include advertising giant WPP Group , Goldman Sachs Group Inc., and Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp.

Spokesmen for WPP and Goldman declined to comment. A SoftBank representative couldn’t be reached for comment.

Some of the bidders are interested only in certain assets such as the studio’s television production company, which makes “Project Runway” and the coming series “Waco” and “Yellowstone” for Viacom Inc.’s Paramount Network, and its library of independent films such as “The Imitation Game” and “Django Unchained.”

Ms. Contreras-Sweet’s group sent a letter indicating that it would keep the studio intact and operating with many of its current 157 employees; it is unclear whether other bidders have offered such assurances.

Here's what was the worst past prediction for 2017

Predictably, from the NY Times Paul Krugman. You can't be more wrong then this. And it's a good, instructive 4 minute video on business and economics.

1PM, out our front window

Only a couple inches of snow - but the wind!! Working out of the house today - a no brainer.

Here's the real Molly from the movie "Molly's Game"

I had no idea - and didn't care - about what Molly's Game was about. Turns out she's quite the entrepreneur.

 

J.R.R. Tolkien birthday today

He was born today in 1892. The picture below is of him in 1916 when he was in the British army and 24 years old. He had a very difficult childhood; father died when he was very young and mother converted to Catholicism, was disowned by her family and then died of diabetes when he was 12 and she was 34. After WW 1 he is said all but one of his close friends died during the war. Of course one of the great writers of the 20th century. As in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. (Both of these are available for free on kindle if you have amazon prime, or for $3.99 if you don't.)

I got piqued last week while Brigid and I were watching an excellent PBS (channel 132 in Croton) one hour show Tolkien & Lewis Myth, Imagination & The Quest For Meaning and ordered two other books - to join the hundreds of others in my house, waiting for me to read - The Tolkien Reader and The letters of JRR Tokien.

Here's the picture - certainly nothing like he looked when he became famous - and below that a well-known quote from one of his letters -

Actually I am a Christian, and indeed a Roman Catholic, so that I do not expect 'history' to be anything but a 'long defeat' - though it contains (and in a legend may contain more clearly and movingly) some samples or glimpses of final victory.