The Breakfast Club (On The Road Pt. 1)

I will be busy this weekend visiting relatives and TMC will be out of town also.  Normally (and I’m not bragging or wanting anyone to feel bad about their contribution) these take me from 3 to 4 hours to do, exclusive of the time spent reading to find the material.

What takes the time is writing the front part (sometimes more and sometimes less, depending on the depth of treatment) and expanding the news stories with quotes (always a slog and terrifically time consuming).

Anyway, while I’m on the road I’m dispensing with the tricky and time consuming (and amusing and informative I hope) bits and formating everything as blog posts (title, author, publication) which will save a ton of time better spent on napping or socializing with people who already think I’m a driven eccentric (which is of course, true).

I apologize to you dear reader for this blatant disregard of your needs and feelings and can only promise that I shall return from this exhausted and cranky (I shall be dealing with children and I like them just fine if properly prepared), and resume my normal sub-standard output as soon as I can decently get away with it.

Science Oriented Video

The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations – then so much the worse for Maxwell’s equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation – well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.

–Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (1927)

Science News and Blogs

• Astronomers Describe the Chaotic Dance of Pluto’s Moons, By KENNETH CHANG, The New York Times
• Pluto’s moons tumble in orbit, Hubble measurements reveal, by Hannah Devlin, The Guardian
• Chimpanzees Would Cook if Given the Chance, Research Says, by James Gorman, The New York Times
• Chimps like chips. They would be cooking if they could, by Henry Nicholls, The Guardian
• Medicine’s Hidden Roots in an Ancient Manuscript, By MARK SCHROPE, The New York Times
• Fully dressed and preserved 350-year-old corpse of French noblewoman found, by Kim Willsher, The Guardian
• Death on the Steppes: Mystery Disease Kills Saigas, By CARL ZIMMER, The New York Times
• Most dinosaurs had scales, not feathers, fossil analysis concludes, by Ian Sample, The Guardian
• Sawfish escape extinction through ‘virgin births’, scientists discover, by Hannah Devlin, The Guardian
• Pentagon Seeks Easing of Ban on Russian Rockets for U.S. Space Missions, By STEVEN LEE MYERS, The New York Times
• More Labs Are Likely to Have Mistakenly Received Anthrax Samples, Military Says, By HELENE COOPER, The New York Times
• Fooling ourselves with science: hoaxes, retractions and the public, by Roger Pielke Jr, The Guardian

Obligatories, News and Blogs below.

Obligatories

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

I would never make fun of LaEscapee or blame PhilJD.  And I am highly organized.

This Day in History

News

• WikiLeaks releases documents related to controversial US trade pact, by Sam Thielman and Phillip Inman, The Guardian
• Pentagon unsure how live anthrax went to 51 US labs and three countries, Associated Press
• Back from the dead: US officials to ask secret court to revive NSA surveillance, by Spencer Ackerman, The Guardian
• Ex-FIFA Official Chuck Blazer Admitted Accepting Bribes for World Cup Votes, By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD, The New York Times
• FBI Is Looking Into Russia And Qatar’s World Cup Bids, Reuters
• Greek leader meets eurozone creditors – but as expected, no deal yet, by Ian Traynor, The Guardian
• Democrats Wage a National Fight Over Voter Rules, By MAGGIE HABERMAN and AMY CHOZICK, The New York Times
• Prosecutor Receives Findings in Fatal Shooting of Tamir Rice by Cleveland Police, By MITCH SMITH, The New York Times
• Liberals plot new way to blow up Obama’s trade deal, By Greg Sargent, Washington Post
• The FCC Just Made It Easier to Raise Your Cable Rates, By Brendan Sasso, National Journal
• Pink Slips at Disney. But First, Training Foreign Replacements., By JULIA PRESTON, The New York Times
• Pipeline In Santa Barbara Spill Was Corroded: Report, By MICHAEL R. BLOOD and BRIAN MELLEY, Associated Press
• Yellowstone rangers tell tourists: if you mess with the bison, you get the horns, Associated Press
• Replica of Revolutionary War-era French ship to arrive in US, Associated Press

Blogs

• Edward Snowden awarded Bjornson Prize for speaking truth to power, by Frederick Leatherman, Firedog Lake
• Congress Did Not Pass an Anti-Surveillance Law (And Other Thoughts About the USA Freedom Act), by Kevin Gosztola, Firedog Lake
• New Questions About Conflict-of-Interest Throw Doubt on APA’s “Independent Review” of CIA Links, by Jeff Kaye, Firedog Lake
• FBI Successfully Runs Out the Clock on DOJ’s Inspector General Review of Use of Phone Metadata, by emptywheel
• Report Reveals $8.5 Trillion Missing From Pentagon Budget, Crooks & Liars
• The Murky ISIS ‘Social Media Plot’ in Boston, by Charles Pierce, Esquire
• Sorkin on the Street’s Surge of Suicides: Ignoring the Obvious by William K. Black, New Economic Perspectives
• If You Want to Beat Big Finance, You Need to be Able to Take the Fight to Their Terrain, by Yves Smith, naked capitalism
• Judges Call Out Prosecutors For Overreach; Call Out Third Judge For Suggesting Courts Shouldn’t Challenge Government, by Tim Cushing, Tech Dirt
• Why Do Our Senators Keep Calling Ed Snowden ‘Eric Snowden’?, by Mike Masnick, Tech Dirt
• Pentagon Offered ‘FOIA Terrorist’ Jason Leopold A Stack Of Documents To Just Shut Up And Go Away Forever, by Tim Cushing, Tech Dirt
• As Merger Mania Rises, Cable And Broadband Customer Satisfaction Worse Than Ever, by Karl Bode, Tech Dirt