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.
This Day in History
A divided U.S. Supreme Court halts the presidential recount in Florida, effectively making Republican George W. Bush the winner. Frank Sinatra is born.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
May you live to be 100 and may the last voice you hear be mine.
Breakfast News
Justin Trudeau greets Syrian refugees arriving in Canada
The first Canadian government plane carrying Syrian refugees has arrived in Toronto, where they were greeted by the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, who is pushing forward with his pledge to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees by the end of February. [..]
The flight arrived just before midnight carrying the first of two large groups of Syrians into the country by government aircraft.
Trudeau greeted the first two families to come through processing. The first family was a man, woman and 16-month-old girl. The second family was a man, woman, and three daughters, two of whom are twins. Trudeau and Ontario’s premier, Kathleen Wynne, welcomed them to Canada and gave them winter coats. Both families said they were happy to be there.
Climate change means days are getting longer, scientists find
The impact of climate change may appear to be overwhelmingly negative but there is a bright spot for those who struggle to find enough time in the day: melting glaciers are causing the rotation of the Earth to slow thereby lengthening our days, new research has found.
Harvard University researchers have provided an answer to a long-held conundrum over how shrinking glaciers are affecting the rotation and axis of the Earth, calculating that the duration of a day has lengthened by a millisecond over the past 100 years.
Chemical giants Dow Chemical and DuPont announce $130bn merger
Even in a year that will go down in history for the number of huge mergers, the $130bn combination of Dow Chemical and DuPont announced on Friday is a behemoth.
The merger would combine two companies that sell pesticides, plant foods and genetically modified crops to millions of farmers around the world, and make a variety of chemicals for consumer and industrial products ranging from electronics, automobiles as well as household goods to building materials and safety equipment.
The all-stock merger calls for the two companies to combine as Dow DuPont, then separate into three independent publicly traded companies focused on agriculture, material science and specialty products.
Banksy uses Steve Jobs artwork to highlight refugee crisis
Banksy has revealed a new artwork, sprayed on a wall in the Calais refugee camp called “the Jungle”, intended to address negative attitudes towards the thousands of people living there.
The work depicts the late Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, with a black bin bag thrown over one shoulder and an original Apple computer in his hand. The work is a pointed reference to Jobs’s background as the son of a Syrian migrant who went to America after the second world war.
In a rare statement accompanying the work, Banksy said: “We’re often led to believe migration is a drain on the country’s resources but Steve Jobs was the son of a Syrian migrant. Apple is the world’s most profitable company, it pays over $7bn (£4.6bn) a year in taxes – and it only exists because they allowed in a young man from Homs.”
Julius Caesar battlefield unearthed in southern Netherlands
Archaeologists claim to have proved that Julius Caesar set foot on what is now Dutch soil, destroying two Germanic tribes in a battle that left about 150,000 people dead.
The tribes were massacred in the fighting with the Roman emperor in 55BC, on a battle site now in Kessel, in the southern province of Brabant.
Skeletons, spearheads, swords and a helmet have been unearthed at the site over the past three decades. But now carbon dating as well as other historical and geochemical analysis have proved the items dated to the 1st century, the VU University in Amsterdam said.
“It is the first time the presence of Caesar and his troops on Dutch soil has been explicitly shown,” said Nico Roymans, an archaeologist at the institution.
Breakfast Blogs
“Encryption” Is Just Intel Code for “Failure to Achieve Omniscience” emptywheel aka Marcy Wheeler, emptywheel
These Cliven Bundy Impersonators Took Millions in Government Handouts Charles Pierce, Esquire Poltics
She’ll never try to “help anyone again. Good. digby aka Heather Digby Parton, Hullabaloo
Terrifying: Spike in threats and intimidation on women’s clinics, activists and doctors by extremist anti-choicers Amanda Marcotte, Salon
Big Banks In a Tizzy Want to Take Their Billions and Go Home David Dayen, The Intercept
How Economics and Race Drive America’s Great Divide Lynn Paramore, The Institute for new Economic Thinking