Maggie's Farm

Well, another Monday has rolled around. Time to leave the old rack and earn the spondulac. Exit your cribs to get the dibs.  Act the noble savage to get the happy cabbage.  Brave the debris to get the dough-re-mi. Feel the balm of the oil of palm. I hope by close of business that you pile the oof up to the roof.

Your humble blogger (I've never encountered of one of those, but stay with me) doesn't get a day off, even though blogging is dead. Oh, you haven't heard? You know; that blogging is dead? It was all over the blogs a year ago.

I have my doubts. I read blogs, including this one. Then again, I'm not like most people, so maybe you should take what I say at a heavy discount. I still bring my lunch to work in a plaid metal lunchbox. You should probably find a more forward-looking guru, like H.G. Wells or something.

Let's test out the blogging is dead theory. We'll visit the first blog in the Maggie's blogroll listed under "Mostly Political", Ace of Spades, and take a look at their blogroll. If it's full of going concerns, we'll forget the whole idea of the end of blogging. If tumbleweeds reign supreme, I'll be the first to throw a handful of dirt in my own face:

Alarming News: Just a bunch of links to writing done elsewhere
Ambient Irony: Dead
American Digest: Very much alive
The Anchoress: Dead
Anticipatory Retaliation: Dead
Antidisestablishmentarianismesque: Abandoned
Anwyn: Abandoned
Armies of Liberation: Dead
Attu Sees All: Contains one post from five years ago
Bad State of Gruntledness: Taken over by a porn site
Bastard Sword: Nothing since 2006
The Baron: Dead
The Bastige: No idea what's going on there, but it's not a blog anymore
Beautiful Atrocities: Taken over by a Thai spammer, then abandoned anyway
Beleaguered Conservative: Abandoned or hijacked. I'd rather touch Charlie Sheen's pecker than press the redirect button on that page

Well, you see what I mean. I can assure you that the percentage of live blogs to festering pixel corpses doesn't improve as you continue down the blogroll. I guess it's true what Sir Walter Scott said about blogging: 

Despite those URLs, PayPal buttons, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored, and unlinked. 

I'm not picking on Ace, of course. He doesn't have time to read his blog. If he's like most bloggers, he leaves his blogroll as it was eight years ago, as a kind of shrine to his friends, many of whom are his commenters, I'm sure.

So blogs are dead, I guess. Long live ... I dunno: Short-form articles written daily?

The Global "Vietnam"

"Don’t do stupid shit" was a synonym for "I'm not going to get trapped in a Vietnam".  However Rothkopf observed that the most important Red Line in Obama's world could be crossed the other way around.  You could get into Vietnam by backing into it. The administration's greatest weakness was failing to realize that inaction was also policy. Not doing something could also be "stupid shit" and passivity was no protection from landing ass backwards in a quagmire.

Obama is barely smart enough to order the most expensive thing on the menu at a Sizzler, and the press corps thinks he's a polymath.

Bosch's Giant Robot Can Punch Weeds to Death

The most organic and eco-friendly way of dealing with weeds is the old-fashioned way: physically removing them. “Physical removal” can mean pulling weeds out completely, but that involves both grasping the weed and doing something with it. A better solution is to just smash it way down into the ground, which is faster, easier, and something a robot can do excellently

If this works better than the current eco-friendly method, which is having illegal aliens crapping on the weeds, then Chipotle and I are all for it.

How to Baffle Web Trackers by Obfuscating Your Movements Online

“Unless you want to go live in a cave away from society,” Nissenbaum notes, you need to be online—often for work or to access government services. Online services claim they’re voluntary, but the cost of being a refusenik grows every day.In this context, obfuscation is a clever judo move. It’s a way for people in a relatively weak position—which is to say all of us, compared with Google or Facebook—to fight back.

Living in a cave is the alternative, huh? You could, you know, shut the goddamned thing off.

Top 10 Ways Wood Pellets Beat Firewood

Federal and state regulations for burning firewood are increasing yearly. If you’re worried that you might not be able to heat your home using your existing wood stove or wood furnace, changing over to burning wood pellets is a smart move.

I say the old ways are the best ways, so I'm going to stick with burning peat in a brazier in the middle of my great hall, thanks. 

Nutrition is personal. Identical foods produce “healthy” and “unhealthy” responses in different individuals.

Participant A maintained a stable blood glucose level after eating a cookie but responded with elevated glucose levels after eating a banana. Conversely, participant B experienced an increase in blood glucose level after eating a cookie, but not after consuming a banana.

In order to test my personal reaction to ingesting a cookie, a banana, and seven scotch and sodas, you're going to have to give me a banana and a cookie.

The strange case of 77 blue-collar Chinese migrants that Kenya is calling “cyber-hackers”

Less than three months after his arrival, Luo and 76 other Chinese were arrested. They have been in jail for nearly a year, accused of running an illegal call center and engaging in or intending to commit cybercrime—charges of which they say they are innocent. If convicted, they face up to 15 years in prison.

Help, I'm a Chinese businessman being held in a Kenyan jail, and I'll transfer one million dollars to your account if you'll just pay my bail. Please enter your bank account information...

Independent Music Is Big. Really, Really Big.

The “music industry” is a misnomer itself since it lends credence to the thought that there is a singular music industry in which to exist and do business. This is incorrect because there are in fact multiple paradigms that exist within the music universe, all of which operate according to very different rules. Independent music is a whole different world than major label music, and thus the opportunities that lie there do not necessarily mirror the opportunities that lie in the latter.

After reading the article, I realize I have no idea how anything works anymore, but neither does anyone else, so I don't feel bad.

Why has Italian cinema lost its appeal abroad?

When I speak about the failure of Italian films to translate, I’m not only referring to the work of auteurs beloved by a fairly esoteric circle of scholars and cinephiles. An excellent picture like Gomorra, for example—based on an international best seller and the winner of the Special Jury Prize in Cannes—did poorly at the U.S. box office: it shows the worse of Italy with neither a clear plot nor the possibility of redemption. The protagonists imitate Scarface and the mobsters from Goodfellas, but we hardly understand their names or their motivations, and we witness only the violent squalor of their lives.

Why has Italian cinema lost its appeal? Sophia Loren's bustline finally dipped below the horizon. It's really that simple. And stop calling her abroad.

What I’ve learned from sitting next to a pro salesman

The first thing our salesman did was to ask for our leads that did not convert. Big portion of these leads were from trade-shows. So he asked for the business cards we collected. I remember asking myself “Why the hell would he need the cards for”. He was looking for phone numbers, it turns out a prospect that did not answer to 30 emails will answer the phone and might even be a pretty easy sell. Yes, phone is intrusive, it’s bold and maybe the other side does not expect it but it works big time.

The author talks in wonderment when the salesman asks about the health of a customer's family members before trying to sell them things. The concept of using good manners, or any manners at all, doesn't even register as "a thing" with the author. Honestly, iPhones have utterly destroyed an entire generation of human beings.

Coming soon: chicken meat without slaughter

Dutch tissue engineer Mark Post made international news last year when he cooked up a beef burger made from lab-cultured cow muscle tissue. He claims that within a couple of decades, fairly priced cultured meat could satisfy the world’s growing demand for meat while eliminating the ethical and environmental problems of raising animals for food.

I've raised chickens. Chicken breast grown in a petri dish will be 10 percent smarter than any chicken I've ever met.

OK, everybody, time to get after that spondulac!

Well, it's Sunday. That means Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes in the morning, and Sunday-go-to-hell clothes in the afternoon. You know, for puttering around the house.

What's that? You don't putter? That's a shame. It must be hard to putter when you live in a concrete martin house in the city like you all do. You need a jackhammer to hang a picture, and they're a bear to get past the doorman without a lengthy explanation.

Me, I live in the country. I can get dressed up like a scarecrow and have at my house any time I want. I can point to the gutters or point to the lawn or point to the snow-covered driveway with the best of 'em. Then I say yo no entiendo and point at my wife when it's time for the crew to get paid.  After that, it's off to the couch to watch America's true pastime: Filling out spreadsheets with football players' names on them, and betting on them.

I must admit I don't keep up with the gridiron game as closely as I used to. Say, did you know the Rams moved out of Cleveland? Well, Los Angeles is a better home for them anyway, and I'm sure they'll stick there indefinitely. I've noticed the cheerleaders don't look like girls in college anymore, either. They look like cocktail waitresses in a lounge on an oil platform. C'est la vie.

I put a picture of The Maid of Orleans I swiped from our friend Vanderleun's page atop Maggie's page this morning. At least I think it's old Joanie. The hairstyle and blank eyes could also indicate that the statue is the rhythm guitar player in Badfinger. I'm not sure about the sword and armor, though. That's more of a heavy metal thing, I think.

A little lower down on his webpage, Vanderleun seems to think Marine Le Pen is a new Joan of Arc, but I'm not feelin' it. Before they gave Joan the hot stake instead of the cold chop, she seemed rather more serious about being Catholic than getting a corner office at the Quai d'Orsay. France doesn't need someone that dislikes Moslems. France needs Moslems who fear Catholics. Jeanne bent her eye on vacancy and with the incorporeal air did hold discourse. And the sword wasn't a prop. Unfortunately, she's not on the ballot.

On to the news:

Vatican to try five, including reporters, over leaks scandal

The Vatican on Saturday ordered five people, including two Italian journalists, to stand trial for leaking and publishing secret documents, in the latest development in a leaks scandal which is rocking the papacy. The trial stems from the publication of two recent books which depict a Vatican plagued by mismanagement, greed and corruption and where Pope Francis faces stiff resistance from the old guard to his reform agenda.The Holy See was embarrassed and angered by the books, which it said used information that should never have been allowed to leave the walls of the city state.

Let's borderline blaspheme and ask, WWJAD? (What would Joan of Arc do?) I'm no expert, and think it presumptuous to speak for her, but I have an inkling whatever she'd do, she'd do it to Frankie, not the reporters, and it would leave a mark.

New Orleans Medical Student Shot While Trying to Stop Attack on Woman

Surveillance video released by the New Orleans Police Department shows a hooded man dragging a staggering woman around 4:30 a.m. Friday. Moments later, a car stops and another man, identified as Peter Gold, 25, gets out while appearing to make a call on his cellphone."The victim drove up and attempted to assist the woman at which point the suspect pointed a gun at him and demanded money," New Orleans Police said in a statement."The victim explained to the suspect repeatedly that he did not have any cash. The suspect became enraged and shot the victim once in the stomach," the statement said.

Speaking of Orleans, WWJAD? It's not for me to say, but I imagine she would kneel down and tenderly kiss that brave man on his furrowed brow, nurse his wounds, and then go off to see if it was possible to fit the second man into a tuna can.

Exclusive: In Paris attack, nurse discovers the man he tried to save was bomber

When he tore open the man's t-shirt, David quickly realized that what he initially thought was a gas explosion at the cafe close to the Bataclan music hall where gunmen killed 89, was actually something far worse."There were wires; one white, one black, one red and one orange. Four different colors," he told Reuters. "I knew then he was a suicide bomber." The man David was trying to resuscitate was Brahim Abdeslam, one of those involved in a series of deadly attacks that killed 130 people at bars, restaurants, a soccer stadium and a music hall. No one other than Abdeslam died at the cafe.

WWJAD? I am a sinner, not a saint, so don't trust me, but I figure she would commend that nurse for showing simple Christian charity to all. Then if the bomber recovered from his wounds, she'd give him a 12" haircut.

More than 1,000 attend funeral for veteran with no family

As the 10 a.m. service began, the church was filled with strangers who came to say goodbye to a man they never knew. The funeral director says more than 1,000 showed up.“What started out as small internal service for a forgotten individual turned into a public affirmation I think not only of his life, but every life,” said Bruce Buchanan of Flanner and Buchanan Funeral Centers.

WWJAD? This one is easier. She would weep, as did I.

Amish man runs marathon in traditional slacks and suspenders

Twenty-two-year-old Leroy Stolzfus finished the 26.2-mile Harrisburg Marathon on Nov. 8 in just over three hours and five minutes, all while wearing his community's traditional clothing, Pennlive.com reported.Stolzfus said he's used to running in slacks and suspenders, and he believes he would have run closer to a three-hour marathon if he hadn't started out so fast."I was feeling good, but I kind of almost crashed at mile 15," Stolzfus said.

WWJAD? She'd run next to him, clanking all the way. Then they'd stop five yards shy of the finish line and pray for the other runners to catch up.

Green campaigner readies to swim the Pacific

Now aged 48, the naturalized American says he is so worried about the future of his two children, eight and 14, that he's returning to the water to raise awareness of the dire problems in the Pacific, hoping to become the first person to cross the ocean without a flotation device.Lecomte's team includes six crew members on the Rolano, publicists and managers on land, and scientists at several American institutions, including the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, who will collect data, including plankton species and radiation levels.

WWJAD? Mention she needed fewer people to save France.

Sword-wielding psycho freaks out at Apple Store

A man swinging a samurai sword fought an imaginary duel Friday on the glass spiral staircase of the bustling Apple Store on Fifth Avenue as frightened tourists and computer geeks looked on. Video posted to Instagram shows the swordsman walking up the staircase, and then sitting on it while performing pretend lunges and parries for his startled audience at around 3:55 p.m.

WWJAD? Trick question. She's not an Apple person. That was William Tell. Joan wore armor, so I imagine she was more of a Chrome user.

Treasure trove: Farmer discovers 4,000 Roman coins in Swiss orchard

When you spot a glimmering object in your back garden, it rarely ends up being anything more valuable than aluminum-foil. But one farmer in Switzerland has hit the jackpot after discovering a treasure trove of Roman coins thought to be more than 1,700 years old. Further excavation -- with the help of the regional archaeological service -- revealed 4,166 coins buried in Ueken, in the northern canton of Aargau, Switzerland.

WWJAD? She'd probably remind you to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's. Then she'd point out that Caesar has been dead for two thousand years, and split the dough with you.

Well, I hope you all have a nice Sunday, and if you think it might be fun or enlightening, you can wonder WWJAD about everything in your life today. I know for a dead cert she wouldn't take the points and bet on the Cleveland Rams. Obvious Saints fan.

It's common for humans to personalize things that don't have anything to do with us in particular. For instance, many people looked at today's news and espied a massacre at the Radisson Hotel in Mali. It was perpetrated by Al Qaeda, or Alcoa, or Al Kaline, or Boko Loko, or Procul Harem, or whatever those pesky Mohammedans are printing on their bowling shirts these days. Some observers immediately wondered what it meant to them.

Be honest. It's possible your first reaction to seeing the mayhem in Mali was, "I've been in worse Radissons than that! That one in Naperville didn't even have USA Todays in the lobby, and I couldn't tell the difference between the continental breakfast and the wet nap." That's hardly commendable, but it's understandable. It's no less sensible than rending your garments over it before changing the channel to The True Game of Downton Boardwalk Thrones. Bad things happen all day, every day. You're not the king of the world, as far as I know.

Tragedy is when I stub my toe; comedy is when you fall into an open manhole and die. It's not as heartless as it sounds. Our reactions to the things we encounter in the news must be tempered by proportionality. We are all charged to look after our selves, our family, our friends, our community, our country, and then mankind -- in that order. Making gigantic, pointless, histrionic demonstrations of how much you care about people so far away they might as well be an abstraction isn't of any use to anyone. I've also noticed that people that make a big deal out of loving humanity in general usually leave a 5 percent tip after a four-hour meal, then go home and beat their wives. Or start the Soviet Union. Talk is cheap.

The level of moral preening abroad in the land grows daily. College students are demanding that Woodrow Wilson get airbrushed out of their textbooks to signal they're ready for three minutes hate. That way they can accuse anyone who stops after two minutes of being a kulak reactionary Goldstein fan.

It puts me in mind of King Charles II. After he was restored to the British throne, he dug up the corpse of Oliver Cromwell, the man who had beheaded his father, and had Cromwell's festering corpse drawn, hung, and beheaded. His father must have looked down from heaven, or more likely up from the other place, and thought to himself, "That's swell and all, but it would have been handier nine years ago."

On to the news:

Pope Francis calls Christmas a ‘charade’ as the ‘world continues to wage war’

Pope Francis said Thursday in a sermon that Christmas this year will be a “charade” because the “world continues to wage war” and “we do not understand peace." “Today, Jesus weeps as well because we have chosen the way of war, the way of hatred, the way of enmities. We are close to Christmas. There will be lights, there will be parties, bright trees, even Nativity scenes — all decked out — while the world continues to wage war,” he said during Mass at the chapel of the Santa Marta residence in the Vatican.

Christ, bring back the Borgias. What an invertebrate sits on that chair now.

Baltic Dry Index Falls Below 500 for First Time Ever

Slower coal and iron ore demand from China – the world’s biggest industrial importer – have battered the dry bulk sector, already in the midst of its worst ever downturns that is expected to extend well into next year.This week the Baltic Exchange’s main sea freight index , which tracks rates for ships carrying dry bulk commodities and seen by investors as a forward-looking indicator of global industrial activity, plunged to an all-time low.

I wouldn't worry too much about that. The Baltic is no big deal. Put all your hotels on Mediterranean.

The Original Container Ships

By the late 1500s, fleets of Manila galleons had helped Spain lock down lucrative trade routes between its Pacific colonies. Latin American silver mines—some of the richest and most productive in the world—provided Spain with wealth, and its Philippine colony of Manila gave ready access to valuable Asian markets. The fleet traded silver and gold for silk, spices, jewelry, and porcelain. By making just one or two trips a year, Spain tightly controlled supply, ensuring that the highly sought-after luxury goods turned a handy profit.

By ignoring everything but precious metals, Spain ended up with runaway inflation. Digging metal out of the ground to increase the money supply is no different than printing greenbacks.

In America's Little Syria, a divide on accepting refugees

A few days ago, a pastor asked Syrian-born restaurant owner Marie Jarrah to donate food to a welcoming event for recently arrived Syrian refugees. Jarrah, who said she regularly helps people in need, declined. Like many of Allentown's establishment Syrians, she doesn't think it's a good idea to bring refugees to the city. She clung to that view even before last week's terrorist attacks in Paris. "Problems are going to happen," said Jarrah, co-owner of Damascus Restaurant in a heavily Syrian enclave.

Unlike all the little SJW twerps going to Ivy League, I have known lots of real, live Syrians. They're Christian. They came here years ago to get away from the murderous psychos you're inviting over now. But keep on caring deeply about Syrians to earn a sanctimony merit badge on your diploma, kids.

Scientist claims to have detected a parallel universe

Dr. Ranga-Ram Chary believes he may have found evidence that parallel universes have been bumping up against ours, like bubbles floating in a foam, and that these bumps have caused "bruises" that can be observed, reports New Scientist. Chary looked for signs of these cosmic bumps in the Planck map of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), a map of the radiation leftover from the first few moments of our forming universe. It's a map that would look the same no matter where you're viewing it from in the universe; a blueprint, if you will, of the structure of the cosmos.

I used to live in a parallel universe where scientists could produce results twice in a row before they'd claim they'd outdone Newton.

Why young American women are joining ISIS

An estimated 4,500 Westerners have ditched home for the Islamic State or other Sunni jihadist groups in Syria or Iraq. Researchers at New America, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C., collected data on 474 of these cases. They found in news reports an unprecedented number of radicalized women sneaking across borders.“They often appear to be typical teenagers,” said Brigitte Lebans Nacos, a political science professor at Columbia University who studies terrorism. “They ask about hair dryers. They’re looking for romance. They’re fans of ISIS, like others are fans of pop stars.”

I'm often surprised by what surprises people. Chicks dug Rudolph Valentino, too -- until he opened his mouth.

LivingSocial Offers a Cautionary Tale to Today’s Unicorns

Today, LivingSocial is more unicorpse than unicorn. The company never filed for an initial public offering and consumer fervor for daily deals has cooled. T. Rowe Price has written down its stake in LivingSocial to nearly zero, data from Morningstar shows. The company’s work force has shrunk to around 800 employees from 4,500 at its peak in 2011. (Groupon, which did go public, is trading at more than 85 percent below its I.P.O. price.)

The iPhone economy is 99 percent Ponzi. A half dozen companies make money, everybody else borrows over and over again to cover their losses. LivingSocial lost $1.4 billion in 4 years. They simply convinced investors that the electronic equivalent of a flyer that falls out of the newspaper was General Motors.

The Man Who Went From Harvard to Goldman to Colombian Jail

Isaza Tuzman spent more than four years at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., working in emerging markets arbitrage. In 1998, while still at the bank, he co-founded govWorks.com, a website that promised to link people to local municipalities. In the 2001 documentary “Startup.com,” he could be seen pitching venture capitalists and chatting with Bill Clinton at a summit about the Internet.

It's like the sun rising in the east, isn't it? If a Clinton offers to go halfsies on a gold mine, they'll get the gold, you'll get the shaft.

In a remote corner of Romania, neighbours kill each other over tiny strips of land.

When Nicolae Ceaușescu’s dictatorship was brought to a violent end in the revolution of 1989, demand surged for restitution of the lands that had been collectivised during the years of communism. More than 1.5m Romanian farmers started court cases against their neighbours for land claims in the 1990s. Those who had been using the land during communism thought they had as good a claim to it as the descendants of those who had owned it before. Many of the descendants had moved away and were now in the cities. How did they have more of a right to land than those who had been working it for decades? Corruption and complexity swamped the process. Village land commissions, run by the mayors and deputy mayors, became the means of rewarding friends and punishing rivals.

Would you like to find out more? Vote Sanders!

Man called Phuc Dat Bich posts passport to Facebook after being repeatedly banned from site

Phuc Dat Bich, 23, told Facebook followers he finds it “highly irritating” that “nobody seems to believe me when I say that my full legal name is how you see it”.
The photo of his old passport clearly displays the name – whose correct pronunciation is approximately “Phoo Da Bic” – and has been shared tens of thousands of times. “I’ve been accused of using a false and misleading name, which I find very offensive,” wrote the Bank of Australia worker.

My aunt, Carlotta Tendant, feels your pain, dude.

Maggie's Farm readers are our friends. We care about our friends. Stay out of the Radisson!

I'm supposed to read the papers and paste some of the more interesting items on this page for you to peruse. We're all supposed to have a few laughs, go tsk, tsk, or on the odd occasion, applaud what we see. Today I was brought up short, as they say. Like a baby midget in the circus. I'm still capable of being shocked, I guess. The papers are full of man's inhumanity to man these last few days, but nothing about a terrorist attack surprises me anymore. Doesn't even move the meter, I'm ashamed to say.

It was more the mundane aspect of the depravity I discovered that got to me. The everyday humdrum attitude that everyone seems to have about it, like it was traffic or inclement weather. I found myself on the KTLA5 webpage while I was looking for something. I gather that KTLA serves the eastern part of Los Angeles, mostly. Here's a list of the headlines I found on one page, all labeled "Local News":

Downey Police Officer Apparently Targeted in Fatal Shooting in Station Parking Lot

Suspected Carjacker Fatally Shot by Deputies After Allegedly Taking Hostages at Downey Restaurant

Firefighter Fatally Shoots Wife, a Sheriff’s Deputy, in Apparent Murder-Suicide: LASD

Man Holding Knife to Hostage’s Neck in Front of Burning El Monte Home Shot by Police

Suspect in Killing of Woman Found Buried in Valinda Yard Is Fugitive Santeria Priest Accused of Rape

2 Found Dead, Others Injured After Shooting Spree in Banning; Man in Custody: Police

Fresno County ‘Murder Suspect’ Arrested in El Monte on Rape Charge: Authorities

Human Remains, Including Skull, Found at Valinda Home During Dig Linked to Missing Person Case

L.A. County Firefighter Suspected in Sexual Assault Case Arrested Near El Monte School: Police

Man Arrested After Allegedly Filming at Least 7 People in Brea Starbucks Bathroom

Teen Charged After Allegedly Raping 72-Year-Old Woman at Senior Living Apartment Complex in Huntington Beach

The Newspaper neglected to mention that the "fugitive Santeria priest" suspected of murder had raped a child. All the news that fits, I guess, and the fact that the rape victim was a child can't compete with everything else the headline has going on.

I can't say I blame the news organization. They have a lot of ground to cover. I didn't even bother listing all the plain old murders I found on that page. There was a kind of monotony to them. The KTLA news page even tried to get me to pay attention to a car wreck. That doesn't even register as bad news to me anymore after reading the rest of the happenings from one little corner of our world.

Well, don't worry, you can count on me to keep bringing you the news, but as soon as I'm done, I'm shaving my head, putting on flowing robes, and fashioning a placard that reads REPENT, THE WORLD WILL END TOMORROW. You'll find me out on the sidewalk, waving at passing cars, and apologizing to everyone for not making the sign 50 years ago when it would have been timely.

A Florida State University researcher has discovered an artificial material that mimics photosynthesis and potentially creates a sustainable energy source.

His discovery generates exciting new prospects for how this process could be used to forge new energy sources in a carbon neutral way. Potentially, hydrogen could be transported to other locations and burned as fuel.“In theory, this should be a self-sustaining energy source,” Mendoza-Cortes said. “Perhaps in the future, you could put this material on your roof and it could turn rain water into energy with the help of the sun.”But, unlike many other energy sources, this won’t have a negative effect on the environment. “You won’t generate carbon dioxide or waste,” he said.

I see. He's terrified of producing a beneficial trace gas, or any "waste." He will, however, propose the mining of lots of manganese, a material that causes permanent neurological disorders, tremors, facial muscle spasms, difficulty walking, acute bronchitis, aggressiveness, and hallucinations. But he'll make enough juice to charge his phone, so it's all good.

UnitedHealth may exit Obamacare individual exchanges

UnitedHealth Group Inc raised new questions about the viability of Obamacare on Thursday, saying that in 2017 it might stop selling individual plans on the insurance exchanges created under U.S. President Barack Obama's healthcare law.

I don't have any questions about the viability of Obamacare, and never did, but thanks for playing.

Cab medallion owners sue NYC, blame Uber for ruining business

Owners of New York City's taxi "medallions" filed a lawsuit (PDF) against city regulators today, saying their business has been devastated by the decision to allow companies like Uber to compete using "E-hail" services. A medallion is required to operate a New York City yellow taxicab, the only type of vehicle allowed to accept passengers who hail cabs on the street. Until recently, those medallions could sell for over $1 million. Companies like White & Blue Group, one of the plaintiffs in the case, managed fleets of licensed taxicabs by leasing out the medallions.

Here's an errand for you, kind reader. Apply for a permit to do anything in New York City. Then tell the person behind the counter you don't need to fill out any forms, or pay any fees, because you wrote 200 lines of javascript, frosted it with a little html, and pasted it into your phone. I promise I'll drag the river to find you.

Students want Woodrow Wilson's name removed from Princeton

Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber told the students he agreed with them that Wilson was racist and that the university needs to acknowledge that, according to a video posted to YouTube. But a school spokesman said the president also told students it is important to weigh Wilson's racism, and how bad it was, with the contributions he made to the nation.

Let's make a deal, college kids. I'll help you jackhammer his name off the building if you'll help me erase his signature from the Revenue Act of 1913.

Help! My short position got crushed, and now I owe E-Trade $106,445.56

When you’re long, the worst you can do is lose is everything. But when you’re short, everything and a lot more is at stake. He should have known better, no doubt, but you have to feel for this poor guy. This is what apparently happened, as Joe explains in his GoFundMe plea. “I was holding KBIO short overnight for what I thought was a nice $2.00 fade coming,” he wrote. “At the close of the bell I saw the quote montage clear out and figured today there was no action after hours in the stock. So I went to my office for a long meeting. I got out of the meeting and saw a message from one of my buddy’s, he asked if I was ok since I was short KBIO.”

I have no sympathy -- none -- for a college graduate that can't pluralize "buddy."

Doctors want ban on prescription drug, device advertisements

On Tuesday, the American Medical Association (AMA) called for a ban on direct-to-consumer advertisements for prescription drugs and medical devices. Such ads drive demand and costs for expensive name-brand treatments when those drugs may not be appropriate or when clinically effective, low-cost options are available, the doctors group said. The announcement is part of a larger effort by the association to make prescription drugs more affordable.

I have only one observation. If a man and a woman are in separate bathtubs, no amount of medication will initiate sexual activity between them. That's a cast iron fact.

Forget paleo, go mid-Victorian: it’s the healthiest diet you’ve never heard of

The implications of a better understanding of mid-Victorian health are profound. It becomes clear that, with the exception of family planning, the vast edifice of post-1948 healthcare has not so much enabled us to live longer but has merely supplied methods of controlling the symptoms of non-communicable degenerative diseases, which have become prevalent due to our failure to maintain mid-Victorian nutritional standards. Dysnutrition is arguably the largest cause of ill-health today.

Sounds great. I'm all for a return to mid-Victorian Napier-style foreign policy, too: "Come here instantly. Come here at once and make your submission, or I will in a week tear you from the midst of your village and hang you."

Why the VW #DieselGate Is Only the Tip of the Iceberg, Part 2

There are of course some things that one could not have predicted. For example, it now seems that this scandal might be part of a broader “era of cheating software”, including everything from slot machines to voting machines, as well as an EU probe of TV makers into “Volkswagening” their energy efficiency test scores.

I have another theory. The emissions rules to limit CO2 are stupid and unattainable, and Volkswagen workers had to choose between fibbing and mass ritual suicide in the parking lot.

Half of New Yorkers Say They Are Barely or Not Getting By, Poll Shows

The poll, conducted by The New York Times and Siena College, shows great disparities in quality of life among the city’s five boroughs. The stresses weighing on New Yorkers vary widely, from the Bronx, where residents feel acute concern about access to jobs and educational opportunity, to Staten Island, where one in five report recently experiencing vandalism or theft.

Half say they are barely getting by, and the other half didn't hear the question because their head is in the oven.

My Home-Built TTL Computer Processor (CPU)

This processor that I designed and built is an accumulator-memory machine, that is, a single register is used in programming. I wanted an instruction set similar to those of the 8-bit microprocessors I was used to. However, the Z-80 and 6502 CPUs had complex instruction sets, with variable instruction lengths. I knew from experience that a programmer uses only a subset of these, so I designed an instruction set that was similar to this commonly-used subset. It has 16 instructions in all, with eight arithmetic-logical operations, and eight data movement and jump instructions.

That is a nifty piece of work. After the zombie apocalypse, he'll be an emperor-god because he'll be the only man on Earth able to program an LED register to show the vague outlines of a naked woman.

Well, that should tide you over until tomorrow. Remember, Maggies Farm loves you and wants you to be happy, so if by some twist of fate you accidentally enter the broadcast area for KTLA, roll up the windows, lock the doors, and keep driving.

We used to be rather better at this cloak and dagger stuff. 

Perhaps it was because we were all sure we were on the same team back in the day. Kennedy was a bit of a dolt compared to Eisenhower, but he wasn't any kind of friend to the commies. The Bay of Pigs was about as dumb an attempt at exercising American power as you could come up with, but he didn't mess it up on purpose because he was secretly hoping the other side would win. I'm not sure you can count on that brand of My mother, drunk or sober patriotism anymore.

Not too many years earlier, Eisenhower was able to go on national television and admit he was the one that sent Francis Gary Powers to spy on the Soviet Union from the edge of space. He knew that everyone on the other side of the aisle wouldn't impeach him over it. It was, after all, in the United States' best interest. Well, if it worked it was.

While terrorists are raging all over the landscape, our intelligence experts are busy in nondescript buildings in Virginia rifling through Tea Party tax returns. Anyone that understands opportunity cost knows that when some tasks get done to the last jot and tittle, others get the back burner. The Rumford Meteor japed that the massacre in Paris had an effect: France Finally Uses the List of Terrorists They’ve Been Keeping at the Bottom of a Locked Filing Cabinet Stuck in a Disused Lavatory With a Sign on the Door Saying Beware of the Leopard

If that's funny, it's because it's true. France had a list of 168 locations they had identified as possible terrorist hideouts. They used the list to conduct raids the day after the bloodbath. What exactly was a more important use of their time the day before the massacre? Putting someone in the clink for working 36 hours a week?

Even the entertainment about dealing with an implacable enemy used to be better. I'm sick of rogue CIA agents. I long for the good old days of CIA agents who were rogues. Not the same thing, is it?

On to today's news:

Homeschooled with MIT courses at 5, accepted to MIT at 15

“When I was five years old my mom told me ‘there’s this thing called OCW,’” says Rungta, who was homeschooled. “I just couldn’t believe how much material was available. From that moment on I spent the next few years taking OCW courses.” When most kids are entering kindergarten, Rungta was studying physics and chemistry through OpenCourseWare. For Rungta’s mother, the biggest challenge to homeschooling her son was staying ahead of him, finding courses and materials to feed his insatiable mind.

C'mon, admit it. Public School is obsolete. It serves only as an academy for depravity at this point.

Police Civil Asset Forfeitures Exceed All Burglaries in 2014

Between 1989 and 2010, U.S. attorneys seized an estimated $12.6 billion in asset forfeiture cases. The growth rate during that time averaged +19.4% annually. In 2010 alone, the value of assets seized grew by +52.8% from 2009 and was six times greater than the total for 1989. Then by 2014, that number had ballooned to roughly $4.5 billion for the year, making this 35% of the entire number of assets collected from 1989 to 2010 in a single year. According to the FBI, the total amount of goods stolen by criminals in 2014 burglary offenses suffered an estimated $3.9 billion in property losses. This means that the police are now taking more assets than the criminals.

Yeah, and the burglars are 100 percent less likely to shoot your dog.

Is Sex Once A Week Enough For A Happy Relationship?

"This showed a linear association between sex and happiness up to a frequency of once a week, but at higher frequencies there is no longer an association," Amy Muise, a social psychologist at the University of Toronto Mississauga who led the research, said in an email. "Therefore it is not necessary, on average, for couples to aim to engage in sex as frequently as possible."

Once a week? Maybe. I'll reserve judgment until they clarify whether that means at least two people are in the room.

Addyi, Libido-Boosting Pill For The Ladies, Not A Big Hit

Once the Food and Drug Administration approved Addyi, a failed antidepressant repackaged as a libido pill for women, drug-maker Valeant Pharmaceuticals bought the company selling Addyi for $1 billion. If they were expecting to cash in on a blockbuster drug, early sales aren’t very promising: in the first month, only 227 prescriptions for the drug have been written.

You're not allowed to drink alcohol when taking this drug. No one's getting any action under those circumstances. 

A Missed Business Opportunity: Senior Centers That Are Actually Fun

In the U.S., senior care is not something many entrepreneurs are thinking creatively about. Not so in Japan: In the past year, 60 gambling-themed senior-daycare centers have opened up, giving some of the nation’s elderly not just basic shelter, but a place to spend time that’s appealing and fun.

You mean Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun aren't nursing homes?

Writers in the Storm: How weather went from symbol to science and back again.

When we first meet Catherine Earnshaw, she is a ghostly hand rapping on a window in a storm—which is to say, she is essentially the storm itself, rattling the glass panes of her former home. At every point thereafter, emotional drama and atmospheric drama are one. If Lear is minded like the weather, Catherine and Heathcliff are bodied like it—together, the most famous storm ever to strike the Yorkshire moors.

There's always plenty of weather in bodice rippers. Otherwise Fabio's pectorals wouldn't glisten with sweat as his hands slowly made their way up inside her chemise, the faint aroma of the sodden garden surrounding them like the perfume of Aphrodite, and all that sh*t. 

Philly cop arrested for attacking Dunkin Donuts employee, bystander

Philadelphia police said Officer Joseph Marion, 39, was outside of a Dunkin Donuts on Wadworth Avenue on Feb. 14 when an employee lost control of a shopping cart he using was to put down salt.The cart hit Marion's vehicle, spurring Marion to get out and start attacking the employee. Marion also allegedly assaulted a woman who intervened in the initial attack. 

In his defense, he did say, "No sprinkles."

The First Taco Bell Will Be Saved from Demolition!

When executives at Taco Bell found out that the Downey building that housed their first restaurant was at risk of being demolished, they ordered the store “to go.” The birthplace of the Mexican fast food chain, located on Firestone Boulevard, is up on rails and ready to roll. Founder Glen Bell built the mission style building in 1962 and on Thursday night at 10:30, store “Numero Uno” will begin the 45-mile ride to company headquarters in Irvine.

I'm fairly certain the first and only taco I ate at Taco Bell hasn't moved an inch since I swallowed it.

Man jailed over music piracy website

Rocky Ouprasith, now 23, was the man behind RockDizMusic.com and RockDizFile.com. The latter was the second-largest online file-sharing site specialising in pirated music in the United States in 2013, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. Federal law enforcement shut down the sites in October 2014, and Ouprasith pleaded guilty to one count of criminal copyright infringement in August. In addition to a 36-month prison term, he will also get two years of supervised release, forfeit over US$50,000 and pay nearly US$50,000 in restitution.

No one should ever go to jail for copyright infringement, which is a civil violation, or should be. Same goes for tax evasion. If you can't collect the money upfront, willingly, you're not entitled to it. Jailing people for owing money is medieval.

The Double Life of John le Carré

John le Carré, one of England’s greatest novelists, author of The Spy Who Came In From the Cold and creator of the character George Smiley, was born David Cornwell in 1931 in Poole, England. He was 2 when his father—who was always either booming or busting, expanding and contracting to the rhythm of his own dodginess—got 15 months for fraud and other charges. “He could put a hand on your shoulder and the other in your pocket and both gestures would be equally sincere,” David’s brother Tony once said.

"The Spy Who Came In From the Cold" with Richard Burton and Claire Bloom is the best spy movie ever made. Discuss.