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Top photo:  location of uninhabited Henderson Island
Bottom photo: a beach on the island

Discussed at The Atlantic:

Henderson Island is about the most remote place you can visit without leaving the planet. It sits squarely in the middle of the South Pacific, 3,500 miles from New Zealand in one direction and another 3,500 miles from South America in the other. To get there, Jennifer Lavers had to fly from Tasmania to Tahiti, catch a small, once-a-week plane to the Gambier Islands, join a freight ship that had already sailed for 10 days from New Zealand, and ask it to change course for Henderson. No ship travels there unless you specifically ask it to...

When Lavers actually arrived on Henderson, she found that the situation was even worse than the images had suggested. At her landing site, her team immediately came across a truck tire—so large and deeply buried that they couldn’t move it. “That was a warning,” she said. “It got worse and worse. There’s an area that we call the garbage patch, where you can’t put your foot down without stepping on a bottle cap. The sheer volume really took my breath away for all the wrong reasons.”

Henderson should be pristine. It is uninhabited. Tourists don’t go there. There’s no one around to drop any litter. The whole place was declared a World Heritage Site by the United Nations in 1988. The nearest settlement is 71 miles away, and has just 40 people on it. And yet, seafaring plastic has turned it into yet another of humanity’s scrapheaps. “It’s truly one of the last paradises left on earth, and one of the least visited but heavily protected bits of land on the planet,” Lavers says. “But I don’t think I’ve stood somewhere and been so utterly and completely surrounded by plastic.”

Even the Great Bambino would be proud of this baseball team’s spoof of the iconic '90s movie.

"He came to us and said that he's been really upset and said that he's been planning to do something bad."

"My view is that gun-free zones don't work, and that if you are a law-abiding citizen, you should be able to protect yourself."

The president's plan to combat opioid addiction calls for stiffer penalties

The Catholic Church is again opposing bills that would lengthen the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse, allowing victims to take their perpetrators to court---and sue institutions that covered for their perpetrators---years after the abuse occurred. Among the bills they oppose is one introduced in Michigan in the wake of the Larry Nassar gymnastics sex abuse scandal.  Click through to read more!

On weeknights, I am all about the boneless, skinless chicken thighs. They’re easy to prepare and always end up juicy no matter how they’re cooked.

Elise makes a recipe for Moroccan chicken using the slow cooker that is absolutely fantastic, but I wanted to adapt it for the pressure cooker so I could make it at a moment’s notice on a busy weeknight.

Continue reading "Pressure Cooker Moroccan Chicken" »

A man walking his dogs found five loaded, illegal assault rifles as well as ammunition and several high-capacity magazines, the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office said.

A Lassen County man was arrested after officers discovered about 135 dead raptors, two dead bobcats, a dead mountain lion and other dead birds on his property in what is believed to be the largest raptor poaching case in California history, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

A teacher at a Northern California high school accidentally fired his gun inside a classroom, causing minor injuries to three students, but kept teaching while the students sat there, the mother of one of the students said Wednesday.

As thousands of sexual assault victims wait for their rape kits to be tested, California lawmakers are taking renewed action to eliminate the backlog.

Known as the Mexicable, the 3-mile, $90 million gondola system opened to great fanfare in late 2016, an ambitious effort to improve public transportation in this suburb of more than 1.6 million. Initially met with some doubts, it has since provided more than 5.5 million rides, with about 20,000 passenger trips on a typical weekday. It has also drawn praise for giving low-income workers better access to public transportation.

“They didn’t have enough roads to relieve the traffic,” said Victor Jasso, who directs the Mexicable. “There was no space for expanding the roadway. Making [bus-only lanes] was impossible. And building a subway? Also not a chance.”

That’s a marked departure from how gondolas have historically been used: climbing steep hills, as in Portland, Ore.; crossing bodies of water, like the Roosevelt Island Tram in New York City; or giving tourists a new perspective on a city, as they do in London.

More information at the Boston Globe, because Boston is considering a similar system.

In 1986, the world was shocked when reports of infants undergoing major surgery with out anesthesia arose in both the USA and UK. In the USA, mothers of two premature infants wrote letters to the medical journal, BIRTH, protesting the “barbarism of surgery without anesthesia.”..

Why did infants not receive anesthesia that was comparable to that received by an adult? In the following years, numerous books and articles were written on the subject . A survey of such literature reveals that the two repeatedly cited reasons were: 1. Infants do not have the capacity to perceive pain. 2. It is too risky to use potent anesthetics on infants, given the risk for cardiorespiratory compromise and death...

The 19th century surgeon was rough, having inherited an attitude of indifference to pain from the days predating anesthesia. It was said that the role of a surgeon was to preserve life and not to prevent the temporary pain of the experience. As such, the use of anesthesia was originally restricted to those considered sensitive, primarily the rich, white and educated women and children...

...one of the two consistently cited reasons for the withholding of anesthesia from neonates was the belief that infants are insensitive to pain. When the American Academy of Pediatrics released its statement on neonatal anesthesia in 1987, it cited the commonly taught rationale that “nerve pathways [in neonates] are not sufficiently myelinated to transmit painful stimuli or that neonates do not have sufficiently integrated cortical function to recall painful experiences... 

Continue reading at this submission to the Osler Student Essay Contest.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a statement that Russia was "likely responsible."

Via Neatorama.

Get your notebook and crayon ready!

Chris W. Cox, executive director of the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action, says the bill "punishes law-abiding gun owners for the criminal acts of a deranged individual."

Nuni 6-Slot Tortilla Toaster Giveaway, MSRP: $99.00. US only. The post Nuni 6-Slot Tortilla Toaster Giveaway appeared first on Rasa Malaysia.

"Some countries have a very, very tough penalty — the ultimate penalty. And, by the way, they have much less of a drug problem than we do."

According to the complaint, the woman noticed several times that the water bottle she keeps at work tasted like urine.

The Force is definitely with her now.

Student arrested for school threats days after 14-year-old arrested for similar plans, police said

A tweet Sunday from the ScientologyTV Twitter account says, "It's time for us to tell our story."

The deal is the latest in a string of proposed buyouts and tie-ups in a rapidly shifting landscape for the health services industry.

The Office of Special Counsel said the Trump aide "impermissibly mixed official government business with political views about candidates in the Alabama special election."

Sacramento County officials are asking for the public's help finding the person or people who badly beat up a puppy found on the side of a road.

Instant Pot pasta in a jiffy! This recipe takes only 8 minutes pressure cooking and the end result is creamy, cheesy and garlicky pasta that will become an instant hit with your family! The post Instant Pot Creamy Garlic Parmesan Pasta appeared first on Rasa Malaysia.

Donald Trump’s plan to enact stiff steel and aluminum import tariffs has caused alarm among economists and pundits alike, which is really odd, since this is one issue he actually ran on and talked about all the time. This seems to be another case where people heard what they wanted to hear and ignored the rest.

Be that as it may, the announcement caused the stock market to crash (again, totally Obama’s fault, or maybe Hillary’s right?) and there have been some other, more immediately damaging repercussions for Tennessee Trump-lovers:

Electrolux puts $250 million U.S. investment on hold over Trump tariff hike

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Sweden’s Electrolux (ELUXb.ST), Europe’s largest home appliance maker, said on Friday it would delay a planned $250 million investment in Tennessee, after U.S. President Donald Trump announced tariffs on imported aluminum and steel.

On Thursday, Trump said the duties — 25 percent on steel imports and 10 percent on aluminum — would be formally announced next week, although White House officials later said some details still needed to be ironed out.

“We are putting it on hold. We believe that tariffs could cause a pretty significant increase in the price of steel on the U.S. market,” Electrolux spokesman Daniel Frykholm said.

Electrolux buys all the steel it uses in its U.S. products domestically.

“So this is not the possibility of tariffs directly impacting our costs, but rather the impact it could have on the market and that it could damage the overall competitiveness of our operations in the U.S.,” Frykholm said.

Electrolux’s Tennessee plant is in Springfield, a hard-right, deep-red district that overwhelmingly voted for Trump. It is represented in the U.S. Congress by the pro-Trump Diane Black, now running for governor, a woman who said helping Trump pass his tax cuts was the “proudest moment of her life” but who has remained silent about Electrolux putting investment in her district on hold.

You know, it’s so rare that these chickens come home to roost in the deep-red districts that are the source of such wingnuttery. Usually when a far-right policy is enacted in, say, a statehouse, the repercussions are felt in the blue urban areas. For example, when our state legislature passed an anti-LGBT counseling bill, the rural districts whose homophobic reps pushed this hate leg got off scott-free, while major conferences pulled out Nashville — represented by Democrats in the legislature, who had voted against the bill. As I’ve said more than once, boycotts and national shaming don’t work if they hurt your allies, not your adversaries.

But when it comes to trade policy and tariffs, those chickens are going to come home to roost in red districts, because global companies located their plants in cheap-labor, cheap-land rural areas. So far, Tennessee Trump voters have been able to have their cake and eat it, too. But globalism is a fact of life everywhere — even in rural Tennessee. Electrolux is anticipating higher U.S. steel prices and higher inflation. So, too, will Nissan USA, Toyota, Volkswagon, Mercedes-Benz, BMW … all of the major car brands who have plants across the rural South, and all of their multinational suppliers: Germany’s Mann+Hummel, which builds car parts at its plant in Dunlap, TN. Or YAPP Automotive Systems, a Chinese company with U.S. plants in Gallatin and Chattanooga. They make gas tanks for cars. Or the Spanish auto parts manufacturer Ficosa, which has a plant in Cookeville, TN where they make rear-view mirrors.

Do these companies use steel and aluminum? Some may, some may not, but that’s the thing about trade wars: when the bombs detonate, the repercussions are felt across all sectors. Beware the unintended consequences of your trade war, Trump lovers. The rhetoric of “America First” may sound good, but the reality will be far less pleasing. And there will be no blaming the Democrats this time.

 TRUMP’S BRAND IS AYN RAND

Donald Trump once said he identified with Ayn Rand’s character Howard Roark in “The Fountainhead,” an architect so upset that a housing project he designed didn’t meet specifications he had it dynamited. 

Others in Trump’s circle were influenced by Rand. “Atlas Shrugged” was said to be the favorite book of Rex Tillerson, Trump’s secretary of state. Rand also had a major influence on Mike Pompeo, Trump’s CIA chief. Trump’s first nominee for Secretary of Labor, Andrew Puzder, said he spent much of his free time reading Rand. 

The Republican leader of the House of Representatives, Paul Ryan, required his staff to read Rand.

Uber’s founder and former CEO, Travis Kalanick, has described himself as a Rand follower. Before he was sacked, he applied many of her ideas to Uber’s code of values, and even used the cover art for Rand’s book “The Fountainhead” as his Twitter avatar. 

Who is Ayn Rand and why does she matter?  Ayn Rand – best known for two highly-popular novels still widely read today – “The Fountainhead,” published in 1943, and “Atlas Shrugged,” in 1957 – didn’t believe there was a common good. She wrote that selfishness is a virtue, and altruism is an evil that destroys nations. 

When Rand offered these ideas they seemed quaint if not far-fetched. Anyone who lived through the prior half century witnessed our interdependence, through depression and war. 

After the war we used our seemingly boundless prosperity to finance all sorts of public goods – schools and universities, a national highway system, and healthcare for the aged and poor (Medicare and Medicaid). We rebuilt war-torn Europe. We sought to guarantee the civil rights and voting rights of African-Americans. We opened doors of opportunity to women. Of course there was a common good. We were living it.

But then, starting in the late 1970s, Rand’s views gained ground. She became the intellectual godmother of modern-day American conservatism. 

This utter selfishness, this contempt for the public, this win-at-any-cost mentality is eroding American life. 

Without adherence to a set of common notions about right and wrong, we’re living in a jungle where only the strongest, cleverest, and most unscrupulous get ahead, and where everyone must be wary in order to survive. This is not a society. It’s not even a civilization, because there’s no civility at its core. It’s a disaster. 

In other words, we have to understand who Ayn Rand is so we can reject her philosophy and dedicate ourselves to rebuilding the common good.  

The idea of the common good was once widely understood and accepted in America. After all, the U.S. Constitution was designed for “We the people” seeking to “promote the general welfare” – not for “me the selfish jerk seeking as much wealth and power as possible.” 

Yet today you find growing evidence of its loss – CEOs who gouge their customers, loot their corporations and defraud investors. Lawyers and accountants who look the other way when corporate clients play fast and loose, who even collude with them to skirt the law. 

Wall Street bankers who defraud customers and investors. Film producers and publicists who choose not to see that a powerful movie mogul they depend on is sexually harassing and abusing young women. 

Politicians who take donations (really, bribes) from wealthy donors and corporations to enact laws their patrons want, or shutter the government when they don’t get the partisan results they seek. 

And a president of the United States who lies repeatedly about important issues, refuses to put his financial holdings into a blind trust and then personally profits off his office, and foments racial and ethnic conflict. 

The common good consists of our shared values about what we owe one another as citizens who are bound together in the same society. A concern for the common good – keeping the common good in mind – is a moral attitude. It recognizes that we’re all in it together. 

If there is no common good, there is no society.