Sanders and Warren issue joint statement slamming Trump's new finance industry alligator for his private DC swamp

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren: "During the campaign, Donald Trump told the American people that he was going to change Washington by taking on Wall Street. Donald Trump's choice for Treasury scretary, Steve Mnuchin, is just another Wall Street insider. That is not the type of change that Donald Trump promised to bring to Washington – that is hypocrisy at its worst. After his bank pocketed billions in taxpayer dollars from the bailout, Mnuchin moved on to make a fortune running another bank that aggressively foreclosed on families still reeling from the crisis. This pick makes clear that Donald Trump wants to cater to the same Wall Street executives that have hurt working families time and again." (Images: Bernie Sanders, AFGE/CC-BY; Elizabeth Warren, Tim Pierce/CC-BY)

U.S. ethics office tweets sarcastically at Trump on his business conflicts

It's come to this, folks. The office of the United States that oversees ethics in government is sending sarcastic tweets to president-elect Donald J. Trump. Yes, he of the still unreleased tax returns, the many conflicts of interest, the recent $25 million fraud settlement, and the late-night Twitter wars.

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Silent treatment, love-bombing, gaslighting and other traits of Narcissist Personality Disorder

Maureen Herman & Katie Schwartz wrote a piece about Narcissist Personality Disorder and how to defend yourself against a world leader who might have it.

We want to urge the press and public to understand what Narcissist Personality Disorder is. It manifests as impairments in the way someone functions and interacts with others, combined with the specific pathological personality trait of antagonism, characterized by grandiosity and attention seeking. We feel the finer points are something the public should promptly familiarize itself with.

The negative effect of NPD happens in stages, and we have watched Trump's relationship with his supporters, and it is very familiar to us. In a classic NPD relationship. first comes the love-bombing: the narcissist tells you what you want to hear. Then they manage down expectations: doing whatever they want, and expecting or demanding that you accept it without incident. Now, the pathological lying comes full force: you call them out on what they said or did and they vehemently deny it, making you question your sanity. Then comes the devalue stage: because you questioned or criticized them, they discredit you. Now, the discard: the punishment and alienation begins, and any attempts to please them are used to give them more control over you. It doesn't end there. The cycle continues and the disorder becomes your new normal. It's not.

There are known narcissistic terms, strategies, and agendas. We urge the media to learn the
terminology, and use it: , silent treatment, love-bombing, gaslighting, devalue & discard phase, narcissistic abuse, managing down expectations, and flying monkeys (Kellyanne Conway).

Technology post-CELTA (3): Technology for teaching

The Axis of pEvil In some of the (literally) hundreds of sessions on using technology that I did on CELTA courses I used the term "Axis of pEvil", and suggested that  - after your course has finished - you need to get off it. The Axis of pEvil is a series of … Continue reading

NASA's Space Poop Challenge

NASA issued a public $30,000 bounty "for fecal, urine, and menstrual management systems to be used in the crew's launch and entry suits over a continuous duration of up to 144 hours." From the competition brief:

Current space suits are worn for launch and entry activities and in-space activities to protect the crew from any unforeseen circumstances that the space environment can cause. A crew member could find themselves in this suit for up to 10 hours at a time nominally for launch or landing, or up to 6 days if something catastrophic happens while in space.

The old standby solution consisted of diapers, in case astronauts needed to relieve themselves. However, the diaper is only a very temporary solution, and doesn't provide a healthy/protective option longer than one day.

What's needed is a system inside a space suit that collects human waste for up to 144 hours and routes it away from the body, without the use of hands. The system has to operate in the conditions of space - where solids, fluids, and gases float around in microgravity (what most of us think of as "zero gravity") and don't necessarily mix or act the way they would on earth. This system will help keep astronauts alive and healthy over 6 days, or 144 hrs.

Space Poop Challenge (HeroX)

The Earth and I – is climate change moving too fast for a new book on climate change?

It is obviously unfair to dismiss the entire contents of a book for a single tin-eared statement, but the clunker that comes near the end of The Earth and I by Gaia-theory originator James Lovelock is a doozy. The inexplicable passage follows a dozen essays by journalists, a Nobel Prize winner, and several Ivy League professors, who make a pretty good case for both the insignificance of human beings in the universe and their unique ability to end life as we know it here on Planet Earth. In an attempt, then, to give his shell-shocked readers a sliver of hope by celebrating the success of the Montreal Protocol, which banned chlorofluorocarbons in 1989, Lovelock crows about how these ozone-destroying compounds were replaced by hydrofluorocarbons, which, he writes, “are far less harmful to the planetary environment.”

Somewhere between the time Lovelock wrote those words and the publication of his book, hydrofluorocarbons were added to the Montreal Protocol's list of banned substances – eliminating “less harmful” hydrofluorocarbons is expected to keep our warming planet's temperature from rising by a full half-degree Celsius.

The inability of even an authority like Lovelock to keep pace with current events points out how quickly both the science and politics of climate change are a changing. In this light, understanding the holistic view of the planet's processes – from the weather above us to the meaning of the geological history below our feet – has never been more important. The Earth and I delivers on these topics and more, while Jack Hudson's engaging illustrations lure us in and invite the eye to linger. Many readers may well be tempted to do just that, but they shouldn't – at last report, Greenland and Antarctica were melting at alarming fast and irreversible rates.

The Earth and I


by James Lovelock (editor) and Jack Hudson (illustrator)


Taschen


2016, 168 pages, 8.5 x 10.9 x 0.8 inches (hardcover)


$23 Buy a copy on Amazon

Ransomware creep accidentally hijacks San Francisco Muni, won't give it back

A ransomware criminal's self-reproducing malicious software spread through a critical network used by the San Francisco light rail system, AKA the Muni, and shut it down; the anonymous criminal -- cryptom27@yandex.com -- says they won't give it back until they get paid.
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