Full Cold Moon Reads
Posted: December 25, 2015 Filed under: Afternoon Reads | Tags: Christmas Eve Bonfires, Full Cold Moon, Lutcher Louisiana 6 Comments
2015 continues to wind down and it can’t happen soon enough for me!
There’s a “Full Cold Moon” today which is an infrequent event. This is when a full moon happens on the day designated for Christmas. We also have an unearthly visitor whizzing by us in the form of a space rock. The pictures for today are from the Lutcher Bonfires made to signal a path into the bayou for Père Noël. I’m going to give you a little background on both since it’s probably a day that you’d prefer to avoid reality for awhile, like me.
Most parts of the U.S. won’t see a white Christmas this year, but they will see a bright one, as a full moon coincides with the holiday for the first time in 38 years.
The final full moon of the year each December is known as the Full Cold Moon, and it hasn’t fallen on Christmas since 1977. Astronomers say it won’t happen again until 2034.
If you want to catch a glimpse, NASA says the moon will reach its peak at 6:11 a.m. EST on Christmas morning.
Moonrise and moonset times vary slightly depending on your location, even within time zones. In New York, the moon rises at 4:28 p.m. EST on Christmas Eve and sets at 7:03 a.m. EST Christmas Day, while the times are a few minutes earlier in Boston to the northeast, and about 20 minutes later in Atlanta to the southwest. Times are similar in other cities across the country, but if you want to be precise about it, you can look up the moonrise and moonset times for your city here.
If clouds interfere with your view, the Slooh Community Observatory is hosting a free webcast beginning at 7 p.m. EST on Christmas Eve. As a bonus, their telescopes will also be tracking Comet Catalina, a recently discovered comet that should be visible for the next few weeks. You can watch the webcast here until midnight EST.
It has been an unusually busy holiday for stargazers, with an asteroid buzzing by Earth this morning. The space rock, about 1.24 miles wide, stayed a safe distance away, passing about 6.6 million miles from our planet.
Full Cold Moons had special meaning to Native Americans long before we brought our European myths and ways to North America. As usual, the solstice is really the reason for the entire season every where!
In Native American cultures which tracked the calendar by the Moons, December’s Full Moon was known as the Full Cold Moon. It is the month when the winter cold fastens its grip and the nights become long and dark.
This full Moon is also called the Long Nights Moon by some Native American tribes because it’s near the winter solstice—the night with the least amount of daylight.
So, the tradition of the Lutcher Bonfires on the Mississippi River Levees is an interesting and fun one. The traditional ones are teepee shaped. They are a Cajun tradition here in Louisiana for Christmas Eve. They happen in St. James Parish which we call one of the River Parishes down here.
Many of the bonfires are built in the traditional “teepee” style with a center pole that anchors the structure. Others come in different shapes and color schemes.
“There’s one constructed in the form of a fish with scales, one in the form of an old sailboat with oars,” Keller said. “Then some of the more traditional ones are painted different colors: red white and blue, black and gold, purple and gold.”
There’s some history involved with the tradition, of course. They are actually based on Celtic traditions where Druids would conduct ceremonies to honor the Sun. The idea was to ensure that the days would get longer after the Winter Solstice.
The area of Louisiana now known as the River Parishes (St. James, St. John and St. Charles) was settled in the early 1700’s by the Old World French and Germans. These early colonists brought with them the knowledge of both summer and winter bonfire customs and traditions which they had known in their native lands. By sharing this knowledge with their many descendants, they provided the inspiration for a practice which has evolved into one giant celebration—the present-day Christmas Eve levee bonfires!
Of necessity, survival and the establishment of a new colony were the principal concerns of the French and Germans who first settled along the lover Mississippi River. These early colonists undoubtedly built a few celebration fires, but early history of the area has failed to record any information about this. As a result, as the bonfire custom increased in recent generations, so has speculation about the origin and development of tradition.
For example, one of the more recent and increasingly popular explanations is that the bonfires were a “Cajun tradition”, first used to light the way for “Papa Noel”, the Cajun version of Santa Claus. This charming version, although improbable, has been depicted annually in front of a Paulina, LA business establishment where a levee scene shows “Papa Noel” with his pirogue drawn by alligators named Gaston, Ninette, “Te-Boy”, Celeste, Suzette, etc.
Some Acadian exiles from Nova Scotia settled in St. James Parish as early as 1765, with many more arriving in the 1780’s, but “Papa Noel” was not yet known to them. It was on New Year’s Eve that the little French children received their gifts.
In South Louisiana of old, Christmas was a strictly religious observance, and it was New Year’s Eve that was marked by the exchange of gifts and the “reveille” to see the old year out and to greet the new year. In Cabanocey: The History, Customs and Folklore of St. James Parish, published in 1957, the author, Lillian Bourgeois, tells of this custom of celebrating New Year’s Eve with a gathering of family and friends who enjoyed a gumbo supper, eggnog and the burning of huge cone-shaped bonfires on the batture, the land area between the base of the levee and the water’s edge. With the passage of time, these activities gradually moved to Christmas Eve.
Some have also offered the theory that the bonfires served as navigational signals to guide ships along the river, or were used to light the way for the faithful to attend Midnight Mass.
Through 1865 letters still in existence, it has been established that the summer feast of St. John the Baptist was then celebrated in neighboring St. John Parish (known as the Second German Coast) with the lighting of fires and the homecoming of relatives who lived away.
A recently discovered 1871 picture shows members of the Lacoul and de Lobel Mahy families gathered around two bonfires built on the levee in front of Laura Plantation in West St. James Parish. The men pictured are wearing coats and the women are wearing hats, but the time of the year is not specified.
In 1989, I participated in a local study on the development of Christmas Eve bonfires in the River Parishes. Many older residents or their descendants were interviewed to learn their knowledge of the history and traditions of the custom.
In a personal interview with H. D’Aquin Bourgeois, son of George Bourgeois, a St. James Parish native born in 1855, I learned that the elder Mr. Bourgeois, an enterprising merchant, had built Christmas Eve levee bonfires in front of his New Camellia Plantation store as early as 1884. Throughout the year, he collected wooden shipping crates, some as large as 3’x5’, in which merchandise for his store had been shipped. These crates, along with old lumber, were used to construct a Christmas Eve bonfire for the pleasure of local residents and the children of his store patrons. The blazing bonfire, the sound of exploding fireworks provided by the store owner, and the gleeful sounds of the children attracted riverboat crews who interrupted their travel to join in the celebration. Bonfires at this location continued until 1930, and in later years grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the original builder resumed bonfire construction at the same site.
Another 1989 interview with Mrs. Hilda Gabb Cambre, a St. James native born in 1901, revealed that she had known Christmas Eve yard bonfires during childhood days spent on her grandfather’s Magnolia Plantation in West St. James Parish. The bonfires, built with any type wood available, were part of a festive occasion where lanterns were placed in the trees and eggnog was served to guests. In later Christmas seasons, kerosene-soaked cotton balls were lit and rolled down the levee. (Could this be a counterpart of the German wheel-rolling down the hillside?)
You can read more about the history of the bonfires and the memories of the River Parish Elders at the link I provided. The one really wonderful thing about Louisiana is its unique heritage that is directly 
attributable to its French roots as well as the many cultures that eventually settled here or were brought here through the institution of slavery. The bonfires went off without a hitch last night even though it’s near 80 here, foggy and quite drizzly. The foghorns were blaring on the Mississippi River last night. The kathouse is just a few blocks away from it and the Poland Avenue Wharf. It’s home to the best seat to see the New Year’s fireworks too!! So happy to be ending the year and looking to the start of the Carnival Season on 12th night!!
I do have a bit of sad/bad news. A morning fire has damaged the Clinton Birthplace in Hope Arkansas. The Birthplaces of US Presidents are generally historic sites and are used to illustrate the various backgrounds and childhoods of our premier elected leaders. This is a site maintained by the National Park Service. Arson is suspected.
Hope officials suspect arson in a fire that broke out about 3:20 a.m. today at the house in Hope where Bill Clinton spent the first four years of his life. It is now a historic site maintained by the National Park Service.
Damage was reported to the back wall on the east side of the house and the fire spread to the second floor. Smoke and water damage was reported inside. Officials didn’t specify what evidence led them to believe the fire was set. But a report by KSLA also said graffiti was found on the property.
So, I’ll make this short today since I’m sure you’re all using the time off today happily or productively! Whatever way you spend your day, please have a great one and remember that you always have friends that love you completely here at Sky Dancing!!!
What’s on your mind today?
Monday Reads: Farewell my Lovely!
Posted: December 21, 2015 Filed under: morning reads | Tags: Bernie Sanders, Datagate, Flint Michigan, Hillary Clinton, impact of poverty on intellectual development, lead poisoning, Lindsey Graham, PottyGate 20 Comments
Good Morning and Happy Solstice!
It is a very gloomy Monday here in New Orleans. It’s supposed to be 71 degrees Fahrenheit but I think the dampness has taken the warmth away. I’m sitting at my desk in my thick and sloppy chenille sweater that I slept in last night. It does double duty over sweats and flannel pajamas when it gets like this. Yes, the word for it is bone-chilling cold. Some times I’m glad for the breeze off the mighty Mississippi–blocks from my door–but it’s not July so I’m shivering while watching the big green leaves of my avocado tree flutter in the wind. I’m most fortunate that Temple is an excellent hot water bottle because the cold, damp, and age are taking a toll on me. My fingers ache and don’t seem to want to type as fast as usual.
There are some interesting tids and bits in the morning news. Lady Lindsey has given up on the Republican nomination having gained just about as much traction as pig on ice. I’m actually going to miss him because he sounded reasonable and actually less of a war monger than the rest of the slate as impossible as that sounds! All of us are very aware of the Lady’s love of the manly pursuit of war. Oh, and his last words were inkled to Hillary Clinton. Back to the quiet of your closet m’lady!! You sashayed mightily across the stage of the kiddie debate.
Senator Lindsey Graham is ending his presidential campaign, he told CNN during an exclusive interview airing Monday.
“I’m going to suspend my campaign. I’m not going to suspend my desire to help the country,” the South Carolina senator said in a wide-ranging and candid discussion in which he acknowledged: “I’ve hit a wall here.”
He made the official announcement in an email to supporters and Youtube video posted Monday morning.
Graham is known for his quick wit and famous for his one-liners (just ask Princess Buttercup about his retort from the last debate), but he was sober, serious and emotional as he described his decision to leave the race just weeks before the voting begins.
One thing is clear: Graham still wants his voice heard on the direction his party is headed, especially with regard to the Middle East.
“Here’s what I predict. I think the nominee of our party is going to adopt my plan when it comes time to articulate how to destroy ISIL,” he said. “We’ve fallen short here, but the fight continues. To those who are doing the fighting, I want to be your voice. To those in the Republican Party who want to win, check my plan out. Hillary, if you get to be President, I’ll help you where I can. I hope you’re not. But if you are, I’ll be there to help you win a war we can’t afford to lose.”
One of the most frustrating things about the inability of life to accommodate women is your basic restroom visit. Bathrooms are generally inadequate for women in all ways. They are too small and badly placed probably by design or male architectural ignorance. I knew exactly why Hillary was a bit late to the 
stage during one of those breaks. It had to be the shortness of time and the hassle of using a public restroom. I guess it was inevitable given the scout work Huma did prior to Saturday’s shindig. But, here we go women, I give you Pottygate.
The reason is one many women are familiar with: An unexpected line for the loo. While Clinton waited for the ladies’ room to clear out, time ticked down, and the debate organizers allowed the show to go on without her.
What viewers didn’t know was the sole women’s bathroom was a little further than the men’s room from the stage. And when the debate went to a long commercial break Clinton lost out to Lis Smith, the caffeine-guzzling deputy campaign manager for former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, who beat her to the restroom. Smith declined to comment for the story.
A top Clinton staffer who was strategically posted outside the bathroom (presumably to avoid these kinds of situations) gave Smith a verbal OK to make a quick pit stop, according to one person familiar with the ladies’ line.
Meanwhile, we continue to see the fallout from Datagate. Bernie Sanders has suspended two staffers.
Bernie Sanders’ campaign suspended two more staffers directly involved in the data breach that has roiled the party, a Sanders aide confirmed to POLITICO after the Democratic debate on Saturday night.
Pending an investigation, the two aides join data director Josh Uretsky in leaving the campaign following the revelation that they accessed and downloaded voter information from Hillary Clinton’s team during a technology glitch on Wednesday
Sanders did apologize for the breach at the debate. An independent investigation into the incident has been agreed to by both Clinton and Sanders. The Clinton campaign is assessing the damage.
Clinton’s top strategist and pollster-in-chief Joel Benenson, who oversaw two successful Obama campaign operations that set records for maximizing core-voter turnout, says his staff is eagerly awaiting the results of a third-party audit into the hack of the Democratic National Committee-housed lists. The DNC said it is just beginning the process of securing an independent audit by a data security firm.
The Clinton campaign also wants to learn basic details of the narrative — like why, for instance, Sanders’ campaign manager didn’t tell his candidate when he learned of the breach last Wednesday; Sanders was only looped in a day later, after DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz called him personally with the news. Weaver told POLITICO on Saturday he withheld the information from Sanders because he at first believed the breach was a staff-level concern that could be dealt with in-house. “My field director informed me,” he recalled. “I said, ‘let everyone know that no one is to do anything with the Clinton data.’ It was not clear immediately there was any problem on our side.”
On Saturday, it was still not clear to the Clinton campaign how much damage had been done. “I don’t think any of us will know until this audit is completed how serious this all is,” Benenson said after the debate at St. Anselm’s College — adding that the value of the information is less about the specific voters being targeted than hints about how Clinton’s campaign plans to deploy its resources.
“All of [the data] is extremely valuable, it is work produced by tens of thousands of volunteers. … it is part of a roadmap to how we are running and strategizing in our campaign and how we get to the totals we need to win in Iowa and New Hampshire, especially,” he said, his voice rising with exasperation.
I have a few other links for you today. First, a new study shows the impact 
of Poverty on intellectual development. This should concern us given the number of US children living in poverty and their treatment by states like Kansas, Wisconsin, etc.
Whether intelligence is more the product of nature or nurture has long fascinated American social scientists and the general public alike. Typically the result is explained as some balance of genetics and environment, but since the early 1970s, researchers have noticed that this scale tends to shift dramatically across social classes. It’s as if nature and nurture play by different rules for rich and poor.
Generally speakingthiswork has found that genetic variance tends to explain the bulk of IQ scores for advantaged groups, whereas environmental variance plays a larger role for disadvantaged ones. (This line of research draws its results from comparative analyses of identical twins, who share a complete genetic makeup, and fraternal twins or siblings.) In other words, when it comes to intelligence, a comfortable upbringing seems to help nature reach its potential, but an impoverished one seems to interfere at every turn.
Still, other studies have failed to confirm these findings, enough so that scholars continue to wonder. But a strong new analysis published in the journalPsychological Science suggests that the role of genetics in intelligence indeed varies with socioeconomic status—at least in the United States. The data reveal no such pattern in other parts of the developed world, a finding the researchers attribute to “more uniform access” to social programs such as strong education and health care.
“The differences observed across nations might be explained by weaker social safety nets in the U.S. compared to Western Europe and Australia,” the psychologist Elliot Tucker-Drob of the University of Texas at Austin, the paper’s lead author, tells CityLab via email. “While this study did not investigate specific policies or services that might explain the differences … I think that it is fair to say that the causes of the difference are likely to be manifold.”
If that isn’t cause enough for concern, consider the impact of increased lead in the water in Flint, Michigan due to their wicked stupid Governor and his administration. This has put nearly every child in the city in extreme danger. Rachel Maddow has done some excellent shows on this disaster. Here’s an in depth article from AJ.
In October, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder announced that the city of Flint would change its water source. This was in response to the discovery that temporarily pulling water from a local river produced high levels of lead in the water supply for Flint, an economically struggling community of 100,000 residents roughly an hour northwest of Detroit.
It was a crisis months in the making. Problems began as soon as officials decided in April 2014 to have Flint stop using Detroit’s water system and begin drawing water from the Flint River.
This was billed as a measure that would save millions of dollars. But residents almost immediately raised concerns about the discolored and smelly water that was flowing from their taps. Tests revealed high levels of chemicals that could cause liver or kidney problems, and some complained of losing hair and getting rashes after drinking the water.
In response to the growing backlash and the evidence that residents were drinking poisoned water, state and city officials sought to quell concerns, insisting the water was safe to drink and continually disputing local studies published this fall that showed lead levels sharply increased in the bloodstreams of Flint residents, including children. (Research suggests that lead can cause irreversible cognitive and developmental damage to children.)
But even as Snyder and other state officials relented, a question has continued to linger among activists and residents with children who could face life-altering circumstances as a result of lead poisoning: Who’s to blame for this mess?
At the October announcement that Flint would switch back to Detroit’s water system, Snyder made clear that he was interested solely in finding a solution to fix the problem, not in revisiting mistakes. Nonprofit donations, along with appropriations from the state and city, would pay for the $12 million transition back to Detroit’s system, he said.
The impact on Flint’s children is devastating and may be permanent.
Research published by Flint pediatrician Mona Hanna-Attisha in September showed levels of lead in children’s blood spiked at the same time as the water switch. Elevated blood lead levels are especially harmful for children, who can suffer stunted growth and irreversible brain damage. In October, after denying any problem, state officials acknowledged they failed to treat the water to adjust for its corrosiveness, and Snyder signed legislation switching Flint back to Detroit’s water.
The city has told residents it could take as long as six months for the water lead levels to decline. A Dec. 11 report from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality said the state found elevated blood lead in 39 of 1,836 Flint residents who had testing done since early October. Blood lead levels can decline in a matter of weeks after a person is exposed to lead.
This week, in response to Weaver’s new disaster declaration, a spokesman for Snyder referred HuffPost to previous statements from the governor’s office outlining actions already taken, including an Oct. 2 action plan and the Oct. 21 creation of a special task force to investigate what went wrong and recommend solutions.
Well, that’s it for me today. Hope your week goes well and that you get to spend some relaxing and fun time with family and friends! On to the celebration of Festivus for the rest of us!!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Saturday Night Live: The Final DNC Debate
Posted: December 19, 2015 Filed under: 2016 elections 208 Comments
Tonight is the final DNC debate in 2016.
The rivalry between two of the campaigns has taken a turn for the nasty and we’re waiting to see exactly what will develop. The Debate starts at 8 pm eastern on ABC and will also be streamed live from New Hampshire.
Tonight, ABC News hosts the third Democratic presidential primary debate featuring Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley who will duke it out on stage at St. Anselm College.
It’s the first and only Democratic debate held in the primary state of New Hampshire of the 2016 election cycle.
Moderating tonight will be “World News Tonight” anchor David Muir and Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz. The debate will focus on national security and foreign policy in the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks.
Debate coverage begins at 8 p.m. EST, but keep checking back for updates from the ABC News political team as the candidates prepare for tonight.
Supposedly, Sanders will go on the attack which seems odd given his campaign was just caught filching data and strategies from the Clinton campaign. I’d rather think he’d be apologetic and contrite. Here’s a good bit of analysis on why the data pilfering matters from Washington Monthly’s David Atkins.
After a spat lasting just over 24 hours, it appears that the top news story of the day is already resolving itself: the DNC has come to an agreement to return voter database access to the Bernie Sanders campaign after top staffers were caught snooping into the Clinton campaign’s records.
The brouhaha over this little fiasco has been intense, and made worse by the fact that only a few thousand people in the United States understand anything about the voter tools involved. Few journalists—to say nothing of armchair activists—have enough campaign and field management experience to truly understand what happened. That ignorance has led to wild accusations and silly reporting from all sides, whether from conspiratorially-minded Sanders supporters or schadenfreude-filled Republicans.
The first thing to understand is that NGPVAN is a creaky voter database system that looks, and feels like it was put together in the 1990s. It has been the mainstay of Democratic campaigns all across the country and has intense loyalty among national campaign professionals—though it should be noted that the California Democratic Party uses one of its more robust and more expensive competitors PDI (PDI, hilariously, sent an email this morning to its users with the subject line “At PDI Data Security Is Our Top Priority.”) I myself have extensive experience running campaigns on both platforms, both as a campaign consultant and as a county Democratic Party official in California.
The DNC contracts with NGPVAN, meaning that firewalls between competitive primary campaigns within NGPVAN are incredibly important. But they also have been known to fail. When that happens, campaign professionals are expected to behave in a moral and legal manner. But they would also be stupid not to, since every action taken by an NGPVAN user is tracked and recorded on the server side.
The other important piece of information to note is the difference between a “saved search” and a “saved list.” NGPVAN’s voter tracking has the option of beingdynamic or static, meaning that you can run dynamic searches of voters whose characteristics may change as NGPVAN’s data is updated, or you can pull static lists of voters who currently fit the profile you are seeking. Most voter data pulls within an NGPVAN campaign will be dynamic searches—and in fact, that is the default setting. You really only want to pull a static list if you’re doing something specific like creating a list for a targeted mail piece—or if you want a quick snapshot in time of a raw voter list.
However, merely pulling a search or a list doesn’t mean you can automatically download all the information on those voters. You can see topline numbers. You can take a few screenshots—though it would take hundreds of screenshots and the data would be nearly useless in that format. To download the actual data, you would need to run an export—a step that requires extra levels of permissions only allowed to the highest level operatives. Despite the breach that allowed them to run lists and searches, Sanders staffers apparently did not have export access.
However, the access logs do show that Sanders staff pulled not one but multiple lists—not searches, but lists—a fact that shows intent to export and use. And the lists were highly sensitive material. News reports have indicated that the data was “sent to personal folders” of the campaign staffers—but those refer to personal folders within NGPVAN, which are near useless without the ability to export the data locally.
Even without being able to export, however, merely seeing the topline numbers of, say, how many voters the Clinton campaign had managed to bank as “strong yes” votes would be a valuable piece of oppo. While it’s not the dramatic problem that a data export would have been, it’s undeniable that the Sanders campaign gleaned valuable information from the toplines alone. It’s also quite clear that most of the statements the Sanders campaign made as the story progressed—from the claim that the staffers only did it to prove the security breach, or that only one staffer had access—were simply not true. It’s just not clear at this point whether the campaign’s comms people knew the truth and lied, or whether they were not being told the whole truth by the people on the data team who were still making up stories and excuses to cover their tracks. I suspect the latter.
Daniel Politi–writing for Slate–believes Datagate will impact the debate tonight.
Once again, a last minute turn of events is shaking up a Democratic presidential debate. Last time around, it was the Paris terrorist attacks. Now, the candidates will be facing off amid an unusual level of acrimony over claims that Bernie Sanders staffers stole data that belonged to Hillary Clinton’s camp. Now the big question is how the issue will play in Saturday night’s debate.
Clinton could very well choose to go on the offensive and confront Sanders about the breach. But that carries risk considering Sanders’ team filed a lawsuit against the Democratic National Committee because it had suspended the campaign’s access to voter information after the breach was revealed. Access was restored late last night, but not before Sanders’ supporters got even more ammunition to claim that the DNC unfairly favors Clinton, as Slate’s Jim Newell points out. Immediately after the data controversy, Sanders sent out a fundraising email, citing the suspension as the latest example of how the Democratic Party has “its thumb on the scales in support of Hillary Clinton’s campaign.”
So if Clinton goes too far with her criticism it could play into Sanders’ underdog image, which could in turn help him win over support. This is particularly the case considering the Sanders’ team has complained the DNC scheduled the debate for the Saturday night before Christmas to assure a low audience, points out Yahoo News.
Considering all these variable it seems more likely that Clinton will decide to strike a middle ground and criticize Sanders’ staffers while defending the candidate himself, notes NBC.
I guess we’ll see!!
Tune in and join our live blog!!!
Friday Reads: Douchy Dude Bro-paloozah Day
Posted: December 18, 2015 Filed under: morning reads | Tags: Bernie Sanders Campaign, Dude Bros, Pharma Bro 44 CommentsGood Morning!
I have to admit that this has not been one of my favorite years.
I’m looking towards the night we usher it off with hope that the next year is more promising. Meanwhile, it is what it is.
This seems to be the year of the Douchy Dude Bro. Maybe that’s why I feel so alienated from what passes as reality these days.
So, let’s start with a little discussion of what goes around comes around. It’s always nice when a total jerk gets a perp walk. Jerk probably isn’t the best description of ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shekreli but I’m the economist at the blog, not the psychologist. I leave the technical jargon to BB and the more graphic descriptions to JJ. Let’s just say the pictures did him justice and I’m waiting for the system to do the same.
Martin Shkreli, the 32-year-old former hedge fund manager notorious for jacking up the price of an obscure but critical drug, was arrested Thursday on securities fraud charges.
The charges are unrelated to Shkreli’s leadership of Turing Pharmaceuticals, which bought a drug, Daraprim, for $55 million this summer, then increased the price of the 62-year-old drug by more than 4,000 percent.
Instead, the charges brought by the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York are related to Shkreli’s time at Retrophin, another bio-pharmaceutical company he founded, and his time at MSMB Capital Management, a hedge fund.
Federal prosecutors alleged that for five years, Shkreli lied to investors in two hedge funds and bio-pharmaceutical company Retrophin, all of which he founded. After losing money on stock bets he made through one hedge fund, Shkreli allegedly started another and used his new investors’ money to pay off those who had lost money on the first fund. Then, as pressure was building, Shkreli started Retrophin, which was publicly traded, and used cash and stock from that company to settle with other disgruntled investors, prosecutors contended.
Shkreli “engaged in multiple schemes to ensnare investors through a web of lies and deceit,” U.S. Attorney Robert L. Capers told reporters. “His plots were matched only by efforts to conceal the fraud, which led him to operate his companies … as a Ponzi scheme.”
So, even the SEC eventually catches up with Wall Street Sociopaths. Good thing this event was sooner than the Bernie Maddoff situation. Too bad they still save the cushy prisons for these types.
Speaking of douchy dude bros, one or more of Bernie Sanders Campaign staff seems to have gone all Nixonian on Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Data in a feat reminiscent of CREEP. It seems that the DNC database needs better security.
The Democratic National Committee has suspended Bernie Sanders’ access to the party’s 50-state voter file in response to a software glitch that allowed the Sanders campaign to access Hillary Clinton’s internal voter data.
The DNC move effectively freezes Sanders’ field organizing program six weeks from the first caucuses and primaries.
The breach occurred on Wednesday, a DNC official confirmed, through the NGP VAN, the leading technology company that allows campaigns to identify voters, as well as monitor their preferences and leanings, in what’s called the 50-state voter file. For a “brief window” — about 30 minutes, an official said — a bug in the software exposed the campaigns’ internal “voter ID” data.
During that period, the Sanders campaign discovered the breach, accessed the Clinton campaign’s data, then called the vendor to point out the flaw, according to the official. The DNC has since cut off Sanders’ access to the voter file — until his campaign officials can “prove” they’ve deleted the Clinton data.
“The DNC places a high priority on maintaining the security of our system and protecting the data on it,” said the committee’s communications director, Luis Miranda. “We are working with our campaigns and the vendor to have full clarity on the extent of the breach, ensure that this isolated incident does not happen again, and to enable our campaigns to continue engaging voters on the issues that matter most to them and their families.”
It seems the Sanders campaign made use of a brief period of time when a patch was being applied. The breach did not go unnoticed. 
The DNC maintains the master list and rents it to national and state campaigns, which then add their own, proprietary information gathered by field workers and volunteers. Firewalls are supposed to prevent campaigns from viewing data gathered by their rivals.
NGP VAN, the vendor that handles the master file, said the incident occurred Wednesday while a patch was being applied to the software. The process briefly opened a window into proprietary information from other campaigns, said the company’s chief, Stu Trevelyan. He said a full audit will be conducted.
The DNC has told the Sanders campaign that it will not be allowed access to the data again until it provides an explanation as well as assurances that all Clinton data has been destroyed.
Having his campaign cut off from the national party’s voter data is a strategic setback for Sanders — and could be a devastating blow if it lasts. The episode also raises questions about the DNC’s ability to provide strategic resources to campaigns and state parties.
Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs said four Sanders campaign staffers accessed Clinton data, and that three of them did so at the direction of their boss, Josh Uretsky, who was the operative fired.
Uretsky told CNN Friday morning that he and others on the campaign discovered the software glitch Wednesday morning and probed the system to discover the extent of their own data’s exposure. He said there was no attempt to take Clinton information but said he took responsibility for the situation.
“We investigated it for a short period of time to see the scope of the Sanders campaign’s exposure and then the breach was shut down presumably by the vendor,” he told CNN. “We did not gain any material benefit.”
Weaver said the Sanders campaign never downloaded or printed any of the data, meaning it is no longer in possession of any proprietary information. He squarely blamed NGP VAN for the glitch — and blamed the DNC for hiring the company.
I’m still checking to see if any of the alleged hipster campaign bros sport man buns. That’s just in the interest of demographics mind you. If you really want to know how most Hillary supporters feel, follow Uppity Woman on Twitter. I’ve found the whole thing douchy and laughable since I consider Bernie Sanders to be the definition of a gadfly campaign.
We’re less than 48 hours from the next Democratic debate so the 
timing is a bit interesting. The third debate will be on December 19th, Saturday, in New Hampshire.
Hillary Clinton looks increasingly like a general election candidate performing from a primary stage.
The challenges that come along with that, both for her and her Democratic competitors, will be clear at the party’s third debate Saturday in New Hampshire.
Clinton, who’s maintaining more than a 20-point lead in national polls over her nearest competitor, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, has focused less on mirroring his progressive positions — with the exception of a pledge Wednesday to raise taxes on the wealthy — and more on positioning herself for the general election.
With much of the 2016 spotlight focused on the GOP battle and Donald Trump’s provocative statements and proposals (such as his recent call to temporarily ban non-citizen Muslims from entering the country), the debate is a chance for the Democrats to get some media exposure. Clinton and Sanders will be joined on stage by former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley.
The last debate, held in Iowa the day after the Paris terrorist attacks, was punctuated by hits on Clinton’s foreign policy record, including her vote as a U.S. senator to authorize the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Now, the question is whether O’Malley and Sanders sharpen those attacks with polls showing the race largely stagnant since October.
“For Sanders and O’Malley it’s a gut-check moment,” said Dante Scala, a political expert at the University of New Hampshire. “Are they, in their hearts, fine with Hillary being the nominee,” or do they want to escalate attacks that could hurt her in a general election, he said.
Speaking of douchy dude bros, first generation douchy dude bro Donald Trump shocked the monkey err fellow first generation douchy dude bro Joe Scarborough today on Morning Joe. Just what won’t come out of the Donald’s active orifices? Oh, and does a man bun turn into one gigantic comb over after most of the hair’s gone? Just asking as a matter of public interest. After all, inquiring minds want to know.
During a Friday-morning interview with Donald Trump, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough was baffled by the Republican front-runner’s embrace of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Sure, when people call you ‘brilliant’ it’s always good. Especially when the person heads up Russia,” Trump told cohost Mika Brzezinski when asked about Putin praising him as “very talented” the day before.
Scarborough pointed to Putin’s status as a notorious strongman.
“Well, I mean, it’s also a person who kills journalists, political opponents, and invades countries. Obviously that would be a concern, would it not?” Scarborough asked.
“He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader,” Trump replied. “Unlike what we have in this country.”
“But again: He kills journalists that don’t agree with him,” Scarborough said.
The Republican presidential front-runner said there was “a lot of killing going on” around the world and then suggested that Scarborough had asked him a different question.
“I think our country does plenty of killing, also, Joe, so, you know,” Trump replied. “There’s a lot of stupidity going on in the world right now, Joe. A lot of killing going on. A lot of stupidity. And that’s the way it is. But you didn’t ask me [that] question, you asked me a different question. So that’s fine.”
Scarborough was left visibly stunned.
“I’m confused,” the MSNBC host said. “So I mean, you obviously condemn Vladimir Putin killing journalists and political opponents, right?”
“Oh sure, absolutely,” Trump said.
Several of Trump’s Republican presidential rivals criticized the billionaire businessman on Thursday for saying it was a “great honor” to receive Putin’s praise.
Okay, I can’t take any more of this thread as well as the remainder of 2015. Oh, btw, I consider douchy to be the perfect word for these misogynists. Let them be associated with the thing that disturbs them the most: VAGINAS!!!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Monday Reads
Posted: December 14, 2015 Filed under: Afternoon Reads, morning reads | Tags: Climate change, coast erosion, Louisiana, Miami floods 21 CommentsGood Morning!
I thought I’d provide some links and information on the climate change negotiations in Paris. This was something I planned to blog on earlier but so much crazy is going on that it’s distracted me. Rather than open up with the details, I’m starting with a New Yorker article about how predictable the flooding has gotten in Miami and how an elderly Florida professor believes the surrounding area has less than 50 years to go before its completely submerged. That’s a pretty astounding hypothesis and I speak as New Orleanian on one of the few strips of land that sits comfortably above current sea level knowing we’re not that far behind. New York City should be concerned too. But, for right now, back to becoming a disaster tourist where it’s actually possible to schedule your viewing of Miami floods. They are now that predictable.
The city of Miami Beach floods on such a predictable basis that if, out of curiosity or sheer perversity, a person wants to she can plan a visit to coincide with an inundation. Knowing the tides would be high around the time of the “super blood moon,” in late September, I arranged to meet up with Hal Wanless, the chairman of the University of Miami’s geological-sciences department. Wanless, who is seventy-three, has spent nearly half a century studying how South Florida came into being. From this, he’s concluded that much of the region may have less than half a century more to go.
We had breakfast at a greasy spoon not far from Wanless’s office, then set off across the MacArthur Causeway. (Out-of-towners often assume that Miami Beach is part of Miami, but it’s situated on a separate island, a few miles off the coast.) It was a hot, breathless day, with a brilliant blue sky. Wanless turned onto a side street, and soon we were confronting a pond-sized puddle. Water gushed down the road and into an underground garage. We stopped in front of a four-story apartment building, which was surrounded by a groomed lawn. Water seemed to be bubbling out of the turf. Wanless took off his shoes and socks and pulled on a pair of polypropylene booties. As he stepped out of the car, a woman rushed over. She asked if he worked for the city. He said he did not, an answer that seemed to disappoint but not deter her. She gestured at a palm tree that was sticking out of the drowned grass.
“Look at our yard, at the landscaping,” she said. “That palm tree was super-expensive.” She went on, “It’s crazy—this is saltwater.”“Welcome to rising sea levels,” Wanless told her.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, sea levels could rise by more than three feet by the end of this century. The United States Army Corps of Engineers projects that they could rise by as much as five feet; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts up to six and a half feet. According to Wanless, all these projections are probably low. In his office, Wanless keeps a jar of meltwater he collected from the Greenland ice sheet. He likes to point out that there is plenty more where that came from.
“Many geologists, we’re looking at the possibility of a ten-to-thirty-foot range by the end of the century,” he told me.
We got back into the car. Driving with one hand, Wanless shot pictures out the window with the other. “Look at that,” he said. “Oh, my gosh!” We’d come to a neighborhood of multimillion-dollar homes where the water was creeping under the security gates and up the driveways. Porsches and Mercedeses sat flooded up to their chassis.
“This is today, you know,” Wanless said. “This isn’t with two feet of sea-level rise.” He wanted to get better photos, and pulled over onto another side street. He handed me the camera so that I could take a picture of him standing in the middle of the submerged road. Wanless stretched out his arms, like a magician who’d just conjured a rabbit.
In the Miami area, the daily high-water mark has been rising almost an inch a year.
CREDIT ILLUSTRATION BY JACOB ESCOBED
I guess the bottom line is to go short on real estate in Southern Florida and don’t expect your private supplemental flood insurance to come cheap.
Louisiana has already lost its boot. There is significant land loss here and the National Climate Change report has put Louisiana and New Orleans as one of the country’s most vulnerable locations behind Southern Florida.
Louisiana will see billions of dollars in increased disaster costs as early as 2030 resulting from the combined effects of global warming and natural processes, according to a new National Climate Assessment report released by the White House on Tuesday (May 6).
The report also warns that sea level rise – combined with naturally-occurring subsidence – continues to threaten wetlandsand land bordering the state’s most populated areas, increasing their risk from storm surges; and that sea level rise driven by human-induced global warming also threatens interstate highways, railroads, ports, airports, oil and gas facilities and water supplies.
“The southeastern region is exceptionally vulnerable to sea level rise, extreme heat events and decreased water availability,” said Kirsten Dow, a geography professor at the University of South Carolina and one of the authors of chapters in the report, during a telephonic news conference on the report.
The state’s agriculture also is threatened by sea level rise that could contaminate shallow groundwater tables, the report said.
Louisiana’s residents also will see a significant increase in the number of days when the temperature reaches 95 degrees Fahrenheit, and a significant reduction in the days when temperatures drop below 32 degrees, according to the report. The temperature changes are likely to pose a threat to the health of at-risk populations, including those who are chronically ill or elderly.
We’re also getting an unseasonably warm December. I’m trying to be sympathetic with my NYC friends who are complaining about needing AC and shorts. This weather might be taken as an outlier if the average
temperatures over an extended period of time haven’t trended upward by such a statistically significant amount.
It’s beginning to look a lot like — September? While retailers may be hitting their full holiday shopping season stride, Mother Nature is not doing her part to put people in the Christmas spirit.
Unseasonably mild temperatures are spreading over the eastern half of the country and about 75% of the U.S. population will see the temperature climb over 60°F by the end of the weekend, hardly a winter wonderland. Don’t be surprised to find holiday shoppers wearing shorts while strolling along Michigan Avenue in Chicago this weekend, as temperatures in the low 60s will make it feel more like late September or early October.
Many folks are asking if the relatively successful Paris agreements on Climate Change are our last best hope for the planet? Rebecca Leber–writing for The New Republic—suggests they may help prevent doom.
These negotiations essentially determined the future course of the world. For a long time we’ve needed an agreement that covers the vast majority of carbon emissions and lays out in no uncertain terms that they are on a long-term downward trajectory. But to get there, 195 countries had a decision to make: Would they allow individual disagreements to lock the planet into a future of unrestrained warming, or would they make the hard choices necessary to chart a safer path?
While the Paris agreement is far from perfect, the text as a whole makes a convincing case for hope. The world is a little less doomed now.
Based on the domestic pledges made by 187 countries, covering some 95 percent of global emissions, the Earth’s average temperature could now rise by somewhere between 2.7 to 3.5 degrees Celsius over the course of the century. That’s still far too high, and shows how much work remains, but it is an improvement over the path of unrestrained pollution we were on before Paris.
A woman wearing a mask walk through a street covered by dense smog in Harbin, northern China, Monday, Oct. 21, 2013. Visibility shrank to less than half a football field and small-particle pollution soared to a record 40 times higher than an international safety standard in one northern Chinese city as the region entered its high-smog season. (AP Photo/Kyodo News) JAPAN OUT, MANDATORY CREDIT
Beijing and Delhi are two of the worst polluted cities in the world. How the two of them deal with that pollution is important to the success of any strategy dealing with carbon emissions hoping to stem climate change. Beijng has smog emergency days frequently. I remember these from L.A. in the late 1960s when I visited my grandparents who retired there. An rusty colored cloud hung over that city and was the first thing I remember seeing when we would drive over the mountains and get a glimpse. Things have changed since Nixon’s EPA-related laws, but not enough. However, even the worst smog days in old L.A. have nothing on New Delhi and Beijing. These cities are also the ones begging for mercy on an pollution control mandates coming from the Paris negotiations.
When Beijing’s air was forecast to reach hazardous levels for three straight days earlier in December, the government issued a smog red alert. The result: Half the city’s cars were off the roads within hours, schools were closed and construction sites shut down. Less than three days later, pollution levels had dropped by 30 per cent.When New Delhi’s winter air grew so bad that High Court warned that “it seems like we are living in a gas chamber,” the city’s top official declared that cars would be restricted starting January 1, with odd and even license plates taking turns on the roads. But police officials quickly announced they hadn’t been consulted, and said they’d have trouble enforcing the rule. Plus, no one could fully explain how the already overstretched public transit system could absorb millions of additional commuters overnight.So, well, maybe the whole plan will be scrapped.”If there are too many problems, it will be stopped,” Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said in a speech a couple days after his announcement. “We will not do anything which will cause inconvenience to the public.”Long famous for its toxic air, Beijing is struggling to lose that reputation, bowing to pressure from a growing middle class to keep pollution under control. Traffic is regularly restricted in the city, factories have been moved and the Central Government is anxious to ratchet down the country’s use of coal-burning power plants.And New Delhi, which by many measures now has far more polluted air than Beijing? So far, the green panel has ordered that no diesel cars be registered in the city for the next few weeks, and has discouraged the government from buying diesels for government fleets. Officials, meanwhile, have suggested everything from car-free days to planting more trees to dedicated bus lanes.
Here is a short outline on the key points of the accords and the impact on India. Developing nations were given a lot of leeway. Getting this kind of agreement was difficult given the many agendas of the various countries.
The Paris accord builds upon the bottom up approach of voluntary commitments or Intended Nationally Determined Commitments(INDCs) from both developed and developing countries. The accord urges parties to enhance their pre-2020 emission cuts and acknowledges the significant gap between current pledges and what is needed to be consistent with holding temperature rise to 1.5 degrees. Countries are expected to submit revised INDCs by 2020, and every five years thereafter. Modi in his opening speech at the negotiations highlighted the need to operationalise the principle of equity and fair distribution of the remaining carbon space (i.e. the amount of carbon we can further emit before breaching average temperature threshold).
Modi in his opening speech at the negotiations highlighted the need to operationalise the principle of equity and fair distribution of the remaining carbon space (i.e. the amount of carbon we can further emit before breaching average temperature threshold).
But by deferring ambitious carbon reductions from the developed countries post 2020, which will still remain voluntary, India has effectively accepted a scenario where a fair carbon budgeting is a distant dream. India, it appears, will instead push hard for greater financing and capacity building for a renewable energy transition.
The one thing the December 12th agreement has is a commitment to phase out the use of fossil fuels. This is something the EU has been working on aggressively.
The agreement commits its signatories to a wonky goal: A “balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases” before the end of the century. In practice, that means an economy with net zero emissions as soon as possible, paving the way for a massive uptake in renewable energy and the careful preservation of the world’s forests. It also includes a global temperature target of “well below” a rise of 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and instructs them to “pursue efforts” to keep the increase to just 1.5 degrees, amajor victory for the small island countries that formed the moral heart of the negotiations.
Negotiators worked throughout the two weeks—plus an extra day—on delivering a bold compromise, arriving with legally binding language on financial and technical support to developing countries and a novel “ratchet” mechanism that commits all nations to return to the negotiating table and increase their ambition every five years.
Shipping and air travel, which account for about 8 percent of global emissions, were excluded from the agreement due to the quirk of their international nature, though even those sources are scheduled to be part of separate agreements next year.
It’s by no means a perfect deal, but the final wording of the agreement reflects major achievements in science and diplomacy that have been in the works for decades. Small island countries, in particular, played a critical role at bridging differencesbetween the major developed countries, like the U.S. and Europe, and major developing countries, like India and China. This is an agreement that’s designed to last a century, and will shape the trajectory of both threatened ecosystems and the global economy for the foreseeable future.
As you read links, you will see that this is a very slow and incremental process. It is probably too slow to save both the Louisiana Coast and Southern Florida. Here’s the most comprehensive information on the negotiations and accords.
Here are key resources on the Paris Agreement and events leading up to it.
Summary of the Paris Agreement
Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) reached a landmark agreement on December 12 in Paris, charting a fundamentally new course in the two-decade-old global climate effort.
The agreement reached in Paris at the conclusion of COP 21 seeks to address rising emissions and climate imapcts with tools to hold countries accountable and build ambition over time.
Essential Elements of a Paris Climate Agreement
A concise, comprehensive guide to what Paris needs to deliver: a legal agreement that ensures strong accountability and spurs rising ambition. Issues include long-term direction, mitigation, adaptation, finance, transparency and updating of national contributions.
A Primer on the Paris Climate Talks
Questions and answers on the history of the U.N. climate talks, key issues under negotiation, the legal nature of the agreement, implications for U.S. acceptance, and what happens after Paris.
Business Support for the Paris Agreement
Fourteen major companies joined a statement organized by C2ES calling for an agreement that provides clearer long-term direction, strengthens transparency, promotes greater comparability of effort, and facilitates the global carbon market.
Read a seminal report from the co-chairs of C2ES’s Toward 2015 dialogue, which brought together top negotiators from two dozen countries for a series of candid, in-depth discussions that forged common ground on key issues for Paris.
Legal Options for U.S. Acceptance
This C2ES legal analysis examines whether the Paris climate agreement can be accepted by the president under executive authority or must be approved by Congress.
So, this is a bonus, creepy crime-ridden tale of swampy Louisiana and it involves one of my favorite topics. There’s an abandoned pet cemetery with a complex and dark history that was featured by a photographer
shooting during the Katrina 10 year anniversary. It’s actually got violent history back to about 1854 when it was still part of a vast plantation and hosted a duel. It seems an odd way to end a climate change post but just think how creepy it’s going to be when a whole lot of today’s real estate is an abandoned, swampy ghost town. That’s where we’re headed.
The duel may have marked the first of many bloodspills involving the Toca pet cemetery property’s once and future owners, as well as those intangibly associated with what is now an overgrown, bayou-side graveyard and the axis of a recently exhumed 27-year-old murder investigation. The probe has opened a crack in an ageless odyssey of killings, betrayal, buried treasure and intrigue, all tied to a 14-acre tract in tiny Toca, Louisiana.
Today, the property consists of a derelict but once classic Edwardian manor encircled by overgrown animal tombstones on the right bank of Bayou Terre-aux-Boeufs, just below Poydras in rural St. Bernard Parish, about four miles from the Mississippi River.
Last month, authorities claimed to have solved the most recent crime on this killing field of south Louisiana when the St. Bernard Sheriff’s Office booked Brandon Nodier, a former groundskeeper at the cemetery, with the 1985 murder of Dorothy Thompson, an heiress whose own legacy is splattered with bloodshed. But many intrigues, such as the whereabouts of a missing half million dollar fortune, perhaps will linger forever, lost with those now dead and gone.
Historic court records, police reports, newspaper clippings, biographies, interviews, marriage, divorce and death records reveal a bizarre history of the pet cemetery that for three decades attracted animal lovers from throughout the South.
So, that’s it from me on a gloomy New Orleans Monday.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
jjlo
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
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