Scientists have officially named the four newest elements of the periodic table

With only 118 elements in the periodic table, it’s a rare day in science when four new elements get bestowed their names. Yet that’s exactly what happened yesterday (Nov. 30) when the official chemistry body announced that it had approved the proposed names for four elements discovered and confirmed over the past decade: Nihonium (Nh), Moscovium (Mc), Tennessine (Ts), and Oganesson (Og) for elements 113, 115, 117, and 118 respectively.

With these four elements named, the seventh row of the iconic periodic table is now complete.

more (with song!)
http://qz.com/850284/four-new-elements-nihonium-moscovium-tennessine-and-oganesson-have-been-officially-added-to-the-periodic-table/

A Trump Surrogate Drops the Mic: 'There's No Such Thing as Facts'

BY JACK HOLMES
DEC 1, 2016
287
Is there such a thing as truth? The past 18 months posed this seemingly absurd question. It's not whether something Donald Trump says is true, but about whether anyone even cares. Trump's campaign made a bet that enough voters didn't (or couldn't) tell the difference in a deluge of information, and that bet paid off. Trump won the most important election in decades. His surrogate Scott Nell Hughes explicitly confirmed that whole strategy yesterday.

Hughes joined The Diane Rehm Show to discuss the media's role in covering the Trump administration. If the campaign and transition are anything to go on, Trump's White House will not overly concern itself with reality. The whole segment is here, but another member of the panel, The Atlantic's James Fallows, flagged one particular moment of the conversation. Around the 14-minute mark, Hughes illustrated a defining principle of Trumpism: There's no longer such thing as fact, because anything is true if enough people believe it.

"Well, I think it's also an idea of an opinion. And that's—on one hand, I hear half the media saying that these are lies. But on the other half, there are many people that go, 'No, it's true.' And so one thing that has been interesting this entire campaign season to watch, is that people that say facts are facts—they're not really facts. Everybody has a way—it's kind of like looking at ratings, or looking at a glass of half-full water. Everybody has a way of interpreting them to be the truth, or not truth. There's no such thing, unfortunately, anymore as facts.

"And so Mr. Trump's tweet, amongst a certain crowd—a large part of the population—are truth. When he says that millions of people illegally voted, he has some—amongst him and his supporters, and people believe they have facts to back that up. Those that do not like Mr. Trump, they say that those are lies and that there are no facts to back it up."

Chesapeake barber school received millions to teach veterans. Instead, the director was defrauding

By Margaret Matray

Students at William Grobes IV’s barber school had a motto: “We’re here to earn, not to learn.”

From October 2011 through September this year, the College of Beauty and Barber Culture in Chesapeake collected $4.5 million from the Department of Veterans Affairs under the Post-9/11 GI Bill.

Veteran students enrolled there collected $10.5 million more – for housing allowances, books and supplies.

But the school was defrauding the VA, federal prosecutors say.

Veterans “rarely, if ever,” received the required hours of instruction, according to court documents. They didn’t take graded tests or complete projects. Some didn’t even have a textbook.

more

http://pilotonline.com/news/local/crime/chesapeake-barber-school-received-millions-to-teach-veterans-instead-the/article_8691efcd-6cf1-5103-9e9f-5463921450a2.html

Sounds like a excellent candidate for Trump's Department of Education.

Donald Trump staffer found guilty on 10 counts of election fraud

Source: Independent

A man who worked on Donald Trump’s campaign in Michigan has been found guilty on 10 counts of election fraud.

Brandon Hall, a political activist, forged signatures on petition forms in 2012 and now faces up to five years in prison.

The 27-year-old from Grand Haven, along with his friend Zachary Savage, forged signatures in support of judicial candidate Chris Houtaling.

Mr Savage received immunity from charges by the Attorney General’s Office in exchange for his testimony in this case, according to Grand Haven Tribune.

Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-staffer-brandon-hall-michigan-guilty-election-fraud-a7449046.html

Judges consider extending federal workplace protections for sexual orientation

In a case that could extend workplace protection to the LGBT community, federal appellate judges in Chicago are reconsidering whether the Civil Rights Act of 1964 applies to discrimination based on sexual orientation.

The case, heard Wednesday before a full panel of 7th Circuit Court judges, revolves around a South Bend, Ind., math teacher who contends she was repeatedly denied promotions and fired from the Indiana community college where she worked because she is a lesbian.

Kimberly Hively brought the federal lawsuit against Ivy Tech Community College in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana in August 2014. Judges dismissed her case in March 2015, finding that Hively failed to state her claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which bans workplace discrimination by sex but doesn't explicitly address sexual orientation. A panel of three 7th Circuit judges upheld that ruling in a 42-page opinion issued in July, but all 12 judges voted in October to vacate that ruling and rehear the case.

more

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-lgbt-workplace-protections-20161201-story.html

Ingredient in magic mushrooms is shown to ease anxiety and depression in cancer patients in one dose

In findings that could pry open a door closed for nearly half a century, researchers have found that psilocybin — a hallucinogen long used in traditional healing rituals — eases the depression and soothes the anxiety of patients contending with serious illness and the prospect of imminent death.

In two separate studies published Thursday, researchers report that trial subjects who received a single moderate-to-large dose of psilocybin got substantial and lasting relief from their profound distress. Among 80 cancer patients who participated in the two trials, as many as 4 in 5 continued to feel measurably less hopeless and demoralized six months after taking the drug than they had upon their recruitment.

And even years later, many reported they had gained — and retained — a profound sense of peace and meaning from the experience. Of 29 cancer patients who got psilocybin in a trial conducted at New York University’s Langone Medical Center, 20 rated it as “among the most meaningful” events of their life.

“This drug saved my life and changed my life,” said Dinah Bazer, a Brooklyn, N.Y., woman who was administered a single dose of psilocybin at a New York treatment center in 2011.

more
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-magic-mushrooms-cancer-anxiety-20161201-story.html

Thursday TOON Roundup 2 -The Rest

Protest






Fires




Texas


CONgress






GS




Elites


Media


Voters




World AIDS Day




Vets


Parties


Cuba

Thursday Toon Roundup 1- Trump marches on

I Will Not Shut Up. America Is Still Worth Fighting For.

BY HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

So, yes, I have the dubious honor of being on the “Professor Watchlist”** — a list published recently by a young alt-right provocateur who knew that such a list would get media traction because of Sen. McCarthy’s attacks on academics during the Red Scare. I made the list not because of complaints about my teaching, but because of my public writing about politics.

It is ironic that this list would label me “leftist.” In fact, in my public life, I do not identify with a political party, and I work with politicians on both sides of the aisle. I also teach the history of American conservative beliefs, as well as those of liberalism. I believe that the nation needs both the Democratic and the Republican parties to be strong and healthy.

It is even more ironic that the list would label me “anti-American.” In fact, I do what I do — all the teaching, writing, speeches and media — because I love America. I am staunchly committed to the principle of human self-determination, and have come to believe that American democracy is the form of government that comes closest to bringing that principle to reality. This nation is not perfect — far from it — but when it is at its best, it has more potential for people of all genders, races and ethnicities to create their own destinies than any other governmental system. I work to teach people about that system, its great triumphs and also its hideous failures. We must learn from the past because the miracle of America is that it is always reinventing itself, giving us the potential to remake it, better, every day.

more
http://billmoyers.com/story/the-watchlist/

Wednesday Toon Roundup 2- The Rest

EC






Trump Supporters





Emperor





News



Freedoms






Protest









Fires



Castro