Trump undermines his own travel ban and Justice Department.
World leaders who stoop to attack municipal politicians in foreign cities look small, not that we can recall a precedent... In a humiliating coup de grace, the mayor’s office put out a statement saying he “has more important things to do than respond” to Mr. Trump’s social-media insults. The U.S. Commander in Chief also has better uses of his time than making himself look foolish... If Mr. Trump’s action is legal on the merits, he seems to be angry that his lawyers are trying to vindicate the rule of law. Attorney General Jeff Sessions would be justified if he resigned.. If this pattern continues, Mr. Trump may find himself running an Administration with no one but his family and the Breitbart staff. People of talent and integrity won’t work for a boss who undermines them in public without thinking about the consequences. And whatever happened to the buck stops here?.. In other words, in 140-character increments, Mr. Trump diminished his own standing by
- causing a minor international incident,
- demonstrated that the loyalty he demands of the people who work for him isn’t reciprocal,
- set back his policy goals and wasted time that he could have devoted to health care, tax reform or “infrastructure week.”
Mark it all down as further evidence that the most effective opponent of the Trump Presidency is Donald J. Trump.
What the proposed 20% cut in farm subsidies mean for your grocery bill
Further, even if the Trump budget cuts were to increase market prices for crops and livestock, the effects on prices paid by consumers for their groceries would be modest.
The reason: most of the costs of putting food on supermarket shelves come from transportation, processing, and marketing expenditures. For example, payments to farmers for wheat account only for about 6% of the cost of a loaf of bread. Even relatively large increases in wheat prices would translate into modest increases in the price of a loaf of bread. So hypothetically, even if the Trump agricultural subsidy cuts were to increase agricultural commodity prices (which they wouldn’t), the effects on the food bills of U.S. consumers would be very modest.
What would the Trump budget cuts achieve? They would save taxpayers about $48 billion over the next 10 years and reduce U.S. farm-sector revenue by about 1%, scarcely an event that would cause the sector to collapse.
It would have negligible effects on food prices and food security.
Moreover, the impacts of the proposed cuts would be concentrated among the largest corporate farm operations and would have no impacts on the rural working poor and low-income farmers.
How ‘Eureka’ Moments in Science Happen
From bathtubs to falling apples, find out what really drives some of the iconic tales of “light bulb” moments in science.
A falling apple prompts physicist Isaac Newton to formulate his laws of gravity. Greek polymath Archimedes takes a bath and figures out how to calculate volume and density. These are iconic “light bulb” moments in the history of science. Or, as Archimedes reputedly said when insight struck, Eureka!
Today, the flash of insight is measurable using brain scans, which show a part of the right hemisphere lights up at that moment. While Anna Marie Roos, a historian of science at the University of Lincoln, advises us to take some “eureka moments” with a grain of salt, she thinks they do have much to say about the creative process.
.. people love them because it simplifies things and takes away all the hard slogging. It’s an analogy everybody understands. Eureka stories are a compression of decades and decades of work into one inspirational moment. It’s like a parable.
Richard Rohr: Francis of Assissi: Voluntary Poverty
That is the inherent nature of greed—there is never enough. For some reason this is no longer considered a capital sin in our capitalist society. In fact, I have never heard anyone confess an offense against the tenth commandment. “Coveting our neighbor’s goods” is the very nature of our society.