Today’s comic by Mark Fiore is House Committee on Leakers:
• What’s coming up on Sunday Kos …
- Signs of hope for Democrats in 2018? A cautious yes, by Sher Watts Spooner
- If Democrats fail to fight Gorsuch, they look weak and share the blame for future decisions, by David Akadjian
- The blindness of anti-Trump Republicans, by Ian Reifowitz
- Okay pro-lifers, since ACA repeal will kill tens of thousands, can we count on you, by Egberto Willies
- Trumpcare in red and blue, by Jon Perr
- America’s dumbest congressman* is at it again, by Mark E Andersen
- Voter suppression and anti-union laws work in tandem when the GOP takes over a state’s government, by Stephen Wolf
- Mary Ann Shadd Cary: Black suffragist, abolitionist, publisher and lawyer, by Denise Oliver Velez
- Selling across state lines will be a great deal … for insurance companies, by DarkSyde
• The South’s manufacturing renaissance comes with a heavy price:
Alabama has been trying on the nickname “New Detroit.” Its burgeoning auto parts industry employs 26,000 workers, who last year earned $1.3 billion in wages. Georgia and Mississippi have similar, though smaller, auto parts sectors. This factory growth, after the long, painful demise of the region’s textile industry, would seem to be just the kind of manufacturing renaissance President Donald Trump and his supporters are looking for.
Except that it also epitomizes the global economy’s race to the bottom. Parts suppliers in the American South compete for low-margin orders against suppliers in Mexico and Asia. They promise delivery schedules they can’t possibly meet and face ruinous penalties if they fall short. Employees work ungodly hours, six or seven days a week, for months on end. Pay is low, turnover is high, training is scant, and safety is an afterthought, usually after someone is badly hurt. Many of the same woes that typify work conditions at contract manufacturers across Asia now bedevil parts plants in the South.
• If you haven’t yet seen it, here’s Time’s Trump interview redacted by Ellie Shechet at Jezebel to show only the true parts. Definitely not tl;dr.
• Your cat really loves you:
The current study investigated domestic cat preferences at the individual and population level using a free operant preference assessment. Adult cats from two populations (pet and shelter) were presented with three stimuli within each of the following four categories: human social interaction, food, toy, and scent. Proportion of time interacting with each stimulus was recorded.Although there was clear individual variability in cat preference, social interaction with humans was the most-preferred stimulus category for the majority of cats, followed by food. This was true for cats in both the pet and shelter population. Future research can examine the use of preferred stimuli as enrichment in applied settings and assess individual cats’ motivation to work for their most-preferred stimulus as a measure of reinforcer efficacy.
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• Life (and Near Death) in Space:
While doing somersaults in zero G might not sound stressful, one has to consider that these astronauts are living in an extremely hostile, high-risk environment—the smallest mistake could be the difference between life and death. Even with the best of preparations, there have been a number of close calls on the space station.
Take, for instance, the case of the Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano, who in 2013 had to terminate a spacewalk early after water from his space suit started leaking into his helmet and risked drowning him. As Parmitano would later describe the experience, he said he felt like "a goldfish inside a fishbowl" as water started leaking into his helmet.
• Blue state attorneys general join together to battle Trump:
With Democrats outnumbered in Congress, a coalition of blue state attorneys general has emerged as the strongest resistance to Donald Trump’s conservative agenda. Together they’ve notched back-to-back victories against Trump’s two attempts to instill a travel ban against several Muslim-majority nations. They now hope to build on that success to form a united front against Trump’s expected efforts to roll back financial and environmental regulation, plus the GOP’s planned repeal of Obamacare.
• Study in mice indicates that purging “retired” cells could reverse aging. Maybe.
•On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, the Gop really, totally threatens a health care bomb vote today. Armando & David Waldman discuss the Byrd rule & how to break it. GSA inexplicably buys Trump’s hotel argument. Did Sessions hide a third meeting with Kislyak? “Dim” Mnuchin is a weirdo.
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