Archive for 2017
December 20, 2017
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Five Things to Know About the Final Republican Tax Reform Bill.
GREEDY CORPORATION ALERT: In immediate wake of tax bill passing, AT&T Will Give Workers $1,000 Bonuses to Celebrate the Tax Bill.
REVIEW: 2018 BMW X3.
AT AMAZON, save on Last Minute Deals.
BOOK HER, DANNO: Arrest Rosie O’Donnell for attempted bribery, Mr. President.
21ST CENTURY DATING FOR FUN AND PROFIT: Author of online hit ‘Cat Person’ has 7-figure book deal.
Scout Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that Kristen Roupenian’s debut story collection “You Know You Want This” is scheduled for the spring of 2019. Scout Press did not disclose financial details for the two-book deal, which also includes a novel. But two publishing officials told the AP that bidding topped $1 million. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss negotiations. Last week, rights in the United Kingdom were obtained by publisher Jonathan Cape.
“Cat Person,” released by The New Yorker earlier this month, is the fictional story of a 20-year-old woman and a 34-year-old man who become friendly through texting and of the disillusion that follows. It quickly went viral and was widely debated and analyzed, with The Washington Post praising the story for capturing “the experience not of print-oriented, older intellectuals but of millennials.
“As some Twitter users said, young people rarely see the phenomenon of modern dating — meeting online, talking through text messages, moving to in-person encounters shadowed with the expectation of sex — taken so seriously,” wrote the Post’s Molly Roberts.
“Cat Person” was a long, hard slog of a short story, but evidently there’s an audience for that kind of thing.
I’M NOT REAL SAD ABOUT THIS: Man who doused wife in lye, prompting face transplant, dies.
WELL, THAT’S A BUMMER: Study: No method proven to prevent Alzheimer’s disease.
MAYBE WE CAN ALL JUST GET ALONG: Yale Secular Humanists Help New Haven Decorate for Christmas.
CHANGE: Saudi Arabia to Freeze More Bank Accounts in Crackdown.
Almost seven weeks after the purge started, authorities are detaining new suspects and releasing some of those held, the people said, asking not to be identified because the matter is private. The Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority is also telling banks to freeze the accounts of more individuals who aren’t under arrest and people linked to them, the people said.
The government’s Center for International Communication didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. SAMA referred questions to the public prosecution, which didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
The authorities are hoping to reach agreements with detainees, who include royals and billionaires such as Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, “within weeks,” Attorney General Sheikh Saud Al Mojeb said earlier this month. The kingdom is hoping to recover as much as $100 billion from settlement deals made with detainees.
It seems Crown Prince Salman isn’t just cleaning up corruption in his modernization drive, but also topping off the Kingdom’s coffers currently drained by low oil prices.
21ST CENTURY HEADLINES: Currency-mining Android malware is so aggressive it can physically harm phones.
FERTILITY: Woman gives birth to baby frozen as embryo for 24 years.
Tina and Benjamin Gibson became the proud parents of Emma Wren on Nov. 25. Emma weighed a healthy 6 pounds, 8 ounces and measured 20 inches long.
According to staff at the University of Tennessee Preston Medical Library, Emma holds the all-time record for the longest-frozen embryo to come to birth.
The Gibsons had Emma through the National Embryo Donation Center, a faith-based embryo adoption program in which couples hoping to conceive are paired with embryos that will not be used by their genetic parents. The NEDC said in a news release that it has received donated embryos from all 50 states, as well as foreign countries.
A “baby counter” on the NEDC website tallies its live births at 686 babies.
Emma was frozen in October 1992, when Tina Gibson, 26, was 18 months old. The embryo was thawed in March of this year and implanted two days later.
Wow.
IT’S A DONE DEAL: Congress wraps up massive tax package.
BEGUN, THE FLAME WARS HAVE: 5 Best Handguns in the World.
In a pinch of course, like cameras, the best gun is the one you have on you.
THE #1 NEW RELEASE IN MARRIAGE AND FAMILY is the audiobook of the InstaWife’s Men on Strike: Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood, and the American Dream – and Why It Matters.
GLAD TO SEE THAT HARVEY WEINSTEIN’S MANY FEMALE ENABLERS AREN’T GETTING A PASS: Meryl Streep #SheKnew posters pop up in Los Angeles amid backlash over Harvey Weinstein comments.
Related: Anita Hill is not Hollywood’s answer to Harvey Weinstein. ‘They all do it’ defense of Clinton doesn’t fly.. “Hill had the chance to stand up for numerous women who were being sexually mistreated by a powerful man. Instead, she chose to defend that man and cast doubt on his accusers. So much for every woman deserving to be believed. During former president Bill Clinton’s sexual misconduct scandals, Hill was interviewed by Tim Russert and Gwen Ifill of NBC News on Meet the Press. They asked her directly about accusations made by Kathleen Willey, Paula Jones and others. Her reaction would cause a great deal of shock today, and the women of entertainment need to know what she said then because it affects how much confidence they should invest in her now.”
THE BEAUTIFUL MIND OF NEURAL NETWORKS.
A MODEST PROPOSAL: Why Leftists Should Not Be Allowed to Have Guns.
THE 21ST CENTURY ISN’T TURNING OUT THE WAY I HAD HOPED: “This year, an ideology that killed millions in the twentieth century attempted to resurrect itself. Oh, and the Nazis tried to make a comeback, too.”