In Vino Veritas: le Cantine Antinori a Bargino

Donald Trump e lo sghignazzo delle Nazioni Unite

By Zack Beauchamp

UN audience literally bursts out laughing at Trump’s speech
They didn’t take the president’s bragging very seriously.
One of President Trump’s favorite attacks on his political opponents is to say that the world is “laughing” at the United States. But on Tuesday, during Trump’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly, the assembled world notables literally laughed at him.
The audience erupted in laughter early, when Trump bragged about his accomplishments as president. “In two years, we have accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country,” he said.
Trump makes this sort of grandiose claim all the time, typically to friendly audiences at home. But the UN audience is less willing to indulge him, and at least a few members of the audience audibly giggled at this truly ridiculous claim. This flustered Trump, who smiled and said “so true” in response to the laughter. That bred even more laughter, though it was hard to tell at whose expense.
The president paused again, and smiled somewhat uncomfortably. “Didn’t expect that reaction, but that’s okay,” he said:
Past American presidents were not met with this kind of derision. That’s not surprising: Pew data shows that trust in the United States around the world plummeted after Trump took office. While Trump may be able to get away with this kind of absurd bragging at home — putting his presidency at the same level as Washington’s, Lincoln’s, and FDR’s — world dignitaries have more critical distance and no political incentive to let him get away with hyperbole.
Then there’s the sheer irony of the situation. Trump is “obsessed,” as NBC reporter Benjy Sarlin puts it, with the idea of the world laughing at the United States:

Se passa la legge sedili piu’ larghi e altri vantaggi per i passeggeri

Written by Barbara Peterson

Air travelers, rejoice? After three years of toil, Congress has produced a massive Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) authorization bill, a 1,200-page doorstopper that—at least on a few pages—addresses passengers’ biggest pet peeves: tight coach seating, annoying airline fees, and transparency in pricing. Consumers won't get everything they wanted should the bill pass later this week, neither will the airlines. (The bill is expected to come up for a vote in the House Wednesday, after which it goes to the Senate and then the president’s desk for signature.) But here’s where this epic bill comes down on a number of hot-button items:
What may change
Passenger seats: Members of Congress fly a lot, and they’re not happy about those cramped coach cabins, either. So it’s not a surprise that lawmakers included language that would require the FAA administrator to draw up regulations—within one year—to establish minimum standards for seat size, seat width, and the width of aisles.
So does that mean put-upon passengers will all be flying in comfort sometime soon? Not necessarily. When this topic came up before, the FAA pointed out that they only have jurisdiction over safety—namely, crash-worthiness of the seats themselves, and the ability of fliers to get and out of those tight seats in the event of an emergency. That said, the FAA could still set a minimum on seat pitch, which might be a good start, but don’t look for the agency to start regulating airline layouts. In short, things probably won’t get any worse for coach fliers, but they probably won’t improve much, either.
Bumping passengers: The measure prohibits airlines from removing passengers from a seat after they’ve already boarded, but most carriers had agreed to this, after that infamous passenger-dragging episode aboard a United flight last year went viral. In effect, this just requires airlines to live up to their promises.
Supersonic air travel: The bill would also authorize a return of “supersonic” transport with reduced sonic booms over land, as at least one private company—the aptly named Boom Supersonic—is planning to bring it back by 2018. Hello, three-hour flights from London to New York.
Information about your delayed flights: How often have you wondered if that delay is really due to just bad weather? Under the bill, regulators will have to determine whether it’s an unfair or deceptive practice when carriers use the foul weather excuse when other factors are at play. (A reason for airlines to play the "storm" card? Bad weather isn't their responsibility.)
Service animals: Congress directed the FAA to regulate airline policies on support and service animals, as there are currently no uniform standards—instead, each airline is responsible for implementing and enforcing their own rules, which can get confusing for fliers.
What won't change
Baggage and change fees: An earlier of the bill would have required airlines to provide supporting data to federal regulators to justify the fees they charge for checking baggage, changing a ticket, and other ancillary services. (That idea recently gained momentum as most airlines—see Delta, United, JetBlue, and American—hiked the price of that first checked bag to $30.) In particular, members of Congress said they wanted to know why the fee to change a reservation can run as high as $200—for an action that requires a few keystrokes. Under fierce lobbying from the airlines, lawmakers dropped this clause in the final draft.
In-flight cell calls: Faced the prospect of a planeload of passengers screaming “Can you hear me?” into their devices, Congress said that in-flight calls should be banned; however, the calls are already prohibited on U.S. flights and there’s little support for changing that situation. So think of this clause as an insurance policy to prevent an airline from deciding at some point to permit calls (for a fee, of course).
Foreign airline flight rights: Lawmakers axed a proposal supported by both airlines and their unions that would have restricted access to U.S. markets for foreign airlines like Norwegian Air which, it was alleged, take advantage of lax labor laws in countries outside their home bases to launch flights to U.S. cities (like Norwegian’s flights from mid-size U.S. cities like Providence to points in Ireland and Scotland).
Fare transparency: Airlines will still have to advertise the entire price of the ticket, including mandatory fees and taxes, preserving a rule that the airlines have fought to repeal ever since it was implemented in 2012.

Rivoluzione nei cieli

Emirates vuole acquistare Etihad che è in perdita
(Bloomberg)

Dubai’s flagship airline Emirates is looking at taking over unprofitable neighbor Etihad, according to four people familiar with the matter, in a move that would create the world’s biggest carrier by passenger traffic.
The talks, which are at a preliminary stage, would see Emirates acquire the main airline business of Abu Dhabi’s Etihad, which would keep its maintenance arm, according to the people, who asked not to be named because the matter is confidential. The negotiations could yet fall through, they said.
Both airlines initially declined to comment, before later denying that any talks were underway. Were a transaction to go ahead the enlarged airline operation would be bigger than that of American Airlines Group Inc., which has a market value of $19.2 billion.
Any deal would require the blessing of the rulers of the richest sheikhdoms in the United Arab Emirates. For Abu Dhabi, which sits on 6 percent of global oil reserves, it would advance a drive to overhaul state-controlled entities as it adapts to lower crude prices. The airlines have traditionally been arch rivals, with their hubs competing to attract the same transfer passengers making long-distance trips between Asia and the West.
At Etihad, group Chief Executive Officer Tony Douglas, who took over in January, has been abandoning weaker routes and paring back the fleet in order to cut costs and boost revenues and cash flow, though he said in June that the measures so far amount only to first steps.
The strategic rethink has also meant reining in Etihad’s ambitions to dominate global traffic, with the main aim now being to drive Abu Dhabi’s tourism sector and foreign commercial links. Douglas has also been negotiating with Airbus SE and Boeing Co. after concluding that doubling the fleet is no longer viable, calling into question scores of wide-body jet orders.
Bringing the airlines together would not be easy because of the duplication of routes from their Dubai and Abu Dhabi bases. Both have sought to exploit the region’s position at a natural global crossroads, but to wring maximum value from the hub model, flights need to be focused at a single location, making transfers easy and more routes viable.
Emirates, which has built the world’s biggest fleet of Airbus A380 superjumbos, supplemented by smaller Boeing 777 wide-bodies, is already far larger than Etihad, yet handing the Abu Dhabi company responsibility for certain markets might jeopardize its own success.
The formation of a merged airline would surpass current industry No. 1 American, based on the most recent annual traffic figures from the International Air Transport Association. It’s not clear how much further Etihad’s operations might actually be reduced.
Emirates is already the world’s biggest airline on international routes and ranks fourth overall, according to IATA, behind the top three U.S. carriers.
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È rrivato in Italia il Fireball Extreme Challenge!

settembre 19, 2018 Non attivi Di FULVIO AGRESTA


Sport esplosivo, divertente ed un efficace strumento nella lotta alle discriminazioni sociali e a favore delle pari opportunità.


Promoidea – MV Events & Sport Srl, società campana di comunicazione ed eventi con anni di successi alle spalle, sorprende di nuovo importando un nuovo sport che ripropone Telese Terme e la Campania in generale come leader nelle iniziative per le pari opportunità nella lotta alle discriminazioni sociali.


È infatti di ieri l’annuncio dell’organizzazione, in collaborazione con l’AICS nazionale, del “1° Torneo Internazionale di FXC – Fireball Extreme Challenge”, un nuovo, esplosivo sport dove la partecipazione di uomini e donne nella stessa squadra è obbligatoria e ogni differenza di trattamento tra sessi è stata eliminata. La disciplina, creata vent’anni fa in Italia, è stata successivamente codificata e regolamentata negli Stati Uniti, da lì esportata in Messico, Spagna, ed è ora ritornata in Italia proprio grazie a Promoidea.
https://youtu.be/aHJJkInZSmY

Alla ricerca del bello e del buono. Roma: Il IV Secolo

Da Baldo al IV Secolo è una trattoria situata in un angolo della Storta sulla Cassia con difficoltà di parcheggio perchè nonostante la crisi, nella Capitale ogni famiglia ha almeno due macchine.
L’ambiente non è niente di speciale, il cibo formidabile a conferma della fama che questi sardi, trapiantati a Roma 27 anni fa, hanno raggiunto non solo nell’area di Roma nord.
Abbiamo ordinato una insalata di pesce e spigola con patate.
Il nostro voto è dieci su dieci.
I prezzi sono allineati alla qualità dei prodotti serviti.
Per la spigola, siccome la preparano alla carta meglio non chiedere dopo quaranta minuti di attesa notizie sulla vostra ‘commanda’.
La risposta può essere: “ Se la vuole cruda gliela porto subito...”

Secondo Biden i votanti di Trump sono la feccia della societa’

Newsweek
Donald Trump Jr. has hit out at Joe Biden after the former vice president appeared to refer to Trump voters as the "dregs of society" during a fiery speech delivered at the annual dinner of the country's largest LGBT charity.
Speaking to guests at the Human Rights Campaign dinner on Saturday night, Biden accused President Donald Trump of using the White House as a "literal bully pulpit" and of being an ally to "forces of intolerance."
"Forces of intolerance remain determined to undermine and roll back the progress you have made," the former vice president warned his audience.
"This time they–not you–have an ally in the White House," he said.
"They're a small percentage of the American people, virulent people. Some of them, the dregs of society," Biden said.
"And instead of using the full might of the executive branch to secure justice, dignity, and safety for all, the president uses the White House as a literal, literal bully pulpit, callously exerting his power over those who have little or none," the former vice president said.
Trump Jr. was quick to condemn Biden over his comments, writing on Twitter: "We're all used to Creepy Joe saying stupid stuff, but this is too far even for him."
During his speech, Biden addressed his decision to speak out against the Trump administration, noting that he and former President Barack Obama had previously agreed to "remain silent" to give the government a chance to "get up and running."
"God forgive me," the former vice president said, appearing to lament the decision.
Read more: Joe Biden Marches in Pittsburgh Labor Day Parade, Tells Reporter 'Everything' Is at Stake During Midterms
Biden said it was the events of August 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia, which saw 32-year-old Heather Heyer killed while counter-protesting against a "Unite the Right" rally led by white supremacists, that forced him to break his silence.
"We have leaders who at the time when that occurred, when these guys were accompanied by white supremacists and Ku Klux Klan ... making a comparison saying there are good people in both groups," the former vice president said, referring to Trump's comments in the wake of the tragedy, claiming that there were "fine people on both sides" of the protests.
"What has become of us? Our children are listening. Our silence is complicity," Biden said.
Both Biden and Obama have denounced Trump's comments over the deadly Charlottesville incident, with the former vice president warning in a speech in October 2017 that the U.S. was heading down a "very dark path."
Obama broke his silence earlier this month while campaigning for congressional Democrats, asking how "hard" it could be for the president to say "Nazis are bad."

Adesso Trump non dorme sonni tranquilli

Paul Manafort, formerly President Donald Trump's campaign chairman, is expected to plead guilty to a federal conspiracy charge that accused him of money laundering, tax fraud, and lying to investigators, according to a document filed in federal court.

A charging document was filed Friday in the District of Columbia, which accuses Manafort, 69, of participating in a conspiracy against the United States — money laundering, tax fraud, failing to file Foreign Bank Account Reports, violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act, and lying and misrepresenting to the Department of Justice. He is also charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice, involving witness tampering.

The plea deal pertains to the second of Manafort's two federal trials. Jury selection for the trial, in a Washington federal court, had been scheduled to start Monday. Manafort is due to appear at a preliminary hearing for the trial Friday at 11 a.m.
(NBC News)

Baja Sardinia, my Paradise

TIM a Arzachena

L’talia è ancora agli ultimi posti in Europa per diffusione delle connessioni digitali.
Così, ogni volta che vengo nel Bel Paese devo spendere qualche decina di Euro per attivare un router portatile col quale avere il segnale ovunque mi trovi.
Tanto più necessario in Sardegna, altrimenti rischi di restare tagliato dal mondo.
Dice: può essere un privilegio, visto che così uno evita di essere coinvolto emotivamente nelle miserie del mondo.
Ma per uno che fa il mio mestiere si rischia l’astinenza da comunicazione.
Il router funziona con una scheda e un programma TIM, il grande protagonista della telefonia italiana.
“Con questo programma lei è coperto per un mese”, dice la commessa TIM alla stazione Termini appena sbarcato da Fiumicino.
Ma dopo dodici giorni il router si ammutolisce, perchè sembra che abbia consumato i 50 GIGA di connessione.
Sono a Baja Sardinia e mi suggeriscono di andare a Arzachena il capoluogo amministrativo.
Il negozio TIM è sulla strada principale.
Mi metto in fila ad aspettare il mio turno.
Davanti a me un giovane super tatuato e piercificato.
Passa il tempo, abbiamo superato i 40 minuti di attesa.
Il commesso paziente è prodigo di consigli  e ammonimenti al quasi cliente indeciso nell’acquisto.
Data l’età vetusta e una scarsa propensione alla sopportazione sociale, sto cominciando a smaniare.
Una signorina infortunata ad una caviglia con relativo bastone appare da dietro una quinta e mi rivolge la classica domanda: “Di cosa ha bisogno?”
Sinteticamente le racconto la mia storia e ci spostiamo finalmente su un’altra postazione lasciando soli il commesso e il quasi cliente che hanno superato l’ora di confabulazioni, con dietro di loro una lunga fila di clienti in attesa.
La signorina claudicante con mazza cerca di mettersi in contatto con il 119, fatidico numero TIM per ogni esigenza.
Passano altri dieci minuti di attesa e finalmente, Giulia, questo il nome della gentile fanciulla riesce a parlare con una collega situata chissà dove che vuole parlare col sottoscritto.
Giulia mi passa il ricevitore e attendo una voce umana. Passano i minuti e alla fine chiedo cortesemente “pronto?”.
“È la terza volta che chiede pronto” abbaia la femmina all’altro della linea e mi impone di ripassare la linea a Giulia che abbozza e risolve il mio problema.
Grazie Giulia !

Oscar

Quel maledetto 11 settembre di diciassette anni fa

“Papà, sei sveglio? La radio dice che un aereo si è schiantato su una delle torri del World Trade Center a New York. Forse si tratta di un aereo leggero. Io continuo a guidare verso il campus di AOL perchè ho una riunione importante di lavoro...”

Così mio figlio Marco quel maledetto mattino del 11 sembre 2001.

Poi è iniziata per me una giornata che non dimenticherò.

Davanti alla televisione ho seguito il dramma di New York, come dimenticare quelli che si gettavano nel vuoto per sfuggire all’incendio e al crollo dei grattacieli..?

Come me altri 95 funzionari del Pentagono seguivano quanto stava accadendo a 400 chilometri di distanza dalla Capitale.

Poi sono stati vaporizzati dall’aereo che ha colpito il fianco del Pentagono.

Le immagini televisive sembravano essere non vere, ma la riproduzione di un set cinematografico di uno dei tanti film dell’orrore.

L’orrore era qui, tra noi, ma non riuscivamo a quantificarlo in termini di emozione perchè non riuscivi a metabolizzare nella tua confusione mentale, nel sobbalzo dei sentimenti, la chiave di interpretazione di quel terribile spettacolo di follia umana rivolto contro migliaia di innocenti.

Poi sono passati mesi e mesi di informazioni spesso contraddittorie con domande alle quali il governo di George W. Bush non avrebbe mai dato risposta esauriente.

A cominciare da quell’aereo con 250 membri della famiglia saudita, unico velivolo autorizzato a volare e a lasciare gli Stati Uniti nonostante il blocco generalizzato dello spazio aereo.

Quell’11 sembre di diciassette anni fa è stata la prima vera, grande sconfitta degli Stati Uniti, molto più grave della Pearl Harboor dell’attacco giapponese che si è svolta in una cornice bellica.

Una azione suicida studiata e realizzata da menti offuscate da una dottrina religiosa di odio che si sarebbe ripercossa in altrettante azioni negli anni a seguire contro le nazioni cardine della civiltà occidentale, mettendo a rischio perpetuo la convivenza della componente musulmana con le altre differenti culture.

Oscar

Gli scooters elettrici stanno trasformando le citta’. Meno che in Italia

How Electric Scooters Are Reshaping Cities
By Joshua Brustein and Nate Lanxon (Bloomberg)

One of the biggest stories in technology this year is the exploding popularity of Bird, Lime, Skip, Spin and Scoot. They’re all electric scooter-rental services, and their vehicles are suddenly buzzing along city streets and sidewalks around the world. These startups allow riders to locate and unlock scooters with an app. When they reach their destination, they just walk away. Some drivers and pedestrians see the scooters as dangerous contrivances that must be stopped, while some urban planners consider them, along with bikes, the future of city transport.
1. What accounts for the rise of scooters?
Cars often aren’t the quickest way to travel in dense, urban areas. Many cities looked to bicycle-sharing services and bike lanes as a better option for shorter trips and as a way to reduce carbon emissions. Electric scooters, which can cost less than $2 per ride, are an offshoot of that. Investors looking for the next Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc., the app-based car-hailing services, are adding to scooter-mania by pouring money into companies like Bird and Lime, touching off a city-by-city race to become the premier scooter brand. Not to be left behind, even Uber and Lyft are launching competing scooter businesses.
2. How prevalent are scooters?
Bird, started by a former executive of Lyft and Uber, operates scooter services in about 40 U.S. cities, while Lime is in 23. Bird kicked off the trend in late 2017 with its launch in Santa Monica, California, and suddenly it seemed scooters were everywhere. Scores of unattended vehicles on city sidewalks have resulted in pushback from people complaining of urban chaos, and some cities have started to cap the number of scooters they’ll allow. But in most U.S. cities with sharing services, the number of scooters barely exceeds 1,000. By comparison, 45,000 Uber and Lyft drivers worked in San Francisco in 2017, according to the city’s attorney.
3. What about outside the U.S.?
This year, Bird expanded to France and Israel. Lime has established a presence in France, Germany and Spain. Scooters are even more prevalent in parts of China, an early pioneer of the market. No company has been able to break into the U.K., however, because of strict laws that classify the scooters as motor vehicles requiring drivers’ licenses and subject to tax and insurance. Even then, regulators won’t allow scooters because they don’t comply with “normal vehicle construction rules.” Riding on the sidewalk isn’t an option, either, thanks to a 19th century law stipulating footpaths are for the sole use of pedestrians.
4. Who makes them?
For now, most sharing services aren’t building their own vehicles. Instead, they buy scooters from Chinese manufacturers, with various levels of customization, and then brand them. From its inception, Lime has tried to distinguish itself by designing its own scooters. Uber has announced plans to integrate bike- and scooter-sharing services on its app, and has even begun to engineer its own scooters in San Francisco.
5. Is this a profitable business?
Investors think they can be: The valuations of Bird Rides Inc. and its main competitor, Lime, are over $1 billion each. But skepticism is warranted. It could be a short-lived fad. Even if it isn’t, scooter companies must have the capital to absorb costs beyond acquiring fleets of vehicles, including maintaining them and charging their batteries daily. There’s little reason for riders to be loyal to one company, and if rivals compete by lowering prices, they could shave away much of their margins. Lime has said it can raise revenue from advertising, but this is an untested idea. Scooters could end up being one option in an integrated transportation service providing everything from short-term car rentals and bike-shares to ride-hailing and train tickets, putting the upstarts at a disadvantage to Uber, which seems to be moving in this direction. There’s also the question of how city regulations will affect scooter economics.
6. Are they legal?
From the beginning, Bird and Lime said they had learned the lessons of ride-hailing companies, which had alienated many city governments by launching without explicit permission. Then both companies mimicked the “ask for forgiveness, not permission” strategy. As a result, the scooter-sharing companies have faced bans or cease-and-desist orders in a handful of cities, and city lawmakers have been quick to regulate them by requiring permits, limiting the number of vehicles, awarding exclusive franchises and allowing scooters to be parked only in designated areas.
7. Is this the next chapter in the fight over ride-hailing?
Yes and no. The scooter industry is experiencing some of the same problems as ride-hailing, with aggressive startups butting heads with local governments. But there are key differences. With ride-hailing, entrenched taxi industries argued that unregulated upstarts had an unfair advantage. There is no such incumbent industry opposing scooters. Urban congestion and climate change have also made alternatives to automobiles more popular with city governments. The controversies over scooters may end up being just growing pains.
8. Is this the future of city transport?
It’s too soon to tell. Bike-sharing hasn’t had a revolutionary effect in most U.S. cities. In many places, weather will make scooters a seasonal activity at best. Also holding them back is the country’s deep-seated automotive culture. Unlike in Europe, riding a bike isn’t seen as something a serious adult does to get around town, let alone taking a scooter. Transportation experts think city governments could change that attitude with protected lanes, convenient charging stations and dedicated parking spaces for scooters.
The Reference Shelf

Per la pipi usi la busta di plastica

An American Airlines flight to Hawaii became a trip from hell when a flushed diaper caused the plane's toilets to overflow, forcing passengers to urinate in bags and bottles.
On August 31, things got messy aboard flight 663 from Phoenix, Arizona, to Kona, Hawaii, NBC News 12 reports. The outlet obtained video footage of a female passenger who desperately had to use the restroom and spoke with a flight attendant, who agreed that the situation was "horrible" and suggested that she use a plastic bag.

Siamo una superpotenza guidata da un bischero

By Michael Gerson (The Washington Post)

We are a superpower run by a simpleton
One of the major problems with President Trump’s impulsivity is its utter predictability.
A recent op-ed in the New York Times by an anonymous administration official accused the president of impetuous, reckless rants, and Trump responded with impetuous, reckless rants (“TREASON?”). Bob Woodward’s new book “Fear” recounts a private “nervous breakdown” in the administration and Trump responded with a public nervous breakdown — accusing Woodward of being a “Dem operative” and raising a possible change in the libel laws. Amid this crisis, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un expressed his “unwavering faith in President Trump,” and the president reacted just as the North Korean leader surely knew he would — touting the positive opinion of a homicidal despot on Twitter as a character reference.
If you prick him, does he not explode? If you stroke him, does he not purr?
The president’s form of deception is qualitatively different from the deviousness of Richard M. Nixon or the smoothness of Bill Clinton. Trump pursues no deep or subtle strategies. He does not even consistently seek his own interests. He responds like a child or a narcissist — but I repeat myself — to positive or negative stimulation. It is the reason a discussion on “Fox & Friends” can so often set the agenda of the president. It is the reason that Trump’s lawyers, in the end, can’t allow him to be interviewed by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. It would be like a 9-year-old defending a PhD dissertation. Or maybe a rabbit jumping into a buzz saw.
This lesson can’t be lost on foreign intelligence services, which can pre-order a comprehensive account of the president’s psychological and political vulnerabilities for $18 online. (Note: Woodward now owes me.) Here is the increasingly evident reality of the Trump era: We are a superpower run by a simpleton. From a foreign policy perspective, this is far worse than being run by a skilled liar. It is an invitation to manipulation and contempt.
Pointing to the polls is the main response of Trump and his supporters. Whatever the president is doing, most Republicans want more of it. As one apologist argues, “His personality is a feature, not a bug. Many Americans are comfortable with that.” Put another way, a motivated group of Americans — which largely controls the GOP nomination process — enjoys Trump’s reality-television version of presidential politics. And you can’t argue with the ratings.
I can and do. What we are finding from books, from insider leaks and from investigative journalism is that the rational actors who are closest to the president are frightened by his chaotic leadership style. They describe a total lack of intellectual curiosity, mental discipline and impulse control. Should the views of these establishment insiders really carry more weight than those of Uncle Clem in Scranton, Pa.? Why yes, in this case, they should. We should listen to the voices of American populism in determining public needs and in setting policy agendas — but not in determining political reality.
We should pay attention to the economic trends that have marginalized whole sections of the country. We should be alert to the failures and indifference of American elites. But we also need to understand that these trends — which might have produced a responsible populism — have, through a cruel trick of history, elevated a dangerous, prejudiced fool. Trump cannot claim the legitimacy of the genuine anxiety that helped produce him. The political and social wave is real, but it is ridden by an unworthy leader. The right reasons have produced the wrong man.
The testimony of the tell-alls is remarkably consistent. Some around Trump are completely corrupted by the access to power. But others — who might have served in any Republican administration — spend much of their time preventing the president from doing stupid and dangerous things. Woodward’s book recounts one story in which then-economic adviser Gary Cohn heads off U.S. withdrawal from the North American Free Trade Agreement by removing documents from Trump’s Oval Office desk. Think on that a moment. A massive change in economic policy was avoided — not by some brilliant stratagem — but by swiping a piece of paper and trusting in Trump’s minuscule attention span.
This turns out to be the best argument for the author of the Times op-ed — and others like him or her — to stay right where they are. The manipulation of the president in a good cause works. And those who engage in this task boldly and consistently are both losing their reputations and serving their country.

La Casa Bianca rema contro Trump

“I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration
I work for the president but like-minded colleagues and I have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations............”

“It may be cold comfort in this chaotic era, but Americans should know that there are adults in the room," the official wrote. "We fully recognize what is happening. And we are trying to do what’s right even when Donald Trump won't."

Questo un passaggio significativo di una lettera pubblicata dal New York Times di un alto dirigente della Casa Bianca di cui il quotidiano conosce il nome.
 Una conferma di quanto Bob Woodward scrive nel suo libro, secondo cui vi sono collaboratori (si fa per dire) di Donald Trump che gli fanno sparire le carte alla firma per evitare disastrose conseguenze.

_________________________________________________
WASHINGTON — The New York Times took the highly unusual step Wednesday of publishing an op-ed by an anonymous senior official who wrote that "many of the senior officials in his own administration" are working against President Donald Trump from within "to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations."
The official also confirmed reports that there were once internal Cabinet discussions about removing Trump from office by invoking the 25th Amendment, but said in The Times that now "we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until — one way or another — it's over."

Un idiota con il cervello di un bambino di prima elementare

Questi e altri epiteti sono contenuti nelle interviste fatte sotto anonimato a un centinaio di collaboratori attuali e ex che compongono lo staff della Casa Bianca.
La definizione di ‘ idiota’ viene attribuita  al generale Kelly chief of staff mentre il ministro della difesa il generale Mattis si sarebbe espresso con la definizione di scarsa capacità di concentrazione di Donald Trump.
Questo è il materiale contenuto nel libro di Bob Woodward, giornalista del Post famoso insieme a Carl Bernstein per avere contribuito con le loro inchieste alle dimissioni di Richard Nixon.
Titolo del libro che è già primo nelle vendite di Amazon “Fear: Trump in the White House”.
A detta di coloro che hanno scorso il volume si tratta delle stesse problematiche  messe in evidenza in altri libri pubblicati nei mesi scorsi da ex collaboratori di Trump.
Un elemento di novità è l’affermazione dell’anziano giornalista secondo cui i più stretti collaboratori del presidente gli fanno sparire dalla scrivania fascicoli alla firma che potrebbero avere conseguenze devastanti sulla sicurezza degli Stati Uniti.
Ma, se ci è concesso un sommesso parere, questo e altri libri contro Donald Trump non saranno letti dai milioni di fans dell’inquilino della Casa Bianca che pendono dalle sue labbra e gli sono grati sopratutto per il positivo andamento dell’economia.
“It’s the economy, stupid!”, questa la famosa battuta dell’assistente di Bill Clinton entrata nel glossario politico americano.

Dialogo con un ristoratore di Baja Sardinia

Giornalaio da 4 soldi! Alla ricerca della menzogna e del proprio comodo! Ridicolo!
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Oscar risponde:
Il Signor Bovo conferma con queste ingiurie gratuite il livello di “customer satisfaction” che caratterizza la sua imprenditorialità.
Anzichè offendere potrebbe segnalare i gradini pericolosi del suo locale per evitare le conseguenze legali di una caduta.
Auguriamo al signor Bovo molto successo.
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Renzo Bovo

Oscar Bartoli Se aveva qualche problema con la sua pietanza lo poteva segnalare al momento come si fa da persone civili senza nascondersi dietro a una tastiera poi ci lamentiamo delle nuove generazioni, ma con questi insegnanti cosa ci aspettiamo? In riguardo all'aspetto legale le ricordo la ripresa e la pubblicazione di un video contenente un marchio registrato senza autorizzazione rappresenta una violazione del copyright. La ripresa è la pubblicazione del personale di sala rappresenta una violazione della privacy. La definizione "pieteso" rappresenta una grave diffamazione. Che dire? Una fortuna che persone come lei siano state allontanate dall'Italia!
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Baja Sardinia: alla ricerca del bello e del buono

Meno sperma, meno uomini

Secondo uno studio pubblicato di recente il numero di spermatozoi nell’uomo di oggi e’  il 60% in meno dei nostri babbi e nonni.
Questo comporta la riduzione delle dimensioni del pene e, secondo alcuni scienziati, e’ il campanello di allarme della estinzione della razza umana.
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(By Daniel Noah Halphem.  GQ)

Men are doomed. Everybody knows this. We're obviously all doomed, the women too, everybody in general, just a waiting game until one or another of the stupid things our stupid species is up to finally gets us. But as it turns out, no surprise: men first. Second instance of no surprise: We're going to take the women down with us.
There has always been evidence that men, throughout life, are at higher risk of early death—from the beginning, a higher male incidence of Death by Mastodon Stomping, a higher incidence of Spiked Club to the Brainpan, a statistically significant disparity between how many men and how many women die of Accidentally Shooting Themselves in the Face or Getting Really Fat and Having a Heart Attack. The male of the species dies younger than the female—about five years on average. Divide a population into groups by birth year, and by the time each cohort reaches 85, there are two women left for every man alive. In fact, the male wins every age class: Baby boys die more often than baby girls; little boys die more often than little girls; teenage boys; young men; middle-aged men. Death champions across the board.
Now it seems that early death isn't enough for us—we're on track instead to void the species entirely. Last summer a group of researchers from Hebrew University and Mount Sinai medical school published a study showing that sperm counts in the U.S., Europe, Australia, and New Zealand have fallen by more than 50 percent over the past four decades. (They judged data from the rest of the world to be insufficient to draw conclusions from, but there are studies suggesting that the trend could be worldwide.) That is to say: We are producing half the sperm our grandfathers did. We are half as fertile.
The Hebrew University/Mount Sinai paper was a meta-analysis by a team of epidemiologists, clinicians, and researchers that culled data from 185 studies, which examined semen from almost 43,000 men. It showed that the human race is apparently on a trend line toward becoming unable to reproduce itself. Sperm counts went from 99 million sperm per milliliter of semen in 1973 to 47 million per milliliter in 2011, and the decline has been accelerating. Would 40 more years—or fewer—bring us all the way to zero?
I called Shanna H. Swan, a reproductive epidemiologist at Mount Sinai and one of the lead authors of the study, to ask if there was any good news hiding behind those brutal numbers. Were we really at risk of extinction? She failed to comfort me. “The What Does It Mean question means extrapolating beyond your data,” Swan said, “which is always a tricky thing. But you can ask, ‘What does it take? When is a species in danger? When is a species threatened?’ And we are definitely on that path.” That path, in its darkest reaches, leads to no more naturally conceived babies and potentially to no babies at all—and the final generation of Homo sapiens will roam the earth knowing they will be the last of their kind.
If we are half as fertile as the generation before us, why haven't we noticed? One answer is that there is a lot of redundancy built into reproduction: You don't need 200 million sperm to fertilize an egg, but that's how many the average man might devote to the job. Most men can still conceive a child naturally with a depressed sperm count, and those who can't have a booming fertility-treatment industry ready to help them. And though lower sperm counts probably have led to a small decrease in the number of children being conceived, that decline has been masked by sociological changes driving birth rates down even faster: People in the developed world are choosing to have fewer children, and they are having them later.
The problem has been debated among fertility scientists for decades now—studies suggesting that sperm counts are declining have been appearing since the '70s—but until Swan and her colleagues' meta-analysis, the results have always been judged incomplete or preliminary. Swan herself had conducted smaller studies on declining sperm counts, but in 2015 she decided it was time for a definitive answer. She teamed up with Hagai Levine, an Israeli epidemiologist, and Niels Jørgensen, a Danish endocrinologist, and along with five others, they set about performing a systematic review and meta-regression analysis—that is, a kind of statistical synthesis of the data. “Hagai is a very good scientist, and he also used to be the head of epidemiology for the Israeli armed forces,” Swan told me. “So he's very good at organizing.” They spent a year working with the data.
The results, when they came in, were clear. Not only were sperm counts per milliliter of semen down by more than 50 percent since 1973, but total sperm counts were down by almost 60 percent: We are producing less semen, and that semen has fewer sperm cells in it. This time around, even scientists who had been skeptical of past analyses had to admit that the study was all but unassailable. Jørgensen, in Copenhagen, told me that when he saw the results, he'd said aloud, “No, it cannot be true.” He had expected to see a past decline and then a leveling off. But he couldn't argue when the team ran the numbers again and again. The downward slope was unwavering.
Almost all the scientists I talked to stressed that not only were low sperm counts alarming for what they said about the reproductive future of the species—they were also a warning of a much larger set of health problems facing men. In this view, sperm production is a canary in the coal mine of male bodies: We know, for instance, that men with poor semen quality have a higher mortality rate and are more likely to have diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease than fertile men.
Testosterone levels have also dropped precipitously, with effects beginning in utero and extending into adulthood. One of the most significant markers of an organism's sex is something called anogenital distance (AGD)—the measurement between the anus and the genitals. Male AGD is typically twice the length of female, a much more dramatic difference than height or weight or musculature. Lower testosterone leads to a shorter AGD, and a measurement lower than the median correlates to a man being seven times as likely to be subfertile and gives him a greater likelihood of having undescended testicles, testicular tumors, and a smaller penis. “What you are seeing in a number of systems, other developmental systems, is that the sex differences are shrinking,” Swan told me. Men are producing less sperm. They're also becoming less male.
I assumed that the next thing Swan was going to tell me was that these changes were all a mystery to scientists. If only we could figure out what was causing the drop in sperm counts, I imagined, we could solve all the attendant health problems at once. But it turns out that it's not a mystery: We know what the culprit is. And it's hiding in plain sight.
The sixth floor of the Rigshospitalet, a hospital and research institution in Copenhagen, houses the Department of Growth and Reproduction. The babies are all a few floors downstairs—on six, the unit is populated not with new parents but with doctors and researchers hunched over mass spectrometers and gel imagers and the like. I was there to meet Niels E. Skakkebæk, an 82-year-old pediatric endocrinologist, who founded the department in 1990. After walking me through the lab, he showed me to his office, a cramped, closet-like space—modest for someone who is a giant in his field. Male fertility and male reproductive health, Skakkebæk told me, are in full-blown crisis. “Here in Denmark, there is an epidemic of infertility,” he said. “More than 20 percent of Danish men do not father children.”
Skakkebæk first suspected something was going wrong in the late '70s, when he treated an infertile patient with an abnormality in the cells of the testes that he had never seen before. When he treated a second man with the same abnormality a few years later, he began to investigate a connection. What he found was a new form of precursor cells for testicular cancer, a once rare disease whose incidence had doubled. Moreover, these precursor cells had begun developing before the patient was even born. “He had the insight that testicular cancer, which is a cancer of young men, is something that is actually originated in utero,” Swan told me. And if these testes had somehow been misdeveloping in utero, Skakkebæk asked himself, what else was happening to these babies before they were born?
Eventually, Skakkebæk linked several other previously rare symptoms for a condition he called testicular dysgenesis syndrome (TDS), a collection of male reproductive problems that include hypospadias (an abnormal location for the end of the urethra), cryptorchidism (an undescended testicle), poor semen quality, and testicular cancer. What Skakkebæk proposed with TDS is that these disorders can have a common fetal origin, a disruption in the development of the male fetus in the womb.
So what was causing this disruption? To say there is only a single answer might be an overstatement—stress, smoking, and obesity, for example, all depress sperm counts—but there are fewer and fewer critics of the following theory: The industrial revolution happened. And the oil industry happened. And 20th-century chemistry happened. In short, humans started ingesting a whole host of compounds that affected our hormones—including, most crucially, estrogen and testosterone.
The scientists I talked to were less cautious about embracing this explanation than I expected. Down the hall from Skakkebæk's office, I met Anna-Maria Andersson, a biologist whose research has focused on declining testosterone levels. “There has been a chemical revolution going on starting from the beginning of the 19th century, maybe even a bit before,” she told me, “and upwards and exploding after the Second World War, when hundreds of new chemicals came onto the market within a very short time frame.” Suddenly a vast array of chemicals were entering our bloodstream, ones that no human body had ever had to deal with. The chemical revolution gave us some wonderful things: new medicines, new food sources, faster and cheaper mass production of all sorts of necessary products. It also gave us, Andersson pointed out, a living experiment on the human body with absolutely no forethought to the result.
When a chemical affects your hormones, it's called an endocrine disruptor. And it turns out that many of the compounds used to make plastic soft and flexible (like phthalates) or to make them harder and stronger (like Bisphenol A, or BPA) are consummate endocrine disruptors. Phthalates and BPA, for example, mimic estrogen in the bloodstream. If you're a man with a lot of phthalates in his system, you'll produce less testosterone and fewer sperm. If exposed to phthalates in utero, a male fetus's reproductive system itself will be altered: He will develop to be less male.

Dove si ammazza di piu’

There’s a new global ranking of gun deaths. Here’s where the U.S. stands

In 2016, more than 250,000 people worldwide died as a result of firearms, and half of all of those deaths came from six nations, including the U.S.
The new numbers, from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation’s latest study of Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries and Risk Factors, offer several new ways to measure the impact of gun deaths worldwide.
Half of all gun-related deaths in 2016 occurred in six nations — Brazil, the United States, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia and Guatemala. Together, the study published in the journal JAMA noted, these countries hold less than 10 percent of the world’s population.
Overall, 64 percent of deaths were determined to be homicides, while an additional 27 percent were suicides and 9 percent were accidental shootings.
But country to country, looking at the ways people die due to gunfire produces a deeply varied picture, said Christopher Murray, the institute’s director.
When it comes to the number of gun-related homicides, the U.S. ranks 30th worldwide. But suicides linked to guns occurred in the U.S. at a rate of 6.4 per 100,000 deaths — a total of 23,800 people — the second highest rate worldwide.
These numbers come days after a gunman in Jacksonville, Florida, fatally shot two people and injured 11 more before he killed himself Sunday during a video game tournament in a shopping mall.
While mass shootings like these capture the most media attention, they are responsible for a small sliver of overall gun deaths in the United States, gun violence experts Frederick P. Rivara, David M
. Studdert and Garen J. Wintemute wrote in an editorial published in JAMA alongside the new report.
“In the United States and elsewhere, acts of terrorism committed with firearms and other lethal means have changed the way people live, work, travel, and play,” they wrote. “In the United States, armed guards patrol some schools, and some politicians have advocated allowing teachers to carry guns. Although mass shootings and terrorist attacks are the most visible form of gun violence, they account for only a small fraction of the public health burden of firearm-related morbidity and mortality.”
For this latest report, researchers pulled data about 195 nations and territories, using nearly 2,900 different sources — a median of nine different datasets per nation. The study looks at data from 1990 to 2016, and was largely based on death certificate reports, Murray said.
In the United States, 37,200 people died as a result of overall gun use in 2016, the second highest number worldwide. But when it comes to gun deaths per capita, the U.S. ranks 20th, at a rate of 10.6 per 100,000 deaths — putting it on par with the Dominican Republic. Many places with high gun death rates had fewer deaths than the U.S. because of smaller populations. For instance, El Salvador produced the highest combined gun death rate of 39.2 per 100,000 deaths, but recorded 2,500 deaths overall. When it comes to gun-related suicides, Greenland has a higher rate than the U.S. — 22 per 100,000 deaths — but 11 deaths overall.
Since 1990, the number of gun deaths has declined, the report said. But nearly every year since then, firearm deaths outside conflict zones outnumbered deaths that occurred as a result of war.
“We spend a lot of time thinking about conflict, and probably, we should be spending as much or more time thinking about how to reduce firearm-related homicide and suicide,” Murray said.
These latest numbers “provide the best data” on global gun deaths, said David Hemenway, who developed and directs the National Violent Death Reporting System at Harvard University. Overall, the report underscores that guns “are a major public health problem, not just in the U.S. but throughout the world.”
“Without good data, you just don’t have the knowledge you need to make wise decisions,” said Hemenway, who was not involved in the study. More good data like this is crucial if policymakers want to bring death numbers down, he added.
In 1996, Congress passed the Dickey Amendment, which had a chilling effect on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-led research into gun violence. Soon, the CDC withdrew questions from federal surveys about household gun ownership. Hemenway said losing these questions robbed two decades worth of researchers of the ability to gauge how easily Americans could access guns.
This year, Congress approved funding to allow the CDC to collect data on violent deaths from all 50 states, a huge improvement over the fraction of states that had previously made data available, Hemenway said. This would give researchers and policymakers a clearer picture about how many Americans die nationwide as a result of guns.
Legally procured guns play a role in most deaths by suicide in the U.S., Murray said, which means this kind of information will be even more critical as nation’s suicide rate continues to rise.
If you are having thoughts of suicide, go toSpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources or call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (TALK).
The post, There’s a new global ranking of gun deaths. Here’s where the U.S. stands, first appeared on the PBS NewsHour website.

Cosa e’ diventato il mio aeroplanino di carta della mia fanciullezza

Traghetto per Olbia e arrivo a Baja Sardinia

Un Emigrante di successo