Nothing Much to Say...

...so have some pretty pictures!

Links!

• Library Land
• Most literate nation in the world? Not the U.S., new ranking says. "The rankings look at variables related to tested literacy achievement — scores on the PIRLS or Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, and on the PISA, Program for International Student Assessment — as well as to literate behavior characteristics. Those include 15 variables grouped in five categories: Libraries, Newspapers, Education System-Inputs, Education System-Outputs and Computer Availability, as well as population, which is used for establishing per capita ratios." The U.S. came in seventh. 
• Murphey Johnson wants to put 'The Lorax' in the hands of all Johnson City Schools second graders "This famous Seussian tale is widely known to encourage children to consider environmental stewardship, which is exactly why Johnson wants this particular book in their hands."
• Health, Science, & Technology
• Biologists say half of all species could be extinct by end of century "'The living fabric of the world is slipping through our fingers without our showing much sign of caring,' say the organisers of the Biological Extinction conference held at the Vatican this week."
• Randomnesses
• The Only Thing, Historically, That's Curbed Inequality: Catastrophe "Inequality has been written into the DNA of civilization ever since humans first settled down to farm the land. Throughout history, only massive, violent shocks that upended the established order proved powerful enough to flatten disparities in income and wealth. They appeared in four different guises: mass-mobilization warfare, violent and transformative revolutions, state collapse, and catastrophic epidemics. Hundreds of millions perished in their wake, and by the time these crises had passed, the gap between rich and poor had shrunk." 
• International
• France's Hollande fires back at Trump over Paris comments "French President Francois Hollande fired back at Donald Trump on Saturday after the U.S. president remarked in a speech that a friend thought 'Paris is no longer Paris' after attacks by Islamist militants." Trump seems to really love pissing off our allies...
• U.S. News
• Nearly 100 Headstones Vandalized at a Jewish Cemetery in Philadelphia 
• Wash. governor orders agencies to ignore immigration requests "Inslee’s order prevents state agencies from discriminating against or refusing service to those in living the country illegally. It also blocks those agencies from spending state resources to create or enforce a registry of citizens on the basis of religious affiliation."
• Study documents how strict voter ID laws suppress voting by people of color 
• Clean Power Plan Repeal Would Cost America $600 Billion, Cause 120,000 Premature Deaths Regulations exist for reasons, guys. 
• Criticized By Peers, White House Counterterrorism Adviser Returns Fire "'I believe it speaks to an absence of professionalism,' Smith says. 'I mean, to call somebody and posture intent to entangle that person in a legal battle with the White House — that's a call that should be made on an official White House line so there's a full recording of it for the public record.'"
• U.S. detains and nearly deports French Holocaust historian

Henry Rousso is one of France’s most preeminent scholars and public intellectuals. Last week, as the historian attempted to enter the United States to attend an academic symposium, he was detained for more than 10 hours — for no clear reason.

Emmanuel Macron, the popular centrist candidate for the French presidency, used the Rousso affair to repeat his pitch to U.S. scientists and researchers who he has said would be better off in France rather than in the America of Donald Trump.

"There is no excuse for what happened to Henry Rousso," Macron wrote Sunday on Twitter. "Our country is open to scientists and intellectuals."

• Why Polls Differ On Trump’s Popularity "The differences between the polls aren’t random, or at least they don’t appear to be based on the relatively limited amount of data we have so far." 
• Trump Will Be First President In 36 Years To Skip White House Correspondents Dinner "On Sunday, White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told ABC's This Week, 'This wasn't a president that was elected to spend his time with reporters and celebrities.'" No, this is a president that chooses to spend every weekend golfing at taxpayer expense and undermining the press with every other sentence. But, y'know, whatever. "The last president to not attend the dinner was Ronald Reagan in 1981. But he had a pretty good reason — he was recovering from being shot in an assassination attempt."