Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
This Day in History
Wright brothers conduct the first successful manned, powered flight of the airplane. U.S. test-fires the Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile; Simon Bolivar dies in Colombia; television’s Tiny Tim marries his fiancee, Miss Vicky.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who… looked enviously on the birds soaring freely through space… on the infinite highway of the air.
Breakfast News
Scotland: The One Place Donald Trump Is Getting His Ass Kicked
A small European nation has stepped up where the Republican establishment, Beltway pundits and more than a dozen presidential candidates have failed.
Scotland is kicking Donald Trump’s butt.
Last week Scotland’s leader, Nicola Sturgeon, stripped Trump of his long-held ambassadorial role for the country of his ancestors. Today, her predecessor publicly denounced him as a “loser.”
Insults are unlikely to ruffle the most vulgar candidate in presidential history, but the Scots are also hitting Trump where it hurts: his business empire.
The real estate mogul’s aggressive battle to enforce control over great swathes of the Scottish coastline were finally vanquished in Britain’s Supreme Court on Wednesday.
US and Cuba reach understanding on restoring commercial flights
The US and Cuba have reached an understanding on restoring regularly scheduled commercial flights, Cuban and American officials said on Wednesday on the eve of the anniversary of detente between the Cold War foes.
The advance opens the way for US airlines to begin flying to Cuba within months in what would be the biggest business deal struck as the two countries try to normalize relations.
Officials on both sides described it as an understanding on aviation but not yet a formal agreement and they hoped to reach a formal deal within hours or days. The understanding was reached on Wednesday in Washington.
California outlines regulations to allow self-driving cars on the open road
California finally issued draft regulations for the public operation of self-driving cars on Wednesday, almost a year after it was supposed to. If they are adopted, manufacturers will be able to operate or lease – but not sell – self-driving cars to the general public for the first time in the US.
The draft regulations require all vehicles to have a human operator ready to take immediate control of the car if anything goes wrong. This would rule out completely driverless cars such as those being developed by Google.
British teeth are no worse than US smiles, say researchers
Americans do not have better teeth than the English, new research suggests. Experts set out to challenge the idea – dating back more than a century – that the English have poor dental hygiene.
A team from the UK and the US examined data on thousands of people from the English Adult Dental Health Survey and the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. They looked for examples of missing teeth, adults’ perceptions of their oral health, and the effect of poor teeth on daily life such as pain, difficulty eating, avoiding smiling and social effects. Levels of education and household income were also examined.
The study showed that the average number of missing teeth was significantly higher in the US (7.31) than in England (6.97), and that people were more likely to suffer poor dental health because of socioeconomic factors if they lived in the US.
Tyrannosaurus skull sold for $230,000 in New York must go back to Mongolia
A Tyrannosaurus bataar skull, which was unlawfully brought into the US and put up for auction in New York in 2007, will be returned to the Mongolian government, the US Department of Justice announced on Wednesday.
Preet Bharara, US attorney for the southern district of New York, along with homeland security and immigration officials, had filed a civil forfeiture complaint. The current owner of the fossil consented to returning the skull to Mongolia when informed that it had entered the US illegally.
The skull belongs to a Tyrannosaurus bataar, which are indigenous to the Nemegt Basin in the Gobi Desert, in modern day Mongolia. Mongolian law states that all dinosaur fossils found in the country must be surrendered to the government. The law also prohibits exporting artifacts out of Mongolia without permission.
Breakfast Blogs
Carpet Bombing Is Not an Acceptable Military Tactic, Even Against ISIS Robert Bateman, Esquire Poltics
San Bernardino Is Messy. It Will Keep Getting Messier. Charles Pierce, Esquire Politics
Richard Burr Just Told ISIS USAF Phone Program Gets Internet Phone Data emptywheel aka Marcy Wheeler, emptywheel
India Announces Plans To Double Coal Output After Paris Agreement Dan Wright, ShadowProof
As Predicted, Congress Turned CISA Into A Clear Surveillance Bill… And Put It Into The ‘Must Pass’ Gov’t Funding Bill Mike Masnick, Techdirt
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