Trump says he’s “fixed” F-35 program after less than month in office

Arc Technica reports Trump says he’s “fixed” F-35 program after less than month in office "But nothing has really changed with the F-35 program since Trump took office."

SCOTUS Nominee Neil Gorsuch

Here's SCOTUSblog's Potential nominee profile: Neil Gorsuch

Here's another SCOTUSblog article, Judge Neil Gorsuch – Colorado native and Washington, D.C., veteran

And here's a take by Georgetown law professor Neal K. Katyal, an acting solicitor general in the Obama administration, Why Liberals Should Back Neil Gorsuch

Overall he seems like a reasonable conservative pick. I'm happy to hear he's a good writer. I'm also happy that it seems he might limit the President's powers. Of course, I don't like most of his views on social issues. The real problem is that this is Trump's 12th day in office and I thought President's could only nominate Justices in their first week. Shouldn't we wait until the election so the people can make their views known?

Astronaut Twin Study Hints at Stress of Space Travel

Nature reports Astronaut twin study hints at stress of space travel "Preliminary results are in from NASA’s unprecedented twin study — a detailed probe of the genetic differences between astronaut Scott Kelly, who spent nearly a consecutive year in space, and his identical twin Mark. Measurements taken before, during and after Scott Kelly’s mission reveal changes in gene expression, DNA methylation and other biological markers that are likely to be attributable to his time in orbit."

We don't have a lot of details yet, but apparently the findings are interesting.

What So Many People Don’t Get About the U.S. Working Class

Just after the election Joan C. Williams wrote in the Harvard Business Review, What So Many People Don’t Get About the U.S. Working Class. It's the best explanation for the election outcome I've seen so far. Nothing to do with vote counts or anything, just about the mindset of people I would otherwise describe as voting against their own self interest.

The Center Right’s Simple Message for Trump: It Didn’t Have to be This Way

Tara Golshan in Vox, The center right’s simple message for Trump: it didn’t have to be this way "‘When Ronald Reagan spoke on foreign policy, tyrants sat uneasy on their thrones and dissidents and refugees took heart,’ Gerson writes. ‘When Donald Trump speaks on foreign policy, tyrants rest easier and dissidents and refugees lose hope.’"

After Meeting With Pharma Lobbyists, Trump Drops Promise to Negotiate Drug Prices

Matthew Yglesias writes After meeting with pharma lobbyists, Trump drops promise to negotiate drug prices "Today, after a meeting with pharmaceutical industry lobbyists and executives, he abandoned that pledge, referring to an idea he supported as recently as three weeks ago as a form of ‘price fixing’ that would hurt ‘smaller, younger companies.’ Instead of getting tough, Trump’s new plan is that he’s ‘going to be lowering taxes’ and ‘getting rid of regulations.’"

If there were ever a red line for Republicans, Trump crossed it Friday. Or not.

I really liked this Catherine Rampell opinion piece in The Washington Post, If there were ever a red line for Republicans, Trump crossed it Friday. Or not..

We have a president with pronounced authoritarian tendencies, who believes he “alone can fix it”; who signs sweeping executive orders reportedly without even briefing relevant Cabinet members on the logistical, humanitarian and national security consequences; who directs his staff and surrogates to lie about the tiniest and most ridiculous and easily fact-checkable of details; and whose staffers brought us to the brink of a constitutional crisis when they ignored federal court orders.

She goes on to list (with substantiating links) the various GOP principles he's already violated that the GOP Congress has chosen to ignore. I think it's the best summation of the case I've seen so far, though I don't think it's quite impeachable yet; but Trump is moving fast.

Hill Staffers Secretly Worked on Trump's Immigration Order

Hill staffers secretly worked on Trump's immigration order - POLITICO "Top aides to Donald Trump quietly worked with senior staffers on the House Judiciary Committee to draft the executive order curbing immigration from seven Muslim-majority nations, but the Republican committee chairman and party leadership were not informed, according to multiple sources involved in the process."

The work of the aides began during the transition period after the election and before Trump was sworn in.

Their work on the executive order meant the small group of staffers — conservative immigration hard-liners who, sources say, are close with attorney general nominee Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) — were among the only people on Capitol Hill who knew of the looming controversial policy.

GOP leaders, however, received no advance warning or briefings from the White House or Judiciary staff on what the executive order would do or how it would be implemented — briefings they still had not received as of Sunday night. Leaders, including House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), saw the final language only when reporters received it Friday night, according to multiple Hill sources.

Insiders told POLITICO that the botched rollout of the immigration executive order was coordinated for the most part by White House policy director Stephen Miller, a former Sessions staffer, and Trump senior strategist Steve Bannon.

No real surprise. Miller worked for Sessions. Both fed news stories to Bannon's Breitbart. All are immigration (not just "illegal immigration" but "immigration") hardliners. Bannon really just believes in a Eurocentric America. So they crafted all of this, Trump just let them run with it, and they tried to get their extreme views through (I assume they knew what they were doing with the green card holders). So far they've mostly succeeded, we'll see if it sticks and how many bridges they've burned.

Update: The LA Times writes White House aides who wrote Trump's travel ban see it as just the start.

Trump’s top advisors on immigration, including chief strategist Steve Bannon and senior advisor Stephen Miller, see themselves as launching a radical experiment to fundamentally transform how the U.S. decides who is allowed into the country and to block a generation of people who, in their view, won’t assimilate into American society.

The chief architects of Trump’s order, Bannon, Miller and National Security Advisor Michael T. Flynn, forged strong bonds during the presidential campaign.

The trio, who make up part of Trump’s inner circle, have a dark view of refugee and immigration flows from majority-Muslim countries, believing that if large numbers of Muslims are allowed to enter the U.S., parts of American cities will begin to replicate disaffected and disenfranchised immigrant neighborhoods in France, Germany and Belgium that have been home to perpetrators of terrorist attacks in Europe in recent years.

Within decades, Americans would have “the kind of large and permanent domestic terror threat that becomes multidimensional and multigenerational and becomes sort of a permanent feature,” one senior administration official argued.

“We don’t want a situation where, 20 to 30 years from now, it’s just like a given thing that on a fairly regular basis there is domestic terror strikes, stores are shut up or that airports have explosive devices planted, or people are mowed down in the street by cars and automobiles and things of that nature,” the official said.

Counter-terrorism experts have long noted that Muslim immigrants in the U.S. are better assimilated and less likely to be radicalized than immigrants in many European cities.

Terrorism in America After 9/11

The New America Foundation has a report on Terrorism in America After 9/11 "A comprehensive, up-to-date source of online information about terrorist activity in the United States and by Americans overseas since 9/11". So far there are five parts, all short, with nice graphics.

Metallic hydrogen, once theory, becomes reality

Phys.org reports Metallic hydrogen, once theory, becomes reality. "The material - atomic metallic hydrogen - was created by Thomas D. Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences Isaac Silvera and post-doctoral fellow Ranga Dias. In addition to helping scientists answer fundamental questions about the nature of matter, the material is theorized to have a wide range of applications, including as a room-temperature superconductor. The creation of the rare material is described in a January 26 paper published in Science."

It goes on to describe it's possible uses. The NY Times reports that there's some skepticism, Hydrogen Squeezed Into a Metal, Possibly Solid, Harvard Physicists Say. "But in the small but contentious field of high-pressure physics, some scientists who perform similar experiments were harshly skeptical and wondered how the research passed peer review at a top journal like Science."

There's been other reports of its creation but without looking into it much it's not clear to me if those were all debunked.

Tracking Congress In The Age Of Trump

FiveThirtyEight started a site that's worth bookmarking, Tracking Congress In The Age Of Trump. "An updating tally of how often every member of the House and the Senate votes with or against the president." Details here.

I think this is really useful, though I have one reservation. Since I've been blogging we have mroe and more sites that rate our representatives on their votes. That's great, I love transparency and I like that this is more easily available via the Web. However, usually this is broken down into a binary yes/no based on ideologies. The result is candidates are evaluated in primaries based on purity. 95% on abortion (pick your side for or against) isn't good enough, why aren't you 100%? I don't think that's been good for the country. Remember the "I was for it before I was against it" debacle of John Kerry. I'm not sure of a solution.

Anyway, after 8 votes, here's my Trump Score:

• SENATE: Nikki Haley as Ambassador to UN - YES. She had no international experience and her positions on world affairs aren't known. She's certainly skilled as Gov and GOP rising star. At least at one point she opposed Trump's Muslim ban.
• HOUSE: Banning federal funds for abortion - NO.
• SENATE: Mike Pompeo as CIA Director - NO. I'm not happy with anyone that is equivocal on torture. He's said we should re-establish bulk metadata collection.
• SENATE: John Kelly as Sec of DHS - YES. I know less about him than other nominees. Seems well respected. Absent other info, I'd let the president have his pick.
• SENATE: James Mattis as Sec of Def - YES. Seems to be one of Trumps saner picks, particularly in security.
• BOTH: James Mattis waiver for Sec of Def - YES. I'm ok making an exception here.
• BOTH: Repeal ACA - NO
• HOUSE: The Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act of 2017 - NO. As best I understand this requires new congressional approval for regulations from federal agencies that have a $100 million effect on the economy.

So a 50% Trump Score overall. Broken down it's 25% for House votes and 66% for the Senate. So I'm not a complete knee-jerk liberal. :) I point out, that's more pro-Trump than my Rep Kennedy (0%) and more than my Sen. Markey (50%) and Sen. Warren (33%). I suspect, with a few more votes I'll get closer to them.

Trump’s Horrifying Executive Order on Refugees and Visas

Benjamin Wittes at Lawfare has a detailed takedown: Malevolence Tempered by Incompetence: Trump’s Horrifying Executive Order on Refugees and Visas. He describes his background, he's no screaming liberal:

Let’s start with the malevolence of the document, which Amira Mikhail summarized and Adham Sahloul analyzed earlier today. I don’t use the word “malevolence” here lightly. As readers of my work know, I believe in strong counterterrorism powers. I defend non-criminal detention. I’ve got no problem with drone strikes. I’m positively enthusiastic about American surveillance policies. I was much less offended than others were by the CIA’s interrogations in the years after September 11. I have defended military commissions.

Some of these policies were effective; some were not. Some worked out better than others. And I don’t mean to relitigate any of those questions here. My sole point is that all of these policies were conceptualized and designed and implemented by people who were earnestly trying to protect the country from very real threats. And the policies were, to a one, proximately related to important goals in the effort. While some of these policies proved tragically misguided and caused great harm to innocent people, none of them was designed or intended to be cruel to vulnerable, concededly innocent people. Even the CIA’s interrogation program, after all, was deployed against people the agency believed (mostly correctly) to be senior terrorists of the most dangerous sort and to garner information from them that would prevent attacks.

I actually cannot say that about Trump’s new executive order—and neither can anyone else.

Read it, it's informative (and scary). I want to add a bit of snark. This is from the actual executive order, Section 1. Purpose, paragraph 3:

In order to protect Americans, the United States must ensure that those admitted to this country do not bear hostile attitudes toward it and its founding principles. The United States cannot, and should not, admit those who do not support the Constitution, or those who would place violent ideologies over American law. In addition, the United States should not admit those who engage in acts of bigotry or hatred (including "honor" killings, other forms of violence against women, or the persecution of those who practice religions different from their own) or those who would oppress Americans of any race, gender, or sexual orientation.

See I think this applies to Trump.

• "do not support the Constitution" - the emoluments clause
• "engage in acts of bigotry or hatred" - Mexicans are rapists and murders, "Islam hates us", mocking the disabled, encouraging violence at his rallies, his cabinet picks
• "other forms of violence against women" - grab 'em by the pussy
• "persecution of those who practice religions different from their own" - calls for a muslim ban and other comments
• "oppress Americans of any race" - discriminations against black tenants, the central park five, tacit approval of KKK
• "gender" - he's not doing honor killings though there are plenty of accusal of sexual assault. Evidence of misogyny is thin, but there's no question about a history of sexism
• "sexual orientation" - he's against gay marriage and his VP pick is flagrantly homophobic

Trump’s Yuge Week One

Politico evaluates Trump’s Yuge Week One. It seems pretty fair to me, estimating both "immediate impact" and "potential importance" and in trying to take a step back from many little things and look at the big picture.

Donald Trump’s definition of ‘voter fraud’ will apparently ensnare his own top adviser

This is entertaining. The Washington Post reports Donald Trump’s definition of ‘voter fraud’ will apparently ensnare his own top adviser.

Trump tweeted Wednesday morning that his "major investigation into VOTER FRAUD" would be "including those registered to vote in two states."

One of those people, as it happens, is apparently Stephen K. Bannon, Trump's chief White House strategist.

I think the Post points out fallacy in Trump's argument well.

Even if it was merely an honest mistake or paperwork glitch, it's an example of how two of the three things Trump says he wants investigated for "VOTER FRAUD" — dual registrants and "those registered to vote who are dead" — simply don't constitute fraud. These things happen quite a bit, almost always for non-nefarious reasons, and they aren't actually proof of the 3 million to 5 million illegal votes that Trump has baselessly claimed were cast in the 2016 election.

To make it more entetaining, Tiffany Trump Is Registered to Vote in Two States.

[T]he new president’s own daughter Tiffany Trump is registered to vote in both Pennsylvania and New York.

“There is nothing illegal about that,” said Fred Voigt, the deputy election commissioner for Philadelphia. “The illegality only occurs if one votes in two places, not if you’re registered in both.”

Tiffany Trump lived in Philadelphia while attending the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in May. Voigt said it was “very common for college students to be registered both where they live and where they go to school.”

Oscar Nominations

Oscar nominations came out today.

Leaving out the shorts here are the number of nominations per film (those checked I've seen):

• [x] 14 La La Land
• [x] 8 Arrival
• [x] 8 Moonlight
• [ ] 6 Hacksaw Ridge
• [ ] 6 Lion
• [x] 6 Manchester by the Sea
• [ ] 4 Fences
• [x] 4 Hell or High Water
• [x] 3 Hidden Figures
• [x] 3 Jackie
• [ ] 2 A Man Called Ove
• [ ] 2 Deepwater Horizon
• [ ] 2 Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
• [ ] 2 Florence Foster Jenkins
• [ ] 2 Kubo and the Two Strings
• [ ] 2 Moana
• [ ] 2 Passengers
• [x] 2 Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
• [x] 1 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi
• [ ] 1 13th
• [x] 1 20th Century Women
• [ ] 1 Allied
• [x] 1 Captain Fantastic
• [x] 1 Doctor Strange
• [ ] 1 Elle
• [ ] 1 Fire at Sea
• [x] 1 Hail, Caesar!
• [x] 1 I Am Not Your Negro
• [ ] 1 Jim: The James Foley Story
• [ ] 1 Land of Mine
• [ ] 1 Life, Animated
• [x] 1 Loving
• [ ] 1 My Life as a Zucchini
• [x] 1 Nocturnal Animals
• [x] 1 O.J.: Made in America
• [x] 1 Silence
• [x] 1 Star Trek Beyond
• [ ] 1 Suicide Squad
• [x] 1 Sully
• [ ] 1 Tanna
• [ ] 1 The Jungle Book
• [x] 1 The Lobster
• [ ] 1 The Red Turtle
• [ ] 1 The Salesman
• [ ] 1 Toni Erdmann
• [ ] 1 Trolls
• [ ] 1 Zootopia

I've seen everything nominated in just one category, Original Screenplay. If I see just three, Hacksaw Ridge, Lion and Fences I'll complete 9 more. Then I need to see 7 more with two nominations, 16 more with one, and the shorts. The only categories I've seen none of the films, other than the shorts (and I've caught one of the animated ones), are Foreign Language and surprisingly Animated Feature.

I'm not particularly interested in Hacksaw Ridge but given it got six noms I'll see it. Other than the foreign language films I think the only one I hadn't heard of is Jim: The James Foley Story up for best song. There's nothing I really don't want to see, though I have only little interest in Suicide Squad, mostly to see how bad it is.

I liked but didn't love La La Land, so I'm not thrilled that it tied All About Eve and Titanic for most nominations with 14. Titantic went on to win 11 awards, tying the most with Ben-Hur and The Return of the King. I hope it doesn't tie those films, but I think they're both a bit overrated. All About Eve though is great, if you haven't seen it, see it!

Some of my favorite films of the year were shut out. I'm most disappointed about Swiss Army Man which I would have given a best picture nom and original screenplay (over any of the ones given) and I would have given it best score. I also really liked Miles Ahead and The Birth of a Nation. I also would have given Hunt for the Wilderpeople an original screenplay nom over anything nominated, it was hilarious and touching.

I did pretty well in my nomination predictions.

• For Picture my 8 picks all got nominations and I just missed one for Hacksaw Ridge.
• For Director I got 4 out of 5, missing Mel Gibson for Hacksaw Ridge for Scorsese's Silence.
• For Actress I got 4 out of 5, missing Ruth Negga in Loving for Amy Adams in Arrival. I'm fine with that
• For Actor I got 4 out of 5, missing Viggo Mortensen in Captain Fantastic for Joel Edgerton in Loving. I'm also fine with that.
• For Supporting Actor I got 3 of 5, missing Lucas Hedges, Manchester by the Sea and Michael Shannon, Nocturnal Animals
• For Supporting Actress I got 5 out of 5.
• For Adapted Screenplay I got 4 out of 5 missing Lion for Nocturnal Animals
• For Original Screenplay I got 4 out of 5 missing The Lobster (which I hated) for Loving.
• For Documentary I got 3 of 5 missing Fire at Sea and Life, Animated, neither of which I've seen.
• For Animated Feature I got 5 out of 5, without having seen any of them

The Oscars are given out Sun Feb 26th.

Citi's Weird Security Processes

I got a call a phone call this morning, the Caller ID said "Unavailable". I answered and it said it was from Citibank fraud prevention and about my MasterCard and the automated voice said my full name from the account. It seemed real and shortly thereafter a woman came on and tried to verifiy I was who I said. I answered a couple of questions and then they wanted to send a text message and asked for a cell phone number. I said you called me and I'm not sure you are who you say you are. She said she understood and encouraged me to call the number on the back of the card which is the right thing.

So I hung up and did that. I called the customer service number and the automated system seemed to forward me directly to the fraud department. I got a guy this time. He wanted to verify I was who I said I was. He asked me for a cell phone number to send a text message. I gave it and said but that doesn't help since you're just sending the message to the number I told you to. He said that was a good point but they check the number in a database to verify it or something. Anyway somehow they never sent the text and that didn't help. I suspect this account never had my cell phone number but am not sure. He asked if I had other accounts with Citi, I said no, just an AmEx linked to the same account they sent me some time ago. He took the last five digits of that and said yes, since it was linked to the same account it didn't help. He asked if I had any car loans. I said no and this is ridiculous, he indistinguishable from a phisher. I said you called me, the agent told me to call back and said she'd write something in the account indicating this. I did and am calling from the landline linked to the account and you're asking me about the rest of my financial history when you should know that I don't have other Citi accounts.

He checked and said there was nothing he could do and that Citi Security Dept would call me in the next 24-48 hours and theres a hold on my account. I said that was fine, that I hadn't used the card in six months and that any recent charges on it are probably fraudulent. He said he'd make a note of it.

I suspect someone made some charges on the card and Citi noticed it hadn't been used in a while and that triggered an alert, that's great. I suppose that someone might have tried opening other accounts in my name and maybe he was seeing those on his screen (though he kept saying without passing security checks he couldn't see account details) but those accounts would have been recently created and therefore shouldn't be required to verify identity.

I get that Citi is trying to accurately verify I am who I say I am, but their processes have to make more sense. If I can't trust them when they call me (because I get about 4 spam calls a day) and they can't trust me when I call them (particularly right after they called me), then it can't ever work.

Oscar Nomination Predictions

Oscar nominations are going to be announced tomorrow morning. I don't usually do predictions for Oscar nominations but I'll take a shot this year. These are picks for what I think will be nominated, not what I think should be nominated. They are somewhat in order of most likely to least likely in each category and only in the big categories.

Picture:

• Moonlight
• La La Land
• Manchester by the Sea
• Arrival
• Lion
• Hidden Figures
• Fences
• Hell or High Water

Director:

• Damien Chazelle, La La Land
• Barry Jenkins, Moonlight
• Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea
• Denis Villeneuve, Arrival
• Martin Scorsese, Silence

Actress:

• Natalie Portman, Jackie
• Emma Stone, La La Land
• Amy Adams, Arrival
• Isabelle Huppert, Elle
• Meryl Streep, Florence Foster Jenkins

Actor:

• Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea
• Denzel Washington, Fences
• Ryan Gosling, La La Land
• Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge
• Joel Edgerton, Loving

Supporting Actress:

• Michelle Williams, Manchester by the Sea
• Viola Davis, Fences
• Naomie Harris, Moonlight
• Nicole Kidman, Lion
• Octavia Spencer, Hidden Figures

Supporting Actor:

• Mahershala Ali, Moonlight
• Dev Patel, Lion
• Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Nocturnal Animals
• Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water
• Hugh Grant, Florence Foster Jenkins

Adapted Screenplay:

• Moonlight
• Arrival
• Fences
• Hidden Figures
• Nocturnal Animals

Original Screenplay:

• La La Land
• Manchester by the Sea
• Hell or High Water
• Loving
• 20th Century Woman

Documentary Feature:

• Cameraperson
• O.J.: Made in America
• 13th
• Weiner
• I Am Not Your Negro

Animated Feature:

• Kubo and the Two Strings
• Zootopia
• Moana
• The Red Turtle
• My Life as a Zucchini

Photos of the Women's Marches Around the World

The Atlantic has Photos of the Women's Marches Around the World "In Washington, DC, today, hundreds of thousands of protesters filled the streets in a demonstration called the Women’s March on DC, while even more marched in cities across the United States and around the world, one day after the inauguration of President Donald J. Trump. Larger-than-expected crowds of women and their allies raised their voices against the new administration, and in support of women's rights, health issues, equality, diversity and inclusion. Below are images of today’s marches in Washington, New York, Denver, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, Seattle, and from other cities in England, Ghana, France, Canada, Serbia, Australia, Kenya, Germany, India, and many more."

We’ve never seen global sea ice levels this low before

I've seen this story a few times in the past few weeks, Vox sums it up We’ve never seen global sea ice levels this low before and has the latest version of the scary chart. Basically, we're doomed.

But ever since September, as the red line shows, global sea ice has utterly collapsed, following a pattern never seen before. On January 14, total sea ice extent was at its lowest level since satellite records began in 1978 — and likely the lowest it’s been for thousands of years. And yes, global warming is an important part of the story here.

Tracking Down a Fake News Writer

The New York Times tracked down a fake news writer From Headline to Photograph, a Fake News Masterpiece.

There was nothing especially Christian about his efforts, Mr. Harris admits; he had simply bought the abandoned web address for $5 at ExpiredDomains.net. Within a few days, the story, which had taken him 15 minutes to concoct, had earned him about $5,000. That was a sizable share of the $22,000 an accounting statement shows he made during the presidential campaign from ads for shoes, hair gel and web design that Google had placed on his site.

He had put in perhaps half an hour a week on the fake news site, he said, for a total of about 20 hours. He would come close to a far bigger payday, one that might have turned the $5 he had spent on the Christian Times domain into more than $100,000.

The money, not the politics, was the point, he insisted.

The Intercept went a little further, Major Fake News Operation Tracked Back to Republican Operative.

What Harris failed to mention to The Times, however, is that during the entire time that he was spreading lies about the Democratic presidential candidate, he was employed as a legislative aide and campaign manager for a Republican member of the Maryland state legislature, David Vogt III.

Harris also concealed from The Times that when he sat down to create his anti-Clinton fiction “at the kitchen table in his apartment,” he was living in Vogt’s basement in Brunswick, Maryland. As Maryland’s Frederick News-Post reported on Wednesday, an FEC filing related to Vogt’s failed race for Congress earlier this year listed the same home address for both the state lawmaker and his young campaign manager, Harris.

Though apparently Vogt had no idea and fired Harris as this story broke. I guess Vogt didn't pay his employees very well.

Do high-deductible plans make the health care system better?

Do high-deductible plans make the health care system better?

High-deductible plans push people to shop around for health treatments, often without the benefit of information on quality and price. That worries Amitabh Chandra, an economist and health care researcher at Harvard University. 

'Simply calling the patient a consumer doesn’t make buying health care anything like buying cars and computers,' said Chandra.

In fact, Chandra’s research shows that even higher-income earners with more economic flexibility do not really shop for health care efficiently, even when they're given a state-of-the-art computer program to compare prices. People on these plans tend to forgo all sorts of care, regardless of their own need and health status. 

'Prevention, imaging, or drugs — consumers were cutting back on all those. And that’s a sign they don’t really know what care is valuable and what care isn’t valuable,' said Chandra.

In health care research, a new consensus is forming, in part because of Chandra’s work: high-deductible plans with cheaper premiums work well for people who are generally healthy. But for those who are chronically ill or live on lower incomes, these plans can be a disaster. At any income level, in fact, they incentivize the consumer to cut back on care they may need.

The Best Image of Saturn's Moon Daphnis Ever Taken

Phil Plait on The Best Image of Saturn's Moon Daphnis Ever Taken. And It's a Stunner.

That’s the highest-resolution image of Daphnis ever taken; for scale, the flying-saucer-shaped moon is about 8 x 8 x 6 km in size. Measured from sea level, Mount Everest is roughly the same size. You can see some structure to Daphnis; there’s a ridge around its equator that’s probably due to ring particles that have piled up there, and a second ridge at higher latitude. The soft appearance to the moon is probably due to the accumulation of small grains of ice from the rings that have coated it, filling in the craters and other features.

That gap in the rings is real. It’s called the Keeler Gap, and it’s about 30-40 km wide. The width of the gap appears foreshortened because Cassini was just above the ring plane when it took the shot; it’s actually several times wider than the moon is long.

But, oh, those ripples! That, my friends, is the result of gravity. It’s a complicated and intricate dance between moon and rings, but it’s worth learning the moves."

Trump Bought Targeted Facebook Ads to Woo More People to His Inauguration. Sad.

The Verge reports Trump is using targeted Facebook ads to woo more people to his inauguration party. "The Tonight Show’s Marina Cockenberg posted about the inauguration ads on Twitter, which explain that Trump is attempting to lure New Yorkers ages 27 or older to his party."

The Array of Conflicts of Interest Facing the Trump Presidency

About a month ago the New York Times wrote The Array of Conflicts of Interest Facing the Trump Presidency with several nice little graphics showing it all clearly. Still no resolution from the Trump transition team.

You Draw It: What Got Better or Worse During Obama’s Presidency

The New York Times had a really neat interactive graphic, You Draw It: What Got Better or Worse During Obama’s Presidency. They show seven stats, showing the graph for the Bush years with space for the Obama years for you to fill in and then compare with history. I was pretty good on three of them. Right on average on two and grossly wrong on two. Give it a try.

How to Prevent Gun Deaths? Where Experts and the Public Agree

The NYT’s Upshot charted How to Prevent Gun Deaths? Where Experts and the Public Agree. “We conducted a survey on 29 gun control ideas, looking for the intersection of effectiveness and popularity.”

Our expert survey asked dozens of social scientists, lawyers and public health officials how effective each of 29 policies would be in reducing firearm homicide deaths, regardless of their political feasibility or cost. Policies deemed both effective and popular appear in the upper-right corner of the matrix. Less popular, less effective measures fall lower down and to the left.

The two policies ranked most effective were those requiring all sellers to run background checks on anyone who buys a gun, and barring gun sales to people convicted of violent misdemeanors, including domestic assaults. The experts were more skeptical of other much-debated proposals, including a national gun registry and an assault weapons ban. The idea of requiring states to honor out-of-state concealed weapon permits was ranked low.

The academics in our panel — many of the country’s best empirical researchers on gun policy — were far more likely than the general public to support gun control. But nearly all of the policies that experts think could work have widespread support from the general public.

The article goes much deeper, showing the graph highlighting: - What Does Trump Support? - What About Mass Shootings? - Measures Supported by Academics Opposed to Gun Control - Things Law Enforcement Likes

This is really an issue where the public wants more done and the GOP is entirely captured by the NRA which is captured by the gun industry and not the gun consumers.

(Via Kottke)

Here's What Really Caused The Housing Crisis

Since Lawrence Kudlow and Stephen Moore are now advisors to Trump, Mark Thoma explains yet again Here's what really caused the housing crisis.

“A lot of the narrative of the financial crisis has been that this [loan] origination process was broken, and therefore a lot of marginal and unsustainable borrowers got access to funding. In our opinion, the facts don’t line up with this narrative. … Calling this crisis a subprime crisis is a misnomer. In fact, it was a prime crisis.”

There are other reasons to doubt that subprime borrowers were responsible for the financial crisis. For one, a large number of subprime mortgages originated in non-CRA banks, and “none of the 300+ mortgage originators that imploded were depository banks covered by the CRA.”

As noted in a study by McClatchy from 2008, “Federal Reserve Board data show that more than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions;” “private firms made nearly 83 percent of the subprime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year;” and “only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing law that’s being lambasted by conservative critics.”

A second question to ask is why, if the CRA and subprime borrowing were the problem, did a very similar housing bubble and financial crisis occur in scores of other countries that didn’t have legislation like this?

A third argument, the one Kudlow and Moore cite, is that declining lending standards by Fannie and Freddie brought about by the requirements of the CRA helped fuel subprime loans. But once again, this argument doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

As Barry Ritholtz pointed out in 2011, “The relative market share of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac dropped from a high of 57 percent of all new mortgage originations in 2003, down to 37 percent as the bubble was developing in 2005–06.”

The reason Fannie and Freddie were losing market share is that loan standards on mortgages issued by private lenders were falling. Fannie and Freddie eventually adjusted some of their conditions for obtaining a loan in an attempt to prevent a further loss in market share, but it’s very clear that they were followers, not leaders, in the erosion of lending standards.

Update: More here: Why these economists say the usual explanation for the financial crisis is wrong

The Elements of Life Mapped Across the Milky Way

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey have mapped the elements of life across the Milky Way

‘For the first time, we can now study the distribution of elements across our Galaxy,’ says Sten Hasselquist of New Mexico State University. ‘The elements we measure include the atoms that make up 97% of the mass of the human body.’

The new results come from a catalog of more than 150,000 stars; for each star, it includes the amount of each of almost two dozen chemical elements. The new catalog includes all of the so-called ‘CHNOPS elements’ – carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorous, and sulfur – known to be the building blocks of all life on Earth. This is the first time that measurements of all of the CHNOPS elements have been made for such a large number of stars.

While humans are 65% oxygen by mass, oxygen makes up less than 1% of the mass of all of elements in space. Stars are mostly hydrogen, but small amounts of heavier elements such as oxygen can be detected in the spectra of stars. With these new results, APOGEE has found more of these heavier elements in the inner Galaxy. Stars in the inner galaxy are also older, so this means more of the elements of life were synthesized earlier in the inner parts of the Galaxy than in the outer parts.

While it’s fun speculate what impact the inner Galaxy’s composition might have on where life pops up, we are much better at understanding the formation of stars in our Galaxy. Because the processes producing each element occur in specific types of stars and proceed at different rates, they leave specific signatures in the chemical abundance patterns measured by SDSS/APOGEE. This means that SDSS/APOGEE’s new elemental abundance catalog provides data to compare with the predictions made by models of galaxy formation.

Also they’ve updated Origin of the Elements in the Solar System.

A Woman Was Killed By a Superbug Resistant to All 26 American Antibiotics

The Atlantic reports A Woman Was Killed By a Superbug Resistant to All 26 American Antibiotics

Funny—by which we all mean scary—because yesterday afternoon, the CDC also released a report about a Nevada woman who died after an infection resistant to 26 antibiotics, which is to say all available antibiotics in the U.S. The woman, who was in her 70s, had been previously hospitalized in India after fracturing her leg, which led to an infection of the bone. There was nothing to treat her infection—not colistin, not other last-line antibiotics. Scientists later tested the bacteria that killed her, and found it was somewhat susceptible to fosfomycin, but that antibiotic is not approved in the U.S. to treat her type of infection.

The most worrisome kind of colistin resistance is caused by a single gene called mcr–1. The bacteria that killed this woman did not have mcr–1; it’s still unclear how they became resistant. Other cases of colistin resistance have emerged before though. What makes mcr–1 special is that sits on a loop of free-floating DNA called a plasmid, which bacteria of different species can pass back and forth. And there are many plasmids out there with genes that confer resistance to this or that class of antibiotics.

Why patients blame the weather for aching joints

Turns out, the weather doesn’t make your joint ache any more or less. Why patients blame the weather for aching joints

In the new study on knee osteoarthritis, the researchers asked 345 patients to log onto a website every time their pain flared up for eight hours or more — and then the team linked those episodes to the temperature, relative humidity, barometric pressure, and precipitation recorded in that patient’s neighborhood around that time by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. The researchers also looked at the weather on days when the patients had no flare-ups. They found no significant relationship between pain and any kind of weather change. The same was true for the study on back pain.

Last Night's Political Comedies

I watched a fair amount of the Jeff Sessions hearings yesterday. Samantha Bee is the only one I’ve seen report on the scariest thing I heard him say. When Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) asked if secular federal attorney’s had anything to worry about he flustered.

Whitehouse: And secular person has just as good a claim to understanding the truth as a person who is religious Sessions: Well I’m not so sure.

That’s really not out of context.

Trevor Noah had Johnathan Chait on to talk about his new book, which sounds very good.

And Jimmy Fallon had a cute segment with Michelle Obama

Movie Review: Hidden Figures

I’ve seen a number of bio-pics from the 30s and 40s about people like Madame Curie, Lou Gehrig, Louis Pasteur, Thomas Edison and famous presidents and patriots and I wonder why they don’t make movies like this anymore? Yes they covered up character flaws and weren’t always the most historically accurate, but they were dramatizations and could make you feel good and want to research the people more. Isn’t that valuable? Didn’t Shakespear do that?

Well this year they made one like that again. Hidden Figures is the little known story of NASA’s “colored computers”, African-American women who did a lot of the number crunching for the space program. Yes there were white wome who did that too but as you might imagine, the black women faced even more difficulties. Hidden Figures Movie vs the True Story of Katherine Johnson, NASA explains some of the liberties the movie took. Nevertheless, these women were exceptional individuals and this movie is an exceptionally well told story.

10 Years Ago: iPhone Intro

Ten years ago Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone to the world and changed what the term “smart phone” meant. It was probably his greatest demo. If you have a an hour and a half watch it here. Warning, once I started I couldn’t stop.

I had forgotten some of the innovations:

• Visual Voicemail
• Separate ongoing sms conversations
• a widescreen touch based iPod with coverflow
• the accelerometer that could switch between portrait and landscape
• multitouch - listen to the cheers at scrolling and pinch-to-zoom
• I forgot about WAP, good riddance
• I have no memory of Apple making an old-style one ear bluetooth headset
• It was at this event that they changed their name from Apple Computer to Apple

Some things are now quaint:

• The “giant” 3.5" 160ppi screen
• Sync’ing everything with iTunes was a feature
• How slowly web pages loaded, but how fast it seemed
• Yahoo Mail was the biggest mail provider and it was a big deal that push iMAP was free
• 4GB and 8GB models

Here’s my post about the keynote and shortly thereafter on some notable limitations.

Snow Prediction

I’m no meteorologist but I’ll hazard a snow prediction (it’s more like a hope). I noticed that this century we’re in a 5 year pattern of low snowfall. So I’m going to guess Boston will get less than 20" of snow this winter. Of course I’m saying that having gotten 5.9 inches in Dec, an inch today and about 3 more expected tomorrow. Still, fingers crossed.

Movies Seen in 2016

Previous Years: 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011

In 2016 I saw 259 feature length movies and 49 short films (those under 40 mins). That’s the most I’ve seen in a year other than 2011 where I went crazy and saw 366 features and 30 short films.

80% first run features is basically average for me.

I rate on the Netflix 5 point scale where 1 is hated, 2 is didn’t like, 3 is I liked it, 4 is really liked and 5 is loved.

I had a pretty average curve for me.

I saw 83 features in the theater and most of the rest on cable. I only watched 3 films on Netlix this year, none on DVD or Blu-ray and only 1 online.

I’ve got a few theaters I go to regularly, though the Somerville gets so much because of IFFBoston. The shorts I see in the theater are the Oscar nominees, this year I saw them at the Kendall, the others at the Somerville are some shorts packages at IFFBoston. Assembly Row opened in 2015, it’s nice but I only made it 4 times.

My monthly viewing was a little odd with big months in January, July and December. Maybe I just binged in weather that was too cold or too hot. This year IFFBoston was split over the end of April and beginning of May so neither month peaked too high. But I caught 40 of the 2016 films, 18 features, and 22 shorts.

Yet again, my viewing was really skewed towards recent films this year. I saw 79 features from 2016 and 67 from 2015. All the shorts I saw were from 2014 or later.

Last year April was the only barren month for Oscar nominated films, this year it’s just February which seems odd, I guess I caught all the nominees in Jan or during the year. These are films from any year that got a nomination or won, not just from last year’s Oscars. They also (obviously) don’t include any films that came out this year that will get nominated later this month.

Yet again I feel like I need to see more foreign films:

I break down films into five genres that I’m pretty happy with. I then use some sub-genres and I still have a hard time putting every film in one. There are lots of Dramas and Comedies that have no sub-genre. But here’s how it looks for this year:

Below are all the films I saw in 2016:

Seen	Title	Year	Length	Country	Rating
Jan 3	Top Five	2014	Feature	US	4
Jan 3	Shadow of the Thin Man	1941	Feature	US	3
Jan 3	The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel	2015	Feature	Britain	3
Jan 3	The Billion Dollar Brain	1967	Feature	Britain	2
Jan 3	What We Do In the Shadows	2014	Feature	New Zealand	2
Jan 5	The Hateful Eight	2015	Feature	US	4
Jan 9	Mad Max: Fury Road	2015	Feature	Australia	5
Jan 9	The Hundred-Foot Journey	2014	Feature	US	3
Jan 9	Dear Albania	2015	Feature	US	3
Jan 10	Joy	2015	Feature	US	2
Jan 14	Cinderella	2015	Feature	Britain	3
Jan 16	Dead End	1937	Feature	US	4
Jan 16	St. Vincent	2014	Feature	US	4
Jan 16	Jackie Brown	1997	Feature	US	3
Jan 16	Listen to Me Marlon	2015	Feature	Britain	3
Jan 16	52 Pick-Up	1986	Feature	US	2
Jan 17	What Happened Miss Simone?	2015	Feature	US	3
Jan 17	The Revenant	2015	Feature	US	3
Jan 18	The Blue Bird	1918	Feature	US	2
Jan 19	The Danish Girl	2015	Feature	Britain	3
Jan 21	The Spymasters: CIA in the Crosshairs	2015	Feature	US	4
Jan 22	Carol	2015	Feature	US	2
Jan 23	Avengers: Age of Ultron	2015	Feature	US	4
Jan 24	45 Years	2015	Feature	Britain	3
Jan 24	Entourage	2015	Feature	US	2
Jan 25	The Best Years of Our Lives	1946	Feature	US	4
Jan 25	The Helen Morgan Story	1957	Feature	US	2
Jan 27	The Imitation Game	2014	Feature	Britain	4
Jan 28	Winter on Fire	2015	Feature	Ukraine	4
Jan 30	Sounder	1972	Feature	US	4
Jan 30	Superbad	2007	Feature	US	4
Jan 31	Bear Story	2015	Short	Chile	4
Jan 31	Sanjay's Super Team	2015	Short	US	4
Jan 31	We Can't Live Without Cosmos	2015	Short	Russia	4
Jan 31	Prologue	2015	Short	Britain	4
Jan 31	Catch It	2015	Short	France	4
Jan 31	World of Tomorrow	2015	Short	US	3
Jan 31	If I Were God	2015	Short	Canada	3
Jan 31	The Loneliest Spotlight	2015	Short	US	3
Jan 31	The Short Story of a Fox and a Mouse	2015	Short	France	3
Feb 6	Tomorrowland	2015	Feature	US	2
Feb 7	Hail, Caesar!	2016	Feature	US	2
Feb 13	Kingsman: The Secret Service	2015	Feature	Britain	4
Feb 13	The Leisure Class	2015	Feature	US	1
Feb 14	Day One	2015	Short	US	5
Feb 14	Shok	2015	Short	Britain	4
Feb 14	Stutterer	2015	Short	Britain	4
Feb 14	Ave Maria	2015	Short	France	3
Feb 14	Everything Will Be Okay	2015	Short	Germany	3
Feb 21	Magic Mike XXL	2015	Feature	US	3
Feb 21	Deadpool	2016	Feature	US	3
Feb 28	Rejected	2000	Short	US	2
Feb 29	San Andreas	2015	Feature	US	1
Mar 1	Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens	2015	Feature	US	4
Mar 2	Knight of Cups	2016	Feature	US	1
Mar 6	The Witch	2016	Feature	US	2
Mar 10	Spy	2015	Feature	US	3
Mar 10	Eye in the Sky	2015	Feature	Britain	3
Mar 12	Love & Mercy	2015	Feature	US	3
Mar 13	10 Cloverfield Lane	2016	Feature	US	4
Mar 16	Body Team 12	2015	Short	Liberia	4
Mar 19	Avengers: Age of Ultron	2015	Feature	US	4
Mar 19	Still Alice	2014	Feature	US	4
Mar 19	Big Eyes	2014	Feature	US	3
Mar 20	Tangerines	2014	Feature	Estonia	4
Mar 20	Hello, My Name is Doris	2016	Feature	US	3
Mar 30	The Dark Horse	2016	Feature	New Zealand	3
Apr 3	Midnight Special	2016	Feature	US	3
Apr 5	Ori & Addison	2014	Short	US	4
Apr 5	Hunter's Moon	2015	Short	US	3
Apr 5	Knockturnal	2016	Short	US	2
Apr 13	Ant-Man	2015	Feature	US	4
Apr 16	Ricki and the Flash	2015	Feature	US	2
Apr 17	We the People: The Market Basket Effect	2016	Feature	US	3
Apr 17	Chappie	2015	Feature	US	2
Apr 18	Everything is Copy	2015	Feature	US	4
Apr 18	Shattered	2007	Feature	Britain	3
Apr 20	Never Weaken	1921	Short	US	4
Apr 20	From Hand to Mouth	1919	Short	US	3
Apr 21	The Cardinal	1963	Feature	US	4
Apr 22	Vertigo	1958	Feature	US	3
Apr 24	Sound of Redemption	2016	Feature	US	4
Apr 24	Miles Ahead	2016	Feature	US	4
Apr 27	The Hollars	2016	Feature	US	4
Apr 28	Five Nights in Maine	2016	Feature	US	4
Apr 28	Embers	2016	Feature	US	3
Apr 29	Presenting Princess Shaw	2016	Feature	US	4
Apr 29	Always Shine	2016	Feature	US	3
Apr 30	Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World	2016	Feature	US	5
Apr 30	Transpecos	2016	Feature	US	5
Apr 30	Class of '27	2016	Short	US	4
Apr 30	Neige	2016	Short	US	4
Apr 30	A Living Wage	2016	Short	US	3
Apr 30	Lockdown	2016	Short	US	3
Apr 30	The Champion	2016	Short	US	3
Apr 30	The Dwarvenaut	2016	Feature	US	3
Apr 30	Bluespace	2016	Feature	US	2
May 1	Balcony Scene	2016	Short	US	5
May 1	Hunt for the Wilderpeople	2016	Feature	New Zealand	5
May 1	Disorder	2016	Feature	France	4
May 1	Ori & Addison	2016	Short	US	4
May 1	Bonding	2016	Short	US	4
May 1	Twinsburg	2016	Short	US	3
May 1	My Dark Side and My Light Side Meet in a Bar to Discuss the New Star Wars Movie	2016	Short	US	3
May 1	Teenage Cocktail	2016	Feature	US	3
May 1	Forever, Your Fireplace	2016	Short	US	2
May 1	Blast Beat	2016	Short	US	2
May 2	Weiner	2016	Feature	US	4
May 2	The Lost Arcade	2016	Feature	US	3
May 3	Don't Think Twice	2016	Feature	US	4
May 3	Little Men	2016	Feature	US	3
May 4	The Intervention	2016	Feature	US	3
May 5	Going the Distance	2016	Short	US	4
May 5	Killer	2016	Short	US	4
May 5	Pickle	2015	Short	US	3
May 5	Affections	2015	Short	US	2
May 6	My Brother is a Zombie	2015	Short	US	4
May 6	Tilly	2015	Short	US	3
May 6	The Itching	2016	Short	US	2
May 7	Captain America: The Winter Soldier	2014	Feature	US	5
May 7	Fantastic Four	2015	Feature	US	2
May 8	Captain America: Civil War	2016	Feature	US	4
May 15	Money Monster	2016	Feature	US	3
May 17	Wet Hot American Summer	2001	Feature	US	3
May 19	Z for Zacharia	2015	Feature	US	3
May 19	Mr. Holmes	2015	Feature	US	3
May 21	All the Way	2016	Feature	US	5
May 22	The Nice Guys	2016	Feature	US	3
May 23	Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation	2015	Feature	US	4
May 27	Love & Friendship	2016	Feature	Ireland	3
May 28	The Intern	2015	Feature	US	3
May 29	Under the Gun	2016	Feature	US	4
May 29	The Lobster	2016	Feature	Greece	2
Jun 2	The Scarecrow	1920	Short	US	3
Jun 2	The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean	1972	Feature	US	2
Jun 3	Tale of Tales	2016	Feature	Italy	3
Jun 5	Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping	2016	Feature	US	2
Jun 7	The Martian	2015	Feature	US	5
Jun 8	Good Kill	2015	Feature	US	3
Jun 9	Room 237	2012	Feature	US	2
Jun 11	Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight	2013	Feature	US	4
Jun 11	Pal Joey	1957	Feature	US	3
Jun 11	Meet the Hitlers	2016	Feature	US	3
Jun 12	The Fallen Idol	1948	Feature	Britain	4
Jun 12	The Searchers	1956	Feature	US	3
Jun 12	Alexander Hamilton	1931	Feature	US	3
Jun 13	Lawrence of Arabia	1962	Feature	Britain	5
Jun 18	Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1	2012	Feature	US	4
Jun 18	Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2	2012	Feature	US	4
Jun 18	The Alamo	1960	Feature	US	4
Jun 19	Everest	2015	Feature	US	4
Jun 19	De Palma	2016	Feature	US	4
Jun 19	The Walk	2015	Feature	US	3
Jun 22	Tickled	2016	Feature	US	4
Jun 24	Batman: Under the Red Hood	2010	Feature	US	3
Jun 24	The Good Dinosaur	2015	Feature	US	3
Jun 24	Shutter	2008	Feature	US	2
Jun 26	The Man Who Knew Infinity	2016	Feature	Britain	3
Jun 28	Swiss Army Man	2016	Feature	US	5
Jul 2	Go West	1925	Feature	US	4
Jul 2	Shaun the Sheep Movie	2015	Feature	Britain	4
Jul 2	Captive	2015	Feature	US	3
Jul 2	O.C. and Stiggs	1985	Feature	US	2
Jul 2	Laurel Canyon	2002	Feature	US	2
Jul 3	Path to War	2002	Feature	US	4
Jul 3	Gangster Squad	2013	Feature	US	3
Jul 3	Ted 2	2015	Feature	US	3
Jul 3	Batman: Year One	2011	Feature	US	3
Jul 4	Misery	1990	Feature	US	4
Jul 4	Get Shorty	1995	Feature	US	4
Jul 4	MI-5	2015	Feature	Britain	3
Jul 5	Heist	2015	Feature	US	2
Jul 6	Heartburn	1986	Feature	US	2
Jul 7	A Walk Among the Tombstones	2014	Feature	US	3
Jul 7	Project Almanac	2015	Feature	US	2
Jul 8	The Normal Heart	2014	Feature	US	4
Jul 9	Black Sunday	1977	Feature	US	3
Jul 10	Broken Blossoms	1919	Feature	US	4
Jul 10	Swiss Army Man	2016	Feature	US	5
Jul 11	Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars	1973	Feature	Britain	2
Jul 11	The Game	1997	Feature	US	3
Jul 17	Stonewall	2015	Feature	US	2
Jul 17	Concussion	2015	Feature	US	3
Jul 17	Straight Outta Compton	2015	Feature	US	4
Jul 17	Ghostbusters	2016	Feature	US	2
Jul 24	Star Trek Beyond	2016	Feature	US	2
Jul 29	Thunder Road	2016	Short	US	3
Jul 30	That Cold Day in the Park	1969	Feature	US	2
Jul 30	Cesar Chavez	2014	Feature	US	3
Jul 30	High Anxiety	1977	Feature	US	4
Jul 30	Atari: Game Over	2014	Feature	US	3
Jul 31	Spectre	2015	Feature	Britain	2
Jul 31	The 33	2015	Feature	US	3
Jul 31	Jason Bourne	2016	Feature	US	3
Aug 2	Munich	2005	Feature	US	4
Aug 4	Deception	2008	Feature	US	2
Aug 4	The Rocketeer	1991	Feature	US	4
Aug 5	My Left Foot	1989	Feature	Ireland	4
Aug 6	Boyz n the Hood	1991	Feature	US	5
Aug 7	Shalll We Dance	2004	Feature	US	3
Aug 7	Captain Fantastic	2016	Feature	US	4
Aug 14	Grandma	2015	Feature	US	4
Aug 14	Black Girl	1966	Feature	France	3
Aug 16	Complete Unknown	2016	Feature	US	2
Aug 19	Things to Come	1936	Feature	Britain	3
Aug 20	Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country	1991	Feature	US	4
Aug 20	There Will Be Blood	2007	Feature	US	4
Aug 21	Office Space	1999	Feature	US	4
Aug 28	Movie Crazy	1932	Feature	US	3
Aug 28	Hell or High Water	2016	Feature	US	4
Aug 29	Truth	2015	Feature	US	3
Aug 29	The Lady in the Van	2015	Feature	Britain	3
Sep 3	The Silencers	1966	Feature	US	3
Sep 3	In the Heart of the Sea	2015	Feature	US	2
Sep 3	Pride	2014	Feature	Britain	4
Sep 4	Jane Wants a Boyfriend	2016	Feature	US	3
Sep 4	It Follows	2015	Feature	US	3
Sep 4	The Stanford Prison Experiment	2015	Feature	US	2
Sep 4	Sicario	2015	Feature	US	4
Sep 5	The Rat Race	1960	Feature	US	3
Sep 5	Hysteria	2011	Feature	Britain	3
Sep 5	The Quiet American	2002	Feature	Britain	4
Sep 5	Carrie	1976	Feature	US	3
Sep 6	Black Sea	2015	Feature	Britain	2
Sep 6	The Jerk	1979	Feature	US	4
Sep 6	Leon: The Professional	1994	Feature	US	4
Sep 7	Very Semi-Serious	2015	Feature	US	3
Sep 7	Coney Island	1917	Short	US	3
Sep 11	Star Trek III: The Search For Spock	1984	Feature	US	3
Sep 11	Sully	2016	Feature	US	3
Sep 18	Tron	1982	Feature	US	2
Sep 19	Star Trek V: The Final Frontier	1989	Feature	US	1
Sep 22	Shakes the Clown	1991	Feature	US	3
Sep 24	Spartacus	1960	Feature	US	5
Sep 25	Ben-Hur	1959	Feature	US	3
Oct 1	Whiskey Tango Foxtrot	2016	Feature	US	2
Oct 2	Command and Control	2016	Feature	US	3
Oct 8	13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi	2016	Feature	US	3
Oct 9	The Birth of a Nation	2016	Feature	US	4
Oct 16	Denial	2016	Feature	Britain	3
Oct 17	Borrowed Time	2016	Short	US	3
Oct 19	Never Happened	2016	Short	US	4
Oct 22	Blazing Saddles	1974	Feature	US	5
Oct 23	Moonlight	2016	Feature	US	4
Oct 25	The Handmaiden	2016	Feature	Korea	5
Oct 26	I Am Not Your Negro	2017	Feature	US	5
Oct 27	After the Storm	2016	Feature	Japan	3
Oct 27	The Autopsy of Jane Doe	2016	Feature	Britain	4
Oct 28	Loving	2016	Feature	US	4
Nov 2	Manchester by the Sea	2016	Feature	US	4
Nov 3	Piper	2016	Short	US	4
Nov 6	Doctor Strange	2016	Feature	US	3
Nov 13	Arrival	2016	Feature	US	4
Nov 15	Noctural Animals	2016	Feature	US	3
Nov 19	By the Sea	2015	Feature	US	1
Nov 20	The Edge of Seventeen	2016	Feature	US	4
Nov 22	The Martian	2015	Feature	US	5
Nov 24	Funeral in Berlin	1966	Feature	US	4
Nov 24	Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House	1948	Feature	US	5
Nov 25	Jobs	2013	Feature	US	3
Nov 26	Nanook of the North	1922	Feature	US	4
Nov 26	Zero Days	2016	Feature	US	4
Nov 26	Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice	2016	Feature	US	1
Nov 27	Harlan County U.S.A.	1976	Feature	US	4
Nov 27	The Peanuts Movie	2015	Feature	US	3
Nov 30	Ace Ventura: Pet Detective	1994	Feature	US	2
Nov 30	2 Guns	2013	Feature	US	3
Dec 3	Race	2016	Feature	US	3
Dec 3	Keanu	2016	Feature	US	4
Dec 4	Evolution	2016	Feature	France	1
Dec 5	Altman	2014	Feature	US	3
Dec 6	Countdown	1968	Feature	US	2
Dec 6	Much Ado About Nothing	2013	Feature	US	3
Dec 8	Casino Royale	1967	Feature	US	2
Dec 8	Mad Hot Ballroom	2005	Feature	US	3
Dec 9	My Blueberry Nights	2007	Feature	Hong Kong	3
Dec 10	Paris Blues	1961	Feature	US	3
Dec 10	Harper	1966	Feature	US	3
Dec 10	The Drowning Pool	1975	Feature	US	3
Dec 10	The Brothers Grimsby	2016	Feature	Britain	2
Dec 11	Misconduct	2016	Feature	US	1
Dec 11	Jackie	2016	Feature	US	3
Dec 15	Rogue One: A Star Wars Story	2016	Feature	US	4
Dec 16	Star Wars IV: A New Hope	1977	Feature	US	5
Dec 17	Marathon: The Patriots Day Bombing	2016	Feature	US	4
Dec 17	Eddie the Eagle	2016	Feature	Britain	3
Dec 17	War	2007	Feature	US	2
Dec 18	La La Land	2016	Feature	US	2
Dec 21	Rogue One: A Star Wars Story	2016	Feature	US	4
Dec 22	Forsaken	2015	Feature	Canada	3
Dec 24	Legend	2015	Feature	Britain	2
Dec 24	The Invisible Man	1933	Feature	US	2
Dec 24	Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens	2015	Feature	US	4
Dec 25	Keeper of the Flame	1942	Feature	US	3
Dec 25	Argo	2012	Feature	US	4
Dec 26	Bubba Ho-Tep	2002	Feature	US	2
Dec 26	City by the Sea	2002	Feature	US	3
Dec 27	Mr. Smith Goes to Washington	1939	Feature	US	4
Dec 27	The Life of an American Fireman	1903	Short	US	2
Dec 27	The Musketeers of Pig Alley	1912	Short	US	3
Dec 27	The Beau Brummels	1928	Short	US	3
Dec 27	Ball of Fire	1941	Feature	US	3
Dec 27	Punch-Drunk Love	2002	Feature	US	4
Dec 28	Ratatouille	2007	Feature	US	4
Dec 29	Meet John Doe	1941	Feature	US	4
Dec 29	Jeff, Who Lives at Home	2012	Feature	US	3
Dec 30	Sushi Girl	2012	Feature	US	3
Dec 31	Spotlight	2015	Feature	US	5