Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Mitch Daniels Doesn't Read the 'New York Times' (New York Times)
Steve Jobs designed great products. It's very, very hard to make the case that he created large numbers of jobs in this country. Obama's auto bailout, just by itself, saved a lot more jobs than Apple's US employment.
Paul Krugman: Finding the Truth (New York Times)
Unfortunately, Politifact has lost sight of what it was supposed to be doing. Instead of simply saying whether a claim is true, it's trying to act as some kind of referee of what it imagines to be fair play: even if a politician says something completely true, it gets ruled only partly true if Politifact feels that the fact is being used to gain an unfair political advantage.
Andrew Tobias Shows That John Boehner Says the Opposite of the Truth
Up is down, fat is lean - "by far the vast majority" of George W. Bush's tax cuts went to "people at the bottom end of the economic ladder." It's hard to see how John Boehner and his party do the country any good by saying these ridiculous things.
Dan Check: Mitt's Income vs. Your Income (Slate)
How long would it take the GOP candidate to earn what you make in a year? "… how long it takes Mitt to earn what you earn in a year. If you enter $45,000, the answer is "18 hours, 11 minutes and 53 seconds." Which is some combination of his skill and hard work, on the one hand, and - possibly - a system that rewards people who do what he does more heavily than it should . . . and taxes them more lightly than it should."-Andrew Tobias
Susan Estrich: Rooting for Newt (Creators Syndicate)
Newt-Romney, however, is already nastier than Hillary-Obama ever was (with all of one bad ad, the red phone). Fine by me. The nastier the better. What Hillary-Obama proves is that it's not the length of the fight but the bitterness and animosity on the ground that hurts. Like in 1980. Go, Newt.
Mark Morford: Paula Deen Ate My Teenage daughter (SF Gate)
Behold, Burger King home delivery! That's right, America's No. 3 fast food death machine is testing the bringing of Whoppers, BK Stackers and other grease-related, food-like items that are so full of salt and sugar and fat and synthetic hormones they will make your blood turn into glue and your face turn into Paula Deen, straight to your door!
Interview by Laura Barnett: "Portrait of the artist: Arthur Smith, comedian" (Guardian)
'My worst heckle? In Edinburgh, a bloke poured a pint of urine over me.'
Tom Danehy: A new book spotlights the varied members of Tucson's cycling community (Tucson Weekly)
Even at my advanced age (and weight), there are still several things I would like to try for the first time in my life.
David Bruce has 42 Kindle books on Amazon.com with 250 anecdotes in each book. Each book is $1, so for $42 you can buy 10,500 anecdotes. Search for "Funniest People," "Coolest People, "Most Interesting People," "Kindest People," "Religious Anecdotes," "Maximum Cool," and "Resist Psychic Death."
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Marianne Recommends
Northern Lights in Maine
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and like a day in mid-August.
Dear old dad celebrates his 87th birthday today.
Low IQ & Conservative Beliefs Linked
Prejudice
There's no gentle way to put it: People who give in to racism and prejudice may simply be dumb, according to a new study that is bound to stir public controversy.
The research finds that children with low intelligence are more likely to hold prejudiced attitudes as adults. These findings point to a vicious cycle, according to lead researcher Gordon Hodson, a psychologist at Brock University in Ontario. Low-intelligence adults tend to gravitate toward socially conservative ideologies, the study found. Those ideologies, in turn, stress hierarchy and resistance to change, attitudes that can contribute to prejudice, Hodson wrote in an email to LiveScience.
"Prejudice is extremely complex and multifaceted, making it critical that any factors contributing to bias are uncovered and understood," he said.
"They've pulled off the trifecta of controversial topics," said Brian Nosek, a social and cognitive psychologist at the University of Virginia who was not involved in the study. "When one selects intelligence, political ideology and racism and looks at any of the relationships between those three variables, it's bound to upset somebody."
Polling data and social and political science research do show that prejudice is more common in those who hold right-wing ideals that those of other political persuasions, Nosek told LiveScience.
Prejudice
Famous Names Who Snubbed
Queen's Honors
Receiving an honor from Britain's Queen Elizabeth marks the pinnacle of many careers. But for more than 250 people named in a once-secret official document, the idea was so unappealing that they turned down the monarch's offer.
Artist Lucian Freud, sculptor Henry Moore and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" author Roald Dahl all rejected honors, according to papers released by the British government on Thursday.
"Psycho" film director Alfred Hitchcock also refused an award in 1962, only to accept a knighthood shortly before his death in 1980.
Other public figures named on the official list include painters Francis Bacon and L.S. Lowry and the "Brave New World" novelist Aldous Huxley.
Eveyln Waugh, who wrote "Brideshead Revisited" and "Scoop," rejected an offer in 1959 to become a CBE.
Graham Greene, author of "Our Man in Havana" and "The Quiet American," turned down the same honor three years earlier, only to accept honors later in life. "The Chronicles of Narnia" creator C.S. Lewis also said no to a CBE.
Queen's Honors
Engagement News
Barney Frank
Barney Frank, the 16-term congressman from Massachusetts who was one of the first openly gay figures in U.S. national politics, plans to marry his partner, his office said on Thursday.
Frank, 71, will marry Jim Ready in a ceremony in Massachusetts, capping a nearly five-year relationship. Ready, 42, lives in Maine, where he has a small handyman business and practices photography, Frank's office said.
No other details on the date or location of the wedding were released.
Barney Frank
TV Show
Julian Assange
Kremlin-funded English language channel Russia Today has given WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange his own TV talk show, the station said this week.
Filming for Assange's television debut is already underway from Britain, where he remains under house arrest outside London while appealing an extradition order to Sweden, it said.
Russia Today - considered a Kremlin exercise in image enhancement by critics - said Assange will invite 10 "key political players, thinkers and revolutionaries" for interviews on a show dubbed "The World Tomorrow," due to air in mid-March.
Media analyst Konstantin von Eggert said he expected to see Assange interview Russian allies and anti-establishment guests such as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez and left-leaning U.S. academic Noam Chomsky.
"Julian Assange is famous for his anti-American and anti-Western views, that is exactly why Russia Today is hiring him as a journalist," said von Eggert, a commentator for Kommersant FM radio.
Julian Assange
"Good Day New York"
Greg Kelly
Greg Kelly, son of New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, is under investigation, his lawyer said on Thursday following media reports that a Manhattan woman accused him of rape.
A woman around the age of 30 made the complaint against Kelly, a local television news host, on Tuesday night at a Manhattan police station, according to New York media reports. She said the incident occurred more than three months earlier.
To avoid possible conflicts of interest that might arise in a police investigation of the commissioner's son, the case was handed over to Cyrus Vance, Jr., the Manhattan District Attorney.
Kelly did not appear in his usual role as co-host of "Good Day New York" on the Fox station WNYW on Thursday morning. A spokeswoman for Fox Television Stations referred queries to Kelly's lawyer.
Greg Kelly
Corruption Scandal
Vatican't
The Vatican was shaken by a corruption scandal Thursday after an Italian television investigation said a former top official had been transferred against his will after complaining about irregularities in awarding contracts.
The show "The Untouchables" on the respected private television network La 7 Wednesday night showed what it said were several letters that Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, who was then deputy-governor of Vatican City, sent to superiors, including Pope Benedict, in 2011 about the corruption.
The Vatican issued a statement Thursday criticizing the "methods" used in the journalistic investigation. But it confirmed that the letters were authentic by expressing "sadness over the publication of reserved documents."
In one letter, Vigano tells the pope of a smear campaign against him (Vigano) by other Vatican officials who wanted him transferred because they were upset that he had taken drastic steps to save the Vatican money by cleaning up its procedures.
In another letter to the pope on April 4, 2011, Vigano says he discovered the management of some Vatican City investments was entrusted to two funds managed by a committee of Italian bankers "who looked after their own interests more than ours."
Vatican't
Shocking! Disgraced Politician Continues To Lie
Noot
At long last, CNN's John King gets his revenge.
A week after Newt Gingrich berated King on air for a question about his messy divorce in 1999, a campaign spokesman has admitted that Gingrich veered from the truth during his response.
Kicking off the Republican presidential debate in Charleston, South Carolina last week, King asked Gingrich about an interview his ex-wife, Marianne Gingrich, gave to ABC News in which she alleged that Gingrich had requested an "open marriage" so he could see other women on the side. In response, Gingrich erupted. "To take an ex-wife and make it two days before the primary a significant question in a presidential campaign is as close to despicable as anything I can imagine," he said. "The story is false. Every personal friend I have who knew us in that period said the story was false. We offered several of them to ABC to prove it was false. They weren't interested because they would like to attack any Republican."
According to Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond, however, that last part wasn't entirely true. He later told CNN that the campaign only offered Gingrich's daughters to address the story for ABC.
Noot
Model Tells Of Romp
Oscar De La Hoya
A Playboy model said on Wednesday she feared she would die while trapped in a luxury hotel room with former boxing champ Oscar De La Hoya during a night of drugs and kinky sex.
Angelica Cecora, 25, in a lawsuit filed in state Supreme Court in Manhattan, accused the former Olympic gold medalist and world champion of multiple weight divisions of dressing in women's underwear while trying to force her to engage in "disgusting" sexual acts in March 2011.
Cecora spoke to reporters outside a court hearing during which De La Hoya's lawyers asked to dismiss the lawsuit, which seeks $5 million for emotional distress, false imprisonment, assault and battery.
"Once 12 o'clock hit that night, he just started doing more and more drugs and wanted me to do more and more things," she said.
De La Hoya, 38, the so-called "Golden Boy" who for years was the biggest name in boxing, did not appear in court Wednesday but after the hearing his attorney Judd Burstein said the encounter was consensual and he's confident the court will dismiss the lawsuit.
Oscar De La Hoya
Royal Ballet Star's Resignation Shocks Dance World
Sergei Polunin
The dance world is spinning after one of ballet's brightest stars walked away from Britain's prestigious Royal Ballet without explanation, days before he was due to take the lead in a new production.
Ukrainian dancer Sergei Polunin announced this week that he is quitting immediately. He had been due to open as Oberon in "The Dream" next week.
The 21-year-old studied dance in Kiev before attending the Royal Ballet School in London from the age of 13.
He has thrilled audiences since he became the company's youngest-ever male principal dancer at the age of 19. His poise, muscularity and gravity-defying leaps have brought comparisons with the young Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov.
Ballet websites swirled with speculation about the motive for Polunin's sudden departure. Some suggested the dancer - who co-owns a London tattoo parlor - might have grown frustrated with the strict discipline of the ballet life.
Sergei Polunin
Abusive Working Conditions
Apple
The New York Times published on Wednesday its second bombshell of a story on inhumane working conditions at Apple's Chinese manufacturers. So how will the world's most valuable company, notorious for its secrecy, respond?
So far, with silence.
The Times profiled Apple's extensive use of overseas manufacturers on Sunday, but after Apple's astonishing earnings report on Tuesday, the Times returned with a follow-up report far more damning than its previous one.
"We could have saved lives, and we asked Apple to pressure Foxconn, but they wouldn't do it," a former consultant told the Times. Foxconn is a major manufacturer that supplies to companies including Apple and Hewlett-Packard.
Foxconn has been subject of damning reports before, but few with as much in-depth reporting and as much harrowing evidence. Moreover, this is now in the New York Times, the most high-profile of news outlets, and the stories are already subject to Pulitzer Prize speculation.
Apple
Ads Urging Repentance
Warren Jeffs
A breakaway Mormon sect loyal to jailed polygamist leader Warren Jeffs has placed a series of ads urging repentance in major U.S. and Canadian newspapers that display purported revelations from God via their faith's self-proclaimed prophet.
Jeffs, the 56-year-old leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is serving a life sentence for sexually assaulting two girls he wed as spiritual brides when they were 12 and 14 years old at his sect's Texas ranch.
"Repent ye; now be of full humbling; all peoples shall be humbled in full way; as I send full judgment," reads one of the ads, versions of which have appeared during the past week in newspapers including the New York Times, the Salt Lake Tribune and the Vancouver Sun.
It was not immediately clear to whom the ads were directed, but Jeffs had complained repeatedly during his Texas trial last year that he was being persecuted because of his religious beliefs.
Jeffs' sect, which teaches that for a man to be among the select in heaven he must have at least three wives, is estimated to have 10,000 followers in North America.
Warren Jeffs
Noot's Money Machine
Sheldon Adelson
He's an ardent supporter of Israel. A megabillionaire casino mogul whose Las Vegas Sands Corp. is under federal investigation. And the self-proclaimed "richest Jew in the world."
Sheldon Adelson is also, far and away, the biggest patron of Newt Gingrich's surging Republican presidential bid. Adelson and his wife, Miriam, have pumped $10 million into a political action committee backing Gingrich that is run by the former House speaker's onetime aides. Campaign finance experts say the two $5 million contributions are among the largest known political donations in U.S. history.
No other candidate in the race for president appears to be relying so heavily on the fortune of a single donor. It's been made possible by last year's Supreme Court rulings - known as Citizens United - that recast the political landscape by stripping away restrictions on contributions and how outside groups can spend their money.
Sheldon Adelson is Citizens United come to life.
Sheldon Adelson
Bigger Than Poker In Revenue
Baccarat
In the days before the Chinese New Year celebration began this week, six high rollers sat down at the private baccarat tables one day at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and began throwing down wagers of $100,000 to $200,000 a hand. It was a scene hardly out of place these days in Sin City.
Big-time gamblers, primarily from Asia, are flocking to Las Vegas to play baccarat and providing a big lift to the overall bottom line of the city's casinos.
Baccarat has easily surpassed blackjack in terms of casino revenue in Las Vegas and now represents nearly 60 percent of the MGM Grand's table games revenue over the past year. It's especially popular this week with tens of thousands of tourists from Asia in town to celebrate the Chinese New Year.
In Las Vegas parlance, a "whale" is a big-time gambler who easily wagers more in one night at the tables than most American families make in a year. Casinos cater to them with plush, secluded gambling salons inside the top casinos - with baccarat games that often start out at a minimum $10,000 per hand.
The whales typically favor baccarat - a game romanticized in James Bond flicks and highly popular in Macau and Singapore.
Baccarat
In Memory
Robert Hegyes
Robert Hegyes, the actor best known for playing Jewish Puerto Rican student Juan Epstein on the 1970s TV show "Welcome Back Kotter" has died. He was 60.
A spokesman at JFK Medical Center in Edison, N.J., told the Star-Ledger newspaper that Hegyes, of Metuchen, arrived at the hospital Thursday morning in full cardiac arrest and died.
Hegyes was appearing on Broadway in 1975 when he auditioned for "Kotter," a TV series about a teacher who returns to the inner-city New York school of his youth to teach a group of irreverent remedial students nicknamed the "Sweathogs." They included the character Vinnie Barbarino, played by John Travolta.
The show's theme song, performed by John Sebastian, became a pop hit.
He was born in Perth Amboy and grew up in Metuchen, the eldest child of a Hungarian father and Italian mother.
He attended Rowan University, formerly Glassboro State College, in southern New Jersey, before heading to New York City after graduation. He returned to Rowan on several occasions to teach master classes in acting, a university spokesman said Thursday.
Hegyes continued to act after "Kotter" and was a regular on "Cagney & Lacey." He also guest-starred in shows including "Diagnosis Murder" and "NewsRadio."
On his website, Hegyes wrote that he was inspired by Chico Marx, whom he had played in a touring production of a show about the Marx Bros. He also recalled how his mother encouraged him to get involved in theater as a teen.
Robert Hegyes
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