Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Do NOT Clench Your Buttocks in Deming, New Mexico
Why not, you ask? Because it may be interpreted as probable cause to conduct an anal-cavity search. Or six.
4 On Your Side investigates traffic stop nightmare (KOB)
8. Doctors prepared Eckert for surgery, sedated him, and then performed a colonoscopy where a scope with a camera was inserted into Eckert's anus, rectum, colon, and large intestines. No narcotics were found.
Yasmine Hafiz, "Sleeping Stranger Subway Picture On Q Train Defines Empathy And Is A Lesson In Being Good" (Huffington Post)
When Isaac Theil let a sleepy stranger take a little catnap on his shoulder, it was because "I simply remembered the times my own head would bop on someone's shoulder because I was so tired after a long day," …
Megan Griffo: Bone Marrow Recipient Pens Beautiful Thank You Letter To Donor (Huffington Post)
A woman named Jillian (last name withheld on request), from Milwaukee, Wis., learned just that after she donated bone marrow to a complete stranger in July this year. She told The Huffington Post in an email that she'd originally signed up as a donor in hopes of being a match for a coworker. But when that didn't work out, she decided to stay on the list anyway to help someone else.
Tom Danehy: Tom wonders when the heck the Tea Party will finally fade away (Tucson Weekly)
Its demise cannot come soon enough for me. Or for America.
Russell Brand on revolution: "We no longer have the luxury of tradition" (New Statesman)
But before we change the world, we need to change the way we think.
Russell Brand: we deserve more from our democratic system (Guardian)
Following his appearance on Newsnight, the comedian explains why he believes there are alternatives to our current regime.
Suzanne Moore: Don't vilify Russell Brand - he's right to demand the impossible (Guardian)
I'm no fan of the comedian - but I am delighted at the way he has given the political establishment a massive kick up the behind.
Jonathan Jones: The revolution will not be aestheticised: the top rightwing artists (Guardian)
From Goya to Gilbert and George, artists have long embraced - and expressed - rightwing views.
Adam Davis: 27 Reasons Why You Should Always Proofread (Buzzfeed)
If you don't double check you're grammar and speling, your going to regret it.
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David Bruce has approximately 50 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and breezy.
NYC Benefit
"Stand Up for Heroes"
Bruce Springsteen auctioned off the guitar around his shoulder for $250,000 to benefit wounded servicemen and women, the climax of Wednesday's seventh annual "Stand Up for Heroes" benefit run by ABC newsman Bob Woodruff's foundation.
A murderer's row of comics - Jon Stewart, Bill Cosby, Jim Gaffigan and Jerry Seinfeld - preceded former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters, who played with a band featuring wounded vets, and local hero Springsteen. The show at the Madison Square Garden Theater was beamed online through Google Plus and YouTube.
Woodruff, the newsman nearly killed eight years ago by an improvised explosive device in Iraq, and his wife, Lee, spend much of their time now helping vets who need care for catastrophic injuries. This year's benefit, from which the Woodruffs hoped to raise $20 million, had a special emphasis on family caregivers who nurse veterans back to health.
Waters, whose father was killed in World War II and his grandfather in World War I, brought nearly two dozen veterans onstage with him to sing and play guitar, some of them missing limbs. He often turned the lead microphone over to other singers during performances of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," John Lennon's "Imagine," Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come" and Waters' own "Comfortably Numb."
Springsteen said he was surprised that with four comics on the bill and an audience stocked with servicemen, there weren't any dirty jokes. So he offered three of his own.
"Stand Up for Heroes"
Newest Inductees
Toy Hall of Fame
The rubber duck squeaked out a win for a place in the National Toy Hall of Fame, joining the ancient game of chess in the 2013 class inducted Thursday.
The pair beat out 10 other finalists: bubbles, the board game Clue, Fisher-Price Little People, little green Army men, the Magic 8 Ball, My Little Pony, Nerf toys, the Pac-Man video game, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the scooter.
Online polls had Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and My Little Pony running strong, but in the end a national selection committee made up of 23 experts, including toy collectors, designers and psychologists, voted in the winners.
To date, 53 toys are in the National Toy Hall of Fame, including alphabet blocks, the jump rope, playing cards, Scrabble and the stick.
Toy Hall of Fame
Protests MPAA Rating
Judi Dench
The head of the Secret Intelligence Service, where James Bond works, has returned from the dead.
Played by Judi Dench, M was killed off in the most recent Bond adventure, "Skyfall." But Dench resurrected the character in a video released Thursday as part of the Weinstein Co.'s appeal to the Motion Picture Association of America to change the rating of Dench's latest starring vehicle, "Philomena."
The MPAA has given the film an R rating for language, but the Weinstein Co. wants it changed to PG-13. Company co-founder Harvey Weinstein appeared on "CBS This Morning" on Thursday to discuss his fight with the ratings organization.
Weinstein introduced the Dench video, which shows the actress in M's office, saying, "Just when you thought I was dead." She then appears to send an agent on a mission, asking, "Are you familiar with MPAA?"
Judi Dench
Grandson To Run For Georgia Governor
Jimmy Carter
A grandson of former President Jimmy Carter said on Thursday he plans to run for governor of Georgia, an office once held by his grandfather on his path to the White House.
Jason Carter, who serves in the Georgia Senate, will seek the Democratic nomination to challenge Republican Governor Nathan Deal next year in a state that has not had a Democratic governor in 12 years.
Carter said his campaign would focus on ways to improve the state's education system, economy and ethics laws.
The lawyer and former Peace Corps volunteer said he had not discussed whether his grandfather would campaign for him, but thinks the former president's name recognition will help his chances at the polls.
Jimmy Carter
Editor Takes One For The Team
'Guns & Ammo'
The editor of "Guns & Ammo" magazine has issued a lengthy apology to outraged readers for publishing an editorial that called for gun control.
"As editor of 'Guns & Ammo,' I owe each and every reader a personal apology," Jim Bequette wrote in a letter posted on the magazine's website late Wednesday. "No excuses, no backtracking. Dick Metcalf's 'Backstop' column in the December issue has aroused unprecedented controversy. Readers are hopping mad about it, and some are questioning [our] commitment to the Second Amendment. I understand why."
In the column, Metcalf argued that gun owners can no longer hide behind the Second Amendment.
"Way too many gun owners still seem to believe that any regulation of the right to keep and bear arms is an infringement," contributing editor Metcalf wrote in a column titled "Let's Talk Limits." "The fact is, all constitutional rights are regulated, always have been, and need to be."
Bequette, who was planning to step down as editor on Jan. 1, wrote that he would do so immediately.
'Guns & Ammo'
Notebook To Auction
Jim Morrison
An unpublished notebook containing the musings and poems of Jim Morrison in the last year of his life is included in a coming sale of rock 'n' roll memorabilia.
The handwritten marble notebook by The Doors' lead singercould bring between $200,000 and $300,000 on Dec. 18 in an auction both online and live in Calabasas, Calif., said Profiles In History auction house.
Morrison's notebook, contained in a custom leather clamshell case, comes from the collection of rock legendGraham Nash. It was given to Nash by his manager, Bill Siddons, in the 1980s. Nash writes on the inside of the case that Siddons was the person who picked up Morrison's body in Paris where the singer died in 1971 at the age of 27.
Other highlights include handwritten lyrics to The Doors' "Riders on the Storm" and Bob Dylan's "I Want You." The first is estimated at $20,000-$30,000; Dylan's could fetch from $30,000 to $50,000.
Jim Morrison
Claims Staked
Art Trove
Museums and heirs have begun to stake claims to a vast trove of priceless paintings long hidden in a German flat, as calls mounted Thursday for authorities to publish a definitive list of the works.
Prominent lawyer and art patron Peter Raue, who works closely with museums in Berlin, said Germany must do its part for transparency as many families of Jews stripped of their assets under the Nazis believe their works may be among those found.
Despite international pressure, German prosecutors have refused to publish a full inventory of the works, citing a need for more time to fully catalogue them and for discretion in their probe.
They have launched an investigation on charges of tax evasion and misappropriation of assets against Cornelius Gurlitt, in whose garbage-strewn Munich apartment the more than 1,400 works including paintings by Pablo Picasso, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Henri Matisse were found in February 2012.
The case only came to light this week in a magazine report.
Art Trove
Attracts Fewer Visitors
Disneyland Paris
Disneyland Paris attracted a million fewer visitors this year after a record 2012, its operator said Thursday, as the debt crisis in Europe hurt demand in the tourism sector.
Visitorship fell to 14.9 million for the financial year ending September, compared to 16 million in 2012, the theme park's operator Euro Disney said.
The slump was mostly due to a drop in French visitors -- who fell by 600,000. The theme park also recorded fewer Spanish and Italian visitors, although more British and Germans turned up.
Although the group managed to cut its net loss for the year by 25 percent to 64.4 million euros, that was only achieved through a 1.3 billion-euro refinancing from its US parent firm Walt Disney Company.
Disneyland Paris
Found In Utah
New Dinosaur
Paleontologists on Wednesday unveiled a new dinosaur discovered four years ago in southern Utah that proves giant tyrant dinosaurs like the Tyrannosaurus rex were around 10 million years earlier than previously believed.
A full skeletal replica of the carnivore - the equivalent of the great uncle of the T. rex - was on display at the Natural History Museum of Utah alongside a 3-D model of the head and a large painted mural of the dinosaur roaming a shoreline.
It was the public's first glimpse at the new species, which researchers named Lythronax argestes. The first part of the name means "king of gore," and the second part is derived from poet Homer's southwest wind.
The fossils were found in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in November 2009, and a team of paleontologists spent the past four years digging them up and traveling the world to confirm they were a new species.
It was 24 feet long and 8 feet tall at the hip, and was covered in scales and feathers, Loewen said. Asked what the carnivorous dinosaur ate, Loewen responded: "Whatever it wants."
New Dinosaur
May Explain The Paranormal
'Infrasound'
Science now has a plausible explanation for ghost-sightings, hauntings and the ghoulish work of the evil spirits - a phenomenon called infrasound.
Infrasound is made up of sound waves so low that our human ears cannot detect it, science columnist Torah Kachur told CBC Radio West.
"But our bodies still interpret it, and it makes that bone-chilling, hair-stand-on-end kind of feeling."
Infrasound has been found to cause physiological effects such as heart palpitations and respiratory change, and can distort the eyeballs to such a degree that "apparitions" can be observed, Kachur says.
'Infrasound'
Stuns Scientists
Six-Tailed Asteroid
A strange asteroid that appears to have multiple rotating tails has been spotted with NASA's Hubble telescope between Mars and Jupiter, astronomers said Thursday.
Instead of appearing as a small point of light, like most asteroids, this one has half a dozen comet-like dust tails radiating out like spokes on a wheel, said the report in Astrophysical Journal Letters.
"It's hard to believe we're looking at an asteroid," said lead investigator David Jewitt, a professor in the University of California Los Angeles Department of Earth and Space Sciences.
"We were dumbfounded when we saw it. Amazingly, its tail structures change dramatically in just 13 days as it belches out dust."
The object has been named P/2013 P5, and astronomers believe it has been spewing dust for at least five months.
Six-Tailed Asteroid
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