Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Megatron for President (Neatorama)
Photo.
Paul Constant: We Won Everything! (The Stranger)
Obama Wins Second Term-Plus Gay Marriage Is Legalized in Multiple States, Pot Is Legalized in Washington State, and More.
Michael Moore: Morning in America
This country has truly changed, and I believe there will be no going back. Hate lost yesterday. That is amazing in and of itself. And all the women who were elected last night! A total rebuke of Neanderthal attitudes.
Paul Krugman: The Real Real America (New York Times)
For a long time, right-wingers - and some pundits - have peddled the notion that the "real America", all that really counted, was the land of non-urban white people, to which both parties must abase themselves. Meanwhile, the actual electorate was getting racially and ethnically diverse, and increasingly tolerant too. The 2008 Obama coalition wasn't a fluke; it was the country we are becoming.
Mark Morford: The Great Obamagasm of 2012 (SF Gate)
Think of the survival of health care reform, the survival of Planned Parenthood funding, the survival of the first president in history to support gay marriage, the survival of any of the 200 campaign promises Obama actually did manage to keep and which will now not be rolled back and trampled to death by old white men who think women can't be trusted, gays are un-American and rapist babies are just God's will.
Tom Danehy: Tom is celebrating the end of the election season by trying a taste of Finland (Tucson Weekly)
Don't you think that Microsoft could send through an update or a patch or something so that spell-check doesn't put squiggly red lines under the proper spelling of the name of the president of the United States?!
Yarden Katz: Noam Chomsky on Where Artificial Intelligence Went Wrong (Atlantic)
An extended conversation with the legendary linguist.
Robert T. Gonzalez: New study confirms our worst fears about why kids are getting fat (io9)
You hear scare stories about how kids in the U.S. are gaining weight because of our fast food culture. But is there science to back up the anecdotes? Now there is.
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Lulu Storefront
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog
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."
answered:
wrote:
answered:
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Spike Jensen - My POV
Why Obama Won
Ok, before I begin I should maybe list some stuff that almost won the damn thing for the Mittster. First of all I started to get the willies on Sunday before Election Day when I saw the Marshall Tucker Band playing at one of his rallies. I knew when voters got to hear "Fire On The Mountain" and "Long Hard Ride" big Mo could have totally shifted in Ohio & Wisconsin. That was almost unfair if you ask me. For some reason music superstars like MTB, Kid Rock, The Oak Ridge Boys, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Donny & Marie were not able to drag Romney over the finish line. They also had mass celebrity power behind him with Jon Voight, Stacey Dash, Meat Loaf, Ted Nugent (a twofer), Scott Baio and I think one of the guys who was on the Dukes of Hazards TV show. So what the hell happened? Was it just bad luck with that stupid storm? Was it too much free stuff from Obama handed out on street corners in every one of those swinger states? Or did they just screw up by not nominating Michele Bachmann? Who the hell knows for sure?
So my take on why President Obama still has a job? I don't have all that fancy data those TV pundits do but here are the 3 main reasons he won …. 1. He drinks beer/coffee. 2. He knows Hip Hop is a type of music 3. He plays Hoop. That's about it and I didn't need to use boring exit poll stuff or a hologram to tell you the facts. The cool guy beat the mega rich preppy. If this was a movie no one would have left the theater feeling good if the spoiled millionaire with a dancing horse had won. Talk about a non-happy ending so thank god it went the way most flicks that make money end. Unlike movies though Obama now has to go back to work with a Congress that does not just hate his guts, they also hate his face, his feet, his hands, his ears, his eyes, etc. I get why they are not into him, it's tough to get that queasy stomach, mad crush like feeling about a Muslim/socialist/undocumented alien/black panther/non-bowler. I mean the heart wants what the heart wants. People on the elephant team just seem to prefer mostly older white guys who own a ton of houses. These guys have houses to house the people who work in their houses. Mitt doesn't just own a car elevator at his pad in Calli, he also has a polo field in the backyard at his place somewhere in Massachusetts and an unlimited hydroplane for the grand kids at his "cabin" at Lake Winnipesaukee in NH. Man he would be a great uncle to visit on like the 4th of July or on Labor Day but a really horrible POTUS. Ok, I am a little prejudiced cuz I am so in that 47% he was bitching about. That sorta hurt my feelings. Who wants to be called a moocher? Maybe I am between jobs right now but it's not like I get unemployment or food stamps. I mean I would love to but all that free stuff runs out after a while.
I really think this election turned when Romney's kid Tagg said he wanted to take a swing at Obama after the second one of those debate thingy's. Most people would have ponied up a butt load of dough to catch it on pay per view if he would have really tried to sucker punch the Prez cuz he would have been beat to a pulp by the wiry southpaw without any back up from his secret service posse. This Mormon ex frat boy was probably the sergeant at arms or treasurer at his BYU Greek house but no matter how many pledges he held down and poured 2% milk into their throats via funnels just his name Tagg alone may have pushed people too far as everyone knows guys like this. Maybe he didn't cut off any kids hair like his old man (or at least none popped up on the View to cry about it) he was a little punk to all of us who ever got thrown into garbage cans in middle school. Bottom line the people in this family look real nice on their yearly Christmas cards but would be a real drag to hang out with for longer than the time it would take to kill a couple Jumbo Jacks. The one kid who is not a venture capitalist or real estate mogul, I think his name is Benjamin and he's a doctor so I should at least say not all of them are blood sucking vampires.
There might just be one more reason Obama crushed Romney in that Electoral College deal; it could have been all those GOP Governors who gave it their all to stop anyone who didn't golf from voting. They knew they couldn't totally stop them but the idea was to make it as hard as finding a small bottle of ketchup at Costco. 6 or 7 hour waits in line to vote was plan B after Big Brother in DC stopped their really smart voter ID scam. If that would have gone down as they had plotted, the Mittster would now be planning to rip up the outdoor basketball court at the White House and replace it with a horse house for his wife. Let's hope the now 30 Republican Governors are not planning to make every voter pass a CSI Miami or The Mentalist Trivia contest before they can fill out a ballot in 2014. I would not put anything by those assholes as they can add 2 + 2 and no one likes to lose before the game has even started. You see the future is so not bright for Republicans they may need to spend their days in a tanning bed to see any light as it is going to be much darker than they could have ever imagined just a few years ago. How this caught them by surprise I just don't get but it does make it pretty sweet. Like on Nov 6th they really thought they could the clock back and on Nov 7th they woke up and couldn't shake the feeling that someone had just pulled a really bad joke on them. Sometime soon I hope they understand, just like those before them in the 1860's, nothing stays the same forever, especially for pissed off white guys. Later
Why Obama Won « My POV
~ Spike Jensen
Thanks, Spike!
And The Beat Goes On
Mary Whitaker Bono (Baxley) Mack (McGillicudy)
The gap between Congresswoman Mary Bono (Baxley) Mack (McGillicudy) of Palm Springs and her Democratic challenger increased slightly Thursday night as newly counted ballot numbers were released by Riverside County election officials.
Bono (Baxley) Mack (McGillicudy) had refused to concede Tuesday after initial results showed her losing to Dr. Raul Ruiz, with her campaign pointing to more than 180,000 uncounted ballots in the county.
With more mail-in ballots counted by Thursday evening, new numbers from the Riverside County Registrar of Voters showed that Ruiz's lead opened up just slightly. He had gained 122 more votes than Bono (Baxley) Mack (McGillicudy) had, for a new gap between the candidates of 4,679 votes.
Ruiz, an emergency room doctor who got backing from national Democratic figures including Bill Clinton, had 51.41 percent of the vote to Bono (Baxley) Mack (McGillicudy)'s 48.59 percent on Thursday.
Bono (Baxley) Mack (McGillicudy), a 51-year-old Republican, won her seat 14 years ago in a special election to replace her husband, Sonny Bono, who had died in a skiing accident.
Bono Mack Challenger Ruiz See His Lead Widen
Impertinent Factoid: After Bono's death, Mary told an interviewer from TV Guide that Sonny had been addicted to and was seriously abusing prescription drugs, mainly Vicodin and Valium. Though Mary claimed that Sonny's drug use caused the accident, the autopsy performed by the Douglas County Coroner showed no indication of any substances or alcohol. Source
BartCop Entertainment Archives - Tuesday, 6 November, 2012
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Rainy and cold.
"Parks and Rec" Guest Star
Joe Biden
Someone has a big crush on U.S. Vice President Joe Biden - and now she is getting to meet him.
Biden will make his TV acting debut with a cameo on NBC's comedy "Parks and Recreation" as the celebrity crush of actress Amy Poehler's ditzy local councilwoman Leslie Knope, NBC said on Thursday.
Biden, 69, will play himself in the episode "Leslie vs. April," airing November 15, where Knope, a city councilwoman for the fictional small town of Pawnee, Indiana, has a surprise meeting with the vice president in Washington D.C.
Knope has long described her ideal man as having the "brains of George Clooney and the body of Joe Biden."
The scenes with Biden were shot in July in the chambers of the vice president's ceremonial office, during the TV show's recent trip to the nation's capital to film scenes for this season's storylines.
Joe Biden
Photos On Auction In Poland
Marilyn Monroe
Hundreds of photographs of Marilyn Monroe and other celebrities, including famous ones of the actress wrapped in a white fur coat, were being sold in an auction house in Poland on Thursday.
Bidders and spectators packed Desa Unicum house in Warsaw, where 238 pictures by the late American fashion and celebrity photographer Milton H. Greene were up for grabs.
The proceeds will go to the Polish government because the photos come from a collection of some 4,000 Greene pictures the nation obtained from Chicago businessman Dino Matingas in the mid-1990s as the result of a complex communist-era embezzlement scandal linked to the buy-out of Poland's state debt.
The collection was estimated at $680,000. Some of the images have never been published, the organizers said.
Other greats in the portraits include Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra, Audrey Hepburn, Liza Minnelli, Marlene Dietrich, Paul Newman, Alfred Hitchcock and Marlon Brando.
Marilyn Monroe
2 Brief Works This Fall
Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury was in failing health during his final years, but he could still reminisce about his love for books or finish a brief and mysterious Christmas story.
Two pieces released this fall were written late in life by the science fiction/fantasy master, who died in June at age 91. He contributed "The Book and the Butterfly," an introduction to this year's edition of "The Best American Nonrequired Reading." And he conceived a stark encounter between a young boy and a man he believes is Santa Claus in "Dear Santa," which appears in the holiday issue of Strand Magazine, based in Birmingham, Mich.
The publication of each work was made possible, in part, by deep admiration for the author. Strand managing editor Andrew Gulli, who befriended Bradbury in 2009, has featured several Bradbury works and had an informal agreement with him for "Dear Santa."
"I never heard anything back or received a contract for a couple of months," Gulli wrote in a recent email, adding that final word did not arrive until the day of Bradbury's death. "I was picking up my mail and opened up an envelope to find Ray's signature on the contract."
Ray Bradbury
Lovejoy Award
Bob Woodward
Washington political reporter Bob Woodward will receive Colby College's annual Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award for courageous journalism.
Woodward will receive the Maine school's award during a Sunday ceremony at the liberal arts college in Waterville.
The Lovejoy Award has been given annually since 1952. It honors the memory of Elijah Parish Lovejoy, an 1826 Colby graduate who was killed in 1837 in Alton, Ill., while defending his abolitionist press against a pro-slavery mob.
Regarding Maine politics, Woodward said independent Sen.-elect Angus King should continue Maine's long tradition of independent senators. Although Sen. Olympia Snowe, Sen. Susan Collins and former Sen. William Cohen are Republicans, he said they acted like independents.
Bob Woodward
Guardianship Petition
'Modern Family'
The mother of "Modern Family" star Ariel Winter has temporarily lost custody of the actress amid claims she's been physically and emotionally abusive to the teenager, court records show.
The allegations are contained in a guardianship petition filed last month in Los Angeles by Winter's 34-year-old sister, Shanelle. A judge ordered the 14-year-old's mother, Chrisoula Workman, to stay away and have no contact with her daughter until a Nov. 20 hearing. Winter's sister, also a TV actress, was appointed as a temporary guardian but does not have access to Winter's earnings, according to the judge's order.
Winter, who started acting in films and TV shows at age 7, currently plays Alex Dunphy on the hit ABC comedy.
Winter's mother was accused in the filings of "ongoing physical abuse" described as slapping and hitting, as well as name-calling and personal insults. Reached by phone, Workman said she was in the process of hiring an attorney.
Attorneys handling the guardianship had sought to transfer control of the young star's earnings from an account her mother can access to a blocked account. A judge did not grant that request, but it may be renewed at a later date.
'Modern Family'
German Alpine Folk Band Fakes Music?
Die Kastelruther Spatzen
A German-language folk group famed for their Alpine brass band sound and cheerful style have been faking the music on their albums for years and should give back their 13 German music awards, their former producer said on Wednesday.
But the manager of the seven-man "Die Kastelruther Spatzen" said it was common practice for folk music bands to use studio musicians for their albums, adding that the band from the Italian Alpine region of South Tyrol had even listed studio musicians' names on albums.
"The success of this band is based on a giant fraud," ex producer Walter Widemair told Bild newspaper, saying that only the lead singer's voice was genuine on the albums.
In a statement on the website www.kastelrutherspatzen.de, manager Helmut Brossmann said Widemair had been responsible for the studio recordings for nearly 30 years and was now betraying the band for commercial reasons -- to help promote his own book.
Die Kastelruther Spatzen
London Mayor Opposes Sale Of Sculpture
Henry Moore
The mayor of London is urging a cash-strapped local government not to sell an iconic Henry Moore sculpture.
Boris Johnson said Thursday it would be "a tragedy" if "Draped Seated Woman" was not on public display.
Authorities in Tower Hamlets - one of London's 32 boroughs - are selling the artwork to help make up for funding cuts.
Arts figures including Moore's daughter Mary and director Danny Boyle have led a campaign to keep the sculpture in public hands, and the Museum of London has offered to house it.
Estimates of the statue's value range from 5 million pounds to 20 million pounds ($8 million to $32 million).
Henry Moore
Presidential Transition Website
Willard
Someone goofed up and briefly displayed the official website of President-elect Mitt Romney. What does this peek tell us about a presidency that will never be?
Mitt Romney reportedly wasn't prepared for defeat. He didn't even write a concession speech ahead of time. If he had won, however, Romney would have been ready to hit the ground running. The failed presidential candidate who started Tuesay with a well-honed, 1,000-word victory speech tucked into his pocket also had a transition website ready to go live under the title, "Mitt Romney Elected the 45th President of The United States of America." In fact, the site did go live, briefly and mistakenly, on Wednesday. It was promptly taken down, but not before Taegan Goddard at Political Wire got screenshots. (See them all here.) What does the site say about the presidency that will never be?
The homepage featured a photo of Romney smiling confidently next to a quote from the "president-elect": "I'm excited about our prospects as a nation. My priority it putting people back to work." There was also a spot for a link to Romney's victory speech, and a place to list his cabinet nominees. All the positions were blank, except the spot for the man who would have been his vice president, Rep. Paul Ryan. There was also a "Join the Administration" page inviting people to apply to work for Romney, but warning that "government service is not for everyone."
The site suggested Romney was going to adopt an ambitious foreign policy. A section entitled "Restoring America's Leadership" said that Romney was going to show that America is "still capable of leading" despite "our ailing economy, and our massive debt, and after 11 years at war." The site devoted another page to describing how Romney would repeal ObamaCare. It declared that on his first day in office, Romney would issue an executive order paving the way for the government to issue Affordable Care Act waivers to all 50 states. Then, it said, he would work with Congress to repeal Obama's health-care law altogether.
Willard
Contagious Cancer Evolves
Tasmanian Devil
A deadly, contagious cancer that is killing off Australia's Tasmanian devils is evolving, though not how researchers typically think the process occurs.
Rather than changing their genes, a new study finds, Tasmanian devil tumors are altering on an epigenetic level - meaning the basic gene sequences stay the same, but the genes that get switched on and off are different.
Devil Facial Tumor Disease, as it is known, has killed more than 80 percent of Tasmanian devils since 1996, and could drive this unique Australian marsupial to extinction within decades.
Devil Facial Tumor Disease traces back to a single female Tasmanian devil living in northeast Tasmania. That devil is long dead, but her cancer cells live on, spread by bites and nips from Tasmanian devil to Tasmanian devil. Enormous tumors grow on the face and jaw, causing death by either preventing the devil from eating or by metastasizing to other organs. Typically, devils survive with the disease no longer than six months, during which time they can spread it to their kin through their frequent biting behaviors.
Tasmanian Devil
"Mountain Eagle" Stills To Auction
Alfred Hitchcock
A newly discovered collection of still photos from Alfred Hitchcock's lost silent film "The Mountain Eagle" is going up for auction in Los Angeles next month.
On Thursday, auction house Profiles in History said the 59 photos were made for the British thriller director's personal archive in the 1920s. Thirty-five of the photos come from Hitchcock's 1929 silent film "The Manxman," and 24 from "The Mountain Eagle," which are expected to attract the most interest.
The photos are expected to fetch more than $25,000 at the December 15-16 auction.
No prints have been found of Hitchcock's 1926 film "The Mountain Eagle," which is one of the top movies in the British Film Institute's quest for lost films. Only a few still photos have turned up of the black and white film, which Hitchcock described as "awful."
Alfred Hitchcock
Top 20
Concert Tours
The Top 20 Concert Tours ranks artists by average box office gross per city and includes the average ticket price for shows in North America. The previous week's ranking is in parentheses. The list is based on data provided to the trade publication Pollstar by concert promoters and venue managers.
1. (1) Madonna; $5,128,536; $165.55.
2. (2) Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band; $3,604,151; $93.70.
3. (3) Justin Bieber; $1,128,212; $75.97.
4. (4) "Gigantes Tour" / Marc Anthony / Marco Antonio Solis / Chayanne; $1,042,502; $106.99.
5. (5) Enrique Iglesias / Jennifer Lopez; $991,539; $80.02.
6. (New) Cirque du Soleil - "Dralion"; $804,328; $58.66.
7. (6) Red Hot Chili Peppers; $767,663; $53.85.
8. (7) Jason Aldean; $722,585; $39.06.
9. (8) "Honda Civic Tour" / Linkin Park; $702,819; $49.66.
10. (9) Zac Brown Band; $662,822; $41.92.
11. (10) Brad Paisley; $602,014; $41.50.
12. (11) Rascal Flatts; $531,599; $38.77.
13. (12) Journey; $496,188; $57.68.
14. (13) Def Leppard / Poison; $496,116; $63.15.
15. (14) Carrie Underwood; $488,173; $59.43.
16. (16) Mumford & Sons; $415,747; $45.39.
17. (15) Wiz Khalifa / Mac Miller; $382,070; $31.55.
18. (19) Il Divo; $337,349; $88.79.
19. (21) "American Idols Live"; $321,380; $56.41.
20. (20) Sugarland; $320,863; $51.88.
Concert Tours
| CURRENT MOON lunar phases |
