Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Froma Harrop: Obama May Be Best Economic President Ever (Creators Syndicate)
Lend me your ears. I have come to praise President Obama and bury the myth that Republican presidents are better for the economy than Democratic presidents. Not only do Democrats produce superior economic results but they blow Republicans out of the water in the comparisons.
Froma Harrop: Never Too Late to Start Up (Creators Syndicate)
Could an aging population be good for economic growth? I mean, isn't it an accepted fact that our economy will suffer as more Americans pass age 65 and start sitting around all day, soaking up government benefits? That's the spiel, but many economists are not buying it.
Matthew Hutson: Social Darwinism Isn't Dead (Slate)
Rich people think they really are different from you and me.
Jeff Danziger: Where the jobs are (LA Times)
Yes, there's an explanation for why the U.S. is choking on the dust of China, India and others. But break it to the kids gently.
Henry Rollins: Of Duck Dynasties and Men (LA Weekly)
It's been several days since Duck Dynasty reality show star Phil Robertson made his now-famous statements about homosexuality and American history in an interview with GQ, which still seems to be causing ripples all over our fine land. New year -- same bullshit.
Ted Rall: Will Polygamy, Adult Incest, Prostitution, Masturbation, Adultery and Obscenity Be Legalized Next? Let's Hope So
Privacy is a basic human right. Yet, for 200+ years, Americans have tolerated "morals laws" that told us who we could marry and what sexual positions they were allowed to enjoy.
Maria Popova: "The Baloney Detection Kit: Carl Sagan's Rules for Bullshit-Busting and Critical Thinking" (Brain Pickings)
Necessary cognitive fortification against propaganda, pseudoscience, and general falsehood.
ALEXIS C. MADRIGAL: How Netflix Reverse Engineered Hollywood (Atlantic)
To understand how people look for movies, the video service created 76,897 micro-genres. We took the genre descriptions, broke them down to their key words, … and built our own new-genre generator.
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Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
BadtotheboneBob
Got Arachnophobia?
Got arachnophobia?
Disturbing cluster of -- spiders? - WNEM TV 5
Go ahead... Click the link - I dare ya! Go Ahead... watch the video - I double-dog dare ya! You know that you want to... Bwoo-hahahahaha...
BadtotheboneBob
Thanks, B2tbBob!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Santa Ana's are blowing, so it's warm, windy and dry.
Critics' Choice For Best Film
'Inside Llewyn Davis'
"Inside Llewyn Davis," the Coen brothers' tale of a struggling folk singer in early 1960s Greenwich Village, was named the year's best film by the National Society of Film Critics on Saturday, with star Oscar Isaac winning best actor and the filmmaking brothers sharing the award for best director.
The group, made up of 56 prominent movie critics from newspapers, magazines and other media outlets nationwide, chose Cate Blanchett as best actress for Woody Allen's "Blue Jasmine," in which she plays the troubled wife of a financial fraudster.
Best supporting actress went to Jennifer Lawrence for the 1970s-set "American Hustle," and James Franco won best supporting actor for his portrayal of a gangster drug dealer in the comic drama "Spring Breakers."
In choosing "Inside Llewyn Davis," the critics broke away from choices by other groups such as the National Board of Review and the New York Film Critics Circle, which respectively chose the quirky "Her" and "American Hustle" as best film. Earlier this week, the Producers Guild left the well-reviewed film off its list of nominees for the year's best film.
In other awards, the critics chose the lesbian-theme drama "Blue Is the Warmest Color" as best foreign-language film, and declared a tie in the nonfiction, or documentary category.
'Inside Llewyn Davis'
Conference Kicks Off
'Super Bowl of Astronomy'
Thousands of scientists will gather in Washington, D.C. next week for a five-day conference that has been billed as the "Super Bowl of astronomy."
The 223rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) begins Sunday (Jan. 5) and runs through Friday (Jan. 9). Conference organizers are anticipating a big turnout.
"We're expecting more than 3,000 attendees, but probably not enough over 3,000 to beat our record of about 3,400 last time we met in D.C. (4 years ago)," AAS press officer Rick Fienberg told SPACE.com via email.
At the meeting, researchers from around the world will present the latest findings about our own solar system, alien planets, black holes and the evolution of the universe, among other topics. Some of the biggest discoveries will be announced during press conferences, which will be held Monday through Thursday.
'Super Bowl of Astronomy'
'Late Night': Fewer Songs, More Sketches and Politics
Seth Meyers
As Seth Meyers prepares to make the jump from Saturday Night Live's popular "Weekend Update" segment to taking over from Jimmy Fallon as the host of NBC's Late Night on Feb. 24, he's nailing down what kind of host he wants to be.
"I like that everyone before me has established this as a place to try things out," Meyers told Time magazine of Late Night. "It's 12:35 at night. You can do crazy stuff."
What sort of "crazy stuff" will he do? For starters: minimal music. Meyers is much less a song-and-dance man than Fallon and doesn't even know if he'll have a house DJ or band.
And since Meyers' interests center more on politics, sports and current events than pop culture, he and producer Mike Shoemaker (a longtime SNL producer who also helped launch Fallon's Late Night) will take advantage of their lower status on the late-night-show booking chain by lining up more authors, politicians and experts. (No word yet on whether they'll be asked to play Fallon's egg Russian roulette or odd-itemed basketball shootout.)
Meyers makes his Late Night debut on Feb. 24.
Seth Meyers
'Hotel California' Made Into 'World's Largest Vinyl'
The Eagles
The marketing and promotion company Pop2Life has created what they're calling the "world's largest record," a recreation of the Eagles' 16-times platinum 1977 album Hotel California, to accompany the reopening of the Los Angeles venue the Forum and the SoCal rockers' six-concert residency. The band will be playing the venue on January 15th, 17th, 18th, 22nd, 24th and 25th.
The record, which is indeed made of vinyl, covers a staggering 5.7 acres. The record is 407 feet in diameter and spins at 17 miles per hour or roughly 70 r.p.m - but sadly, will not play any music. It is held up by what Pop2Life claims is the only 120-foot truss circle in the U.S and is visible from over a mile high, with planes flying into LAX able to spot the classic album from above. The Forum hired 75 people to contruct the album over Christmastime.
Historically, the Eagles recorded performances at the Forum on their 1976 tour that ended up on 1980's Eagles Live. Over the years, it hosted 16 Led Zeppelin performances in the Seventies, Amnesty International's "Conspiracy of Hope" tour with U2 and Sting in 1986 and a string of 21 Prince performances in 2011. It was also once home to the Los Angeles Lakers. Most recently, though, the Forum was slated to be torn down for a new housing development until the Madison Square Garden Company stepped in and bought it.
The Hotel California installation coincides with the reopening of the venue, which has undergone a $100 million "re-invention." It now claims to be the "largest indoor performance venue" that has a focus on music and entertainment and seats 18,000 people. Following the Eagles' residency, it will host performances by Justin Timberlake, Alejandra Guzmán, Imagine Dragons and Paul Simon and Sting's tour, among others.
The Eagles
Wants To Be Jan Brewer
Steven Seagal
Action-movie star Steven Seagal says he is considering a run for Arizona governor.
The "Mark for Death" actor told KNXV-TV that he is considering a shot at the state's highest office and has had a talk about the bid with the self-proclaimed toughest sheriff in America.
The 61-year-old made the comments while talking about his newly released reality series "Steven Seagal - Lawman: Maricopa County."
The martial arts expert is a member of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's posse, made up of 3,000 unpaid civilians. He also has been deputized with sheriff's offices in New Mexico, Texas and Louisiana and says he wants to increase border security.
Steven Seagal
Data Miners
Pandora
Pandora, the Internet radio service, is plying a new tune. After years of customizing playlists to individual listeners by analyzing components of the songs they like, then playing them tracks with similar traits, the company has started data-mining users' musical tastes for clues about the kinds of ads most likely to engage them.
"It's becoming quite apparent to us that the world of playing the perfect music to people and the world of playing perfect advertising to them are strikingly similar," says Eric Bieschke, Pandora's chief scientist.
Consider someone who's in an adventurous musical mood on a weekend afternoon, he says. One hypothesis is that this listener may be more likely to click on an ad for, say, adventure travel in Costa Rica than a person in an office on a Monday morning listening to familiar tunes. And that person at the office, Mr. Bieschke says, may be more inclined to respond to a more conservative travel ad for a restaurant-and-museum tour of Paris. Pandora is now testing hypotheses like these by, among other methods, measuring the frequency of ad clicks. "There are a lot of interesting things we can do on the music side that bridge the way to advertising," says Mr. Bieschke, who led the development of Pandora's music recommendation engine.
This online ad customization technique is known as behavioral targeting, but Pandora adds a music layer. Pandora has collected song preference and other details about more than 200 million registered users, and those people have expressed their song likes and dislikes by pressing the site's thumbs-up and thumbs-down buttons more than 35 billion times. Because Pandora needs to understand the type of device a listener is using in order to deliver songs in a playable format, its system also knows whether people are tuning in from their cars, from iPhones or Android phones or from desktops.
Pandora
Label Battle Rumbling
GMO's
A GMO labeling battle is rumbling in the United States, with those demanding full disclosure of genetically modified organisms in food products pitted against big companies.
Although some giants such as General Mills have recently taken timid steps toward being more upfront with consumers, the United States, unlike some 60 other countries, lacks a legal requirement to do so.
Still, in the world's largest economy, where almost all soy, sugar beet, corn and canola crops are genetically engineered, bills requiring labeling for GMO foods were introduced in 26 states last year.
But only Maine and Connecticut approved such measures and have yet to implement them.
Elsewhere measures have been defeated, notably in the state of Washington, where voters narrowly rejected GMO labeling. Other proposals are near death or languishing in legislative committees.
GMO's
Price Nosedives
Bluefin Tuna
Sushi restaurateur Kiyoshi Kimura paid 7.36 million yen (about $70,000) for a 507-pound (230-kilogram) bluefin tuna in the year's celebratory first auction at Tokyo's Tsukiji market on Sunday, just 5 percent of what he paid a year earlier despite signs that the species is in serious decline.
Kimura's record winning bid last year of 154.4 million yen for a 222-kilogram (489-pound) fish drew complaints that prices had soared way out of line, even for an auction that has always drawn high bids. Kimura also set the previous record of 56.4 million yen at the 2012 auction.
The high prices don't necessarily reflect exceptionally high fish quality.
There were 1,729 tuna sold in Sunday's first auction for 2014, according to data from the city government, down from 2,419 last year. The 32,000 yen ($305) per kilogram paid for the top fish this year compares with 700,000 yen per kilogram last year.
Bluefin Tuna
Stunning Claim On Birth Date
Buddha
The two archaeologists had a hunch that the Buddha's birthplace in southern Nepal held secrets that could transform how the world understood the emergence and spread of Buddhism.
Their pursuit would eventually see them excavate the sacred site of Lumbini as monks prayed nearby, leading to the stunning claim that the Buddha was born in the sixth century BC, two centuries earlier than thought.
Veteran Nepalese archaeologist Kosh Prasad Acharya had carried out excavations in Lumbini before in the early 1990s, when Nepal was still ruled by a king and a Maoist insurgency had yet to kick off. The project ended in 1996 but Acharya remained unsatisfied with the results.
He headed back to his government job in the capital Kathmandu and waited to retire, restless to return to Lumbini.
Buddha
Personality Traits Help Explain
Creationist Beliefs
A belief in the literal Biblical version of creation may boil down, in part, to personality.
A new study suggests that people who believe in creationism are more likely to prefer to take in information via their senses versus via intuition. In contrast, religious believers who see the Bible's creation story as symbolic tend to be more intuitive.
"Intuitives tend to be much more at home with symbolic things, generally," said Andrew Village, the head of the theology and religious studies program at York St. John University in the United Kingdom.
Village, an Anglican priest, is also a former scientist - before he trained in the ministry, he studied the ecology of birds of prey. He applied that scientific sensibility in the new study, which surveyed 663 English churchgoers on their beliefs about Genesis, the book of the Bible that describes the Earth's creation.
Previous studies have suggested that personality influences whether people will become religious, and if they are religious, what tradition they will gravitate toward, Village said. He wanted to investigate how personality influenced beliefs about Genesis, specifically.
Creationist Beliefs
Weekend Box Office
'Frozen'
On a wintry weekend, Disney's "Frozen" retook the box-office top spot with $20.7 million, freezing out the horror spinoff "Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones."
Paramount's "The Marked Ones" debuted in second place with $18.2 million, a total that includes Thursday night screenings, according to studio estimates Sunday. The film is a stand-alone story spun off from the lucrative, low-budget horror franchise "Paranormal Activity," the fifth of which will be released in October.
But it wasn't able to overcome Disney's animated "Frozen," which has been a hit for family audiences for the last seven weeks. It has now surpassed $600 million worldwide, making it the second highest grossing Disney Animation release, behind "The Lion King." It will soon pass that film's $312 million domestic haul, too.
Successes include Martin Scorsese's "The Wolf of Wall Street" ($63.3 million in two weeks for Paramount), David O. Russell's acclaimed "American Hustle" ($88.7 million in four weeks for Sony) and the Will Ferrell sequel "Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues," (well past $100 million domestically in three weeks for Paramount).
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Rentrak. Where available, latest international numbers for Friday through Sunday are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday:
1. "Frozen," $20.7 million ($52 million international).
2. "Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones," $18.2 million ($16.2 million international).
3. "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug," $16.3 million ($58 million international).
4. "The Wolf of Wall Street," $13.4 million ($6.3 million international).
5. "American Hustle," $13.2 million ($6.8 million international).
6. "Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues," $11.1 million ($5.4 million international).
7. "Saving Mr. Banks," $9.1 million.
8. "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," $8.2 million ($31.5 million international).
9. "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire," $7.4 million ($9.1 million international).
10. "Grudge Match," $5.4 million.
'Frozen'
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