Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Felix Salmon: How Donald Trump Took Transactional Philanthropy to Its Logical, and Illegal, Extreme (Slate)
In January 2016, the Trump Foundation handed over some $2.82 million directly to Trump campaign staff, for them to disburse as they saw fit; those donations were specifically targeted to states with upcoming primaries where Trump was running as a candidate. They were often handed out to local charities by Trump personally, in the form of oversize photo-op checks featuring Trump's "Make America Great Again" campaign slogan. What's more, the money had been donated by the public for veterans; it was not even Trump's personal money. People thought they were donating to veterans, but really that money went to Trump campaign stunts.
Felix Salmon: "Donating to Journalism School Is Not the Best Way to Help the Cause of Journalism" (Slate)
Against Craig Newmark's $20 million J-school gift."
Josh Marshall: There's Something Fatally Wrong in the IG Report on the FBI and DOJ (TPM)
Step back from the intricacies of the IG Report on the FBI and DOJ and there's a lot of reason to believe that James Comey made what all consider a bad decision in large part because he and his advisors feared leaks and that these leaks would encourage claims of political bias against Comey and the FBI. There's also quite a lot of evidence that fear of those leaks was driven by hostility to Clinton among agents in New York as well as members of the fraternity of retired FBI Agents. This hostility or bias toward Clinton seems like a very big driver of events in the fall of 2016.
Josh Marshall: More Evidence of the Critical Failure of the IG Report (TPM)
At the end of the day it really looks like the Inspector General investigated the questions President Trump and Attorney General Sessions wanted investigated. To his credit, he looked at those questions and did not pretend to find what Trump and Sessions clearly wanted him to find. But he simply ignored the questions which were unhelpful - whether the investigations were tainted by anti-Clinton animus, and particularly whether it was behind the October 28th Comey Letter. This requires an explanation and on its face looks like a dereliction of duty.
Raluca Radulescu: Eight bedtime stories to read to children of all ages (The Conversation)
Speaking at the 2018 Hay Festival, His Dark Materials author Philip Pullman said: "To share a bedtime story is one of the greatest experiences of childhood and parenthood." This couldn't be more true. Besides helping sleepyheads absorb language through the familiar voices that nurture them, understand the complexities of their world, and the reasons behind their feelings, bedtime stories show how childhood can be the greatest adventure of all.
Pat Ryan: "'Mad as a Hatter': The History of a Simile" (NY Times)
Is the Hatter mad? Since 1865, when "Alice in Wonderland" was published, readers have quoted and parsed his every utterance. He's called simply the Hatter in "Alice" and Hatta in "Through the Looking-Glass," but we know he's mad; the Cheshire-Cat tells us so.
Simon Horobin: The BFG reminds us that wordplay is part of learning and mastering language (The Conversation)
… one aspect of the book that has delighted children and adults alike … the Big Friendly Giant's tendency to gobblefunk, the BFG's own term for the malapropisms, spoonerisms and nonsense words that litter his speech. But while the BFG's words are judged errors by the human beans that he meets, Dahl shows how his confusion is often due to the ambiguity of a language where one word may have multiple meanings, or different words the same pronunciation. As the BFG offers in his defence: "I cannot be right all the time. Quite often I is left instead of right."
Kaitlyn Gaynor: To avoid humans, more wildlife now work the night shift (The Conversation)
Only after the meteor-induced mass extinction of dinosaurs 66 million years ago could these nocturnal mammals explore the many wondrous opportunities available in the light of day. Fast forward to the present, and the honeymoon in the sun may be over for mammals. They're increasingly returning to the protection of night to avoid the Earth's current terrifying super-predator: Homo sapiens.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Reader Comment
Current Events
WHY are the Southern Cow and Jefferson Beauregard quoting Bible verses about "law" in reference to separating children from their parents?
And pathetic media coverage & response is to quote MORE lame Bible verses back at them?!
WTF does the Bible have to do with what our government agents are doing?
Have we totally abandoned separation of church and state?! You're telling me government policy can be justified and approved if I just quote a damn Bible verse? When will our legislators wake up and stop this madness? We have a Constitution. This is NOT Bible class!
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
from Marc Perkel
Marc's Guide to Curing Cancer
So far so good on beating cancer for now. I'm doing fine. At the end of the month I'll be 16 months into an 8 month mean lifespan. And yesterday I went on a 7 mile hike and managed to keep up with the hiking group I was with. So, doing something right.
Still waiting for future test results and should see things headed in the right direction. I can say that it's not likely that anything dire happens in the short term so that means that I should have time to make several more attempts at this. So even if it doesn't work the first time there are a lot of variations to try. So if there's bad news it will help me pick the next radiation target.
I have written a "how to" guide for oncologists to perform the treatment that I got. I'm convinced that I'm definitely onto something and whether it works for me or not isn't the definitive test. I know if other people tried this that it would work for some of them, and if they improve it that it will work for a lot of them.
The guide is quite detailed and any doctor reading this can understand the procedure at every level. I also go into detail as to how it works, how I figured it out, and variations and improvements that could be tried to enhance it. I also introduce new ways to look at the problem. There is a lot of room for improvement and I think that doctors reading it will see what I'm talking about and want to build on it. And it's written so that if you're not a doctor you can still follow it. It also has a personal story revealing that I'm the class clown of cancer support group. I give great interviews and I look pretty hot in a lab coat.
So, feel free to read this and see what I'm talking about. But if any of you want to help then pass this around to both doctors and cancer patients. I need some media coverage. I'm looking for as many eyeballs as possible to read these ideas. Even if this isn't the solution, it's definitely on the right track. After all, I did hike 7 miles yesterday. And this hiking group wasn't moving slow. So if this isn't working then, why am I still here?
I also see curing cancer as more of an engineering problem that a medical problem. So if you are good at solving problems and most of what you know about medicine was watching the Dr. House MD TV show, then you're at the level I was at when I started. So anyone can jump in and be part of the solution.
Here is a link to my guide: Oncologists Guide to Curing Cancer using Abscopal Effect
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
GOOD RIDDANCE TO BAD RUBBISH!
ANARCHISM AND BLACKNESS.
"BEE SKEPTICAL"
PRESIDENT BUFFOON!
::::CHEF'S KISS::::.
THE PREDATORS THAT STILL ROAM THE EARTH.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Lovely marine layer, not a lot of sun.
Tweets
Seth MacFarlane
Seth MacFarlane has not exactly been a shrinking violet over the years when it comes to scrutinizing his own home network, Fox.
But the creator of Family Guy and The Orville has taken things up a notch this weekend, tweeting that he is "embarrassed" to work for the network after the latest Fox News flap.
MacFarlane on Saturday retweeted a post from CNN's Brian Stelter, who commented on what Tucker Carlson told his Fox News viewers. "Isn't this sad?" Stelter asked, before directly quoting Carlson's suggestion that viewers discount other media sources. "If you're looking to understand what's actually happening in this country, always assume the opposite of whatever they're telling you on the big news stations," Carlson said.
MacFarlane, in his quote-tweet, went off on Carlson for peddling "fringe sh-t." He wrote, "In other words, don't think critically, don't consult multiple news sources, and in general, don't use your brain. Just blindly obey Fox News. This is fringe sh-t, and it's business like this that makes me embarrassed to work for this company."
By Sunday morning, MacFarlane's tweet had racked up more than 27,000 likes and nearly 2,000 comments, many of which suggested that he set up shop at a streaming service.
Seth MacFarlane
School To Be Named
Jose Antonio Vargas
At a divisive time for U.S. immigration policies, a California school board has decided to name a new elementary school after an award-winning journalist who disclosed in 2011 that he had been living in the U.S. illegally.
The Mountain View Whisman School District board voted Thursday to name the as-yet-unopened school after Jose Antonio Vargas, bypassing Steve Jobs and other technology giants with ties to the San Francisco Bay Area's high-tech Silicon Valley.
"We wanted to pick someone who embodied the values of what you can do with an education, as Jose does," school board president Laura Blakely told the San Francisco Chronicle .
Vargas emigrated with his family from the Philippines to the U.S. when he was 12 years old. The Chronicle was among the places he worked in his early career. Vargas went on to earn a Pulitzer Prize for journalism and then took on the role of immigration activist.
He revealed his undocumented status in a New York Times Magazine essay in 2011.
Jose Antonio Vargas
Ad Libs
Tom Hanks
Play-goers began to get restless Wednesday after someone fainted in the audience, delaying the start of "Henry IV" at the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles.
That's when actor Tom Hanks stormed the stage as the rogue knight Sir John Falstaff to distract them as the theater crew and paramedics tended to the man, who had collapsed from dehydration, reported The Orange County Register.
"Get back here or find this sword and many a dagger placed neatly in the tires of your carriage," Hanks, who plays Falstaff in the production, ad libs at laughing play-goers in a video released by the theater. "No one is to leave!"
In full character as Falstaff, he denounces "scurvy rogues" who had stood up to leave, whom he said had given "insult to all actors and to Shakespeare himself."
In all, Hanks entertained the audience with his impromptu performance for about five minutes before the play could begin, dialogue coach Heath Harper told Variety.
Tom Hanks
"The Blobfish Classic"
Jimmy Kimmel
On Saturday afternoon, in front of a sold out crowd at Texas Southern University, Texas Senator Ted Cruz played television host Jimmy Kimmel in a one-on-one matchup.
Yes, seriously - the game was named "The Blobfish Classic."
Cruz, who is an avid Houston Rockets fan, won by three points.
The game was not televised, but it was free to the public.
And as part of the deal, Both Cruz and Kimmel are donating $5,000 to Generation One, a Houston education charity, and Texas Children's Hospital, respectively.
Jimmy Kimmel
Former Staff
Cambridge Analytica
A data company run by former employees of Cambridge Analytica (CA) has been quietly working on President-for-now Donald Trump's (R-Corrupt) 2020 campaign, according to reports.
The London-based political consulting firm shut down earlier this year following accusations of misuse of private data from up to 87 million Facebook users, and amid an Information Commissioner's Office investigation.
Journalists from Associated Press (AP) overheard the president of new consulting firm Data Propria Matt Oczkowski say in a public space that he and the former data scientist of Cambridge Analytica were working with Mr Trump's campaign manager Brad Parscale on the new re-election campaign.
He said they were "doing the president's work for 2020".
CA had also worked on the successful 2016 campaign. Mr Oczkowski has denied the link to the Trump campaign but did confirm his company is doing work for the 2018 midterm elections on behalf of the Republican National Committee (RNC). Both Mr Parscale and Mr Oczkowski told AP that though no re-election work was planned, the campaign manager had set up Data Propria with the RNC for a "modest" contract.
Cambridge Analytica
Reveals New Russian Contact
Roger Stone
The Trump-Russia saga has taken another twist after the revelation the president's longtime confidant, Roger Stone, made contact with a Russian national during the 2016 presidential election.
The man, who called himself Henry Greenberg, offered damaging information to Mr Stone about Hillary Clinton, Mr Trump's presumptive Democratic opponent in the upcoming presidential election.
The meeting took place two months earlier than federal officials have said a counterintelligence operation was officially opened and before WikiLeaks began releasing hacked Democratic emails.
It came in the same time period as other episodes in which Russian interests approached the Trump campaign.
A few weeks earlier, Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos was told in London that the Russians had dirt on Ms Clinton - two weeks before the sit-down between Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer.
Roger Stone
Security Experts Warn
Free USB Fans
Journalists covering this week's summit between President-for-now Donald Trump (R-Crooked) and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore were given a fun gift bag containing a water bottle, a trial to the Straits Times newspaper, and a tourism guide to the island where the leaders' meeting took place.
It also included a tiny fan that plugs into a mini-USB port or iPhone Lightning port for power, according to tweets from the historic summit.
It could be a nice gesture from the hosts. As the Dutch journalist Harald Doornbos wrote in a tweet about the fan, "it is pretty hot here in Singapore," according to a translation from the BBC.
But security experts around the web warned that the fan may not just be a way to stay cool. It could be a Trojan horse designed to steal data from any journalist who plugged the fan into his or her device.
Anything that plugs into a USB port could allow an attacker to get malicious software onto your computer. It's how the notorious Stuxnet worm infected its targets, and many big companies worried about information security forbid their employees from plugging anything into a USB port.
Free USB Fans
Special Flight
Delta Air Lines
Delta Air Lines recently created a special flight to help a group of Belgian tourists reach their South Dakota vacation after experiencing travel delays.
The tourists boarded a flight from Amsterdam on May 31 as part of a reward trip for coffee roasters using creamer by Dutch dairy cooperative FrieslandCampina. But inclement weather delayed the initial flight's takeoff to Minneapolis, where travelers met further delays because of short staffing at the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol checkpoint.
The delays forced the tourists to miss their flight to Rapid City, South Dakota, said Patrick Spiessens, a cooperative representative. Delta spokeswoman Adrian Gee said the two options were accommodating the passengers in hotels that night, followed by an eight-hour bus ride to Rapid City, or something quicker.
The Rapid City Journal reports the special flight idea developed when a tour organizer muddling in the baggage area explained what had happened to a Delta employee, who made a few phone calls. Airline officials soon identified a 160-passenger jumbo jet and crew available to take the roughly 20 tourists to their Black Hills destination.
"It may not be the most cost effective option, but it's the right thing to do," she said.
Delta Air Lines
Weekend Box Office
'Incredibles 2'
The combined powers of superheroes, the Pixar brand and a draught of family-friendly films helped "Incredibles 2" become the best animated opening of all time, the biggest PG-rated launch ever and the 8th highest film launch overall.
Disney estimated Sunday that the film earned $180 million in its first weekend in North American theaters - far surpassing industry analysts' loftiest expectations which had the film pegged for a $120 to $140 million debut.
It knocked "Ocean's 8" to a distant second in its second weekend in theaters with $19.6 million. "Ocean's 8" still managed to outdo the non-"Incredibles" newcomers, like the R-rated comedy "Tag," also a Warner Bros. release, which opened in third place with $14.6 million.
"Solo: A Star Wars Story," fell to fourth place with $9.1 million and "Deadpool 2" rounded out the top five with an additional $8.8 million.
Sony's "Superfly" remake landed in seventh place in its first weekend with $6.3 million, and Vertical Entertainment's "Gotti," starring John Travolta, opened outside of the top 10. Playing in 503 locations, the long-delayed film which boasts a 0 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, took in $1.7 million.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to comScore. Where available, the latest international numbers for Friday through Sunday are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1."Incredibles 2," $180 million ($51.5 million international).
2."Ocean's 8," $19.6 million ($19.3 million international).
3."Tag," $14.6 million ($1.4 million international).
4."Solo: A Star Wars Story," $9.1 million ($5.2 million international).
5."Deadpool 2," $8.8 million ($9.8 million international).
6."Hereditary," $7 million ($5.7 million international).
7."Superfly," $6.3 million.
8."Avengers: Infinity War," $5.3 million ($3.1 million international).
9."Adrift," $2.1 million ($453,000 international).
10."Book Club," $1.9 million ($730,000 international).
'Incredibles 2'
In Memory
Martin Bregman
Martin Bregman, the Hollywood producer known for his collaborations with actor Al Pacino, including Scarface, Dog Day Afternoon, and Serpico, died Saturday at age 92. His widow, Cornelia Sharpe, confirmed the news to NBC 4 New York and said the cause was a cerebral hemorrhage.
Born May 18, 1926, in New York City, Bregman got his start in the entertainment industry as a business and personal manager for a wide range of stars, including Pacino, Barbra Streisand, Faye Dunaway, Michael Douglas, Bette Midler, Woody Allen, and Alan Alda.
Pacino credited Bregman with discovering him in an Off Broadway play and helping him land his first film role, in 1971's Panic in Needle Park. Transitioning to producing, Bregman went on to earn a Best Picture Oscar nomination for Dog Day Afternoon, and his other films with Pacino included Sea of Love and Carlito's Way.
Bregman also enjoyed a long-standing professional partnership with Alda, beginning with 1979's The Seduction of Joe Tynan (which costarred Meryl Streep) and also including The Four Seasons, Sweet Liberty, A New Life, and Betsy's Wedding.
Among Bregman's other producing credits were Denzel Washington's The Bone Collector, and the Eddie Murphy comedy The Adventures of Pluto Nash.
Bregman was also active in his community, co-founding organizations like the Association for a Better New York and the New York Advisory Council for Motion Pictures, Radio and TV.
His survivors include Sharpe, whom he met on Serpico, and their daughter, Marissa, as well as two sons from a previous marriage, Christopher and Michael.
Martin Bregman
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