Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Susan Estrich: The Power of 3,607 (Creators Syndicate)
That's how many people it took to bring down House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, doom immigration reform and leave all but the most tea-sodden Republicans quaking.
Connie Schultz: Virginia's 'Magnificent Act of Legal Rebellion' (Creators Syndicate)
So many theories as to why House Majority Leader Eric Cantor lost his primary race. My personal favorite is his pollster's account of the merry band of marauding Democrats.
Modern Love: Beyond Years (Vimeo)
Tim and Sarah McEown never saw their 22-year age difference as an obstacle in their relationship, until Tim had a heart attack.
The New York Times: The Nipple Artist (Vimeo)
A tattoo parlor in Finksburg, Md., has become an unlikely destination for breast cancer survivors.
Scott Burns: Becoming Single is No Piece of Cake (AssetBuilder)
If you are married at retirement, the odds are that one spouse is going to spend some time living alone. For a couple who is 65, for instance, they are likely to be a couple for another 15 years. The survivor will likely live an additional 10 years. Most men don't have to deal with this. Most women do.
Vann Vicente: The 6 Most Ridiculous Lies Ever Published as Nonfiction (Cracked)
If you write an outrageously implausible story and get it published, congratulations -- you've just added yet another novel to the pile of thousands that come out every year. But if you write the exact same outrageous crap and put it in the biography section, then you've got yourself a best-seller and become a media sensation.
Joseph Conat: The 5 Most Ridiculous Lies Ever Published as Non-Fiction (Cracked)
So you've got an idea for a novel. Big deal, right? Thousands of those are published every year and most collect dust on the shelves. How can you call attention to yours? Hey, why not claim all the stuff in the book actually happened to you? Instead of a ridiculous product of your deranged imagination, it's an inspiring true story! Be careful, though, because apparently that plan can blow up in your face.
Humans of Remuera (Facebook)
The 1 percent: the only minority that matters.
Musicless Musicvideo / DAVID BOWIE & MICK JAGGER - Dancing in the Street (YouTube)
It's hard to be cool without music.
David Bowie & Mick Jagger - Dancing In The Street (YouTube)
With music.
Brenda Kennedy: Saving Angel (Smashwords)
Contemporary Romance Novel.
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog
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David Bruce has approximately 50 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
wrote:
took the day off.
has retired.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
from Marc Perkel
BartCop
Hello Bartcop fans,
As you all know the untimely passing of Terry was unexpected, even by
him. We all knew he had cancer but we all thought he had some years
left. So some of us who have worked closely with him over the years are
scrambling around trying to figure out what to do. My job, among other
things, is to establish communications with the Bartcop community and
provide email lists and groups for those who might put something
together. Those who want to play an active roll in something coming from
this, or if you are one of Bart's pillars, should send an email to
active@bartcop.com.
The most active open discussion is on Bart's Facebook page.
( www.facebook.com/bartcop )
You can listen to Bart's theme song here
or here.
( www.bartcop.com/blizing-saddles.mp3 )
( youtu.be/MySGAaB0A9k )
We have opened up the radio show archives which are now free. Listen to
all you want.
( bartcop.com/members )
Bart's final wish was to pay off the house mortgage for Mrs. Bart who is
overwhelmed and so very grateful for the support she has received.
Anyone wanting to make a donation can click on this the yellow donate
button on bartcop.com
But - I need you all to help keep this going. This note
isn't going to directly reach all of Bart's fans. So if you can repost
it on blogs and discussion boards so people can sign up then when we
figure out what's next we can let more people know. This list is just
over 600 but like to get it up to at least 10,000 pretty quick. So
here's the signup link for this email list.
( mailman.bartcop.com/listinfo/bartnews )
Marc Perkel
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny with a nice breeze.
Puts Northern Ireland On The Map
'Game of Thrones'
Giants, dragons and vengeful queens have for generations populated Northern Ireland's folk tales. Now, such creatures are visiting the land in a different version - on the sets for the hit TV show "Game of Thrones." But rather than spells and destruction, they're bringing an economic boost to this British province still healing from its past of political violence.
Fans of the HBO fantasy drama would recognize here the landscapes from the fictional land of Westeros - the castle of Winterfell, the seaside cliffs of the Iron Isles and the King's Road leading to the north. About 75 percent of the show is filmed in Northern Ireland, both in natural settings and in the Titanic Studios in Belfast.
Since the pilot episode began filming in 2009, attracted by the local government's financial incentives, the show's presence has helped foster a film industry that is catching the eye of other Hollywood productions. And Northern Ireland is taking advantage of the attention by promoting the filming locations as tourist destinations.
The latest - and perhaps most illustrious - visitor is Queen Elizabeth II, who will tour the studio sets on Monday. But thousands have already been visiting from across the globe.
'Game of Thrones'
5,000-Year-Old Archaeological Treasures
Yukon
Greg Hare, a veteran archeologist with the Yukon government, has been instrumental in assembling one of the finest collections anywhere of superbly preserved ancient hunting tools. Expounding on the trove of more than 200 artifacts stored in his Whitehorse lab, Hare might seem, with his scholarly manner and standard-issue khakis, all no-nonsense scientist. But ask him how hunters actually wielded these weapons, and he turns boyishly animated in his eagerness to demonstrate.
Pointing out an almost 5,000-year-old throwing dart that rests under glass in several painstakingly collected pieces, he reaches for an exact replica on a nearby shelf. He fixes one end of the slender, roughly two-metre-long willow dart into a notch in a wooden board that he grips in one hand. "It gives you an extension on your arm," he explains, "allowing you to hurl this dart with great force and distance." Hare heaves back, slow-motioning a throw, complete with a phwew sound effect at the point of release.
A short section of a dart shaft was the very first artifact found to launch the remarkable, ongoing saga of Yukon ice patch archeology. Back in 1997, a local husband and wife were hunting Dall sheep up in the southern Yukon mountains, when they smelled something barnyardy, and found that the odour was coming from a mound of melting caribou dung. The strange thing was that caribou hadn't been seen in the area for many years. That led to a sequence of investigations, including radiocarbon dating of the dung and then that first fragment of a dart, and finally to a grasp on what was happening: Climate change was eating away at the edges of mountain ice patches, revealing droppings left by caribou herds thousands of years ago-and tools lost by the hunters who had once pursued them.
Yukon
Study Points To Increase
Great White Sharks
The number of great white sharks off the U.S. Atlantic Coast appears to have increased since the early 1990s after conservation measures were introduced to halt their decline, a U.S. government scientist said on Saturday.
Scientists for the National Marine Fisheries Service presented the findings in a study published this month in the PLOS ONE online journal.
Tobey Curtis, one of the government scientists who worked on the study, said in an interview his team could only capture trends in shark abundance and the study could not be used to estimate the total number of sharks in the Atlantic's northwest region, which extends from the U.S. East Coast.
But Curtis said the findings suggested an "optimistic outlook" for the recovery of the species, which is an apex predator and one of the largest fish in the oceans. The study's authors described their study as based on the largest white shark dataset yet compiled from the region.
Great White Sharks
Wedding News
Couric - Molner
Katie Couric has married a New York financier in a small ceremony at her East Hampton home.
People magazine reports the former "Today" host and John Molner took the vows on Saturday in front of 50 guests.
The 51-year-old Molner is a partner at investment firm Brown Brothers Harriman overseeing mergers and acquisitions for the firm's corporate clients.
He proposed to the 57-year-old Couric last September after nearly two years of dating.
Couric - Molner
Fight Climate Change
US Mayors
Mayors from the GOP-dominated states of Texas and Arizona are calling on cities to use nature to fight the impacts of climate change, even while Republican governors and lawmakers repeatedly question the science that shows human-caused pollution contributes to global warming.
As conservative governors criticize the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's new rules designed to cut greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, the mayors - many from cities already struggling with climate-change effects - are taking steps and spending money to stem the damage.
Attendees of the U.S. Conference of Mayors will vote Monday on a resolution that encourages cities to use natural solutions to "protect freshwater supplies, defend the nation's coastlines, maintain a healthy tree cover and protect air quality," sometimes by partnering with nonprofit organizations.
It's being backed by Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell, Houston Mayor Annise Parker and Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton - all Democrats.
Since the conference is almost evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, and the resolution only "encourages" steps rather than mandating action, Leffingwell believes it will easily be approved Monday since it quickly passed through the committee on Friday.
US Mayors
Worst Spots Found
Weather Extremes
Frightful floods, freezes and heat waves favor certain parts of the Northern Hemisphere, the result of strong atmospheric currents that steer extreme weather to the same places over and over again, a new study finds.
Fear a cold winter? Then avoid eastern North America. Hate floods? Stay out of western Asia. Enjoy a long shower? Then drought-prone central North America, Europe and central Asia aren't for you. Can't stand the heat? Rule out heat-wave-prone western North America and central Asia, according to findings published today (June 22) in the journal Nature Climate Change.
The atmospheric currents that control the bad weather are similar to a sky river: They swoop back and forth across the hemisphere at about 3 miles (5 kilometers) above the surface, with giant waves that resemble the Mississippi River's wide bends. The currents also have vertical pressure waves that vary like a riverbed that shallows and deepens - these contribute to the pressure highs and lows in daily weather reports.
"We're not saying these extremes are becoming more prevalent," said lead study author James Screen of the University of Exeter in the U.K. "These waves have preferred locations, so you're more likely to get extreme weather in one place over another."
Weather Extremes
Uppity Woman Facing Excommunication
Mormons
While Kate Kelly's former church leaders meet in Virginia on Sunday night to decide if she'll be ousted from her church, the founder of a prominent Mormon women's group will hold a vigil in Salt Lake City along with hundreds of her supporters.
Kelly has decided not attend the disciplinary hearing in her former congregation. Instead, she has sent in a letter she wrote and about 1,000 letters from supporters.
She was shocked to find out earlier this month from her bishop that she is facing excommunication from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which she is a lifelong member. The leader of Ordain Women is accused of apostasy, defined as repeated and public advocacy of positions that oppose church teachings.
Kelly, an international human rights lawyer, said she stands behind everything she has done since forming Ordain Women in 2013. The group advocates for gender equality in the faith with the ultimate goal of allowing women in the lay clergy. Kelly insists that she has not spoken out against church leaders or church doctrine.
Mormons
Oil Drilling Threatens
National Park
After the last hints of sunset dip behind the hills, the North Dakota horizon comes alive with flickering orange flames of a different kind - natural gas flares.
These tiny tongues of fire burn bright against the dark prairie just beyond the boundaries of Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the Badlands, where the man who later became the nation's 26th president sought solace after his wife and mother both died unexpectedly on the same day in 1884 in his native New York.
Today, the resurgent American oil industry is tapping into this rugged landscape, so the vistas that soothed Roosevelt's grief and helped instill his zeal for conservation now include oil rigs and flares used to burn off natural gas that comes to the surface.
Oil development is strictly forbidden within the park itself, but park officials worry that the flares, lights and noise from drilling just beyond the protected area are sullying the natural spaces cherished by Roosevelt as a bespectacled young man in his mid-20s.
The park of more than 70,000 acres sits atop the Bakken shale, an oil-rich rock formation that for decades frustrated drillers who could not coax anything profitable from the ground. But advances in hydraulic fracturing and directional drilling have unlocked huge amounts of petroleum here. North Dakota is now the second-biggest oil producer in the U.S. after Texas.
National Park
Snares The Innocent
U.S. Sanctions
On a Friday afternoon in March, Jose Luis Zamora pulled into a Lexus dealership in Dallas to test-drive a new car with his wife. Ready to pay, Zamora instead waited more than two hours before being informed his name had popped up on a government watchlist that blocks those linked to money launderers, groups alleged to have committed terrorist acts and other enemies of the United States from doing business in the country.
A routine credit check matched him to Jose Hernan Zamora, a Colombian who is no relation to the Texas resident and was added to the Treasury Department's sanctions list around 1997 for his ties to narcotics traffickers.
Zamora, of Dallas, had never been to Colombia. It took him two days of digging, phone calls to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Homeland Security, and letters to his elected representatives to learn he was far from the only one who has been accidentally snared.
Yet there was nothing he could do to permanently clear his name, leaving him at risk of being tagged again.
Lawyers call people like Zamora "collateral victims" of the sanctions war: those with common names, often of Middle Eastern or Hispanic origin, who may not even realize their car or home loan was rejected or their apartment application denied because someone mistook them for a foreign militant.
U.S. Sanctions
Bacon Preservative Tested As Poison
Feral Hogs
A preservative used to cure bacon is being tested as poison for the nation's estimated 5 million feral hogs.
Descendants of both escaped domestic pigs and imported Eurasian boars, the swine cost the U.S. about $1.5 billion a year - including $800 million in damage to farms nationwide.
Hunting and trapping won't do the trick for these big, wildly prolific animals. So, the U.S. Department of Agriculture kicked off a $20 million program this year to control feral swine, which have spread from 17 states in 1982 to 39 now.
Sodium nitrite is far more toxic to pigs than people and is used in Australia and New Zealand to kill feral swine. USDA scientists say it may be the best solution in the U.S., but they're not yet ready to ask for federal approval as pig poison.
Males average 130 to 150 pounds but can range up to 250, and hogs snarf down just about anything: peanuts, potatoes, piles of just-harvested almonds. Rooting for grubs and worms leaves lawns, levees, wetlands and prairies looking like they've been attacked by packs of rototillers gone wild. Swine compete with turkey and deer for acorns, and also eat eggs and fawns.
Feral Hogs
Weekend Box Office
'Think Like a Man Too'
The Las Vegas ensemble comedy "Think Like a Man Too" topped a slow weekend at the summer box office with $30 million, besting blockbuster holdovers from last week and Clint Eastwood's new Four Seasons musical "Jersey Boys."
The Kevin Hart sequel "Think Like a Man Too" narrowly edged out "22 Jump Street," which earned $29 million in its second week of release, according to studio estimates Sunday. The DreamWorks animated film "How to Train Your Dragon 2" slid to third with $25.3 million.
The top three films are all sequels that moved into the big box-office summer season following surprise hit originals released in the springtime.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Rentrak. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released on Monday.
1. "Think Like a Man Too," $30 million.
2. "22 Jump Street," $29 million ($14.5 million international).
3. "How To Train Your Dragon 2," $25.3 million ($43.5 million international).
4. "Jersey Boys," $13.5 million ($1.6 million international).
5. "Maleficent," $13 million ($44.7 million international).
6. "Edge of Tomorrow," $13.3 million ($21.5 million international).
7. "The Fault in Our Stars," $8.6 million ($20 million international).
8. "X-Men: Days of Future Past," $6.4 million ($11.3 million international).
9. "Chef," $1.8 million.
10. "Godzilla," $1.8 million ($15 million international).
'Think Like a Man Too'
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