Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Yiddish Curses for Republican Jews
Samples: 1) May your child give his Bar Mitzvah speech on the genius of Ayn Rand. 2) May you be reunited in the world to come with your ancestors, who were all socialist garment workers. 3) May G-d give you a daughter-in-law who is as kind as she is beautiful, as patient as she is rich, as wise as she is devoted, a virtuous woman in every way. And then may a ballot initiative invalidate her marriage to your fat lump Rebecca. 3) May you live to a hundred and twenty without Social Security or Medicare.
Michael Moore and Oliver Stone: Don't Let'em Persecute Wikileaks, It'll Make Journalists Criminals Around the Globe
If Mr. Assange is extradited to the United States, the consequences will reverberate for years around the world, argue Michael Moore and Oliver Stone.
Marc Dion: The Rape Jokes of My Life (Creators Syndicate)
Yeah. Ideology is a lot better than knowledge. Knowledge tells you how and why to build a kindergarten in an inner-city ghetto. Ideology tells you not to bother because all those ghetto people are welfare-sucking subhumans, and the girls in the kindergarten you won't build will all have babies in their uvulas by the time they're 13 and so are not worth edumacating.
Jacob Sullum: Prosecutor Defeated by Glaring Stupidity of Pot Laws (Reason)
Then, when the potential jurors found out that the State wanted him to pay taxes on illegal drugs, they went nuts. One woman from the back said how stupid this was and why are we even here wasting our time. A "suit" from the front said this was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard.
Jillian Berman: "Middle Class Exit 'Lost Decade' With Little Hope: Pew Report" (Huffington Post)
Things aren't looking great for America's middle class, and they know it.
The Ultimate Mitt Romney Flip-Flop Collection (20 minutes of flip-flops; YouTube)
Know someone who needs to see video proof? Many of Mitt Romney's flip-flops all in one video. Video compiled with clips from interviews, news, public appearances, and more.
World War II Veteran Ralph Maxwell says 4 More Years! (YouTube)
92 year-old former North Dakota District Judge and WWII veteran, Ralph Maxwell, recites the lyrics from his song "Wherefore Art Thou, Mitt Romney-O": "Romney-O, Romney-O,?Wherefore art thou, Mitt Romney??You flip-flop here, you flip-flop there,?You flip-flop almost ev'rywhere."?
Taylor Ferrera: Satirist (YouTube Channel)
Songs include "Business are People, Too!" and "Chick Fil A Broke My Heart" and "I Hate Bank of America."
Taylor Ferrera: Legitimate Rape (YouTube)
I was a little drunk. Illegitimate rape! I knew the rapist well. Illegitimate rape! My skirt was kinda short. Illegitimate rape! I'm married to the man. That's a husband's privilege!
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
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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."
"Doug's Most Shared Facebook Post" Today
Doug Gauss
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Reader Picture
Pileated Woodpecker
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Bit cooler, but the ants are back.
Sending Message?
Rupert
By letting his top-selling U.K. tabloid run photos of a naked Prince Harry cavorting in a Las Vegas hotel room, some say media mogul Rupert Murdoch (R-Evil Incarnate) was warning Britain's establishment that he could still shake things up.
British officialdom has largely turned its back on Murdoch because of the phone-hacking scandal that has badly tainted his media empire over the past year. So even though Murdoch's The Sun newspaper framed its decision to publish the nude pictures as a defense of press freedom, some observers saw the move as a feisty message from the tycoon.
"Not only was The Sun showing Harry's bottom, Murdoch was mooning the Establishment," said journalist Jane Merrick, whose article in The Independent on Sunday alleged that Murdoch personally ordered the paper to run the photos in a phone call with Tom Mockridge, the chief of his British newspaper unit, News International.
Murdoch, once assiduously courted by lawmakers across the British political spectrum, has seen his clout wither after his company was exposed as having hacked into the phones of hundreds of people to score scoops.
Rupert
2 Members Flee Russia
Pussy Riot
Two members of the punk band Pussy Riot have fled Russia to avoid prosecution for a protest against Vladimir Putin that sent three of their band mates to prison, the group said Sunday.
Five members of the feminist group took part in a provocative performance inside Moscow's main cathedral in February to protest the Russian leader's rule and his cozy relationship with the Orthodox Church. The women wore their trademark garishly colored balaclavas, which made it difficult for police to identify them, and only three were arrested.
After a controversial trial that highlighted Putin's crackdown on dissent since he began a third presidential term in May, the three band members were convicted of hooliganism and sentenced to two years in prison on Aug. 17. Days later, Moscow police said they were searching for the other band members, an apparent warning to the group to stop its anti-Putin protests.
At least 12 other members of the group remain in Russia, another message on Twitter said.
Pussy Riot
Mobile App Can Identify Political TV Ads
Ad Hawk
Much like music identification apps that can listen to a song and tell you what it's called and who it's by, a new piece of mobile software called Ad Hawk (download for iPhone and Android) can let you know who is really behind a particular political ad on TV. What's more, it drills down into the leanings and financials of the group.
The app requires about 30 seconds to identify an ad, so in most cases that'll mean using your DVR to rewind - unless you're really quick. Once it has figured out the ad, it'll tell you what group paid for it, then you're able to view details on them including how much money they have, how much they've spent so far this election, what percentage of their ads have been positive of negative, and which political party their ads support.
Ad Hawk is free and was created by the Sunlight Foundation, a non-profit organization, and is expected to be updated on a daily basis as new ads hit the airwaves. It uses location services to help the foundation build a map of where certain ads are running across the country, but you're able to disable this feature if you're worried about it intruding on your privacy.
Ad Hawk
Baby News
Lorenzo Dominic LaValle
"Jersey Shore" star Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi early Sunday gave birth to her first child, a boy.
The reality TV star and her fiance, Jionni LaValle, welcomed 6-pound, 5-ounce Lorenzo Dominic LaValle into the world at just before 3 a.m. Sunday at Saint Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, N.J., MTV said.
Lorenzo Dominic LaValle
Equal Rights
"Go-Topless Day"
Some two dozen topless women protested in a New York City park on a hot, sweaty Sunday as part of what they called "National Go-Topless Day" to draw attention to inequality in topless rights between men and women.
There were topless men in the park, too, but nobody paid them much attention, a disparity, organizers said, that demonstrated the need for the event.
"We say there is nothing wrong with the female nipple," Karen Heaven, an organizer of the event, told the crowd that quickly formed around her in Manhattan's Bryant Park. She was wearing white pants and not much else besides a purse over her shoulder. "My dog has six, I have two, but I can be put in jail for showing my nipples. It's 2012 -- what are we thinking?"
It is legal for women to go topless in public in New York City but laws vary widely across the United States. Heaven and her colleagues say discrimination is unconstitutional and they want full equality.
The annual Go-Topless Day was established in 2007 by a former sports car journalist called Rael, who founded a religion called the Raelian Movement after he said he was visited by a space alien in a French volcano park who told him life on Earth was created by extraterrestrial scientists, according to an account on his website.
"Go-Topless Day"
Backers Raise $3 Million
Legal Marijuana
Campaigns to become the first U.S. states to legalize marijuana for recreational use in Washington and Colorado have raised $3 million ahead of a November vote, far outpacing the opposition.
Proponents of pot legalization in Washington state have raised nearly $2 million since the initiative qualified for the ballot in January, and about $1 million in Colorado since its measure earned a place on the ballot the following month, according to the most recent state campaign figures.
In Oregon, where a voter referendum qualified in July, the legalization campaign reported less than $1,000 in contributions. All three state measures go on the ballot in November, when Americans vote for president and other offices.
The referendums in the three Western states, among the 17 that already allow marijuana for medical purposes, comes as some states battle with the federal government over its raids of medical marijuana dispensaries.
Legal Marijuana
Fox Asks Court To Ban Ad-Skipper
Dish
Fox Broadcasting Company is asking a court to put a stop to two features on Dish's newdigital video recorder that let consumers skip commercials because it is hurting the TV networks' business.
Dish's AutoHop feature on its Hopper DVR lets customers press one button to automatically skip commercials when they are watching recorded TV shows. Dish introduced its high-definition DVR called the Hopper earlier this year.
Fox said in a filing dated August 22 that is seeking a preliminary injunction against Dish in a district court in California because the network "likely to suffer irreparable harm" while the companies litigate further.
In addition, Fox said Dish's "PrimeTime Anytime" feature, a service that records all of the prime-time TV programs on ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox with one click and then keeps them saved for up to eight days, violates Dish's contract related to accessing video programming on demand.
Dish
Engaged To Appalachian Trail
Former SC Gov
Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R-Family Values) confirmed Sunday he is engaged to the Argentine woman he secretly left the state to visit under the cover story he was hiking the Appalachian Trail.
Sanford was a rising Republican political star before he vanished from South Carolina for five days in 2009. Reporters were told he was hiking the Appalachian Trail. But when he returned to South Carolina, the father of four admitted that he was instead in Argentina with Maria Belen Chapur, whom he later called his soul mate.
"I've been unfaithful to my wife. I developed a relationship with what started as a dear, dear friend from Argentina. It began very innocently as I suspect many of these things do, in just a casual email back and forth in advice on one's life there and advice here. But here recently, over this last year, it developed into something much more than that," Sanford said in explaining the affair.
The episode ended in divorce from his wife, Jenny, and derailed the political career of a GOP conservative with presidential aspirations. He was governor from 2003-2011.
Former SC Gov
Artists Thrive
Graffiti
A television set with wings hovers on a wall in a murky Yangon sidestreet.
"This was my first one," says Aung, 33, pointing proudly to an image he spray-painted last year to protest media censorship and now duplicated across Myanmar's Burma's commercial capital. "Media freedom is a big issue for me."
Aung, who requested that his full name be withheld, belongs to a new generation of Yangon street artists whose often politically charged graffiti was almost unthinkable before Myanmar's recent burst of reforms.
For decades Myanmar was a dictatorship where pervasive surveillance by military spies meant even "tagging", the quickly drawn signature found in graffiti worldwide, was too risky. That began to change when a semi-civilian government took power in March 2011.
It has freed political dissidents, legalized trade unions and improved relations with the West, and the once-ubiquitous government spies have all but vanished. Emboldened, street artists are hitting Yangon to comment on everything from power shortages to money-laundering.
Graffiti
Most Were Right-Handed
Neanderthals
Right-handed humans vastly outnumber lefties by a ratio of about nine to one, and the same may have been true for Neanderthals. Researchers say right-hand dominance in the extinct species suggests that, like humans, they also had the capacity for language.
A new analysis of the skeleton of a 20-something Neanderthal man confirms that he was a righty like most of his European caveman cousins whose remains have been studied by scientists (16 of 18 specimens). Dubbed "Regourdou," the skeleton was discovered in 1957 in France, not far from the famous network of caves at Lascaux.
Scientists previously had argued that Regourdou was right-handed based on the muscularity of his right arm versus his left arm. Now an international team of researchers say they have confirmed that assumption by conducting a more sophisticated analysis of his arms and shoulders and then linking that data with the scratch marks on Regourdou's teeth.
Neanderthals used their mouths like a "third hand" for manipulating objects like food, resulting in significant wear and tear on their front teeth, University of Kansas researcher David Frayer, who was involved in the study, explained in a statement from the school. And the angles of the scratch marks on the teeth can indicate which hand was gripping the food and which hand was cutting. They found that right-angled scratches were the most common and left ones the least for all the teeth.
Neanderthals
Weekend Box Office
"The Expendables 2"
Holdover movies easily topped the weekend box office again, led by Sylvester Stallone's "The Expendables 2" at No. 1 for the second-straight weekend with $13.5 million.
The weekend's new wide releases were overshadowed by "2016: Obama's America," which expanded from limited to nationwide release and took in $6.2 million to finish at No. 8.
Released by Rocky Mountain Pictures, "Obama's America" nearly matched the $6.3 million debut of the No. 7 movie, Joseph Gordon-Levitt's action tale "Premium Rush," a Sony release that played in more than twice as many theaters as the Obama documentary.
The weekend's other new wide releases opened weakly. Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell's road-chase comedy "Hit & Run," released by Open Road Films, debuted at No. 10 with $4.7 million, and the Warner Bros. fright flick "The Apparition" opened at No. 12 with $3 million.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. "The Expendables 2," $13.5 million ($18.5 million international).
2. "The Bourne Legacy," $9.3 million ($9.4 million international).
3. "ParaNorman," $8.5 million.
4. "The Campaign," $7.4 million.
5. "The Dark Knight Rises," $7.2 million ($15.3 million international).
6. "The Odd Life of Timothy Green," $7.1 million.
7. "Premium Rush," $6.3 million.
8. "2016: Obama's America," $6.2 million.
9. "Hope Springs," $6 million.
10. "Hit & Run," $4.7 million.
"The Expendables 2"
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