Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Alexandra Petri: What a terrifying time to be a son (Washington Post)
This is a terrifying time for young white men in America. Boys who thought there was surely something they could do to keep themselves from slipping down the steep and treacherous path to the Supreme Court now look on helpless, realizing there is nothing they can do to stop this. Once you enroll at Georgetown Prep, your fate is sealed. Show people what you want to about yourself. It does not matter how you scream and shout, or what insinuations you make. No one will listen. There is nothing you can do to stop this. No matter what you put in your yearbook. No matter what your friends say. They can scream all they want about your credibility. No one will hear them.
Alexandra Petri: But I hope you feel empowered, sweet cheeks (Washington Post)
Well, sure, I am going to vote yes on Kavanaugh, sweetie. Don't become hysterical. But I just feel so awful it had to happen like this. It's such a shame, I think. I just think, dollface, if there is one thing that came out of all this, sugar, that was good, it is, pumpkin, that you got to have your say. Baby, you got to stand up in front of all these people and bear witness to what you felt like you had experienced, like a big girl! It was so important, and I absolutely believed you, sweetheart!
Lucy Mangan's response to man asking why she believes Dr Ford over Brett Kavanaugh (Stylist)
A male friend of mine - not a close friend, and a lot less close now - asked me the other day why I was so ready to believe Dr Christine Blasey Ford over Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who denies her accusation that he sexually assaulted her at a party 30 years ago. The rush of reasons nearly choked me.
Yascha Mounk: The Supreme Court Is Now a Partisan Institution (Slate)
Kavanaugh's confirmation means Trump controls all three branches of government. There's only one check left on the president.
Daniel Politi: "McConnell: Kavanaugh Opposition Was "Great Political Gift" to GOP Ahead of Midterms" (Slate)
"It's been a great political gift for us. The tactics have energized our base," McConnell told the Washington Post. "I want to thank the mob, because they've done the one thing we were having trouble doing, which was energizing our base."
Mark Joseph Stern: How Liberals Could Declare War on Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court (Slate)
His confirmation might pave the way for a full-blown constitutional crisis.
Daniel Politi: Banksy Painting Likely Soars in Value After Self-Destructing Through Built-In Shredder (Slate)
The painting passed through a shredder that had been installed in the frame and by the time it was carried out, most of the work was hanging in strips from the bottom of the frame. "We've been Banksy-ed," Alex Branczik, Sotheby's head of contemporary art in Europe, said at a news conference afterward. "We have not experienced this situation in the past, where a painting is spontaneously shredded upon achieving a record for the artist."
Jennifer Kang: You Can Now Read Mark Judge's Book Without Paying Almost $2,000. But Is the Online Copy Legal? (Slate)
The hottest book in the U.S. right now is almost impossible to get-and unusually so. It's out of print, costs $1,849.99 on Amazon, and is "not even close to being a good book," as the New York Times said in its review. But like with most books, you might now be able to get your hands on it at a digital library.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
answered:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• Even when she was eight years old, gymnast Dominique Moceanu displayed good manners. Her first coach, Jeff LaFleur, once saw her running past two old ladies to reach the door of the ladies restroom. He thought at first that she was in a hurry, but then he saw that she had run past the two old ladies so she could hold the door open for them.
• Babe Ruth had little education, especially in etiquette and polite conversation, although he tried to be polite. At an elegant dinner, he was served an asparagus salad, but he pushed his plate away. His hostess asked whether he disliked salad, and Babe replied politely, "Oh, it's not that. It's just that asparagus makes my urine smell."
• When John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth on February 20, 1962, he saw lights in Australia - the residents of the Australian cities Perth and Rockingham had turned on the lights for him. Mr. Glenn told NASA, "The lights show up very well, and thank everybody for turning them on, will you?"
• There is a certain etiquette - and attention to safety - in pairs figure skating. For example, if the man is holding the woman high in the air and something happens so that she falls, proper etiquette requires that the man break her fall by allowing her to fall on top of him rather than directly onto the hard ice.
• "We preserve humaneness by being humane in our dealing with others." - Tom Mullen.
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Reader Comment
Baggage
At the Alameda Antiques Fair this morning
David of Moon Valley
Thanks, David!
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
Virginia Republicans
The cruelty and lying are breathtaking. At 7:30 AM, Barbara Comstock, the "independent" woman--you know, the woman who votes with Trump 98% of the time, is running a commercial with some chippie saying she was seeking an internship when a Congressman hit on her, but Barbara believed and helped her! "No more Congressional slush-fund coverups."
First, how DARE that Trumpstock cunt be running that ad hours after her friend for over 20 years, Gropey MacRaperface, is installed on the Supreme Court. She and Kavanaugh have been buddies since Ken Starr days! (7:58 AM--DAMN, the ad is running AGAIN! Bitch be scared about her re-election chances! 8:00--ANOTHER Comstock ad attacking her Democratic opponent!)
Second, this is the bitch playing off Corey Stewart's sleazy implications in a debate last week that Tim Kaine (the guy in the dad sweater!) is covering up something by not naming the men in Congress who've been saved by slush-fund payouts--implying that maybe Kaine is one of the predators.
No low they won't go to; no lie they won't tell. I'm beyond disgust. Can't wait to vote for the Democrats (Vote against Babs and Corey) as soon as possible!
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
MEET THE REPUBLICAN INSECTS!
"WE ARE THERE. NOW."
"WILL (AND SHOULD) AMERICA BREAK UP WITH AMERICA?"
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Really running late - extra early days all this week. Ack.
'Our Political System Is Broken'
Johnny Galecki
"The Big Bang Theory" star Johnny Galecki reacted to the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court on Saturday, publishing an Instagram post that said, in part, "Our political system is broken."
Galecki, who plays Leonard on the CBS sitcom, wrote, "No matter what your political opinion/affiliation might be, we must admit that these decisions are not made by 'the voice of the people.'"
"Kavanaugh was nominated by a candidate who lost the popular vote by 3 million-plus votes," Galecki's message read.
"The 49 Senators who voted 'No' on Kavanaugh represent 181.8 million Americans," he continued. "The 51 Senators who voted 'Yes' represent 143.2 million."
The message concluded, "Our political system is broken."
Johnny Galecki
Latest Artwork
Jim Carrey
Jim Carrey wasted no time reacting to the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on Saturday.
Following the Senate's confirmation of Kavanaugh by a 50-48 vote, actor-artist Carrey took to Twitter to pay tribute to Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct against her decades ago.
Carrey also characterized Kavanaugh as "privileged" and a "goon."
The actor's latest artwork depicted Ford awash in the colors red, white and blue.
"Real American heroism. Dr. Ford risked everything to tell the truth about this privileged Kavanaugh goon. Avenge her in November," Carrey wrote.
Jim Carrey
Kidney Transplant
Tina Turner
Tina Turner has revealed that she underwent a kidney transplant with an organ donated by her husband.
The 78-year-old singer says in an upcoming autobiography that she has suffered from kidney disease, and by 2016 her kidneys were at "20 percent and plunging rapidly."
She says her husband, Erwin Bach, "shocked me by saying that he wanted to give me one of his kidneys." Turner says she was "overwhelmed by the enormity of his offer."
Turner, whose hits include "Proud Mary" and "What's Love Got to do With It?," married German music executive Bach in 2013 after a long relationship.
In the book, Turner encourages people to sign up to donate organs in order to save lives.
Tina Turner
Private Collection To Auction
Neil Armstrong
Collectors will have the opportunity to own a piece of American history when 3,000 items from the personal collection of Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, go up for auction next month.
The sale at Heritage Auctions will start November 1 and coincide with the 50th anniversary of Armstrong's Apollo 11 mission.
The Armstrong Family Collection includes never-before-seen items from his lunar landing, including pieces of a wing and propeller from the 1903 Wright Brothers flight that Armstrong took with him to the moon. It also includes items from his childhood, such as his Boy Scouts cap, and a letter he wrote to the Easter bunny.
The process of preserving Armstrong's vast collection began two years ago when his sons Mark and Rick Armstrong were going through the items left by their parents and found that several them were starting to show their age.
The most expensive piece in the sale is a silk American flag that was carried to the moon in Armstrong's personal kit. It has an opening bid of $75,000. One of Armstrong's flight suits starts at $30,000.
Neil Armstrong
High Cost Stunt
Pence
A year ago almost to the day, Vice President Mike Pence (R-Mother) arrived at an Indianapolis Colts game against the San Francisco 49ers, ostensibly to watch the Colts honor former franchise QB Peyton Manning. But when several members of the 49ers knelt during the national anthem, Pence, his wife, and his security team walked out.
The move drew praise from the president. But many observers called it a stunt, a deliberate performance meant to whip up the base, and newly released documentsindicate that Pence's walkout was anything but a spontaneous demonstration of patriotic outrage.
Cast your mind back to Week 5 of last year. The NFL was consumed with the protest crisis, which began - you all know this - with Colin Kaepernick kneeling and kicked into high gear when President-for-now Trump (R-Shroomdick) criticized protesters just before Week 3. But the bonfires from Week 3 were already starting to die out by Week 5 … that is, until Pence walked out on the 49ers, Kaepernick's old team and one that had kneeling players on its roster for the entire year.
Initial reports in the wake of Pence's NFL protest indicated that the cost was a minimum of $250,000, based on the $43,000 an hour cost to operate Air Force Two. A new report from the Huffington Post notes that the additional cost for Secret Service lodging and protection and other elements ran to $75,000, bringing the full cost to well in excess of $325,000, a figure that does not include local security and emergency-response overtime costs.
The Huffington Post report, which used Freedom of Information Act requests to obtain expenditures, also noted several costs that seemed to undercut the idea that this was a long-planned event. In addition to the fact that pool reporters traveling with the vice president were told that he might be leaving early, the Secret Service reports indicate that lodging and other protection wasn't reserved until days before the game - not weeks, as Pence's staff told CNN.
Pence
A Third Of The Men
SCOTUS
With Brett Kavanaugh's (R-Biased) confirmation to the Supreme Court, a third of the men who have the final say on interpreting the nation's laws now stand accused of sexual misconduct.
The Senate voted to give Kavanaugh a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the country on Saturday, despite misconduct allegations from multiple women. Most prominently, professor Christine Blasey Ford testified before the Senate Judiciary Committeethat Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers, locking her in a room and pinning her down on a bed.
Kavanaugh joins Clarence "Slappy" Thomas (R-Long Dong Silver), who has been on the bench since 1991. He is there even though Anita Hill testified that he sexually harassed her while she worked for him. In 2016, another woman spoke out and said Thomas had groped her at a formal dinner party in 1999.
Kavanaugh replaces Justice Anthony Kennedy, a conservative who was nevertheless often a key swing vote on issues such as women's reproductive rights. The right wing on the court now has a solid majority for years to come, with the ability to put its stamp on matters like abortion, equal pay and discrimination. And it will be anchored by two men who have been accused of mistreating women.
SCOTUS
Shocks Art World
Banksy
British street artist Banksy has stunned the art world with arguably his most audacious prank yet, self-destructing one of his best-known works moments after it fetched more than a million pounds at auction in London.
"Girl with Balloon" had just sold at Sotheby's Friday for £1,042,000 ($1.4 million, 1.2 million euros) -- a joint record for the maverick artist -- when it unexpectedly passed through a shredder hidden in the frame.
Banksy posted a video Saturday on his Instagram page accompanied by a quote attributed to Pablo Picasso -- "the urge to destroy is also a creative urge" -- showing the stunt unfolding and how he pulled it off.
"A few years ago I secretly built a shredder into a painting, in case it was ever put up for auction," read captions displayed over footage of a man crafting the device into a faux-gilt frame.
The video later shows scenes from Sotheby's, where onlookers are left aghast as an alarm sounds and most of the image drops down through the frame and is left shredded.
Banksy
Microsoft Suspends Rollout Of Update
Windows 10
Earlier this week, Microsoft started distributing the Windows 10 October 2018 Update, version 1809, to Windows users who manually checked for updates. The company has now halted that rollout after many reports that installing the update is causing serious data loss: specifically, deleting the Documents, and perhaps Pictures, folders. Microsoft is also advising anyone who has downloaded the update but not yet installed it to not install it at all.
The exact circumstances causing data loss aren't clear; the handful of reports on Microsoft's forums and Reddit don't have any obvious commonalities, and people report seeing only one affected system among many when upgraded. There will need to be some amount of investigation before a fix can be developed.
This will be too late for anyone that's suffered data loss; although file recovery/undelete tools might be able to salvage the deleted files, the only reliable way of recovering them is to restore from a backup.
A data-loss bug is bad. Data-loss bugs are the worst kind of bug that Microsoft could ship; for rarely backed-up home users, at least, they're worse even than a security flaw-who needs hackers and malware to destroy your data when the operating system does it for you? This bug is sure to raise new doubts about Microsoft's testing, pace of delivering updates, and dependence on the Insider Program to find and report such problems.
Making this worse is that the bug does appear to have been reported. Numerous reports in Feedback Hub, Microsoft's bug-reporting tool for Windows 10, complain of data deletion after installing preview releases. None of the bug reports appears to have many upvotes, and the reports generally lack in detail. So just as with the more recent reports, they make it hard to pin down the root cause. But it's obvious that, at the very least, something was going wrong and that it was important enough that it should have been investigated and addressed.
Windows 10
Weekend Box Office
'Venom'
In a weekend of perfect counterprogramming for Hollywood, the comic-book movie "Venom" shrugged off bad reviews to shatter the October box-office record with an $80 million debut, while Bradley Cooper's "A Star Is Born" soared to $41.3 million.
With $174.5 million in tickets sold at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to comScore, it was easily the best October weekend ever thanks to two very different films that both outperformed expectations.
While "Venom" attracted a younger, majority male audience, crowds for "A Star is Born" were more female, at 66 percent, and older, at 68 percent over 35.
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 also are included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. "Venom," $80 million ($125.2 million international).
2. "A Star Is Born," $41.3 million ($14 million international).
3. "Smallfoot," $14.9 million ($11.7 million international).
4. "Night School," $12.3 million ($3.4 million international).
5. "The House With a Clock in Its Walls," $7.3 million.
6. "A Simple Favor," $3.4 million ($4.1 million international).
7. "The Nun," $2.6 million ($7.2 million international).
8. "Hell Fest," $2.1 million.
9. "Crazy Rich Asians," $2.1 million ($1.6 million international).
10. "MET Opera: Aida," $1.2 million.
'Venom'
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