Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Romney Sleight of Hand Cheating Slow Mo/Close UP (YouTube)
Close up of Mitt Romney cheating during the debate on October 3rd 2012. "No props, notes, charts, diagrams, or other writings or other tangible things may be brought into the debate by any candidate."
Marc Dion: Stand Up, Wal-Mart! (Creators Syndicate)
In America, where we print the job very high up in the obituary, what takes more strength than to walk off the job, to risk falling from the world of work? … The man who puts his jacket on and walks out the door under his supervisor's hard look is Thomas Jefferson. The woman who tells her husband she'll strike even though they both know they need her pay, that woman is John Hancock. They are the founders of this America.
Lucy Mangan: family planning and the Tories (Guardian)
'I have listened to their plans to withdraw benefits from those who have too many children and I realise someone must have solved those women's problems.'
EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO: Democrats Get The Debate They Wanted In Kentucky (Talking Points Memo)
Democrats wanted an aggressive Joe Biden at the vice presidential debate here, and they got one. In stark contrast to President Obama's listless performance against Mitt Romney in Denver on Oct. 3, Biden came out of the gate on the attack against Paul Ryan and stayed on offense throughout the 90-minute debate.
Connie Schultz: Signs of Jim Crow in Ohio (Creators Syndicate)
Felons who have served their time are allowed to vote.
Andrew Tobias: Rush
It's not every day that a Nobel Prize winner, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient walk into a bar - or in this case an apartment - but she did, into mine, Monday night: Toni Morrison.
Walter Tunis: Andrew Bird is flying high with a musical career built from scratch (Lexington Herald-Leader)
Among the modest breakthroughs in the unobvious pop career of Andrew Bird was a journey to New Orleans to record with the famed Preservation Hall Jazz Band for its 2010 benefit album, "Preservation." … "I went back there thinking they were going to be these grumpy old jazz guys," Bird, 39, recalled. "I was explaining to one of them I used to play this kind of music and he just smiles and goes, 'Oh, we know who you is."
Samuel Smith: "Changing science fiction, changing the world: Scholars & Rogues honors William Gibson"
I have been known to say that William Gibson is arguably the most important author of the past 30 years. That's a mouthful of an assertion, especially since we're talking about a genre writer, I know. But even if I'm wrong, I'm not off by much.
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
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Reader Comment
Lakes of Ounianga
Yo, Marty!
Absolutely loved the Lakes of Ounianga, Sahara Desert | Amusing Planet link. Among my other self-claimed attributes I consider my myself to be an amateur geographer...
The Compass Rose is part of who I am. I like to know where things are... and something about them.. and I did not know about these singularly magnificent lakes. How wonderful it is for me to learn about something significantly new that I can add to that mental database. I now will have to expand that file with more study of the subject lakes. Goody...
Behold! The E! page has changed my life! ~ Kudos
BttbBob
Thanks, B2tbBob!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Hot. Dead-of-summer hot.
For the past 3 years, butterfly season was pretty much all done by the middle of August. But this year, it's still going on.
There are more Gulf Fritillary caterpillars on the back fence today than at the season's height in July.
And it's the whole life cycle - fresh eggs, tiny larva, caterpillars in every length, and several in chrysalis.
Back In The Campaign Game
Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton is back in the game big time, serving as President Barack Obama's surrogate in chief and relying on his oratorical skill and folksy style to help Democratic candidates.
His high-profile role also gives him the chance to enhance his legacy as Democratic elder statesman and global humanitarian. He can build up political IOUs should his wife, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, decide to run again for president down the road.
Out of office since 2001, Clinton is proving that he retains a strong appeal with voters, especially in conservative states where Democratic candidates aren't eager to appear with Obama. The ex-president is a leading expert in the art of the political comeback - a skill the struggling Obama could use now.
Among voters generally, Bill Clinton is more appealing than Obama. A CBS News/New York Times poll in September found 66 percent of registered voters with a favorable view of Clinton, compared with 45 percent for Obama.
Bill Clinton
'Meet the Press'
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert--both the faux conservative talk show host and the man himself--sat down for an interview with NBC's David Gregory that aired on Sunday's "Meet The Press."
Colbert, the character, was asked who he thinks has the edge in the 2012 presidential race. "Romney, obviously," he said. "Did you see him the other night? That guy is on fire. He is on a rocket ride to plausible at this point."
Colbert, the comedian, said he's just thankful that Romney's strong performance in the first presidential debate has tightened the race.
"As a performer," Colbert said, "if he's not someone I can follow, then I'm lost. And I have to say, up until Wednesday night, I just thought, 'I don't know what I'm going to do for the next month.' ... Now he's got these long luscious coat tails, and everybody's jumping on board."
Colbert, the performer, did not give an edge to either candidate. "I also don't know how Mitt Romney would govern," Colbert said. "He might govern as a technocrat. You know, that sort of seems to have been his career, like, the guy from Pepsi who comes in to run G.M. You know, he can't tell us what he's going to do, 'cause he hasn't seen the books yet. But we don't know, because he seems absolutely sincere as a moderate. And he also seems pretty sincere as a severe conservative. That's not a dig. It's honest confusion."
Stephen Colbert
Finally Reaches LA Museum
Endeavour
It was supposed to be a slow but smooth journey to retirement, a parade through city streets for a shuttle that logged millions of miles in space.
But Endeavour's final mission turned out to be a logistical headache that delayed its arrival to its museum resting place by about 17 hours.
After a 12-mile weave past trees and utility poles that included thousands of adoring onlookers, flashing cameras and even the filming of a TV commercial, Endeavour arrived at the California Science Center Sunday to a greeting party of city leaders and other dignitaries that had expected it many hours earlier.
Movers had planned a slow trip, saying the shuttle that once orbited at more than 17,000 mph would move at just 2 mph in its final voyage through Inglewood and southern Los Angeles.
Endeavour
Before Facebook
Edouard Manet
Long before smartphones turned so many of us into amateur photographers and revolutionized how we depict each other through social media, there were the works of French Impressionist Edouard Manet.
Known for portraits of friends and celebrities of his era, the painter often called "the first modern artist" came of age during the mid-1800s when photography first became available to the public. He even kept his own collection of photos of the subjects he painted.
Manet's portraits and how they were influenced by photography are the focus of "Manet: Portraying Life" at the Toledo Museum of Art, the only U.S. museum to host the exhibition before it moves to The Royal Academy of Arts in London next winter.
The show that opened this month and runs through the end of the year features 40 paintings from public and private collections, including some of his best-known works. Instead of assembling a retrospective of Manet's works, the two museums chose portraits that would open the discussion of what impact photography had on Manet's paintings.
Edouard Manet
Court Orders Scripts Moved To Israel Library
Franz Kafka
After a long, tangled journey that Franz Kafka could have written about himself, an unseen treasure of writings by the surrealist author will be put on display and later online, an Israeli court ruled in documents released Sunday.
Ownership of the papers had been in dispute after the Israeli National Library claimed them, over the wishes of two sisters who had inherited the vast collection of rare documents from their mother and insisted on keeping them.
Friday's ruling by the Tel Aviv District Family Court ordered the collection to be transferred to the library in Jerusalem, which had argued that Max Brod, Kafka's close friend, had bequeathed the manuscripts to the library in his will.
The two sisters, Eva Hoffe and Ruth Wiesler, had inherited the documents from their mother, Brod's secretary, and had been storing them in a Tel Aviv apartment and bank vaults.
Kafka gave his writings to Brod shortly before his own death from tuberculosis in 1924, instructing his friend to burn everything unread. But Brod instead published most of the material, including the novels "The Trial," ''The Castle" and "Amerika."
Franz Kafka
Russian Penal Colony
Pussy Riot
It's a far cry from Stalin's gulag, but the guiding principle of the Russian penal colony -- the destination of two members of punk band Pussy Riot -- remains the same: isolate inmates and wear them down through "corrective labour."
Maria Alekhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova will have to quickly learn the inner laws of prison life, survive the dire food and medical care, and risk bullying from inmates either offended by their "punk prayer" against President Vladimir Putin or under orders to pressure them.
Alekhina, 24, Tolokonnikova, 22, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30, were convicted of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred for an impromptu performance in Moscow's main cathedral as Putin headed into an election that handed him a third term as Russia's president. The women insisted their protest was political. But many believers said they were deeply offended by the sight of the band members dancing on the altar in balaclavas.
In colonies for women, inmates live in barracks with 30 to 40 to a room. They begin the day by shuffling outside for compulsory exercises at daybreak, in temperatures as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius in winter. After roll call and a breakfast of gruel, they spend seven to eight hours a day at work, usually hunched over sewing machines working on uniforms and other clothing.
Pussy Riot
Warns Employees
Koch Industries
Koch Industries, the Wichita, Kan.-based company run by the billionaire Koch brothers, sent a voter information packet to 45,000 employees of its Georgia Pacific subsidiary earlier this month.
In it was a letter, dated Oct. 1, from Koch Industries president Dave Robertson implicitly warning that "many of our more than 50,000 U.S. employees and contractors may suffer the consequences" of voting for President Obama and other Democrats in the 2012 elections, a list of conservative candidates the company's political action committee endorses and a pair of editorials: one, by David Koch, supporting Mitt Romney, and the other, by Charles Koch, condemning Obama.
"While we are typically told before each Presidential election that it is important and historic, I believe the upcoming election will determine what kind of America future generations will inherit," Robertson's letter--first published by InTheseTimes.com--begins. "If we elect candidates who want to spend hundreds of billions in borrowed money on costly new subsidies for a few favored cronies, put unprecedented regulatory burdens on businesses, prevent or delay important new construction projects, and excessively hinder free trade, then many of our more than 50,000 U.S. employees and contractors may suffer the consequences, including higher gasoline prices, runaway inflation, and other ills. This is true regardless of what your political affiliation might be."
It's not the first time Koch Industries has sent employees political packets. Just before the 2010 midterm elections, Koch sent staffers an urgent mailer that the Nation said was "full of alarmist right-wing propaganda."
Koch Industries
Law Students Decapitated Exotic Bird
Flamingo Hotel
Two University of California-Berkeley students are accused of decapitating an exotic 14-year-old bird at the Flamingo Hotel and Casino's wildlife habitat in Las Vegas.
Eric Cuellar and Justin Teixeira, both 24, were captured on surveillance video Friday morning chasing the helmeted guinea fowl into some trees and then emerging carrying its severed body, according to a statement from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
The two men, who said they are law students at the school, then laughed about the killing and threw the body of the bird, witnesses told police.
They were booked into the Clark County Detention Center and face felony charges of conspiracy and the willful and malicious torture or killing of wildlife.
Flamingo Hotel
Weekend Box Office
'Taken 2'
Liam Neeson's "Taken 2" has defended its box-office title with a narrow win over Ben Affleck's "Argo."
Sunday studio estimates put 20th Century Fox's action sequel "Taken 2" at No. 1 with $22.5 million in its second weekend. "Taken 2" raised its domestic total to $86.8 million.
Affleck's "Argo," an Iranian hostage thriller from Warner Bros., opened in second-place with $20.1 million.
Sony's "Here Comes the Boom," with Kevin James as a teacher who becomes a mixed martial arts sensation, started weakly at No. 5 with $12 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. "Taken 2," $22.5 million ($41 million international).
2. "Argo," $20.1 million.
3. "Sinister," $18.3 million ($4 million international).
4. "Hotel Transylvania," $17.3 million ($13.7 million international).
5. "Here Comes the Boom," $12 million.
6. "Pitch Perfect," $9.3 million.
7. "Frankenweenie," $7 million ($4.9 million international).
8. "Looper," $6.3 million ($7.5 million international).
9. "Seven Psychopaths," $4.3 million.
10. "The Perks of Being a Wallflower," $2.2 million.
'Taken 2'
In Memory
Arlen Specter
For most of his 30 years as Pennsylvania's longest-serving U.S. senator and prominent moderate in Congress, Arlen Specter was a Republican, though often at odds with the GOP leadership.
He helped end the Supreme Court hopes of former federal appeals Judge Robert H. Bork, who was nominated by President Ronald Reagan. Decades later, he was one of only three Republicans in Congress to vote for President Barack Obama's economic stimulus.
His breaks with his party were hardly a surprise: He had begun his political career as a Democrat and ended it as one, too.
In between, he was at the heart of several major American political events. He rose to prominence in the 1960s as an assistant counsel to the Warren Commission, developing the single-bullet theory in President John F. Kennedy's assassination. He came to the Senate in the Reagan landslide of 1980 and was a key voice in the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of both Bork and Clarence Thomas.
Specter died Sunday died at his home in Philadelphia from complications of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, said his son Shanin. He was 82. Over the years, Specter had fought two previous bouts with Hodgkin lymphoma, overcome a brain tumor and survived cardiac arrest following bypass surgery.
Born in Wichita, Kan., on Feb. 12, 1930, Specter spent summers toiling in his father's junkyard in Russell, Kan., where he knew another future senator - Bob Dole. The junkyard thrived during World War II, allowing Specter's father to send his four children to college.
Specter left Kansas for college in 1947 because the University of Kansas, where his best friends were headed, did not have Jewish fraternities. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1951 and Yale law school in 1956. He served in the Air Force from 1951 to 1953.
After leaving the Senate in January 2011, the University of Pennsylvania Law School said Specter would teach a course about Congress' relationship with the Supreme Court, and Maryland Public Television launched a political-affairs show hosted by the former senator.
He also occasionally performed standup comedy at clubs in Philadelphia and New York. He played squash nearly every day into his mid-70s and liked to unwind with a martini or two at night.
A funeral was scheduled for Tuesday in Penn Valley, Pa., and will be open to the public, followed by burial in Huntingdon Valley, Pa.
Specter is survived by his wife, Joan, and two sons, Shanin and Steve, and four granddaughters.
Arlen Specter
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