Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Thom Hartmann and Sam Sacks: Netflix Blacks Out the Revolution (TruthOut)
You might want to think twice about streaming that "subversive" documentary about the Weather Underground on Netflix. If Republicans have their way, you just might end up on a watch list somewhere.
Lucy Mangan: the year of living fruitlessly (Guardian)
So, another year bites the dust, and what have I achieved exactly?
Work, Learning and Freedom (New Left Project)
Renowned linguist and political commentator Noam Chomsky shares his take on his career and his drive to educate the public on world affairs.
John Lanchester: 'All you want from a novel is for it to be as well written as really good telly' (Guardian)
The bestselling author talks to Tim Lewis about his different approaches to writing fiction and non-fiction and how television is reviving the Victorian art of storytelling.
Rosanna Greenstreet: "Q&A: EL James" (Guardian)
'How would I like to be remembered? As someone who could tell a rollicking good love story.'
Henry Rollins: Led Zeppelin, All Powerful (LA Weekly)
Two nights ago, I was sitting in front of my speakers listening to a very clean pressing of Led Zeppelin's altogether perfect "Led Zeppelin II," which I have been listening to since I was in ninth grade and which is still working for me.
Scott Burns: Fearless Forecasts for 2012 (AssetBuilder)
Spending money gets easier by the minute. Today, thanks to automatic bill pay and other innovations, our entire income (or more) can be spent before we know it. And we don't have to lift a finger. Who would have thought that technology could take us this far?
Best News Bloopers 2012 (YouTube)
US News.
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Michelle in AZ
Bosko Suggests
Winter Pools
Have a great 2013,
Bosko.
Thanks, Bosko!
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Some rain, some sun, still cold.
The Strangest Non-Stories of 2012
Total Hooey
A lot of things happened in 2012, including scientific breakthroughs, a presidential re-election, and a tragic school shooting. But a lot of things didn't happen this past year.
We realize it's a little strange to discuss things that never occurred - after all, countless things didn't happen in 2012, from an asteroid hitting Earth, to Justin Bieber marrying a supermodel, to Abraham Lincoln climbing out of his grave to praise Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" as being more historically accurate than "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter."
But there were a handful of stories that made the news, often with a splash, promising big news, and turned out to be non-stories, non-events. Here are a few.
For the list - Total Hooey
Flaming-Orange Shellfish Reef
Scotland
A huge, colorful shellfish reef discovered off Scotland's west coast could be the largest of its kind in the world, according to the Scottish government.
Packing at least 100 million bright-orange shells into 4.5 square miles (7.5 square kilometers), the living reef consists of flame shells, a rare saltwater clam
The flame shell reef is located in Loch Alsh, a sea inlet between the Isle of Skye and the Scottish mainland. The overall population of flame shells in the inlet is likely to exceed 100 million and is the largest known flame shell reef anywhere in the United Kingdom, the Scottish government said in a statement.
Flame shells (Limaria hians) build 'nests' by binding gravel and shells together with thin, wiry threads. The shellfish are around 1.5 inches (4 centimeters) in length and group together in such numbers that they cover the seabed with a felt-like organic reef of nest material several inches thick. Flame shell beds are found in only eight sites in Scottish waters
Scotland
Storms Stir Memories
"Dust Bowl"
Real estate agent Mark Faulkner recalls a day in early November when he was putting up a sign near Ulysses, Kansas, in 60-miles-per-hour winds that blew up blinding dust clouds.
"There were places you could not see, it was blowing so hard," Faulkner said.
Residents of the Great Plains over the last year or so have experienced storms reminiscent of the 1930s Dust Bowl. Experts say the new storms have been brought on by a combination of historic drought, a dwindling Ogallala Aquifer underground water supply, climate change and government farm programs.
Nearly 62 percent of the United States was gripped by drought, as of December 25, and "exceptional" drought enveloped parts of Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
There is no relief in sight for the Great Plains at least through the winter, according to Drought Monitor forecasts, which could portend more dust clouds.
"Dust Bowl"
Fight Over Parks
Santa Monica
Physical fitness is a way of life on the beautiful beachfront oasis of Santa Monica. From sunrise to sunset, there's huffing and puffing in the city's parks as trainers put their students through the paces of every form of exercise imaginable.
All along the 420 acres of greenery paralleling the Pacific Ocean are groups of a dozen or more people furiously pumping iron, doing sit-ups, stepping on and off little benches and stretching on mats. Some flex their muscles with weight machines tied by big rubber bands to pretty much anything that's anchored to the ground.
In recent years, fitness classes have become as ubiquitous in Santa Monica's signature Palisades Park as dog walkers and senior citizens playing shuffleboard.
Karen Ginsberg, the city's director of community and cultural services, said other park users are complaining about fitness enthusiasts not only blocking pedestrian walkways but also making too much noise, killing the park's grass with their weights and damaging its trees and benches with all the exercise gadgets they connect to them.
So now the City Council is considering requiring that fitness trainers who conduct workouts in Santa Monica's parks and on its beaches pay an annual $100 fee and turn over 15 percent of their gross revenues to the city.
Santa Monica
Arrested Again
Katt Williams
Katt Williams, the comedian who has repeatedly found himself on the wrong side of the law, is out on bail after being arrested in Los Angeles on suspicion of child endangerment and possession of a stolen gun.
Police Officer Norma Eisenman says Williams was taken into custody Friday after the LA County Department of Children and Family Services did a welfare check at his home. Authorities found more than one firearm, one of which had been reported stolen.
Eisenman says the DCFS did not specify how many children lived at the home or whether they were removed.
The 41-year-old was arrested this month on a felony warrant related to a police chase. In November, he was accused of hitting a man on the head with a bottle during a fight.
Katt Williams
Employer Wins Exemption
Contraceptives
A divided federal appeals court has temporarily barred the U.S. government from requiring an Illinois company to obtain insurance coverage for contraceptives, as required under the 2010 healthcare overhaul, after the owners objected on religious grounds.
More than 40 lawsuits are challenging a requirement in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that requires most for-profit companies to offer workers insurance coverage for contraceptive drugs and devices and other birth control methods.
Friday's 2-1 order by a panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago in favor of Cyril and Jane Korte was the first by a federal appeals court to temporarily halt enforcement against people who said it violated their faith, said Edward White, a lawyer for the Roman Catholic couple.
It came two days after U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor declined to block the provision's enforcement against companies controlled by the family of Oklahoma City billionaire David Green.
The Kortes, who own the construction firm Korte & Luitjohan Contractors, had sought to drop a health insurance plan for 20 non-unionized workers that included coverage for contraception, and substitute a different plan consistent with their faith.
Contraceptives
Dealer Pleads Guilty
Smuggling
A fossil dealer's guilty plea has set the stage for what is most likely the largest dinosaur fossil repatriation in history, according to an attorney representing the President of Mongolia, the country that will receive most of the fossils that federal officials are seizing from fossil dealer and preparer Eric Prokopi.
On Thursday (Dec. 27) Prokopi pleaded guilty to criminal charges related to smuggling fossils and agreed to forfeit a small menagerie of dinosaurs to federal officials. All but one of the dinosaurs in question came from Mongolia, where law makes fossils state property, and among them is a high-profile skeleton that received a $1.05 million bid at auction.
"We have looked into this, and we can't find any instance anywhere when one country has returned to another a lot of dinosaurs this large and this significant that have been looted or smuggled," said Robert Painter, attorney for Mongolian President Elbegdorj Tsakhia.
In May, Prokopi put his 8-foot-tall and 24-foot-long (2.4 meters by 7.3 meters) Tarbosaurus bataar specimen up for auction. President Elbegdorj and several paleontologists objected, saying the dinosaur was almost certainly pilfered from Mongolia. The Manhattan U.S. Attorney became involved and sought legal possession of the dinosaur with the intent of returning it to Mongolia and later arresting Prokopi.
Smuggling
Shocked By $5M Ruling
Sheena Monnin
A Pennsylvania beauty queen who resigned after alleging that the Miss USA pageant had been fixed says she is stunned by an arbitrator's ruling that she must pay the pageant organization $5 million for defamation.
Former Miss Pennsylvania USA Sheena Monnin tells the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that the "most logical course" would be to contest the ruling, but she's considering her options.
Arbitrator Theodore Katz says Monnin's allegations that finalists had been selected in advance were false, harmful and malicious and cost the pageant a $5 million fee from a potential 2013 sponsor.
Monnin points to a Miss USA contract clause giving top pageant officials the power to pick the top five finalists and the winner, but a company official calls that a catch-all that's never been used.
Sheena Monnin
Weekend Box Office
"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey"
"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" continues to rule them all at the box office, staying on top for a third-straight week and capping a record-setting $10.8 billion year in moviegoing.
Two big holiday movies - and potential Academy Awards contenders - also had strong openings. Quentin Tarantino's spaghetti Western-blaxploitation mash-up "Django Unchained" came in second place for the weekend with $30.7 million. The Weinstein Co. revenge comedy, starring Jamie Foxx as a slave in the Civil War South and Christoph Waltz as the bounty hunter who frees him and then makes him his partner, has earned $64 million since its Christmas Day opening.
And in third place with $28 million was the sweeping, all-singing "Les Miserables," based on the international musical sensation and the Victor Hugo novel of strife and uprising in 19th century France. The Universal Pictures film, with a cast of A-list actors singing live on camera led by Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway and Russell Crowe has made $67.5 million domestically and $116.2 worldwide since debuting on Christmas.
The week's other new wide release, the Billy Crystal-Bette Midler comedy "Parental Guidance" from 20th Century Fox, made $14.8 million over the weekend for fourth place and $29.6 million total since opening on Christmas.
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 Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey," $32.9 million ($106.5 million international).
2."Django Unchained," $30.7 million.
3."Les Miserables," $28 million ($38.3 million international).
4."Parental Guidance," $14.8 million ($7 million international).
5."Jack Reacher," $14 million ($18.1 million).
6."This Is 40," $13.2 million.
7."Lincoln," $7.5 million.
8."The Guilt Trip," $6.7 million.
9."Monsters, Inc. 3-D," $6.4 million.
10."Rise of the Guardians," $4.9 million ($11.6 million).
"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey"
In Memory
Rita Levi Montalcini
Rita Levi Montalcini, joint winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine and an Italian Senator for Life, died on Sunday at the age of 103, her family said.
The first Nobel laureate to reach 100 years of age, she won the prize in 1986 with American Stanley Cohen for their discovery of nerve growth factor (NGF), a protein that makes developing cells grow by stimulating surrounding nerve tissue.
Her research helped in the treatment of spinal cord injuries and has increased understanding of cardiovascular diseases, Alzheimer's and conditions such as dementia and autism.
One of twins born to a Jewish family in Turin in 1909, Montalcini was the oldest living recipient of the prize.
During World War Two, the Allies' bombing of Turin forced her to flee to the countryside where she established a mini-laboratory. She fled to Florence after the German invasion of Italy and lived in hiding there for a while, later working as a doctor in a refugee camp.
After the war she moved to St. Louis in the United States to work at Washington University, where she went on to make her groundbreaking NGF discoveries.
She also set up a research unit in Rome and in 1975 became the first woman to be made a full member of the Vatican's Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 1975. She won several other awards for her contributions to medical and scientific research.
Her face was instantly recognizable in Italy and she was well known as a dignified and respected intellectual, a counterbalance to the image of women succeeding through their looks and sexuality, exacerbated during the scandal-plagued era of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Two days after her birthday in April this year she posted a note on Facebook saying it was important never to give up on life or fall into mediocrity and passive resignation.
"I've lost a bit of sight, and a lot of hearing. At conferences I don't see the projections and I don't feel good. But I think more now than I did when I was 20. The body does what it wants. I am not the body, I am the mind," she said.
Rita Levi Montalcini
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