Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: The Fix Isn't In (NY Times)
How big a deal is the surprise primary defeat of Representative Eric Cantor, the House majority leader? Very. Movement conservatism, which dominated American politics from the election of Ronald Reagan to the election of Barack Obama - and which many pundits thought could make a comeback this year - is unraveling before our eyes.
Paul Krugman: Wrongness, OK and Not (NY Times)
So you will be wrong sometimes, and need to do your best to figure out why. What you should never ever do, of course, is make excuses, or pretend that you didn't say what you said. Unfortunately, many if not most prognosticators do all the time what nobody should do ever.
Barry Ritholtz: Embrace Your Mistakes (Bloomberg View)
I doubt we can ever fix policy if the surrounding discussions are exercises in faulty forecasts and fabricated data. It is good for the body politic and for those who participate in these debates to be kept honest. What passes for analysis too often is mere partisanship, fear mongering wrapped in lousy forecasts. .…, it makes the process of debating policy issues that much better off.
Tom Reimann: 3 Minor Social Situations We Make Awkward for No Reason (Cracked)
Learning that I could order a pizza online was the most significant discovery of my life since the day I realized my copy of Robocop had been edited for television.
Gladstone: 4 Bad Filmmakers Who Accidentally Made Smart Movies (Cracked)
… sometimes, quality movies spring up from directors you would never expect. Maybe it's because their earlier work sucked so hard. Or even if it didn't suck, maybe their other films just led you to believe that they were only good for certain over-the-top, popcorn, mass-entertainment movies. Whatever the reason, here are four directors who made movies that were more deeply felt and observed than anyone ever expected.
Marina Hyde: Justin Bieber gets baptised in a bathtub (Guardian)
The Murdochs did it in the Jordan, Celine Dion did it at Las Vegas, but now the celebrity baptism has moved to the bathroom.
Xan Brooks: Helena Bonham Carter on 'witty' David Cameron, 'weirdo' Lars von Trier and why Tim Burton won't watch a romcom (Guardian)
The actor talks about her friendship with the prime minister, why she turned down the Danish director and her false teeth hoard.
Bill DeMain: Charlie Chaplin's City Lights
Chaplin's biggest hurdle was finding a girl "who could look blind without detracting from her beauty." He rejected nearly 20 actresses before discovering Virginia Cherrill sitting ringside at a boxing match. As he studied the 20-year-old society girl, Chaplin thought she was blind. It turned out she was just extremely nearsighted and had refused to wear glasses out of vanity. Chaplin didn't mind that she had no experience as an actress.
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"Doug's Most Shared Facebook Post" Today
wrote:
has retired.
took the day off.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Best wishes for a speedy recovery!
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
Marine layer left early, again.
Hosting Daytime Emmys
Kathy Griffin
Kathy Griffin is taking her comedy online as host of the Daytime Emmy awards as the event heads to a new home on the Internet.
The 41st annual awards will be presented June 22 from the Beverly Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills.
Griffin joked that her only regret is that the epic evening will distract millions of viewers from enjoying this year's World Cup.
The awards were televised on the HLN cable network the past two years. But when the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and various cable outlets couldn't strike a deal, the academy decided to move the show online.
Kathy Griffin
WWE Exec and Hall of Famer Comes Out
Pat Patterson
Pat Patterson, a WWE exec and WWE Hall of Fame wrestler, came out publicly as a gay man for the first time in the season finale of WWE reality series "Legends' House."
The emotional admission arrived during dinner while reflecting on his career in the wrestling business alongside seven other "Legends," including Roddy Piper, Jimmy Hart, Hacksaw Jim Duggan and Hillbilly Jim.
"Sitting here tonight, I'm going to say something that I would never want to say publicly," Patterson said. "But being here with you guys, for once in my life, I'm going to be me now. I survived all this being gay."
Patterson, the WWE's first Intercontinental Champion, said he had been keeping that part of his life secret for "50-some years."
"I had a friend with me for 40 years, and I lost him, because he had a heart attack, and I end up alone," Patterson said. "It's tough, guys. It's tough."
Pat Patterson
Court Denies Wife's Request
Casey Kasem
Casey Kasem's wife filed legal documents with the California Court of Appeals to try and reverse a judge's order that allowed Casey's daughter, Kerri, to remove her father from life support. This included food and water. Judge Daniel S. Murphy quickly denied her request, TheWrap has learned.
In his statement, Judge Murphy affirmed that the current direction of Casey Kasem's care is in line with his 2007 power of attorney, which stated, "If the extension of my life would result in a mere biological existence, devoid of cognitive function, with no reasonable hope for normal functioning, then I do not desire any form of life-sustaining procedures, including nutrition and hydration unless necessary for alleviation of pain, or, if life-sustaining treatment has been instituted, I desire that it be withdrawn."
Jean alleged in her court filing that she was certain her husband was not at death's door. Casey suffers from Lewy body disease, a form of dementia which has left him unable to talk, move, or nourish himself.
Judge Murphy's denial also cited the fact that Kerri Kasem had been granted conservator status over her father's health care, allowing her to make all health care decisions for him. The document further details the recommendations Kerri Kasem has been getting from Casey's doctors at St. Anthony Hospital in Tacoma, Washington.
The court therefore decreed that Kerri Kasem was acting in accordance to her father's wishes regarding end-of-life care, and concluded that there was no legal ground to stay the June 11 order discontinuing nutrition and hydration.
Casey Kasem
New Emir of Kano
Lamido Sanusi
An outspoken former central bank governor who advocates education and economic opportunities for Nigeria's majority poor has become a key religious and traditional leader of the country's Muslims, a counterpoint to Islamic extremists who aim to destroy the Western system of education and who have slaughtered and kidnapped students.
Lamido Sanusi was appointed on Sunday as the new emir of Kano, replacing Emir Ado Bayero who died at age 83 and who had survived an assassination attempt by the Islamic militants in January 2013. On Tuesday, the white-robed Sanusi received royal swords and traditional insignia in a palace to mark his ascendancy, according to a local media report.
Boko Haram, the Islamic insurgent group, sees northern traditional religious leaders as false Muslims who don't fully implement Islamic law. For their part, the traditional monarchs have declared Boko Haram's violent activities as being non-Islamic.
As a central bank governor, Sanusi spoke out against corruption and for gender equality, girls' education and women's access to finance. He criticized Nigeria's high illiteracy rate and lack of opportunity, particularly in the Muslim north which is much less developed than the south, where the commercial center of Lagos lays.
Lamido Sanusi
Rent-A-Grifter
Verizon Lobbyists
Verizon lobbyists are apparently on the prowl on Capitol Hill with new anti-net neutrality arguments, Mother Jones has learned, telling congressional staffers that Verizon needs to offer fast lane-like Internet access in order to meet the needs of blind, deaf and disabled customers whose lives may depend on fast access to Internet-connected medical services.
Mark Perriello, president and CEO of the American Association of People with Disabilities told the publication that this was the first time he heard "these specific talking points." Meanwhile, Free Press policy director Matt Wood went as far as to accuse Verizon's lobbying efforts of being "disingenuous."
Verizon apparently didn't confirm that its lobbyists are using this particular pitch, but a spokesperson said that the company's position on the FCC recent net neutrality proposal is "not disingenuous," as the company has not taken a public stance on it.
The publication says Verizon has used the same pitch in 2009, when the FCC was drafting new regulations for ISPs. Former Verizon CEO then said that people with health conditions would not benefit from life-saving technological advances if Verizon wasn't allowed to prioritize certain medical data.
Mother Jones has further revealed that ISPs have paid lobbyists $19 million in the first quarter of the year, or 68% of the money spent on net neutrality-related lobbying.
Verizon Lobbyists
A Mystery
FCC
The Federal Communications Commission is setting out to unravel the mystery behind the Internet traffic jams bogging down the delivery of Netflix videos and other online content.
The inquiry announced Friday by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler (D-Comcast) will dissect the routes that video and other data travel to reach Internet service providers such as Comcast and Verizon.
This crucial handoff of content has gained more attention in recent months as Netflix Inc. and other critics have accused the two Internet service providers of deliberately slowing incoming traffic from websites unwilling to pay for a less congested entry point.
Comcast and Verizon contend Netflix should bear some of the cost for handling the heavy traffic caused by its 36 million U.S subscribers watching video over high-speed Internet connections. At peak viewing hours, Netflix accounts for about one-third of the Internet traffic in the U.S., according to the research firm Sandvine.
The picture quality of Netflix video, though, has been increasingly erratic during the past year at several major Internet service providers, including Comcast and Verizon, which have a combined 30 million subscribers in the U.S. While Netflix has been streaming more smoothly at Comcast since those two companies forged their partnership in February, some problems have still been occurring on Verizon's network.
FCC
Poachers Massacre In Congo Park
Elephants
One of Africa's oldest national parks is under attack "from all fronts," said its director Friday after 68 elephants were slaughtered over the past two months by poachers wielding chain saws and grenades and shooting them from helicopters.
Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo is under constant assault by renegade Congolese soldiers, gunmen from South Sudan and others. And this is just a slice of the carnage: international wildlife regulators say 20,000 elephants were killed just in Africa in 2013.
The Johannesburg-based African Parks group, which manages the park, said that since mid-May, the 5,000 square kilometer (1,900 square mile) Garamba National Park in Congo, which was established in 1938, has faced an onslaught from several bands of poachers who have already killed 4 percent of its elephant population.
One group is shooting the elephants with rifles from a helicopter and then taking off their tusks with a chain saw. They are removing the elephants' brains and genitals as well.
Elephants
Kills 30 Whales
Japan
Japan has caught 30 whales off its northern coast in its first hunt since an international court ordered the halt of its annual expedition in the Antarctic, officials said Friday.
The Fisheries Agency said a coastal whaling fleet killed 30 minke whales during the April-June season as part of Japan's northwestern Pacific research hunt. Another group of whalers is still at work in a more distant area of the Pacific.
The northwestern Pacific hunt is one of two research whaling programs that Japan has conducted since a 1986 international ban on commercial whaling.
During the 2013-14 season, Japan caught 251 minke whales in the Antarctic, or just a quarter of its target, and 224 others in the northern Pacific program. Japan has slashed the Pacific catch target by nearly half - to about 210 - for this year.
Japan
Ancient Mayan Altars Discovered
Guatemala
A team of archaeologists in Guatemala has discovered a council house dating back about 700 years with altars, incense burners and sculpted images of animals.
Located at the site of Nixtun-Ch'ich' in Petén, Guatemala, the house has "two colonnaded halls constructed side by side. The halls were decorated with sculpted [reptile], parrot and turtle imagery," writes Timothy Pugh, a professor at Queens College in New York, in a summary of a talk he recently gave at the Society for American Archaeology annual meeting in Austin, Texas.
A Mayan group called the Chakan Itza would have used this council house as aplace to hold meetings, worship gods, make alliances and officiate marriage ceremonies.
"Basically almost every political and religious ritual would have been held there," Pugh told Live Science in an interview. The leaders who gathered there would have held power in the community and perhaps the broader region. Among the artifacts is an incense burner showing the head of Itzamna, who was the "shaman of the gods," Pugh said.
The reptile and parrot sculptures once adorned the walls of the hallways, while two altars each had a sculpted turtle on them, Pugh said. Among the incense burners are examples that appear to be shaped like a seedling ceiba tree, which held importance to the Maya and today is the national tree of Guatemala.
Guatemala
Handing Over Technology
Tesla
Electric car maker Tesla Motors is handing over the keys to its technology in an unusual effort to encourage other automakers to expand beyond gasoline-burning vehicles.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk promised Thursday to give away the company's entire patent portfolio to all comers, as long as they promised not to engage courtroom battles over intellectual property
"If we clear a path to the creation of compelling electric vehicles, but then lay intellectual property landmines behind us to inhibit others, we are acting in a manner contrary to that goal," Musk wrote in a blog on the company's Web site.
The decision opens the door to more collaboration with Tesla, which is already making electric systems for Daimler and Toyota. Other automakers using Tesla's technology could potentially share the cost of Tesla's charging stations, for example. And more charging stations could entice skeptical buyers to try electric cars.
Tesla
Rare Items Hit Block
Auction
What do microchips, Sherlock Holmes and J.D. Salinger have in common? They - or, at least, artifacts pertaining to them - are up for sale at an upcoming auction in New York.
Headlining the June 19 sale by Christie's auction house is a prototype microchip created for Jack Kilby, the Nobel Prize-winning electrical engineer credited with co-inventing the world-changing miniature circuit. The prototype was built by Tom Yeargan, a member of the team that implemented Kilby's microchip design for Texas Instruments in 1958.
Of course, microchips aren't everyone's cup of tea. For book lovers, there are several items worth perusing at this diverse auction, aptly named "Fine Printed Books and Manuscripts Including Americana." For instance, a rare 15th-century Bible is up for sale. The color-illuminated manuscript, which is written in Hebrew and includes the majority of the books of the Bible, is expected to go for as much as $700,000. It was transcribed in 1546 by the son of Rabbi Moshe Arragel, who is best known for his role in the production of the Alba Bible, one of the earliest known translations of the Old Testament into a romance language (Medieval Castilian).
Other exciting finds at this month's auction include an original Sherlock Holmes manuscript, "The Adventure of Black Peter." The manuscript, which is expected to sell for between $250,000 and $350,000 at auction, includes an autographed letter from the author, Arthur Conan Doyle, who apparently gave the book to Peter F. Collier - founder and publisher of Collier's Weekly magazine - as a Christmas gift in 1908.
And fans of J.D. Salinger, the notoriously reclusive author of "The Catcher in the Rye" (Little, Brown and Co., July 1951), might be interested to know the upcoming auction will also feature a collection of 41 typed and handwritten letters from Salinger to a 15-year-old female fan.
Auction
In Memory
Jimmy Scott
Jimmy Scott, a jazzman with a man-child voice who found success late in life with the Grammy-nominated "All the Way," has died. He was 88.
Scott's wife, Jeanie Scott, says her husband died in his sleep at his Las Vegas home on Thursday. He battled health problems stemming from a genetic hormone deficiency and had been under the care of a home nurse.
His 1992 album "All the Way" sold only 49,000 copies in the United States but earned him cult-like popularity in Europe and Asia, particularly Japan, where he often sold out performances.
Eventually he performed with the likes of Elton John and Sting.
Jeanie Scott says her husband stopped touring two years ago but continued recording. He's expected to be buried in Cleveland.
Jimmy Scott
Jimmy Scott - 'Time after time' - YouTube
Little Jimmy Scott--Everybody Needs Somebody - YouTube
Little Jimmy Scott--Imagination - YouTube
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