Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Build We Won't (NY Times)
Why America gave up on the future and caved on investing in building and maintaining our highways.
Paul K Pickett, Lesia Pickett: 6 Creepy Brainwashing Techniques You Can Use Today (Cracked)
The world is full of shady self-help gurus and workplace seminars telling us how we can turn our lives around just by using the right words ("Don't say the cheese is 'spoiled' -- say it's 'aged'!"), as if language is a form of magic that can alter reality.
John Cheese: "The 5 Stupidest Habits You Develop Growing Up Poor (Part 2)" (Cracked)
Escaping poverty is like walking on a trail and plowing face first into a spider web. Once you cross its threshold, you're in the clear, but you spend the next hour pulling the very fabric of nightmares out of your hair. For the rest of the walk, you are on a DEFCON 2 level of alertness, scanning every inch of your surroundings to make sure you never end up with a face full of terror again.
Interviews by Paul Lester: "Cult music heroes: artists on their unsung idols" (Guardian)
Who inspires Faris Badwan, New Order and Jake Bugg? From a north London rapper to a Turkish protest singer, these are the musicians who influence the stars.
Alexis Petridis: "Judas Priest's Rob Halford: I've become the stately homo of heavy metal'" (Guardian)
He may still look the part - but the metal singer once vilified by the terrified parents of middle America says these days he's a huge fan of Michael Bublé.
Ben Walters: "Out of the past: gay cinema and nostalgia" (Guardian)
The future looks bright for LGBT cinema, so why the constant backward glances?
Catherine Shard: "Jay Baruchel: 'We're being reduced to a planet of serfs'" (Guardian)
The Canadian star is a funny guy … and a fervent patriot. We want to chat about new cartoon How to Train Your Dragon 2. He wants to talk about protectionism, socialised healthcare and the joys of paying tax.
10 Tiny Houses That Are Filled With Serious Comforts (Homes and Hues)
We've featured a few small homes before, but with the exception of The Truffle, most of these seem downright spacious compared to some of the truly tiny houses out there. While these matchbox homes might not be for everyone, the cozy spaces certainly prove that bigger isn't always better.
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
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David Bruce has approximately 50 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
"Doug's Most Shared Facebook Post" Today
wrote:
replied:
has retired.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
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
Hotter. More humid.
Are People?
Corporations
There may be more to that "we the people" notion than you thought.
These are boom times for the concept of "corporate personhood."
But it turns out the principle has been lurking in U.S. law for more than a century, and the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, gave it more oomph this week when it ruled that certain businesses are entitled to exercise religious rights, just as do people.
Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the court's majority, said protecting the religious rights of closely held corporations, which are often small, family-run businesses, "protects the religious liberty of the humans who own and control them."
Four years earlier, the corporations-as-people idea got another big boost when the court voted 5-4 to expand the free speech rights of businesses and labor unions by striking down limits on their political spending. That unleashed a massive flood of private money into political campaigns.
Corporations
U.S. Speeds Improving, But Still Far Behind
Broadband
Average global Internet service speeds grew an impressive 24% annually to 3.9Mbps in the first quarter of 2014, according to the recently released "State of the Internet Report" from Akamai. The United States showed solid improvements as well in terms of Web speeds, with the national average connection rate climbing 31% to 10.5Mbps. While that figure is impressive compared to the global average, and is also up a healthy 9% from the fourth quarter last year, it still lags global leaders by a big margin.
According to Akamai, average Internet service speeds in South Korea jumped a remarkable 145% annually in the first quarter to reach 23.6Mbps. That figure was more than good enough for the No. 1 spot globally, and was 9Mbps faster than Japan's 14.6Mbps national average in the No. 2 position.
Hong Kong, Switzerland and the Netherlands rounded out the top 5 with average Internet speeds of 13.3Mbps, 12.7Mbps and 12.4Mbps, respectively.
America's national average of 10.5Mbps placed it in the No. 12 position globally.
Broadband
Parents Visit Egypt Jail
Peter Greste
The parents of Australian Al-Jazeera journalist Peter Greste have visited their son in jail for the first time since his arrest by Egyptian authorities, calling it an "horrendous experience".
Juris Greste and wife Lois made an emotional visit to Cairo after the 48-year-old was sentenced in late June to seven years for aiding the blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood and "spreading false news".
"It was a horrendous experience," Juris Greste told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation of the 45-minute meeting on Wednesday.
Greste's colleague, Egyptian-Canadian Mohamed Fahmy, was sentenced to the same term while their producer Baher Mohamed was handed 10 years in a decision that sparked global outrage and fears about press freedoms.
Peter Greste
Denisovan Gene
Tibet
How do Tibetans thrive in high-altitude, low-oxygen conditions that would make others wither? Well, they may have received some help from an unexpected source.
Scientists said on Wednesday many Tibetans possess a rare variant of a gene involved in carrying oxygen in the blood that they likely inherited from an enigmatic group of extinct humans who interbred with our species tens of thousands of years ago.
It enables Tibetans to function well in low oxygen levels at elevations upwards of 15,000 feet (4,500 meters) like the vast high plateau of southwestern China. People without this variant would be apt to develop thick blood, leading to high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes, low-birth-weight babies and higher infant mortality.
This version of the EPAS1 gene is nearly identical to one found in Denisovans, a lineage related to Neanderthals - but is very different from other people today.
Denisovans are known from a single finger bone and two teeth found in a Siberian cave. DNA testing on the 41,000-year-old bone indicated Denisovans were distinct from our species and Neanderthals.
Tibet
Former Editor Jailed
Rupert
Andy Coulson, the former editor of Rupert Murdoch's News of the World and one-time spin doctor to British Prime Minister David Cameron, was jailed for 18 months on Friday for his role in the phone-hacking scandal that doomed the tabloid.
The sentence passed by a judge at the Old Bailey court in London caps a stunning fall from grace for 46-year-old Coulson, who once enjoyed access to the heights of the British establishment.
Four former colleagues at the now-defunct tabloid received shorter sentences for hacking the mobile phone voicemails of thousands of royals, celebrities and politicians in what prosecutors called a "criminal enterprise".
Rebekah Brooks, the former head of Murdoch's British newspaper arm and editor of the News of the World from 2000 to 2003, was cleared of all charges at the trial, along with her husband and three other people.
Rupert
Anthony Fired (Again)
'Opie and Anthony'
Radio host Anthony Cumia has been fired from his show, "Opie and Anthony" on Sirius XM; the latest entertainment personality to be punished for his behavior on social media. Cumia hosts the show along with Gregg "Opie" Hughes and comedian Jim Norton. This year, Opie and Anthony celebrated twenty years of broadcasting together.
The firing comes after Cumia went on a Twitter rant, using profane language and making derogatory remarks about an African American woman who assaulted him in Times Square. Cumia was taking a photograph of the Square, and the woman believed she was the subject of his photographs.
The unidentified woman allegedly hit Cumia more than five times while calling him a "white motherfucker." Cumia took a photo of the woman moments before she hit him, then posted it to Twitter with a profanity laced tweet.
At the time, neither Cumia nor the woman involved reached out to police officers. After the incident, Cumia sent a number of tweets, calling the woman a "cunt" and a "savage."
Much of Cumia's on-air personality involves racial racist commentary. He also frequently discusses the conservative movement in America, including his role as a gun owner in New York state, which has very strict gun regulations.
'Opie and Anthony'
Retired Navy Commander Pleads Guilty
Edmond Aruffo
A retired U.S. Navy commander pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy charges on Thursday in connection with a wide-ranging corruption investigation of a Singapore-based defense contractor.
Edmond Aruffo, the 45-year-old former manager of Glenn Defense Marine Asia's operations in Japan, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in San Diego to a single count of conspiracy to commit bribery as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors.
He is the seventh defendant charged in the bribery scandal and the fourth to plead guilty in the high-profile case.
Prosecutors accuse the maritime services firm, led by Malaysian businessman Leonard Glenn Francis, of bribing Navy officials to get information on ship movements and competing contracts and filed inflated invoices in contracts worth millions of dollars at ports across Asia.
Since the case was filed in October 2013, the NCIS investigator, a second company official, the NCIS agent and the navy logistics officer have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery.
Edmond Aruffo
DOJ Emails Show Cozy Relationship
Comcast TWC Merger
Want to know why Comcast's merger with Time Warner Cable has any chance of passing despite huge opposition from even the company's own customers, look no further than emails recently uncovered by MuckRock that show Comcast execs have a very friendly relationship with an attorney at the Department of Justice's antitrust division.
Among other things, the emails show that earlier this year, Comcast invited Deputy Assistant Attorney General Renata Hesse to attend a party to celebrate the opening of the 2014 Winter Olympics, an invitation that Hesse regretfully declined because the "rules folks" at the DOJ would likely object. Hesse did say that the event sounded "delightful" and "fun," however, and told Comcast senior vice president of regulatory affairs Kathryn Zachem that she'd still love to go out to dinner with her sometime this year.
Zachem responded and said that she thought the invite to the Olympics party would have been OK since Comcast hadn't yet formally filed any paperwork on its TWC merger proposal. She did vow to Renata that she would take her up on that dinner offer, however, and promised to get it scheduled. In a followup email, Hesse once again expressed her regrets at not being able to attend Comcast's grand Olympics bash.
To be clear, Hesse did nothing wrong here, although this does illustrate the way Comcast uses its power and money to establish cozy relationships with the people who are supposed to be regulating it. We learned earlier this year that Comcast has also assembled one of the largest lobbying teams ever consisting of a whopping 40 different lobbying firms whose sole purpose is to push lawmakers and regulators to do its bidding. And this is the single biggest reason why the government might actually sign off on a merger between the two most hated companies in the United States despite public opposition.
Comcast TWC Merger
Plot To Steal?
GMO Corn
A Chinese woman has been arrested and charged with trying to steal patented U.S. seed technology as part of a plot to smuggle types of specialized corn from farm fields in the U.S. Midwest for use in China, authorities said on Wednesday.
The woman, Mo Yun, is married to the founder and chairman of a Chinese conglomerate that runs a corn seed subsidiary. She and her brother, Mo Hailong, worked together and with others to steal the valuable corn seed from Iowa and Illinois, according to law enforcement officials. Mo Hailong was indicted and arrested in December.
The others involved in the conspiracy include employees at U.S. seed companies who provided locations where experiments with the genetically altered seeds took place; or they provided gene sequencing information for the bio-engineered seeds, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Iowa.
Both Iowa-based DuPont Pioneer, the agricultural unit of DuPont, and Missouri-based Monsanto, two of the world's largest agricultural seed companies, have said they are cooperating with federal authorities in the ongoing probe.
GMO Corn
Anger Over Double-Agent
Germany
German authorities have arrested a suspected double-agent accused of spying for the US on a parliamentary panel investigating NSA surveillance, media reports said Friday.
The suspect is an employee of Germany's foreign intelligence service who was passing information to US spies, said the reports, which threaten to undermine efforts to repair US-German ties after last year's shock revelations of widespread US snooping.
The federal prosecutor general confirmed that a 31-year-old German was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of acting for a foreign intelligence service, without specifying which one.
But several German media outlets said the suspect was working for a US intelligence agency, and had at least once reported on the parliamentary panel examining claims by fugitive US intelligence official Edward Snowden.
Germany
No Place Like Nome
Musk Oxen
Alaska wildlife officials have turned to an unusual source in efforts to persuade a herd of musk oxen to leave this Bering Sea coastal town for good. Bear urine.
Some suspect the large shaggy animals are seeking refuge in Nome because of brown bears, Alaska Department of Fish and Game wildlife biologist Tony Gorn told KNOM.
The musk oxen began moving a few weeks ago into Nome, famous for being the finish line for the nearly thousand mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race every March.
Wildlife officials have tried shooting rubber bullets at the musk oxen and setting off fireworks, but the only thing that seems to provide temporary relief is moving them out of town on foot. Then they come back.
Musk Oxen
In Memory
Paul Horn
Grammy-winning jazz flutist and New Age music pioneer Paul Horn has died. He was 84.
Horn's son, Marlen, says his father died Sunday in Vancouver, British Columbia, after a brief illness. He declined to provide further details.
Horn's career spanned five decades, 50 albums and five Grammy nominations. He performed in concert tours and recording sessions with such artists as Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Nat King Cole, Miles Davis and Duke Ellington.
His album "Jazz Suite on the Mass Texts" won Grammys in 1966 for best original jazz composition and photographic cover album.
Horn's albums "Inside the Taj Mahal" and "Inside the Great Pyramid" laid the groundwork for the New Age music genre and earned him the nickname "Father of New Age Music."
Paul Horn
In Memory
Richard Mellon Scaife
Richard Mellon Scaife, the billionaire heir to the Mellon banking and oil fortune and a newspaper publisher who funded libertarian and conservative causes and various projects to discredit President Bill Clinton, has died. He was 82.
The intensely private Scaife became widely known in the 1990s when first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton said her husband was being attacked by a "vast right-wing conspiracy." White House staffers and other supporters suggested Scaife was playing a central role in the attack.
Several foundations controlled by Scaife gave millions of dollars to organizations run by critics of Clinton, including $1.7 million for a project at the conservative American Spectator magazine to dig up information about his role in the Whitewater real estate scandal.
Scaife bought the Tribune-Review in suburban Pittsburgh in 1969, using its editorial pages to trumpet his views.
Scaife was a longtime supporter of Republicans, backing presidential candidate Barry Goldwater in 1964 and heavily funding the 1968 campaign of Richard Nixon.
In 1972, Scaife donated $1 million to Nixon in 334 separate checks to avoid paying gift taxes. After The Associated Press wrote a story about the money, Scaife insisted the Tribune-Review get rid of its AP service.
A Pittsburgh native, Richard Mellon Scaife was born in 1932, the son of Sarah Cordelia Mellon and Alan Magee Scaife. His mother was an alcoholic, and his upbringing has been described as cold and unhappy. He and his sister were raised by nannies.
He went to Yale but was expelled during his freshman year after a he rolled a beer keg down a flight of stairs, breaking the legs of a classmate, according to a 1999 story in The Washington Post.
The Tribune-Review reported Scaife is survived by a daughter, Jennie K. Scaife, a son, David N. Scaife, a daughter-in-law, Sara Scaife; and two grandchildren.
Richard Mellon Scaife
Steve Kangas (Steven Robert Esh, May 11, 1961 - February 8, 1999) was a journalist, political activist and chess teacher known for his website Liberalism Resurgent and highly political usenet postings. Until 1986 he worked for military intelligence. His stay in Berlin turned him from aconservative into an outspoken liberal militant. His writings were sharply critical of business propaganda of the overclass and CIA.
He died of a gunshot wound under unclear circumstances. He was found on the 39th floor in the restroom of the offices of Richard Mellon Scaife inside One Oxford Center, Pittsburgh. It was ruled a suicide by local police.
Source
Steve Kangas' homepage
In Memory
Barry Moss
Broadway and television casting director Barry Moss, who helped cast nearly 90 Broadway and touring productions, including the 1980 revival of "West Side Story," ''Nine," ''Torch Song Trilogy" and "The Who's Tommy," has died. He was 74.
Moss died June 17 of congestive heart failure at Mount Sinai Roosevelt in Manhattan, said his partner Bob Kale.
Among his casting credits are the 1995 revival of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying," ''Titanic," ''Woman of the Year," ''My One and Only," ''Black and Blue" and "Sweeney Todd," He also was the casting director for "The Cosby Show "and was a founding member of The Casting Society of America.
Moss was a child actor who studied theatre arts at UCLA. He worked for the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences before moving to New York to begin a career as a director. He joined the Mort Schwartz Agency, where he was put in charge of the theatrical department. He soon met Julie Hughes, with whom he founded Hughes Moss Casting in 1981. At one point, they had eight shows running simultaneously on Broadway.
Moss is survived by his longtime partner and business associate Kale, nephew Mark Ellman and nieces Laurie Levinsky and Gerry Ellman.
Barry Moss
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