Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Amelia Gentleman: Vulnerable man starved to death after benefits were cut (Guardian)
44-year-old died months after sickness and housing benefits were stopped following Atos fitness-for-work assessment.
Kevin Rawlinson: Minister apologises after woman in coma was told to find work (Guardian)
Sheila Holt was contacted by the Department for Work and Pensions who invited her to attend 'intensive job-focused activity.'
Marc Dion: Coming Out on Top (Creators Syndicate)
Last week, I received an email from an online clothing company. The email said they had a sale on "tops." For men. Tops. I ignored it. The clothier in question was obviously aiming for the skinny-jeans crowd - young guys who like irony and wear those tight suits that bunch up if you do anything besides stand up straight.
Lucy Mangan: why I'm unsuited to world domination (Guardian)
I want working TV remote controls, not pet ostriches.
What I'm really thinking: the beauty counter girl (Guardian)
'I work in an industry that convinces people to part with their cash in pursuit of a perfection that does not exist. I am betraying my sisterhood.'
Rosanna Greenstreet: "Q&A: Geoffrey Rush" (Guardian)
'The greatest love of my life? Oh please. This is not a therapy session.'
Marilyn Preston: Want a Championship Health Care Team? Draft a Nutritionist (Creators Syndicate)
I met a guy at an Olympics-watching party who'd recently lost a lot of weight. I was seeing him for the first time, so I didn't know he used to be double his size, but his pals were amazed, impressed, crazy jealous. I cornered him, shamelessly curious about his story. "How'd you lose all that weight? Weight Watchers? Stomach staples? An exotic worm?" "I quit smoking." Yep. That's what he said. And this guy is a university dean, an academic with a highly functioning brain.
Terry Savage: Retirement -- The New American Luxury (Creators Syndicate)
But there's one luxury that only a few are still able to afford. And unlike fake designer purses, this luxury cannot be made in China and distributed to a vast group of demanding consumers. That luxury is retirement.
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Who Do You Think Will Win?
2014 Oscars
Best Picture
"12 Years a Slave"
"American Hustle"
"Captain Phillips"
"Dallas Buyers Club"
"Gravity"
"Her"
"Nebraska"
"Philomena"
"The Wolf of Wall Street"
Actor
Christian Bale: "American Hustle"
Bruce Dern: "Nebraska"
Leonardo DiCaprio: "The Wolf of Wall Street"
Chiwetel Ejiofor: "12 Years a Slave"
Matthew McConaughey: "Dallas Buyers Club"
Actress
Amy Adams: "American Hustle"
Cate Blanchett: "Blue Jasmine"
Sandra Bullock: "Gravity"
Judi Dench: "Philomena"
Meryl Streep: "August: Osage County"
Supporting Actor
Barkhad Abdi: "Captain Phillips"
Bradley Cooper: "American Hustle"
Michael Fassbender: "12 Years a Slave"
Jonah Hill: "The Wolf of Wall Street"
Jared Leto: "Dallas Buyers Club"
Supporting Actress
Sally Hawkins: "Blue Jasmine"
Jennifer Lawrence: "American Hustle"
Lupita Nyong'o: "12 Years a Slave"
Julia Roberts: "August: Osage County"
June Squibb: "Nebraska"
Directing
David O. Russell: "American Hustle"
Alfonso Cuaron: "Gravity"
Alexander Payne: "Nebraska"
Steve McQueen: "12 Years a Slave"
Martin Scorsese: "The Wolf of Wall Street"
Original Song
Alone Yet Not Alone from "Alone Yet Not Alone" - Bruce Broughton and Dennis Spiegel
Happy from "Despicable Me 2" - Pharrell Williams
Let It Go from "Frozen" - Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez
The Moon Song from "Her" - Karen O and Spike Jonze
Ordinary Love from "Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom" - Paul Hewson, Dave Evans, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen
marty's picks:
Best Picture - American Hustle
Actor - Leonard DiCaprio
Actress - Cate Blanchett
Supporting Actor - Jared Leto
Supporting Actress - Lupita Nyong'o
Director - Alfonso Cuaron
Song - Let It Go (Frozen)
~
Marian's Oscar predictions
Picture - Twelve Years a Slave
Actor - Matthew McConaughey
Actress - Cate Blanchett
Supporting Actor - Jared Leto
Supporting Actress - Jennifer Lawrence
Director - Alfonso Cuaron
Original Song - "Let it Go" from Frozen (my grandkids fav)
~
Dale o de Diamondy Springs's Oscar Picks:
Picture - 12 Years A Slave
Actor - Matthew McConaughey
Actress - Cate Blanchett
Supporting Actor - Jared Leto
Supporting Actress - Lupita Nyong'o
Director - Alfonso Cuaron
Original Song - Let It Go (Frozen)
~
Joe's Oscar Predictions:
Picture - 12 Years A Slave
Actor - Bruce Dern: "Nebraska" (Old and still going strong)
Actress - Sandra Bullock: "Gravity" (Hot)
Supporting Actor - Barkhad Abdi: "Captain Phillips" (I like the way his name sounds)
Supporting Actress - Jennifer Lawrence: "American Hustle" (Hot)
Director - Steve McQueen: "12 Years a Slave" (Loved him in "The Great Escape" before he died)
Original Song - Let It Go (Frozen) - Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez (My granddaughters sing this beautifully)
Just so you know, I have not seen any of these movies.
~
Adam's Picks:
Picture - 12 Years A Slave
Actor - Matthew McConaughey
Actress - Cate Blanchett
Supporting Actor - Jared Leto
Supporting Actress - Lupita Nyong'o
Director - Alfonso Cuaron
Original Song - 'Let It Go'
Another year of comparing apples to oranges to strawberries.
~
DJ Useo's Springs's Oscar Picks:
Picture - 12 Years A Slave
Actor - Matthew McConaughey
Actress - Cate Blanchett
Supporting Actor - Barkhad Abdi
Supporting Actress - Lupita Nyong'o
Director - Alfonso Cuaron
Original Song - Let It Go (Frozen)
~
MADCAT'S OSCAR PICKS:
Picture - "American Hustle"
Actor - Christian Bale: "American Hustle"
Actress - Sandra Bullock: "Gravity"
Supporting Actor - Barkhad Abdi: "Captain Phillips"
Supporting Actress - June Squibb: "Nebraska"
Director - David O. Russell: "American Hustle"
Original Song - Let It Go from "Frozen"
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Twice this afternoon it thundered so loudly that a symphony of car alarms responded.
Oscars Animation
John C. Reilly
John C. Reilly hosted an event honouring the animated feature Oscar nominees at the motion picture academy headquarters on Friday evening.
"Frozen" is up against "The Croods," ''Despicable Me 2" ''Ernest and Celestine" and "The Wind Rises."
Earning over $980 million worldwide, "Frozen" is the highest grossing original animated release ever and marks the first time a female, Jennifer Lee, has co-directed one of the studios features. Co-director Chris Buck admitted the story line was going down the "evil queen road" until Lee came on board.
"The Croods" also shifted from the original vision of the film, which was going to be stop-motion.
John C. Reilly
"Canadian Club"
Mardi Gras
A larger-than-life replica of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford smoking a crack pipe was featured front and centre in a Mardi Gras parade float sending up headline-grabbing Canadian celebrities.
The "Canadian Club" float ribbed Ford for his admitted drug use, and sported mockup Toronto Star newspaper headlines blaring "Mayor Ford: 'So I smoked a little crack'" and "I was in a drunken stupor."
A brief video posted online shows smoke billowing out from the Ford float's crack pipe as it rolled down a New Orleans street Friday night.
Painted on the side of the float were caricatures of Justin Bieber - who faces drug use allegations in Florida - clutching a smoky bong and former "Baywatch" star Pamela Anderson holding a sign reading "Remember me?"
Mardi Gras
Baby News
Gwen Stefani
Hey baby, hey baby, hey! There's no doubt about it - Gwen Stefani has brought her third solo project into the world.
And no, we're not talking about music. The rock and style icon, 44, gave birth to her third son with husband Gavin Rossdale, 48, on Friday, multiple sources confirm to Us Weekly.
The couple, who have been married for 11 years, share two sons together, Kingston, 7, and Zuma, 5.
As expected the singer/designer/mother handled her latest pregnancy like a champ. She revealed her baby's gender back on Jan. 17 for the first time with an absolutely adorable Instagram post. "I was ready to hand over the crown. but I guess I am still queen of the house. #itsaboy #surroundedbyboys" the caption read.
Gwen Stefani
World's Oldest Cheese
Chinese Mummies
A well-aged cheese makes a pretty tasty snack, and some cheeses have been aged up to a few decades, but a group of archaeologists have found a cheese in the Chinese desert that sets a new bar, as it's been around for 3,600 years!
Archaeologists excavating the grave of an ancient mummy known as the "Beauty of Xiaohe" made an interesting discovery. The dry climate of China's Taklamakan desert not only preserved the mummy in pristine condition, but it also preserved what was likely a delicacy that she would have enjoyed on her trip into the afterlife. Adorning her neck and chest were several lumps of cheese that were buried with her when she was laid to rest sometime around 1615 BC.
Cheese-making goes back much further than 3,600 years, of course, and Polish archaeologists have found evidence that it goes back as far as 7,500 years ago. We know this due to records going far back, and due to pottery shards found at archaeological sites that go back even further. However, no samples of these other ancient cheeses have ever been discovered. This particular cheese that they've recently found isn't made using rennet, like most other ancient and modern cheeses. Instead, it was made with a bacterial culture called kefir, and was perfectly suited for the lactose-intolerant people who lived there at the time.
"It's the earliest known dairy practice that persists until present times in an almost unchanged way," Yimin Yang, an archaeologist at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, told Discovery News. "The discovery moves the mysterious history of kefir as far as to the second millennium BC, making it the oldest known dairy fermentation method."
Chinese Mummies
Loses Bid
Google
Google Inc on Friday lost its bid to keep an anti-Islamic film on its YouTube video sharing website while it appealed a federal appeals court order that the company said would have "devastating effects" if allowed to stand.
Earlier this week, a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to reject Google's assertion that the removal of the film "Innocence of Muslims," which sparked protests across the Muslim world, amounted to a prior restraint of speech that violated the U.S. Constitution.
In a court filing on Thursday, Google argued that the video should remain accessible to the public while it asks that a larger, 11-judge 9th Circuit panel review the issue. Google called this week's opinion "unprecedented" and "sweeping."
However, the 9th Circuit on Friday rejected Google's request in a brief order. Google representatives could not immediately be reached for comment.
Google
University of Oklahoma
Camille Pissarro
For more than a decade, the University of Oklahoma has exhibited a piece of Nazi-looted artwork bequeathed to it by the wife of an oil tycoon. But renewed claims by a family that owned the oil painting before World War II has drawn the school's fundraising arm into a fight it thought was settled in Switzerland more than 60 years ago.
The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art provides no clue that Camille Pissarro's "Shepherdess Bringing in Sheep," an 1886 painting that once belonged to a French Jew, fell into Nazi hands as Germany overran Europe. The school maintains it is the painting's rightful owner, citing a Swiss court decision from 1953.
"The University does not want to keep any items which it does not legitimately own," university President David Boren said in a statement. "However, the challenge to the University, as the current custodian of the painting, is to avoid setting a bad precedent that the University will automatically give away other people's gifts to us to anyone who claims them."
Leone Meyer, a Holocaust survivor, has sued Boren and the university in New York federal court, seeking the painting's return. Swiss records show Meyer's father was a former owner of the painting, but a judge denied a previous claim to the work because her family couldn't prove post-war owners obtained it in bad faith.
Camille Pissarro
Embezzler Sentenced
Pearl Jam
A former financial officer of Pearl Jam's management company has been sentenced to 14 months in prison for embezzling more than $300,000 from the band.
The Seattle Times reports that Superior Court Judge Roger Rogoff agreed Friday to allow Rickey Goodrich of Novato, Calif., to remain free for two weeks to get his financial affairs in order. Goodrich will return in two weeks for formal sentencing.
The 55-year-old man pleaded guilty in December to six counts of first-degree theft. Prosecutors say he used company accounts to pay personal debts and fund lavish family vacations.
Prosecutors say he has already paid back $125,000 and has agreed to pay more in restitution.
Pearl Jam
California Estate For Sale
Kevin Trudeau
The ostentatious contents of the California home of former TV pitchman and convicted fraudster Kevin Trudeau go on sale on Friday to pay a $38 million judgment over false promises he made in a weight-loss book, according to an estate sale listing.
Trudeau has battled federal regulators for years over his marketing of various products to combat cancer, hair loss, memory loss and obesity in infomercials that were ubiquitous on late-night television in the United States.
A federal jury in Chicago convicted Trudeau, 51, in November of criminal contempt for violating a 2004 federal court settlement with the Federal Trade Commission that barred him from misrepresenting the contents of his books in advertisements.
Trudeau's Los Angeles-area home will be emptied of a number of curiosities, including a menagerie of Swarovski crystals, a 72-candle chandelier, a grand piano, dishes, trinkets and art, said Will Munyon of Munyon and Sons, an estate sale firm that is running the sale of the home's contents.
Trudeau has been jailed in Chicago since November for civil contempt of court and is awaiting a March sentencing for his criminal contempt conviction, according to prison records and government officials.
Kevin Trudeau
Colored Lobster Rope
Whales
Preventing endangered northern right whales from becoming entangled in lobster gear could be as simple as changing the color of rope, a whale researcher says.
If the whales can see the fishing gear more clearly, then they are better able to avoid it, said Scott Kraus, a leading researcher on northern right whales.
Kraus and other researchers set out three years ago to determine whether the whales respond to some colors more than others. Intercepting feeding whales in Cape Cod Bay, off the shore of Massachusetts, they placed in the water lengths of colored PVC pipe, representing pieces of rope that attach traps to buoys.
On average, the scientists discovered that right whales were most likely to respond to orange or red, and they were less likely to react to green and black, Kraus said. The researchers also tallied how many times the right whales bumped into the PVC pipes, and found that orange and red yielded fewer, he said.
Although the whales see their ocean world in black-and-white, it makes sense that they can differentiate orange from other colors since the clouds of zooplankton upon which they feed are orange in color, said Michael Moore, director of the marine mammal center at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.
Whales
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