Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman's Blog: Budget Disinformation, Part 1 Million (New York Times)
Oh, and while some people are still trying to praise Ryan for starting a useful conversation, the reality is that he's totally unwilling to let facts enter the debate.
David Weigel: "New York to Paul Ryan: Drop Dead" (Slate)
How much does Kathy Hochul's victory over Jane Corwin owe to Ryan's Medicare plan?
Jim Hightower: What's Inside Big Oil's head?
As one politician bluntly said of Washington's annual tax giveaway to massively profitable oil corporations, "We don't need incentives to the oil and gas companies to explore. There are plenty of incentives." That was no lefty talking - it was George W. Bush.
Michele Hanson: Dragged back to the dark ages (Guardian)
Faith schools are flourishing, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service is replaced by anti-abortion group Life as a government adviser . . . and the Rapture is still on the cards. Help!
Lenore Skenazy: In with the Old (Creators Syndicate)
The advertising industry has just discovered this, like, awesome group of consumers who are hyped to buy things such as Jeeps and sneaks and even drinks. They're called ... oh, what was that word again? It used to be a dirty thing to say in a marketing meeting. It's on the tip of my tongue-Oh, yeah! Adults.
Susan Estrich: Baby's Fall (Creators Syndicate)
I was bouncing back and forth between worrying about my daughter flying to Ukraine (very far away, 4 connections, 1 airline I'd never heard of, very far away) and worrying about what I was going to say to a very smart, tough federal judge who was about to keep me on my feet for hours arguing on behalf of my client.
Steve Martin - a man with two reigns (Guardian)
He was once the king of screwball Hollywood comedies, and has now reinvented himself as a bluegrass banjo player. Steve Martin tells Andrew Purcell why he can't quite leave the laughs behind.
Martin Kettle: Why Beethoven's ninth always comes first (Guardian)
This iconic symphony and the message it conveys is supremely relevant - even on a desert island.
Elizabeth Mahoney: Desert Island Discs with Debbie Harry (Guardian)
The Blondie singer laughed her way through a distinctive, ballsy and cool interview, writes Elisabeth Mahoney.
Interviews by Anna Tims: "The artists' artist: Pianists" (Guardian)
In the first of a new series of weekly columns, leading pianists choose their favourite performer of all time.
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."
The (Occasional) Weekly Poll Presents...
New Question(s)
The "That Was The Week That Was' Edition...
This past week we had a number of marvelously eclectic stories to captivate one's attention and give us some distractions to our otherwise hum-drum lives (haha) ...
Which, if any, of these stories piqued your interest the most this past week?
1.) Ah-nuld's 'Living Loving Maid' and 'Love Child'... (Why am I not amazed?)
2.) The Oprah 'I'll Always Love You' Fan-Fest count-down to her last show...(OMG! What to do? What to watch?... p.s. is she really a 'closet' Scientologist?)
3.) Saturday's 'Apocalypse Now' fizzle... (Good excuse fer a party, though, I'm sayin'...)
4.) Lizzie does Dublin... (No Sex Pistols singin', 'God Save the Queen', more's the pity...)
5.) Obama lectures Israel (Israel sez, "Get real, Dude") Obama then sings, 'We are Family' to AIPAC...
6.) 'When the Levee Breaks'..or, the Great American Flood, as it were...(Gators and snakes and bears, Oh My!)
7.) The 'Helter Skelter' hilarity of GOP presidential candidates doin' the 'You're Hot and then You're Cold' shuffle (featuring 'Newt the Hoot', so much the better...)
8.) Your pick... (Give us a thrill, would ya now, maybe?)
Well, then, Poll-fans... Have at it!
Send your response to
Have you sent your response, yet?
wrote:
answered:
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
<>
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Reader Contribution
Looking for High Ground
BadtotheboneBob
What's up in space
INTENSIFYING SOLAR ACTIVITY: The quiet sun is waking up. New sunspot 1226 emerging over the sun's southeastern limb is crackling with strong C-class solar flares. So far none of the blasts has been geoeffective, but this could change in the days ahead as the active region turns toward Earth. Stay tuned.
SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids
Turn your cell phone into a field-tested satellite tracker. Works for Android and iPhone
... And all kinds of other cool stuff. Like how many and how big the near Earth asteroids that are just happening to be passing through the vicinity (Yikes!)
BadtotheboneBob
Thanks, B2tbBob!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and cool.
Streaming Bonnaroo Comedy Acts
Comedy Central
Comedy Central says it will stream comedy acts from the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival next month.
The network announced that it will webcast a three-hour show June 12 featuring performances from Bonnaroo's Comedy Tent.
The 10-year-old festival held in Manchester, Tenn., centers on music but has long offered top comedy acts as counter-programming.
This year's performers include Lewis Black, Donald Glover, Eugene Mirman, Cheech Marin and John Waters. Jon Benjamin will host. His Comedy Central show "Jon Benjamin Has a Van" makes its debut in June.
Comedy Central
Joins Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit"
Orlando Bloom
"Lord of the Rings" star Orlando Bloom has joined the cast of Peter Jackson's upcoming "Hobbit" movies -- even though his character, the elf Legolas, doesn't appear in J. R. R. Tolkien's original novel.
Jackson announced the casting in a Facebook post Friday.
"Ten years ago, Orlando Bloom created an iconic character with his portrayal of Legolas," he wrote. "I'm excited to announce today that we'll be revisiting Middle Earth with him once more. I'm thrilled to be working with Orlando again."
Jackson is currently directing the two-movie adaptation in New Zealand.
Orlando Bloom
Lifetime Achievement Hono
John Malkovich
Oscar-nominated actor John Malkovich and acclaimed Georgian filmmaker Otar Iosseliani will receive lifetime achievement honors, the CineMerit Awards, at this year's Munich International Film Festival.
"John Malkovich is in a class of his own. His unpredictable presence makes every one (of his films) worth seeing," said Munich Festival Director Andreas Strohl. "Otar Iosseliani has spent his life defending artistic expression and self-determination in cinema. He is the unsurpassed master of the melancholic comedy. We are very proud to to be able to honor both of them in Munich for their extraordinary achievements."
Malkovich, whose films include "Dangerous Liaisons," "In The Line of Fire" and the upcoming "Transformers: Dark of the Moon," will receive his CineMerit award on June 27 in Munich from German star Veronica Ferres. In his honor, the festival will screen five Malkovich films: Brian Cook's "Color Me Kubrick," "The Ogre" from German director Volker Schlondorff, Spike Jonze's "Being John Malkovich," the period drama "Klimt" from director Raoul Ruiz as well as Malkovich's directorial debut, "The Dancer Upstairs."
The 2011 Munich Film Festival runs June 24 - July 2.
John Malkovich
New Breed?
"Cuban Blue"
In a Havana apartment, four silvery gray cats race around the floor and tumble over the furniture playing with each other, occasionally jumping into the laps of their human visitors.
They act like typical house cats, but these are not just any felines. They are members of what Cuban cat lovers believe is a newly identified breed of short-hair cat they call the Cuban blue.
"They are very docile, very playful. They have a very agreeable personality," said Angel Uriarte Rubio, president of the Cuban Association of Cat Enthusiasts, as he gently stroked a male cat at rest in his lap.
Rubio is a physician for humans, but a cat lover by disposition. He spearheaded the effort to identify the Cuban blue as a new breed and hopes it will one day take its place alongside the world's five other cat breeds known as "blues."
"Cuban Blue"
Government To Ban Tourists From Cannabis Shops
The Netherlands
The Dutch government on Friday said it would start banning tourists from buying cannabis from "coffee shops" and impose restrictions on Dutch customers by the end of the year.
The Netherlands is well known for having one of Europe's most liberal soft drug policies that has made its cannabis shops a popular tourist attraction, particularly in Amsterdam.
Backed by the far-right party of anti-immigrant politician Geert Wilders, the coalition government that came into power last year announced plans to curb drug tourism as part of a nationwide program to promote health and fight crime.
Dutch customers will have to sign up for at least a year's membership and each shop would be expected to have only up to 1,500 members, a justice ministry spokesman said.
The Netherlands
Calif. Could Require Condoms
Porn
Porn performers in California would be required to use condoms in sex scenes if draft rules from state workplace safety officials advance out of the proposal phase.
Cal/OSHA officials provided the Associated Press with a 17-page draft proposal that contained sometimes graphic details of the bodily fluids, waste matter and other materials that porn actors must protect themselves against to avoid infection.
The draft says porn producers must provide and require "use of condoms or other barrier protection to prevent genital and oral contact with the blood or (any other bodily fluids) of another person."
The draft specifies that condoms can't be reused, cannot be expired, or used with multiple partners. Performers wouldn't be allowed to share razors under the rules. And employers would have to keep sex toys clean.
Porn
Latest Gaffe
Silvio
Silvio Berlusconi's latest international gaffe, when he complained to a bemused President Barack Obama about his problems with magistrates, was met with mockery, embarrassment and scorn at home on Friday.
Obama looked baffled when television cameras picked up the Italian prime minister buttonholing him at a Group of Eight meeting in France and treating him to one of his trade mark tirades about magistrates who have hauled him into court for four concurrent trials.
Microphones picked up Berlusconi telling Obama during a pause in the G8 meeting: "We have presented a justice reform that is fundamental to us. In Italy we have almost a dictatorship of leftist judges."
The incident prompted wide negative press coverage only two days before local elections on Sunday and Monday where Berlusconi risks suffering a humiliating defeat that could finally mark a decline in his political dominance of Italy.
Berlusconi was unrepentant about the furore on Friday, telling reporters at the end of the G8 meeting that he would not leave politics until he had passed sweeping judicial reforms and ended the "intolerable interference" of public prosecutors.
Silvio
To File Bankruptcy Exit Plan
Crystal Cathedral
The Southern California megachurch founded by one of the nation's pioneering televangelists, the Rev. Robert H. Schuller, on Friday filed a bankruptcy plan that would pull the Crystal Cathedral out of crushing debt by selling its sprawling campus and famous, glass-spired sanctuary to a local real estate investment group for $47 million.
The church would lease back most of its core buildings under the plan, which must be approved by a bankruptcy judge, so worshippers and visitors won't notice any changes in services or outreach. The church's popular, decades-old televangelist program "Hour of Power" broadcasts would also continue, the church said.
The plan would allow the ministry to lease the church buildings back for a guaranteed 15-year period, with the additional option of buying the core campus back at a fixed price within four years, said Marc Winthrop, the church's bankruptcy attorney.
The deal would erase the cathedral's $36 million mortgage and wipe out almost all of the $10 million in unsecured debt - including $7.5 million owed to vendors - that has plagued the Crystal Cathedral for several years after a disastrous leadership transition and a devastating slump in donations.
Crystal Cathedral
Rare White Chick Hatches
Kiwi
A rare white kiwi chick hatched at a New Zealand wildlife reserve will have a protected early life - unlike wild kiwis that face nonnative predators that are slowly wiping them out, an official said Thursday.
The chick, named Manukura or "Chiefly One" by local Maori, was born at Pukaha Mount Bruce National Wildlife Center on May 1, weighing about 8.8 ounces (250 grams), Department of Conservation area manager Chris Lester said.
Lester said white kiwis are spotted in the wild about every three or four years, but the last one in captivity was released in 1915. The small, flightless birds are usually brown.
Manukura is being hand-reared in the reserve's new kiwi nursery, and will remain closely protected for at least the first year of his life, he said.
Kiwi
| CURRENT MOON lunar phases |
