Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Dutch artists Thomas voor Hekke and Bas van Oerle: George Orwell's Birthday Party
On Tuesday the 25th of June, to celebrate the 110th birthday of George Orwell, surveillance cameras in the center of the city of Utrecht were decorated with colorful party hats! ... By putting these happy party hats on the surveillance cameras we don't just celebrate Orwell's birthday. By making these inconspicuous cameras that we ignore in our daily lives catch the eye again we also create awareness of how many cameras really watch us nowadays, and that the surveillance state described by Orwell is getting closer and closer to reality.
Marc Dion: Rooskies Love Ratski (Creators Syndicate)
So plucky little NSA rat Edward Snowden is safe in Russia, a country that has apparently started to give free speech lessons to America.
Susan Estrich: Political Starts and Stops (Creators Syndicate)
The Senate is passing major immigration reform because the Republicans got hammered among Hispanic voters in the last election, and the Republicans can't afford to turn their backs on demographics. The House won't pass it, because not all Republicans see things that way, which is why the Republican Party is in trouble. Or civil war.
Matthew Yglesias: Maybe People Are Drinking Less Milk Because It's Poisonous to Many of Us (Slate)
A bit oddly, the report does not mention the word "lactose," though lactose intolerance is certainly the reason you won't see me drinking any fluid milk.
Catherine Shoard: "Steve Carell: despicably nice" (Guardian)
Steve Carell may be known as the nicest man in Hollywood, but his reprise of Gru, the bald-headed villain in Despicable Me 2, is just a warmup for the baddies the actor is about to unleash.
L.V. Anderson: Wendy Davis Supporters Review Her Pink Sneakers on Amazon (Slate)
If you live in North Dakota, make sure you purchase these within the first six weeks of your running program or you will be prohibited from purchasing them. It's for the safety of the shoes.
Customer Reviews: Mizuno Women's Wave Rider 16 Running Shoe (Amazon)
The next time you have to spend 13 hours on your feet without food, water or bathroom breaks, this is the shoe for you. Guaranteed to outrun patriarchy on race day.
Scott Burns: A Year of Rest for the Life of Riley Index (AssetBuilder)
This year you need an estimated $4,192,720 if all of your income comes from a 50/50 portfolio of stocks and bonds producing dividends and interest. The recent increase in interest rates- the one that has the entire planet trembling- dropped the required amount about $600,000 in a single month. If interest rates rise further you won't need to be nearly as rich to live the Life of Riley.
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Much too hot.
Atheists Unveil Monument
Florida
A group of atheists unveiled a monument to their nonbelief in God on Saturday to sit alongside a granite slab that lists the Ten Commandments in front of the Bradford County courthouse.
As a small group of protesters blasted Christian country music and waved "Honk for Jesus" signs, the atheists celebrated what they believe is the first atheist monument allowed on government property in the United States.
"When you look at this monument, the first thing you will notice is that it has a function. Atheists are about the real and the physical, so we selected to place this monument in the form of a bench," said David Silverman, president of American Atheists.
American Atheists sued to try to have the stone slab with the Ten Commandments taken away from the courthouse lawn in this rural, conservative north Florida town best known for the prison that confines death row inmates. The Community Men's Fellowship erected the monument in what's described as a free speech zone. During mediation on the case, the atheist group was told it could have its own monument, too.
After a cover was taken off the 1,500-pound granite bench Saturday, people rushed to have their pictures taken on it. The bench has quotes from Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Madalyn Murray O'Hair, the founder of American Atheists. It also has a list of Old Testament punishments for violating the Ten Commandments, including death and stoning.
Florida
Looks Back
Mick Jagger
Mick Jagger thinks his original career plan to become a school teacher might have provided plenty of satisfaction.
The Rolling Stones frontman told BBC Radio Friday that his music career has not been challenging intellectually and that teaching might have been "gratifying" instead. He also said he had considered becoming a politician or a journalist when he was a teen.
Instead he has become one of the most successful rock singers in history.
Despite his interest in other careers, Jagger says he's "very pleased" with how things have turned out.
Mick Jagger
24 Hours of LeMons
The Homer
Die-hard fans of "The Simpsons" probably remember the Season 2 episode in which Homer finds his long-lost half-brother, Herb Powell (voiced by Danny DeVito), the big boss of an automobile company.
In a magnanimous (but ultimately unwise) act, Herb lets Homer design his own car in an effort to give his half-brother a boost of confidence.
The results are not good. The "Homer" is (to quote the bald genius behind its design) "powerful like a gorilla, yet soft and yielding like a Nerf ball" and featured tail fins, a bubble dome, shag carpeting, a bowling trophy hood ornament and three horns that played "La Cucaracha."
Now, a group of automotive designers (and, we presume, fans of "The Simpsons") designed a real car based on Homer's epic failure. It looks remarkably like its animated inspiration. Bubble dome to keep noisy kids separated? Check. Puke-green paint job? Yep. Cup holders that can handle extra-large drinks? Oh, yeah!
Team captain and driver Scott Chamberlain will race it at the 24 Hours of LeMons on June 29 in Buttonwillow, Calif. That race features cars built for $500 or less and bills itself as a place "where Halloween meets gasoline."
The Homer
'Living Lab' For Climate Change
California's Sierra
In parts of California's Sierra Nevada, marshy meadows are going dry, wildflowers are blooming earlier and glaciers are melting into ice fields.
Scientists also are predicting the optimal temperature zone for giant sequoias will rise hundreds and hundreds of feet, leaving trees at risk of dying over the next 100 years.
As indicators point toward a warming climate, scientists across 4 million acres of federally protected land are noting changes affecting everything from the massive trees that can grow to more than two-dozen feet across to the tiny, hamsterlike pika. But what the changes mean and whether humans should do anything to intervene are sources of disagreement among land managers.
Since 1895, the average temperature across California has increased by 1.7 degrees, and experts say the most visible effects of that warming occur within the Sierra Nevada, where low temperatures are rising and precipitation increasingly falls as rain rather than snow. Some models show noncoastal California warming by 2.7 degrees between 2000 and 2050, one of many reasons President Obama pledged last week to use executive powers to cut carbon pollution.
The state's two largest rivers - the Sacramento and San Joaquin - originate in the Sierra. The range also is home to Lake Tahoe, the largest alpine lake in North America; Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the Lower 48; and the nation's only groves of giant sequoias, the largest living things on earth.
California's Sierra
Net Nanny
Guardian
The Army is blocking access on its computer networks to reports by Britain's Guardian and other online news outlets on Edward Snowden's leaks on National Security Agency phone and internet data mining, according to the Monterey County Herald. Gordon Van Vleet, a spokesman for the Army Network Enterprise Technology Command, told the California newspaper that the Defense Department is using online filters as part of its routine "network hygiene" aiming to limit fallout from unauthorized disclosures of classified information.
This is not a first. The military
did the same thing in 2010 to block the websites of The New York Times and other news organizations for hosting once-secret U.S. diplomatic cables provided by WikiLeaks. As the White House explained at the time, "classified information, whether or not already posted on public websites or disclosed to the media, remains classified, and must be treated as such by federal employees and contractors, until it is declassified."
The news left many journalists and commentators pretty peeved. "This is what China does," tweeted New Yorker Washington correspondent Ryan Lizza. "Astounding," wrote Gizmodo's Matt Novak. "Seriously, tho," chimed in Daily Kos contributor Jake McIntyre. "This is totalitarian."
Of course, whether it's worth the Army's trouble is another question. "At this point," says Jon Russell at The Next Web, "it's more than likely that most of the armed forces are well aware of the allegations, given that the government has filed espionage charges against Snowden. His claims - which include allegations of hacks against China, monitoring of G20 ministers, collecting U.S. internet data, and more - have made front page news across the world in recent weeks, it's far fetched to believe it has escaped the attention of servicemen."
Guardian
Sidewalk Chalk Drawings
San Diego
A protester is standing trial on criminal vandalism charges in San Diego, and faces a sentence of up to 13 years in prison if convicted, for a scribbling a series of anti-bank slogans in chalk on a city sidewalk.
Mayor Bob Filner has denounced the prosecution of Jeff Olson, 40, a man with no previous criminal record, as a waste of taxpayer money and an abuse of power that infringes on First Amendment free speech protections in the U.S. Constitution.
Olson is charged with 13 misdemeanor counts of vandalism, each carrying a maximum penalty of one year in jail and a $1,000 fine, though he is not expected to receive as harsh a sentence as 13 consecutive years behind bars if found guilty.
He is accused of writing a series of protest slogans between February and August 2012 on sidewalks in front of Bank of America branches.
"I wrote, 'No thanks big banks.' I wrote, 'Shame on Bank of America,'" he told San Diego CBS television affiliate KFMB-TV. He told another local station, ABC affiliate KGTV: "If I had drawn a little girl's hopscotch squares on the street, we wouldn't be here today."
San Diego
Rapper Ordered To Etiquette Classes
Meek Mill
A judge has ordered rapper Meek Mill to attend etiquette classes and notify his probation officer before he takes any trips outside of the commonwealth.
Common Pleas Court Judge Genece Brinkley on Friday told the rapper, whose real name is Robert Williams, he must complete the classes before Aug. 4, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
The orders came at a probation violation hearing for Williams, who is on probation for a 2008 gun and drug conviction for which he was sentenced to 11 to 23 months in prison. He served eight months in jail and began five years of probation in the fall of 2009.
Williams told the judge at the contentious hearing that detailing his travel plans was difficult because many of his business activities are arranged on short notice.
The judge said Williams needed etiquette classes to refine his use of social media and to help him explain the nature of his business to the court, adding that the etiquette classes were "more important than any concerts he might have."
Meek Mill
Launches Social Network For Cops
Bill Bratton
Bill Bratton, the high-profile police commissioner who has run three of America's largest police forces, is preparing to launch the first comprehensive social media network for police officers - a kind of Facebook for cops.
The network, known as BlueLine, will be launched globally at the International Association of Police Chiefs annual conference in Philadelphia in October.
BlueLine is part of a growing trend in high-tech information-sharing among law enforcement agencies that proponents say is producing a force-multiplying effect on crime-fighting in an era of dwindling police budgets and manpower. The collaboration enables better communication between different jurisdictions and helps police identify patterns of criminality.
Combining the most popular user functions of a number of leading social media sites, BlueLine is being billed by Bratton as the first secure network for cops. It's also a safer alternative for a younger generation of officers who Bratton says share a shocking amount of information on public networks.
Bill Bratton
Reveal Ancient Nicotine Habit
Chilean Mummies
The hair of mummies from the town of San Pedro de Atacama in Chile reveals the people in the region had a nicotine habit spanning from at least 100 B.C. to A.D. 1450.
Additionally, nicotine consumption occurred on a society-wide basis, irrespective of social status and wealth, researchers say.
The finding refutes the popular view that the group living in this region smoked tobacco for just a short stint before moving on to snuffing hallucinogens.
"The idea was that around A.D. 400, people in San Pedro de Atacama (SPA) smoked tobacco in pipes, and then after that time, they gradually switched to inhaling dimethyltryptamines in snuffing trays," said study co-author Hermann Niemeyer, an organic chemist at the University of Chile in Santiago. "What we show is that's not correct."
The practice of smoking and snuffing hallucinogens was deeply rooted in the culture and thinking of many pre-Hispanic societies. In the south central Andes, two plant sources of hallucinogenic compounds exist: nicotine-containing species of Nicotiana (tobacco) and tryptamine-containing species of Anadenanthera (cebil).
Chilean Mummies
In Memory
Margherita Hack
Margherita Hack, an astrophysicist who explained her research on the stars in plain language for the public and who championed civil rights in her native Italy, died on Saturday in the Adriatic Sea town of Trieste, where she had headed an astronomical observatory. She was 91.
The Italian news agency ANSA quoted family friend Marinella Chirico as saying Hack died in a hospital after being treated for heart problems.
Hack headed the observatory in Trieste, the first woman to hold that post, from 1964 to 1987, and was a popular and frequent commentator in Italian media about discoveries in astronomy and physics.
The current director of the observatory, Stefano Borgani, told Sky TG24 TV that Hack was one of the first astronomers to "have the intuition" that the future of astronomical observation lay in using space satellites.
An atheist who decried Vatican influence on Italian politicians, Hack helped fight a successful battle to legalize abortion in Italy. She unsuccessfully lobbied for the right to euthanasia and also championed gay rights. Among her victories was a campaign against construction of nuclear reactors in Italy.
A vegetarian since childhood, she also was an advocate for animal protection and lived with eight cats and a dog.
Hack, an optimist with a cheerful disposition, studied the heavens in the firm belief there was no after-life.
She liked to joke that the "first and last" time she was in a church was for her marriage to fellow native Florentine Aldo De Rosa, in 1944. She agreed to a church ceremony only because the groom's parents were very religious. Hack dressed simply in life, including for her own wedding, when she wore an overcoat-turned-inside out for a bridal gown. She and her widower, 93, had no children.
Hack enrolled at the University of Florence as a student of literature, but after one class, switched to physics. By the early 1950s, she was an astronomer at the Tuscan city's astronomical observatory.
She was also an athlete, excelling in track. Specializing in the long jump and high jump from 1939 to 1943, she won national university championships and placed high in national championships.
Hack was active in left-wing politics, including most recently supporting the governor of southern Puglia, Nichi Vendola, one of Italy's few openly gay politicians.
"With Margherita Hack's passing, we lose an authoritative voice in favor of civil rights and equality," said Fabrizio Marrazzo, a spokesman for a gay advocacy group, Gay Center. "More than once, Hack came out in favor of gay rights, civil unions and the dignity of gay families."
Italy's foreign minister, Emma Bonino, who as a leader of the tiny Radical Party helped wage battles to legalize divorce and abortion in Italy, said Hack was "an extraordinary figure."
"With her vanishes not only a great scientist but a free spirit, deeply intellectually honest," ANSA quoted Bonino as saying.
Margherita Hack
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