Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Colbert Report: Voter ID Laws (colbertnation.com)
To safeguard against voter fraud and ensure that only the "right people" get elected, Republicans pass laws requiring voters to show government-issued photo IDs.
Roger Ebert's Journal: The Republicans exit history
Here are some of the issues on which the GOP is out of step with most Americans: …
Tyler Durden: Over The Past 4 Years News Corp Generated $10.4 Billion In Profits And Received $4.8 Billion In "Taxes" From The IRS (zerohedge.com)
Call it the gift that keeps on giving (if one is a corporation that is): the US Tax system, so effective at extracting income tax from America's working class, is just as "effective" at redistributing said income tax at the corporate level.
Robert Shiller: Deluded About Debt (Slate)
How one misleading statistic has made investors, and politicians, irrationally afraid of debt.
Jim Hightower: THE GOOD SHIP GOLDMAN SETS SAIL FOR SINGAPORE
… the banking giant has quietly informed about 1,000 of its U.S. employees that their jobs are being shifted to Singapore, where cheaper bank employees are available. This stiffing of America comes at a time when Goldman is piling up record profits, including $2.7 billion it raked in during just the first three months of this year. Perhaps the bank needs extra money to pay bigger executive bonuses.
Dana Goldstein: How High-Stakes Testing Led to the Atlanta Cheating Scandal (Slate)
And the ones in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and Houston …
Lenore Skenazy: What Happens When We 'Dangerize' Childhood (Creators Syndicate)
… I've spent a lot of time pointing out that crime is actually LOWER than it was in the '70s, '80s and '90s (according to FBI statistics), which means our kids should be able to enjoy the same kind of childhood WE had - playing outside, riding their bikes, even walking to the dentist at age 8.
Susan Estrich: Hope and Change (Creators Syndicate)
In the early days of his presidency, Bill Clinton suggested the military should reexamine its policy of dishonorably discharging gay men and lesbian women. There were those who argued, and continued to believe, that his "mistake" was a key element in the loss of moderate support, which, in turn, resulted in the loss of control of the House of Representatives two years later.
Susan Estrich: The Crisis That Wasn't (Creators Syndicate)
Carmageddon it was called. It didn't happen.
Randy Lewis: For Dolly Parton, it's just instinct (Los Angeles Times)
Don't get Dolly Parton started about end-of-the-world prognosticators. The Country Music Hall of Fame member was raised and remains devoutly religious, as she demonstrated so artfully in her biblically rooted classic song "Coat of Many Colors." But the firebrand singer, songwriter and businesswoman isn't remotely interested in giving an ounce of credence to doomsday scenarios espoused by mere mortals like California radio preacher Harold Camping.
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."
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3 Caterpillars (So Far)
Gulf Fritillary Butterfly
Gulf Fritillary butterfly
Here are today's pictures:
Caterpillar #1 - pupated
Caterpillar #2
Caterpillar #3
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
What Is It?
Red Spider
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny & seasonal.
Visits Japan
Yoko Ono
Visiting her disaster-stricken homeland, Yoko Ono said Friday she wants to give fellow Japanese a big hug.
Ono said she was deeply saddened by the devasation caused by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that left more than 20,000 people dead or missing and touched off the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
The widow of singer-songwriter John Lennon said that as a native Japanese she felt it was her duty to show her support and set an example for others to come as well. Many celebrities and athletes have canceled trips to Japan and its tourism industry is suffering.
"I decided to come here because I really feel that this is something that all Japanese are going through, including myself," said the musician and artist who lives in New York City.
Yoko Ono
Season 4 Is In The Works
'The Boondocks'
Voice casting director Andrea Romano tells us that the long-delayed season 4 of 'The Boondocks' is officially headed into production.
To say that The Boondocks isn't your average cartoon would be a huge understatement. The adult-themed animated show - based on the comic strip of the same name by Aaron McGruder - has skillfully and raucously skewered everything from urban culture, politics, religion, and hip-hop, to racism, misogyny, social media, movies, and of course, celebrities.
Over its three-season run on Cartoon Network, The Boondocks has earned a Peabody award and garnered smash ratings for the network (the season 3 premiere drew 2.5 million viewers despite a two-year hiatus between seasons 2 and 3).
For a long time it was said that The Boondocks would be finished after season 3 - much to the dismay of the show's fiercely loyal fanbase. Many viewers (and even some celebrities) have since voiced their desire to see The Boondocks return for season 4, and there have been some rumblings from the direction of the show's cast of voice actors, which suggested that fans' wishes might be fulfilled.
'The Boondocks'
Two More Seasons
"Futurama"
"Futurama" has, well, a future.
Executive producer David X. Cohen told a packed Comic-Con ballroom that the Emmy-nominated animated series was just renewed for another two full seasons by Comedy Central.
"The mood is better now," Cohen told the crowd. "Pressure's off now that we're in our second life -- we didn't expect to be back."
The show faced erratic airings on Fox until Comedy Central picked it up in 2005. On its June 2010 sixth-season debut, the show earned Comedy Central its highest-rated night for that year, becoming its most-watched Thursday primetime airing ever.
"Futurama" and "The Simpsons" creator and executive producer Matt Groening shared his excitement for the show's "Best Animated Series" Emmy nomination for its sentimental episode "The Late Philip J. Fry," which follows the almost-failed romance of Fry (Billy West) and Leela (Katey Sagal).
"Futurama"
"The Flaming C"
Conan O'Brien
The other members of Pale Force are going to be awfully jealous: Conan O'Brien unveiled his new superhero alter-ego during Warner Bros.' Comic-Con panel Friday for "Green Lantern: The Animated Series."
Despite a sleek trailer, "The Flaming C," may not actually hit the big screen. The trailer says it's "Coming Soon -- Maybe."
And while it's encouraging that the creators of "Batman: The Animated Series" worked on the trailer, the Masturbating Bear's apparent involvement isn't a good sign.
Warner Bros. says the Flaming C -- who seems a lot tougher than O'Brien's Pale Force alter-ego, despite wearing oven mitts -- is the result of a brief meeting between O'Brien and "Batman" animator Bruce Timm, executive producer of "Green Lantern: The Animated Series."
Conan O'Brien
$34 Billion Wasted
Contractors
The United States has wasted some $34 billion on service contracts with the private sector in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a study being finalized for Congress.
The findings by a bipartisan congressional commission were confirmed to Reuters by a person familiar with the draft of the study, which is due to be completed in coming weeks.
The analysis by the Commission on Wartime Contracting, details of which were first reported by the Wall Street Journal, offers the most complete look so far at the misuse of U.S. contracting funds in Afghanistan and Iraq, where more than $200 billion has been doled out in the contracts and grants over nearly a decade.
The source, who declined to be named, said more than 200,000 contractors have been on the U.S. payroll at times in Iraq and Afghanistan -- outstripping the number of U.S. troops currently on the ground in those countries.
Contractors
Closing Doors
Walter Reed
Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the Army's flagship hospital where privates to presidents have gone for care, is closing its doors after more than a century.
Hundreds of thousands of the nation's war wounded from World War I to today have received treatment at Walter Reed, including 18,000 troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The storied hospital, which opened in 1909, was scarred by a 2007 scandal about substandard living conditions on its grounds for wounded troops in outpatient care and the red tape they faced. It led to improved care for the wounded, at Walter Reed and throughout the military. By then, however, plans were moving forward to close Walter Reed's campus.
Two years earlier, a government commission, noting that Walter Reed was showing its age, voted to close the facility and consolidate its operations with the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., and a hospital at Fort Belvoir, Va., to save money.
Former and current patients and staff members will say goodbye at a ceremony Wednesday on the parade grounds in front of the main concrete and glass hospital complex. Most of the moving will occur in August. On Sept. 15, the Army hands over the campus to the new tenants: the State Department and the District of Columbia. The buildings on campus deemed national historic landmarks will be preserved; others probably will be torn down. The city is expected to develop its section for retail and other uses.
Walter Reed
Women Reporters Required To Remove Bras
Israel
Foreign journalists on Friday spoke of their distress after being asked to remove their bras for a security check before being allowed into the offices of Israel's prime minister.
The three women were told by security personnel to undress and take off their bras for x-ray in two separate incidents at the Jerusalem offices of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this week.
All three complied with the request, despite the distress it caused, in an incident denounced by the Foreign Press Association (FPA) as "unnecessary, humiliating and counter-productive."
Each of the women was taken behind a curtain in the lobby of the entrance hall and patted down before being told to undress, then their bras were passed out in full view of male and female colleagues and security personnel, to be put through an x-ray machine.
Officials at the prime minister's office refused to comment directly on the two incidents, saying only: "We are aware of the concerns and we are looking into the matter."
Israel
Oink. Oink. Oink.
Milk
California milk producers have modified an eyebrow-raising advertising campaign that promoted their product to men as a way to lessen the effects of premenstrual syndrome in their wives or girlfriends. But some critics wonder if it's time the dairy organization moved on to greener pastures.
While the benefits of calcium to women are widely accepted, the over-the-top publicity campaign featuring harried-looking men, color-coded PMS meters and "video apology enhancers" may be doing the industry in the nation's top milk-producing state more harm than good.
Marketing experts say the California Milk Processor Board, previously known for its popular "Got Milk?" promotions, resorted to shock advertising that may have earned it negative attention without benefiting the product it was trying to sell.
The board, which is overseen by the state Department of Food and Agriculture but is privately funded, decided Thursday to modify its two-week-old campaign and redirected users from its website, www.everythingidoiswrong.org, to another that will encourage discussion of the issue. The original campaign, featuring an Internet splash page, billboards and announcements on National Public Radio, had been scheduled to run through the end of August.
Milk
Diggers Uncover Biblical Ruin
Shekhem
Archaeologists unearthing a biblical ruin inside a Palestinian city in the West Bank are writing the latest chapter in a 100-year-old excavation that has been interrupted by two world wars and numerous rounds of Mideast upheaval.
Working on an urban lot that long served residents of Nablus as an unofficial dump for garbage and old car parts, Dutch and Palestinian archaeologists are learning more about the ancient city of Shekhem, and are preparing to open the site to the public as an archaeological park next year.
The project, carried out under the auspices of the Palestinian Department of Antiquities, also aims to introduce the Palestinians of Nablus, who have been beset for much of the past decade by bloodshed and isolation, to the wealth of antiquities in the middle of their city.
The city of Shekhem, positioned in a pass between the mountains of Gerizim and Eibal and controlling the Askar Plains to the east, was an important regional center more than 3,500 years ago. As the existing remains show, it lay within fortifications of massive stones, was entered through monumental gates and centered on a temple with walls five yards (meters) thick.
The city also appears often in the biblical narrative. The patriarch Abraham, for example, was passing near Shekhem when God promised to give the land of Canaan to his descendants in the Book of Genesis. Later, Abraham's grandson Jacob was camped outside the walls when a local Canaanite prince raped his daughter, Dinah. Jacob's sons sacked the city in vengeance. The body of Jacob's son Joseph was brought from Egypt hundreds of years later by the fleeing Israelites and buried at Shekhem.
Shekhem
In Memory
Linda Christian
Linda Christian, the Hollywood starlet of the 1940s who married heartthrob Tyrone Power and went on to become the first Bond girl, has died.
Her daughter, Romina Power, says Christian died Friday in Palm Desert after battling colon cancer. She was 87.
Born in Mexico, Christian pursued an acting career in Los Angeles and eventually signed a contract with MGM. She made her film debut alongside Danny Kaye in the 1944 musical comedy "Up In Arms."
A year after appearing in 1948's "Tarzan and the Mermaids," Christian married Power, one of Hollywood's most popular leading men. They divorced in 1956.
Christian's famous curves led Life magazine to nickname her the "anatomic bomb."
In 1954 she starred as James Bond's love interest in the television adaptation of the novel "Casino Royale."
She is survived by her daughters Romina and Taryn Power, her sister Ariadna Welterm and eight grandchildren.
Linda Christian
In Memory
Amy Winehouse
Amy Winehouse, one of the most talented singers of her generation whose hit song "Rehab" summed up her personal struggles with addiction, died in London on Saturday at the age of 27.
The multiple Grammy winner, famed for her black beehive hair, soulful voice and erratic behavior both on and off stage, was found dead at her home in Camden, north London. Police were called to the address at around 1500 GMT (11 a.m. British time).
"Inquiries continue into the circumstances of the death at this early stage. It is being treated as unexplained," a police spokesman said. Sky News quoted police sources as saying they suspected the death was caused by a drugs overdose.
Winehouse's last filmed performance was last month in Serbia, when she was jeered by the crowd, struggled to perform her songs and keep her balance as her band gamely played on. On some tunes, the audience did most of the singing.
The performance, which was posted on the YouTube video sharing site, prompted her management to cancel all her scheduled performances and give the performer as long as it took to recover.
Winehouse's father Mitch, who has launched his own musical career on the back of his daughter's success, had been in New York when the news broke. British media said he was on his way back to London.
Tributes poured in for an artist whose personal troubles stole most of the headlines in recent years.
Winehouse was born on September 14, 1983, to a Jewish family with a history of jazz musicians. She was discovered by soul singer Tyler James at the age of 16 and in 2003 her debut album "Frank" was released, to general acclaim.
Her second album "Back to Black" was released in October 2006 and reached the No. 1 spot in Britain and earned her five Grammy awards, pop music's equivalent of the Oscars.
Amy Winehouse
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