Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Marc Dion: I Know Some Tough Guys (Creators Syndicate)
So, I told her, "I know some tough guys. My buddy Ray, he owns a lotta guns, ya know. Lives in a house out in the 'burbs and he reads sniper magazines.
Froma Harrop: When Death Sneaks Up on the Young and Successful (Creators Syndicate)
Their default is to assume they have 20, 40, 50 years left - and who's thinking that far ahead? People who've received dire diagnoses, or those close to them, know otherwise.
Froma Harrop: Obamacare Under President Hillary Clinton (Creators Syndicate)
Notably few Republicans these days call for repealing Obamacare without a replacement. A fully fleshed-out alternative would be most appreciated. Clinton remains intent on keeping and making it better. Happily, the likelihood of her being in charge is rising. Health care mechanics is Clinton's specialty, and that's more good news for Obamacare.
Lenore Skenazy: Pokemon Predator Panic (Creators Syndicate)
"Stranger danger" sounds like a huge threat, but the FBI stats on children abducted for nefarious purposes show exactly what percent were snatched by registered sex offenders? In 2009: Zero. And in 2010, it was less than 1 percent. Even the group that put the missing kids' pictures on the milk cartons, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, has labeled stranger danger a "myth we have been trying to debunk."
Michael Moore: 5 Ways To Make Sure Trump Loses (Huffington Post)
Please do not think for a second this election is over or in the bag. There are three long months to go. If you think that all we have to do is just let Trump keep shooting himself in the head - that "Trump will beat Trump" and the rest of us just have to sit back and watch with glee - well, you are playing with fire. And you're looking for a way to get out of doing any work.
Michael Moore: An Open Letter to Ivanka Trump from Michael Moore: 'Your Dad Is Not Well'(AlterNet)
It's time for an intervention.
Cole Delbyck: Natalie Maines Calls Out Country Music's Hypocrisy For Supporting Trump (Huffington Post)
The industry reacted to the Dixie Chicks much differently in 2003.
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took the day off.
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Reader Suggestion
Many People Are Saying
The article at the link below is HUGE! And so funny!
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
from Marc Perkel
Patriot Act
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
A SARCASTIC NUCLEAR ATTACK!
"THE FUTURE BELONGS TO THE OPTIMISTS"
"IS THIS A SICK JOKE?"
THE FIX IS IN!
"THE PERFECT AVATAR OF THE EFFORT."
IT ISN'T NEWS!
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Back to too hot to cook in the house.
Compares Lumpy To Travis Bickle
Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro says Donald Trump is like the main character of the legendary 1976 movie "Taxi Driver," the mentally disturbed Travis Bickle.
"What he has been saying is totally crazy, ridiculous, stuff that shouldn't be even ... he is totally nuts," De Niro said during a question and answer session at the Sarajevo Film Festival.
When the moderator asked De Niro to elaborate on Bickle's mental illness, the first thing that seemed to have crossed the actor's mind was the Republican candidate.
"One of the things to me was just the irony at the end, he (Bickle) is back driving a cab, celebrated, which is kind of relevant in some way today too," De Niro said.
"People like Donald Trump who shouldn't be where he is so ... God help us," De Niro said.
Sarajevans responded with a frantic applause.
Robert De Niro
First-Ever Growers' Fair
Oregon
People flocked to Oregon's first-ever marijuana growers' fair on Saturday where a competition for best pot plants will be held, with the winning entries to be displayed at the Oregon State Fair.
The inaugural two-day event being held in an exhibition hall on the Oregon State Fairgrounds underscores how the once-illicit marijuana industry is starting to go mainstream in Oregon, one of four states to have legalized recreational marijuana use, along with Washington, D.C.
Donald Morse, a pot grower who conceived the Oregon Cannabis Growers' Fair, said attendance was strong, less than two hours after the doors opened Saturday morning. Segments of the industry, from seed providers all the way to a company offering mechanized bud trimmers, were among more than 80 exhibitors at the fair that ends Sunday.
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Nine winning entries of a pot-plant competition at this fair will be displayed in two weeks at the Oregon State Fair, along with more traditional items like tomatoes, hogs and horses. It will be the first time cannabis will be exhibited at a state fair anywhere in the United States, organizers said.
Oregon
Tweets Analysis
Lumpy
An analysis of Donald Trump's tweets suggests that differnt people write them. Trump writes the aggressive tweets.
Twitter has become an important part of political campaigns in the recent years. Politicians use the micro-blogging platform for many purposes, whether to take a dig at rivals or wish good luck to the Olympics teams.
Tweets from Donald Trump - the Republican Party Presidential candidate for 2016 elections - have been scrutinized, especially during his presidential campaign, mainly due to frequent misspellings. Trump's tweets misspelled several cities in the U.S., including Phoenix, Oklahoma City and more. He even misspelled Barack Obama's name twice.
Data experts who have been analyzing Trump's Twitter posts suggest that his tweets were written from an iPhone as well as a Samsung Galaxy handset.
Campaign staff members are said to be tweeting on behalf of Trump from an iPhone, while the American billionaire businessman is believed to write his own tweets from his Android smartphone.
Lumpy
Ghost in the Machine
'New Particle'
When you're searching high and low for your lost keys, sometimes the places where you don't see them can help you narrow down where they might be. In science, the search for new physics often takes a similar path.
In December 2015, scientists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) - the world's largest particle accelerator - thought they may have seen a hint of a brand-new particle, and with it, a window into physics beyond what scientists know now. But the findings turned out to be ghosts, a statistical fluke.
Yet despite the negative result, the fact that there is nothing there shows that reigning theories of particle physics are working remarkably well, experts said. But that result only deepens the mysteries physicists are trying to solve, and pushes them to find out just where new particles or forces could be hiding.
"The bad news is [the measurements] don't show anything," said theoretical physicist Matt Strassler. "The good news is that it did a really good job of not showing anything."
Strassler himself recently gave a talk at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), which runs the LHC, on what can be learned from such results, or lack thereof. "It's like if you squint trying to see something - sometimes you'll see something, and sometimes it will be an illusion," Strassler told Live Science.
'New Particle'
To Have Two Presidents
Rupert News
Following last month's abrupt departure of Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes (R-Horndog), the network on Friday announced that senior executives Bill Shine and Jack Abernethy would serve as network co-presidents.
Shine, a senior executive vice president and former Ailes deputy, and Abernethy, CEO of Fox Television Stations, have assumed their new roles with immediate effect, the network said in a statement.
The pair joined Fox News on the network's launch 20 years ago.
In a statement, 21st Century Fox Executive Chairman Rupert Murdoch (R-Evil Incarnate) -- who became chairman and acting chief executive of Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network after Ailes' exit -- said the network was experiencing a time of "great transition" and lauded Abernethy and Shine, crediting them with the network's longstanding popularity.
Rupert News
Pastors Want Sharia Law
Illinois
A group of pastors is suing Illinois over a law that bars therapists and counselors from trying to change a minor's sexual orientation, saying in a Thursday filing that the prohibition violates free speech and religious rights.
The federal lawsuit seeks to exclude clergy from the ban that took effect Jan. 1, arguing that homosexuality is "contrary to God's purpose" and a disorder that "can be resisted or overcome by those who seek to be faithful to God and His Word."
Illinois is among five states with bans on so-called gay conversion therapy for youth under 18, a practice critics have decried as psychologically damaging. The laws in California and New Jersey have withstood legal challenges, but an attorney for the pastors said the prohibitions in those states did not include clergy.
Illinois' law applies to therapists and other licensed counselors, but the portion of the law that concerns pastors makes anyone liable for consumer fraud if they practice or advertise conversion therapy that portrays homosexuality as a mental disorder.
Illinois
Conversion Therapy
Iowa
Iowa boards overseeing doctors and psychologists considered Friday whether to adopt a policy that would ban state-licensed professionals from counseling gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender children to change their sexual orientation in a practice known as conversion therapy.
The Iowa Board of Psychology on Friday voted to deny a petition that would have prohibited Iowa licensed mental health providers from trying to reverse a patient's sexual orientation, said board spokeswoman Sharon Dozier. She declined to discuss the reasons, saying the board will release its full decision later.
The petition submitted in February was signed by 695 people. It said a third of LGBTQ individuals report they were sent outside the home to a therapist or religious leader to "cure, treat or change their sexual orientation."
An Iowa Board of Medicine committee declined to take action Friday on the ban. Committee Chairman Ronald Cheney said the group needs further study before making a recommendation to the full board.
The board, which licenses and regulates medical doctors in Iowa, also was petitioned in February. The board denied the petition in April, saying it needed more information and assigned the four-member committee to study it.
Iowa
Crooked Cop Pleads Not Guilty
Lee Baca
Former Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca pleaded not guilty on Friday to charges he sought to obstruct a federal corruption probe that overshadowed the final years of his tenure as chief custodian of the nation's largest county jail system.
Baca, who is 74 and suffers from Alzheimer's disease, was indicted last week on three new criminal charges after he backed out of an earlier plea agreement rather than face a sentence tougher than the six-month term a federal judge rejected as too lenient.
He entered a not guilty plea on Friday to all three new felony charges - obstruction of justice, conspiracy to obstruct justice and lying to federal investigators. He could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
Federal prosecutors previously had agreed to recommend a prison term of no more than six months in return for Baca's guilty plea to a single count of making a false statement to investigators.
Both prosecutors and defense lawyers at the time cited the retired lawman's then-recent Alzheimer's diagnosis in their reasoning under the original deal for seeking a sentence that was far less than the maximum five-year penalty.
Lee Baca
Plans To Protect
Gunnison Sage Grouse
Federal land managers have announced long-awaited plans to protect the rare Gunnison sage grouse, a bird found only in Colorado and Utah.
The Bureau of Land Management released a nearly 1,000-page document late Thursday proposing restrictions on energy development, roads and grazing. The proposals include closing or limiting the use of some areas during the birds' mating season, from mid-March to Mid-May, and during harsh winter weather. That could affect exploration for oil and gas, among other activities.
Other proposals include limits on the size of rights of way for utility lines and pipelines. Release of the plans opens a 90-day period for public comment. Final rules are expected next year.
Only about 5,000 Gunnison sage grouse remain in southwestern Colorado and southeastern Utah. It was listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act in 2014. About 2,200 square miles in the two states are considered critical habitat.
Gunnison Sage Grouse
In Memory
Glenn Yarbrough
Glenn Yarbrough, the American folk singer best known for his work with the popular trio the Limeliters in the early 1960s and his solo hit single "Baby the Rain Must Fall", has died at the age of 86.
Yarbrough, lead singer and guitarist of the original group that also featured Alex Hassilev and Lou Gottlieb, passed away on Thursday night surrounded by friends and family members, his daughter Holly Yarbrough Burnett said in a post on Facebook.
Yarbrough Burnett did not specify a cause of death in the post but in May wrote that her father had been suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and dementia and been in hospice care in recent months. He died at her home in Nashville.
Yarbrough was born on January 20, 1930 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but largely grew up in New York City, where he sang in the church choir.He studied philosophy at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, but decided to embark on a career as a folk singer after attending a Woody Guthrie concert at the school.
After serving in the Korean War, Yarbrough moved to Aspen, Colorado, where he had purchased a ski lodge with Hassilev called The Limelite that would lend its name to the trio.
Yarbrough left the group in 1963 and released a series of solo songs and albums including Baby the Rain Must Fall, title song of a 1965 film starring Steve McQueen and Lee Remick.
Yarbrough, who had a love for the sea, spent much of the next several decades sailing but reunited periodically with the band for reunion tours.
Glenn Yarbrough
In Memory
Kenny Baker
Kenny Baker played the lovable droid R2-D2 in the "Star Wars" films, achieving cult status and fans' adulation without showing his face or speaking any lines.
The 3-foot 8-inch (1.1 meter) performer - a word he preferred to actor - inside the waste-bin-shaped costume has died at 81. Baker's nephew and carer, Drew Myerscough, said he found Baker dead Saturday at his home in Preston, northwest England.
Born to a music-loving family in the central England city of Birmingham on Aug 24, 1934, Baker started performing at 16 as part of a troupe called "Burton Lester's Midgets."
Baker later worked as a DJ and circus clown, and as half a comedy-musical duo called the Mini-Tones with Jack Purvis, who also appeared in the "Star Wars" films.
Fame came when he was cast as the actor inside R2-D2's cylindrical robot costume in 1977's "Star Wars."
Baker said he initially turned down the part. In an interview on his website, he said he told director George Lucas "I don't want to be stuck in a robot, what for, for goodness sake?"
Eventually, he said he told Lucas, "I'll help you out."
Baker returned for "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi," and reprised the role in three prequels released between 1999 and 2005.
Despite their onscreen rapport, Baker and Anthony Daniels, who played C-390, weren't close. Baker accused Daniels of being snobbish; Daniels was once quoted by Britain's Daily Mirror as saying Baker "might as well be a bucket."
Baker also appeared in films including "The Elephant Man," ''Time Bandits," ''Willow" and "Labyrinth."
Baker's wife Eileen died in 1993. The couple had two sons.
Kenny Baker
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