Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Mark Lagerkvist: "Christie's bodyguard busted in Pennsylvania theft" (New Jersey Watchdog)
A state police bodyguard to Chris Christie is facing criminal charges in Pennsylvania - despite his attempt to use his ties with the New Jersey governor to avoid arrest. […] "We don't give preferential treatment when someone breaks the law," [Tilden Township Police Chief William J.] McEllroy said.
Robert Evans, Jay Gironimi: 6 Surprising Ways Life Looks Different With Terminal Disease (Cracked)
#6. You Grow Up Immediately
Chris Bucholz: 5 Environmental Myths Too Many People Still Believe (Cracked)
#5. Eating Local Doesn't Help Much at All
Alison Flood: "JK Rowling backtracks on 'Harry Potter heresy'" (Guardian)
Full interview with Emma Watson in Wonderland magazine shows author qualifying doubts over Ron and Hermione's marriage.
Paula Cocozza, "Oppressed Majority: the film about a world run by women that went viral" (Guardian)
Eléonore Pourriat's short film imagines how a man might experience a sexual assault in a matriarchal society. 'I wanted it to be not so realistic but frightening,' she says.
Hadley Freeman: "How to cover celebrity deaths: the new rules" (Guardian)
The death and funeral of Philip Seymour Hoffman highlight some dos and don'ts for the hit-hungry internet.
Laura Barnett: Sheryl Crow, musician (Guardian)
Singer-songwriter Sheryl Crow talks about doing a jingle for McDonald's, throwing herself into country music - and sacrificing her love life for her career.
Jason Bailey: The 50 Most Romantic Movies Ever Made (Flavorwire)
Ah, Valentine's Day: flowers, candy, gifts, overpriced dinners, and wildly outsized expectations. And we can blame the movies for most of those expectations; few genres are as unfairly fantasy-based as the romance, and as prone to send jaded viewers like us into fits of gagging. But we're also not made of wood; there are a good number of romantic movies that get us right in the old ticker. As a matter of fact, there are about 50 of them.
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Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and way too warm for the season.
The kid started another semester, and again I'm plotzing at the price of his books.
The text for Algebra 101 is $352! Are you effing kidding me?
Is it printed with the blood of Euclid and Pythagoras?
HBO Sets Name & Date For Debut
John Oliver
Last Week Tonight With John Oliver will premiere on April 27, HBO announced today. The new weekly satire show from the former Daily Show With Jon Stewart correspondent and stand-in host will air at 11 PM.
Last Week Tonight will be produced for HBO by Avalon Television, with Oliver, Tim Carvell, James Taylor and Jon Thoday serving as EPs, and Liz Stanton producing.
HBO first announced Oliver's move over from Comedy Central on November 14 last year. The British comedian took over the desk on The Daily Show last summer as Stewart was away directing his first feature film. Oliver took his final Daily Show bow on December 19 to start work on his own show. Not that Oliver will be straying far from the tested and true - Last Week Tonight will, like The Daily Show, be taking a satirical look at news, politics and current events.
John Oliver
Only Known Clovis Burial
'Missing Link'
A prehistoric boy's DNA now suggests that ancient toolmakers long thought of as the first Americans may serve as a kind of "missing link" between Native Americans and the rest of the world, researchers say.
Scientists investigated a prehistoric culture known as the Clovis, named after sites discovered near Clovis, N.M. Centuries of cold, nicknamed the "Big Freeze," helped wipe out the Clovis, as well as most of the large mammals in North America. The artifacts of the Clovis are found south of the giant ice sheets that once covered Canada, in most of North America, though not in South America.
The stone tools of the Clovis, such as distinctive fluted or grooved spear points, date to about 12,600 to 13,000 years ago, making them the oldest widespread set of artifacts in North America. For most of the past 50 years, archaeologists thought the Clovis were the first Americans, but investigators recently uncovered evidence that humans were in the New World before Clovis, at least more than 14,000 years ago.
Researchers focused on bones unearthed by construction next to a rock cliff on the land of the Anzick family in central Montana.
The so-called Anzick skeleton was found with about 125 artifacts, including Clovis fluted spear points and tools made from antlers, and covered in red ochre, a type of mineral.
"This is the oldest burial in North America, and the only known Clovis burial,"study co-author Michael Waters at Texas A&M University in College Station told Live Science.
'Missing Link'
Shoots Video At Hearst Castle
Lady Gaga
Tourists are giving way to dancers as a production crew takes over Hearst Castle on the California coast, where Lady Gaga is shooting a big-budget music video.
The San Luis Obispo Tribune says filming is taking place this week at the indoor blue-and-gold tiled Roman Pool and the outdoor Neptune Pool.
The pop diva had yet to be seen as crewmembers carried in bags full of fake flowers and a giant plaster seashell Tuesday.
Shoots at the state historical site are extremely rare. Gaga is donating $250,000 to the Hearst Castle foundation in addition to underwriting a $25,000 water supply study and paying special fees.
She will also make a water conservation public service announcement and a short feature on the castle built by newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst.
Lady Gaga
'Help!' Jackets Up for Auction
The Beatles
George Harrison and Ringo Starr's jackets from the Beatles' 1965 film Help!, which they also wore on the cover of the movie's soundtrack, will be auctioned off among 200 other pieces of Beatles memorabilia, the BBC reports.
The jackets come from Help! director Richard Lester's private collection and are expected to sell between approximately $82,000 and $115,000 when they're made available through Omega Auctions next month.
"As Beatles clothing goes, these have got to be amongst the Holy Grail for any Beatles collector," said auctioneer Paul Fairweather. "They feature on one of their most recognizable album covers and I have a feeling these could really fly off the block."
The auction is set for March 20th - which also marks the 50th anniversary of the release of the Beatles' hit "Can't Buy Me Love" - and will take place at the Adelphi hotel in Liverpool.
The Beatles
Hacking Investigated
Las Vegas Sands
The FBI and Secret Service are investigating the hacking of the Las Vegas Sands casino company's websites, which remained down more than a day after they were hijacked.
The company's corporate site, as well as the home pages of the Italian-themed Venetian and Palazzo casinos in Las Vegas, displayed a screen Wednesday that said they were down for maintenance. The message provided phone numbers for all Sands properties, but not emails, because the hacking knocked that system out too.
Sands spokesman Ron Reese declined to say whether the company is aware of credit card records being stolen.
Las Vegas Sands Corp. runs the largest casino in the world in the Chinese gambling enclave in Macau. It also owns hotel-casinos in Singapore and Bethlehem, Pa.
The first sign that the company's systems might have been breached came Monday morning, when email went down. By Tuesday morning, hackers had taken control of all Sands sites, posting what looked like a clip-art collage featuring a map with flames where Sands casinos are located, a snapshot of Sands CEO Sheldon Adelson (R-Newtie's Uncle Sugar) posing with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and a message condemning the use of weapons of mass destruction. The hackers also posted employee Social Security numbers and signed their work, "Anti WMD Team."
Las Vegas Sands
Authorities Release 911 Calls
Chris Kattan
The California Highway Patrol has released audio of two motorists' calls reporting erratic driving and the aftermath of an early-morning collision involving actor-comedian Chris Kattan.
Kattan was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence early Monday after crashing into a road crew on westbound U.S. 101 in Southern California. No one was injured in the crash and Kattan was released after his arrest.
Audio released Wednesday shows dispatchers received two calls related to Kattan's driving and accident. One caller estimated the actor was travelling around 70 mph moments before the crash. Another motorist who reported the accident described the 43-year-old comedian leaving his car and walking on the highway afterward.
Chris Kattan
Says He Can Hear Again
'Beethoven of Japan'
A composer known as the "Beethoven of Japan" said on Wednesday he had regained some of his hearing ability, a week after setting off a furor by admitting he had used a ghost writer for his popular symphonies and other music.
Mamoru Samuragochi, a classical musician, became known as an inspirational genius for composing despite losing his hearing.
Samuragochi said on Wednesday that he had suffered hearing loss and was not able to hear when he began paying a part-time university professor to write music under his name, a collaboration that went on for 18 years.
"The truth is that recently I have begun to hear a little again," he said in a statement reported by Japanese media, adding that for the last three years he has been able to follow conversations under certain conditions.
Samuragochi, 50, apologized to fans last week for paying Takashi Niigaki to write compositions under his name. Niigaki told reporters that he had also wondered about the extent of the composer's hearing loss.
'Beethoven of Japan'
Eyes Slaughter Of Bison
Yellowstone Park
Yellowstone National Park managers are considering a plan that would ship hundreds of bison to slaughter if large numbers of the nation's last purebred herd migrate out of parkland and into Montana state lands in search of food.
Yellowstone spokesman Al Nash said the park was preparing to capture any animals that cross into Montana, where they are not tolerated. An estimated 4,600 bison now roam the park, far exceeding the target population of 3,000 to 3,500, he said.
Yellowstone biologists have determined that between 600 and 800 bison, also called buffalo, must be culled each year over the next several years to reduce the herd, Nash said.
The plan to cull wayward bison is refueling a decades-long debate over management of animals that wander during harsh winters from Yellowstone's snow-covered high country to seek forage in lower elevations in Montana.
Montana cattle ranchers worry that bison exposed to brucellosis, a disease that can cause cows to miscarry, will infect their herds. Animal advocates argue that no other wildlife in Montana, including Yellowstone elk with brucellosis, is killed for embarking on an ancient migration to winter range.
Yellowstone Park
Sinkhole Damages 8 Cars
National Corvette Museum
A sinkhole collapsed part of the National Corvette Museum in Kentucky on Wednesday, damaging eight cars but not shutting down the building.
Museum spokeswoman Katie Frassinelli said six of the cars were owned by the museum and two - a 1993 ZR-1 Spyder and a 2009 ZR1 Blue Devil - were on loan from General Motors.
The hole is in part of the domed section of the museum, and that area will remain closed. That's an original part of the facility for which was completed in 1994. The fire department estimated the hole is about 40 feet across and 25 to 30 feet deep. Pictures of the sinkhole show a collapsed section of floor with multiple cars visible inside the hole. A few feet away, other Corvettes sit undamaged and undisturbed.
The other cars damaged were a 1962 black Corvette, a 1984 PPG Pace Car, a 1992 White 1 Millionth Corvette, a 1993 Ruby Red 40th Anniversary Corvette, a 2001 Mallett Hammer Z06 Corvette and a 2009 white 1.5 Millionth Corvette.
National Corvette Museum
Judge Blocks Warrantless Searches Of Drug Database
Oregon
A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that U.S. government attempts to gather information from an Oregon state database of prescription drug records violates constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure.
The American Civil Liberties Union hailed the decision, in a case originally brought by the state of Oregon, as the first time a federal judge has ruled that patients have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their prescription records.
The ACLU had joined the lawsuit on behalf of four patients and a physician challenging U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration efforts to gain access, without prior court approval, to the state's prescription database.
The Oregon Prescription Drug Monitoring Program database was created by the state legislature in 2009 as a tool for pharmacists and physicians to track prescriptions of certain classes of drugs under the federal Controlled Substances Act.
The state mandated privacy protections for the data, including a requirement that law enforcement could only obtain information from the network with a warrant.
Oregon
Sign Of Bible Authors' Distance From History
Camels
Biblical scholars have long been aware many of the stories and accounts in the sacred book were not written by eyewitnesses, and according to new research, further evidence of that historical distance has appeared in the form of a hump-backed camel.
New research using radioactive-carbon dating techniques shows the animals weren't domesticated until hundreds of years after the events documented in the Book of Genesis. The research was published by Erez Ben-Yosef and Lidar Sapir-Hen, two archaeologists from Tel Aviv University in Israel. They believe camels were not domesticated in the eastern Mediterranean until the 10th century B.C.
And yet, the hump-backed creatures are mentioned repeatedly alongside Abraham, Jacob, and Isaac, indicating the Bible's writers and editors were portraying what they saw in their present as how things looked in the past, says a New York Times article by John Noble Wilford:
These anachronisms are telling evidence that the Bible was written or edited long after the events it narrates and is not always reliable as verifiable history. These camel stories "do not encapsulate memories from the second millennium," said Noam Mizrahi, an Israeli biblical scholar, "but should be viewed as back-projections from a much later period."
Camels
In Memory
Sid Caesar
Sid Caesar, the prodigiously talented pioneer of TV comedy who paired with Imogene Coca in sketches that became classics and who inspired a generation of famous writers, died early Wednesday. He was 91.
In his two most important shows, "Your Show of Shows," 1950-54, and "Caesar's Hour," 1954-57, Caesar displayed remarkable skill in pantomime, satire, mimicry, dialect and sketch comedy. And he gathered a stable of young writers who went on to worldwide fame in their own right - including Neil Simon and Woody Allen.
While best known for his TV shows, which have been revived on DVD in recent years, he also had success on Broadway and occasional film appearances, notably in "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World."
If the typical funnyman was tubby or short and scrawny, Caesar was tall and powerful, with a clown's loose limbs and rubbery face, and a trademark mole on his left cheek.
But Caesar never went in for clowning or jokes. He wasn't interested. He insisted that the laughs come from the everyday.
In one celebrated routine, Caesar impersonated a gumball machine; in another, a baby; in another, a ludicrously overemotional guest on a parody of "This Is Your Life."
The son of Jewish immigrants, Caesar was a wizard at spouting melting-pot gibberish that parodied German, Russian, French and other languages. His Professor was the epitome of goofy Germanic scholarship.
Caesar performed with such talents as Howard Morris and Nanette Fabray, but his most celebrated collaborator was the brilliant Coca, his "Your Show of Shows" co-star.
Coca and Caesar performed skits that satirized the everyday - marital spats, inane advertising, strangers meeting and speaking in clichés, a parody of the Western "Shane" in which the hero was "Strange." They staged a water-logged spoof of the love scene in "From Here to Eternity." ''The Hickenloopers" husband-and-wife skits became a staple.
Caesar worked closely with his writing staff as they found inspiration in silent movies, foreign films and the absurdities of '50s postwar prosperity.
Among those who wrote for Caesar: Mel Brooks, Larry Gelbart, Simon and his brother Danny Simon, and Allen, who was providing gags to Caesar and other entertainers while still in his teens.
Carl Reiner, who wrote in addition to performing on the show, based his "Dick Van Dyke Show" - with its fictional TV writers and their temperamental star - on his experiences there. Simon's 1993 "Laughter on the 23rd Floor" and the 1982 movie "My Favorite Year" also were based on the Caesar show.
Increasing ratings competition from Lawrence Welk's variety show put "Caesar's Hour" off the air in 1957.
In 1962, Caesar starred on Broadway in the musical "Little Me," written by Simon, and was nominated for a Tony. He played seven different roles, from a comically perfect young man to a tyrannical movie director to a prince of an impoverished European kingdom.
But he later looked back on those years as painful ones. He said he beat a severe, decades-long barbiturate and alcohol habit in 1978, when he was so low he considered suicide. "I had to come to terms with myself. 'Yes or no? Do you want to live or die?'" Deciding that he wanted to live, he recalled, was "the first step on a long journey."
Caesar was born in 1922 in Yonkers, N.Y., the third son of an Austrian-born restaurant owner and his Russian-born wife. His first dream was to become a musician, and he played saxophone in bands in his teens.
His talent for comedy was discovered when he was serving in the Coast Guard during World War II and got a part in a Coast Guard musical, "Tars and Spars." He also appeared in the movie version. Wrote famed columnist Hedda Hopper: "I hear the picture's good, with Sid Caesar a four-way threat. He writes, sings, dances and makes with the comedy."
His first TV comedy-variety show, "The Admiral Broadway Revue," premiered in February 1949. But it was off the air by June. Its fatal shortcoming: unimagined popularity. It was selling more Admiral television sets than the company could make, and Admiral, its exclusive sponsor, pulled out.
But everyone was ready for Caesar's subsequent efforts. "Your Show of Shows," which debuted in February 1950, and "Caesar's Hour" three years later reached as many as 60 million viewers weekly and earned its star $1 million annually at a time when $5, he later noted, bought a steak dinner for two.
When "Caesar's Hour" left the air in 1957, Caesar was only 34. But the unforgiving cycle of weekly television had taken a toll: His reliance on booze and pills for sleep every night so he could wake up and create more comedy.
It took decades for him to hit bottom. In 1977, he was onstage in Regina, Canada, doing Simon's "The Last of the Red Hot Lovers" when, suddenly, his mind went blank. He walked off stage, checked into a hospital and went cold turkey. Recovery had begun, with the help of wife Florence Caesar, who would be by his side for more than 60 years and helped him weather his demons.
Sid Caesar
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