Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Trevor Timm: The Republican party is not dead. Far from it (The Guardian)
The obituaries that were written in haste when Donald Trump took over were naive. The past few weeks make that abundantly clear.
Darby Saxbe: A Letter to a Bernie-or-Bust Voter (Slate)
Hillary Clinton may not be a revolutionary, but she'll defend Roe v. Wade, preserve Obamacare, push for reasonable gun laws, protect LGBTQ rights, support parental leave, and heed climate science. Trump will do none of the above.
Mark Morford: "Like cancer endorsing rabies: The NRA embraces Trump" (SF Gate)
It was exactly as gross an act of public coitus as you might imagine, the moment the Cult of the Gun embraced the Gloating Orange Madman, AKA when the National Rifle Association officially endorsed Donald Trump for president. And lo, the heavens did cringe and history did bury its face in its hands, and scream.
Ted Kessler, Dorian Lynskey, Julie Burchill, Tjinder Singh and Adam Cohen: "Parents and parenting: 'Nobody lies about their dad' - writers and rock stars reflect on their fathers" (The Guardian)
Julie Burchill worshipped hers. Leonard Cohen's son Adam finds his hilarious. In an extract from a new book, My Old Man, they share stories of their unique father-child relationships, alongside Dorian Lynskey and Cornershop's Tjinder Singh.
Michele Hanson: Microsoft has ruined my day, and possibly my life (The Guardian)
An unwanted software update has moved my files, broken my printer and stopped the sound on iPlayer.
Will Dean: Adele's £90m contract - warnings from previous megadeals from REM to Robbie (The Guardian)
Adele is set to score a £90m payday with Sony - putting her in the same league as the likes of Robbie Williams and Mariah Carey. But do deals like this ever pay off for the labels?
Nathan Williams: 5 Awesome Things That'll Be Gone Forever By, Like, Soon (Cracked)
#5. Big-Name Porn Stars Are A Thing Of The Past
The Growing Need for a Universal Basic Income
Labor force participation rates, which are the percentage of people in a given country who have any job at all, have been declining since around 2001. So have median incomes. Mean incomes, on the other hand, have increased. This means that while the average person is less likely to work, and likely to earn less money if they do, the total amount of money being earned per person has increased because of gains in income at the top.
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took the day off.
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
David E Suggests
Line of Sight
David
Thanks, Dave!
from Marc Perkel
Patriot Act
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
"THE LADY DOTH PROTEST TOO MUCH"
LET MY PEOPLE GROW!
THE WAR COMES HOME!
COOKING THE BOOKS!
CHRISTIAN VALUES!
FUCKING GUN NUTS!
"AMERICA"
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Still cool enough to use the oven.
T-rump's Tapped Reservoir Of 'Inherent Racism'
Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter said Monday that presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump had tapped into "inherent racism" to bolster his candidacy.
In an interview with The New York Times, Carter, the 39th president, also said Trump violated "basic human rights" by labeling Mexican and Muslim immigrants as criminals and terrorists.
"When you single out any particular group of people for secondary citizenship status, that's a violation of basic human rights," Carter said.
Carter, the oldest living US Democratic president, told The Times that "racially conscious Republicans" hadn't been able to handle an African-American as president, though he said President Barack Obama's election was a hopeful sign in race relations. Carter said Republican animosity toward Obama had "a heavy racial overtone."
Trump, he said, was a stunning success because he "tapped a waiting reservoir there of inherent racism."
Jimmy Carter
OK With T-rump Using His Music
Neil Young
Neil Young might be opposed to much of what Donald Trump represents, but he's no longer against the Republican front-runner using his music on the campaign trail.
The about-face comes almost a year after Trump inspired Young's ire by blasting "Rockin' in the Free World" at the rally where he announced his candidacy. It seems like some insight into music licensing eased Neil's anger.
"He actually got a license to use it," Young told Reuters in a recent video interview. "I mean, he said he did and I believe him. So I got nothing against him. You know, once the music goes out, everybody can use it for anything."
Young was referencing a claim Trump's campaign made about having a license agreement with the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers for the right to play the track from his 1989 album Freedom.
Neil Young
Drops Bid For Congressional Seat
Melissa Gilbert
Melissa Gilbert, best known for playing Laura Ingalls Wilder in the 1970s television drama "Little House on the Prairie," has dropped out of the race for a U.S. congressional seat in Michigan for medical reasons.
Gilbert, 52, said continued problems from neck and back injuries from a 2012 accident forced her to give up her Democratic candidacy for the Republican-held seat.
"While I have received the best treatment and therapy I could have asked for, those injuries have only gotten worse," Gilbert said in a statement. "As much as it breaks my heart to say this, my doctors have told me I am physically unable to continue my run for Congress."
Gilbert, who lives with her husband, actor Timothy Busfield, in Howell, Michigan, about 60 miles (100 km) from Detroit, has no political background but served two terms as president of the Screen Actors Guild from 2001 to 2005.
Melissa Gilbert
US Spends Billions
Aging Tech
The government is squandering its technology budget maintaining museum-ready computer systems in critical areas from nuclear weapons to Social Security. They're still using floppy disks at the Pentagon.
In a report released Wednesday, nonpartisan congressional investigators found that about three-fourths of the $80 billion budget goes to keep aging technology running, and the increasing cost is shortchanging modernization.
The White House has been pushing to replace workhorse systems that date back more than 50 years in some cases. But the government is expected to spend $7 billion less on modernization in 2017 than in 2010, said the Government Accountability Office.
The Defense Department's Strategic Automated Command and Control System, which is used to send and receive emergency action messages to U.S. nuclear forces. The system is running on a 1970s IBM computing platform, and still uses 8-inch floppy disks to store data. "Replacement parts for the system are difficult to find because they are now obsolete," GAO said. The Pentagon told GAO it is initiating a full replacement and the floppy disks should be gone by the end of next year. The entire upgrade will take longer.
Aging Tech
Pants On Fire
'American Sniper'
Documents show the number of medals slain Navy Seal and "American Sniper" author Chris Kyle received for his military service is different from what he indicated in his best-selling memoir about his four tours of duty in Iraq.
Navy documents show Kyle earned one Silver Star and three Bronze Stars with valor, instead of the two Silver Stars and five Bronze Stars his book says he received.
Lt. Jackie Pau, a Navy spokeswoman, told the AP that Kyle's military personnel file states he received one Silver Star and three Bronze Stars with valor. Kyle's discharge paperwork, known as a DD214 form, indicated that he had received two Silver Stars and at least five Bronze Stars, which is what he wrote in his book.
Jurors in 2014 awarded former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura $500,000 for defamation and $1.3 million for unjust enrichment in a trial over a passage in Kyle's book that Ventura claimed was a complete fabrication. Kyle described punching out a man, later identified as Ventura, whom he said made offensive remarks about Navy SEALs. Ventura, a former Underwater Demolition Teams/SEAL member, testified he never made the comments and the altercation never happened. He said the book ruined his reputation in the SEAL community. The verdict is being appealed.
'American Sniper'
Swedish Court Upholds Arrest Warrant
Julian Assange
A Swedish lower court upheld on Wednesday the arrest warrant for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, saying the stay at Ecuador's London embassy did not equal detention.
Assange, 44, is wanted by Swedish authorities for questioning over allegations, which he denies, that he committed rape in 2010.
A computer hacker who enraged U.S. authorities by publishing hundreds of thousands of secret U.S. diplomatic cables, he has been holed up in the embassy since June 2012 to avoid the rape investigation in Sweden.
He says he fears further extradition to the United States, where there has been a criminal investigation into the activities of Wikileaks.
Julian Assange
Exhibit Looks At Washington As Slaveholder
Mount Vernon
It is the unavoidable Achilles' heel in the reputation of George Washington and so many other Founding Fathers: that men who risked their lives to protect their nation's liberty were also slaveholders.
That dichotomy will be explored in a new exhibit at Washington's Mount Vernon estate, in a museum space previously dedicated to exhibitions featuring Washington's furniture, fineries and his penchant for dining on syrupy hoecakes.
The $750,000 exhibition, Lives Bound Together, will explore hard truths about Washington's life as a slaveholder, including an acknowledgement that Washington's adopted son likely fathered a child with one of the family's slaves.
Mount Vernon has not shied away from explorations of slavery: In 2007, the estate reconstructed a slave cabin on the grounds about a mile from the iconic mansion. And Mount Vernon has worked to maintain good relations with the descendants of Mount Vernon slaves, many of whom still live in the area.
A centerpiece of the new exhibit, which will launch in October, is a display of Washington's handwritten list of slaves on the estate from 1799, likely written in preparation for his will. Washington freed his slaves in his will, upon the death of his wife, Martha. She ended up freeing the slaves before she died. Other slaves belonged to Martha Washington's family, and neither George nor Martha had any legal right to emancipate them.
Mount Vernon
Attackers Refuse To Decrypt Files
Ransomware
Negotiating with criminals doesn't always work out, as Kansas Heart Hospital in Wichita learned last week. The hospital paid to get files back after falling victim to ransomware, but only got "partial access" and a demand for more money, Techspot is reporting
That's right: the criminals got their ransom, and then decided they wanted more money. The hospital's president, Dr. Greg Duick says the hospital is not paying up.
Duick won't reveal which malware hit the hospital, or how much money was paid to the attackers.
The hospital had a plan for this sort of attack, and it's not clear why it didn't work. Without more details from Kansas Heart, it's hard to say. But there's at least one bright side.
Still, this sort of thing is becoming way too common in America's hospitals, and any money paid to criminals is money not spent on providing healthcare.
Ransomware
Grizzlies & Polar
Bears
Grizzly-polar bear hybrids are becoming a reality. The two bears typically don't occupy the same habitats - polar bears, or Ursus maritimus, like to hang out near or in the sea, while grizzlies, a subspecies of brown bear, or Ursus arctos, prefer forests. But as warmer temperatures hit the Arctic Circle, there have been increasing sightings of crossovers.
Most recently, a bear was shot in northern Canada that didn't quite fit the description of a polar bear.
Its head was the same shape as a grizzly bear and its paws were brown, hunter Didji Ishalook told CBC News.
The reason for the crossover? The bears would rather mate with a different kind of bear than not mate at all, The Washington Post reports. But that's not necessarily great news for the future of the polar bear, which needs arctic ice to thrive.
"I hate to say it, but from a genetic perspective, it's quite likely grizzly bears will eat polar bears up, genetically," University of Alberta professor Andrew Derocher told The Post. The warmer temperatures have led to expanded territories for the grizzlies to roam and run into polar bear mates, which could lead to polar bears as we know them to dissolve into the grizzly population.
Bears
In Memory
Beth Howland
Beth Howland, the actress best known for her role as a ditzy waitress on the 1970s and '80s CBS sitcom "Alice," has died. She was 74.
Her husband, actor Charles Kimbrough, told The Associated Press that Howland died Dec. 31 of lung cancer in Santa Monica, California. He said there had been no announcement, funeral or memorial service because that's how she wanted it.
"That was her choice," he said.
Howland was born May 28, 1941, in Boston. At 16, she landed a role on Broadway alongside Dick Van Dyke in "Bye Bye Birdie." CBS later noticed Howland on stage in the 1970 production of "Company" and brought her to Hollywood for a bit part on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show."
Small roles on "The Love Boat" and "Little House on the Prairie" followed and a major break came when she was cast as Vera Louise Gorman on "Alice," a comedy set in an Arizona greasy spoon diner based on the 1974 Martin Scorsese film, "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore."
Howland earned four Golden Globe nominations during the comedy's 1976-85 run for her performance as the naive Vera. Howland described herself in a 1979 AP profile as "very shy" and said she saw something of herself in the character.
After "Alice" ended, Howland largely disappeared from television acting, aside from bit parts on series including "Murder, She Wrote" and "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch."
Howland created Tiger Rose Productions with actress Jennifer Warren. The company produced "You Don't Have to Die," a 1988 HBO documentary about a boy's battle against cancer that won an Academy Award for best short-subject documentary.
Howland is survived by a daughter from her previous marriage to actor Michael J. Pollard.
Beth Howland
In Memory
Joe Fleishaker
Joe Fleishaker, the 500-pound actor who was enormously popular with Troma fans thanks to his performances in several farcical horror movies churned out by the ultra-low-budget company, has died. He was 62.
Fleishaker, billed as "Troma's biggest action star" by company co-founder Lloyd Kaufman, died Monday at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, his brother, Haskel, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Fleishaker suffered from morbid obesity and congestive heart failure and likely died of a heart attack, he said.
The actor also had a recurring walk-on role in the 1980s on David Letterman's Late Night show at NBC, sometimes playing the comic's father or son.
A native of Brooklyn who grew up the neighborhood of Borough Park, Fleishaker appeared very briefly in Woody Allen's Radio Days (1987). In Troma's War (1988), he started out as an extra before Kaufman liked what he saw and cast him as a "specially trained terrorist."
Fleishaker then played an Apocalypse Inc. executive in the comic Troma "superhero" films The Toxic Avenger Part II and The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie, both released in 1989.
Fleishaker followed up with Troma's Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D. (1991), The Troma System (1993), Tromeo and Juliet (1996), Terror Firmer (1999), Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV (2000) - where he played Lardass, the sidekick of The Toxic Avenger (David Mattey) - and Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (2006).
Fleishaker also appeared as Troma co-founder Michael Herz in several videos and film shorts made by the company, including 2004's Tales From the Crapper. And he appeared as himself in the 2001 documentary Farts of Darkness.
Fleishaker's final two credits were I Spill Your Guts (2012) and Trashtastic (2013), with Kaufman in the cast as well.
Fleishaker, who never married and had no children, is also survived by another brother, Simon.
Joe Fleishaker
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