Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Mark Morford: "Cartoon broccoli: How to make America slightly less fat" (SF Gate)
America is, still and officially, the fattest nation on the planet. Women and men, on average, are each now 30 pounds heavier than they were in the early '60s. As reddit pointed out from the CDC data, the average American woman now weighs the same as the average man did not 50 years ago. America remains the fattest major nation on the planet… and still getting fatter.
Mark Morford: America does violence to itself, over and over again (SF Gate)
You can be deeply sad. You can be truly horrified. You can be mournful, baffled, resentful, disturbed, mortified and morally humiliated by all the murderous events spanning from Louisiana to Orlando, Minnesota to Dallas and, lest you forget, all points in between.
Paul Krugman: Still Confused About Brexit Macroeconomics (NY Times)
… since some people seem unable to read what I'm saying, this should happen even if the negative scenario holds; it's the resolution that should produce the delayed boom, whichever way that resolution goes. But that's not what BlackRock, or almost anyone else, seems to be saying; they're projecting lower growth as far as the eye can see. They could be right. But I still don't see the logic. It seems to me that "uncertainty" is being used as a catchall for "bad stuff".
Lucy Mangan: "The Job Interview review: we all need a bit of Lorraine in our lives" (The Guardian)
Amid the stress, horror and humiliation of the job-search nightmare, Lorraine Kitchen, head of HR at Low Cost Vans, was a ray of light. Meanwhile, the new series of Child Genius wasn't nearly as clever as it thought it was.
Lucy Mangan: Why parents aren't to be trusted (The Guardian)
In theory, having a child should connect you to the world like nothing else. So it's a shame that doesn't work in practice.
Lucy Mangan: "Celebrity First Dates review - how Esther Rantzen restored my faith in humanity"(The Guardian)
The Channel 4 dating show pairs celebrities with 'ordinary people' - and it's made me believe in truth and beauty once more.
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took the day off.
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Brian Suggests
Censorship
Brian
Thanks, Brian!
from Marc Perkel
Patriot Act
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
RESPECT ALL SENTIENT BEINGS.
RESPECT ALL SENTIENT BEINGS. PART TWO.
THE NAZI WHORES OF CONGRESS!
OPEN CARRY IN CLEVELAND.
THE REAL CHOSEN PEOPLE!
"HAM'S SHAM!"
THE ALIENS ARE US!
"THE BEAST HAD ONE HUNDRED EYES."
MUSIC FOR OUR WORLD.
WHY IS THIS IDIOT DANCING?
JESUS MADE ME DO IT!
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Getting hot again. Ack.
Roddenberry's Son Weighs In
"Star Trek"
The son of late "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry says his father would have been on board with an Enterprise crew member being portrayed as gay, but he's unsure if it should have been helmsman Hikaru Sulu.
Rod Roddenberry said his father would have been supportive of a gay "Trek" character and commended the "Star Trek Beyond" filmmakers for featuring an LGBT character. Roddenberry died in 1991.
"I think he would be 100 percent in favor of a gay character in 'Star Trek," said Roddenberry during an interview Tuesday. "There's so much going on in the world today. I think he would love any sort of social issue being brought into 'Star Trek.'"
"I liked the approach, which was not to make a big thing out it, which is where I hope we are going as a species, to not politicize one's personal orientations," he said.
Roddenberry understands Takei's opinion that his father likely didn't intend for Sulu, who never had an on-screen love interest in the original TV and film series, to be gay.
"Star Trek"
Celeb Supporters Sitting Out GOP Convention
T-rump
At the last Republican National Convention, the sight of Clint Eastwood onstage arguing to an empty chair quickly went viral. This time, Eastwood likely won't be there, and organizers are scrambling to ensure there aren't any empty chairs onstage either.
Ted Nugent is too busy touring. The Oak Ridge Boys won't be on hand to sing the national anthem like they did in 2012. Taylor Hicks isn't going either. Nor is Lee Greenwood.
Country legend Loretta Lynn, the "Coal Miner's Daughter," has been vocal about her support of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, but Maria Malta, a spokeswoman for the singer, said she has not been contacted about performing at the Republican National Convention.
This year, the list of celebrities lining up to celebrate former reality star Trump is smaller. A message left for Wayne Newton, who has voiced his support for the real estate developer, wasn't returned. Neither was one for Trace Adkins, who backed Romney in 2012 and sang at the GOP's convention in Tampa, Florida. A representative for 3 Doors Down, who played last time at the convention, said no plans for the band have been confirmed. Former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka, who backs Trump, has passed on the chance to be a part of the show.
Lynyrd Skynyrd and Kid Rock -- who have long voiced their support for Republican causes -- will be in Cleveland, but they'll be performing private concerts to honor military veterans that are not directly associated with the convention, running from July 18-21.
T-rump
New Soft-Bodied Fish Found
Alaska
Federal biologist Jay Orr never knows what's going to come up in nets lowered to the ocean floor off Alaska's remote Aleutian Islands, which separate the Bering Sea from the rest of the Pacific Ocean. Sometimes it's stuff he has to name.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration biologist is part of a group that uses trawl nets to survey commercially important fish species such as cod in waters off Alaska. Sometimes those nets come up with things no one has seen before.
With co-authors, Orr has discovered 14 kinds of new snailfish, a creature that can be found in tide pools but also in the deepest parts of the ocean. A dozen more new snailfish are waiting to be named. Additional species are likely to be found as scientists expand their time investigating areas such as the Bering Sea Slope, in water 800 to 5,200 feet deep, or the 25,663-foot deep Aleutian Trench.
"I suspect we are just scraping the top of the distributions of some of these deep-water groups," Orr said from his office in Seattle.
Alaska
Just Like Here
Russia
A former editor of a Russian media group described how he and colleagues were pushed out over reporting that angered officials, in the first public account of the taming of Russia's last big news organization willing to take on the Kremlin.
In his first public comments since his dismissal along with two other top editors from RBC media group in May, Roman Badanin told Reuters that he and his colleagues were fired in the wake of a campaign of pressure on the group's billionaire owner that came to a head after they published a story on the "Panama Papers" leaks.
Last week, RBC managers presented the replacement editors, recruited from state-owned news agency Tass, who told a tense meeting with staff that there would be limits on what and how they could report, according to someone who was present.
RBC's owner Mikhail Prokhorov, a metals magnate who also owns the Brooklyn Nets U.S. basketball team, had previously shielded its journalists. The group's news agency, newspaper and television station wrote stories about Putin's friends and family, and other taboo subjects like the presence of Russian troops in Ukraine.
But after the Panama Papers story in April, which was illustrated with a picture of Putin and alleged that a close childhood friend of the president's had offshore accounts, the official pressure was turned up a notch.
Russia
Vindictive & Paranoid
T-rump
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is seeking $10 million in damages from former senior campaign consultant Sam Nunberg, alleging that Nunberg leaked confidential information to reporters in violation of a nondisclosure agreement.
In a court filing obtained by The Associated Press, Nunberg accused Trump of trying to silence him "in a misguided attempt to cover up media coverage of an apparent affair" between two senior campaign staffers.
Such a legal dispute is highly unusual for a presidential candidate. It reflects Trump's efforts to aggressively protect the secrecy of his campaign's inner workings, as he has for years fought to protect the secrecy of his businesses and family.
The AP reported last month that Trump requires nearly everyone in his campaign and businesses to sign legally binding nondisclosure agreements prohibiting them from releasing any confidential or disparaging information about the real estate mogul, his family or his companies. Trump has also said he would consider requiring such agreements in the White House.
Nunberg's filing comes at a crucial political moment for Trump. He's on the verge of picking his running mate and is preparing for next week's Republican convention, one of his highest profile opportunities to reach voters and ease the concerns of GOP leaders who are concerned about his unconventional candidacy.
T-rump
Oink. Oink. Oink
Rep. Jeremy Durham
An investigation of a Tennessee state legislator released Wednesday found he took advantage of his position to sexually harass at least 22 women, including a then-20-year-old college student who told investigators Rep. Jeremy Durham plied her with a cooler full of beer and had sex with her in his office in 2014. Another woman interviewed was a lobbyist who nicknamed Durham "Pants Candy" after she said he rummaged in his pocket before suggestively offering her a dirty, unwrapped mint.
The 48-page final report outlines a pattern of behavior in which Durham, 32, a married Republican lawmaker from the wealthy Nashville suburb of Franklin, tried to initiate romantic and sexual contact with female staff, interns, lobbyists and political workers. Several of the women discussed feeling as though they could not say no to Durham because he held a position of power over them. None of the women ever filed a formal complaint against him, and many told investigators they felt that doing so would hurt their careers.
Durham has resisted calls from state GOP leaders to resign his seat and is running for re-election. Early voting for state primaries begins Friday. Durham's attorney, Bill Harbison, issued a statement on Wednesday calling the investigation, "politically motivated, unfair and unconstitutional." Harbison also criticized the fact that all of the women in the report are anonymous.
After preliminary findings from the investigation were released in April, House Speaker Beth Harwell exiled Durham to a different building and limited his access to the Capitol. Harwell said on Wednesday that if Durham were to be re-elected she would continue those measures in order to protect female employees from him.
If voters were to re-elect Durham, it wouldn't be the first time he had managed to escape trouble. In 2003, while he was in college, he was arrested for breaking into the home of his ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend and stealing from him. Prosecutors and school officials didn't pursue the case. In 2013, prosecutors accused Durham of prescription drug fraud, but a grand jury declined to indict him.
Rep. Jeremy Durham
Court Sides With Planned Parenthood
Utah
The Utah governor's order to block funding to Planned Parenthood was probably a political move designed to punish the group, a federal appeals court wrote in an ruling that ordered the state to keep the money flowing.
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver decided Tuesday there's a good chance the governor's order violated the group's constitutional rights.
Republican Gov. Gary Herbert cut off cash last fall for sexually transmitted disease and sex education programs following the release of secretly recorded videos showing out-of-state employees discussing fetal tissue from abortions.
The head of the Planned Parenthood Association of Utah hailed the ruling as a victory for the clinic's patients.
"Our doors are open today and they will be tomorrow - no matter what," CEO Karrie Galloway said in a statement. Her group has planned a celebration for Saturday on the front steps of the Utah State Capitol.
Utah
Judge Throws Out
'Stingray' Evidence
For the first time, a federal judge has suppressed evidence obtained without a warrant by U.S. law enforcement using a stingray, a surveillance device that can trick suspects' cell phones into revealing their locations.
U.S. District Judge William Pauley in Manhattan on Tuesday ruled that defendant Raymond Lambis' rights were violated when the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration used such a device without a warrant to find his Washington Heights apartment.
The DEA had used a stingray to identify Lambis' apartment as the most likely location of a cell phone identified during a drug-trafficking probe. Pauley said doing so constituted an unreasonable search.
"Absent a search warrant, the government may not turn a citizen's cell phone into a tracking device," Pauley wrote.
The ruling marked the first time a federal judge had suppressed evidence obtained using a stingray, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which like other privacy advocacy groups has criticized law enforcement's use of such devices.
'Stingray' Evidence
Research Links Additive
Food Allergies
The rise in food allergies could be linked to an additive by the name of tert-butylhydroquinone, or tBHQ, widely used as a food industry preservative in goods such as cooking oil, nuts, crackers, waffles and bread products, according to a researcher at Michigan State University, USA.
Cheryl Rockwell, an assistant professor of pharmacology and toxicology in the College of Human Medicine, has been investigating tBHQ (tert-butylhydroquinone,) and its effects for nine years. This synthetic additive derived from benzene is often found in industrially prepared products like cooking oil or chicken nuggets.
After seeing a marked rise in food allergies, Rockwell set out to investigate whether this substance could cause abnormal reactions in the immune system, triggering food allergies. The scientist's work even won her an award from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
Approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1972 for use in foods at a maximum level of 0.02%, this preservative is hard for consumers to spot since it isn't listed on food labels.
The scientist studied the effects of tBHQ on T cells, which produce proteins called cytokines that help the body fight pathogens. In the presence of tBHQ in lab tests, T cells released a different set of cytokines known to trigger allergies to eggs, milk, nuts and shellfish.
Food Allergies
Mamertine Prison
Rome
An ancient Roman prison which boasts a couple of saints as former inmates reopened in the heart of the eternal city Wednesday after three years of excavation and painstaking restoration works.
The Mamertine Prison, which sits on the slope of the Capitoline Hill, was used as a holding cell for short periods before executions and, according to legend, briefly housed both Saint Peter and Saint Paul.
Saint Peter was reputed even to have performed baptisms in a spring at the bottom of the prison before his crucifixion -- though there is no historical or archaeological evidence to support the claim.
The prison, built around 640 BC, now lies under the San Giuseppe dei Falegnami church, and as such belongs to and is managed by the Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi (ORP), a branch of the Vicariate of Rome and organ of the Vatican.
Prisoners during the Roman era were lowered through an opening into the dungeon, which became a sacred place for early Christians in the 7th century AD. It was later decorated with frescoes depicting religious scenes.
Rome
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