Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Mark Morford: "Organic Gatorade asks: How stupid are you?" (SF Gate)
Answer: very stupid. Or at least, flagrantly disinterested. Irrationally trusting? Efficiently dumb? Here's the thing: It doesn't really matter, and they don't really care.
Marlow Stern: "Seth Meyers Unloads on Trump's History of Birtherism: 'He's a Racist and a Liar'"(Daily Beast)
The 'Late Night' host did what his network-mate Jimmy Fallon couldn't: Took Donald Trump to task for his five-year birther crusade and half-assed, lie-filled admission.
Andrew Tobias: Was I Fair And Balanced?
Balanced in this case, I think, would have been to quote some of the many prominent DEMOCRATS who have terrible, disqualifying things to say about Hillary.
Except there are none, so I didn't.
Trump Lies about His Birther Past: A Closer Look (YouTube)
Seth takes a closer look at Donald Trump's recent claim that he did not start the birther movement.
Lindy West: Hating Trump isn't enough - we need to talk about why Clinton rules (The Guardian)
If we care about our future as a non-blown-up planet, it's time to stop treating the Democratic candidate as if she's barely better than a literal white supremacist.
Trevor Timm: Almost everyone gets Russia wrong - apart from Obama (The Guardian)
Those itching for conflict like to portray Putin as a grandmaster. In reality, his country is weak and his strategy is one of desperation.
Rick Seltzer: A Quarter of This College Librarian's Gift Went to Football (Slate)
Was the University of New Hampshire wrong for following the letter of Robert Morin's will?
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"Doug's Most Shared Facebook Post" Today
didn't really answer, but...
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
David E Suggests
Superheroes
David
Thanks, Dave!
from Marc Perkel
Patriot Act
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
DONALD TRUMP IS A GOOD ARGUMENT FOR ABORTION.
THE BLOBS ARE COMING! THE BLOBS ARE COMING!
THE DEPLORABLE 13!
DON JUAN DIEGO.
IT IS TRIFLING!
IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH DEMOCRACY.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Still hot & unpleasantly humid.
375 Scientists Slam T-rump
Stephen Hawking
A large group of the nation's top scientists penned an open letter railing against Donald Trump (R-Pendejo) for his stance on climate change and his suggestion that the U.S. walk away from the landmark Paris climate agreement.
"It is of great concern that the Republican nominee for President has advocated U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Accord," the letter from the group Responsible Scientists said. "A 'Parexit' would send a clear signal to the rest of the world: 'The United States does not care about the global problem of human-caused climate change. You are on your own.'"
The Paris agreement was reached by 195 countries last year at the United Nations Climate Change Conference. President Obama was a proponent of the agreement, which facilitates global coordination on combating climate change. Trump has said in the past that he would "cancel" the Paris deal.
Among the 375 scientists signing the letter released Tuesday was noted physicist Stephen Hawking, along with 30 nobel laureates and Steven Chu, former Secretary of Energy under Obama.
The group also issued a broadside to politicians who deny the overwhelming scientific consensus that the planet is warming and that human activity is responsible. "During the Presidential primary campaign, claims were made that the Earth is not warming, or that warming is due to purely natural causes outside of human control," they said. "Such claims are inconsistent with reality."
Stephen Hawking
Get Out The Vote Plea
Joss Whedon
Donald Trump (R-Crooked) is "a racist, abusive coward who would permanently damage the fabric of our society" if he became President, says an Avengers-heavy video dropped today by a new Joss Whedon-backed Super PAC supporting Hillary Clinton.
"Do we really wanna give nuclear weapons to a man whose signature move is firing things?" adds the Whedon-penned spot starring Marvel alums Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson Don Cheadle, Clark Gregg and Mark Ruffalo.The West Wing and Grace & Frankie's Martin Sheen, Julianne Moore, Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion, Stanley Tucci, James Franco, Rosie Perez, Tarran Killam, Bradley Whitford, Grey's Anatomy's Jesse Williams, Fresh Off The Boat's Randal Park and Keegan-Michael Key are also in the Important spot too. "We cannot pretend both sides are equally unfavorable," the former fictional U.S. President Jed Bartlet says in the clearly pro-Clinton spot, which never actually mentions either candidate by name.
Besides clearly slamming the GOP candidate and past Celebrity Apprentice host, the 3-minute get-out-the-vote plea from Whedon's Save The Day group promises that Ruffalo will appear naked in his next movie if you mark your ballot on Election Day.
Having put $1 million behind getting the former Secretary of State back into the White House, Whedon plans on making a series of videos encouraging voter registration and participation leading up to November 8. A longtime backer of the Democrats who called out Sen. Elizabeth Warren to run for President, the Avengersand Buffy The Vampire Slayer chief has used various platforms over the years to get his POV across. He announced this latest effort with a return to social media this morning:
Joss Whedon
Ratings At All-Time Low
Emmys
The 68th Primetime Emmy Awards, which recognize the best in US television, drew in a record low 11.3 million viewers, according to preliminary data released by Nielsen on Monday.
The figure represents a five percent drop from the previous low of 11.8 million viewers who tuned in to watch last year's event which was hosted by Fox.
This year's ceremony, which aired Sunday on ABC, suffered in viewership as it faced competition from NBC's "Sunday Night Football" and the opening of a mini-series on CBS.
The low ratings are in line with a steady decline in viewership for awards shows, including the Oscars ceremony earlier this year which drew its smallest audience since 2008.
Emmys
'Don't Stop Me Now' Is The World's Happiest Song
Queen
Feel a need to bust out of the doldrums and put a smile on your face? Try some Freddie Mercury.
That's the advice coming from researchers at the University of Missouri, who have studied the effects of musi on our moods, leading to the determination that Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now" is the happiest song in the world.
The researchers studied the effects of music on 2,000 subjects, ultimately coming to the not-that-shocking conclusion that listening to music can improve one's mood. In order to determine which music makes us feel better, however, neuroscientist Jacob Jolij created a formula - dubbed the "happiness formula" by studying 126 songs from a 50-year period, reports Indy100, selected by a survey undertaken on 2,000 British people asked to select their favourite songs.
The songs with the highest scores were then analyzed (two-thirds of respondents singled out "Don't Stop Me Now" as a favourite), to determine beats per minute, the key and the theme of the song, and also analyzed the lyrics in order to determine what it is about certain songs - including "Don't Stop Me Now" - that makes people so darned happy.
Queen
Ice Loss Bigger Than Thought
Greenland
Greenland is losing about 40 trillion pounds more ice a year than scientists had thought, according to a new study that used GPS to help estimate how much is melting.
So instead of losing on average 550 trillion pounds of ice each year between 2003 and 2013, Greenland lost about 590 trillion pounds , said co-author Michael Bevis of Ohio State University in a study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances . That's about a 7.6 percent difference.
The Empire State Building weighs 730 million pounds, so 40 trillion pounds a year is the equivalent to more than 50,000 Empire State Buildings.
"If you look at the last 15 years since we've been having these measurements, it's clearly getting worse, the ice loss," Bevis said. "It is pretty scary."
Overall, though, it is still "a small percentage. I don't think it changes the picture of what's going on," cautioned study co-author Beata Csatho at the University at Buffalo. The extra ice loss adds a tiny amount - one-sixtieth of an inch (0.4 mm) a decade - to global sea level rise, Bevis said. Altogether, Greenland melt adds one fiftieth of an inch - 0.54 mm- a decade, he said.
Greenland
Has Yet To Name A Single Inaccuracy
T-rump Campaign
Donald Trump (R-Grifter)'s campaign says the Washington Post report that the Republican nominee spent more than $250,000 from his charitable foundation to settle lawsuits for his businesses is "peppered with inaccuracies."
But David Fahrenthold, the reporter who broke the story, says Team Trump has yet to give him or the paper an example of one.
"They haven't actually told us any of the specific inaccuracies they're talking about," Fahrenthold told Yahoo News on Wednesday. "That's what I'm sort of waiting for now."
In his piece published Tuesday, Fahrenthold reported that in 2007 Trump donated $100,000 from the foundation to a charity for veterans to settle a dispute with the town of Palm Beach, Fla., which had fined his Mar-a-Lago Club $120,000 for having an 80-foot flagpole on the property.
In another case, a man who hit a hole in one while playing in a charity golf tournament at Trump's Westchester County, N.Y., golf course sued him for the stated $1 million prize for the shot. The club settled the case by making a $158,000 donation to the golfer's own charity.
T-rump Campaign
New Job
Boehner
Former House Speaker John Boehner (R-Spray Tan) has a new job, joining a prominent law and lobbying firm.
Washington-based Squire Patton Boggs said Tuesday the former Republican congressman will be a strategic adviser for clients and focus on global business development for the international law firm. It said Boehner won't be a lobbyist.
The 66-year-old Ohio native served nearly 25 years in Congress before resigning last October. He is barred by federal law from lobbying for one year.
He said in a statement that his new role will let him engage with leaders in business and government throughout the world as he continues his mission to help remove "government barriers to economic growth and job creation."
The firm includes former U.S. Sens. Trent Lott (R-Fustian) of Mississippi and John Breaux (R-Flaccid) of Louisiana and Boehner's former House colleague, Jack Kingston (R-Feckless) of Georgia.
Boehner
2,000-Year-Old Skeleton Found
Greek Shipwreck
Underwater archaeologists recently discovered a 2,000-year-old skeleton on a famous shipwreck off the tiny Greek island of Antikythera, according to the scientific journal Nature.
The wreck was the first ever investigated by archaeologists after it was originally found by sponge divers in 1900, Nature reported. At the time, the most incredible find on the wreckage of the merchant ship was the "Antikythera mechanism," a sophisticated clockwork device that models the motions of the sun, moon and planets.
But this skeleton could be an even more incredible find for scientists, who are excited about the possibility of a first-ever DNA analysis of an ancient shipwreck victim.
"Your mind starts spinning," said Hannes Schroeder, an expert in the analysis of ancient DNA who is from the Natural History Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen.
"Who were those people who crossed the Mediterranean 2,000 years ago?" Schroeder said in Nature. "Maybe one of them was the astronomer who owned the mechanism."
Greek Shipwreck
Moves Closer To Reality
Quantum Teleportation
In what is being hailed as a breakthrough in demonstrating the feasibility of quantum teleportation, two independent teams of scientists have succeeded in transferring quantum information over several miles of commercial optical fiber networks. The experiments, carried out in the cities of Calgary, Canada and Hefei, China, are separately described in two studies published in the journal Nature Photonics.
First proposed by scientists nearly two decades ago, quantum teleportation relies on "entanglement" - a weird and counter-intuitive phenomenon once famously derided as "spooky action at a distance" by Albert Einstein. When two subatomic particles are entangled, changing the quantum state of one immediately changes the quantum state of the other, no matter how far apart they are.
By utilizing this property, researchers in Canada were able to send quantum information over 6.2 kilometers (3.9 miles) of Calgary's fiber optic network, while the Chinese team - using a slightly different configuration - was able to do so over a distance of 12.5 kilometers (7.8 miles).
Although greater distances have been achieved in laboratories before, this is the first time researchers were able to use existing telecommunications infrastructure to accomplish quantum teleportation - a key step in ensuring the viability and practicality of the process.
Quantum Teleportation
In Memory
Curtis Hanson
Curtis Hanson, who won a screenwriting Oscar for "L.A. Confidential" and directed the psychological thriller "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle" and Eminem's tale of Detroit hip-hop "8 Mile," has died. He was 71.
A native of Reno, Nevada, who grew up in Los Angeles, Hanson dropped out of high school to work as a photographer, writer and editor for the magazine Cinema. "It was, in a sense, my film school," Hanson said in a 2002 interview with the Guardian.
He began screenwriting and directing in the early 1970s, but didn't see serious success until directing 1992's "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle." The film starring Rebecca De Mornay as a revenge-seeking nanny became a major hit.
Hanson went on to direct 1994's "The River Wild" with Meryl Streep and Kevin Bacon.
He also was in the director's chair for "Wonder Boys" the 2000 film starring Tobey Maguire and Michael Douglas that is considered his best work by many fans and critics.
Hanson's breakthrough as an acclaimed filmmaker came with 1997's "L.A. Confidential," which he co-wrote and directed.
Hanson and co-writer Brian Helgeland won the Academy Award for best adapted screenplay. Hanson was nominated for best director and the movie for best picture.
Hanson explored a different sort of darkness in "8 Mile," the film starring Eminem that explored the gritty streets and trailer parks of Detroit and closely mirrored the rapper's own younger life.
Hanson most recently directed the 2011 HBO movie on the financial crisis "Too Big To Fail" and the 2012 Gerard Butler surfing movie "Chasing Mavericks."
Curtis Hanson
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