Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Mark Morford: "Trump: The final meltdown" (SF Gate)
Hillary was only half joking when she quipped "I'm the last thing between you and the apocalypse" in a recent profile of her campaign in these final weeks, even though every poll has her surging well ahead - though still not as far ahead as you'd think, given how her opponent is imploding like a psychotic nuclear warhead, essentially declaring all women to be ugly gold-digging wenches, the election is rigged, "international banks" are in secret control and every poll everywhere is wrong, even as GOP leaders (and donors) continue to flee, en masse.
Willa Paskin: Why Alec Baldwin's Donald Trump Impression Rankles Trump More Than Other SNL Impersonations of Him (Slate)
What is notable about Alec Baldwin's impression of Donald Trump, and why it presumably got under Donald Trump's skin, is simply that it is not about Donald Trump being rich, self-obsessed, self-actualized, married to a younger woman, and unflappable. Instead, it is about all of his mistakes. Baldwin, pouting like a botched collagen patient, gives a one-word answer to the question "Would you be a good role model?": "No."
David Hunter: We could prevent millions of cancer deaths with knowledge we already have(the Guardian)
Cutting-edge breakthroughs are still vital in medicine, but we have many ways to prevent and cure cancer that aren't globally accessible - but should be.
First Dog on the Moon: A how not to guide on men's violence against women. Thanks, Donald Trump (The Guardian)
Cartoon.
Henry Grabar: Who Made Domino's Great Again? (Slate)
Domino's stock is hotter than a jalapeño pizza, up 46 percent since the start of the year. In a third-quarter earnings report released Tuesday, America's largest pizza delivery company announced that revenues were up 17 percent over last year, which is actually fairly typical of the chain's recent financial performance.
Matthew Dessem: Celebrity Get-Out-the-Vote Videos Are Garbage, Says Celebrity in Get-Out-the-Vote Video (Slate)
"There's a f[**]king guy running who says he hates brown people. That's not enough? He doesn't believe in climate change. Do you realize how dumb you have to be to not believe in climate change? At this point?"
Zoe Williams: Is satire dead? Armando Iannucci and others on why there are so few laughs these days (The Guardian)
It's hard to poke fun at politicians in an era when they're held in contempt and every joke is policed for offence, say top television writers.
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Reader Comment
NOT accurate
Lester Holt just did a lead-in to a story talking about the candidates acting "childish." Well, I've seen Trump act childish, but Hil? No!
Then the "educator" speaking in the story talked about how dismaying it is to see two adults bullying each other. WRONG again! Trump bullies and belittles and mocks and disparages, but other than accurately assessing some of his supporters as deplorable, Hil hasn't done what he has done. (Nor has she stalked and tried to intimidate him.)
You can NOT tar both people with the same brush. And if you're trying to call out Trump, why lump Hil in with him???
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
Bonus Links
Reader Comment
The Rooftop Raccoons
The raccoons are bowling on the roof? We will check it out!
from Marc Perkel
Patriot Act
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
"I'M TRUMP SING ALONG VERSION"
"MEGALOPYGIDAE"
TEABAGERS GO DOWN WITH THE TITANIC!
"YOU'RE A MEAN ONE MR. TRUMP"
TEABAGGERS FAIL ANOTHER SPELLING TEST.
A TRUMP SUPPORTER!
A TRUMP HUNTING PERMIT!
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Back to hot and dry.
NSFW Propositions Clinton Supporters
Madonna
Ever since Amy Schumer opened for Madonna when she kicked off her "Rebel Heart" tour at Madison Square Garden last September, the two women have apparently become friends. So when Schumer returned to the NYC venue Tuesday night, the Queen of Pop returned the favor. Before the comedienne came out to read an open letter to the Trump supporters who walked out of her Tampa show earlier this week, Madonna did a little stand up set of her own.
While we don't know whether or not Madonna's stand up career is going to take off anytime soon, she may have a bright future as a campaign worker for Hillary Clinton, if what she said just before introducing Schumer is true.
Her offer, presented in its entirety:
One more thing before I introduce this genius of comedy: If you vote for Hillary Clinton, I will give you a blowjob, okay? Swear to god. And I am good. I'm good. I'm not a douche and I'm not a tool. I take my time, I, uh, have a lot of eye contact. Yeah? And I do swallow.
Madonna
Savages T-rump
Eminem
Rap superstar Eminem re-emerged Wednesday with a loaded lyrical attack on Donald Trump, in a nearly eight-minute song in which he also identifies with the Black Lives Matter cause. The top-selling rapper of all time, Eminem has been relatively quiet in the past several years but wrote on Facebook that he was working on a new album.
Eminem uploaded on YouTube the new song, entitled "Campaign Speech," in which he offers his take on America in 2016 in a freestyle rap largely without a musical backdrop.
"Consider me a dangerous man / But you should be afraid of this dang candidate," Eminem raps.
"You say Trump don't kiss ass like a puppet 'cause he runs his campaign with his own cash for the funding.
"And that's what you wanted -- A fucking loose cannon who's blunt with his hand on the button, who doesn't have to answer to no one," he raps, concluding: "Great idea!"
Eminem
Tribal Council Makes Offer
Standing Rock
The Standing Rock Sioux's tribal council has voted to make tribal land available for those protesting the Dakota Access oil pipeline, though an organizer from another tribe says many of the several hundred gathered will remain on federal land without a permit.
The council voted 8-5 Tuesday to use the reservation land - which is about two miles south of the large Oceti Sakowin, or Seven Council Fires, camp on U.S. Army Corps of Engineers property - so permanent structures can be built to protect protesters from North Dakota's notoriously brutal winter weather.
"The cold is coming and the snow is coming," tribal chairman Dave Archambault II said Wednesday. "It makes sense to be proactive and not reactive."
The camp, which is the overflow from smaller private and permitted protest sites nearby, began growing in August and at one point was called the largest gathering of Native American tribes in a century. All were there to protest Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners' $3.8 billion pipeline, which tribal officials believe threatens sacred sites and the Missouri River, which is a source of water for millions.
Protesters do not have a federal permit to be on the corps' land, but the federal agency had said it wouldn't evict them due to free speech reasons. Authorities have criticized that decision, saying the site has been a launching point for protests at construction sites in the area; about 140 people who have been charged in recent weeks with interfering with such work.
Standing Rock
Medical Pot
Utah
Hours after his wife pleaded guilty to misdemeanor pot-possession charges connected with two pounds of the drug found at their house, Utah's Democratic candidate for governor pushed Tuesday for the legalization of medical marijuana.
Mike Weinholtz said during an emotional news conference that current laws leave doctors with little choice but to prescribe powerful painkillers with a risk of addiction that have made opioid drugs an epidemic in Utah and elsewhere. Pot reduced Donna Weinholtz's pain so she could do things like ride bikes with her son and plant tulip bulbs, the couple said.
"What would you do if the person you love most in the world was faced with that decision?" he said. "Would you report them to the police? Would you insist they stop and live with pain too severe to sleep at night?"
Donna Weinholtz, 61, said marijuana was the best way for her to treat arthritis and degenerative spinal conditions that left her unable to get out of bed, sometimes for weeks.
"I, like many Utahns, made a deliberate and conscious decision to use cannabis knowing full well that it is against the law," she said. "I have faith the law will change."
Utah
Cases Hit New High in U.S.
Sexually Transmitted Disease
More cases of sexually transmitted diseases were reported last year than ever before, federal officials said Wednesday - just as state and local health departments that could help fight them lose funding.
More than 1.5 million people were reported with chlamydia, the most common sexually transmitted disease (STD), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.
The CDC recorded nearly 400,000 cases of gonorrhea and nearly 24,000 cases of syphilis.
"The STD epidemic is getting worse in the United States and, in fact, is at its highest levels yet," said Dr. Jonathan Mermin, director of CDC's National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention.
"Last year was the first year that we saw increases but those increases are actually continuing and at a higher rate," Mermin said.
Sexually Transmitted Disease
Professors Strike
Pennsylvania
Professors at 14 state universities went on strike Wednesday, disrupting classes midsemester for more than 100,000 students after contract negotiations hit an impasse.
Members of the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties went on strike at 5 a.m. because no agreement was reached with the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. The union represents more than 5,000 faculty and coaches across the state.
This is the first strike in the system's 34-year history. State-related schools - Penn State, Temple University, the University of Pittsburgh and Lincoln University - are not affected.
The union includes faculty from Bloomsburg, California, Cheyney, Clarion, East Stroudsburg, Edinboro, Indiana, Kutztown, Lock Haven, Mansfield, Millersville, Shippensburg, Slippery Rock and West Chester universities.
The Pennsylvania state system is one of the nation's largest public university systems. State funding for the system, at $444 million this year, is about the same as it was 17 years ago, even as full-time enrollment has risen more than 10 percent.
Pennsylvania
Hotdogs Set For Name Change
Malaysia
Food outlets in Muslim-majority Malaysia must rename hotdogs or risk being refused halal certification, a government religious authority said Tuesday.
The ruling, which also includes other food items whose name includes the word "dog", has garnered much ridicule on social media.
It follows complaints by Muslim tourists from overseas, said Sirajuddin Suhaimee, director of the halal division from the Department of Islamic Development.
"Any (halal) products that make consumers confused, we have to change," he said.
"In Islam, dogs are considered unclean and the name cannot be related to halal certification."
Malaysia
New Recovery Plan
Mexican Gray Wolves
Federal wildlife officials are now under a court order to update a decades-old recovery plan for the endangered Mexican gray wolf, a predator that has struggled to regain a foothold in the American Southwest despite millions of dollars of investment in reintroduction efforts.
An Arizona judge on Tuesday dismissed the concerns of ranchers and others and signed off on a settlement between environmental groups and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Under the agreement, the federal agency must update the recovery plan by November 2017 while providing the court and other parties in the case with regular updates on the planning process.
Environmentalists have long argued that the agency had a legal obligation to adopt a recovery plan that spells out specific goals and milestones for returning the wolves to their historic range.
Federal investigators concluded earlier this year that the Fish and Wildlife Service mishandled the recovery program, backing up claims by one New Mexico county that the agency was not cooperating with ranchers and protected wolves even after they preyed on cattle.
Mexican Gray Wolves
Dinosaur Bones Found
Denali National Park
Paleontologists from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the National Park Service found dinosaur bones in Denali National Park during an expedition in July. They also discovered several new dinosaur trackways, which are fossilized impressions left by ancient animals walking through mud that eventually became rock.
Pat Druckenmiller, curator of Earth sciences at the University of Alaska Museum of the North, is leading a collaborative project with Denali National Park over the next several years to explore additional areas and hopefully make new discoveries.
"This marks the beginning of a multi-year project to locate, document and study dinosaur fossils in Denali National Park," Druckenmiller said in a press release. "This is a world-class site for tracks of dinosaurs and other animals that lived in Alaska during the Cretaceous Period. Now that we have found bones, we have another way to understand the dinosaurs that lived here 70 million years ago… Finding these bones opens a new chapter in the story of Denali dinosaurs, that story is still being written as we find new sites, new kinds of dinosaurs and evidence of their behavior."
The research team found four different fragments, including one ossified tendon. The largest is a few inches long. They are clearly parts of bigger bones from a large animal. This rules out other animals with a backbone known from this geological period, including mammals, birds and even flying reptiles. Because they are parts of much bigger bones, Druckenmiller expects more complete remains may be found in the park.
Denali National Park
In Memory
Phil Chess
Phil Chess, co-founder of a Chicago record label that amassed perhaps the most influential blues catalog of all time and launched the careers of Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters, has died. He was 95.
Chess and his brother, Leonard, founded Chess Records in 1950, a label that not only recorded blues artists, but also the early rock 'n' roll of Chuck Berry and Etta James' rich vocal stylings.
The brothers started out with a liquor store, then ran the Macomba Lounge nightclub and music venue and eventually got into the music recording business, though neither had ever played an instrument.
Chess Records' first release was a Gene Ammons' version of "My Foolish Heart." Then came Muddy Waters' "Rollin' Stone" - a song so influential it became the name of the English rock band and the magazine.
Phil Chess was born Fiszel Czyz in Motol, Poland, on April 5, 1921. He changed his name to Phil Chess after the family immigrated to the U.S.
Phil served in the Army for three and a half years during World War II. When he returned home, he joined his brother working the bar and later forming Chess Records.
For the next 19 years, they recorded a staggering lineup of America's greatest blues, R&B and rock 'n' roll musicians out of a two-story building at 2120 S. Michigan Avenue, which still stands.
They focused on everything from jazz saxophone, minimalist blues and the seeds of rock 'n' roll through artists like Ike Turner, whose Chess Records tune "Rocket 88" is considered by some to be the first rock song.
Keith Richards called 2120 S. Michigan Ave. "hallowed ground"; it's where the Rolling Stones in 1964 recorded "It's All Over Now," their first No. 1 hit.
Leonard died of a heart attack in 1969. That same year, Chess Records was sold and Phil moved to Arizona, where he worked in radio.
Leonard was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 and both brothers are in the Blues Hall of Fame.
Phil Chess
In Memory
Eddie Applegate
Eddie Applegate, who played Richard Harrison, the high school boyfriend of Patty Lane, on The Patty Duke Show, died Monday. He was 81.
Applegate appeared in 88 of the ABC sitcom's 104 episodes as Richard, who dated the Brooklyn-born Patty (Duke). Of course, Duke also played an identical cousin, Cathy Lane, on the series, which aired from 1963-66.
In CBS' 1999 reunion telefilm, The Patty Duke Show: Still Rockin' in Brooklyn Heights, Applegate returned as Harrison; now, he was Patty Lane's ex-husband.
While starring in a Las Vegas stage production of Bye Bye Birdie, Applegate was approached by a producer to appear in the 1963 romantic comedy A Ticklish Affair, starring Shirley Jones, Carolyn Jones, Gig Young and Red Buttons.
A native of Wyncote, Pa., Applegate also appeared on such shows as The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, The Lucy Show, Daktari, Gunsmoke and the short-lived comedy Nancy, created by Sidney Sheldon and featuring Celeste Holm.
More recently, Applegate played a grandfather in the Emma Stone starrer Easy A (2010) and appeared in the crime film Rain From Stars (2013). He also worked as an agent, artist and carpenter.
Survivors include his children Heather and Michael, their respective spouses Eric and Julie and grandchildren Jenna, Zack, Katie, Lauren, Kyle and Mia.
Eddie Applegate
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