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from Bruce
Only1Noah: Noah Cover of "Sexy and I Know It" by LMFAO (YouTube)
Okay guys! So I've actually always wanted to cover this and I finally arranged a version of it that I hope you like! Anyway it was really fun doing this cover and I have more to come so stay tuned! Peace!
Paul Krugman: Why We Regulate (New York Times)
Mark Shields: Shortcuts for 2012 Campaign (Creators Syndicate)
Please accept the following as a small token of appreciation from your semi-faithful correspondent, who knows how busy life can get, what with graduations, Memorial Day and everything. We read all the campaign press releases and candidate statements so that you won't have to.
"What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets" By MICHAEL J. SANDEL: Reviewed by A.C. Grayling (Barnes and Noble)
… Sandel's point is a larger one: that we should formulate such a view as a society, as a culture; and we should do so long before matters so evolve that -- say -- shooters can buy licenses to hunt down convicted criminals in our own woods and fields.
Too rich to queue? Why markets and morals don't fit (Guardian)
We are moving towards a world where everything is up for sale, from standing in line to the right to pollute - and that's bad for all of us, says Michael Sandel in this extract from his new book, 'What Money Can't Buy.'
Baby, 18 months old, ordered off plane at Fort Lauderdale airport (wpbf.com)
Little Riyanna's father: 'We were humiliated.'
JetBlue: 'Computer glitch' led to baby's removal from flight (wpbf.com)
Toddler, parents taken off plane Tuesday in Fort Lauderdale.
Julie Delpy: 'Hollwood hates me - but I don't care' (Guardian)
She's been fired by every acting agency in town, refused an invite to Vanity Fair's Oscars bash, even pimps wouldn't fund her films … so how is Julie Delpy still making movies? Emma Brockes asks her.
David Bruce has 42 Kindle books on Amazon.com with 250 anecdotes in each book. Each book is $1, so for $42 you can buy 10,500 anecdotes. Search for "Funniest People," "Coolest People, "Most Interesting People," "Kindest People," "Religious Anecdotes," "Maximum Cool," and "Resist Psychic Death."
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Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
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Sphinx Moth
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Bit of a marine layer burned off by mid-morning.
Food Stamp Challenge
Mario Batali
To much of the world, it was Monday. To Mario Batali, it was Day Four.
The chef, his wife and their two teenage sons are eating for a week on the equivalent of a food stamp budget in protest of potential cuts pending in Congress to the benefit program used by more than 46 million Americans.
That's $31 per person for the week, or about $1.48 per meal each.
Goodbye restaurants, free nibbles on his talk show "The Chew" and all the luxe offerings at Eataly, the high-end New York City market he co-owns. Hello Trader Joe's, Jack's Dollar Store, Gristedes and Western Beef, a low-cost supermarket chain.
"I'm (expletive deleted) starving," said Batali, who's on the board of the food relief agency Food Bank for New York City, which issued the challenge to celeb pals like Batali and anybody else who wants to know what it's like.
Mario Batali
Cannes amfAR Co-Chair
Alec Baldwin
Alec Baldwin, Janet Jackson and Kylie Minogue are headed to the South of France to co-chair amfAR's annual gala at the Cannes Film Festival.
Other co-chairs for the charity soiree are actress Milla Jovovich, designer Karl Lagerfeld, producer Harvey Weinstein, "The Artist" co-star Berenice Bejo and director Michel Hazanavicius, Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai and amfAR chairman Kenneth Cole.
The Cinema Against AIDS event on May 24 will feature a live auction and runway show to benefit the American Foundation for AIDS Research. Past big-ticket auction items included a kiss from "Twilight" star Robert Pattinson, a dress right off Gwen Stefani's back and Madonna's one-of-a-kind Chanel handbag.
The event has raised more than $70 million since launching in Cannes in 1993.
Alec Baldwin
Joining 'X Factor'
Britney Spears
Britney Spears and Demi Lovato are bringing their star power to Fox's "The X Factor."
The network officially announced Monday what had been a poorly kept secret, that Spears will join Simon Cowell's music competition for its second season.
Spears, wearing a white minidress, came onstage at Fox's New York upfront presentation with Cowell, Lovato and the remaining judge, L.A. Reid
Spears said she was "so excited about the whole experience" and that it will be different from anything she's ever done.
Britney Spears
Hospital News
Sarah Hyland
"Modern Family" star Sarah Hyland has had a kidney transplant after a lifetime of pain and fatigue.
The 21-year-old actress, who plays big-eyed teenager Haley Dunphy on the hit ABC comedy, told ABC's "Good Morning America" for a report aired Monday that she had the surgery in April,
At age 9, she was diagnosed with abnormal kidney development. The condition often left her exhausted or in pain. But as her health grew worse, she began seeking an organ donor. Her father, actor Edward James Hyland, was a match.
Hyland plans to spend the show's summer hiatus recovering from her surgery.
Sarah Hyland
The Pride Of Missouri
Pigboy
Controversial conservative radio talk show host and rabid sex tourist Rush Limbaugh (R-Viagra Dependent) was quietly inducted into a hall of famous Missouri natives on Monday in a ceremony held under tight security at the State Capitol in Jefferson City, a legislative spokesman said.
A bust of Limbaugh, who is known for his scathing attacks on President Barack Obama, other Democrats, women, minorities, and common decency, will join an exclusive group including writer Mark Twain and former president Harry Truman in the Hall of Famous Missourians.
Missouri Republican House Speaker Steve Tilley said Limbaugh was honored because he was the "voice of conservative racist America for more than a decade."
Tilley did not announce the date of the induction and the private, invitation-only ceremony was attended by about 100 state Republicans and a few other invitees, House spokesman Trevor Fox said.
Missouri State troopers guarded the doors to the chamber during the event. There were no incidents at the ceremony, the spokesman said.
Pigboy
No Common-Law Marriage
Gary Coleman
A Utah judge has dealt a blow to a bid by Gary Coleman's ex-wife to gain control of the late child TV star's estate.
The Salt Lake Tribune reports Judge James Taylor ruled Monday that Coleman and Shannon Price didn't have a common-law marriage, despite living together after they divorced.
Coleman died of a brain hemorrhage in 2010. Taylor is deciding whether Price or Coleman's ex-girlfriend Anna Gray is entitled to his estate.
Price has said she and Coleman "couldn't be without each other," even after their divorce. Gray managed Coleman's affair for years and says Coleman named her a beneficiary and executor of his estate in 2005.
At stake is a house worth more than $300,000, intellectual rights to some of Coleman's works and the "Diff'rent Strokes" star's ashes.
Gary Coleman
Settles 2009 Tonys Mishap Case
Bret Michaels
Bret Michaels and organizers of the Tony Awards have settled a lawsuit filed by the rocker after a 2009 incident in which he was hit in the head with a set piece and suffered injuries that contributed to a brain hemorrhage that nearly killed him.
The confidential settlement also covers Michaels' claims against CBS Broadcasting, which aired the show and the mishap, which became which a viral video watched by tens of millions online. The Poison frontman blamed the network for airing the moment and claimed Tony Awards producers never warned him there would be a set change after he and his band performed "Nothin' But a Good Time."
The whack initially left Michaels with a busted lip and broken nose, but also caused brain bleeding. He was hospitalized in April 2010 and doctors found he had a brain hemorrhage and he later suffered a warning stroke, which the musician says nearly killed him.
Michaels sued in March 2011 in Los Angeles, but a judge later moved the case to New York City. The agreement came after a mediation session was held on Friday.
Bret Michaels
Fundraising Whopper
Mrs. Bachmann
In several urgent fundraising appeals, Rep. Michele Bachmann falsely claims that biased "liberal judges" redrew her congressional district "in retaliation for repeatedly standing up to President Obama." The truth is that only two of the five judges were Democratic appointees, and Bachmann's Minnesota district has become even more Republican than it was before.
It's true that a bipartisan panel of judges redrew district lines and placed the town where Bachmann lives in an abutting district represented by a Democrat. But she has chosen to again run in the 6th District, the one she has represented since 2007. And she doesn't even have to move to do that.
In the email, sent to national supporters of her failed presidential bid, Bachmann writes, "You and I must NOT allow the courts to defeat me by moving me out of my district at such a pivotal election. To hand the Obama Democrats this victory now would be to destroy all we have built over these last six years."
The email goes on to ask donors to make "a commitment to my campaign in the amount of $2,500, $1,000, $500, $250, $100, $70, or $35 today."
Let's start with the bogus claim that the new district lines were redrawn by "liberal judges." As Mother Jones reported on May 9, the redistricting was done by a five-judge panel selected by Minnesota's chief justice, Lorie Gildea. Gildea was elevated to chief justice by former Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty (the Minneapolis Star Tribune wrote about it in an article headlined "Pawlenty's picks keep high court tilting right"). Only two of the five judges on the panel Gildea selected were Democratic appointees. One was appointed by Gov. Jesse Ventura, who was a member of the Independence Party of Minnesota; one was appointed by Pawlenty. And one by former Republican Gov. Arne Carlson.
Mrs. Bachmann
Braced For Removal Of Mobster's Tomb
Vatican't
Forensic police swarmed the crypt of a Roman basilica on Monday to exhume the body of a reputed mobster as part of an investigation into one of the Vatican's enduring mysteries: the 1983 disappearance of the teenage daughter of a Vatican employee.
Medical experts took samples from the remains of Enrico De Pedis for further testing and confirmed he was buried alone in the crypt of the Sant'Apollinare basilica, ruling out at least one hypothesis that Emanuela Orlandi was buried along with him.
Orlandi was 15 when she disappeared in 1983 after leaving her family's Vatican City apartment to go to a music lesson in Rome. Her father was a lay employee of the Holy See.
De Pedis, a member of Rome's Magliana mob, was killed in 1990. His one-time girlfriend has reportedly told prosecutors that De Pedis kidnapped Orlandi, and an anonymous caller in 2005 told a call-in television show that the answer to Orlandi's disappearance lay in his tomb.
In 2008, Italian news reports quoted De Pedis' ex-girlfriend as telling prosecutors that Orlandi had been kidnapped by the Magliana gang on the orders of Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, the late U.S. prelate who had headed the Vatican bank and was linked to a huge Italian banking scandal in the 1980s. Marcinkus had always asserted his innocence in the scandal and the Vatican at the time of the allegation said the woman's claims had "extremely doubtful value."
Vatican't
Shares Drop After NBC Cancels Show
Ancestry.com
Shares of the online genealogy site Ancestry.com Inc. plunged in trading Monday after NBC announced that it would not renew family history show "Who Do You Think You Are?" for a fourth season.
The show tracks celebrities as they find their family history using Ancestry's services. The company is also a sponsor of the show.
Ancestry.com, based in Provo, Utah, has 1.9 million paying subscribers. Citi Investment Research analyst Mark Mahaney said the NBC show, which premiered in the U.S. in March 2010, had helped the company add subscribers.
The company's stock made major gains in the show's early days, peaking at $45.79 in April 2011. Its shares fell $3.47, more than 13 percent, to $22.69 in late afternoon trading Monday.
Ancestry.com
(Sort Of) Secret Nuclear Reactor
Kodak
How's this for a revelation: The Kodak Eastman Co. had a small nuclear research reactor in a little-known underground labyrinth at its Rochester, N.Y., facility.
And, although locked down and under tight security, it also contained 3½ pounds of highly enriched uranium, reports the the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester.
The imaging company, which has filed for bankruptcy, used the reactor to check chemicals and other materials for impurities, as well as for neutron radiography testing, the newspaper reported. The reactor, acquired by the company in 1974, was about the size of a refrigerator and kept in a 14- by 24-foot cement-lined cavity dug below a basement of one of its research buildings.
Kodak didn't necessarily mean to keep the reactor a secret, the newspaper reported. Rather, it was just never truly public knowledge.
Kodak
Costumes Hit The Road
Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson's glittery gloves, spangled jackets, stage-worn costumes and personal fashion effects are going on a world tour.
Celebrity auctioneer Darren Julien says clothing created by Jackson's longtime costume designers will be exhibited in South America, Europe and Asia before being sold to the highest bidder in December.
The exhibit opens May 18 at the Museo de la Moda in Santiago, Chile. It features items such as Jackson's Captain EO shirt, the black spandex outfit from his "Scream" video and the breakaway suit he wore during his BAD tour in the late 1980s.
The items will be sold by Julien's Auction on December 2, with a portion of the proceeds benefiting Guide Dogs of America and Nathan Adelson Hospice in Las Vegas.
Michael Jackson
Mercedes Up For Auction
Natalie Wood
Natalie Wood's vintage Mercedes Roadster is going up for auction in July, more than 30 years after her death at sea, auctioneer Profiles in History said on Monday.
Wood's white 1967 Mercedes 250SL Roadster Coupe automatic, which comes with a certification card, has 106,000 miles on the clock and is expected to fetch between $30,000 and $50,000.
The car will be part of an auction of Hollywood memorabilia in July.
Natalie Wood
In Memory
Mitchell Guist
A Louisiana sheriff says a cast member of the reality TV show "Swamp People" has died.
Assumption Parish Sheriff Mike Waguespack says Mitchell Guist was pronounced dead at a hospital Monday. He had fallen while aboard his boat on the Intracoastal Waterway, near Pierre Part.
Waguespack says initial reports from deputies in neighboring St. Martin Parish are that Guist was traveling on the waterway around 9 a.m. when he fell. The boat returned to a nearby landing in St. Martin and Guist was taken to a hospital. The cause of his fall is unclear, and there is no word yet on the official cause of death.
"Swamp People," on the History cable television channel, features residents of Louisiana's Atchafalaya swamp country during alligator hunting season.
Mitchell Guist
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