Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Zombies, Vampires and Republicans (NY Times Column)
When Trump is just an ignorant bystander.
Josh Marshall: The Constitution Looks Like Trump's Only Hope (TPM)
What makes this discussion so weird is that not only does the President appear to be the subject of an investigation but as a factual matter there's almost no question that he's guilty. As far as I can see, the real question isn't factual but rather constitutional.
Mary Papenfuss: Muslim Teen Killed After Leaving Virginia Mosque; Suspect Arrested (Huffington Post)
A Virginia man was arrested after a Muslim teenager he allegedly confronted near a mosque in Sterling was later found dead in a pond. The victim, identified by relatives to The Washington Post as Nabra Hassanen
Nick Vissser: Vehicle Plows Into Crowd Near London Mosque (Huffington Post)
The incident occurred near a Muslim community center following evening prayers for Ramadan.
Andrew Tobias: The Russians Are Here, The Russians Are Here
It's not the 1966 comedy, The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!, it's the 2017 reality: the Russians are here. According to all 17 of our intelligence agencies, they have deployed thousands of cyber-agents to disrupt our democracy and weaken the United States. Our commander-in-chief doesn't believe it and is doing nothing about it.
Pamela Stephenson Connolly: I'm 21 and still a virgin - it's starting to get me down (The Guardian)
I have had difficulties with eating disorders and struggled with friendships in the past. Now I'm at university and in a better place, but the idea of not having had sex is troubling me.
Dean Ornish: Can Healthy Eating Reverse Some Cancers? (TED Radio Hour)
Dr. Dean Ornish studied how lifestyle changes could help people with chronic heart disease; he wanted to figure out if there was a way to do the same with patients with some types of cancer.
Danuta Kean: "Misprint the legends: famous typos from James Joyce to JK Rowling" (The Guardian)
A proof of the first Harry Potter novel, which got the author's name wrong, is only the latest example of an ungainly tradition stretching back centuries.
Laura Snapes: "Katy v Taylor, Nicki v Remy: why pop star bust-ups diminish all women" (The Guardian)
Recent battles between female pop and rap stars have been ruthlessly stoked by the media and characterised as catfights, but they are built on levels of complicity.
Barbara Ellen: Gwyneth Paltrow is making us feel worse, not better (The Guardian)
The tyranny of the smug well would drive any sane person into the arms of Monster Munches and Pop-Tarts.
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
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David Bruce has over 80 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Presenting
Michael Egan
responded:
took the day off.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
from Marc Perkel
Patriot Act
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
EAT YOUR BROCCOLI.
"IS YOUR GOD DEAD?"
"FOLLOW THE MONEY"
"YOU CAN'T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT!"
"GREETINGS FROM MEXICO"
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Way to effing hot, and supposed to get hotter. Yikes!
Air Date Finally Revealed
'Star Trek: Discovery'
After many delays, CBS has finally announced that "Star Trek: Discovery" is ready to launch. The network has given the series a fall air date.
"Star Trek: Discovery" will premiere on CBS at 8:30 p.m. EDT on Sunday, Sept. 24. Subsequent episodes, however, will be released on the network's streaming platform, CBS All Access. Those who are subscribed on premiere night will be able to watch the first and second episodes online Sept. 24.
CBS released "The Good Fight" in the same way earlier this year. The show premiered on TV, allowing viewers to get a taste of what CBS All Access offers before they sign up for a subscription. New users are also given a free week-long trial of the streaming service. Subscription plans start at $5.99 a month.
Though "Star Trek: Discovery" is being released on an online platform, CBS All Access doesn't follow the Netflix model of dropping all episodes at once. New episodes will be released weekly on Sundays through Nov. 5. Then the show will take a hiatus. The "Second Chapter" of "Star Trek: Discovery" will premiere in January.
'Star Trek: Discovery'
Shootings Kill Or Injure At Least
19 Children Each Day
Shootings kill or injure at least 19 U.S. children each day, with boys, teenagers and blacks most at risk, according to a government study that paints a bleak portrait of persistent violence.
The analysis of 2002-14 U.S. data is billed as the most comprehensive study on the topic. While it mostly confirms previously released information, it underscores why researchers view gun violence as a public health crisis.
The report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention involves children and teens through age 17. It was compiled by analyzing death certificates and emergency room reports. Among the findings published Monday in the journal Pediatrics:
The yearly toll is nearly 1,300 deaths and almost 6,000 nonfatal gunshot wounds - most of them intentional.
Congress has prohibited the CDC from using federal money to advocate or promote gun control. CDC spokeswoman Courtney Lenard said the congressional directive "does not prohibit CDC from conducting public health research into gun violence" and the agency continues to do so.
19 Children Each Day
Authors Take On Israeli Occupation
"Kingdom of Olives and Ash"
A group of award-winning authors on Sunday launched a book highlighting Israel's 50-year occupation of the Palestinian territories, raising money for an NGO hated by the Israeli government.
Featuring chapters penned by more than two dozen writers including Dave Eggers, Colm Toibin and Geraldine Brooks, "Kingdom of Olives and Ash" was edited by American Jewish husband and wife duo Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman.
Chabon, winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for his novel "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay", said the aim was to start a conversation about the impact of the occupation on both Israelis and Palestinians.
By using famous authors, including the winners of three Pulitzers and a Nobel, they were aiming to "sort of trick" people "into paying attention to the occupation by baiting the trap, in a way, with the work of a really amazing writer".
Proceeds from the book will go to Breaking the Silence, an NGO that documents alleged abuses by Israeli forces in the occupied Palestinian territories and publishes testimonies of soldiers, much to the chagrin of Israeli officials.
"Kingdom of Olives and Ash"
Strikes Down Rule Against Disparaging Trademarks
Supreme Court
Those of fiendish or mischievous mind will have an easier time registering trademarks after the Supreme Court on Monday decided to reject as unconstitutional a rule against disparaging ones. The high court's decision, authored by justice Samuel Alito, holds that a Lanham Act provision against such offensive trademarks is facially invalid under the First Amendment.
"It offends a bedrock First Amendment principle," writes Alito in the opinion. "Speech may not be banned on the ground that it expresses ideas that offend."
The free speech victory goes to Simon Tam, the Asian-American frontman for The Slants who attempted to register his rock band's name. He says he picked his band's moniker in an effort to reclaim a stereotype. After trademark examiners refused Tam's application, Tam brought a lawsuit, and in December 2015, he prevailed at the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
The Supreme Court has now affirmed the lower appeals court's opinion, which is also potentially welcome news for the NFL's Washington Redskins, whose own marks were canceled for being disparaging to Native Americans. Thanks to the development at the high court, entertainment companies can feel more comfortable picking scandalous titles with knowledge they'll be able to register trademarks to protect associated merchandise.
Today's decision also has the potential of alleviating a great amount of confusion as the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's response to offensive marks hasn't been particularly consistent over the years. For example, N.W.A - the rap group also known as Niggaz Wit Attitudes - was able to register while actor Damon Wayans couldn't obtain "Nigga" for clothing. Bravo's Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Channel Four's Queer as Folk were fine, but not the registration from a group of lesbians who wished to sell videos of a "Dykes on Bikes" parade. Alito notes in his opinion that the "vagueness of the disparagement test and the huge volume of applications has produced a haphazard record of enforcement."
Supreme Court
Killer Heat Worsens
Earth
Killer heat is getting worse, a new study shows.
Deadly heat waves like the one now broiling the American West are bigger killers than previously thought and they are going to grow more frequent, according to a new comprehensive study of fatal heat conditions. Still, those stretches may be less lethal in the future, as people become accustomed to them.
A team of researchers examined 1,949 deadly heat waves from around the world since 1980 to look for trends, define when heat is so severe it kills and forecast the future. They found that nearly one in three people now experience 20 days a year when the heat reaches deadly levels. But the study predicts that up to three in four people worldwide will endure that kind of heat by the end of the century, if global warming continues unabated.
"The United States is going to be an oven," said Camilo Mora of the University of Hawaii, lead author of a study published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change .
The study comes as much of the U.S. swelters through extended triple-digit heat. Temperatures hit records of 106, 105 and 103 in Santa Rosa, Livermore and San Jose, California on Sunday, as a heat wave was forecast to continue through midweek. In late May, temperatures in Turbat, Pakistan, climbed to about 128 degrees (53.5 degrees Celsius); if confirmed, that could be among the five hottest temperatures reliably measured on Earth, said Jeff Masters, meteorology director of Weather Underground.
Last year 22 countries or territories set or tied records for their hottest temperatures on record, said Masters, who wasn't part of the study. So far this year, seven have done so.
Earth
Up To 65.6 Million Last Year
Global Displaced
The number of people displaced from their homes across the world due to war and persecution climbed slightly to a record 65.6 million last year, with the escalating conflict in South Sudan largely accounting for the rise, the United Nations refugee agency said Monday.
The figure that includes refugees, asylum seekers and people uprooted inside their own countries was some 300,000 higher at the end of last year than at the end of 2015, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said. That was a smaller increase than in the four previous years, prompting the U.N. agency to warn against complacency.
Of the total, some 10.3 million people were newly displaced in 2016, around two-thirds fleeing within their own countries, according to an annual report by the group. The total refugee population - people who fled their home countries - was about 22.5 million people, and nearly half of those were children. In Germany, which vastly expanded its acceptance of people fleeing war from places like Syria, the number of refugees doubled to over 600,000 last year.
Syria's six-year civil war remained the largest single cause of displacement, with 12 million people - around two-thirds of the population - either uprooted within the country or fleeing abroad, the group said.
They were followed by some 7.7 million Colombians, 4.7 million Afghans, 4.2 million Iraqis and 3.3 million South Sudanese.
Global Displaced
US Ambassador Steps Down
Qatar
The US ambassador to Qatar has stepped down after posting critical tweets about Donald Trump's (R-Crooked) administration after he fired FBI Director James Comey.
Dana Shell Smith announced the move a week after several Gulf states cut diplomatic ties with the monarchy in Doha, citing concerns over their financial ties to Islamist groups including the Muslim Brotherhood.
Ms Smith, a long-standing member of the US foreign service, has not indicated whether the ongoing crisis or the Trump administration played any part in her move, which the US State Department insists is "part of the normal rotation of career diplomats throughout the world".
However when Mr Comey was fired on 9 May she tweeted: "Increasingly difficult to wake up overseas to news from home, knowing I will spend today explaining our democracy and institutions.
"Diplomats explain & defend our political system.Can be tough when partisan acrimony so high, but there is still no greater country. #USA."
Qatar
Religious, Indigenous Leaders Agree
Rainforests
Religious and indigenous leaders on Monday called for an end to deforestation in the first international multi-faith, multi-cultural plea to reduce the emissions that fuel climate change.
Participants from 21 countries gathered at a conference in the Norwegian capital of Oslo, hoping that billions of people of faith worldwide will unite to protect the Earth's rainforests. Those forests are fundamental to human life but are suffering from agricultural and industrial exploitation in South America, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.
Hosting the one-day meeting, Norwegian Climate and Environment Minister Vidar Helgesen said that halting deforestation requires "a global, tectonic shift in values."
The Interfaith Rainforest Initiative was launched by the Scandinavian country that has made reducing tropical deforestation one of its top international priorities, with investments of some $3 billion in the past decade.
Rainforests
Found In Trash
NASA Documents
A Florida woman discovered NASA documents, which included photographs of classified aerospace projects, in trash outside her home, according to Orlando CBS affiliate WKMG News 6.
Yvette Quinn, who is a reportedly a Navy veteran, found the pile of documents in a neighbor's trash can a few weeks ago and turned them over to WKMG. The house is apparently up for sale, according to the TV station's footage.
Quinn was concerned about what she had found because the records included a list of scientists that had secret and top secret clearances. The documents also had the social security number of each scientist listed beside the name in plain view, which could've led to identity theft. Quinn said it was "scary" because all the secret information was sitting there in the trash can.
However, she didn't realize at first that the list of names and social security numbers wasn't the only sensitive information she had found. The documents included early test results of aerospace models and drones. Photos and manuals from the NASA space program were also hidden in the piles of documents.
Other records were related to drone tests at the Martin Marietta Corporation. The company was founded in 1961 and focused on chemicals, aerospace, and electronics. Martin Marietta later went on to merge with Lockheed Corporation in March 1995 to form the aerospace company Lockheed Martin.
NASA Documents
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