Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Jessica Valenti: "Punching Gloria Steinem: inside the bizarre world of anti-feminist women" (Guardian)
How do you make sense of women who think the Hobby Lobby decision is 'great', college rape is 'inflated' and pay gaps don't exist? Just don't let 'em stop you.
Paul Krugman: Beliefs, Facts and Money (NY Times)
How Republicans ignore the evidence and cling to that old-time economic religion.
ALEXANDER NAZARYAN: The Fallacy of 'Balanced Literacy' (NY Times)
THERE was the student who wanted to read Tolstoy, but abandoned "War and Peace" after a bewildering day with the Russian aristocracy. There were the students who had just come from Albania, to whom a Harry Potter novel was as inscrutable as Aramaic. There were the students who needed special attention, which I could barely offer. And then there were the ones who read quietly and would have welcomed a discussion about "The Chocolate War." I couldn't offer that, either.
Joe Bishop: Lily Allen wrote a song about me because I accused her of racism (Guardian)
Joe Bishop wasn't the only person to say the singer's Hard Out Here was racist. But why is she shifting the focus on to 'trolls' rather than addressing legitimate concerns about the exploitation of black women?
Was art critic John Ruskin really repulsed by his wife's pubic hair? (Guardian)
Emma Thompson's new film about his wife, Effie Gray, has been criticised for perpetuating the myth that this was the reason their five-year marriage was never consummated.
Anonymous, Carmen Burana: 4 Things You Can Only Learn by Surviving an Earthquake (Cracked)
In January 2010, John and his younger brother were two of thousands of foreigners in Haiti. John was in the middle of chatting online with a girl he liked back home, pondering that age-old question -- what exact combination of emojis makes a woman love you? -- when suddenly the building began to buck and shake. A 7.0-magnitude earthquake had just struck the country, the strongest in over 200 years.
Hermione Hoby: "Mike Myers: why I made a film about supermensch Shep Gordon" (Guardian)
Partying with Whoopi, redecorating with Groucho, being punched by Janis Joplin … someone had to make a film about legendary music manager Shep Gordon. As Supermensch hits the screen, Mike Myers hooks up with his hero and lets the eye-popping anecdotes roll in.
C. Coville: 5 Terrible Scenes That Almost Ruin Awesome Movies (Cracked)
Usually you find bad scenes right where they belong: in the middle of bad movies. But sometimes these terrible scenes surface in films that are otherwise good, like a dead spider bobbing up onto the surface of the milkshake you're drinking.
Smarty Pins (Google)
"Google has a new geography game called Smarty Pins in which you must answer questions by placing a pin on Google Maps. You are given a thousand miles, and the number of miles you are off for each question, that number is deducted from your score. You can play until you run out of miles." - Neatorama
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
David E Suggests
David
Thanks, Dave!
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
from Marc Perkel
BartCop
Hello Bartcop fans,
As you all know the untimely passing of Terry was unexpected, even by
him. We all knew he had cancer but we all thought he had some years
left. So some of us who have worked closely with him over the years are
scrambling around trying to figure out what to do. My job, among other
things, is to establish communications with the Bartcop community and
provide email lists and groups for those who might put something
together. Those who want to play an active roll in something coming from
this, or if you are one of Bart's pillars, should send an email to
active@bartcop.com.
The most active open discussion is on Bart's Facebook page.
( www.facebook.com/bartcop )
You can listen to Bart's theme song here
or here.
( www.bartcop.com/blizing-saddles.mp3 )
( youtu.be/MySGAaB0A9k )
We have opened up the radio show archives which are now free. Listen to
all you want.
( bartcop.com/members )
Bart's final wish was to pay off the house mortgage for Mrs. Bart who is
overwhelmed and so very grateful for the support she has received.
Anyone wanting to make a donation can click on this the yellow donate
button on bartcop.com
But - I need you all to help keep this going. This note
isn't going to directly reach all of Bart's fans. So if you can repost
it on blogs and discussion boards so people can sign up then when we
figure out what's next we can let more people know. This list is just
over 600 but like to get it up to at least 10,000 pretty quick. So
here's the signup link for this email list.
( mailman.bartcop.com/listinfo/bartnews )
Marc Perkel
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Hot. Humid.
We're No. 33!
America
We're No. 33! That's the bottom line in a new Gallup poll measuring the extent of freedom in 135 countries. Only 79% of Americans say they're satisfied with their freedom to choose what to do with their lives, down from 87% in 2008. The top five nations where people feel most satisfied with their freedoms are New Zealand, Australia, Cambodia, Sweden and the United Arab Emirates. At No. 33, the United States is sandwiched between Bahrain and Cameroon.
Gallup doesn't define "freedom" in this poll, so citizens of different countries are likely to interpret the word differently. That's why Cambodians - enjoying peaceful elections as they recover from years of war - rank among the top five. Still, changes over time show whether people in a given nation feel their freedoms are improving or deteriorating.
The United States is one of the few places where freedoms appear to be on the wane. Of the 100 countries where Gallup measured changes in freedom during the past five years, 75 of them registered an improvement, while 21 registered a decline. Four stayed the same. Of the decliners, only five nations report sharper drops than the United States. Two of them - Syria and Afghanistan - are dominated by armed uprisings. Two others - Tajikistan and Thailand - are racked with political turmoil. Luxembourg, the most prosperous of the decliners, has become a target of U.S. and European authorities going after tax evaders with foreign accounts.
Such unruly company seems to have knocked some of the swagger out of the typical American. In a separate set of polls by Pew Research, the percentage of Americans who believe the United States "stands above all other countries" dropped from 38% in 2011 to 28% in 2014. Young Americans are least impressed with their home country, with only 15% of 18-29-year-olds saying the United States is the world's No. 1 nation. Among seniors, 40% feel that way - but still, that's down from 50% just three years ago.
Many Americans seem to question the basic premise that everybody can get ahead in the so-called land of the free. A recent analysis by USA Today found living the American Dream, loosely defined, costs a typical family of four roughly $130,000 per year. That's in a country where the median household income is only about $53,000, or less than half of what's needed for a middle-class lifestyle.
America
BBC Unwelcomes
Climate Change Deniers
BBC journalists are being schooled in how to cover science. A progress report from an independent body, the BBC Trust, says Britain's public broadcasting service shouldn't be giving equal air time to climate change deniers and others on the scientific fringe.
The report found the BBC remains prone to "over-rigid application of editorial guidelines on impartiality" that resulted in the news service giving "undue attention to marginal opinion." The author of the report, Steve Jones, emeritus professor of Genetics at University College London, cited the existence of manmade climate change as an example.
Since the review began in 2010, nearly 200 BBC senior staff were sent to workshops to learn what it means to cover science impartially. Andrew Miller, chairman of Parliament's science and technology select committee, said in a statement: "The key point the workshops tried to impart is that impartiality in science coverage does not simply lie in reflecting a wide range of views, which may result in a 'false balance.' More crucially it depends on the varying degree of prominence such views should be given. In this respect, editorial decisions should be guided by where the scientific consensus might be found on any given topic, if it can in fact be determined."
The Trust cautioned this does not mean critical opinion should be excluded: "The BBC has a duty to reflect the weight of scientific agreement but it should also reflect the existence of critical views appropriately. Audiences should be able to understand from the context and clarity of the BBC's output what weight to give to critical voices."
Climate Change Deniers
Advice From 'Fox & Friends'
Women in the Workplace
In a segment that sounded like something out of the '60s, "Fox & Friends" dispensed advice to career-minded women Monday that included telling them to "wear colorful tops" and to avoid raising their voices under pressure.
Author Sylvia Ann Hewlett, who describes herself as an expert on gender and workplace issues, was on the Fox News morning show to promote her book "Executive Presence: The Missing Link Between Merit and Success." But the tips she offered were reminiscent of decades-old adages that suggest women should be seen and not heard.
While her book is described as a guide for what both genders should do to get ahead in their careers, most of Hewlett's advice was geared towards women.
"Keep it low; don't speak loud," said TV host Brian Kilmeade at one point, trying to boil down the line of advice for women who might be watching.
Hewlett also stressed that the most important aspect of looking the part was feeling comfortable in one's own clothing, and she cautioned women against "[filling] the air with words… often times that undermines you, just rambling."
Women in the Workplace
Scripts Leaked
Doctor Who
Several scripts from Doctor Who's upcoming eighth season, the first starring Peter Capaldi in the famous role of the time-traveling alien, have made their way to the Internet, according to the Radio Times.
Lending credibility to the scripts is the fact that the BBC is now scrambling to cover up the leak. They released a statement urging fans to not read the scripts, because they clearly don't understand how the Internet works, or how rabid Whovians are.
"BBC Worldwide is currently investigating a security issue around Doctor Who Series 8 where unfinished material has inadvertently been made public," the BBC said in a statement. "We deeply regret this and apologize to all the show's fans, the BBC and the cast and crew who have worked tirelessly making the series. We would like to make a plea to anyone who might have any of this material and spoilers associated with it not to share it with a wider audience so that everyone can enjoy the show as it should be seen when it launches. We know only too well that Doctor Who fans are the best in the world and we thank them for their help with this and their continued loyalty."
The leak apparently happened after the scripts were sent to the BBC's new Latin American headquarters in Miami for translation.
Doctor Who
Corporate Avoidance
U.S. Taxes
Seventy-six U.S. corporations have shifted their tax domiciles out of the United States to other countries since 1983 to avoid U.S. taxes, with a sharp increase recently in such deals, a policy research arm of Congress said on Monday.
Known as inversions, these transactions are still rare but are becoming more common and causing concern in Washington. Responding to a request from lawmakers for background, the Congressional Research Service said it had found 47 such deals had been done in the past decade and more are in the works.
"Barely a week seems to pass without news that another corporation plans to move its address overseas simply to avoid paying its fair share of U.S. taxes," said Democratic Representative Sander Levin in a statement.
Medical technology group Medtronic Inc said last month that it plans to buy Covidien Plc, a rival based in low-tax Ireland. Analysts said the deal was driven, at least in part, by tax considerations.
The research service said other inversions have been done in the past decade by Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals, Perrigo Co Plc, Actavis Plc and other companies, many of them rebasing for tax purposes to Ireland.
U.S. Taxes
U.S. To Free
Marc Emery
When the poster child for marijuana legalization is released from a U.S. prison later this week, he'll be re-entering a world where many of his ideas have taken root and in some places have sprouted right up.
Marc Emery, Canada's self-styled "Prince of Pot," concludes a five-year sentence on Wednesday and will emerge into a lucrative marijuana landscape, where two U.S. states are now issuing recreational pot licences, medical growers are reaping profits and investors aren't hedging on potential opportunities.
The 56-year-old Vancouver resident was extradited to Seattle in May 2010, when he pleaded guilty to selling marijuana seeds from Canada to American customers before serving his time in several U.S. corrections' facilities.
When he was first arrested almost a decade ago, the Drug Enforcement Agency heralded his seizure as a "significant blow" to the legalization movement.
Marc Emery
Why 'Fast Lanes' Are A Terrible Idea
Internet
We've heard a lot of good reasons to oppose the Federal Communications Commission's plan to allow for the creation of Internet "fast lanes." However, the best one we've seen so far might be from Kickstarter CEO Yancey Strickler, who has written an op-ed for The Washington Post in which he explains why any plan that lets ISPs charge more in exchange for traffic prioritization should be a nonstarter.
"[When we founded Kickstarter], we didn't have to worry about whether our site's content would be slower than a competitor that had some kind of exclusive 'fast lane' deal," Strickler writes. "Such roadblocks would have created enormous logistical and financial hurdles - ones so big they might have shut us down before we got started. But that's the world that start-ups will be born into if the FCC moves forward with its proposed rules allowing paid prioritization."
And this really is the danger of giving up on net neutrality: That smaller companies will be faced with a de facto ISP tax in which they'll have to raise a significant amount of venture capital just to get their services into the "fast lanes" that established incumbents such as Google, Facebook and Amazon would already have access to. It's not hard to see how quickly this could have a chilling effect on startup activity in the United States.
"Sites unwilling or unable to pay up will be buffered to death: unloadable, unwatchable and left out in the cold," Strickler explains. "This proposed system would incentivize entrepreneurs to divert resources from their customers and staff and into paid deals with ISPs. Trading healthy competition for deep pockets is a terrible way to create an innovative, competitive economy."
Internet
2nd Chinese Company Plans To Sue
"Transformers: Age of Extinction"
A second Chinese company says it will sue the producers of "Transformers: Age of Extinction" for breach of contract, state media reported Tuesday.
Huang Daosheng, the general manager of Chongqing Wulong Karst Tourism Co. Ltd., told a news conference Monday that the producers had failed to show its logo in the movie as promised, according to state media reports. Calls to the company rang unanswered.
The official Xinhua News Agency reported that the company paid an undisclosed sum to promote the scenic area it operates in southwest China and that it would file suit at a court in Chongqing city against Paramount Pictures and a Beijing-based producer. It quoted the tourist attraction marketing manager Li Chu as saying that the movie also combines images of Wulong with scenes shot in Hong Kong and thereby confuses the audience. Paramount didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Last month, a Beijing property developer said it had filed a lawsuit alleging that Paramount and two of its Chinese associates had failed to deliver on pledges to hold the movie premiere at its hotel and feature images of its property in trailers and movie posters. Soon after the developer and Paramount said they had smoothed out the dispute.
"Transformers: Age of Extinction"
Hates Immigrants More Than O'Really
Laura Ingraham
Laura Ingraham did the impossible this week. She managed to make Bill O'Reilly seem almost reasonable. Her anti-immigration fervor is surpassed by no one. She was right there in spirit with the anti-immigration protesters who turned up in Murrieta, California with hateful signs and slogans and spit to turn back busloads of undocumented women and children. For some reason, many of these people have no idea that they look exactly like the white protesters in Selma, Alabama blocking school integration, with their faces contorted in hatred, screaming vile things at children. But Laura Ingraham knows it. She's an educated woman. She just does not care. Spitefulness toward immigrants is her brand.
Her solution: mass deportation. "By the thousands," she says. But by all means keep the families together, by deporting entire families.
O'Reilly was worried. Might not play well on TV. Might hurt the Republicans. It's not that he likes immigrants. He likes Republicans.
Screw them too, Ingraham said. She will stop at nothing to get rid of those immigrants. O'Reilly is too soft. Ingraham needs new friends. Those sign-wielding hate spewers are her new besties. And she is defending them.
"I think what you saw in Murrieta, California, was not something that we should say should not happen in the United States," Ingraham said. "No one wants people to spit on each other, I don't agree with that, but the people saying 'Oh no, you won't do this to our community, you won't do this to our wages, you won't do this to our public schools,' where do the people get satisfaction? Where do they go?"
Laura Ingraham
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