Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Policy and the Personal (New York Times)
A lot of people inside the Beltway are tut-tutting about the recent campaign focus on Mitt Romney's personal history - his record of profiting even as workers suffered, his mysterious was-he-or-wasn't-he role at Bain Capital after 1999, his equally mysterious refusal to release any tax returns from before 2010.
Roger Ebert: There is something and not nothing
The mind of a theoretical physicist must be a wonderful place. It can consider things that for me are only words, and will always be words. It can make play with multiple dimensions. It can contemplate black holes. It can not only theorize the existence of the Higgs boson, but can devise an experiment to find it--an experiment that succeeds.
Connie Schultz: If We're Lucky, Political Wife Sarah Paley Will Blog, Too (Creators Syndicate)
I'm a U.S. senator's wife, but you never will read that on my business card. I make my living writing for newspapers and magazines. No one ever told me my writing should be "a good thing" for my husband's campaign. Now that really is "a good thing," as I have a habit of getting all feminist-y, except when I'm writing about our dog.
Richard Reich: The Truth About Obama's Tax Proposal (and the Lies the Regressives are Telling About It)
To hear the media report it, President Obama is proposing a tax increase on wealthy Americans. That's misleading at best. He's proposing that everyone receive a continuation of the Bush tax cuts on the first $250,000 of their incomes. Any dollars they earn in excess of $250,000 will be taxed at the old Clinton-era rates.
Henry Rollins: Obamacare vs. the American Death Machine (LA Weekly)
Bubba, a man with no health insurance, lives his kick-ass American life. In the process, he gets overweight and ruins his heart and respiratory system by taking bad care of himself. ... One day Bubba falls down and goes boom. His family rushes him to a local emergency room, where he is stabilized after what will later be diagnosed as heart trouble. He will spend a few days in the hospital. The bill will be enormous. Can he pay it? Oh, hell no. Someone will pay. Not God, and not Paul Ryan. Who pays for Bubba? I do. I have health insurance. My rates go up because Bubba is irresponsible.
Ted Rall: Customer Service is a Right
Facebook's test to make you prove you are who you say you are is bizarre: they show you randomly selected pictures of your Facebook "friends" and ask you to identify them. But most of my "friends" are readers and fans of my cartoons and books. I don't know their faces. Moreover, not all of my "friends'" photos are of themselves. One Facebook test-I kept failing-presented me with pictures of potted plants.
Maggie Koerth-Baker: Nobel laureate occasionally hangs out on street corners, answering physics questions (Boing Boing)
On at least two separate occasions, once in New York City and once in Chicago, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Leon Lederman has basically just set a card table up on a street corner and allowed all comers to bring him their physics questions.
William McGowan: The Chickens and the Bulls (Slate)
The rise and incredible fall of a vicious extortion ring that preyed on prominent gay men in the 1960s.
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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BadtotheboneBob
Aurora
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Day 8
Gulf Fritillary
Came across some of Gulf Fritillary larva
on the back fence, so it looks like we'll have a third year of raising butterflies. : )
Click on any picture for a larger version.
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Marine layer rolled in early and stayed late. : )
As News Source
YouTube
A new study has found that YouTube has become a major platform for news, one where viewers are turning for eyewitness videos in times of major events and natural disasters.
The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism on Monday released their examination of 15 months of the most popular news videos on the Google Inc.-owned site. It found that while viewership for TV news still easily outpaces those consuming news on YouTube, the video-sharing site is a growing digital environment where professional journalism mingles with citizen content.
More than a third of the most-watched videos came from citizens. Than more half came from news organizations, but footage in those videos sometimes incorporated footage shot by YouTube users.
The results depicted both reasons for concern and encouragement for traditional news outlets. While citizen journalism accounts for a large slice of viewership on YouTube, its users are also eager distributers of professional news video. The study shows YouTube as a global news arena where professional and amateur video bleed together, and is made consumable in on-demand style.
YouTube
$1M To USO
Charlie Sheen
Charlie Sheen's anger issues will soon be helping soldiers.
The actor announced Monday that he'll donate at least $1 million to the USO in what is among the largest single donations ever given to the troop morale-boosting organization.
Sheen says he'll donate 1 percent of profits from his new FX show "Anger Management" to the group, known for sending entertainers to lighten the hearts of troops. He'll give a minimum of $1 million with no cap on the final amount.
Sheen's donation will be used as part of an ongoing campaign to help injured troops. Says the comedian: "It's an honor for me to be able to give back to these men and women of the military who have done so much for all of us."
Charlie Sheen
Week 1
'Today' Vs. 'GMA'
A majority of morning viewers has greeted the arrival of Savannah Guthrie with a yawn in her first week as "Today" show co-anchor.
NBC's "Today" was beaten last week by ABC archrival "Good Morning America" by 357,000 viewers, the Nielson Co. said.
"GMA" drew an average of 4.57 million viewers, compared with 4.21 million for "Today," according to preliminary Nielsen figures released Monday.
This represents the largest lead by "GMA" over "Today" in more than 17 years, while extending its top-ranked status to three consecutive weeks, ABC said.
Meanwhile, in the 25-to-54 demographic, "GMA" landed just 2,000 viewers behind "Today." It was the narrowest margin in that demo in nearly 17 years, the network said.
'Today' Vs. 'GMA'
Baby News
Uma Thurman
It's a girl for Uma Thurman and her financier boyfriend.
Thurman's representative confirmed on Monday that the actress gave birth. She did not release details, including the baby's name.
Thurman, 42, has two older children, 13-year-old Maya Ray and 10-year-old Levon Roan, with ex-husband Ethan Hawke. This is her first with financier Arpad Busson.
Busson has two sons with Elle Macpherson.
Uma Thurman
Comcast Buys Out Microsoft
MSNBC
Comcast Corp, the parent company of NBC, has bought out Microsoft Corp's 50 percent stake in MSNBC.com for a reported $300 million to assume full control of the news website.
The deal ends 16 years of a 50-50 joint venture between Microsoft and NBCUniversal, which is now majority-owned by Comcast Corp, NBC said.
"Today we're taking on a new name - NBCNews.com. While our name is changing, our commitment is not," Jennifer Sizemore, editor-in-chief of NBCNews.com, said in a letter posted on the company's website.
The New York Times reported on Sunday the transaction was valued at $300 million, a part of which comes from the joint venture's past profits, citing people with knowledge of the deal.
MSNBC
Stalled Profits
TV Channel Blackouts
Channel blackouts such as the one that resulted from the recent spat between Viacom and DirecTV have become far more common over the past three years. Consumers can thank the changing dynamics of the entertainment industry.
The rising number of disputes is largely the result of the stagnant market for pay television. Simply put, there aren't many new households being formed in the sluggish economy, and those who want to pay for TV already do. Some 101 million American households subscribe to cable or satellite service. That's about 87 percent of homes, a proportion that has remained unchanged since 2009, according to Leichtman Research Group, which studies media and entertainment.
TV distributors pay media companies a few cents per channel per subscriber each month. In turn, they try to sell packages of channels for more. As costs for those channels rise, so do monthly service bills, but not always by enough to offset the increasing fees cable and satellite providers are paying to media companies. In addition, distributors spend money on special promotions to woo subscribers from competitors. As a result, some companies' expenses are rising faster than revenue.
That has prompted cable and satellite service providers to fight back against cost increases, even when it means blacking out channels until they can eke out a better deal. Satellite TV companies like Dish and DirecTV are in an even tighter squeeze than cable companies because they can't make up for higher costs by providing Internet or phone service.
TV Channel Blackouts
Double R Ranch Sold Cheap
Roy Rogers
A 67-acre Southern California ranch that once belonged to the late King of the Cowboys Roy Rogers has been sold for $645,000.
The Double R ranch near Victorville, in the Mojave Desert, includes a 1,700-square-foot home, a red barn, a stable with 15 stalls, a half-mile horse track and fenced pastures.
The Victorville Daily Press reports the Williams & Williams Worldwide auction firm sold the ranch to the highest bidder last week.
Eric and Anne Enriquez of Orange County restored the property after buying it 10 years ago for $300,000.
Roy Rogers
Oversight Panel Disciplines 2 Judges
Los Angeles
A California oversight panel has disciplined two Beverly Hills judges for their handling of a Lindsay Lohan drunken driving case.
Documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times show Los Angeles County Judges Marsha Revel and Elden Fox have been admonished by the state's Commission on Judicial Performance.
The panel determined Revel improperly met alone with an attorney who wanted to take over Lohan's defense in the 2010 DUI case.
Fox was found to have erred in denying the actress bail on a relatively minor charge and refusing to hear her attorney's arguments.
Los Angeles
Grand Canyon
3-D Pavement Art
Uninspired by modern art, Kurt Wenner set out to learn how European masters made architecture soar and figures float in ceiling frescoes.
What started off as two-dimensional chalk and pastel art on the streets of Rome decades ago, mimicking what Wenner saw in Renaissance classicism, morphed into an art form of his own - one that makes objects appear to rise from or fall into the ground in three-dimensional pieces. His latest piece unveiled just outside the Grand Canyon has visitors perched atop spires and starting down a winding trail that seemingly plunges into the depths of the massive gorge.
The piece, "Grand Canyon Illusion," certainly is puzzling to the eye, blending the visitors who pose in it with a scenic, infinite backdrop. It's the first semi-permanent display of Wenner's work in North America and one that he hopes will help take pavement art to a higher level.
"You can do everything from fine art to publicity to a drawing demonstration or performance to what eventually is going to be a permanent form of art," said Wenner. "It isn't really in a box. It doesn't limit you to one particular venue. I'm not stuck with the gallery world or the publicity world. I can choose where I want to go with it."
3-D Pavement Art
In Memory
Kitty Wells
Kitty Wells, the first female superstar of country music, has died at the age of 92.
The singer's family says Wells died at her home Monday after complications from a stroke.
Her recording of "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" in 1952 was the first No. 1 hit by a woman soloist on the country music charts. Other hits included "Making Believe" and a version of "I Can't Stop Loving You."
From 1953 to 1968, various polls listed Wells as the No. 1 female country singer. Tammy Wynette finally dethroned her, but she continued performing occasionally into her 80s.
Kitty Wells
In Memory
Donald J. Sobol
Donald J. Sobol, author of the popular "Encyclopedia Brown" series of children's mysteries, has died. He was 87.
Sobol died in Miami from natural causes July 11, with his wife Rose by his side, his son John Sobol told The Associated Press Monday.
Sobol's series featured amateur sleuth Leroy "Encyclopedia" Brown, who would unravel local mysteries with the help of his encyclopedic knowledge of facts great and small. The books, first published in the early 1960s, became staples in classrooms and libraries nationwide. They were translated into 12 languages and sold millions of copies worldwide.
Next year marks the 50th anniversary of the Encyclopedia Brown series. Donald Sobol's latest Encyclopedia Brown adventure, "Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Soccer Scheme," will be published in October, according to a release from Penguin.
Sobol was a New York City native. He served in the Army Corps of Engineers during WWII and graduated from Oberlin College. He later worked as a copywriter at the New York Sun, where he eventually worked his way up to reporter. His first Encyclopedia Brown book was rejected two dozen times before it was published, his son said.
In 1958, Sobol became a successful syndicated columnist with his "Two Minute Mystery" series before publishing "Encyclopedia Brown Boy Detective" five years later to launch the most popular series of his career. He and his wife moved to Miami in 1961.
The Encyclopedia Brown concept - in which the solutions to the mysteries are shown after the story - came to Sobol while he was researching an article at the New York Public Library, and a clerk mistakenly handed him a game book, with puzzles on one side and the solutions on the other.
Sobol decided to write a mystery series with the same premise. He earned an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America award for the Encyclopedia Brown series.
Sobol's work never brought him the financial success of blockbusters like the "Harry Potter," series, his son said, but his father loved hearing from countless librarians and parents about children who hated to read until they picked up an Encyclopedia Brown book.
Sobol authored more than 80 books and wrote on a daily basis to the very end.
His family has asked that donations in his memory be made to The New York Public Library at www.nypl.org/donaldsobol. Check donations can be mailed to The New York Public Library, 476 Fifth Avenue, Room M-6, New York, NY 10018, payable to The New York Public Library.
Donald J. Sobol
In Memory
Stephen Covey
Stephen R. Covey, author of "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" as well as three other books that have all sold more than a million copies, has died. He was 79.
In a statement sent to employees of a Utah consulting firm Covey co-founded, his family said the writer and motivational speaker died at a hospital in Idaho Falls, Idaho, early Monday due to complications from a bicycle accident in April.
Covey was hospitalized after being knocked unconscious in the bicycle accident on a steep road in the foothills of Provo, Utah, about 45 miles south of Salt Lake City.
At the time, his publicist, Debra Lund, said doctors had not found any signs of long-term damage to his head.
"He just lost control on his bike and crashed," Lund said. "He was wearing a helmet, which is good news."
Covey is the author of "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" and co-founder of Utah-based professional services company FranklinCovey.
Catherine Sagers, Covey's daughter, told The Salt Lake Tribune in April that her father had suffered some bleeding on his brain after the bicycle accident.
Stephen Covey
In Memory
Bob Babbitt
Prominent Motown studio musician and Funk Brothers member Bob Babbitt, whose bass playing pounded through the Temptations hit "Ball of Confusion" and Marvin Gaye's "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)," has died. He was 74.
Babbitt died Monday of complications from brain cancer in Nashville, Tenn., where he had lived for many years, his manager David Spero said in a statement released by Universal Music, the label in which Babbitt contributed to numerous hit records.
Well-known for decades among musicians, Babbitt laid down bass lines on Stevie Wonder's "Signed, Sealed, Delivered," along with "The Tears of a Clown" by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, "Inner City Blues" by Marvin Gaye, and Edwin Starr's "War."
After leaving Motown, he recorded with Bette Midler, Jim Croce, Bonnie Raitt and Frank Sinatra.
In all, he played on more than 200 top 40 hits, including "Midnight Train to Georgia," by Gladys Knight and the Pips and "Ready to Take a Chance Again" by Barry Manilow.
Babbitt gained wider public recognition through the 2002 film about the Funk Brothers, "Standing in the Shadows of Motown."
Babbitt was born Robert Kreinar on Nov. 26, 1937, in Pittsburgh. He got his first music work freelancing around Detroit in the mid-1960s and joined Stevie Wonder's touring band in 1966. The next year he became part of Motown's house band, known as the Funk Brothers.
Babbitt is survived by his wife, Ann Kreinar, and their children, Carolyn, Joseph and Karen.
Bob Babbitt
In Memory
Jon Lord
British rocker Jon Lord, the keyboardist whose powerful, driving tones helped turn Deep Purple and Whitesnake into two of the most popular hard rock acts in a generation, died Monday. He was 71.
A statement on Lord's official website says the Leicester, England-born musician suffered a fatal pulmonary embolism in London after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.
Lord co-wrote some of Deep Purple's most famous tunes, including "Smoke on the Water," and later had a successful solo career following his retirement from the band in 2002. The statement posted on Lord's website said he died "surrounded by his loving family."
Earlier this month, Lord canceled a performance of his Durham Concerto in Germany. At the time, his website assured fans that it was "not a matter for concern, but it is a continuation of his regular treatment that has just taken longer than anticipated."
Lord got his musical start playing piano, first taking classical music lessons before shifting to rock and roll.
After moving to London to attend drama school, he joined blues band the Artwoods in 1964 and later toured with The Flowerpot Men - known for their hit "Let's Go To San Francisco" - before joining Deep Purple in 1968.
Deep Purple - which featured Lord along with singer Ian Gillan, guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, drummer Ian Paice and bassist Roger Glover - was one of the top hard rock bands of the '70s. Influenced by classical, blues and jazz, Lord took his Hammond organ and distorted its sound to powerful effect on songs including "Highway Star" and "Lazy" to "Child in Time."
The group went on to sell more than 100 million albums before splitting in 1976.
Lord went on to play with hard rock group Whitesnake in the late 1970s and early 1980s and later, a re-formed Deep Purple.
Jon Lord
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