Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman's Column: Messing with Medicare (New York Times)
It's actually good that the "Grand Bargain" is apparently dead, because what President Obama offered to the Republicans was a very bad deal for America.
Paul Krugman's Blog: President Pushover (New York Times)
As I recall, two things happened last year: voters were angry about the weak economy, and older voters believed that Obama was going to take away their Medicare and send them to the death panels. And so the way to win those voters back is to cut Medicare and weaken the economy?
Roger Ebert: A campaign film in search of a campaign
"The Undefeated" is a documentary about Sarah Palin made by and for the faithful, who may experience it in the way believers sit through a rather boring church service. At nearly two hours, it's a campaign advertisement in search of a campaign. But that's not surprising. What astonished me is that the primary targets in the film are conservative Republicans.
VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN: The Confidence Game at Google+ (New York Times)
It's extremely satisfying having just 20 friends on the new Google+.
Scott Burns: How to Be a Millionaire and Live in Poverty (Assetbuilder.com)
If you were happily married and had $1 million waiting to be invested, where could you safely invest your money so that your annual income from that million would be lower than the official poverty level of $14,710 for a couple?(Yes, I said "lower," not "higher.") … The answer: You could keep your money in any bank in America! Only in America could you have a million dollars and be nearly certain that your income would be below the official definition of poverty.
Liz Weston: Deep cuts in spending cause 'frugal fatigue' (LA Times)
A reader who shaves expenses manages to pay off some debt but looks for ideas on how to build up savings.
Jim Hightower: Pity the Poor Judges
Indeed, the "injustice worrying our leaders is literally about justices - as in state and federal judges. More and more of them are wailing that they're grossly underpaid at about $150,000 a year. One judge in New York says she's so strapped she had to sell a summer home in the Hamptons. "I'm working to achieve justice for other people," she complains, yet "I don't feel that I'm experiencing justice."
Rubik's Battenburg (Stasty)
Sure, you could decorate the exterior of a cubical cake so that it looks like a Rubik's Cube from the outside, but Vicky McDonald went beyond that goal for her cake in honor of Erno Rubik's birthday. As you slice her cake, it continues to look like a Rubik's Cube, with varying interior colors. She provides instructions on how to make one at the link.
Brittany Nunn: Why does my car smell like cookies? (Amarillo Globe-News)
In 1953, there were 26 days that reached 100 degrees, and today Amarillo beat that record with 27 triple-digit days in 2011! … Rumor has it you can bake cookies by leaving them in a hot car for two or three hours. Naturally, we couldn't take this information at face value - we had to investigate!
PAUL SONNE and ETHAN SMITH: Singer Amy Winehouse Found Dead (Wall Street Journal)
The 27-year-old singer, who apparently struggled with drug and alcohol problems, was found dead at a house in London.
Cherry Wilson: Amy Winehouse found dead aged 27 in London home (Guardian)
Metropolitan police confirm death of singer notorious as much for her off-stage excesses as her music.
Shahesta Shaitly: "This much I know: Martha Wainwright" (Guardian)
The singer-songwriter on her brother Rufus, sharing a hot tub with Cyndi Lauper and being an energetic drunk.
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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answered:
4 Caterpillars (So Far)
Gulf Fritillary Butterfly
Gulf Fritillary butterfly
Here are today's pictures:
Caterpillar #1 - pupated
Caterpillar #2 - pupated
Caterpillar #3
Caterpillar #4 - the newest addition
Reader Contribution
Swallowtail
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
What Is It?
Red Spider
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and seasonal.
Thanks for all the congratulations and kind wishes.
The big thank you's should go to Bruce and that MadCat, JD, for faithfully providing links every day. And the regular regulars, like DJ Useo (Dave), and Don at
Satirical Political, and the irregular regulars, Baron Dave,
and BadtotheboneBob, and Michael Dare, and zENmAN (and his alter-ego Purple Gene), all providing original content.
An extra special thanks to Bart and the ever-valiant Marc Perkel.
And, of course, many thanks to you readers because without you, what's the purpose?
The 400 Richest Americans Pay
18% Tax Rate
The 400 richest Americans used to pay 30% of their income on the average to Uncle Sam. Today, they pay 18% on the average, according to Steve Rattner, a Wall Street financier, who just presented these figures on Mornings With Joe,MSNBC.
The main reason for the drop in their tax rate of some 40% is the tax cuts by George Bush in 2003, taking the rate paid on dividends and capital gains down to 15%. This reduction in the investment class's taxes powered the bull market in stocks from the fall of 2003 until the fall of 2007.
Shockingly, the plan to raise the debt ceiling collects nothing from the wealthiest Americans to reduce our budget deficit. The Republican right wing holds the Obama White House hostage. It's a sad day for the principle of sharing the pain equitably.
18% Tax Rate
WikiLeaks-Style Site
Murdochleaks
As Rupert Murdoch attempts to manage fallout from the News Corp. scandal on an expanding number of fronts--including a hacker group threatening a collaboration with major media outlets to distribute a purported trove of News of the World emails--his company may be faced with even more leaks from current and former employees.
Murdochleaks, a WikiLeaks-style site that went live this weekend, encourages whistleblowers both inside and outside the company to submit "tips or evidence of wrongdoing relating to Rupert Murdoch's affiliated institutions."
The site claims that "credible submissions will be distributed to our network of journalists (actual journalists) and law enforcement agencies in the U.K., the U.S. and Australia. We will not publish anything ourselves. We do not accept rumor, opinion or material that is publicly available elsewhere."
As the Guardian's Charles Arthur pointed out, the site is hosted by CloudFlare, a "service increasingly popular among hackers seeking to cover their tracks." It's unclear whether Murdochleaks is affiliated with Anonymous or Lulzsec, the hacker group that claims to be working with news organizations on a release of News of the World emails.
Interestingly, WikiLeaks-style technology is a reporting power News Corp. has itself tried to leverage. In May, the Wall Street Journal launched SafeHouse, a standalone site for leaking tips, intel, documents or files directly to editors in the newsroom. "If a user prefers to be considered a confidential source before agreeing to provide materials to the Journal, the user can fill out a secure online form, and a Journal editor will follow up directly," the press release stated. (It's worth noting that the Journal did not participate in the recent WikiLeaks release of diplomatic cables, and-in a much criticized editorial defending Rupert Murdoch and the company amid the exploding scandal-the paper trashed the Guardian for doing so.)
Murdochleaks
Wins 2011 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest
Sue Fondrie
A sentence in which tiny birds and the English language are both slaughtered took top honors Monday in an annual bad writing contest.
Sue Fondrie of Oshkosh, Wis., won the 2011 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for her sentence comparing forgotten memories to dead sparrows, said San Jose State University Prof. Scott Rice. The contestant asks writers to submit the worst possible opening sentences to imaginary novels.
Fondrie wrote: "Cheryl's mind turned like the vanes of a wind-powered turbine, chopping her sparrow-like thoughts into bloody pieces that fell onto a growing pile of forgotten memories."
The University of Wisconsin professor's 26-word sentence is the shortest grand prize winner in the contest's 29-year history, Rice said.
The contest is named after British author Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, whose 1830 novel "Paul Clifford" begins with the oft-quoted opening line "It was a dark and stormy night."
Sue Fondrie
Joins IFC's "Todd Margaret"
Jon Hamm
Jon Hamm will appear in five episodes of "The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret" during its second season, IFC announced Monday.
Additionally, Johnny Marr, the guitarist for the Smiths will compose music for season two of the comedy.
The show was created by and stars David Cross as a sad sack American assigned to launch an energy drink called Thunder Muscle in the U.K. and documents the many, many ways that he messes up.
The show returns January 2012.
Jon Hamm
Sheldon's A Jeep
"Eureka"
"Big Bang Theory" star Jim Parsons will provide the voice for a Jeep on an ambitious animated holiday-themed episode of Syfy's hit dramatic comedy "Eureka" to air this December.
That's the vehicle driven by Sheriff Carter (series star Colin Ferguson) in the normal, non-animated episodes. Ordinarily, the Jeep doesn't have a voice, which isn't necessarily intuitive given that this is a comedic series on Syfy.
The episode, titled "Do You See What I See," finds Sheriff Carter and Allison Blake (Salli Richardson-Whitfield) planning a holiday surprise for their kids, until a generator designed to create a fake winter in downtown Eureka malfunctions and renders the town and its inhabitants animated -- even insentient objects.
Edward James Olmos, of "Miami Vice" and "Battlestar Galactica" fame, will voice the leader of a pack of sled dogs.
"Eureka"
Directing "Jimmy Kimmel Live" Wednesday
Jon Favreau
Jon Favreau will direct Wednesday's edition of "Jimmy Kimmel Live," ABC announced on Monday.
Favreau's latest movie, "Cowboy & Aliens," debuted at Comic-Con on Saturday and will open wide on Friday, July 29. Kimmel has booked a full week of related material, including drop-ins by stars Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford.
Quentin Tarantino, J.J. Abrams and Michel Gondry have also directed episodes of "Jimmy Kimmel Live."
While Favreau is obviously on hand to promote his upcoming blockbuster, here's hoping that he sneaks in a quick tribute to "Swingers," which celebrates its 15th anniversary in October.
Jon Favreau
Hacked And Hounded
Amy Winehouse
Add the late Amy Winehouse to the list of UK celebrities who were phone hacked.
The singer, whose was found dead at her London home on Saturday, had her telephone and medical records accessed by tabloid newspapers, according to reporter Charles Lavery.
Lavery, formerly of the Scottish newspaper the Sunday Mail, writes on his Wordpress blog that Winehouse's parents and sometime lover Blake Fielder-Civil were also targeted by the tabloids. In addition, Winehouse's brother Alex's phones and personal data were also scanned by reporters.
Among other claims, Lavery said papers used hacking to get the times when Winehouse would arrive at various rehab clinics so they could have photographers camped out to get pictures of her entering or leaving treatment.
Amy Winehouse
Playing Footsy With Fox
Christie
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was sued Monday over his administration's refusal to release correspondence between the president of Fox News and the governor or his staff after a report that the head of the network tried to persuade the first-term GOP governor to run for president in 2012 last summer.
Fox News President Roger Ailes has denied urging Christie to run for president. But speculation continues over whether Christie would jump into the race, even though he has repeatedly said he will not.
The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey filed suit Monday on behalf of John Cook, a reporter for Gawker Entertainment LLC, who sought the information under state's Open Public Records Law.
The governor's office initially refused to confirm any records existed and said that, if they did, they would be exempt from state's open records law based on "executive privilege" as a reason to withhold records from the public. Executive privilege is intended to protect the governor and other elected officials from disclosing records that contain advice to them about their official public duties.
After the lawsuit was filed Monday, the governor's office denied that there were any other records besides a calendar entry.
Christie
Likely To Drop Lawsuit
ACLU
The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey on Monday said it will likely drop a lawsuit filed earlier in the day against New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for records that confirm he met with the head of Fox News last year.
The ACLU filed the lawsuit on Monday on behalf of a reporter for Gawker Entertainment LLC, saying the governor's office had issued a blanket refusal to release any records pertaining to the meeting.
After the governor's office confirmed the September 2010, meeting, the ACLU relented.
"We're happy to see the matter resolved quickly but remain concerned that the governor's office initially issued a blanket executive privilege claim in response to Gawker's request for records," said ACLU-NJ president Frank Corrado, who is represented Gawker reporter John Cook. "Is the governor's office actually reviewing records requests from the public, or is it simply using executive privilege as a carte blanche to deny access to all correspondence with his office?"
Citing the state's Open Public Records Law, the lawsuit sought all correspondence between the president of Fox News and the governor or his staff after a report that the head of the network tried to persuade the first-term GOP governor to run for president in 2012.
ACLU
"Snake-Oil Salesmen"?
Prince Charles
A leading professor of complementary medicine accused Britain's heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles and other backers of alternative therapies on Monday of being "snake-oil salesmen" who promote products with no scientific basis.
Edzard Ernst, who is stepping down from his post as Britain's only professor of complementary medicine at Exeter University, also said a long-running dispute with the Prince about the merits of alternative therapies had cost him his job -- a claim Prince Charles's office denied.
Ernst's complementary medicine research unit at Exeter's Peninsula School of Medicine had been threatened with outright closure, but the university has now offered it a reprieve and says it is seeking a successor to Ernst to lead it.
Ernst said that during his 18 years of researching the efficacy of hundreds of different types of alternative medicine -- from acupuncture, to herbal remedies, to homeopathy and chiropractic therapy -- he has found that "snake-oil salesmen and pseudo-science are ubiquitous and dangerous."
Asked whether he included Prince Charles in that category, he said, "yes."
Prince Charles
To End Indonesia's Hollywood Drought
Harry Potter
Hollywood blockbusters will soon return to Indonesian screens, with the final "Harry Potter" film leading the way to end a five-month drought caused by a standoff over the country's tax on imported movies, an official said Monday.
"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2" is being imported by a newly established local company and will be released before Ramadan, the Islamic fasting month that begins Aug. 1, said Djonny Sjafruddin, head of the Indonesian Cinema Companies Union. He declined to give an exact release date.
"All things such as censorship and subtitles have already been finished," Sjafruddin said. "We need some 90 copies and they are now under process."
He added that "Transformers 3" and "Kung Fu Panda 2" would also be released during the next several weeks.
In February, six major Hollywood studios withdrew films from Indonesia, a Muslim-majority nation of 237 million people, in opposition to a new levy on imported movies that was meant to protect local filmmakers.
Harry Potter
Rival Houses Team Up
Post-Production
Deluxe and Technicolor, historic rivals in Hollywood's post-production business, have announced a new agreement in which each will concede and subcontract a segment of its business to the other.
The pact is a rapprochement of shocking import in the movie business.
"It's cats and dogs sleeping together," one veteran of the post-production business told TheWrap. "Those companies have a long tradition of rivalry. I'm sure this was a very, very difficult thing for both companies to do."
To hang onto a disappearing business and to consolidate each company's strengths, Technicolor will subcontract its 35mm bulk-release printing business to Deluxe in North America, while Deluxe will subcontract its print distribution business to Technicolor.
Post-Production
New Record Set
"Antiques Roadshow"
A collection of Chinese cups carved from rhinoceros horns has become the most valuable find in the 16-year history of the television program "Antiques Roadshow" in the United States.
The five cups, believed to date from the late 17th or early 18th century were valued at $1-$1.5 million on Saturday after being brought to the TV show at a stop in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
The owner, who prefers to remain unidentified, told Asian arts expert Lark Mason he started collecting cups inexpensively in the 1970s and had no idea of the collection's current value.
The second highest-value U.S. appraisal recorded by "Antiques Roadshow" was of a collection of Chinese carved jade bowls, estimated to be worth as much as $1.07. They were discovered in Raleigh, North Carolina in 2009.
"Antiques Roadshow"
In Memory
Michael Cacoyannis
Michael Cacoyannis, the Cyprus born-filmmaker who directed the 1964 film classic "Zorba the Greek," starring Anthony Quinn, has died at an Athens hospital. He was 89.
Officials at a state-run hospital said Cacoyannis died early Monday of complications from a heart attack.
Cacoyannis won multiple awards and worked with such well-known actors as Melina Mercouri, Irene Papas, Tom Courtenay and Candice Bergen.
Michael Cacoyannis
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