Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: When Government Succeeds (NY Times)
There is a lot of good news that Republicans don't want you to notice.
Richard Brunt: "Americans don't know how good they have it with Obama" (Detroit Free Press)
The dollar is at its strongest levels in years, the stock market is near record highs, gasoline prices are falling, there's no inflation, interest rates are the lowest in 30 years, U.S. oil imports are declining, U.S. oil production is rapidly increasing, the deficit is rapidly declining, and the wealthy are still making astonishing amounts of money.
America is leading the world once again and respected internationally - in sharp contrast to the Bush years. Obama brought soldiers home from Iraq and killed Osama bin Laden.
Laurie Fendrich: The Forever Professors (Chronicle)
Academics who don't retire are greedy, selfish, and bad for students.
Adrian Chen: The Truth About Anonymous's Activism (The Nation)
A look behind the mask reveals a naïve techno-utopianism.
David Wong, Rob Nietupski: 6 Ways Your Brain Is Programmed to Keep You Unhappy (Cracked)
When you're depressed and go browsing around the Internet for something to improve your mood, you'll probably run into this video of a slow loris eating a banana. But then you'll probably find this video of comedian Louis C.K. wondering why everyone seems to be miserable in a world of endless wonders (example: after soaring majestically through the sky in a technological marvel, you can only complain about the 45 minutes you were stuck on the runway).
Kristi Harrison: 4 Signs of Aging No One Warns You About (Cracked)
Picture yourself 30 years from now. Maybe you're imagining a slightly more wrinkled, less hot version of the person you see in the mirror every morning. Or maybe, like me, you forget what you look like altogether and picture yourself as the poor version of Old Lorraine McFly.
Ethan Nadelmann: Why We Need to End the War on Drugs (TED; 17:26 minutes long)
Is the War on Drugs doing more harm than good? In a bold talk, drug policy reformist Ethan Nadelmann makes an impassioned plea to end the "backward, heartless, disastrous" movement to stamp out the drug trade. He gives two big reasons we should focus on intelligent regulation instead.
David Bruce: Wise Up! Money (Athens News)
Enrico Banducci of the hungry was not a good bookkeeper. How bad was he? He once gave comedian Shelley Berman a bonus. Mr. Berman says, "It's still bouncing."
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
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David Bruce has approximately 50 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
... ...
wrote:
took the day off.
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
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.
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
Sunny with a bit of wind.
Time To Go Gravel
Senator Mark Udall
When Mark Udall lost his Senate seat in the midterm elections, civil libertarians familiar with his efforts to inform Americans about the CIA and NSA had the same thought: Before leaving office, the Colorado Democrat should tell the public about the abuses the government is trying to hide. National-security officials are able to violate the Constitution and various statutes with impunity in large part because they classify their misbehavior as a state secret. It's a neat trick. To expose their lawbreaking, one must first break the law.
But there is a check on this unscrupulous trick.
Members of Congress can reveal classified information in their capacity as legislators without facing legal consequences. As the U.S. Constitution puts it, "The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place."
This "Speech or Debate Clause" was most famously invoked in 1971, when Senator Mike Gravel called a late-night subcommittee meeting and entered the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record, liberating them for the public and thwarting executive-branch officials who insisted that they should be suppressed.
Today, it's CIA torture and mass surveillance of innocent people that the executive branch wants to hide. It's beyond dispute that Bush administration interrogation tactics were illegal, as is the fact, documented in FISA Court opinions, that the NSA knowingly violated the Fourth Amendment on many occasions. Yet there is a lot about torture and surveillance that Americans still don't know.
Senator Mark Udall
TV Land Cancels
Hot in Cleveland
It's a good thing LeBron is back and giving the people of Cleveland something to cheer about, because it's about to get much, much colder by the lake.
TV Land has pulled the plug on its long-running series Hot in Cleveland, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The show's sixth season, which is currently in production, will be its last.
"It's been an honor to work with Valerie Bertinelli, Jane Leeves, Wendie Malick and the incomparable Betty White, as well as our executive producers Suzanne Martin, Todd Milliner, Sean Hayes and the rest of our exceptional writers, production team and crew," said TV Land president Larry W. Jones in a statement.
Hot in Cleveland averaged 2.4 million viewers and earned White an Emmy nomination, plus two Screen Actors Guild Awards. The show celebrated its 100th episode in September.
Hot in Cleveland
Pastafarian
Asia Lemmon
A Utah woman says she encountered only brief resistance when she recently had her driver's license photo taken while wearing a colander on her head as a religious statement.
Asia Lemmon, whose legal name appears on her driver's license as Jessica Steinhauser, said the pasta strainer represents her beliefs in the satirical Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
When she had the photo taken Sept. 29, Lemmon said she wasn't sure if officials at the Division of Motor Vehicles office in Hurricane would allow her to wear the headgear, but "it was surprisingly really, really easy."
Nannette Rolfe, the director of Utah's Driver License Division, said about a dozen Pastafarians have had their state driver's license photos taken with a similar colander or pasta strainer on their heads in recent years.
"As long as we can get a visual of the face, we're fine if they choose to wear the headgear," she said.
Asia Lemmon
Heart Exhumed
Frederic Chopin
As Frederic Chopin gasped for air on his deathbed in Paris in 1849, he whispered a request that became the stuff of musical legend: Remove my heart after I die and entomb it in Poland. He wanted the symbol of his soul to rest in the native land he pined for from self-imposed exile in France.
Ever since, the composer's body has rested in peace at the famed Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris - while his heart has endured a wild journey of intrigue and adulation.
First it was sealed in a jar of liquor believed to be cognac. Then it was smuggled into Warsaw past Russian border guards. Once in his hometown, Chopin's heart passed through the hands of several relatives before being enshrined within a pillar in Holy Cross Church. During World War II, it briefly fell into the clutches of the Nazis. The organ has been exhumed several times, most recently in a secret operation to check whether the tissue remains well preserved.
Chopin's heart inspires a deep fascination in Poland normally reserved for the relics of saints. For Poles, Chopin's nostalgic compositions capture the national spirit - and the heart's fate is seen as intertwined with Poland's greatest agonies and triumphs over nearly two centuries of foreign occupation, warfare and liberation.
Frederic Chopin
Nearly 36 Million People
Slaves
Almost 36 million people are living as slaves across the globe with an index on Monday listing Mauritania, Uzbekistan, Haiti, Qatar and India as the nations where modern-day slavery is most prevalent.
The Walk Free Foundation, an Australian-based human rights group, estimated in its inaugural slavery index last year that 29.8 million people were born into servitude, trafficked for sex work, trapped in debt bondage or exploited for forced labour.
Releasing its second annual index, Walk Free increased its estimate of the number of slaves to 35.8 million, saying this was due to better data collection and slavery being uncovered in areas where it had not been found previously.
For the second year, the index of 167 countries found India had by far the greatest number of slaves. Up to 14.3 million people in its population of 1.25 billion were victims of slavery, ranging from prostitution to bonded labour.
Mauritania was again the country where slavery was most prevalent by head of population while Qatar, host of the 2022 World Cup, rose up the rank from 96th place to be listed as the fourth worst country by percentage of the population.
Slaves
Welfare Cheat Pleads Guilty
The Chisholms
A Minnesota man who collected food stamps and other public assistance while living on a yacht with his wife pleaded guilty on Monday to two felony charges, prosecutors said.
Colin Chisholm III, 62, pleaded guilty in a court hearing to theft by swindle and wrongfully obtaining public assistance, Hennepin County Prosecuting Attorney Mike Freeman said in a statement.
Prosecutors said Chisholm and his wife, Andrea Chisholm, 54, illegally received more than $167,000 in public benefits from 2005 to 2012 before their benefits were terminated.
Prosecutors said the coupled acquired a $1.2 million yacht in 2005, shortly after applying for Minnesota welfare benefits. They claimed Minnesota benefits for 28 months they lived on the yacht or in a Palm Beach, Florida area-house, prosecutors said.
They also were accused of living in two luxury homes in an upscale Minneapolis suburb while collecting benefits they were not entitled to, prosecutors said.
The Chisholms
Virus Likely Cause Of Wasting
Sea Stars
Scientists have isolated a virus they are pretty sure is causing the mysterious disease that has killed millions of sea stars on the Pacific Coast from Southern California to Alaska by causing them to lose their limbs and eventually disintegrate into slime and piles of tiny bones.
A study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says a variety of densovirus is the likely cause of wasting syndrome among sea stars, also known as starfish. Varieties of densovirus are used as a biological control on cockroaches, and include the parvovirus that infects dogs.
Cornell University marine microbiologist Ian Hewson says they found larger amounts of the virus in sick sea stars than healthy ones, and the amount of virus increased as the disease progressed. Also, injecting material from sick sea stars that was filtered to concentrate virus-sized organisms caused healthy sea stars to get the disease.
Hewson adds they don't know yet what triggered the outbreak of the virus, which can be found in plankton, sandy ocean bottoms, and sea urchins, and has been found in museum specimens of sea stars dating to 1942. He said It could be related to a population boom in one of the species heavily infected by the disease, a change in the virus, or changes in the environment. Some of the most heavily infected species are members of the same family, suggesting they may share a common vulnerability.
Sea Stars
Solar Plant Lags In Production
Ivanpah
The largest solar power plant of its type in the world - once promoted as a turning point in green energy - isn't producing as much energy as planned.
Sprawling across roughly 5 square miles of federal desert near the California-Nevada border, the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System opened in February, with operators saying it would produce enough electricity to power a city of 140,000 homes.
So far, however, the plant is producing about half of its expected annual output for 2014, according to calculations by the California Energy Commission.
"Factors such as clouds, jet contrails and weather have had a greater impact on the plant than the owners anticipated," the agency said in a statement.
Operators initially expected to need steam from gas-powered boilers for an hour a day during startup. After operations began, they found they needed to keep boilers running more than four times longer - an average of 4 1/2 hours a day.
Ivanpah
Gets Marriage License
Manson
Mass murderer Charles Manson plans to marry a 26-year-old woman who left her Midwestern home and spent the past nine years trying to help exonerate him.
Afton Elaine Burton, the raven-haired bride-to-be, said she loves the man convicted in the notorious murders of seven people, including pregnant actress Sharon Tate.
No date has been set, but a wedding coordinator has been assigned by the prison to handle the nuptials, and the couple has until early February to get married before they would have to reapply.
The Kings County marriage license, viewed Monday by The Associated Press, was issued Nov. 7 for the 80-year-old Manson and Burton, who lives in Corcoran - the site of the prison - and maintains several websites advocating his innocence.
Burton, who goes by the name "Star," told the AP that she and Manson will be married next month.
Manson
Replacing 'The Millers'
'Mike & Molly'
In a bid to bolster its Monday lineup - and provide a stronger lead-in for rookie drama "Scorpion" - CBS has slotted the fifth season of "Mike & Molly" for the night starting Dec. 8.
"Mike & Molly," which had aired in Monday's 9 o'clock hour in its first four seasons, will take over the 8:30 p.m. timeslot currently occupied by "The Millers." CBS pulled the plug on "Millers" last week, with the second-year show airing tonight and next week before disappearing.
The move is not a surprise, as CBS had a full 22-episode season order of "Mike & Molly" and was expected to get it on the air sooner rather than later. "Mike" was also on the bench at the start of last season, and then summoned to the Monday lineup in November after "We Are Men" was axed after just two airings.
To get viewers ready for the return of "Mike & Molly," CBS will air four repeat episodes of the comedy from 8 to 10 p.m. on Dec. 1, followed by "Scorpion" at a special time.
'Mike & Molly'
TV Anchor's Fashion Sense
Karl Stefanovic
The male co-host of an Australian TV program is finally getting some attention for his fashion sense. And that's his point.
Karl Stefanovic wore the same blue suit every day for a year on Channel Nine's "Today" program. And no one noticed until he went public with his hidden-in-plain-sight experiment.
He told Australia's Fairfax Media that while no one asked about his suit, people regularly commented about and criticized the outfits worn by co-host Lisa Wilkinson.
Stefanovic says, "I'm judged on my interviews, my appalling sense of humor - on how I do my job, basically. Whereas women are quite often judged on what they're wearing or how their hair is."
Karl Stefanovic
In Memory
Charles Champlin
Longtime Los Angeles Times film critic Charles Champlin has died at age 88, the newspaper said Monday.
Champlin died Sunday at his Los Angeles home of complications from Alzheimer's disease, his son, Charles Champlin Jr., told the Times.
A Harvard-educated native of Hammondsport, New York, Champlin worked at Time and Life magazines for 17 years before coming to the Times in 1965 as an entertainment editor and columnist.
Champlin was the principal film critic at the Times from 1967 until 1980, when he shifted to book reviews and a "Critic at Large" column that took a broader look at the arts. He retired in 1991 but continued contributing to the Times and wrote books, including one on George Lucas and another on his own struggle with losing his sight. Champlin became legally blind in 1999.
"Charles Champlin was one of the great gentlemen of American film criticism," current Times film critic Kenneth Turan said Monday.
Charles Champlin
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