Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Joe Bob Briggs: Let's Make Up Some Unenforceable Laws, Come On, It'll Be Fun (Taki's Magazine)
I think the real reason in all these cases is more sinister. I think they're saying, "We don't like things as they are, and so we'll make it really, really expensive for certain people to enforce their rights. We'll make them fight every day for what should be rightly theirs for free. We'll take away their birthright. We'll screw with their businesses and screw with their wombs and screw with their assumptions about what the courts have guaranteed them, and some of them will give up, and some of them will make mistakes, and we'll just make sure they have many bad days, and eventually they'll get tired of fighting with us and we'll get a team of brutal lawyers to take them down and put them in their place."
Paul Waldman: Republicans were right about Trump the first time (Washington Post)
…what jumps out when you look back at the comments from 2016 is how right the Republican critics who would later line up behind Trump were about him. They proclaimed him immoral, a pathological liar, a narcissist and a demagogue. They warned that his fanboy obsequiousness toward Vladimir Putin would warp American foreign policy. They called him ignorant, unserious, and unworthy of the Oval Office. All of that has been proven beyond any doubt. And when they attacked Trump, they were making an implicit argument about themselves. I am not like him, they wanted us to believe. If I were given power, I would wield it with honor, dignity, and integrity. Trump then gave them a test, a chance to demonstrate whether that was true. And they failed.
Alexandra Petri: Impeachment ends on a cliffhanger (Washington Post Satire)
Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.): In conclusion, there are two worlds you can live in. In the America where I live, the president is not supposed to do any of this. The testimony of these brave individuals, who did not come here in a partisan way but because they were subpoenaed, will be taken in the appropriate spirit. The Senate will hold the president accountable. The process will work, and the people whom we have seen showcased this week will continue to feel happy and safe in a country that is based on a great idea.
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.): Now who's living in a fantasy world?
Jonathan Chait: Trump Defenders Confused by Use of Synonyms (NY Mag)
In recent days, Democrats have begun describing President Trump's demands that Ukraine discredit his domestic opponents as "bribery." Conservative media has excitedly seized on the new terminological emphasis as proof that the substantive case against his conduct has fallen apart.
Cosmo Landesman: Time to end the taste truce (Spectator)
Have we become so tolerant that taste no longer matters?
James Panero: "Tough gospel: the twin cities of Sesame Street and Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" (Spectator)
Mister Rogers' Neighborhood is the world we have lost: grandparents, honest jobs and Sunday school teachers.
Charlie's Angels: Love it or hate it, the original movie is an unintentional Warholian masterpiece (Independent)
As a franchise reboot opens to dismal box office and middling reviews, it is time to reassess its maligned predecessor, writes Adam White.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
responded:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "Crystal Clear"
Artist: Chris Kackley
Artist Location: Hagerstown, Maryland
Info: Chris Kackley has some other instrumentals for sale on Bandcamp.
"Excellent instrumental. Chris Kackley knows his blues rock guitar." - Bruce
Price: $1 (USD) for song
If you are OK with paying for it, you can use PAYPAL or CREDIT CARD.
Genre: Blues Rock Instrumental
Chris Kackley on Bandcamp
"Crystal Clear"
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
New Venture
Michael Egan
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• A bad review can give birth to a good joke. David Woods and Jon Haynes make up the anarchic theatrical group known as Ridiculusmus, although it used to have more members. In 1993, critic John O'Mahony was very impressed with Mr. Woods, and he wrote about him, "He transforms every bit-part into a central character, while showing up the paucity of talent in the rest of the group." For years after the review appeared, whenever Mr. O'Mahony saw the group, Mr. Woods would be genial - but nervous - and the other members of the group would glower at Mr. O'Mahony and hiss at him. By the way, the group now consists of just two people, but that has nothing to do with Mr. O'Mahony's review. The two remaining members do work well together. Mr. Woods says, "I think we complement each other." Mr. Haynes adds, "Some like his exuberance. Others prefer my intensity. And a lot don't like either of us." At the very beginning of their careers, they had a comedy venue called the Tomato Club. They invited bad comedians to perform, and they gave audience members overripe tomatoes to throw at the bad comedians. With good reason, Mr. Haynes is concerned about critical notices: "Critical success would upset our equilibrium. Who can we bribe at the [British newspaper] Guardian to give us a one-star review?"
• Elaine May went backstage to see Dudley Moore after a Broadway performance of Beyond the Fringe and told him, "I loved the show." When Mr. Moore, who was in a mood for receiving lots of reassurance, asked her if she had really loved the show, Ms. May, who was not in a mood for giving lots of reassurance, replied, "No."
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
Impeachment needlework video
If you want to re-visit the segment where Rachel Maddow shared the impeachment needlework she received, you, like I, can bookmark and watch this 3:45 minute video snippet over and over and over again and feel total joy on each viewing!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
JD is on vacation.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and seasonal.
Launches Plan
Tim Berners-Lee
World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee on Monday unveiled a "Contract for the Web" to halt "misuse" by governments, companies and individuals, bringing several capitals and tech titans like Google aboard.
"If we don't act now -- and act together -- to prevent the web being misused by those who want to exploit, divide and undermine, we are at risk of squandering" its potential for good, Berners-Lee said in a statement from his World Wide Web Foundation.
Credited with laying the groundwork for the web -- the universe of multimedia webpages accessible via the internet -- in 1989, the computer scientist has since last year been developing the so-called Contract for the Web.
His unveiling of the final document Monday comes as government, business and civil society leaders gather in Berlin for the four-day UN Internet Governance Forum.
Berners-Lee said his contract, developed in cooperation with dozens of experts and members of the public, is "a roadmap to build a better web".
Tim Berners-Lee
What? How?
Gettysburg Address
Only five known copies of the Gettysburg Address bear Abraham Lincoln's handwriting. One sits beneath the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois, for much of the year, in a vault where the humidity and temperature are tightly controlled.
But on June 15, 2018, those two weathered pages could be found in Glenn Beck's office.
"Are they requiring you wear gloves?" Beck, the conservative radio host, asked an archivist who worked for a museum run by his charity, Mercury One. "That's so stupid."
It turns out that the document memorializing Lincoln's famous speech on Nov. 19, 1863, never should have been sent to the Mercury Museum in Irving, Texas, according to a report by a government watchdog released Friday.
Illinois investigators said the presidential library's former executive director, Alan Lowe, had rushed to lend the document to Beck on less than two weeks' notice, calling it an unusual and risky move that put the artifact in danger. They also faulted Lowe and the museum's former chief operating officer for letting Beck's charity pay for their plane tickets and hotel stays in Texas when they traveled to the Mercury Museum.
Gettysburg Address
Single-Screen Picture Palace
Netflix
It's official. New York's iconic Paris Theatre will remain Manhattan's last single-screen movie palace for a long time to come. Netflix has confirmed that it has closed an extended lease agreement to keep the theater open. Netflix would not disclose the length of the agreement; Deadline revealed on November 14 that the deal it was signing with the Solow Family that owns the prime real estate is for 10 years. The theater shuttered in August when the lease with City Cinemas expired, and Netflix surprisingly drew a temporary reprieve to show its awards season film Marriage Story by New York director Noah Baumbach.
Netflix disclosed it will use the theater for special events, screenings, and theatrical releases of its films. Translation: Netflix has secured a prime and prestigious beach head theater in New York, as it continues to persuade elite filmmakers to make their prestige films for the streaming service, preceded by a theatrical release. Netflix earlier bought an ownership stake in The Egyptian in Los Angeles, another storied movie theater, and these are two impressive houses to be able to dangle before directors like Alfonso Cuaron, Baumbach and Martin Scorsese. Latter's Netflix film, The Irishman, is currently playing in The Belasco Theatre on Broadway but I hear it might well eventually find its way into The Paris at some point.
This is not the outcome that distributors of prestige theatrical fare not at Netflix was hoping for, as it remains to be seen if there will be room for anything but Netflix fare on the marquee. But this prime space was dead as a movie theater. How did this reprieve happen? I hear the secret weapon here was Scott Stuber, who in addition to overseeing the feature slate as head of Netflix's film program, has also put to work his statesman skills honed over years at Universal Pictures and other venues where he brokered deals and courted talent. After years of a contentious relationships between Netflix and the major theater chains, Stuber has become Netflix's theater whisperer. Just as he led the negotiations with AMC and Cineplex to show Scorsese's The Irishman (those talks didn't work out), I'm told he put a lot of time into attempting to change the Solow Family's plan to turn the space on W 58th and Fifth Avenue into a medical clinic. It makes one think that if anyone can end the stalemate between Cannes and Netflix, it will be Stuber.
Netflix
Green Vault Museum
Dresden
Thieves have stolen antique jewellery worth up to a billion euros from a German museum in what could be the largest art theft in history.
The intruders cut the electricity to Dresden's Green Vault Museum in the early hours of Monday morning, newspaper Bild reported.
They were then able to get inside by breaking in through a window, the paper said.
They stole mostly jewellery, diamonds and gems, leaving behind bulky objects such as vases and paintings, Bild reported.
The newspaper said the heist could be the largest post-war art theft in history. The previous largest is thought to have occurred in 1990 with thieves escaping with $300m of item from a museum in Boston.
Dresden
Fires Four Workers
Google
Google fired four employees for what the technology giant said were violations of its data-security policies, escalating tension between management and activist workers at a company once revered for its open corporate culture.
Alphabet Inc.'s Google sent an email describing the decision, titled "Securing our data," to all employees on Monday, according to a copy of the document obtained by Bloomberg News. The company confirmed the contents of the memo but declined to comment further.
Some Google staff have been protesting and organizing in the past two years over issues including the company's work with the military, a censored search service in China and its handling of executives accused of sexual harassment.
"With these firings, Google is ramping up its illegal retaliation," according to a statement from workers who are organizing at the company. "This is classic union busting dressed up in tech industry jargon, and we won't stand for it."
In recent weeks, some workers have cited management moves -- such as implementing a tracking tool on employee's web browsers and hiring a consulting firm known for anti-union work -- as attempts to curb activism. The company has denied those charges.
Google
Ice Cellars Melting
Alaska
After generations of storing their food in handmade cellars dug deep into the permafrost, growing numbers in Alaska's far-north now find their cellars filling up with water and blood.
Dozens of the naturally refrigerated food shelters exist underneath the region's mainly Inupiat whaling villages, where many rely on hunting and fishing to eat.
But now climate change and other modern factors are forcing changes to an ancient way of life, rendering traditional storage methods dangerously unreliable.
Ranging from small arctic root cellars to spacious, wood-lined underground chambers, ice cellars are typically stocked with vast amounts of whale, walrus, seal and caribou.
These chambers, usually built 10 to 12 feet below the surface, have long been used to age subsistence food to perfection and ensure a steady supply during the sparser months, which is critical for survival.
Alaska
Let's Pump The Brakes
Hungary
Researchers in Hungary have published the exciting new claim that they've discovered a new subatomic particle, but it's nowhere near time to start talking about Nobel Prizes as CNN (and now everyone who syndicates them) has done.
Since 2015, the team at the Institute of Nuclear Research (Atomki) and the University of Debrecen claims to have spotted a mysterious correlation between pairs of subatomic particles in their particle accelerator in Hungary. The observation stands in stark contrast with theoretical prediction, and could be the signature of a previously unobserved force of nature. But, like all controversial new results, this one will require further vetting and independent confirmation before it becomes gospel.
The new results now on the arXiv physics paper server seems to be another hint of this particle's existence with a new and improved setup. This time, they struck a tritium target-basically very heavy hydrogen-with the proton beam, watched it suck up a proton and turn into a heavy form of helium, then decay. Once again, they saw a spike in the electron-positron pairs, this time at 115 degree separation.
This is exciting stuff! But no, it's not a Nobel-worthy discovery yet, because that's not how particle physics works. Independent teams must now dive in and try and reproduce this results to ensure there weren't any experiment-specific sources of error producing the signal. Physicists are taking the claim seriously, though. The NA64 experiment at CERN found no evidence of the decay last year, though their search continues. Other upcoming searches are underway or proposed.
I don't mean to rain on the parade-it would obviously be a huge deal if scientists discovered a new fundamental force. But strong claims require strong evidence, including, most importantly, independent verification from other particle physics experiments.
Hungary
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