Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Tom Danehy: Tom supports youth at the Pima County Fair, and learns more about livestock than an LA kid should (Tucson Weekly)
There's this kid whom I have been tutoring in Pre-Calc and a couple weeks ago, out of the blue, she asks, "Are you going to come see me show my pig?"
Gail Collins: Let's Do Some Railing (NY Times)
Just before Congress slunk away for the three-day weekend - which it was, of course, planning to stretch into a week - senators from the Northeast held a press conference to denounce Republicans for underfunding Amtrak passenger rail service.
Bullets over Preschool! A new play (Indiegogo)
A tragicomic theater piece about toddlers. With guns. And music. And possibly a muppet. What?
Homa Khaleeli: How much for your Nobel prize? A buyer's guide to the world's top trophies (Guardian)
As Leon Lederman flogs his Nobel medal, he joins an illustrious list of other scientists, sports champions and actors to have sold off their silverware. So how much can you expect to pay for them?
E. Reid Ross: 5 Movie Stars Who Demanded Hilariously Insane Plot Changes (Cracked)
Sometimes, a stupid amount of money isn't enough to motivate famous actors to do their jobs.
O Gato que Canta (YouTube)
"A guy sings a duet with his cat Chaninho. You'll recognize the song, even though it's sung in Portuguese. "If you're happy and you know it, say meow." Chaninho has his part down perfectly." - Neatorama
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
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Gifts
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Thanks, Dave!
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
from Marc Perkel
Patriot Act
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Lovely Catalina eddy parked over the coast, keeping it on the cool side.
Gary enjoying the afternoon
Yearbook Quote Cleverly Makes Statement
Caitlyn Cannon
It's not about dress codes, but Caitlyn Cannon's high school yearbook quote has made a splash thanks to a strong message that mixes humor, positivity, and affirmation.
Cannon's senior wrote in the Oak Hills High School read "I need feminism because I intend on marrying rich and I can't do that if my wife and I are making .75 cent for every dollar a man makes."
Cannon's yearbook picture was posted to Tumblr, where it took off this week. To date it's reached almost 100,000 notes, which has taken Cannon by surprise, to say the least.
Yahoo Canada talked to Cannon about her quote, and the thinking behind making the statement all her classmates will associate with her name from now on.
Caitlyn Cannon
September 28
Trevor Noah
South African comedian Trevor Noah will replace Jon Stewart as the host of the last-night comedy parody "The Daily Show" on Sept. 28, Comedy Central said on Thursday.
The Viacom Inc.-owned cable network made the announcement on its website and with a brief video of Noah, 31, testing out the set in the studio and sitting in the chair as Stewart came up from behind him.
"Welcome to 'The Daily Show.' Welcome with me Trevor Noah. I am 'The Daily Show'" Noah said in the brief video clip.
Stewart's last show will be on Aug. 6 after hosting for 16 years in which he became one of America's most popular political satirists.
Trevor Noah
Ends In Tie, Again
National Spelling Bee
They couldn't be rattled. They couldn't be denied. Gokul Venkatachalam and Vanya Shivashankar had worked too hard and come close too many times not to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
So they shared the title on Thursday, making history in two different ways.
The bee hadn't ended in a tie for 52 years - until last year. Now it's happened for an unprecedented two years running.
Vanya, 13, of Olathe, Kansas, is the first sibling of a past champion to win. Her sister, Kavya, won in 2009.
National Spelling Bee
Mystery Of Holes Cracked
Swiss Cheese
Eureka! After about a century of research, Swiss scientists have finally cracked the mystery of the holes in Swiss cheese.
Despite what you may have been told as a child, they are not caused by mice nibbling away inside cheese wheels.
Experts from Agroscope, a state centre for agricultural research, said the phenomenon -- which marks famous Swiss cheeses such as Emmental and Appenzell -- was caused by tiny bits of hay present in the milk and not bacteria as previously thought.
Agroscope said the subject had been under study since at least 1917 when American William Clark published a detailed study and came to the conclusion that it was caused by carbon dioxide released by bacteria present in the milk.
Agroscope scientists noted that Swiss cheeses had fewer holes over the past 10 to 15 years as open buckets were replaced by sealed milking machines which "completely did away with the presence of tiny hay particles in the milk".
Swiss Cheese
Indicted On Federal Charges
Sweaty Wrestler™
Former U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Sweaty Wrestler™) was indicted on Thursday on federal charges including making false statements to the FBI, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Chicago said.
The Illinois Republican, who left office in 2007, was charged with structuring the withdrawal of $952,000 in cash in order to evade the requirement that banks report cash transactions over $10,000, and lying to the FBI about his withdrawals, the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a statement.
Each count of the two-count indictment carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
According to the indictment, the misconduct involved payments to an unnamed individual who had been a Yorkville, Illinois, resident and had known Hastert for most of the person's life.
Around 2010, Hastert met with the person several times and discussed past misconduct by Hastert. Eventually, Hastert agreed to pay the person $3.5 million in compensation and to conceal unspecified misconduct, the indictment said.
Sweaty Wrestler™
Bar Stabbing Trial Starts
Screech
Dustin Diamond, the actor who portrayed Screech on the 1990s TV show "Saved by the Bell," went on trial Wednesday on charges that he stabbed a man during a confrontation at a bar, but the proceedings came to a screeching halt at the start after the prosecutor objected to a defense attorney's good luck message for his client.
Diamond, 38, is charged with a felony count of second-degree recklessly endangering safety and two misdemeanors - disorderly conduct and carrying a concealed weapon. Diamond and his girlfriend, Amanda Schutz, have pleaded not guilty.
Diamond allegedly stabbed a man with a pocket knife during an argument at The Grand Avenue Saloon in Port Washington on Christmas Day. The man was not seriously hurt. Alberti says his client was defending Schutz after another patron punched her in her mouth.
Testimony on Wednesday focused on the tavern's murky surveillance video, which doesn't show the stabbing.
Screech
Few Regrets Over Resignation
Poodle
Tony's Blair resignation as Middle East peace envoy has been widely welcomed by Palestinians who say his term was useless, and even some Israelis agree he failed to accomplish much.
For the past eight years the former British prime minister had been tasked by the Mideast Quartet to help mediate a peaceful settlement to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Quartet -- the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States -- had appointed him to support the Palestinian economy and institutions in preparation for eventual statehood.
Palestinians accuse Blair of siding with Israel at their expense, and unleashed a torrent of criticism against him.
In criticising Blair, Palestinian officials have also echoed Israeli and British media reports which claimed that he stacked up huge bills on his trips to the Middle East.
Poodle
Classifies Information
Puti
President Vladimir Putin ordered on Thursday that deaths of Russian soldiers during special operations in peacetime should be classified as a state secret, a move that comes as Moscow stands accused of sending troops to fight in eastern Ukraine.
Putin, who has repeatedly denied any involvement of Russian troops in a pro-Russian separatist rebellion there, amended a decree that had previously classified only deaths during war time as secret.
Russia's role in the turmoil in east Ukraine, where more than 6,100 people have been killed in over a year of fighting, has been one of the most contentious issues in a conflict that has thrown ties between Moscow and the West into disarray.
Russian opposition activists released a report this month saying at least 220 serving Russian soldiers were killed in fighting in two hot spots in east Ukraine last summer and earlier this year.
Puti
Finds Fossils
Creationist
Edgar Nernberg sees the irony of believing the Earth is roughly 6,000 years old, while being the one to discover rare fossils of fish that scientists estimate lived 60 million years ago.
Nernberg sits on the board of the Big Valley Creationist Museum southeast of Red Deer, Alta. He helped establish the museum in 2008, but also works as a heavy equipment operator in Calgary.
The 64-year-old was excavating a basement in March when he caught sight of something special in the bucket of his trackhoe: black outlines of five fish in a block of sandstone.
He contacted a paleontologist and assistant professor at the University of Calgary, Darla Zelenitsky, who assessed the full fossils of a primitive bony, type of fish as an extraordinary find. She has calculated the fish lived shortly after an asteroid killed off the dinosaurs and many other species, leaving surviving animals and plants to diversify.
Nernberg thinks the fish were most likely to have been alive shortly before the Great Flood in the Bible, about 4,300 years ago.
Creationist
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