Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Interview with 'Playboy'
How can winning a Nobel Prize in economics seem like it's no big deal? Well, if you've already won the John Bates Clark Medal-an honor bestowed biennially on the American economist under 40 who has made major contributions to his profession-you've already taken home a piece of hardware considered by many economists to be slightly harder to win than a Nobel. Only 12 people have won both, including Paul Krugman, who collected the 1991 Clark and then snagged the Nobel (and its $1.4 million check) in 2008.
Paul Krugman: Reversing Local Austerity (New York Times)
… we could get a fairly big fiscal bang just by resuming aid to state and local governments, allowing them to reverse the big cuts they have recently made.
Mark Shields: What Endorsements Can Tell Us (Creators Syndicate)
Republican Newt Gingrich served 10 terms in the House, where he became speaker after being architect and engineer of the first GOP takeover in 40 years. During his 20 House years, Gingrich served with 489 House Republicans. According to his campaign, a grand total of 10 colleagues have come forward to endorse Gingrich. For Rick Santorum, the news is just as bleak.
Marc Dion: Whitney Houston Was a Hero (Creators Syndicate)
It's a hard life, but it's not so easy being dead, either.
Jeff Kelly Lowenstein: "An Enlivening Heritage: Reintroducing Robert Coles" (The Common Review)
It is precisely because of this relative decline in influence that the publication of Coles's newest books, 'Handing One Another Along' and 'Lives We Carry with Us,' is so welcome. A distillation of his life's essential themes and relationships, these works represent an opportunity to reintroduce one of America's most significant public intellectuals of recent decades to the public.
Anonymous: "What I'm really thinking: the private tutor" (Guardian)
Sometimes the child in question is so dim and unmotivated, you want to tell the parents not to waste their money, but I never do - you can't do yourself out of a job.
Ethan Trex: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (Reprinted from Mental Floss)
On the surface, B. Traven's 1927 novel 'The Treasure of the Sierra Madre' is a suspenseful, propulsive can't-put-it-down adventure story about three down-and-out Americans who trek deep into the Mexican mountains on a doomed search for gold. It's a terrific read.
Jill Harness: Hacks to Help You Stay Healthy (Neatorama)
Simply drinking two glasses of water (around half a liter) prior to meals can make you think you are fuller and reduce your meal portions. Water can also help you digest. In fact, the average woman eats around 2,000 calories a day, but when she consumes water first, that number drops to around 1,200 calories. Similar decreased calorie consumption was seen in men as well.
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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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Bosko Suggests
Earth
Have a great day,
Bosko.
Thanks, Bosko!
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Overcast in Long Beach, sunny in Westchester.
Screenplay Honors
Writers Guild of America
Woody Allen's romantic fantasy "Midnight in Paris" and Alexander Payne's family drama "The Descendants" have won top screenplay honors from the Writers Guild of America.
But not all key Academy Awards contenders were eligible for the Writers Guild honors, including Oscar best-picture front-runner "The Artist." The black-and-white silent film is competing against "Midnight in Paris" for original screenplay, but "The Artist" was ineligible at the Writers Guild awards because it was not made under the union's contract guidelines.
The guild's prize for big-screen documentary writing went to Katie Galloway and Kelly Duane de la Vega for "Better This World."
Among the guild's TV winners:
Drama series: "Breaking Bad," Sam Catlin, Vince Gilligan, Peter Gould, Gennifer Hutchison, George Mastras, Thomas Schnauz and Moira Walley-Beckett.
Comedy series: "Modern Family," Cindy Chupack, Paul Corrigan, Abraham Higginbotham, Ben Karlin, Elaine Ko, Carol Leifer, Steven Levitan, Christopher Lloyd, Dan O'Shannon, Jeffrey Richman, Brad Walsh, Ilana Wernick, Bill Wrubel and Danny Zuker.
Writers Guild of America
Scheduled To Return Tonight
'Colbert Report'
A representative for Stephen Colbert says "The Colbert Report" will return Monday after a sudden break due to the ailing health of the star's mother.
The Comedy Central show last week substituted repeats for scheduled shows on Wednesday and Thursday. At the time, the network said only that the cancellations were because of "unforeseen circumstances."
Colbert is expected to address his absence on Monday. His 91-year-old mother, Lorna Colbert, is ill.
Earlier on Twitter, Colbert thanked those who had offered "thoughts and prayers."
Colbert's father, James Colbert, and two of his brothers were killed in an airplane crash in 1974.
'Colbert Report'
Struggling To Survive In Daytime
Anderson Cooper
To celebrate the 100th episode of Anderson Cooper's daytime talk show in an hour that airs Monday, a giant cup of frozen hot chocolate topped with whipped cream was wheeled onto the set after its star interviewed a svelte Janet Jackson.
Something sweet was undoubtedly welcomed. It's been a tough stretch for "Anderson," illustrating how difficult it can be to launch a successful television series from scratch.
In six months, the show has weathered a scandal involving a scheduled guest's serious injury, seen three top executives leave and a new one join midstream, and experimented with different formats to see what suits Cooper best.
His ratings rank him above Wendy Williams and Steve Wilkos in the talk-show pecking order, but behind rivals Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz, Jerry Springer, Maury Povich, Ellen DeGeneres and Kelly Ripa. If not for a distribution deal that gives its syndicator, Telepictures Productions, what it considers more desirable network slots in cities like New York, Houston and Orlando, Fla., next season, some in the industry question whether "Anderson" would have survived.
Anderson Cooper
Create Working Transistor From A Single Atom
Scientists
Researchers from the University of New South Wales have achieved an astonishing feat: the first-ever creation of a working transistor from a single atom.
Since 1954, when Texas Instruments scientist, George Teal, created the first silicon transistor, the innovations in creating smaller and smaller transistors have paved the way for the manufacturing of today's computers and mobile devices. A single device may hold billions of transistors, which work together in concert to perform simple binary calculations. With more transistors packed into a specified area, calculations will become faster and computers will be able to store more information, all the while requiring less power than contemporary transistors.
The creation of single-atom transistors using silicon has been recreated in the past, albeit accidentally. Until today, the margin of error to beat has been ten nanometers. (A nanometer equals one billionth of a meter, just FYI.) But for a single-atom transistor to be utilized in computers and other devices for practical use, requires the ability to isolate and situate a single atom accurately onto a silicon chip. According to nanotechnology journal Nature Nanotechnology, however, this is precisely what the researchers have done.
The Australian team's milestone achievement brings mankind one step closer to the practicality of manufacturing quantum computers. Amazingly, the team has also defied Moore's Law (based on a statement by Gordon Moore to Electronics Magazine in 1965), which estimates the rate at which the number of transistors that can fit on a single circuit will double. Following the rate of doubling every 18 months to two years, Moore's Law predicts that a working single-atom transistor would be created by 2020. Today, thanks to the New South Wales, this mind-blowing benchmark has been achieved about eight years earlier than anticipated.
Scientists
Data Collection Race
Privacy
This week's revelations that Google Inc, Twitter and other popular Internet companies have been taking liberties with customer data have prompted criticism from privacy advocates and lawmakers, along with apologies from the companies.
They are the latest in a long line of missteps by large Internet companies that have faced little punishment for pushing privacy boundaries, which are already more expansive than most consumers understand.
Despite all the chatter about online privacy and the regular introductions of proposed data protection laws in Congress, Silicon Valley is in the midst of a veritable arms race of personal data collection that is intensifying.
Many innovative companies, most prominently Facebook, base virtually all of their services on the ability to personalize, which requires them to know their users well. Their business models likewise depend to an increasing degree on the ability to target a banner advertisement or other marketing pitch to an individual. Millions of times each day, the right to advertise to a specific user is auctioned off in a fraction of a second by computers talking to one another.
Few U.S. laws prevent those companies and others from collecting all manner of information - ranging from credit cards numbers and real names and addresses to buying patterns and Web surfing habits - then selling the data to advertisers and other third parties.
Privacy
Fires Serf, Anchor Only Suspended
ESPN
ESPN has fired one employee and suspended another for using the same racist word in connection to New York Knicks' guard Jeremy Lin.
In both cases, an employee used the word "chink" in reference to Lin, a Palo Alto, California, native of Chinese descent.
The fired employee used the word in a mobile headline -- "Chink in the Armor" -- after the Knicks lost to the New Orleans Hornets Friday night.
The headline was up only from 2:30 a.m. ET to 3:05 a.m., but an employee of Web-based sports network SB Nation captured it.
A few days earlier, Max Bretos, an anchor on ESPN News, used the same phrase while speaking with Knicks legend Walt Frazier. He has been suspended for 30 days. A radio commentator on ESPN's airwaves also used the word, but the person is not an ESPN employee.
ESPN
Shocking! Mainly White, Male
Oscar Voters
A study of Academy Awards voters has found that it's not a very diverse group that hands out Hollywood's highest honors.
The Los Angeles Times found that 94 percent of the 5,765 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are white and 77 percent are men. Blacks and Hispanics account for only 2 percent each of academy members.
The newspaper's findings were reported Sunday, a week before the Oscars. The Times reported that through interviews with members and their representatives, it confirmed the identities of about 5,100 voters - 89 percent of academy membership.
The findings are in line with industry employment overall, in which whites and males dominate. But academy President Tom Sherak says the group is trying to diversify its membership rolls.
Oscar Voters
Every February Waterfall Turns To Lava
Yosemite
A window of time just opened in Yosemite National Park when nature photographers wait, as if for an eclipse, until the moment when the sun and earth align to create a fleeting phenomenon.
This marvel of celestial configuration happens in a flash at sunset in mid-February - if the winter weather cooperates. On those days the setting sun illuminates one of the park's lesser-known waterfalls so precisely that it resembles molten lava as it flows over the sheer granite face of the imposing El Capitan.
Every year growing numbers of photographers converge on the park, their necks craned toward the ephemeral Horsetail Fall, hoping the sky will be clear so they can duplicate the spectacle first recorded in color in 1973 by the late renowned outdoors photographer Galen Rowell.
But photographing Horsetail is a lesson in astronomy, physics and geometry as hopefuls consider the azimuth degrees and minutes of the earth's orbit relative to the sun to determine the optimal day to experience it. They are looking for the lowest angle of light that will paint Horsetail the colors of an iridescent sunset as rays reflect off granite behind the water. It materializes in varying degrees of intensity for the same two weeks every year.
To be successful in photographing the watery firefall, it takes luck and timing, and the cooperation of nature. Horsetail Fall drains a small area on the eastern summit of El Capitan and flows only in the winter and spring in years with adequate rain and snow, which is scarce this year. Experts say it doesn't take a lot of water for the fall to light up.
Yosemite
Did A Dingo Kill The Baby?
Australia
The growl came first, low and throaty, piercing the darkness that had fallen across the remote Australian desert. A baby's cry followed, then abruptly went silent. Inside the tent, the infant girl had vanished. Outside, her mother was screaming: "The dingo's got my baby!"
With those panicked words, the mystery of Azaria Chamberlain's disappearance in the Australian Outback in 1980 became the most notorious, divisive and baffling legal drama in the country's history. Had a wild dog really taken the baby? Or had Azaria's mother, Lindy, slit her daughter's throat and buried her in the desert?
Thirty-two years later, Australian officials hope to finally, definitively, determine how Azaria died when the Northern Territory coroner opens a fourth inquest on Friday (Feb. 24). Lindy Chamberlain, who was convicted of murdering her daughter and later cleared, is still waiting for authorities to close the case that made her the most hated person in Australia.
To the rest of the world, the case is largely known for its place in pop culture: countless books, an opera, the Meryl Streep movie "A Cry in the Dark," and the sitcom Seinfeld's spoof of Lindy's cry, "Maybe the dingo ate your baby!"
But to Australians, the case is about much more than the guilt or innocence of one woman. It is about the guilt or innocence of a nation - a nation that prides itself on the concept of a "fair go," an equal chance, for all. Did Lindy Chamberlain get a fair go? Or had Australians misjudged this woman? With doubts growing about just how fair and tolerant they truly were, many wondered if they had misjudged themselves.
And so Australia will once again try to get to the bottom of one of the most painful chapters in its history.
Australia
To Be Painted 'Sky Blue'
Calcutta
Calcutta's chief minister has ordered the city of 14 million residents to be painted sky blue, taking inspiration from the new Indian government's motto, "the sky is the limit." The BBC reports the mandatory changes will affect everything from government and private buildings to local taxis and even historic landmarks.
"From now on, all government buildings, whenever they are re-painted, will be done in sky blue," Urban Development Minister Firhad Hakim told The Indian Express newspaper. "The owners of private buildings will also be requested to follow the same colour pattern. The necessary government orders will be issued soon."
While the compulsory color changes are meant to invoke national spirits, they are just as likely to anger some people, since owners of private buildings are being asked to foot the bill to pay for the cosmetic changes to their property.
Calcutta won't be the only blue-streaked area in India. Tourist haven Jodhpur is sometimes referred to as the "Blue City" due to the bright blue-painted houses surrounding the Mehrangarh Fort. Likewise, other Indian cities have made monochromatic changes to buildings and landmarks. The BBC reports that in 2006, authorities in Bihar had the entire city painted pink to improve spirits in the crime-infested region. The Indian city of Jaipur, often referred to as the "Pink City," is also known for its pink dominated hues.
Calcutta
Weekend Box Office
'Safe House'
The President's Day weekend box office was too close to call as the action tale "Safe House" and the love story "The Vow" competed for the No. 1 spot.
Based on Sunday's studio estimates, Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds' "Safe House" had a slim lead with $24 million from Friday to Sunday. That put it a fraction ahead of Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum's "The Vow" with $23.6 million.
The winner won't be known for certain until Tuesday, when studios will report final numbers for the long holiday weekend. Final numbers often vary from weekend projections, which include estimates for the size of Sunday's audiences.
The top-five movies were bunched up tightly, with Nicolas Cage's sequel "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" opening a close No. 3 with $22 million.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Tuesday.
1. "Safe House," $24 million ($6 million international).
2. "The Vow," $23.6 million ($6.8 million international).
3. "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance," $22 million.
4. "Journey 2: The Mysterious Island," $20.1 million.
5. "This Means War," $17.6 million.
6. "Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace" in 3-D, $7.9 million.
7. "Chronicle," $7.5 million.
8. "The Woman in Black," $6.6 million.
9. "The Secret World of Arrietty," $6.4 million.
10. "The Grey," $3 million.
'Safe House'
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