Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Henry Rollins: Don't Let the Trump Show Distract You From What's Really Going On (LA Weekly)
There is nothing the GOP would like you to do more than watch every embarrassing move Trump makes as they get busy in other parts of the building.
Daniel Politi: At Least Half the States Refuse to Hand Over Data to Trump's Voter Fraud Probe (Slate)
At least two dozen states are refusing to fully comply with a sweeping request for data on voters by President Donald Trump's commission that has been charged with investigating unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud. It marks a controversial start for the group that Trump set up last month to look into dubious claims that voter fraud cost him the popular vote in the presidential election.
Jamelle Bouie: The GOP Can Only Defend Itself by Lying (Slate)
Because the truth of the Republican health care bill is unbearably cruel.
TOM KNIGHTON: Taylor Swift's New Album Likely to Be a Major SJW Target (PJMedia)
My advice to Swift is simple. Make music your fans are going to love and don't sweat the loudly buzzing mosquitos that pass for the social justice zealots.
Froma Harrop: You Should Know, the Flag Is Not a Rag (Creators Syndicate)
We've seen American flag bikinis - stars on the bottom and stripes on top or the other way around. Flags are used as bandanas and curtains. They decorate paper napkins on which we wipe hamburger grease. They appear on disposable diapers and are draped over car hoods. It happens that strict laws still on the books cover the display of the American flag and use of flag images. All of the above examples break them. Amazon, for example, sells all variety of American flag headwear, plus bandanas for dogs.
Froma Harrop: Democrats Need to Shake Their Depression (Creators Syndicate)
Elvis said, "When things go wrong, don't go with them." Depression warps one's thinking. It saps energy and magnifies problems, making it hard to deal with them calmly. Democrats' overreaction to the recent loss in a Georgia special election bore all the trademarks of depression.
Lenore Skenazy: The Streets Belong to Us All (Creators Syndicate)
What if you could rent a place to store a giant pile of your stuff free? The bad news is: You can. If you own a car, you can park it on the street in many neighborhoods without paying a cent. Of course, that seems totally normal - but maybe it shouldn't. As Paul Steely White, executive director of the nonprofit Transportation Alternatives, points out, streets are actually public space. We think they're a place for cars to drive and sit (mostly sit), because that's what we've gotten used to. His goal is to get us all to think differently.
Lucy Mangan: "Storyville: Tokyo Girls review - probing the sleazy story of the Japanese 'idol' industry" (The Guardian)
Kyoko Miyake's film did a fine job of portraying the curious relationship between older men and young female performers in Japan. Plus: hearbreaking stories in Don't Deport Me, I'm British.
Amanda Hess: The Shaming of Izzy Laxamana (Slate)
A Tacoma girl defied her father. He cut off her hair. She killed herself. The story would sound medieval if the details weren't so modern.
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog
David Bruce's Lulu Storefront
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has over 80 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Presenting
Michael Egan
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Big Thanks
Re: Bruce
Big thanks to Bruce for the link to the article on Alfred Hitchcock's film The Lodger! I'm taking the TCM/Ball State on-line course in conjunction with TCM's July Spotlight on Fifty Years of Hitchcock Films so it was great to read the article--timely too since TCM is airing The Lodger on July 5th (actually 1:15 AM on the 6th).
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
from Marc Perkel
Patriot Act
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
"OUT DAMN 'RED' SPOT".
"HE HAS A STORY TO TELL."
THE KOCH-WHORES ATTACK!
"SUDDENLY, MY STORY SEEMED IMPORTANT-AND OMINOUS."
THE FINAL STEP BACKWARDS.
KILLER AT LARGE!
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Lots of early fireworks, and the kitties are not pleased.
Engaged To Israeli Singer
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino is off the market!
The 54-year-old two-time Oscar winner is engaged to his Israeli girlfriend Daniella Pick. According to Israeli news site Walla!, Tarantino proposed to 33-year-old singer-model Pick in Los Angeles on Friday night. "It's true, we're very happy and very excited," Ynetnews quoted Pick as saying.
Pick's dad also confirmed the engagement. "Yes, there is joy in our family. They got engaged yesterday. We wished them Mazel Tov," Svika Pick, a veteran pop singer and composer in Israel, said.
Tarantino and Pick first met in 2009 when the filmmaker was in Israel to promote his war film "Inglorious Basterds." They dated that year but eventually broke up. According to the Los Angeles Times, Tarantino and Pick reconnected sometime last year and were later spotted together in Tel Aviv in January. Prior to rekindling his romance with Pick, Tarantino was in a relationship with "The Hateful Eight" costume designer Courtney Hoffman.
This would be the first marriage for Pick and for Quentin, who told GQ magazine in 2009, "I'm not saying that I'll never get married or have a kid before I'm 60. But I've made a choice, so far, to go on this road alone. Because this is my time. This is my time to make movies."
Quentin Tarantino
House Panel
War Authorization
A stunning move this week by a House panel to force a debate on new presidential war powers revealed mounting frustration that Congress has for too long dodged one of its most important responsibilities: to decide whether to send American fighting forces into harm's way.
The measure crafted by Rep. Barbara Lee of California, an anti-war Democrat and the only member of Congress to oppose the post-Sept. 11, 2001, authorization, demands a debate on new war powers to reflect how the dynamics of the battlefield have shifted. For example, American troops are battling an enemy -Islamic State militants - that didn't exist 16 years ago in a country - Syria - that the U.S. didn't expect to be fighting in.
And there are concerns the U.S. is being tugged more deeply into Syria.
The U.S. military earlier this month shot down a Syrian Air Force fighter jet, and the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State has hit pro-government forces in Syria with airstrikes.
The Trump administration also is sending close to 4,000 additional American forces to Afghanistan, America's longest war.
War Authorization
Denies Theory
NASA
InfoWars is no stranger to controversy, as its far-right talking head Alex Jones has regularly entertained even the most fringe conspiracy theories on the program for years. A recent segment of InfoWars - which airs on 118 nationwide stations - purported that there was a sex slave colony of kidnapped children living on Mars. NASA, for its part, disagreed.
The Daily Beast reached a NASA representative for comment in its Thursday report on the bizarre rumor broached by Jones' guest, Robert David Steele, during the Thursday episode of InfoWars. Guy Webster, a spokesperson for Mars exploration at NASA, told the Daily Beast that the claim was - as many likely suspected - unfounded.
"There are no humans on Mars. There are active rovers on Mars. There was a rumor going around last week that there weren't. There are," he said. "But there are no humans."
Jones was interviewing Steele, a former CIA clandestine officer, about pedophilia allegations in the Catholic Church before the Mars colony was mentioned, which happened roughly 4 minutes into a 5-minute clip shared to the Alex Jones Channel on YouTube.
Jones has been the subject of public scrutiny for his conspiracy theories on more than a few occasions, perhaps most notably for his position that the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Connecticut in 2012 was a hoax. The shooting resulted in the deaths of 20 young children and six adults.
NASA
Power From Renewables
Germany
Germany raised the proportion of its power produced by renewable energy to 35 percent in the first half of 2017 from 33 percent the previous year, according to the BEE renewable energy association.
Germany is aiming to phase out its nuclear power plants by 2022. Its renewable energy has been rising steadily over the last two decades thanks in part to the Renewable Energy Act (EEG) which was reformed this year to cut renewable energy costs for consumers.
Germany has been getting up to 85 percent of its electricity from renewable sources on certain sunny, windy days this year.
The BEE reported on Sunday the overall share of wind, hydro and solar power in the country's electricity mix climbed to a record 35 percent in the first half.
The government has pledged to move to a decarbonized economy by the middle of the century and has set a target of 80 percent renewables for gross power consumption by 2050.
Germany
Republican Values
Kentucky
For years as a Kentucky judge, Tim Nolan sat in judgment of others. Now he sits in jail, awaiting trial on explosive accusations by prosecutors that he snared 17 women and juveniles into having sex over a seven-year period by using money, drugs and threats.
The former judge's fall to accused sex offender has rocked northern Kentucky, where Nolan was long a fixture in political and legal circles in the suburban sprawl just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. Today he's in a jail cell in Kentucky's Campbell County, poring over documents for his defense after a judge set a $750,000 bond, calling him "potentially a danger to the community."
Nolan faces charges of human trafficking, rape, prostitution, witness tampering and unlawful transaction with a minor. In all, he faces 20 felony and two misdemeanor counts - and more than 100 years in prison if convicted on all charges.
Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear's office said the 17 alleged victims include five juveniles.
He also had enough political connections to be appointed to the state boxing and wrestling commission by Gov. Matt Bevin, who rescinded the appointment before Nolan ever served. And last year, Nolan campaigned for Donald Trump's (R-Corrupt) campaign and was elected to the county school board, unseating a veteran member.
Kentucky
Sixth Branch Of Armed Forces
'Space Corps'
The House Armed Services Committee has voted to create a US "Space Corps", which would become a new branch of the armed forces and incorporate the current space missions of the US Air Force.
If the US Space Corps goes ahead, it would be the first new military service in the country since 1947.
The move has caused consternation as committee members of the panel say they were only recently informed, giving them little time to protest against the proposal.
Michael Turner, Republican senator of Ohio, said he first heard about the proposal last week, when it appeared before the subcommittee on strategic force.
"I chastised my staff and said, 'How could I not know that this was happening?' They said, 'Well, they had a meeting about it and you missed it,'" Turner said. "A meeting is certainly not enough. Maybe we do need a space corps, but I think this bears more than just discussions in a subcommittee.
'Space Corps'
Tower Of Human Skulls
Aztecs
A tower of human skulls unearthed beneath the heart of Mexico City has raised new questions about the culture of sacrifice in the Aztec Empire after crania of women and children surfaced among the hundreds embedded in the forbidding structure.
Archaeologists have found more than 650 skulls caked in lime and thousands of fragments in the cylindrical edifice near the site of the Templo Mayor, one of the main temples in the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan, which later became Mexico City.
The tower is believed to form part of the Huey Tzompantli, a massive array of skulls that struck fear into the Spanish conquistadores when they captured the city under Hernan Cortes, and mentioned the structure in contemporary accounts.
Historians relate how the severed heads of captured warriors adorned tzompantli, or skull racks, found in a number of Mesoamerican cultures before the Spanish conquest.
But the archaeological dig in the bowels of old Mexico City that began in 2015 suggests that picture was not complete.
Aztecs
Using Dolphins To Save Vaquita Porpoise
Mexico
Mexico announced plans Friday to use trained dolphins to corral the last remaining vaquita marina porpoises into a protected breeding ground, a last-ditch bid to save the critically endangered species.
Scientists estimate there are just 30 remaining vaquitas, the world's smallest porpoise, a species found only in the waters of the Gulf of California.
Environment Minister Rafael Pacchiano said the authorities would deploy dolphins trained by the US Navy to herd as many vaquitas as possible into a marine refuge.
He admitted the project, due to start in September, would be difficult.
Mexico
Weekend Box Office
'Despicable Me 3'
The Minions are still a box office force and original stories are scoring big, but not the R-rated comedy - even with Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler behind it.
Studio estimates on Sunday say that Universal Pictures and Illumination's "Despicable Me 3" earned $75.4 million over the weekend, while the former Saturday Night Live stars' gambling comedy "The House" burned down.
Edgar Wright's original heist movie "Baby Driver" coasted to $30 million in its first five days in theaters, with $21 million from the three-day weekend to take second place. Sony Pictures released the R-rated pic which stars Jamie Foxx, Ansel Elgort, Jon Hamm and Kevin Spacey and cost a reported $34 million to produce.
The well-reviewed romantic comedy "The Big Sick" also did good business in its expansion to 71 locations, earning $1.7 million. The R-rated film expands wide on July 14.
Rounding out the top five were holdovers "Transformers: The Last Knight" in third with $17 million, followed by "Wonder Woman" with $15.6 million and "Cars 3" with $9.5 million.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to comScore. Where available, the latest international numbers for Friday through Sunday are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1."Despicable Me 3," $75.4 million ($95.6 million international).
2."Baby Driver," $21 million ($6.8 million international).
3."Transformers: The Last Knight," $17 million ($68 million international).
4."Wonder Woman," $15.6 million ($13.6 million international).
5."Cars 3," $9.5 million ($5 million international).
6."The House," $9 million ($2.7 million international).
7."47 Meters Down," $4.7 million ($800,000 international).
8."The Beguiled," $3.3 million ($460,000 international).
9."The Mummy," $2.8 million ($10.3 million international).
10."Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales," $2.4 million ($16.3 million international).
'Despicable Me 3'
| CURRENT MOON lunar phases |
