Paul Krugman: Consumer Spending and Inequality Denial (New York Times)
… if we had data for Ancien Regime France, I'd bet we'd find a relatively large share of total income going to things that weren't necessities - wigs, formal gowns, servants, chateaux. Clearly, the French middle class was thriving in the 1780s!
Scott Burns: How Many Should Pay Income Taxes? (AssetBuilder)
At what level of income should we feel a need to contribute, however modestly, to the support of our government? It's easy to look at the top dogs and say, "Gee, those folks have it made. Let's have them pay more taxes." It's not so easy to look down the income scale and ask where paying taxes should start.
Marc Dion: Obamatory (Creators Syndicate)
We know everything. We are beyond the noble word, below the soaring phrase, proud in our cynicism, more receptive to sarcasm than to prayer. You can't fool us, and to prove it, we rip and tear at every utterance until it is shown to be a hollow trick. Those speaking to us no longer even seek to inspire, because we laugh at inspiration. The stand-up comic suits our mood more than the prayerful leader.
James Gallagher: Antibiotic 'apocalypse' warning (BBC)
Prof Davies said: "It is clear that we might not ever see global warming, the apocalyptic scenario is that when I need a new hip in 20 years I'll die from a routine infection because we've run out of antibiotics."
Will Oremus: The Cleverest Online Resume You've Ever Seen (Slate)
Dubost, a web product manager, built a webpage that is a near-perfect ringer for an Amazon.com product page, with himself as the product. … And, of course, you can read his customer reviews. They average five stars, of course, but there are a surprising number of one-star ratings-"lots of ex-girlfriends," Dubost explained via Twitter.
Meredith Woerner: The "Add Drama" Button is the best thing you will see today (io9)
TNT has rolled out another "Add Drama" marketing campaign, and this one is even better than the last. Watch as innocent bystanders make terrible things happen to the folks around them, in the name of "drama." Love this commercial - here's hoping it someday comes to the states without causing a full blown panic.
Twelve Joneses have stars, but only seven Smiths. There are 14 Moores, but the most common surname is Williams: Andy Williams, Bill Williams, Billy Dee Williams, Cindy Williams, Earle Williams, Esther Williams, Guy Williams, Hank Williams, Joe Williams, Kathlyn Williams, Paul Williams, Robin Williams, Roger Williams, Tex Williams and Vanessa Williams.
Source
Charlie was first, and correct, with:
The most common is Williams (15), then Moore(14). Then there is Jones(12), Stone(9), Young(8), Smith(7 or 8 - Barbara Whiting Smith is listed under Whiting), Morgan(7)....
Jim from CA, retired to ID, responded:
the most common surname is Williams
Marian replied:
Williams
Alan J took the day off.
Adam took the day off.
Sally said:
The most common surname found on the, "Hollywood Walk Of Fame" is Williams, and there are 15: Andy, Billy, Billy Dee, Cindy, Earle, Esther, Guy, Hank, Joe, Kathlyn, Paul, Robin, Roger, Tex, Vanessa.
PS: Probably 20 years ago, I worked with a young man, George Williams. He loved Hollywood, and Oscar night with all the glitz and glamour. He loved to brag about the number of, "Williams" foot/hand prints on the Walk if Fame, and we wanted to go there and shoot silly pictures of them...
We were very close friends, no one could make me laugh the way he did - unfortunately, AIDS claimed him first - in his bloom of life. I did get to go a few years later, but it wasn't the same...
Dale of Diamond Springs answered:
15
The most common surname is Williams: Andy Williams, Bill Williams, Billy Dee Williams, Cindy Williams, Earle Williams, Esther Williams, Guy Williams, Hank Williams, Joe Williams, Kathlyn Williams, Paul Williams, Robin Williams, Roger Williams, Tex Williams and Vanessa Williams.
MAM wrote:
Williams, and there are 15:
Andy
Bill
Billy Dee
Cindy
Earle
Esther
Guy
Hank
Joe
Kathlyn
Paul
Robin
Roger
Tex
Vanessa.
BttbBob took the day off.
And, Joe S answered:
I knew it wasn't Smith. The most common surname is Williams: Andy Williams, Bill Williams, Billy Dee Williams, Cindy Williams, Earle Williams, Esther Williams, Guy Williams, Hank Williams, Joe Williams, Kathlyn Williams, Paul Williams, Robin Williams, Roger Williams, Tex Williams and Vanessa Williams.
Speaking of common surnames, When I joined the Air Force my dad asked me what I thought would be the most common surname I would encounter. Naturally I guessed Smith, but I was wrong. He told me it would be Turner. As it turned out he was right. I enlisted 15 years after he was discharged, and it was still Turner. Well I thought it was interesting at the time........... I guess you had to be there.
And speaking of the military, what's up with military personnel in public wearing fatigues, in other words "work" uniform? In my day you didn't wear "work" uniform out in civilian life, not to travel, not to go to parties, not to go to the movies, not to go shopping, and certainly not to parades. It seems disrespectful to me. I mean if you stepped off base in uniform you were A.J. Squaredaway. How about you BttbBob, do you know what's going on? I'm just curious, the fate of the world is not at stake.
CBS starts the night with '60 Minutes', followed by a RERUN'NCIS', then a FRESH'The Good Wife', followed by a FRESH'The Mentalist'.
NBC fills the night with the LIVE'2013 NFL Pro Bowl', then pads the left coast with local crap and maybe an old 'Dateline'.
ABC begins the night with a RERUN'America's So-Called Funniest Home Videos', followed by a RERUN'Once Upon A Time', then the movie 'The Makeover'.
The CW fills the night with what passes for local news and other fluffery.
Faux has a RERUN'Bob's Burgers', followed by a FRESH'The Cleveland Show', then a FRESH'The Simpsons', followed by a FRESH'Bob's Burgers', then a FRESH'Family Guy', followed by a FRESH'American Dad'.
MY has an old 'How I Met Your Mother', followed by another old 'How I Met Your Mother', then an old 'Big Bang Theory', followed by another old 'Big Bang Theory', then still another old 'Big Bang Theory', followed by yet another old 'Big Bang Theory'.
A&E has 'Storage Wars Texas', another 'Storage Wars Texas', 'Storage Wars', another 'Storage Wars', still another 'Storage Wars', yet another 'Storage Wars', still another 'Storage Wars', and yet another 'Storage Wars'.
AMC offers the movie 'Braveheart', followed by the movie 'A Knight's Tale'.
BBC -
[6:00AM] JAMES MAY ON THE MOON
[7:00AM] TOP GEAR - Season 3 - Episode 3
[8:00AM] SERPENT
[9:00AM] AMAZON: SUPER RIVER
[10:00AM] WILD THINGS WITH DOMINIC MONAGHAN-Season 1 - Ep 1 - Giant Water Bug
[11:00AM] RAMSAY BEHIND BARS-Episode 1
[12:00PM] THE BRIT LIST: TOP 20 WOMEN WHO DATE ACROSS THE POND
[1:00PM] TOP GEAR - Season 3 - Episode 4
[2:00PM] TOP GEAR AT THE MOVIES
[3:30PM] FROM HELL
[6:00PM] CASINO ROYALE (2006)
[9:00PM] DOCTOR WHO: THE DOCTORS REVISITED-The First Doctor NEW
[11:00PM] CASINO ROYALE (2006)
[2:00AM] TOP GEAR - Season 3 - Episode 3
[3:00AM] TOP GEAR - Season 3 - Episode 4
[4:00AM] TOP GEAR - Season 3 - Episode 5
[5:00AM] TOP GEAR - Season 3 - Episode 6 (ALL TIMES EST)
Bravo has 'Real Housewives Of Atlanta', followed by a FRESH'Real Housewives Of Atlanta', then a FRESH'Shahs Of Sunset', and 'Real Housewives Of Atlanta'.
Comedy Central has the movie 'Without A Paddle', followed by the movie 'Grandma's Boy', 'Kroll Show', and 'Workaholics'.
FX has the movie 'The Twilight Saga: New Moon', followed by the movie 'The Twilight Saga: Eclipse', then the movie 'The Twilight Saga: Eclipse', again.
History has 'Pawn Stars', another 'Pawn Stars', 'Ax Men', followed by a FRESH'Ax Men', then a FRESH'Bamazon'.
IFC -
[6:00AM] 2001: A Space Odyssey
[9:00AM] Whitest Kids U'Know
[9:30AM] Dilbert-Charity
[10:00AM] Dilbert-Holiday
[10:30AM] Dilbert-The Infomercial
[11:00AM] Dilbert-The Gift
[11:30AM] Dilbert-The Shroud of Wally
[12:00PM] Arrested Development-The Sword of Destiny
[12:30PM] Arrested Development-Meet the Veals
[1:00PM] Arrested Development-Spring Breakout
[1:30PM] Arrested Development-Righteous Brothers
[2:00PM] Portlandia-Cops Redesign
[2:30PM] Portlandia-Off the Grid
[3:00PM] Idiocracy
[4:45PM] Big Top Pee-wee
[6:30PM] Bachelor Party
[8:45PM] O Brother, Where Art Thou?
[11:00PM] Portlandia-Off the Grid
[11:30PM] Portlandia-A Song For Portland
[12:00AM] O Brother, Where Art Thou?
[2:15AM] The Spirit
[4:30AM] Monty Python: Almost the Truth (The Lawyer's Cut)-The Much Funnier Second Episode
[5:45AM] Whitest Kids U'Know (ALL TIMES EST)
Sundance -
[6:00A] How to Be
[7:30A] Monsoon Wedding
[9:30A] Disengagement
[11:30A] How to Be
[1:00P] Monsoon Wedding
[3:00P] Nokia Music Project
[4:00P] The Squid And The Whale
[5:30P] The Unsinkable Henry Morgan
[6:00P] Happy-Go-Lucky
[8:00P] In the Loop
[10:00P] Sideways
[12:15A] In the Loop
[2:15A] Russian Dolls
[4:30A] Robyn Hitchcock: I Often Dream of Trains (ALL TIMES EST)
SyFy has the movie 'Blade II', followed by the movie 'Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans', then the movie 'Dragonwasps'.
A political generation ago, the West signaled the nation's rightward swing - from the emergence of Ronald Reagan to the success of tax-limitation ballot measures in California and Colorado. But now the fabled expanse of jagged peaks, arid deserts and emerald coastlines is trending in a different direction.
From Washington state - where voters in November legalized marijuana and upheld the legality of gay marriage - to New Mexico, once a hotly contested swing state that Republicans ceded to Democrats in the presidential campaign, the West has become largely Democratic terrain.
There are, as always, exceptions. Lightly populated Idaho and Wyoming remain strongly Republican, as does Utah. And Democrats are struggling in Arizona, where a bruising immigration debate has given Republicans a lock on statewide offices but may provide Democrats an opening by firming up their support among the state's growing Hispanic population. Still, the overall trend is clear, according to analysts on all sides of the political spectrum.
"It's just a different world," said Bill Carrick, a veteran Democratic strategist in Los Angeles who has worked widely in the region. "Nevada became the next California and now Arizona looks like it will become the next Nevada. ... It's just pushing the West further and further from Republicans."
The shift is due to a combination of factors: the fusion of the region's libertarian spirit with both an influx of transplants from more liberal states seeking a better quality of life, and a growing immigrant population alienated by increasingly hardline Republican immigration proposals.
The hacker-activist group Anonymous says it hijacked the website of the U.S. Sentencing Commission to avenge the death of Aaron Swartz, an Internet activist who committed suicide. The FBI is investigating.
The website of the commission, an independent agency of the judicial branch, was taken over early Saturday and replaced with a message warning that when Swartz killed himself two weeks ago "a line was crossed."
The hackers say they've infiltrated several government computer systems and copied secret information that they now threaten to make public.
The FBI's Richard McFeely, executive assistant director of the Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch, said in a statement that "we were aware as soon as it happened and are handling it as a criminal investigation. We are always concerned when someone illegally accesses another person's or government agency's network."
The Walt Disney Co. issued a statement Friday night confirming reports that had been circulating for two days that J.J. Abrams, Emmy-award-winning creator of TV's "Lost" and director of 2009's "Star Trek" movie, has been pegged to direct the seventh installment of the "Star Wars" franchise.
"J.J. is the perfect director to helm this," said Kathleen Kennedy, the movie's producer and president of Lucasfilm, which was acquired by Disney last month for $4.06 billion.
The movie will have a script from "Toy Story 3" writer Michael Arndt and a 2015 release.
Lawrence Kasdan, who wrote "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi" in the original trilogy, will work as a consultant on the new project.
Abrams has already headed the reboot of another storied space franchise, "Star Trek," for rival studio Paramount Pictures. The next installment in that series, "Star Trek: Into Darkness," is set to hit theaters May 17.
Actress and anti-gun violence activist Kathleen Turner addresses the March on Washington for Gun Control on the National Mall in Washington, January 26, 2013.
Photo by Jonathan Ernst
British rock singer Morrissey was hospitalized in metro Detroit with a suspected bladder infection, further disrupting his U.S. tour, his representative said on Saturday.
Morrissey, former lead singer for the 1980s alternative rock band The Smiths, checked into Beaumont Hospital on Friday in the suburb of Royal Oak, Michigan, said his spokeswoman Lauren Papapietro.
Due to an illness in his band, Morrissey, 53, had already canceled his Thursday night show in Flint, Michigan, postponed the Friday night performance in Minneapolis and another engagement set for Saturday night in Chicago, Papapietro said.
She declined to say whether Morrissey has been released from the hospital, but said further details would be made known.
Canadian immigration officials have denied U.S. actor Randy Quaid's request for permanent resident status in Canada.
A Canadian government official confirmed late Saturday his request for permanent status has been denied. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Quaid can appeal the decision to the federal court.
U.S. officials last year refused to seek extradition of the actor and his wife from Canada to face felony vandalism charges in Santa Barbara, California, but authorities in the coastal town say they'll still have the couple arrested if they return to the states.
Quaid has sought to stay in Canada, claiming he was being hunted by "Hollywood star-whackers" who had killed his friends David Carradine and Heath Ledger.
Director Ben Affleck (L) receives the Modern Master Award from actor Matt Damon at the 28th Santa Barbara International Film Festival in Santa Barbara, California January 25, 2013.
Photo by Phil Klein
Three women angry over sexism and male domination of the world economy ripped off their shirts and tried to force their way into a gathering of corporate elites in a Swiss resort.
Predictably, they failed. The ubiquitous and huge security force policing the World Economic Forum in Davos carried the women away, kicking and screaming.
The women, from Ukrainian feminist activist group Femen, scaled a fence and set off pink flares in the protest Saturday. Their chests were painted with "SOS Davos," as they sought to call attention to poverty of women around the world.
Critics of the Davos forum say the business and political leaders at the gathering spend too little time doing concrete things to solve the world's problems and help the needy.
Celebrities have long contended with the occasional downsides of stardom - tabloid scandals, stalkers, box office bombs, the paparazzi. Now, add "swatting" to the list - a prank that sends police charging to the gates of stars' homes on false reports of gunmen, hostages or other crimes in progress.
Instead of bad guys, responding officers, police dogs, helicopters and sometimes SWAT teams have found only stunned domestic and security staff unaware of any trouble - because there wasn't any.
The recent hoax 911 calls to the homes of Tom Cruise, Justin Bieber, Ashton Kutcher, Chris Brown and other stars are leading authorities to eye some 911 calls with extra suspicion and lawmakers to call for stiffer penalties for the pranksters.
Swatting is the rare trend that actually didn't start in Hollywood. Authorities in Dallas, Washington state, Alabama and elsewhere have arrested teens and young men for bogus 911 calls that have drawn large police responses and in some cases, resulted in innocent people being detained by police.
The term comes from the pranksters' desire to have heavily armed special weapons teams dispatched to their calls. That doesn't always happen, but the calls tie up resources ranging from dispatchers, patrol officers, helicopters, detectives and cyber-crime specialists.
Nobel Laureate for Literature Hertha Muller speaks during a conference at the HAY festival at the Adolfo Mejia Theater in Cartagena January 25, 2013.
Photo by Joaquin Sarmiento
Archaeologists have unearthed a trove of skulls in Mexico that may have once belonged to human sacrifice victims. The skulls, which date between A.D. 600 and 850, may also shatter existing notions about the ancient culture of the area.
The find, described in the January issue of the journal Latin American Antiquity, was located in an otherwise empty field that once held a vast lake, but was miles from the nearest major city of the day, said study co-author Christopher Morehart, an archaeologist at Georgia State University.
Morehart and his colleagues were using satellite imagery to map ancient canals, irrigation channels and lakes that used to surround the kingdom of Teotihuacan (home to the Pyramid of the Sun), about 30 miles (50 kilometers) from Mexico City. The vast ancient kingdom flourished from around A.D 200 to 650, though who built it remains a mystery.
In a now drained lake called Lake Xaltocan, around which was essentially rural farmland at the time, Morehart stumbled upon a site with evidence of looting.
When the team investigated, they discovered lines of human skulls with just one or two vertebra attached. To date, more than 150 skulls have been discovered there. The site also contained a shrine with incense burners, water-deity figurines and agricultural pottery, such as corncob depictions, suggesting a ritual purpose tied to local farming.
The first full moon of 2013 will light up the night sky tonight (Jan. 26), but did you know it's a full moon of many names?
Full moon names date back to Native American tribes of a few hundred years ago who lived in what is now the northern and eastern United States. Those tribes kept track of the seasons by giving distinctive names to each recurring full moon . Their names were applied to the entire month in which each occurred.
There were some variations in the moon names, but, in general, the same ones were used throughout the Algonquin tribes from New England on west to Lake Superior. European settlers followed their own customs and created some of their own names. Since the lunar (or "synodic") month is roughly 29.5 days in length on average, the dates of the full moon shift from year to year.
Here is a listing of all of the full moon names, as well as the dates and times for 2013. Unless otherwise noted, all times are for the Eastern time zone:
You have reached the Home page of BartCop Entertainment.
Make yourself home, take your shoes off...
Go ahead, scratch it if it itches.
The idea is to have fun.
Do you have something to say?
Anything that increased your blood pressure, or, even better, amused or entertained?
Do you have a great album no one's heard?
How about a favorite TV show, movie, book, play, cartoon, or legal amusement?
A popular artist that just plain pisses you off?
A box set the whole world should own?
Vile, filthy rumors about Republican hypocrites?
Just plain vile, filthy rumors?
wrote:
took the day off.
answered:
The hacker-activist group Anonymous says it hijacked the website of the U.S. Sentencing Commission to avenge the death of Aaron Swartz, an Internet activist who committed suicide. The FBI is investigating.
