Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Matt Miller: If you're grateful, pay more taxes (The Washington Post)
In 1990 William F. Buckley Jr. published a wonderful little book called "Gratitude," in which he made the case for a broad program of national service.
Froma Harrop: Make Levies, Not War, on the Rich (Creators Syndicate)
Most Americans dislike class-warfare talk aimed at rich people. It does not follow that they don't want the wealthiest among us to pay more taxes. Polls show they do. That puts Democrats in the mainstream on such matters. But Democrats still need a sophisticated way to discuss this, one that does not rely on simple-minded formulations pitting a "greedy rich" against an "oppressed poor."
Robert Scheer: Fail and Grow Rich on Wall Street (Creators Syndicate)
Welcome to the brave new world of post-bailout capitalism. The Commerce Department announced Tuesday that corporate profits are at their highest level in U.S. history, and the Fed released minutes of an early November meeting in which officials predicted a stagnant economy and continued high unemployment.
Clarence Page: Our deficit disorder (Chicago Tribune)
Battle lines are being drawn as the White House and Congress prepare for a big showdown in spring over a question that is troubling a lot of households these days: how to manage the nation's credit card.
RACHEL EMMA SILVERMAN: Doing Good by Halves and Finding Ways to Do It (Wall Street Journal)
The amount that we give every year to charity is a pretty small percentage of both our total income and wealth. We could still give more without hurting.
George Skelton: State's GOP is sinking fast (Los Angeles Times)
As the party triumphs nationally, California's Republicans suffer staggering losses. It's past time for them to reexamine their positions.
Jim Hightower: GIVING THANKS FOR GRASSROOTS PROGRESSIVES
Wow, that was an exhilarating election, wasn't it? Of course, even a car wreck can be exhilarating.
A Fistful of Dollars (Mother Jones)
Crime is rampant. The cops and courts are a joke. That's why residents of Oklahoma's Indian nations turn to a bruiser-for-hire like Ruben.
Troy Patterson: Free-Range Performance Artist (Slate)
The new Fran Lebowitz documentary is an outstanding waste of time.
John Kass: Sadly, Hollywood is determined to leave its mark on 'Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' (Chicago Tribune)
We don't want Lisbeth Salander played by some Hollywood cutie.
David Bruce has 39 Kindle books on Amazon.com with 250 anecdotes in each book. Each book is $1, so for $39 you can buy 9,750 anecdotes. Search for "Funniest People," "Coolest People, "Most Interesting People," "Kindest People," "Religious Anecdotes," and "Maximum Cool."
The Weekly Poll
Current Question
And now, in keeping with the Holiday Season theme, I submit fer yer approval...
The 'Scope or Grope' Edition
"Resistance is Futile"
If you don't want to pass through an airport scanner that allows security agents to see an image of your naked body or to undergo the alternative, a thorough manual search, you may have to find another way to travel this holiday season. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is warning that any would-be commercial airline passenger who enters an airport checkpoint and then refuses to undergo the method of inspection designated by TSA will not be allowed to fly and also will not be permitted to simply leave the airport. That person will have to remain on the premises to be questioned by the TSA and possibly by local law enforcement. Anyone refusing faces fines up to $11,000 and possible arrest... $11,000 fine, arrest possible for some who refuse airport scans and pat downs - South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com
If you were (or are) planning to travel this Holiday Season, what's it gonna be?
1.) Scope
2.) Grope
3.) Car, train, bus...
4.) I'm stayin' home, Dagnabbit!
Send your response to
wrote:
answered:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Reader Suggestions
Michelle in AZ
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Cold, cloudy day, and a colder, rainy night.
Feds Shut Down
Websites
US authorities have shut down dozens of websites offering counterfeit goods and pirated music, five months after a crackdown on sites offering movie downloads.
Cori Bassett, a spokeswoman for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, part of the Department of Homeland Security, said ICE had "executed court ordered seizure warrants against a number of domain names."
The ICE spokeswoman declined to provide further details, citing an "ongoing investigation," but Torrent Freak, a website about the popular BitTorrent file-sharing protocol, published a list of more than 70 sites it said had been targeted.
A visitor to the sites Saturday is met with a message reading: "This site has been seized by ICE -- Homeland Security Investigations, pursuant to a seizure warrant issued by a United States District Court."
The sites targeted included burberryoutletshop.com, cheapscarfshop.com, dvdcollectionsale.com, handbagcom.com, mydreamwatches.com, rapgodfathers.com, sunglasses-mall.com, torrent-finder.com and usaoutlets.net.
Websites
Scores Tap Inner Marmot
Scary Movies
Jump-in-your-seat moments in movies can always get an extra kick from the screech of violins, and for good reason. Animal behavior researchers have found that the musical scores accompanying classic Hollywood horror and drama films tend to imitate sounds that naturally set people on edge.
Such music cues may resemble fuzzy static noise or even screams, according to Daniel Blumstein, chairman of the department of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California in Los Angeles. He teamed up with a film score composer to tease apart the musical backdrops for some of the most popular films.
Blumstein had a hunch about nonlinear sounds, which can occur when a sound system pushes its limit and the sounds begin to break down - similar to when a stereo is turned up too loud or a singer pushes beyond his or her vocal range. Animals such as marmots (groundhogs) will use nonlinear sounds to grab attention, such as making fearful alarm calls that warn about possible predators.
"I don't think any composers were saying, 'Let's put nonlinearities in,'" Blumstein said. "But they were tapping into people's inner marmot."
Scary Movies
17 Rescued Off Cape Cod
Sea Turtles
Seventeen rare sea turtles suffering a variety of ailments are recovering at the New England Aquarium after being rescued over the past two days off of Cape Cod, Mass.
The turtles rescued by volunteers with the Massachusetts Audubon Sanctuary at Wellfleet Bay are being cared for at the aquarium's new animal care center in Quincy. They eventually will be released back to the ocean.
Most of them are Kemp's ridley turtles and are suffering from hypothermia, dehydration and malnourishment. The turtles usually migrate to warmer waters in the winter, but aquarium officials say strong northwest winds Wednesday drove the turtles to shore.
Many had body temperatures in the 50s, when they should have been in the 70s.
Sea Turtles
Music Firm Agrees To Sell-Out
Chrysalis
Music publisher Chrysalis has ended 43 years of independence, agreeing on Friday to be sold to a joint venture of Bertelsmann and private equity firm KKR for 107 million pounds ($168.8 million).
"Today's deal marks the end of one era and the start of another," said Chris Wright, co-founder and chairman of Chrysalis, whose catalog includes Michael Jackson, David Bowie and Jennifer Lopez.
The Chrysalis label, set up by former university social secretaries Wright and Terry Ellis in 1967, started in London as the Ellis-Wright Agency, changing its name in 1968.
It enjoyed its heyday in the 1980s, counting Billy Idol, Blondie, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Tears For Fears on its recording arm's roster.
Chrysalis
Save On Lowlands Festival Tickets
Dutch Rock Fans
Tickets for a Dutch rock festival sold out in hours Friday, even though it's nearly nine months away and not a single act has yet been announced.
The lure? Buy now, sock it to the man, and avoid higher ticket taxes.
Lowlands Festival organizers put tickets on sale months ahead of schedule to protest a government plan to increase taxes on live performances from 6 percent to 19 percent on Jan. 1.
The result: fans snapped up all 45,000 tickets in hours, even though the festival won't take place until Aug. 19-21, 2011. The purchasers, most of them young, saved about $26 on each ticket, which were priced at $218 apiece.
Dutch Rock Fans
Hosts Its First 'Erotic Fair'
Croatia
An international erotic fair, the first such event in this largely conservative, predominantly Roman Catholic Balkan country, opened here Friday, with hundreds of people flocking to see the offer.
Despite heavy rain and snow, several hundred people came to the Zagreb trade fair to enjoy live performances by some 15 international porn stars, male strippers, topless DJs or buy some of the sex toys offered at dozens of stands.
Around 100 exhibitors from eight countries, including Britain, Germany, Japan and the United States, displayed sexy lingerie, films, calendars and other "sexy" items.
For the occasion, Igor Mezga, owner of a sex shop and a tattoo salon in the northern town Varazdin, offered piercing of intimate parts for free.
Croatia
Sue Male Guardians
Saudi Women
Year after year, the 42-year-old Saudi surgeon remains single, against her will. Her father keeps turning down marriage proposals, and her hefty salary keeps going directly to his bank account.
The surgeon in the holy city of Medina knows her father, also her male guardian, is violating Islamic law by forcibly keeping her single, a practice known as "adhl." So she has sued him in court, with questionable success.
Adhl cases reflect the many challenges facing single women in Saudi Arabia. But what has changed is that more women are now coming forward with their cases to the media and the law. Dozens of women have challenged their guardians in court over adhl, and one has even set up a Facebook group for victims of the practice.
The backlash comes as Saudi Arabia has just secured a seat on the governing board of the new United Nations Women's Rights Council - a move many activists have decried because of the desert kingdom's poor record on treatment of women. Saudi feminist Wajeha al-Hawaidar describes male guardianship as "a form of slavery."
"A Saudi woman can't even buy a phone without the guardian's permission," said al-Hawaidar, who has been banned from writing or appearing on Saudi television networks because of her vocal support of women's rights. "This law deals with women as juveniles who can't be in charge of themselves at the same time it gives all powers to men."
Saudi Women
'Skimpy Trunks'
Singapore
The skimpy trunks sported by Singapore's men's water polo team at the Asian Games are causing red faces back home in the conservative city-state, with many embarrassed by their design.
The trunks display the Singaporean flag's white crescent moon on the front of the red briefs in what has been described as an inappropriate fashion.
The design -- lambasted by readers of Singapore's Straits Times newspaper as "disgusting," "nauseating" and "disgraceful" among other terms -- had not been approved by the country's Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts (Mica), which governs the use of the flag.
"We would have told them that their design is inappropriate, as we want elements of the flag to be treated with dignity," Singapore media quoted a Mica marketing official as saying.
Singapore
Reserve Saves Trees
Monarch Butterflies
This small patch of mountain fir forest is a model of sorts for the global effort to save trees and fight climate change. The problem is that saving trees has not saved the forest's most famous visitors: Monarch butterflies.
Millions of Monarch butterflies migrate here from the United States and Canada every year, but their numbers declined by 75 percent last year alone, apparently because of changing weather and vegetation patterns.
The Monarch butterfly reserve shows how complex the battle against climate change has become, as the world prepares for a United Nations climate conference in Cancun next week. The conference is expected to focus in part on how best to preserve forests, with questions about who should pay and and how to treat communities who already live in the jungles and forests of developing countries.
The reserve in the mountains west of Mexico City benefits from international help, such as payments to communities to preserve trees and alternative income projects. The deforestation rate there is down by about 95 percent.
Monarch Butterflies
China Talent Show Beauty
Wang Bei
The death of an aspiring Chinese pop singer during plastic surgery has cast an ugly light on an obsession with beauty that sees millions go under the knife in China each year.
Wang Bei, 24, a former contestant on China's answer to "American Idol", died on November 15 during "facial bone-grinding surgery" in the central city of Wuhan, Chinese media have reported.
That Wang even felt she needed to improve her looks has underlined the extent to which cosmetic surgery has taken hold. Her beauty had already made her a popular contestant on the smash television hit "Super Girl".
An "anaesthetic accident" occurred during Wang's procedure at the Zhong Ao Cosmetic Surgery Hospital, according to Xinhua news agency, citing the local health bureau.
Wang Bei
At 50
The '60s
His overalls are weathered. His white beard is grown out to aging-hippie perfection. The tattoos on his arms tell the story of a moment from the summer of 1969 that has passed into legend - three days of peace and music that became a doorway to defining an era.
Around him sits the patch of upstate New York farmland that gave birth to a piece of modern mythology - Woodstock. At 68, Duke Devlin reflects on the definitive concert of his youth by spinning tales of community and anti-authoritarianism that end, invariably, with the word "man." As in, "Sometimes I'm amazed that we're still talking about this, man."
Of course we're still talking about it. And, as a historical interpreter at the festival's site, it's Devlin's job to talk about it, to tell the story of the `60s. Unlike so many today who say they were at Woodstock, he actually was. And still is.
Woodstock was a flashpoint, a culmination, one easy way to distill a complicated decade into something digestible. That it happened as the 1960s ended made it all the more convenient: Here was an empty vessel, complete with soundtrack and instantly mythic imagery, that provided the perfect raw material to build a narrative around an era.
The '60s
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