Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Mark Morford: Your awesomely meaningless life, in one simple chart (SF Gate)
Do you know how valuable you are? How much you contribute to the collective bungee jump that is human existence, how much you mean to the world, your loved ones, the planet, this insane madhouse swirl of cosmic consciousness we call life?
Paul Krugman: Challenging the Oligarchy (NY Review of Books)
These days, Reich offers a much darker vision, and what is in effect a call for class war-or if you like, for an uprising of workers against the quiet class war that America's oligarchy has been waging for decades.
David Auerbach: Can We Trust the Hacker Philanthropists? (Slate)
We now rely on tech billionaires to solve our most pressing problems. That's a problem, too-and it's our fault.
Ryan Menezes, KJ Taylor, Jack Heath: 6 Weird Things You Learn Writing Young Adult Fiction (Cracked)
Between when we invented the wheel and when we invented the Vine, young people used to read books. And they still do, this generation more than any other in history by any measure. They read other stuff too (you might even be reading words on a screen right now), but it's novels that add Mentos to the Diet Coke of our youth's imaginations, sometimes leading to billion-dollar theme parks.
Peter Robinson: "Zoella and the YouTubers: they let us write pointless books!" (The Guardian)
Web stars including PewDiePie and Tyler Oakley are all hoping for a bestseller this Christmas. Are their efforts any good or just shameless cash-ins?
Peter Walker: "Jack White's tunes and turntable for kids: five-year-olds give it a spin" (The Guardian)
Who wants sticky-fingered nippers around their precious vinyl? Jack White and the Light in the Attic label, that's who. We asked Ralph (5) and Elvis (4) to give their verdict on the new LP and turntable custom-made for raving kids.
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
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David Bruce has over 80 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
BadtotheBoneBob
Vet Benefits
The QR works on computer screens...
BadtotheBoneBob
Thanks, B2tBBob!
The Flooded Apartment
DJ Useo
Hey Marty,
Here's the latest re: our supposed apartment.
After paying somebody to move our furniture
from the two severley affected rooms, I got an
urgent vmail Tuesday asking me to "get over
here right away, we need you to move the furniture
out of the living room so that the weatherization
people can replace the air conditioner, they need to
get to the patio."
The air conditioner isn't anywhere near the patio.
And nothing regarding when they will fix the floor.
Very dishearteneing. Just what we needed at approaching
Christmas holidays.
Thanks for your continued support.
The Useo's
Jeez, that sucks!
All too happy to post your gofundme request.
Hope some good things come your way!
Please keep us updated.
from Marc Perkel
Patriot Act
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
"TRUMPCRAB"
VIRGIN IS A WHORE!
BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE C.I.A.
BAH HUMBUG!
R.I.N.O.?
STUCK!
BUSH BY THE NUMBERS.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Adoption News
Sandra Bullock
Sandra Bullock has adopted a 3-year-old girl named Laila.
The adoption was reported by People Magazine in a cover story published Wednesday. Bullock posed for photos with Laila and her son for the magazine.
Bullock previously adopted Louis Bardo, a 3-year-old boy born in New Orleans.
Sandra Bullock
Ex-Wife Says
Robert Dear
An ex-wife of the man charged with killing three people at a Colorado Planned Parenthood said on Tuesday that he has targeted the reproductive health organization before.
In an interview with NBC News from South Carolina, Barbara Mescher Michaux said Robert Dear put glue in the locks of another Planned Parenthood clinic when they were married more than 20 years ago. She characterized him in an affidavit she filed to divorce him in 1993 and in her Tuesday interview as a violent, isolated man, matching the descriptions of others who knew the 57-year-old suspect.
Police arrested Dear after an hourslong gunfight on Friday during which three people were killed and nine wounded. Officials say that after he was arrested, Dear said "no more baby parts" during a statement so rambling that it has been challenging to pinpoint what motivated the attacks. Some have speculated that the gunbattle began in the parking lot outside the clinic and Dear was not motivated by opposition to abortion rights.
In her affidavit, Michaux said Dear had no friends. He would listen to music on headphones for hours, ignoring her. He'd vanish for gambling trips to Las Vegas or Atlantic City and suddenly explode in anger at home, kicking her and pulling her hair.
She added that he appeared devoutly religious. "He claims to be a Christian and is extremely evangelistic, but he does not follow the Bible in his actions," Michaux wrote. "He says as long as he believes he will be saved, he can do whatever he pleases. He is obsessed with the world coming to an end."
Robert Dear
Is Gollum Evil?
Turkish Court
A Turkish court has asked experts to determine whether the "Lord of the Rings" character Gollum is good or evil to decide whether a doctor insulted Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan, the defendant's lawyer told Reuters on Wednesday.
Erdogan's lawyers are sueing Bilgin Ciftci, a physician from the western city of Aydin, after he shared pictures on social media of the president juxtaposed with those of the "small, slimy creature" immortalized in J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy novels.
"The prosecutor didn't watch the movie and he defined Gollum as 'the monster in a bad role'. But we said Gollum can't be defined as evil. The character itself is a war between good and bad. He is basically seen as a victim of society," said Ciftci's lawyer, Hicran Danisman.
The experts who must decide the issue include a cinema specialist, a behavioral scientist and a psychologist, Danisman added.
In Turkey, insulting the president is a crime punishable by up to four years in jail.
Turkish Court
400 Years Old
Heart Disease
In the ruins of a medieval convent in the French city of Rennes, archaeologists discovered five heart-shaped urns made of lead, each containing an embalmed human heart.
Now, roughly four centuries after they were buried, researchers have used modern science to study these old hearts. It turns out three of them bore tell-tale signs of a heart disease very common today.
"Every heart was different and revealed its share of surprises," anthropologist Rozenn Colleter of the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research said on Wednesday.
"Four of these hearts are very well preserved. It is very rare in archaeology to work on organic materials. The prospects are very exciting."
One heart appeared healthy, with no evidence of disease. Three others showed indications of disease, atherosclerosis, with plaque in the coronary arteries. The fifth was poorly preserved.
Heart Disease
Government Bars
John Henry Hagmann
The U.S. government has barred a former Army doctor from government contracts after two state medical boards found he performed dangerous and improper procedures on students during taxpayer-funded battlefield trauma training.
The doctor, John Henry Hagmann, gave trainees liquor and the hypnotic drug, ketamine, subjected some to penile nerve block procedures and induced shock in others by withdrawing blood, according to participants in the training his company provided to thousands of soldiers and medical personnel.
Hagmann retired from the Army in 2000. His company, Deployment Medicine International, received more than $10.5 million in business from the U.S. government since 2007, records show.
The debarment notice published on a government website did not detail the findings by the Navy department that reviewed the case. The 15-year ban it imposed represents an unusually long sanction. Debarments usually do not exceed three years, Pau said.
Military officials had long known about Hagmann's methods.
John Henry Hagmann
Succumbs To Downturn
Marcellus
The drilling rigs are gone from the hills surrounding this Pennsylvania town of 30,000. The hotels and bars are quieter too, no longer packed with the workers who flocked in their thousands to America's newest and biggest gas field.
The drilling boom of the past seven years is over, even though thousands of existing wells in the Marcellus region still produce a fifth of U.S. natural gas supply. Now, exclusive data made available to Reuters points to a slump in drilling that could hit production next year, defying government and industry expectations of a further rise in output.
Preliminary figures provided by DrillingInfo, which monitors rig activity, showed drilling permits issued for the 90,000-square mile (233,100 sq km) reservoir beneath Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, slumped to 68 in October from 76 in September. There were still 160 permits issued in June and over 600 a month at the peak in 2010.
Recent months are subject to revisions, DrillingInfo said, but a retreat of such magnitude, combined with falling output from older wells, would mark a turning point for the Marcellus - and the whole U.S. gas market.
U.S. natural gas production has risen 30 percent since 2008 when the development of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and horizontal drilling unlocked vast shale gas reserves, swamping the market with new supply and causing a collapse in prices.
Marcellus
Profits Über Alles
Gilead Sciences Inc.
The makers of a breakthrough hepatitis drug put profits before patients in pricing the $1,000 pill that's become a symbol of the excessive cost of medications, Senate investigators said Tuesday.
A bipartisan report from the Senate Finance Committee concluded that California-based Gilead Sciences Inc. was focused on maximizing revenue for its hepatitis C medications, even as the company's own analysis showed a lower price would allow more patients to be treated.
The lawmakers who led the investigation said it's a warning about what could happen with other innovative treatments for cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's and HIV.
"I'm telling you, this is the future," said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.
"When we see the market reaction ... especially the limitations on access, we have to be concerned," said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.
Gilead Sciences Inc.
Saudi Shift
Germany's BND
Germany's BND foreign intelligence agency, in an unusual public statement issued on Wednesday, voiced concern that Saudi Arabia was becoming impulsive in its foreign policy as powerful young Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman asserts himself.
The BND also said that with Saudi Arabia - the world's No. 1 oil exporter - losing confidence in the United States as a guarantor of Middle East order, Riyadh appeared ready to take more risks in its regional competition with Iran.
Since King Salman succeeded to power in January, Saudi Arabia has orchestrated a military coalition to intervene in neighboring Yemen to limit Iranian influence, increased support for Syrian rebels and made big changes in the royal succession.
Riyadh has long viewed Iran as aggressive and expansionary and regarded its use of non-state proxies such as Lebanon's Hezbollah and Iraqi Shi'ite militias as aggravating sectarian tensions and destabilizing the region. But under Salman, it has moved more assertively to counter its regional foe.
Germany's BND pointed to efforts by the two rivals to shape events in Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain and Iraq, with Saudi Arabia increasingly prepared to take military, political and financial risks to ensure it does not lose influence in the region.
Germany's BND
Prime-Time Nielsens
Ratings
Prime-time viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen for Nov. 23-29. Listings include the week's ranking and viewership.
1. NFL Football: Chicago at Green Bay, NBC, 27.75 million.
2. NFL Football: New England at Denver, NBC, 25.19 million.
3. "Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kick," NBC, 17.86 million.
4. "Thanksgiving Night NFL Pre-Kick," NBC, 17.38 million.
5. "NCIS," CBS, 16.19 million.
6. "60 Minutes," CBS, 14.33 million.
7. NFL Football: Buffalo at New England, ESPN, 14.26 million.
8. "The Walking Dead," AMC, 13.98 million.
9. "Dancing With the Stars" (Tuesday), ABC, 13.49 million.
10. "Dancing With the Stars," ABC, 13.29 million.
11. "NFL Pregame Show," NBC, 12.85 million.
12. "Football Night in America," NBC, 12.65 million.
13. "The Big Bang Theory," CBS, 12.05 million.
14. "NCIS: New Orleans," CBS, 11.85 million.
15. "The Voice" (Monday), NBC, 10.29 million.
16. "The Voice" (Tuesday), NBC, 9.97 million.
17. "Madam Secretary," CBS, 9.96 million.
18. "Empire," Fox, 9.21 million.
19. "Scorpion," CBS, 8.95 million.
20. "Survivor," CBS, 8.2 million.
Ratings
In Memory
Sandy Berger
Samuel "Sandy" Berger, a U.S. national security adviser to President Bill Clinton whose reputation was later marred by his theft of classified documents after leaving office, died early on Wednesday.
Berger, who was 70, had been suffering from cancer, according to a statement from Albright Stonebridge Group, the consulting firm where he worked.
Berger was heavily involved in U.S. relations with China, as well as advising Clinton on the NATO bombing campaign in Yugoslavia in 1999, the 1996 attacks at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 Americans and the U.S. Embassy bombings Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
In the closing months of Clinton's term, Berger was a prominent player at the 2000 Camp David summit in which Clinton tried unsuccessfully to advance the Middle East peace process.
Born in Sharon, Connecticut, on Oct. 28, 1945, Berger attended Cornell University and Harvard Law School. He worked for members of Congress and served as a U.S. State Department deputy director from 1977 to 1980.
Sandy Berger
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