Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Ted Rall: Why Does the Military Treat Soldiers Like Children?"
Why Doesn't the Pentagon Let Its Employees Be All They Can Be?
Henry Rollins: Trayvon Martin Did Not Need to Die (LA Weekly)
I think all concerned should stop patronizing fast-food chains. They should stop drinking alcohol and smoking anything. In fact, they should ingest nothing stronger than a cup of coffee and two aspirin. They should leave all the toxic crap for Whitey America to choke on. They should obey the law with annoying exactitude. They should all get picture IDs and register to vote. They should become the healthiest, most civically astute, morally commendable and impossible-to-arrest citizens America has. They should fuck up and destroy the prison-industrial complex.
Oliver Burkeman: "This column will change your life: why do we undervalue what we're good at?" (Guardian)
… Rothbard's Law: "People tend to specialise in what they're worst at." He was thinking of his fellow academics: "[Milton] Friedman is great except on money, so he concentrates on that," he once said.
Ask a grown-up: why can't we put our nuclear waste into a rocket and fire it into the sun? (Guardian)
Minister of state for energy Michael Fallon answers nine-year-old Kit's question.
Daniel Politi: New Zealand to South African Chef: You're Too Fat to Live in This Country (Slate)
New Zealand isn't letting a South African chef renew his visa because he's too fat. Albert Buitenhuis and his wife, Marthie, moved to Christchurch, New Zealand, six years ago and their annual work visas were always renewed with "very little problem," Marthie Buitenhuis tells local newspaper the Press. But this year, immigration officials said Buitenhuis did not have "an acceptable standard of health" and said he could place a strain in the country's health services.
What to do if you win the lottery (and even if you don't) (Vanguard)
Let's start by stating the obvious: You probably didn't win the $500 million Powerball jackpot. In fact, you're probably not going to win any lottery, ever. (Sorry.) But what if you did? Or-much more realistically-what would you do with a bigger-than-expected year-end bonus, tax refund, or inheritance? If you're the beneficiary of a significant financial windfall, you should start by asking yourself three simple questions: …
Handsworth mum sparks cocaine smuggling alert shipping washing powder to Jamaica (Birmingham Mail)
She said: ''How stupid can you be? Hasn't anyone told them you don't smuggle drugs into Jamaica, you smuggle drugs out of Jamaica?"
Spike Lee: Essential List of Films for Filmmakers (Kickstarter)
I've Been A Professor At The NYU Graduate Film For The Past 15 Years.The 1st Day Of Every Class I Hand Out My List Of Films That I Feel You Must See If You Want To Make Films. Please Look At This List And See What You Might Have Missed. As I Tell My Students If You Want Your Film "Game" To Be Tight You Must Have Seen Great Movies, World Cinema, It Just Can't Be Hollywood Films. Educate Yourself. Learn. Grow. Evolve. Make Great Films.
jsmuck: Photo (Imgur)
I'm Not a Smart Man.
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
The Anthony Weiner Song
The Agreeables
They say every good action hero needs a theme song (even if he's just getting virtual action); so indie rock SuperHeroes The Agreeables have written one especially for America's favorite mayoral candidate.
The Anthony Weiner Song by The Agreeables. Live from Velvet Jones in Santa Barbara, CA July 27, 2013
Enjoy!
Seth
Thanks, Seth!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Still in the May-Gray/June-Gloom side of things.
Fox Targets $1 Billion For Syndication
'The Simpsons'
Twentieth Television, a unit of Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox, plans to market reruns of the Fox network's long-running animated comedy "The Simpsons" and is targeting a package of up to $1 billion, a person with knowledge of the plans said on Monday.
The studio first syndicated the show featuring Bart and Homer Simpson to TV stations in 1998. The new deal would license reruns to stations and cable channels at the same time, the person said.
Entering its 25th season, "The Simpsons" has 530 episodes, a number that will grow when its new license agreement starts. The show's creator Matt Groening would share in the proceeds.
The company's fx cable channel is expected to have first claim to the show. Other potential buyers are Viacom, whose cable properties include Comedy Central and Nick at Nite, and Turner Broadcasting.
'The Simpsons'
CBS Renews
'Under the Dome'
"Under the Dome," the television science-fiction series based on a Stephen King novel, has been renewed for a second season, U.S. broadcast network CBS said on Monday.
The series, which chronicles the life of a small town that is cut off from the outside world by a giant impenetrable dome, has attracted an average of about 12 million viewers per episode, making it the top scripted series of the summer in the United States.
King, whose novel of the same name was published in 2009, will write the first of 13 episodes for the second season, which will premiere next summer, CBS Corp Chief Executive Leslie Moonves told reporters at a Television Critics Association meeting.
Moonves rejected a suggestion from a reporter that viewers might get frustrated with the continuation of the series that was initially written to wrap up at the end of its summer run.
"Why can't they be under the dome for a long period of time?" he said. "This is television. This is science fiction. They're up on some planet somewhere for many years. 'Under the Dome,' in a lot of ways, is a soap opera."
'Under the Dome'
Ban Going Global
Russian Vodka
What started out as Dan Savage's pledge against consuming Russian vodka is now a movement that has gay bars all around the world, from Vancouver to London, dumping Russian vodka to show their displeasure with the country's treatment of gay people-even in the face of one of Russia's prominent LGBT activists saying the whole thing is pointless.
When we last we checked in with Savage's plea for gay people to stop drinking Russian vodka to protest the Kremlin's aggressive anti-gay laws, a couple of gay bars in Chicago had joined in the boycott. Since then, more and more bars around the world have joined in: London's world-famous Heaven nightclub, along with several others venues in the British capital, aren't serving Russian booze; a bevy of Vancouver bars have followed suit, as have venues in Sydney, West Hollywood, New York City and San Francisco.
The ban is part of a growing movement to check Russia's increasingly homophobic political milieu. In a sharply-worded editorial over the weekend title "Mr. Putin's War on Gays," The New Times editorial board wrote:
For some time, antigay sentiment has been spreading in Russia's conservative society, encouraged by the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church. But Mr. Putin and his government have taken that to a new level by legitimizing the hatemongering in legislation.
Russian Vodka
Baby News
Baby Boy Bell
Evan Rachel Wood is a mom.
Her representative said Monday that she gave birth to a baby boy. The 25-year-old actress married British actor Jamie Bell last year.
The rep adds that "parents and baby are all doing well." No more details were provided.
Wood's credits include "The Wrestler," ''Thirteen" and HBO's "True Blood." She earned Golden Globe and Emmy nominations for her supporting role in "Mildred Pierce."
Bell, 27, is best known for his roles in the films "Billy Elliot," ''Jumper" and "The Adventures of Tintin."
Baby Boy Bell
Charged With Fraud
'Real Housewives of NJ'
Two stars of the "Real Housewives of New Jersey" were indicted Monday on federal fraud charges, accused of exaggerating their income while applying for loans before their TV show debuted in 2009, then hiding their improving fortunes in a bankruptcy filing after their first season aired.
Teresa Giudice, 41, and her husband Giuseppe "Joe" Giudice, 43, of Montville Township, were charged in a 39-count indictment with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, bank fraud, making false statements on loan applications and bankruptcy fraud.
The couple submitted fraudulent mortgage and other loan applications from 2001 through 2008, a year before their show debuted on Bravo, making phony claims about their employment status and salaries, the indictment said.
Prosecutors allege the Giudices received about $4.6 million in mortgages, withdrawals from home equity lines of credit and construction loans. In some instances the couple filed fake W-2s and tax returns.
'Real Housewives of NJ'
Not A Political Problem-Yet
Climate Denial
Republican Rep. Joe Barton of Texas is not, as Politico would have you believe, a "climate skeptic." Nor is Dana Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California. They are climate change deniers - of the sort that a recent poll suggests may be harming the Republican Party with younger voters. For now, though, it doesn't matter. Far from suggesting a problem for the party's energy policies, denialism is trapped in a chicken-egg paradox with calls for additional fossil fuel extraction.
Politico's overly gentle article on climate "skeptics" is predicated on that non-existent political problem: Will the party's opposition to climate change make the party's energy strategy more difficult? Will the arguments of Barton (the Great Flood was climate change) and Rohrabacher (there was bad weather a century ago, too) make the Republican argument on energy a tough sell? Part of the Republican House leadership's plan for the August recess is to bring the party's energy message - more oil drilling, essentially - to congressional districts. Will denial of the scientific reality of climate change make that trickier?
Not with young people. Last week, a survey conducted for an environmental group by two polling firms - a Republican firm and the pollster that did both of Obama's campaigns - discovered that young people are already hostile to that message. The Guardian reported on the results.
The implications were even more harsh for those Republicans who block Obama on climate action and dispute the entire body of science behind climate change. "For voters under 35, denying climate change signals a much broader failure of values and leadership," the polling memo said. Many young voters would write such candidates off completely, with 37% describing climate change deniers as "ignorant", 29% as "out of touch" and 7% simply as "crazy".
The League of Conservation Voters, which commissioned the poll, offers a more full set of data, albeit one that excludes the specific questions asked.
Climate Denial
Profits Über Alles
GOP
Former Indiana and current Florida schools chief Tony Bennett built his national star by promising to hold "failing" schools accountable. But when it appeared an Indianapolis charter school run by a prominent Republican donor might receive a poor grade, Bennett's education team frantically overhauled his signature "A-F" school grading system to improve the school's marks.
Emails obtained by The Associated Press show Bennett and his staff scrambled last fall to ensure influential donor Christel DeHaan's school received an "A," despite poor test scores in algebra that initially earned it a "C."
"They need to understand that anything less than an A for Christel House compromises all of our accountability work," Bennett wrote in a Sept. 12 email to then-chief of staff Heather Neal, who is now Gov. Mike Pence's chief lobbyist.
The emails, which also show Bennett discussed with staff the legality of changing just DeHaan's grade, raise unsettling questions about the validity of a grading system that has broad implications. Indiana uses the A-F grades to determine which schools get taken over by the state and whether students seeking state-funded vouchers to attend private school need to first spend a year in public school. They also help determine how much state funding schools receive.
Bennett, who now is reworking Florida's grading system as that state's education commissioner, reviewed the emails Monday morning and denied that DeHaan's school received special treatment. He said discovering that the charter would receive a low grade raised broader concerns with grades for other "combined" schools - those that included multiple grade levels - across the state.
GOP
Broadway Scam
'Rebecca'
In a case prosecutors called "stranger than fiction," a former New York businessman pleaded guilty on Monday to defrauding the producers of Broadway production "Rebecca - The Musical" by creating an elaborate scheme involving fake overseas investors.
Mark Hotton, 46, pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud and agreed to forfeit $500,000 and to pay an additional $500,000 to the victims of his schemes.
The guilty plea included a second scheme in which he sought to defraud a Connecticut-based real estate company.
Hotton faces 20 years in prison for each count of wire fraud and is scheduled to be sentenced on November 1 by U.S. District Judge John Koeltl in Manhattan.
'Rebecca'
Painting Draws $5.6M
Frederic Remington
A Frederic Remington painting depicting U.S. Cavalry soldiers has fetched $5.6 million, and a Norman Rockwell painting featuring a Boy Scout and two American presidents has drawn $4.2 million at auction in Reno, organizers said Sunday.
Mike Overby of the annual Coeur d'Alene Art Auction said Remington's "Cutting Out Pony Herds" and Rockwell's "A Scout is Loyal" were sold to private collectors on Saturday.
Remington's painting features a soldier charging across the plains on horseback with the rest of the Cavalry and a herd of rider-less horses following behind. The painting was done in 1908, a year before he died.
Rockwell's 1940 painting has a patriotic theme with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln standing behind a Boy Scout. Rockwell was known for his work for the Boy Scouts of America, producing covers for its magazine and calendars.
Frederic Remington
Beer Can House
Houston
A child of the Great Depression, John Milkovisch didn't throw anything away - not even the empty cans of beer he enjoyed each afternoon with his wife.
So, in the early 1970s when aluminum siding on houses was all the rage, he lugged down the cans he had stored in his attic for years, painstakingly cut open and flattened each one and began to wallpaper his home.
Milkovisch passed away in the mid-1980s, but his wife, Mary, still lived there. Her sons would do work from time to time, replacing rusty steel cans with new ones and restoring a hurricane-destroyed beer wall. And when they feared for her safety because of the gawkers, they put up a privacy fence, embedding beer cans in that as well.
Determined to preserve this accidental piece of folk art, local nonprofit Orange Show Center for Visionary Art bought the property about 10 years ago, began a careful restoration of the house and opened it to the public.
Milkovisch began redecorating the home's exterior in earnest in 1968, when he purchased a metal canopy for his backyard so he and his wife could have some shade while drinking their afternoon beers. Fed up with lawn-mowing, he began installing concrete blocks throughout the yard, embedding them with marbles he had collected as a boy.
Houston
Scientists Find Mystery Coffin
Richard III
A team of archaeologists said Monday it has unearthed an unusual coffin-within-a-coffin in the central England parking lot where it found the skeleton of King Richard III, and that they hope to identify the remains within.
The team said it had discovered a fully intact medieval stone coffin during a dig in September but wasn't able to investigate it further at the time. When it was opened this week, the team said, it found a lead coffin within it, one likely to contain a "high status" individual.
Scientists think the lead coffin - which has a hole through which the deceased's feet can be seen - could contain one of the friary's founders, a medieval monk, or the remains of a 14th-century medieval knight, Sir William Moton.
The archaeologists say that tests must be carried out to determine how to open the lead coffin without damaging the remains.
The University of Leicester's Matthew Morris said no one on the team had ever seen a lead coffin within a stone coffin before.
Richard III
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