Game of Thrones: Lena Headey’s nude Walk of Shame body double speaks out: Actress breaks silence on their brave 3-day performance. (Entertainment Weekly)

Beck and Thurston Moore Plot One-Off Multimedia Performance in London: They will be joined by several poets. A part of the latest installment of artist Doug Aitken’s “Station to Station” festival. (SPIN)

Woman caught smuggling $20,000 worth of cocaine in fried fish: A for originality, if F for execution. (Death and Taxes)

Earliest known footage of MTV’s ‘120 Minutes’ surfaces: Watch J.J. Jackson host in April ’86. (Slicing Up Eyeballs)

Sanders surge is becoming a bigger problem for Hillary Clinton: She apparently doesn’t want to say much about him at all, lest the media think there’s a real contest going on. That silence speaks volumes! (The Hill)

Fox News host blames mass shootings on ‘different cultures’ living together in America: Ooh, fear-mongering over diversity? Keep it classy, Martha MacCallum! (The Raw Story)

The Psychology of Messiness & Creativity: Research Shows How a Messy Desk and Creative Work Go Hand in Hand: My wife says my desk looks like Whitney Houston’s. I must be really creative. (Open Culture)

Allen Ginsberg Wrote a Poem for Bernie Sanders and It’s Pretty Great: It’s a socialist poem. It belongs to everybody. (Mother Jones)

The 6 Craziest Kidnapping Schemes Of All Time: Some of these capers are supremely stupid. (TrueCrime)

Why Can’t Republicans Admit Dylann Roof Was Racist? The mysteriousness of Dylann Roof’s motivations for allegedly murdering a room full of African-Americans, rated on a scale of 1 through 10, is zero. (New York)

China stocks plunge as bubble fears grow: This could be bad, Really, really bad, Actually it’s already bad, it’s now likely to get even worse. (CNN/Money)

Kim Jong-un claims to have cured AIDS, Ebola, SARS and MERS with single ‘miracle drug’: North Korean officials said scientists had developed “Kumdang-2” from ginseng and other “secret” ingredients, which, natch, they chose not to reveal. (Mirror)

Planet of the Apes: Signs of democracy seen in typically authoritarian baboon society (Science)

Losing streak: Glenn Beck defeated in court again as judge sides with Muslim in defamation suit: Things look pretty bad for psycho talker, the judge just doesn’t like shit like this. (The Raw Story)

Hollywood Herpes Scare! Sony Drafts Cold Sore Contract For Big Stars, Require Meds On Set, Hacked Emails Reveal: More revelations from the SONY hack via Wikileaks. (Radar)

The world is quickly running out of water, new NASA study says: 21 of the world’s 37 largest aquifers are depleted. If you think what’s happening in California is bad, you don’t want to hear what India’s in for (Quartz)

I think this is the single best thing on YouTube: The late, great Daevid Allen and Gong on French TV’s POP2 program doing “I Never Glid Before”:
 

 
Slayer Calls to ‘Kill the Kardashians’: I don’t think he meant like kill them, kill them, do you? (Billboard)

Rush Limbaugh’s downward spiral continues: Another demotion, another step toward irrelevancy: Why won’t this toxic asshole just keel over and die? Spite? (Salon)

Yes, androids do dream of electric sheep: Google sets up feedback loop in its image recognition neural network - which looks for patterns in pictures - creating hallucinatory images of animals, buildings and landscapes which veer from beautiful to terrifying (Guardian)

Anti-ageing pill pushed as bona fide drug: Regulators asked to consider ageing a treatable condition. (Nature)

Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter appears unmasked in new film: The robot willingly removes his helmet. (Consequence of Sound)

Rob Zombie moves out of horror to direct ‘Raised Eyebrows: My Years Inside Groucho’s House’: The film will tell the bizarre story of the last years in the life of Groucho Marx,as told by a young Marx Brothers fan who spent those years as his personal secretary and archivist. (Deadline Hollywood)

Bacteria From Earth Could Survive On Mars: Of all the planets in the solar system, Mars is the closest to having Earth-like conditions. (TLN)

Why we should take Donald Trump seriously: Trump fans follow the philosophy of Glenn Beck, Joe McCarthy and P.T. Barnum. To the average Tea party goofball he’s telling it like it is, with a sort of free-floating grievance about everyone who doesn’t agree with them mixed with simplistic patriotic boosterism and faith in the fact that low taxes makes everybody rich. Not even Roger Ailes can control the way their minds work. As of today Ben Carson is the GOP frontrunner and he’s an idiot. How long before Trump, an even bigger idiot who’s white, is the frontrunner? 4…3…2…1…(Salon)

Ralph Steadman’s twisted Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Illustrations:  Celebrating the story’s 150th Anniversary (Open Culture)

Americans Have Lost Confidence ... in Everything: It’s not just Congress and the economy that have Americans concerned these days. It’s basically everything. (US News)

Watch The Rolling Stones Handle The Press At Danceteria In 1980: Almost exactly 35 years ago, The Rolling Stones were celebrating their album Emotional Rescue at Danceteria on West 37th Street. In the video below, WABC anchor Peter Bannon asked them, “Can you do this forever?” (Gothamist)

Drug overdose death rates increase in 26 states: Overdoses continue to outpace car crashes as the leading cause of injury-related deaths, according to a new report. Have doubled in past 15 years. Most deaths attributed to prescription drugs, not street drugs. (USA Today)

Brian Jonestown Massacre frontman talks Apple Music bullying tactics for not complying with royalty-free policy on Twitter: “It’s not ok for these fucking idiots to decide art has no value.” (Fact)

Fox’s Steve Doocy: It’s Extraordinary That Charleston Church Shooting Is Being Called A Hate Crime: Steve Doocy once again proves that he is about as smart as he looks. (Media Matters)

Here’s Why Hollywood Imported Sixty Tons Of Radioactive Sand: There are many films that have picked up a reputation for being “cursed,” and one that may actually deserve it. It’s the lingering effects of radiation that haunted The Conqueror. And in true horror movie fashion, the film crew brought the curse home with them. And it may have them. (io9)

Below, a classic Steve Martin set from 1979:

 
GOP candidates’ Trump Test: If The Donald is beating you by the first debate, drop out: A modest proposal for GOP hopefuls: Just quit politics forever if you can’t beat Trump. DROP OUT of public life. Forever. You are, in the words of Trump himself, a LOSER. How much more clear cut could this message possibly be? (Salon)

Everyday plastics plunge men into fertility crisis: Society should be ‘very worried’ by studies showing falling sperm quality in men. Plastics have caused a sharp decline in fertility among men, leaving only one in four with “good” sperm, scientists say. (Times of London)

Jeb Bush’s Candidacy Is Like a Hollywood Sequel No One Wants to See: No one in America remembers anything, but surely our national amnesia doesn’t extend to Jeb’s lineage no matter how much he tries to bury it.  (New York)

Some Urban Homesteader Is Living In A Bucolic Cabin On A Roof In Manhattan: Is there anything more enviable in the real estate racket of NYC than a house on a regular old apartment building’s roof? (Gothamist)

Why Bernie Sanders Is The Perfect Candidate For This Moment in American Politics: Sanders’s laser-like focus on inequality is perfectly in sync with the nation’s current political climate. (In These Times)

Bea Arthur’s Estate Selling Her Long-Time Home in the Brentwood Wilds For $16 Million: Recently the former home of the Golden Girls actress rented out for $60,000 a month. (Curbed)

Japan lifts ban on late-night dancing: For 67 years, the country was discouraged from busting a move in public past curfew! (Consequence of Sound)

David Simon Reveals Plans for 1970s Times Square Porn Project at HBO: The mastermind behind HBO’s The Wire and Treme, along with his frequent collaborator George Pelecanos, is developing a potential series about the porn industry for the premium network. (Hollywood Reporter)

Australia’s robot-led future puts squeeze on humans: Almost 40% of Australian jobs that exist today could disappear in the next 10 to 15 years thanks to advances in digital technology. (BBC)

Record labels attack Apple deals that would leave them ‘completely screwed’: Independents claim they could be forced out of business by free trial of new streaming service and withhold popular artists such as Adele (Telegraph)

Hulk Hogan on Gawker Sex-Tape Trial: “I’ll See This Through to the End” Gawker’s Hulk Hogan sex tape story is turning out to be a very expensive one.
(Hollywood Reporter)

Dave Davies Says He Isn’t Holding Up a Kinks Reunion: According to Ray Davies, the oft-rumored Kinks reunion can’t happen until his brother Dave settles a long-simmering feud with drummer Mick Avory. As has been so often the case in their famously fractious history, Dave disagrees. (Ultimate Classic Rock)

Wal-Mart Has $76 Billion in Undisclosed Overseas Tax Havens: Wal-Mart Stores Inc. owns more than $76 billion of assets through a web of units in offshore tax havens around the world, though you wouldn’t know it from reading the giant retailer’s annual report. When the Revolution happens, it will not be kind to the Walton family. (Bloomberg)

On June 27, 1979, accompanied only by her harmonium, Nico performed a stunning rendition of “Genghis Khan” on French television:
 

 
Metal Fans Are The Least Likely To Cheat On Their Significant Other, According to New Study: Who’d a thunk it? (Metal Injection)

How Dinosaurs Shrank and Became Birds: Modern birds appeared to emerge in a snap of evolutionary time. But new research illuminates the long series of evolutionary changes that made the transformation possible. (Scientific American)

Pols And Polls Say The Same Thing: Jeb Bush Is A Weak Front-Runner: He sucks. The last thing thing this country needs is another Bush. (FiveThirtyEight.com)

Bernie Sanders Is Building an Army to Take D.C.: It’ll take an army to change Washington, says the insurgent senator—and with the crowds he’s been drawing, he just might be building one. (The Daily Beast)

Another Optical Illusion Showing How Awful We Are At Discerning Colors: Now play nice… (io9)

Are Rumors About Lindsey Graham’s Sexuality Hurting His Presidential Chances? IMO, Graham doesn’t give off a “gay” vibe at all. Nope. He gives off more of a “eunuch” kinda vibe, right? He’s so hawkish, what’s he trying to prove, anyway? That he’s got a dick? (Slate) 

What Would Happen If We All Stopped Paying Our Student Loans, Together? Everyone seems to agree: Student debt sucks. If a whole generation has fucked credit scores, won’t landlords have to rent to them anyway? (Vice)

Mathematicians think they’ve worked out what happened to Flight MH370: It explains why we haven’t found any wreckage as yet. (ScienceAlert)

These teens don’t know what to make of vintage cigarette ads: Tobacco commercials have been illegal in the U.S. since 1971, so it’s interesting to see how today’s teenager’s respond to cigarette advertising. (The Daily Dot)

The ‘trickle down theory’ is dead wrong: Wealth does not trickle down from the rich to the poor. Period. That’s not Senator Elizabeth Warren talking. That’s the latest conclusion of new research from the International Monetary Fund. (CNN/Money)

After 8 Years Running Florida, Jeb Bush Has A Lot To Explain: The guy was a total jerk as governor! A refresher course on the “next” Bush. Fuck this guy. (Think Progress)
 

 
In five years your car will prevent you from driving drunk:  If it’s determined the driver is over the legal limit with blood alcohol concentration of 0.08 percent or higher, the vehicle will not start. What about texting then? (Popular Science)

Get Baked Sale: San Francisco to host marihuana food fair. (Associated Press)

Dems Torpedo Obama’s Trade Push: Matt Drudge even praised Nancy Pelosi. Think the GOP has wildly miscalculated with this, the ONE time they decided to get behind Obama? Sure looks that way to me. This isn’t going to end well for the Republicans. Their base is furious over this. (The Daily Beast)

Elizabeth Warren unloads on bankers: “The problem is not that I don’t understand the global banking system. The problem for these guys is that I fully understand the system and I understand how they make their money. And that’s what they don’t like about me.” (Huffington Post)

Dogs snub people who are mean to their owners: Dogs do not like people who are mean to their owners, Japanese researchers said Friday, and will refuse food offered by people who have snubbed their master. (Yahoo!)

Boob tubes: Breast grown in lab will test cancer treatments. (New Scientist)

This 17-Year-Old Ran ISIS Twitter from Northern Virginia: Ali Shukri Amin, a former Osbourn Park High School honors student in Manassas, Va., pleaded guilty on Thursday to “conspiring to provide material support to terrorists.” (Raw Story)

Dem unveils automatic voter registration bill: You get a driver’s license and then 21 days later, you’ll have been automatically registered to vote. The Republicans are going to hate this bill, and the Democrats know this, of course, but want the GOP to go on record against democracy. This should be fun! (The Hill)

Hotel mogul kicked out of gay bar over Ted Cruz affiliation: “Upon their departure, the crowd cheered” one onlooker posted to Facebook (Page Six)

Could Hulk Hogan destroy Gawker? Gawker founder Nick Denton admitted on Twitter that the fate of his company hangs in the balance of $100 million dollar sex tape lawsuit tried on Hogan’s turf (The Week)

Marco Rubio is now at the top of the Republican presidential field: In certain circles that would pass as some sort of “accomplishment.” (Washington Post)

Obama: A vote against trade is a vote against me: Go to hell then, Mr. President. (Politico)

As currency dies, Zimbabweans will get $5 for 175 quadrillion local dollars: The national currency is basically worthless. (Yahoo! News)

Get ready for changes to your Facebook News Feed: Facebook announced an update to the News Feed that changes what stories it will show you based on how much time you spend viewing the post, article, photo, or comments. (The Daily Dot)

Below, a commercial for the anatomically correct (and pissing) “Joey Stivic: Archie Bunker’s grandson doll”:

 
Brain-Eating Tribe Immune to Dementia: “This is a striking example of Darwinian evolution in humans.” (ABC News)

Elizabeth Warren Launches Last-Minute Blitz to Stop Trade Bill: With a critical series of House votes scheduled for Friday, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren is making a last-minute push to kill President Barack Obama’s bid to secure fast-track trade negotiating authority. (Bloomberg)

Montana Republican: Noah was 600 years old when he built the Ark, so why do Americans need retirement? “There’s nothing in the Bible that talks about retirement” says fuckstick tech millionaire who is running for governor. It’s your Christian duty to work for hundreds of years. (The Raw Story)

The ‘Sticky Fingers’ story: After Altamont, as their world was spinning apart, the Rolling Stones made one of the greatest albums in rock ’n’ roll history. (Slate)

Video shows off-duty Florida cops repeatedly kicking black man sitting on curb: Noel Carter, a 30-year-old banker from the Miami area, filed an affidavit Wednesday asking the state to bring battery charges against the two off-duty officers who were moonlighting as security guards. (Raw Story)

It’s official: Louisiana public schools are using the Book of Genesis in high school science classes: Louisianans can now get a 19th Century education to accompany their 19th century economy. (Salon)

Holly Madison Spills The Shit About Hugh Hefner In A Tell-All: She was just an innocent girl in a mixed up crazy ol’ world. Or something like that. (Dlisted)

Bernie Sanders insists his momentum is no fluke: “This is not an educational campaign. This is not a protest campaign. This is a campaign to win,” said a confident Sanders. (Politico)

Jeb Bush Says His Views ‘Haven’t Changed at All’ on Unwed Mothers: Fuck this dumbass, am I right? (Yahoo!)

Same Sex Couple Threaten Not To Give A Shit If Other Couple Divorces: If Christian divorce does go ahead gay couple will have no choice but to go on with their lives completely unaffected by such a dumb stunt. (SBS)

These are the most creative paintings of all time according to a computer: Who says art is subjective?  It’s just that it’s impossible to confirm or deny the results, researchers admit. (PopSci)

Below, Mouth & MacNeal sing their million-selling 1972 megahit “How Do You Do?”

 
Faith No More’s Mike Patton Once Shat in Axl Rose’s Orange Juice: Well someone had to to do it. (Ultimate Classic Rock)

Libertarianism is for white men: The ugly truth about the right’s favorite movement: Republicans’ demographic challenges have been well documented. Libertarians’ problems are even worse. (Salon)

One Nation, Under Sedation: Medicare Paid For Nearly 40 Million Tranquilizer Prescriptions In 2013. (Crooks & Liars)

Siouxsie Sioux and Steven Severin reunite for ‘Hannibal’ premiere! First time the co-founders of Siouxsie and the Banshees have been seen in public for 13 years. Photo shared on Marc Almond’s Twitter. (Post-Punk)

California Is Literally Sinking Into the Ground: And it’s going to cost taxpayers big time. (Mother Jones)

Tom Hanks And Rita Wilson Have Told Their Son To Stay Off Social Media: Chet Haze is a fucking idiot be proud of it, yo. (D-Listed)

If Your Bullshit Detector Isn’t Shrieking, It’s Broken: Wishing it was true doesn’t make it true—it makes you a chump who fell for the con. (Of Two Minds)

Survey: Obama’s Trade Proposal a Tough Sell for Most Americans: Two-thirds of Americans—Republicans and Democrats alike—say protecting American industries and jobs by limiting imports is more important than allowing free trade so they can buy products at lower prices from any country. (NBC News)

Let down by Obama, some black voters ask: Is it even worth backing Clinton? Good question! (Washington Post)

Republicans to start eating their own in 5, 4, 3…? Jeb Bush, feeling vulnerable, is about to go all Mitt Romney on their asses (No More Mister Nice Blog)

Hannity Explains to Witness What Really Happened at McKinney: Officer Was ‘Provoked’ and in the process makes himself look like a colossal idiot yet again. She might have been there, and seen it with her own eyes, but let big Sean Hannity tell the black girl what she really saw! (Mediaite)

Texas abortion law ruling: Latinas more likely to avoid clinics and self-terminate: Low-income and ‘landlocked’ undocumented women may have difficulty accessing care in the state, stoking fears that self-induced abortions will increase. (Guardian)

Below, Shirley Bassey sings “Diamonds are Forever” on the Morecambe and Wise Christmas special of 1971:
 

 
My Prediction: Bernie Sanders Will Win the White House: Compelling reasons why, when the dust settles, it’s going to be a Democratic Socialist Senator from Vermont who will be the next President of the United States. Doubt it? Read this analysis. (Washington’s Blog)

Driver Sues City After Video Shows Cops Admitting They “Don’t Know Why” They Pulled Him Over: He had his cell phone recording these dumb fucks the entire time. (Gothamist)

Billionaire Cartier Owner Sees Wealth Gap Fueling Social Unrest: “We cannot have 0.1 percent of 0.1 percent taking all the spoils,” said Johann Rupert, who has a fortune worth $7.5 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. “It’s unfair and it is not sustainable.”(Bloomberg)

Oops: Franklin Graham moves bank accounts from gay-friendly bank to one that sponsors gay pride events: Even bags of wet hair think Franklin Graham is a fuckin’ big dummy. (Raw Story)

NYPD chief Bratton says hiring black officers is difficult: ‘So many have spent time in jail’ I wonder how that happened? (The Guardian)

Birth Control That Works Too Well: A Colorado program to give low-income teens long-acting contraception dropped the teen abortion rate dramatically. But conservatives refuse to fund it. (The Nation)

Wall Street fears leftward swerve by Hillary Clinton: As Sanders gains traction, Clinton’s backers expect her to take a tougher stance on banks. (Politico)

Jeb Bush In 1995: Unwed Mothers Should Be Publicly Shamed Guess where he got this idea? One guess? If you guessed Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850 novel The Scarlet Letter, that’s the right answer! (Huffington Post)

Republicans Trashed Democracy in Michigan. Now They Want To Trash It in Your State, Too As Governor Snyder sets out on a national tour to sell the “Michigan Story,” other states should be wary of such a depressing tale. (Mother Jones)

Senator Unveils New Obamacare Attack, Immediately Becomes A Laughingstock Sen. John Thune (R-SD) probably wishes that he’d thought twice before debuting a new attack on the Affordable Care Act on Twitter. (ThinkProgress)

Rand Paul Battles the GOP Over 9/11 Secrets: The Kentucky Republican is pushing an amendment to declassify 28 pages from the congressional report—and exactly zero of his GOP colleagues are behind him. (The Daily Beast)

Catholic League president: Pope wrong on climate change because God never said ‘air pollution is intrinsically evil’ And there is nothing I can add to that. Snark fails me in the presence of such low level superstition and derpitude… (Raw Story)

Must read interview with rapper Divine Styler: ‘It’s getting hot. It’s going to get worse before it gets better. You have to destroy it in order to rebuild it.’ (LA Record)

 
NSFW: Watch the Porn Scene Edited by Orson Welles! He owed the director a favor, apparently. (Vulture)

Bernie Sanders: ‘We’re Going to Win New Hampshire’ Bernie-mania is clearly a real thing as support surges for the maverick Senator from Vermont. (Bloomberg)

How black kids like the ones in McKinney can stay safe around cops: Stop being black I wonder if he feared for his own life? (Vox)

Glenn Beck: We Have 10,000 Pastors Who Are Willing To Die Resisting Anti-Christian Persecution In America “Society is about to collapse and America needs passionate pastors who are willing to give up their lives if necessary in the fight against the coming persecution of Christians” sez Glenn Beck to a small audience of senior citizen doofuses who probably believe him. (Right Wing Watch)

Man wrongfully imprisoned for over three years on Riker’s Island commits suicide: Sen. Rand Paul implored a crowd in Concord, N.H., to “think about Kalief Browder and think about how his friends must feel about American justice, how his parents must feel and about how his community feels.” (The Hill)

Bobby Jindal’s desperate home-school Hail Mary is 2016′s strangest strategy: “Religious freedom” + homeschoolers It seems like a tiny GOP sliver, but a strategist to watch thinks otherwise. Jindal is Louisiana’s most ambitious politician since David Duke. The least popular governor in Louisiana history is also likely to fare about as well as the former KKK leader did when he ran for the GOP nomination in 1992. (Salon)

Wow. ClickHole How the Onion spinoff designed to mock the Internet (well BuzzFeed) became the best thing on it. “The quiz tells you that you are from Massachusetts. You are not from Massachusetts.” (Slate)

House GOPers: Obamacare Fix? Ha, Our Constituents Don’t Get Subsidies! “Sorry poors, but fuck you, none of you vote for us anyway.” (Talking Points Memo)

White House poised to hike wages for millions of Americans: The Labor Department could propose a rule that would raise the current overtime threshold — $23,660 – to as much as $52,000. And the Republicans can’t do much about it. The overtime threshold is not indexed to inflation and has been updated only once since 1975. (Politico)

Game of Thrones is secretly all about climate change: Did you know that Game of Thrones is secretly about the world’s terrible failure to stop climate change? Well it is. (Vox)

Liberals Make Big Comeback in 2015, Poll Analysis Finds A new analysis of Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll data finds a marked increase in the share of registered voters identifying themselves as liberals, and an even bigger drop in the share saying they are conservatives. (Wall Street Journal)

Wisconsin straw poll surprise: Bernie Sanders scored 41 percent in a straw poll vote at the Wisconsin Democratic Party convention this weekend. The Vermont senator was a close second to Hillary Clinton, who won 49 percent. Sanders received 208 of 511 delegate votes at the state convention in Milwaukee on Saturday, while Clinton won votes from 252 of the delegates, leaving her just short of a majority. (Politico)

The Cost of China’s Industrialization: 700 Million People with Diabesity /Cancer /Lung Disease and 225 Million with Mental Disorders That the China Story is going to implode is already baked into the public health catastrophe that will unfold with a vengeance in the coming decade. (Of Two Minds)

U.S. Congress Should Have No Part In International Climate Deal, French Minister Says Laurent Fabius, at the helm of climate talks expected to culminate in Paris in December merely says what everyone is thinking. (Think Progress)

What Kind of Mayor Was Bernie Sanders? In his eight years as mayor of Burlington, Vermont, Bernie Sanders revitalized the economy and solidified support for progressive municipal policies. (The Nation)

Below, Robin Gibb performs his solo numbers “Saved by the Bell” and “One Million Years” on Spanish television, 1970. From the amazing new three CD set, Saved By The Bell: The Collected Works Of Robin Gibb 1968-1970 (3CD). The opening line of “One Million Years” is “I’m dead.” Robin’s songs were always the melancholy ones in the Bee Gees repertoire, weren’t they?
 

 
Teenage ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ wanted on charges including robbery and aggravated assault on a police officer: Ohio teens Tristan Kindle, 16, and Rose May, 15,  may be in possession of two firearms and have stolen several vehicles. The pair have escaped a twelve-hour manhunt in PA. (ABC News)

Hillary Goes Right for Bush’s Gut in Voting Rights Speech “And in Florida, when Jeb Bush was governor, state officials conducted a deeply flawed purge of voters before the presidential election of 2000.” Yeah, she went there. (Esquire)

Fox News freakshow heros: Roger Ailes is going to an ever-loonier fringe to find supposed culture-war martyrs—and it’s not working. (Salon)

How Your Cat Is Making You Crazy: “Toxoplasma might even kill as many people as malaria, or at least a million people a year.” What’s less clear is how you treat it if you’re already infected. (The Atlantic)

Economic growth more likely when wealth distributed to poor instead of rich: The economic case for maintaining a progressive income tax structure and targeting welfare payments to those most in need is overwhelming. If people on lower incomes have more money, there will be more spending, more jobs and a stronger economy. (Guardian)

Nearly half of all households age 55 and over have no retirement savings: Many older households don’t have other financial resources to tap during retirement. Of those households without any savings, more than half don’t have a pension from a traditional pension plan, and almost half don’t own a home. (CBS News)

Obama under pressure to release secret pages of 9/11 report ‘showing Saudi Arabia financed attacks’ A long running campaign over redacted pages of a Senate report into 9/11 which allegedly reveal Riyadh as the principal financier is gathering new momentum. Bush had report redacted. (Telegraph)

How the Red Cross Raised Half a Billion Dollars for Haiti ­and Built Six Homes: Even as the group has publicly celebrated its work, insider accounts detail a string of failures. (Pro Publica)

The death of Dee Dee Ramone: Julian Cope writes: “What can we do but kneel at the grave of this hoodlum culture hero and give thanks to him for stealing rock’n’roll back from the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac and all the other ‘Life in the Fast Lane’ 70s Laurel Canyon clowns…” (On This Deity)

Japanese firm sells ‘human pillow’ cellphone holder: What’s shaped like your friend and even sounds like your friend, but isn’t actually your friend? (Yahoo News)

School bus driver in deadly crash was texting: A Tennessee school bus driver was texting at the time of a crash that killed two young girls and an aspiring teacher last year, accident investigators said Friday. (Associated Press)

Bernie Sanders for the well-intentioned, semi-informed layperson

Want a preview of how a debate between Bernie Sanders and one of the GOP candidates might go? Watch Bernie face off against Papa Bear back in March:

 
Sarah Palin blows her top over Duggars coverage: ‘Pervert’ liberals ‘spit on the graves of every American’ soldier. Dripping with derp saunce, she also tries to somehow turn the narrative to Lena Dunham? (Raw Story)

Being Healthy Is Unprofitable: U.S. healthcare is unsustainable. That it will break in the next decade is predictable. (Of Two Minds)

Silicon Valley Is the Anti-Entourage Well, it’s good for one thing… (New York)

Left turn on Main Street: The progressive agenda is America’s story — from ending slavery to ending segregation to establishing a woman’s right to vote to Social Security, the right to organize, and the fight for fair pay and against income inequality. (Bill Moyers)

It’s Time to Let Edward Snowden Come Home: Now that Congress has passed, and President Obama has signed, the U.S.A. Freedom Act, which places some limits on the domestic-surveillance powers of the National Security Agency, there’s still unfinished business to deal with. (New Yorker)

Three Days on the Campaign Trail With Bernie Sanders: Rolling Stone interviews the presidential hopeful and tags along for his first official campaign stops (Rolling Stone)

Alex Jones: While You Were Staring At Caitlyn Jenner’s Funbags, Obama Grabbed Your Guns Conspiracy theorist extraordinaire Alex Jones always has his finger on the prostate of The Real Story that everybody’s missing, if people could only OPEN THEIR EYES! (Wonkette)

‘Scandinavian Dream’ is true fix for America’s income inequality Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz suggests we take a page from some of our European neighbors and restore the balance between government, business and labor. (CNN/Money)

Ted Cruz Walks Away When Reporter Confronts Him About Joe Biden Joke: Cruz (R-TX) apologized late Wednesday for making a joke about Vice President Joe Biden as he prepares to bury his son Beau, who died of brain cancer. (TPM)

McDonald’s Futuristic Self-Serve Kiosks Debut In DTLA: You’ll order from a touchscreen. There won’t even be a need to speak to a human being at all. (LAist)

Clinton Lays Out Proposal To Expand Voting: “I call on Republicans at all levels of government with all manner of ambition to stop fear mongering about a phantom epidemic of election fraud and start explaining why they’re so scared of letting citizens have their say,” she said. (NPR)

 
Rand’s New Crusade: The Secret 9/11 docs: Coming off the Patriot Act fight, the presidential hopeful is sponsoring a bill to declassify 28 pages of a 9/11 report that may blame Saudi Arabia. (The Daily Beast)

How Healthcare Is Dooming the U.S. Economy in Three Charts: It’s our choice: live with a bankrupt system built almost entirely of perverse incentives, or begin an adult discussion about a system that delivers responsible care to the elderly in line with other advanced nations, but at a fraction of the current cost. (Of Two Minds)

Barney Frank: Obama Is Making ‘A Big Mistake’ On TPP Why give the oligarchs everything they went, in exchange for nothing? Read Franks’ open letter to Obama about the trade deal. (Huffington Post)

Jeb Bush’s Favorite Author Rejects Democracy, Says The Hyper-Rich Should Seize Power: What, he’s supposed to be like Sarah Palin and not read anything? Hey, at least he can read… (Think Progress)

Wild sawfish have ‘virgin births’, essentially cloning themselves: First known case of wild vertebrates cloning themselves and surviving. (Ars Technica)

The End of Britain as We Know It? The fight for Scottish independence isn’t over. A rebellion is brewing the likes of which Britain has not experienced in nearly a century and that, if unchecked, will change the United Kingdom for good. (Politico)

Bernie Sanders is being taken seriously in (and out of) Iowa: It’s astonishing to watch. I thought that there would be a near total media blackout of his campaign, that he’d get more traction than, say, Dennis Kucinich, but not much more. It didn’t happen that way.The genie is out the the bottle in a big way. Of course the voters of Iowa are taking Bernie Sanders seriously: They can hear what he has to say (and they agree with him). Me, I take him so seriously that I sent Bernie money on day 1 and plan to send more. If he represents your views, you might want to consider donating to his campaign, too. (AmericaBlog)

There are no more moderate Republicans. See for yourself. (Washington Post)

Donald Trump: ‘I’m the Most Successful Person Ever to Run for the Presidency’ Trump’s the “most” a lotta things, not one of them really worth bragging about. Still, thick vulgarian fingers crossed that he jumps into the GOP primary with gusto, eh? For the good of America. And don’t forget, he’s got, according to Trump himself, “a Gucci store that’s worth more than Romney.” (Des Moines Register)

Walmart is a cultural sickness: How the American workplace is enriching the wealthy—and destroying everyone else. American workers are conditioned to expect less and less even as they do more and more. And it’s killing them. (Salon)

The new normal? Timothy McVeigh’s anti-government views have moved from the extremist fringe into the GOP mainstream (Newsweek)

Bernie Sanders: A Man with a Cause The seventy-three-year-old from Vermont appears to be attracting bigger crowds than any other candidate, Democrat or Republican. Hey, anything can happen, including Bernie beating Hillary Clinton. He’d then go on to beat the pants off the GOP nominee. That’s not some Bizarro World prediction: who really thought the black guy was gonna win at the start of the 2008 primary season? The Sanders surge is a real thing. (The New Yorker)

47% of Americans would have to Borrow or Sell Something to Cover an Unexpected Expense of $400 Extreme financial insecurity affects nearly half of all Americans. (AllGov.com)

Lindsey Graham Enters White House Race With Emphasis on National Security And unsurprisingly no one gives a shit. (New York Times)

Below, John Stewart is amazed how John McCain is continually setting himself up for jokes where the punchline is Sarah Palin…

 
Florida woman calls 911 to report drunk people at bar - Death and Taxes

Albert Hammond Jr says ‘Courtney Love is full of shit’ - Noisey

Speaking more than one language may delay dementia - USA Today

Boy, 13, suspended for carrying Vera Bradley purse - KLTV

Henry Rollins to star in indie horror-thriller He Never Died - Variety

UK Gov’t losing the plot: Now claiming Snowden leaks could help pedophiles - TechDirt

The Lyme disease battle: True believers and researchers face off over ticks and symptoms - LA Times

Billy Bragg tells artists to blame major labels not Spotify for ‘paltry’ streaming payments - NME

The federal government paid $11.3 million in taxpayer-funded farm subsidies from 1995 to 2012 to 50 billionaires - New York Times

Kapow! Batman, Robin, the Hoff and a Smurf chase Tesco attacker - STV News

Hundreds of tortoises found in luggage at Thai airport - Phys.org

Glenn Beck urges NY state to secede from NYC before it becomes ‘the next Detroit’ - Gothamist

Arkansas cop tasers woman who refuses to show him her breasts: lawsuit - NY Daily News

‘Artificial egg’ made from PLANTS backed by Bill Gates set to revolutionize cooking goes on sale at Whole Foods - Vegetarian Friend

EU rules that gay Africans are entitled to asylum: A gay refugee from an African country where people are jailed for being a homosexual does qualify for asylum - Telegraph

Legalisation of cannabis motion defeated in Irish Parliament - RTE News

Parisian restaurant has a policy of seating “beautiful people” in view of passersby, while keeping less attractive diners hidden - TheLocal.fr

Super Typhoon Haiyan, one of strongest storms ever, hits central Philippines - CNN

Skull marked ‘death to paedophiles’ among bones found off French Riviera - The Guardian
 

Below, a horny parrot REALLY wants a kiss:

 
Hold Back the Road that Goes… The Story of Shudder to Think - Head Medicine

Western black rhino officially declared extinct - 11 Alive

“This is my co-worker’s dog. Seriously.” - reddit

Inside the outrageous world of child cage fighting - Daily Mail

A brief history of video game title designs - Nerdcore

A series of tracks in Oklahoma reveal where a dinosaur most likely slipped and caught itself before continuing on - Scientific American

These abandoned toy factories and shops will haunt your nightmares - io9

Missouri murder conviction based on dreams is tossed - LA Times

Female genital mutilation cases should be treated as child abuse - Huffington Post

Black Flag stream first new album in 28 years - NME

“Dogstep,” a web app that takes any song and adds musically appropriate canine accompaniment - ANIMAL

Testosterone supplements tied to heart attacks, strokes, early death - ABC News

Mystery Solved: The Etymology of “Dude” - Slate

This Breeders song epitomizes the CD era - AV Club

Maine’s largest city approves recreational pot - WCSH

Sarah Harrison joins other Edward Snowden files ‘exiles’ in Berlin: UK journalist’s lawyers advise against returning home after working with NSA whistleblower, says statement on WikiLeaks - The Guardian

Irish Prime Minister has declared his support for gay marriage and promised to campaign for it in a referendum - Independent.ie

Germany wants Snowden to testify on US spying—but in Moscow, not Berlin - Boing Boing

N.J. voters approve constitutional amendment raising minimum wage - NJ.com

Drug combination therapy causes cancer cells to ‘eat themselves’ - Parent Herald
 

Below, an insanely accurate South Park episode on dealing with Time Warner Cable:

 
Texas-sized floating island containing one million tonnes of junk from Japan tsunami drifting towards US - The Independent

Two billion planets in our galaxy may be suitable for life - The Guardian

Former KISS guitarist Ace Frehley has slammed Gene Simmons for comparing him and ex-drummer Peter Criss to cancer - Classic Rock Magazine

Watch After the Ball, the 1897 “adult” film by pioneering director Georges Méliès (NSFW-ish) - Open Culture

The world’s least known cat has been caught on camera in a previously unsurveyed rainforest - Science Daily

Man attempts to sell an entire London record shop on eBay - NME

World-famous Scarecrow Video could soon close its doors - Komo News

SLAYER albums to be reissued on vinyl - Blabbermouth

Gas injections used to enhance oil production linked to quakes in the Permian Basin - Nature

Bloodthirsty FLESH-EATING PLATYPUS once terrorised Australia - The Register

Eminem responds to “Rap God” homophobia accusations - Rolling Stone

Marvel Comics introducing a Muslim girl superhero - New York Times

Jimi Hendrix on PBS ‘American Masters’: Taking a rock legend seriously - EW

30 of the most powerful images ever - Bored Panda

Kofi Annan: Stop ‘war on drugs’ - CNN

Raymond Loewy: the man who designed everything - The Verge

Florida cop fired after he sexually harassed a rape victim while investigating her assault - Salon

China discovers that pollution makes it really hard to spy on people - Quartz

Hepatitis C, a silent killer, meets its match - New York Times

Eye-opening portraits of living conditions for animals in zoos - My Modern Met

Charlie Trotter, famed Chicago chef, found dead in home - Chicago Tribune

In Colombia, no sex till the road’s fixed - Global Post

Goodwill caught selling donors’ personal information - WTHR

Police dogs get pensions in Nottinghamshire, UK, but some taxpayers protest plan - Latin Post

Gut bacteria may cause rheumatoid arthritis - Science Mag
 

Below, best winner EVER on The Price Is Right: