(starting with the earliest)

Johnny Carson
Spencer Dryden (drummer)
Phillip Johnson (architect)
Samuel Francis (essayist)
Sandra Dee (actress)
John Raitt (Broadway performer)
Peter Benenson (founder of Amnesty International)
Ossie Davis (actor)
Bobby Short (singer)
George F. Kennan (diplomatic great)
John DeLorean (car by his name)
Andre Norton (SF writer)
Terry Schiavo (cause celebre for the resuscitate-everyone group)
Mitch Hedberg, comedian
Pope John Paul II
Saul Bellow, novelist
Prince Rainier of Monaco
Andre Dworkin (radical feminist)
Peter Rodino (led impeachment against Nixon)
Col. David P. Hackworth (promoter of advancement through military ranks)
David Sutherland, D&D artist
Chet Helms, rock impresario
Gaylord Nelson, former US Senator
James W. Stockdale (POW hero, Perot's VP choice)
James Doohan (Montgomery Scott in the original Star Trek)
General William Westmoreland (top US general in the Vietnam War)
Peter Jennings, ABC TV news anchor
John Johnson, editor of Ebony and Jet  Magazines
Barbara bel Geddes, actress
Robert Moog, inventor of Moog synthesizer
Jude Wanninski, conservative thinker
Chief Justice William Rehnquist
Bob Denver (Gilligan of Gilliigan's Island)
Don Adams (Maxwell Smart of Get Smart)
M. Scott Peck, self-help guru
Simon Wiesenthal, hunter of Nazi war criminals
August Wilson (no live link)
Nipsey Russell, comedian
Rosa Parks, pioneer of the Civil Rights struggle in the South
Peter Drucker, management expert
Link Wray (discoverer of the "Power Chord" in rock
Pat Morita, actor
Alfred Anderson, last soldier to hear the guns go silent for the Christmas truce
Stan Berenstain (co-writer of the Berenstain Bears of child literature)
Clarence Laking, last Canadian WWI veteran
Senator Eugene McCarthy
Richard Pryor, comedian
someone identified as the Queen of Bootleggers
Senator William Proxmire ("no Golden Fleece to line his coffin!")
Jack Anderson, journalist
Shelly Winters, actress
Wilson Pickett (obscure)
Lew Rawls, singer
Coretta Scott (Mrs. Martin Luther) King
(Western Union telegram services)
Al Lewis ("Grandpa Munster")
Betty Friedan (Feminine Mystique)
Wendy Wasserstein, writer
Friedrich Engel, Nazi war criminal, a/k/a "Butcher of Genoa" -- bad guys make history too.
Peter Benchley (Jaws)
Dave Tatsuno, secret photographer of the Topaz 'relocation' camp
Phil Brown, actor
Curt Gowdy, sportscaster
Andreas Katsoulas (SF writer)
Don Knotts, comedian
Claude R. Kinsey, escaper from a Nazi POW camp
Darren McGavin, actor
Octavia Butler, novelist
Dennis Weaver, actor
Harry Brown, financial writer
Jack Wilde, child actor
Dana Reeve, handicap advocate
Kirby Puckett, HOF baseball star
Ali Farka Toure (sorry, link dead)
Gordon Parks, photographer
Luna (dead link)
Slobodan Milosevich (dictator, kleptocrat, and war criminal -- roast in Hell!)
Maureen Stapleton, actress
Buck Owens, country music performer
Lyn Nofziger and Casper Weinberger, two figures of the Reagan Presidency on the same day
Stanislas Lem (Solaris)
Gene Pitney, singer-songwriter
Reverend William Sloane Coffin
Muriel Spark, novelist
Arthur Winston, perfect attendance on his job as a Los Angeles bus terminal worker (missed only the day on which he buried his wife)
Scott Crossfield, first test pilot to fly at Mach II
Tom Dundee, folk singer
Jane Jacobs, social critic
John Kenneth Galbraith, economist
Louis Rukeyser, business journalist
Jean-François Revel, French social critic
Floyd Patterson, boxer
Jaroslav Pelikan, scholar on Christianity
Lew Anderson (Clarabelle the Cow on Howdy Doody)
Frankie Thomas, actor (Space Cadet)
Senator Lloyd Bentsen (great one -- and Texas is largely a political sewer now)
Marshall Fenwick, study of popular culture

Desmond Decker, reggae singer
Leon Wiel 109, who won decorations for heroism in both WWI and WWII for France
Frank Muther, survivor of Bataan Death March who got a memorial started
Ken Lay, one of the biggest economic criminals ever (Enrob Corporation)
Aaron Spelling, RV producer
Arf Mardin, pop music figure
Syd Barrett, guitarist for Pink Floyd
Jim Baen, SF writer
June Allyson
Mickey Spillane, mystery writer
Elmer Hendl, one of the most decorated WWI military chaplains
Jack Warden, actor
Harry Oliveri, inventor of the Philly cheesesteak sandwich (medical nightmare)
Ta Mok, Khmer Rouge mass murderer (Roast in Hell!)
Pamela Waechter, murder victim
Elizabeth Schwartzkopf, opera singer
Susan Butcher, dog-driving champion at Iditarod
Arthur Lee, rock musician
James Van Allen, physicist (Van Allen radiation bands)
Alfredo Stroessner, Paraguayan dictator
Glenn Ford, actor
Steve Irwin, wildlife showman
Ann Richards, former Texas Governor (successor would be George W. Bush)
Jeff Cooper, rewrote the Marine Corps 'book' on the use of small arms
Ed Benedict, creator of The Flintstones
Freddy Fender, Tejano musician
Christopher Glenn, TV/radio journalist 
William Styron, novelist Sophie's Choice
Ed Bradley, TV journalist
Jack Williamson, SF writer
Jack Palance, actor
Milton Friedman, economist
Bob Altman, movie director
Boz Burrell, bassist
Jean Kirkpatrick, former Ambassador to the United Nations
Moses Hardy, last African-American veteran of WWI
Chilean dictator Pinochet (Roast in Hell!)
Elizabeth Bolden, then the oldest living person (116 in 2006)
Lamar Hunt, billionaire
Ahmet Ertegun, founder of Atlantic Records
James Brown, "Godfather of Soul"
US President Gerald R. Ford
Sadam Hussein, horrific tyrant, warmonger, and serial mass murderer. Roast in Hell! (I called him "Satan Hussein").
Peter Boyle, actor
Del Reeves, country music singer
Mamofuko Ando, inventor of ramen noodles
Yvonne de Carlo "Lily Munster"
Benny Parsons, auto racer and commentator
Art Buchwald, political cartoonist
world's oldest person (age 115 in 2007, WWI vet)
his successor, then 114 in 2007
Molly Ivins, liberal columnist in the lion's den for liberals (Texas)
Anna Nicole Smith, gold-digger
Lothar-Guenther Buchheim, author of Das Boot
Arthur Schlesinger, historian
Brad Delp, lead singer for Boston



My first post there:

Quote:Much delayed. I see Johnny Carson as one of the leading characters of the Silent Generation, a prime example of a memorable contributor to the American character.

The Silent may have had the largest collection of self-effacing comics, and as such types as Johnny Carson, Alan King, Bob Denver, and Richard Pryor leave the scene through death, we are going to miss them as we become more deadly in our seriousness in increasingly-dangerous time.

We need to poke fun at ourselves when egos bloat among people whose egos have no justification. But even without deaths we notice that the likes of Andy Griffith, Dick Van Dyke, Tim Conway, Carol Burnett, Mary Tyler Moore, and Bill Cosby no longer creating the humanistic comedy that we once thought the norm.

The Silent, a generation that many of us remember from youth (I was born in 1955) are now... old.

Comedy is not as easy an art as it looks.

Quote:Two disparate, elderly figures of music:

Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007)

It's been a bad year for classical music -- Mstislav Rostropovich, Beverly Sills, Luciano Pavarotti, and now Stockhausen.

-- and

Ike Turner (1931-2007)*

I installed a word filer to block a few profane words; those words will cause some networks/firewalls to block the site.


___________________________________

Edit 05/14/16

After receiving feedback and doing further research I decided to disable the filter.  I ask that poster avoid inappropriate language in subject lines.

I have set up a warning system in order to address inappropriate behavior on the board.  There are three levels of warning that a poster can receive:
 
1)   Incidental warning: bumps a person’s warning level up 5% for one hour, this warning is a way of telling a person to cool it but shouldn’t have any negative consequences.
2)   Minor Warning: bumps a person’s warning up 10% for 2 weeks, this is for more severe or repeat offenses.
3)   Major Warning: bumps a person’s warning level up 25% for one month, this is for even more severe or habitual offenses.

Of course the most severe offenses, or most habitual offenders, as well as spammers will be permanently banned.   The specifics of the warning levels and penalties are subject to change, and this post will be edited to reflect those changes.
 
Feedback on the warning system can be given in this thread.

If you wish you can talk about the warning system here.

Third largest dwarf planet found.

Quote:“Astronomers have found that a previously overlooked rocky body that lies in the Kuiper belt beyond Neptune is far larger than previously thought, making it the third largest dwarf planet in our solar system, after Pluto and Eris”
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.384...ld.iop.org

"We present the first comprehensive thermal and rotational analysis of the second most distant trans-Neptunian object (TNOs) (225088) 2007 OR10. We combined optical light curves provided by the Kepler Space Telescope–K2 extended mission and thermal infrared data provided by the Herschel Space Observatory. We found that (225088) 2007 OR10 is likely to be larger and darker than derived by earlier studies”…

Link

Quote:magine an economy without bosses. It’s not a utopian vision but a growing daily reality for many enterprises. A close analysis of the performance of worker-owned cooperative firms—companies in which workers share in management and ownership—shows that, compared to standard top-down firms, co-ops can be a viable, even superior way of doing business.

The term “co-op” evokes images of collective farming or crunchy craft breweries. But Virginie Perotin of Leeds University Business School synthesized research on “labor-managed firms” in Western Europe, the United States and Latin America, and found that, aside from the holistic social benefits of worker autonomy, giving workers a direct stake in managing production enables a business to operate more effectively. On balance, Perotin concludes, “worker cooperatives are more productive than conventional businesses, with staff working ‘better and smarter’ and production organized more efficiently.”

Under worker-run management structures, co-ops might avoid the usual friction between bosses giving orders from above, and staff misunderstanding or disputing decisions or resisting unfair work burdens from below. Fusing the workforce and management streamlines operations and saves energy otherwise sunk into training and monitoring the workforce.

Perotin highlights research on French cooperatives showing that “in several industries conventional firms would produce more with their current levels of employment and capital if they adopted the employee-owned firms’ way of organizing.”

Contrary to stereotype, the European co-op sector is generally as diverse as any other type of ownership structure, including full-scale factories. Though co-op conversion is often seen as a way to rescue “failing” firms, Perotin’s research reveals that in France from 1997 to 2001 more than eight in 10 worker co-ops starting up during this period were established “from scratch,” not derived from ownership transfers in failing companies (compared to new business formations overall, co-ops had a larger portion of brand-new startups).

By prioritizing worker autonomy, co-ops provide more sustainable long-term employment, but not only because worker-owners seek to protect their own livelihoods. If a company runs into economic distress, Perotin says, co-ops are generally more adept at preserving jobs while planning longer-term adjustments to the firm’s operations, such as slowing down expansion to maintain current assets—whereas traditional corporations may pay less attention to strategic planning and simply shed jobs to tighten budgets.

While co-ops vary in form, the underlying philosophy, particularly in Europe, is the co-op as both democratic enterprise and public trust. Often worker-owned firms are mandated—either by law or corporate bylaws—to reserve a portion of assets for longer-term preservation of the integrity of the co-op model. Even if the owners close or leave the business, these indivisible assets are recycled back into future co-op generations or co-op support organizations. The practice seems less common among American co-ops, but in European co-op culture, Perotin observes, “we set up a collective good, we set up an institution for future generations.”

There are far fewer co-ops in the United States than in the established French and Spanish co-op sectors, with only an estimated 300 to 400 US worker cooperatives “employing around 7,000 people and generating over $400 million in annual revenues,” according to the United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives (USFWC). But in an increasingly precarious economy, advocates push worker ownership as a pathway to restore equity and control to labor. Co-ops can boost career mobility and seed homegrown job opportunities, while communities benefit from an ownership structure that keeps capital reinvested locally, not exploited or outsourced to faceless corporate chains.

“We don’t see any reason why this shouldn’t be the way that businesses are preserved as the owner retires, or the way that startups happen,” says Melissa Hoover, executive director of USFWC’s Democracy at Work Institute. Through advocacy and training programs, USFWC helps incubate new co-ops and promotes policies fostering grassroots worker-ownership. In some areas, budding co-ops are evolving into a pillar of community development programs: New York City, for example, recently launched a $1.2 million initiative (update: now raised to $2.1 million) to develop and network local co-ops. Last year California enacted legislation to streamline the legal framework for founding a co-op.

Though the co-op model is not widespread, a few have built extensive operations, such as Bronx-based Cooperative Home Care Associates, home healthcare agency that employs more than 2,000 workers in union jobs upholding living wage and fair scheduling standards. Others include DIY print shops, neighborhood cafes or renewable-energy producers, often founded on a socially conscious ethos.

But could these co-op shops “scale up” to rival major corporate employers? Hoover projects that an oncoming wave of retiring Baby Boomer small business owners could offer fresh opportunities for co-op conversion. Many of these firms are viable, but won’t attract big buyers, so instead of folding, a retiring owner can hand the keys over to veteran staff. “If it’s a buyer’s market,” Hoover says, “why not help the buyers be people who have never had a chance to own a business before—the people who work in them?”

Amid stagnant wages and rising inequality, Hoover adds, “I actually see a competitive advantage in cooperatives, particularly as our world crumbles around us. There’s environmental crises, there’s capital crises, people are starving and homeless in the richest country in the world. And as that begins to filter through the consciousness of everyday people…how do we envision a different system?… This actually is a system that foregrounds member benefit and community benefit in the [organization’s] form.”

For worker-owners, the business proposition is even more straightforward: Max Perez, an employee-owner at Arizmendi Bakery in the Bay Area, discusses in a USFWC report how the co-op helped him overcome the employment barriers that he faced after leaving prison.

“I was really nervous to tell them about my past, but the co-op gave me a chance because they cared more about me than my record,” he writes. A family-sustaining co-op job has enabled him and other workers to cope with the high cost of living and remain rooted in the community. “It’s hard work at the bakery, we don’t always agree, but that’s why I care about this place so much, you know? I want other people to have the chance I did.”

Co-ops may not bring about a revolution, but they do bring a priceless return on investment—giving workers the power to repay one good turn with another.

Link

Quote:WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is planning to issue a sweeping directive telling every public school district in the country to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms that match their gender identity.

A letter to school districts will go out Friday, adding to a highly charged debate over transgender rights in the middle of the administration’s legal fight with North Carolina over the issue. The declaration — signed by Justice and Education department officials — will describe what schools should do to ensure that none of their students are discriminated against.

It does not have the force of law, but it contains an implicit threat: Schools that do not abide by the Obama administration’s interpretation of the law could face lawsuits or a loss of federal aid.

The move is certain to draw fresh criticism, particularly from Republicans, that the federal government is wading into local matters and imposing its own values on communities across the country that may not agree. It represents the latest example of the Obama administration using a combination of policies, lawsuits and public statements to change the civil rights landscape for gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender people.

After supporting the rights of gay people to marry, allowing them to serve openly in the military and prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating against them, the administration is wading into the battle over bathrooms and siding with transgender people.

“No student should ever have to go through the experience of feeling unwelcome at school or on a college campus,” John B. King Jr., the secretary of the Department of Education, said in a statement. “We must ensure that our young people know that whoever they are or wherever they come from, they have the opportunity to get a great education in an environment free from discrimination, harassment and violence.”

Courts have not settled the question of whether the nation’s sex discrimination laws apply in matters of gender identity. But administration officials, emboldened by a federal appeals court ruling in Virginia last month, think they have the upper hand. This week, the Justice Department and North Carolina sued each other over a state law that restricts access to bathrooms, locker rooms and changing rooms. The letter to school districts had been in the works for months, Justice Department officials said.

“A school may not require transgender students to use facilities inconsistent with their gender identity or to use individual-user facilities when other students are not required to do so,” according to the letter, a copy of which was provided to The New York Times.

A school’s obligation under federal law “to ensure nondiscrimination on the basis of sex requires schools to provide transgender students equal access to educational programs and activities even in circumstances in which other students, parents, or community members raise objections or concerns,” the letter states. “As is consistently recognized in civil rights cases, the desire to accommodate others’ discomfort cannot justify a policy that singles out and disadvantages a particular class of students.”

As soon as a child’s parent or legal guardian asserts a gender identity for the student that “differs from previous representations or records,” the letter says, the child is to be treated accordingly — without any requirement for a medical diagnosis or birth certificate to be produced. It says that schools may — but are not required to — provide other restroom and locker room options to students who seek “additional privacy” for whatever reason.

Attached to the letter, the Obama administration will include a 25-page document describing “emerging practices” that are in place in many schools around the country. Those included installing privacy curtains or allowing students to change in bathroom stalls.

In a blog post accompanying the letter, senior officials at the Justice and Education Departments said they issued it in response to a growing chorus of inquiries from educators, parents and students across the country, including from the National Association of Secondary School Principals, to clarify their obligations and “best practices” for the treatment of transgender students.

“Schools want to do right by all of their students and have looked to us to provide clarity on steps they can take to ensure that every student is comfortable at their school, is in an environment free of discrimination, and has an opportunity to thrive,” wrote Catherine E. Lhamon, the assistant secretary of education for civil rights, and Vanita Gupta, the head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

Thomas Aberli, a high school principal in Louisville, Ky., said the new guidance would help administrators across the country who are trying to determine the best way to establish safe and inclusive schools. He said his school had little to work with when it drafted a policy that was put in place last year.

“What you don’t do is go and tell a kid, ‘You know, there is something so freakishly different about you that you make other people uncomfortable, so we’re going to make you do something different’,” said Mr. Aberli, who estimated that his school of 1,350 students had about six transgender children. “There’s been no incident since its implementation. It’s really just a nonissue in our school.”

The White House has called North Carolina’s law “meanspirited” and said this week that federal agencies were continuing a review of their policies on the treatment of transgender people while the administration waged its legal battle with the state.

President Obama condemned the law last month, saying it was partly the result of politics and “emotions” that people had on the issue.

“When it comes to respecting the equal rights of all people, regardless of sexual orientation, whether they’re transgender or gay or lesbian, although I respect their different viewpoints, I think it’s very important for us not to send signals that anybody is treated differently,” Mr. Obama said at a news conference in London.

The struggle over the rights of transgender people has reverberated on the presidential campaign trail and become a defining issue in the final year of Mr. Obama’s tenure, prompting boycotts of North Carolina by some celebrities and businesses that had planned to create jobs there. The fresh guidance to be issued Friday seemed certain to intensify that debate, and showed that Mr. Obama and his administration intend to press the issue of transgender rights aggressively as the legal challenge unfolds.

The Justice Department has for years made gay and transgender issues centerpieces of its civil rights agenda. Former Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. described that campaign as a continuation of the civil rights era that brought equal rights to African-Americans. And this week, Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch spoke passionately to transgender people as she cast the lawsuit against North Carolina in historic terms.

“We stand with you,” she said. “And we will do everything we can to protect you going forward. Please know that history is on your side.”

Some Republicans have defended North Carolina’s law by arguing that it would be inappropriate to allow transgender women to use the same bathroom as young girls. Before ending his presidential bid last week, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas charged that Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, and Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee, “both agree that grown men should be allowed to use the little girls’ restroom.”

World's oldest person, Susannah Mushatt Jones, dies at 116.

And other dirt.  I figured it would be interesting to have a thread to record all dirt that's going to come out of Shillary's closet full of skeletons.

We'll start with fraud at the Clinton Foundation and lots of missing money.

http://www.breitbart.com/video/2016/05/1...oundation/

Video is by Fox Business.

1. Move thread here.  I think it makes more sense.
2. From Finland:





Album · 2010
Filed under Hard Rock

more
Tracklist
01 Intro (0:48)
02 The Trip (3:25)
03 I'm Free (3:31)
04 Fever (4:43)
05 Bad Year (2:35)
06 Sound Of Green (3:46)
07 Hail (3:58)
08 Burnin' Up (3:32)
09 Catfish (3:39)
10 Psychedelia (6:34)

Total time: 36:31
Line-up/Musicians
- Otu / vocals,guitars
- Kride / guitars, backing vocals
- Andy / drums
- Frasse / bass
About this release
Self-Released