Cognitive scientist and philosopher Daniel Dennett is one of America’s foremost thinkers. In this extract from his new book, he reveals some of the lessons life has taught him

More: Daniel Dennett’s Seven Tools for Thinking

A Republican Texas Judge has ordered a lesbian couple to live apart or give up custody of their children. According to Think Progress, Judge John Roach of McKinney, Texas has given Page Price 30 days to move out of the home she shares with Carolyn Compton and Compton’s two children from a previous marriage because he does not approve of Compton and Price’s “lifestyle.”

Roach has placed a “morality clause” in Compton’s divorce papers, which forbids Compton from having anyone she is not related to “by blood or marriage” in her home past 9:00 p.m. if the children are present. Same sex marriage is illegal in Texas, so by law, Compton cannot live with Price if she wishes to retain custody of her children.

Compton said that she and Price have been together for three years. Compton’s ex-husband rarely bothers to see the children and was previously arrested on charges of third-degree felony stalking in 2011, charges that he was able to plea down to criminal trespassing, a misdemeanor.

In a post on Facebook, Price wrote that Roach had inserted the morality clause into the divorce agreement when Compton’s ex-husband Joshua Compton attempted to gain custody of the children in 2011. The judge wrote that he disapproved of the two women’s “lifestyle.”

“Our children are all happy and well adjusted. By his enforcement, being that we cannot marry in this state, I have been ordered to move out of my home,” Price wrote.

The two women are working with attorneys to figure out what steps they can take to fight the state’s notoriously conservative court system.

Ken Upton Jr., senior staff attorney for Lambda Legal’s Dallas office, told the Dallas Voice newspaper that morality clauses are a holdover from a time when judges tried to keep people with children from living together outside of marriage. Courts often insert the clauses without telling the people involved, particularly in backward, conservative areas like Collin County, Texas.

“What the clause has become is an extra burden on gay people because they’re no more likely to violate it than straight people,” Upton told the Voice. “It’s a problem that continues with homophobia.”

More: Republican Texas Judge Orders Lesbian Couple to Live Apart or Lose Children

… sorry about the rampant disregard for spell checking or proper grammar, the irony of it being Nazi’s with grammar issues is not lost on me.

I won’t admit to how many of the things mentioned in this video I used (or was guilty of)

RBS

Your sex appeal shoots through the roof! You achieve the status of “sexy man”. Your wife sees you in a new attractive light which is the only light that allows her to see you this way. In fact, many other women notice as well—wherever you are. You morph into that man other guys envy and women adore. And until now, you had no idea that it had everything to do with how you think about yourself.

What happened to you? You are no longer an unattractive, adolescent-minded guy whose emotional and physical satisfaction are controlled by others and what you can get from them. You have become a man who now knows his old sexual neediness came from a place of weakness. Your new strength is an aura of masculine confidence which allows you unapologetically to admit that you want passion but clearly don’t need it. Now this is attractive!

More: A Married Man’s Sexual Epiphany — the Good Men Project

Yet, in the fine print, the agency also effectively empowered a handful of select banks to continue controlling the $700 trillion derivatives market.

Big Banks Get Break in Rules to Limit Risks (May 15, 2013)

Just five banks hold more than 90 percent of all derivatives contracts, which allow companies to either speculate in the markets or protect against risk. This tight grip came under fire amid concerns that those banks overcharge some companies for derivatives and pose a systemic risk to the economy. Derivatives, for example, pushed the insurer American International Group to the brink of collapse before it was rescued by the government.

In the wake of the crisis, the commission initially planned to require hedge funds, asset managers and other corporations to contact at least five banks when seeking a price for a derivatives contract. The proposed requirement was intended to bolster competition among the banks.

Under pressure from the banks — and some firms that buy derivatives — the agency agreed to lower the requirement to two banks. In about 15 months, the standard will automatically rise to three banks, but the agency agreed to produce a study that could undermine that broader standard.

More: Regulators Overhaul Derivatives Market, but With a Caveat

WINDSOR, Ontario — Assumption Park gives residents of this city lovely views of the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit skyline. Lately they’ve been treated to another sight: a three-story pile of petroleum coke covering an entire city block on the other side of the Detroit River.

Detroit’s ever-growing black mountain is the unloved, unwanted and long overlooked byproduct of Canada’s oil sands boom.

And no one knows quite what to do about it, except Koch Carbon, which owns it.

The company is controlled by Charles and David Koch, wealthy industrialists who back a number of conservative and libertarian causes including activist groups that challenge the science behind climate change. The company sells the high-sulfur, high-carbon waste, usually overseas, where it is burned as fuel.

More: Mountain of Petroleum Coke From Oil Sands Rises in Detroit

A scowling Donald Trump raised his voice on the witness stand Wednesday while an attorney grilled him and then rolled his eyes at the “Apprentice” star’s answers, prompting a federal judge to scold both men in open court and order them to behave.

The admonition came during Trump’s second and final day on the stand at a civil trial where he is accused of making false promises to an investor to lure her into purchasing condos at his glitzy Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago.

“You have been dancing around and boxing each other,” U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve told Trump and plaintiff’s attorney Shelly Kulwin. “You’ve got to stop it.”

“Let’s get control of ourselves,” she added before a brief recess.

After cooling down during the final minutes of his testimony, Trump heated back up as he spoke to reporters on his way out of the Chicago courthouse.

“This is a disgrace,” Trump said, blasting the 87-year-old investor whose lawsuit led to this week’s trial. “She’s trying to rip me off.”

Jacqueline Goldberg’s suit claims Trump carried out a bait-and-switch in which a profit-sharing plan was promised then withdrawn after she agreed to buy two condos for around $1 million apiece at the 92-story luxury building; it opened in 2009.

After court adjourned Wednesday, Kulwin responded to Trump’s claim that he, not Goldberg, is the victim.

“The notion is ludicrous,” he told reporters.

More: Trump Completes Testimony in Chicago Trial, Tells Reporters Plaintiff Tried to ‘Rip’ Him Off

WINDSOR, Ontario — Assumption Park gives residents of this city lovely views of the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit skyline. Lately they’ve been treated to another sight: a three-story pile of petroleum coke covering an entire city block on the other side of the Detroit River.

Detroit’s ever-growing black mountain is the unloved, unwanted and long overlooked byproduct of Canada’s oil sands boom.

And no one knows quite what to do about it, except Koch Carbon, which owns it.

The company is controlled by Charles and David Koch, wealthy industrialists who back a number of conservative and libertarian causes including activist groups that challenge the science behind climate change. The company sells the high-sulfur, high-carbon waste, usually overseas, where it is burned as fuel.

The coke comes from a refinery alongside the river owned by Marathon Petroleum, which has been there since 1930. But it began refining exports from the Canadian oil sands — and producing the waste that is sold to Koch — only in November.

“What is really, really disturbing to me is how some companies treat the city of Detroit as a dumping ground,” said Rashida Tlaib, the Michigan state representative for that part of Detroit. “Nobody knew this was going to happen.” Almost 56 percent of Canada’s oil production is from the petroleum-soaked oil sands of northern Alberta, more than 2,000 miles north.

More: Mountain of Petroleum Coke From Oil Sands Rises in Detroit

73 years later is still relevant and powerful as ever.

It’s also because of this movie that Charlie Chaplin was labelled a “premature anti-fascist.”

Click the link to see the pictures.

Iranian photographer Ebrahim Noruzi has won two awards at the World Photo Press 2013. The winners of the world’s largest and most prestigious annual press photography contest were announced on Friday. Noruzi won the first prize of the Observed Portraits Section for his photo collection “Victims of Forced Love”.

More: Iranian Photographer Wins Awards at World Photo Press

2nd link—collection of photos