Grace Jones at Buckingham Palace

On the third day, there was early drama as Prince Philip, who is getting ready to celebrate his 91st birthday, was taken to King Edward VII Hospital. The Prince will miss the remainder of the festivities because of a bladder infection.

Today is all about the all star concert being held at Buckingham Palace. Entertainers include Sir Elton John, Robbie Williams, Grace Jones, Will i.am. , Annie Lennox and so many more.  At one point Sheer Madness played from the roof of Buckingham Palace!  As always, Grace Jones dressed perfectly for the occasion. 

At one point in the evening, the Palace itself served as a back drop with a video montage of the Queen's sixty years being shown on its facade! Later this evening the 'beacons' of light will travel across the United Kingdom with the Queen lighting the one at Buckingham Palace.

 

 

BusinessInsider.com has compiled this year's 'misery index' which was an economic model put forward by Arthur Orkum. According to the site, you obtain a 'misery rating' by summing up a country's unemployment and inflation rates to access conditions on the ground.

Here are the top ten worst countries in the world for living conditions and you can see another ten by clicking here.

1. Zimbabwe: (Misery Index: 100.6%)

2. Liberia: (95%)

3. Burkina Fasco: (80.6%)

4. Turkmenistan: (75%)

5. Djibourti: (66%)

6. Namibia: (56.5%)

7. Yeman: (55%)

8. Nepal: (53.8%)

9. Kosovo: (53.6%)

10. Belarus: (53.4%)

 

 

Britain's Prince Philip has apparently been take to the King Edward VII Hospital with a bladder infection. The Prince will be 92 next week so any kind of infection is serious business. He will miss the remainder of the Jubilee celebrations which includes tonight's concert and the national service and procession tomorrow. He was taken to the hospital from Windsor Castle.

 

 

The National Theatre of Scotland is presenting Alan Cumming in "MACBETH." In an extremely challenging stage play, Cumming will play every single role in the historical Shakespeare tragedy. The location will be a psychiatric unit and Cumming is a patient who channels the entire play and all of its characters. It will be a multi-media theatrical experience and unlike anything ever done on the stage.

He will be bringing it to New York to the Lincoln Center Festival from July 5th to July 14th. The ambitious effort will be directed by John Tiffany (currently nominated for a directing Tony Award for the musical "ONCE") and Andrew Goldberg. Cumming was quoted:

"I have been obsessed with the play all my life. Speaking to John in New York, earlier this year, I had this idea I wanted to swap the roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, because there are so many things about gender, I thought it would be a really exciting idea to flip that.” He added: "So we did this reading like that, in New York, and Andrew suggested that I play all the parts, and I agreed to the idea.”

 

 

Judith Light, one of the LGBT communities favorite actresses and champion for full equality, won the prestigious Drama Desk Award for "Best Featured Actress" for her role in "Other Desert Cities". Next to the Tony Awards, this is one of the most exciting awards to win on Broadway.

Other awards went to "Once" for "Best Musical", another LGBG favorite Audra McDonald for "Best Actress in a Musical" for "The Gershwin's Porgy and Bess" and Tracie Bennett as "Best Actress in a Play" for "End of the Rainbow".

Here is a list of all the winners from BroadwayWorld.com.

 

 

There is absolutely no doubt anymore that a close collection of billionaires surrounding Mitt Romney is raising obscene amounts of money to put one of their own in the White House. Rolling Stones' Tim Dickinson has conducted brilliant research and written a powerful article about the 16 billionaires who have made it a mission to elect Mitt Romney.

Dickerson opens with

Presidential politics has always been a rich man's game. But now, thanks to the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United that upended decades of limits on campaign donations, financing a presidential race is the exclusive domain of the kind of megadonor whose portfolios make Mitt Romney look middle-class. "I have lots of money, and can give it legally now," Texas billionaire and top GOP moneyman Harold Simmons recently bragged to The Wall Street Journal. "Just never to Democrats."

The journalist summarizes the "Billionaire 16":

That capitulation is evident in Romney's campaign. Most of the megadonors backing his candidacy are elderly billionaires: Their median age is 66, and their median wealth is $1 billion. Each is looking for a payoff that will benefit his business interests, and they will all profit from Romney's pledge to eliminate inheritance taxes, extend the Bush tax cuts for the superwealthy – and then slash the top tax rate by another 20 percent. Romney has firmly joined the ranks of the economic nutcases who spout the lie of trickle-down economics. "Support from billionaires has always been the main thing keeping those charlatans and cranks in business," Krugman noted. "And now the same people effectively own a whole political party."

Below are just four of the sixteen but click here to see all of "Billionaire 16":

THE COKE DEALER: William Koch

Position: The "other" Koch brother, Bill, sold his stake in Koch Industries to brothers David and Charles in the 1980s. He now runs Oxbow Carbon, a global dealer in petroleum coke, a cement-manufacturing fuel that's high in climate-warming carbon dioxide.
Age 72
Fortune $4 billion (Forbes 400 rank: 81)
Past Donations Koch and his wife gave $70,000 to House Speaker John Boehner last year. Boehner "looks out for business interests," a Koch deputy explained.
Current Donations Gave $2 million to Romney's Super PAC, including $250,000 in his own name, $750,000 through Oxbow Carbon and another $1 million through a subsidiary. A sister company of Oxbow operates a Colorado mine that sells coal to the federal government – meaning that its campaign contribution is subsidized, in part, by taxpayers.
What He Wants To pollute for free. Koch's fortune is tied up in some of the nation's dirtiest industries. He blasts the EPA, which has been trying to crack down on carbon pollution, as "hyper­aggressive."
How He Lives His wine collection, which includes 40,000 bottles, is worth $12 million. Owns a mansion in Palm Beach, a vacation villa in Cape Cod, four properties near Aspen worth $47.5 million, and a cattle ranch in Colorado decorated with an Old West ghost town that he bought for $3 million and moved to his land. Purchased the only known photograph of Billy the Kid.

THE WASTE BARON: Harold Simmons

Position Traffics in toxic chemicals and hazardous waste as head of Contran; owns one of the world's largest producers of titanium. A former corporate raider nicknamed "Ice Man," he pioneered the leveraged-buyout tactics that decimated American industry.
Age 81
Fortune $9.8 billion (Forbes rank: 33)
Past Donations Spent $3 million to Swift-boat John Kerry in 2004, and another $2.8 million in 2008 on "issue ads" linking Obama to Sixties radical Bill Ayers. "If we had run more ads," he lamented, "we could have killed Obama."
Current Donations Before backing Romney with $800,000, Simmons made $1 million bets on Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum. His total giving of $16.7 million makes him the GOP's second-largest investor after Adelson. Most of the cash went to American Crossroads, the Super PAC founded by Karl Rove that has close ties to the Romney campaign.
What He Wants Plans to store radioactive waste from 36 states in an underground dump in Texas; has been sued repeatedly by the Justice Department for failing to clean up contaminated Superfund sites. Calls Obama "the most dangerous American alive, because he would eliminate free enterprise in this country."
How He Lives Doles out $100 bills to panhandlers. Jets between his coastal estate in California, his Arkansas ranch stocked with 35 bears and 100 elk, and his $4 million mansion on a private lake in Dallas, surrounded by 17,000 tulips.

THE PYRAMID SCHEMER: Frank VanderSloot

Position CEO of Melaleuca Inc., a "multilevel marketing" firm based in Idaho that sells off-brand cleaning products and nutritional supplements. Moonlights as a megarancher of cattle and quarter horses.
Age 63
Fortune Melaleuca's annual revenues last year totaled $1 billion. VanderSloot is the 86th-largest private landowner in the United States, holding 110,448 acres.
Past Donations More than $500,000 to Republicans, including $8,100 to former GOP senator Larry Craig of Idaho.
Current Donations Melaleuca and three Asian subsidiaries gave a combined $1 million to Romney's Super PAC. VanderSloot also serves as a national finance co-chair of the Romney campaign.
What He Wants Fewer consumer protections. The FDA has rebuked Melaleuca for making "false and misleading" claims about its supplements, and the company has signed a consent decree agreeing to "not engage in the marketing and promotion of an illegal pyramid." VanderSloot is also an anti-gay crusader: He tried to kill a PBS program for promoting "the homosexual lifestyle," and gave big bucks to pass California's ban on same-sex marriage.
How He Lives Owns a 17-bedroom home in Idaho Falls. Breeds Angus cattle in Idaho and quarter horses in Utah.

THE KING OF CHICAGO: Kenneth Griffin

Position CEO of Citadel LLC, a hedge fund that accounted for nearly eight percent of all U.S. trading before the crash.
Age 43
Fortune $3 billion (Forbes rank: 171)
Past Donations A Chicago power broker, Griffin gave $200,000 to Rahm Emanuel's mayoral bid.
Current Donations Gave $1 million to Restore Our Future, plus another $1 million to American Crossroads. Believes that he and his fellow billionaires "actually have an insufficient influence" on the political process.
What He Wants An end to the Volcker Rule and Dodd-Frank, reforms that seek to rein in Wall Street excesses. Complains that "every bank in the United States is really under the thumb of the government." Has donated $1.5 million to Americans for Prosperity, a Koch brothers outfit that lobbies against environmental regulations.
How He Lives Held his wedding reception at Versailles. Owns a $7 million penthouse in Chicago, a $40 million apartment in New York, a mansion in Aspen and a vacation estate in Hawaii. Bought a Jasper Johns painting for $80 million.

 

 

Despite cold winds and at times even downpours of rain, nothing seem to dampen the enthusiasm of the British. Celebrating this once in a lifetime occasion of a Queen sitting for sixty years gave the Brits, who love any reason to stage a pageant, the reason to mount the largest ever. Over 1,000 boats created a massive flotilla that stretched seven miles. Ranging from boats used at the famous Dunkirk evacuation to the London Philharmonic Orchestra on a barge playing 'Singing in the Rain", not one boat disappointed.

The only thing that could compete were the massive crowds along the shore who were deck out for the occasion and refused to move no matter how cold or how rainy. Even the famous "War Horse" bowed to the Queen as her majesty's ship passed the National Theatre.

Here are photographs from MailOnline.com and you click to see so many more.