'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Jim Hightower: THE OLYMPICS: LET THE SPYING BEGIN (jimhightower.com)
It's another Olympic year - that quadrennial spectacular of athletic prowess, international goodwill and government spying on all who attend.
The government, this time around is the authoritarian regime of China.
For crying out loud! (guardian.co.uk)
Hillary Clinton claims the turning point in her presidential campaign was when she almost burst into tears. But was her emotion even genuine - and when did we start falling for such sob stories, asks Germaine Greer.
Lionel Shriver: Last time, Americans elected a moron (guardian.co.uk)
These past seven years, being an American expat has been far from pleasant: watching presidential press conferences on the BBC and cringeing at the "nucular" ambitions of Iran. Suffering the smug, superior smirks of locals sure that all Americans are morons because they elected one. Walking the streets of London with a bag over my head, which has been murder on my hair.
Garrison Keillor: In defense of stepping out of line
I went to see "Sweeney Todd" last week and the high point was after the movie when I headed for the men's room, passing a long line of women waiting to get into the women's, and when I got inside the men's, a tall woman in a long black coat emerged from a stall and walked out.
JOEL STEIN: Open mike at L.A.'s City Hall (latimes.com)
Think the public comment period at City Council meetings is useless? Wait until the pols start talking.
Frank Lovece: "Fyvush Finkel: the face that launched a thousand shticks" (Newsday: Posted on popmatters.com)
Yiddish theater, like vaudeville and burlesque, flourished in the 20th century B.T. (Before Television).
Connie Ogle: Author searching for happiness around the world (McClatchy Newspapers: Posted on popmatters.com)
Eric Weiner: "It's our relationships with other people and the culture in which you live that make a difference. Culture matters. And people use the term personal happiness in this country. The rest of the world scratches their heads and wonders what that means."
Dominic Cavendish: "Chris Rock: Rock's on a roll" (telegraph.co.uk)
Exuding the sleek, smiling charm which marks him out as such a mainstream-friendly proposition, Rock hit the ground running. Exaggerated indignation is his forte and within minutes he was complaining about his drop in status since hitting Manchester - thanks to the tumbling dollar: "I'm a rich man in America. Here I drive a cab!"
Roger Ebert: The Silence of the Lambs (1991; A Great Movie)
A fundamental difference between "The Silence of the Lambs" and its sequel, "Hannibal," is that the former is frightening, involving and disturbing, while the latter is merely disturbing. It is easy enough to construct a geek show if you start with a cannibal. The secret of "Silence" is that it doesn't start with the cannibal--it arrives at him, through the eyes and minds of a young woman.
Progressive-And Proud of It (youtube.com)
Top 10 Amazing Predictions for 2008
Humor Gazette
Behold: Our Top 10 Amazing Predictions for 2008
Reader Comment
Thoughts about polls
Marty,
I've long felt that polls tend to create, rather than measure, public opinion. Over the past two years of nearly daily polls on the Presidential candidates, I've been forced to change my mind somewhat. I continue to have less confidence in polls than in the fairness and accuracy of Fox "News," but Iowa and New Hamster disproved my theory about polls creating public opinion.
During my ten weeks of post-grad work in mass communications, it was professed to me (by actual professors) that in order to obtain survey results with a degree of accuracy of about plus or minus 3%, a sample of 1,500 people will accurately reflect public opinion on the subject of the survey. I had my doubts.
Wednesday night on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, the guest was John Zogby, founder and CEO of Zogby International. In the course of the interview, Stewart demonstrated the folly of all recent surveys, which gave NH to Obama and Huckleberry. Zogby admitted that in order to get about 850 people to participate in his survey, somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 calls were made. I'm glad I don't pay his phone bill.
I already knew that considerably more than 1,000 people had to be called in order to get 1,000 people to participate. But if only 850-1,000 people out of about 20,000 responded, that tells me the results of the survey represent not the opinion of the people of NH, but the opinion only of New Hamsterites so bored and lonely that they welcome phone calls from anyone, or who were just plain too damn stupid to hang up on pollsters.
Chipshot
Thanks, Chipshot!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Still gray and overcast, but a bit warmer.
Canada Honors
Oscar Peterson
It'll be a weekend of tributes to the late jazz legend Oscar Peterson as musicians gather in Toronto to celebrate the pianist's remarkable career.
Composer and pianist Herbie Hancock was the latest name added Thursday to a star-studded list of artists and friends who are set to perform and remember Peterson, who died Dec. 23 at age 82.
Bandleader Quincy Jones and pianist Oliver Jones will appear at a jazz gala on Friday, and singer Nancy Wilson, soprano Measha Brueggergosman and Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean will celebrate Peterson's life on Saturday.
Saturday's tribute at Roy Thomson Hall will be free to the public. Some 2,000 seats will be awarded on a first-come, first-served basis to fans who line up at the box office, with the queue expected to snake through the city's main entertainment corridor.
Saturday's tribute will be broadcast live on CBC Radio One and Sirius 137 at 4:05 p.m. ET and repeated at 8:05 p.m. ET on CBC Radio Two and SRC Espace Musique.
Oscar Peterson
Makes Deal With Striking Writers
Weinstein Co.
The Weinstein Co., the film and TV company run by sibling media moguls Harvey and Bob Weinstein, has reached an agreement to allow striking Hollywood writers to return to work for the company, a company spokesman said on Thursday.
A formal deal is expected to be signed and announced by the end of the day, spokesman Matthew Frankel told Reuters.
The deal is the second such agreement reached this week by an independent film and television maker with the Writers Guild of America in its ongoing labor dispute with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.
Weinstein Co.
Cancel Own Awards Show
Writers Guild of America
Striking film and television writers on Thursday canceled their own annual awards dinner, saying that no show honoring the best screenplays of 2007 will be held until their labor action has ended.
The Writers Guild of America, West, which is the Los Angeles-based wing of the guild that represents some 10,500 writers, had planned to announce winners of awards for film and television screenplays on February 9.
Writers Guild of America
Judge May Let Lawsuit Proceed
Dan Rather
A judge said Wednesday that he was leaning toward allowing Dan Rather's $70 million lawsuit over his being fired by CBS to proceed.
"I concluded there was enough in the complaint (by Rather) to continue with discovery (pretrial research)," state Judicial Hearing Officer Ira Gammerman said at a hearing on CBS' motion to dismiss the case.
The judge did not issue a final ruling on CBS' motion, but he suggested the parties try to agree on the scope of pretrial discovery - just in case - and told them to return to court Jan. 23 for a conference.
The lawsuit names CBS Corp., former CBS parent Viacom Inc., CBS President Leslie Moonves, Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone and former CBS News President Andrew Heyward. It seeks $20 million in compensatory damages and $50 million in punitive damages.
Dan Rather
Unfit For Prosecco
Paris Hilton
Hotel heiress Paris Hilton dressed provocatively in a skimpy leopard print outfit and showing off her bare legs is not an image Italian winemakers feel is fitting for their Prosecco white sparkling wine.
Yet Hilton, in various high-heeled stages of undress, graces the ads of Rich Prosecco, an Austrian company selling the bubbly in 27 countries. What's worse, in the eyes of Prosecco producers, Rich Prosecco also comes in cans and in two fruit varieties.
"Hilton hotels are a sign of quality; Paris Hilton is not," said Fulvio Brunetta, president of the wine growers association of Treviso, the northern Italian city in the Veneto region where Prosecco is made.
"Paris Hilton is sensationalism. It's not good. It's not adequate for Prosecco," Brunetta said.
Paris Hilton
Romance Novelist Accused Of Lifting Work
Cassie Edwards
A popular romance novelist alleged to have lifted work from other texts acknowledged that she sometimes "takes" her material "from reference books," but added that she didn't know she was supposed to credit her sources.
"When you write historical romances, you're not asked to do that," Cassie Edwards told The Associated Press, speaking earlier this week from her home in Mattoon, Ill.
A romance novel Web site, www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com, has posted numerous excerpts from Edwards' novels and placed them alongside passages from books and magazines that were found by using the Google search program.
One example compares a description of black-footed ferrets in "Shadow Bear," which came out last year, with text from a 2005 article in Defenders Magazine, a quarterly published by Defenders of Wildlife, a conservation organization.
From "Shadow Bear":
"While alone in my father's study one day, after seeing a family of ferrets from afar in the nearby woods, I took one of my father's books from his library and read up on them. They were an interesting study. I discovered they are related to minks and otters. It is said that their closest relations are European ferrets and Siberian polecats. Researchers theorize that polecats crossed the land bridge that once linked Siberia and Alaska, to establish the New World population."
From Defenders Magazine:
"Related to mink and otters, they are North America's only native ferret (and a different species than the ferrets kept as pets). Their closest relatives are European ferrets and Siberian polecats. Researchers theorize polecats crossed the land bridge that once linked Siberia and Alaska to establish the New World population."
Cassie Edwards
Says Cassie Edwards Lifted Material
Nora Roberts
A popular romance novelist who's been criticized for allegedly lifting material has angered the biggest name in the genre: Nora Roberts.
A romance novel Web site, www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com, has posted numerous excerpts from Cassie Edwards' novels and placed them alongside passages from magazines and nonfiction books that were found by using the Google search program.
One example posted on the romance Web site juxtaposes text from Edwards' "Savage Longings," a 1997 novel, with a passage from George Bird Grinnell's "The Cheyenne Indians," an ethnography originally published in 1928 and reissued in 1972.
From "Savage Longings":
"The women who belonged to this society created ceremonial decorations by sewing quills on robes, lodge coverings, and other things made of the skins of animals. Snow Deer had told Charles that the Cheyenne women considered this work of high importance, and when properly performed, it was quite as much respected as were bravery and success in war among the men."
From "Cheyenne Indians":
"Of the women's associations referred to the most important one was that devoted to the ceremonial decoration, by sewing on quills, of robes, lodge coverings, and other things made of the skins of animals. This work women considered of high importance, and, when properly performed, quite as creditable as were bravery and success in war among the men."
Nora Roberts
Owed Taxes On $38 Million
Wesley Snipes
Actor Wesley Snipes paid no federal taxes on $37.9 million in income from 1999 to 2004, even after the Internal Revenue Service told him in 2002 that he was under criminal investigation, according to documents filed ahead of Snipes' tax fraud trial.
The trial was set to begin on Monday in U.S. District Court in Ocala, Florida, 80 miles northwest of Orlando and the celebrity enclave of Isleworth, where prosecutors say Snipes lived at the time of the suspected fraud.
During the six years he failed to file income tax returns or pay taxes, Snipes also tried to get fraudulent refunds from the IRS totaling $11.3 million for taxes he paid in 1996 and 1997, according to a timeline prepared by the prosecution.
Wesley Snipes
Settles Suit
Steven Seagal
Steven Seagal and his former business partner have agreed to settle a long-standing legal dispute that included allegations of contract breach and Mafia extortion, an attorney said Wednesday.
The actor and Julius R. Nasso worked together for years, forming Seagal/Nasso Productions and producing movies including "Marked for Death," "Out for Justice" and "On Deadly Ground."
Nasso served a year in federal prison starting in 2004 after admitting he plotted to have the mob shake down Seagal.
Seagal and Nasso agreed in an out-of-court settlement that Seagal would pay Nasso an undisclosed sum of money and write a letter supporting Nasso's application for a pardon, said Robert Hantman, an attorney for Nasso.
Steven Seagal
Possessions To Be Auctioned
James Brown
James Brown's possessions will be appraised and auctioned, in part to pay taxes his estate owes, court-appointed trustees said Wednesday.
Attorney Adele Pope would not say exactly what items would be auctioned or how much they were worth. She also refused to say after a hearing how much the estate owed.
His will called for the items to be divided among the singer's six adult children. But Tomi Rae Hynie, who claims to be Brown's fourth wife and the mother of another of his children, has contested the will.
Hynie argues she is entitled to half the estate. The children also are contesting the will, which was signed 10 months before Brown's death. The trustees have asked Brown's children and Hynie to provide a list of items they don't want auctioned.
James Brown
News Corpse Sees No Slowdown
Peter Chernin
News Corp has not seen signs of a business slowdown due to U.S. economic weakness and the company is in good shape to withstand the Hollywood writers strike, its chief operating officer said on Wednesday.
Peter Chernin's comments at an investor conference came hours after Goldman Sachs analysts published a research note warning investors to beware of various parts of the media sector in 2008, especially if the U.S. economy goes into recession.
News Corp, which bought Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones & Co Inc for $5.6 billion last year, owns a global empire of newspapers, cable and satellite broadcasters and online media such as the MySpace social networking Web site.
Peter Chernin
Freed From Jail
Michelle Rodriguez
Former "Lost" star Michelle Rodriguez has found her way out of jail. Rodriguez was released from a Los Angeles County women's jail Wednesday after serving 18 days of a 180-day sentence for violating probation in a drunken driving case.
She was released early under a program that deals with jail overcrowding by allowing nonviolent female inmates to serve as little as 10 percent of their sentence.
The judge who sentenced Rodriguez ordered that she serve the entire sentence. The judge was consulted about the early release but the Sheriff's Department had the final say when jail safety was involved, Whitmore said.
Michelle Rodriguez
Warming Forces Changes
Iditarod
The modern challenges of global warming and population growth are catching up with the world's most famous sled dog race.
Citing a warming climate and sprawling development, officials with the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race said Wednesday they were implementing permanent logistical changes that in recent years have become the norm for the March event.
The March 1 ceremonial start in Anchorage will go 11 miles, seven shorter than the traditional route. The actual competitive start of the 1,100-mile race the following day will move 30 miles north to Willow from the traditional site in Wasilla - where the Iditarod has its headquarters and part of Alaska's fastest growing region.
Iditarod
Army Clears Abu Ghraib Officer
Lt. Col. Steven Jordan
The only U.S. Army officer to face a court-martial over the scandal at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison has been cleared of any criminal wrongdoing in the case, the Army said on Thursday.
A court-martial convicted Lt. Col. Steven Jordan in August of disobeying an order not to discuss the investigation of abuse at the jail and issued him a criminal reprimand as penalty.
But Maj. Gen. Richard Rowe, commanding officer for the Army Military District of Washington, on Tuesday disapproved of both the conviction and the reprimand, the Army said.
The decision by Rowe wipes Jordan's record clean of any criminal responsibility.
Eleven lower-ranking soldiers have been convicted in military courts in connection with the physical abuse and sexual humiliation of Abu Ghraib detainees.
Lt. Col. Steven Jordan
Dropped Due To Unpaid Bills
FBI Wiretaps
Telephone companies have cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because of the bureau's repeated failures to pay phone bills on time.
A Justice Department audit released Thursday blamed the lost connections on the FBI's lax oversight of money used in undercover investigations. In one office alone, unpaid costs for wiretaps from one phone company totaled $66,000.
In at least one case, a wiretap used in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act investigation "was halted due to untimely payment," the audit found. FISA wiretaps are used in the government's most sensitive and secretive criminal and intelligence investigations, and allow eavesdropping on suspected terrorists or spies.
More than half of 990 bills to pay for telecommunication surveillance in five unidentified FBI field offices were not paid on time, the report shows.
FBI Wiretaps
Dictionary Does Australish
Macquarie Dictionary Online
Contemplating a New Year tattoo in that fashionable area above the buttocks? To help you along, Australians have given them a not-so-fashionable name: "arse antlers". Want a suntan as well? You could have "tanorexia".
These are just some of the words the country's biggest online dictionary is asking people to vote for as word of the year for its latest annual update.
"Tanorexia" refers to an obsession with a suntan, while a "salad dodger" is an obese person.
Other nominations for the Macquarie Dictionary Online include "infomania", for those who constantly put aside the job at hand to concentrate on incoming email and text messages. "Password fatigue" is frustration from having too many passwords to recall.
Macquarie Dictionary Online
Cable Nielsens
Ratings
Rankings for the top 15 programs on cable networks as compiled by Nielsen Media Research for the week of Dec. 31-Jan. 6. Day and start time (EST) are in parentheses.
1. College Football: Clemson vs. Auburn (Monday, 8:22 p.m.), ESPN, 4.91 million homes, 7.51 million viewers.
2. Movie: "Goodbye, Zoey" (Friday, 8 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 4.63 million homes, 7.27 million viewers.
3. College Football: Kentucky vs. Florida St. (Monday, 4:04 p.m.), ESPN, 3.88 million homes, 5.29 million viewers.
4. "New Year, No Limits: New Year's Eve" (Monday, 11:26 p.m.), ESPN, 3.5 million homes, 5.39 million viewers.
5. College Football: Wisconsin vs. Tennessee (Tuesday, 11 a.m.), ESPN, 3.26 million homes, 4.54 million viewers.
6. "I Love New York 2" (Sunday, 9 p.m.), VH1, 3.22 million homes, 4.85 million viewers.
7. "Law & Order" (Tuesday, 8 p.m.), TNT, 3.14 million homes, 4.24 million viewers.
8. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Saturday, 12:30 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.14 million homes, 4.32 million viewers.
9. "Law & Order" (Tuesday, 9 p.m.), TNT, 3.08 million homes, 4.05 million viewers.
9. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Saturday, 12 noon), Nickelodeon, 3.08 million homes, 4.25 million viewers.
11. "Drake & Josh" (Friday, 9 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.95 million homes, 4.51 million viewers.
12. "Hannah Montana" (Tuesday, 7:30 p.m.), Disney, 2.77 million homes, 2.88 million viewers.
13. "Monk" (Tuesday, 9 p.m.), USA, 2.76 million homes, 3.8 million viewers.
14. "Hannah Montana" (Thursday, 7 p.m.), Disney, 2.73 million homes, 3.93 million viewers.
15. "ICarly" (Friday, 7:30 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.72 million homes, 4.13 million viewers.
Ratings
In Memory
Edmund Hillary
Sir Edmund Hillary, the unassuming beekeeper who conquered Mount Everest to win renown as one of the 20th century's greatest adventurers, has died, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark announced Friday. He was 88.
The gangling New Zealander devoted much of his life to aiding the mountain people of Nepal and took his fame in stride, preferring to be called "Ed" and considering himself just an ordinary beekeeper.
He had pride in his feats. Returning to base camp as the man who took the first step onto the top of the world's highest peak, he declared: "We knocked the bastard off."
But he was more proud of his decades-long campaign to set up schools and health clinics in Nepal, the homeland of Tenzing Norgay, the mountain guide with whom he stood arm in arm on the summit of Everest on May 29, 1953.
Before Norgay's death in 1986, Hillary consistently refused to confirm he was first, saying he and the Sherpa had climbed as a team to the top. It was a measure of his personal modesty, and of his commitment to his colleagues.
A strong conservationist, he demanded that international mountaineers clean up thousands of tons of discarded oxygen bottles, food containers and other climbing debris that litter the lower slopes of Everest.
His commitment to Nepal took him back more than 120 times. His adventurer son Peter has described his father's humanitarian work there as "his duty" to those who had helped him.
It was on a visit to Nepal that his first wife, Louise, 43, and 16-year-old daughter Belinda died in a light plane crash March 31, 1975.
Hillary remarried in 1990, to June Mulgrew, former wife of adventurer colleague and close friend Peter Mulgrew, who died in a passenger plane crash in the Antarctic. He is survived by his wife and children Peter and Sarah.
Edmund Hillary
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