'TBH Politoons'
Thanks, again, Tim!
He's Back!
The Worried Shrimp
Reader Link
Bushgirl
Bush in drag...oh yes!!!!!!!!!
Just keep hitting "continue" as the music plays......
Reader Comment
Idiot Son of an Asshole
Marty,
Type "Idiot son of an asshole" into Google, and click Images. You get just what you'd expect...
Kurt
Thanks, Kurt - that's wonderful!
Dr. Reese Checks In
2004 Skinnies Awards
The 7th annual Skinnies awards are now online, honoring epidermal
excellence in entertainment. Notable winners include:
Charlize Theron, Best use of makeup to uglify
Most disturbing trend: NeverEnding extreme makeover (Yes, we're talking
about MJ!)
Scarlett Johansson, Moliest mug
Most distracting lesion: The dark spot on Sean Penn's neck in "Mystic
River."
And more: 2004 Skinnies Awards
©2004 **********The Wall Street Poet
'Corporate Warriors'
The second largest army of occupation in Iraq today isn't British or Polish. It consists of private contractors hired by the Pentagon to perform support, and on occasion, even fighting functions. The Pentagon thinks such privatization is a good idea. Many others aren't so sure...
Corporate Warriors
Some fight for glory and some fight for country,
Some fight to meet manhood's most trying test,
Some fight to show folks back home they are worthy,
Some fight because it's the thing they do best.
Some fight as part of a national army,
Some fight in shadows, the terrorist mode,
Some fight their battles in schools and in clinics
And think they are taking the hero's true road.
Then there are those who now fight under contract
For companies renting them out by the day,
Some of these men see nobility here,
And some just sign up 'cause they like the good pay.
The issue here, though, isn't fighters' own motives,
It's licensing out legal rights to wage war,
In the past privateers and paid mercs were quite common,
Their history's one that we shouldn't ignore.
When battle's a business and fighters employees,
And casualties outsourced, an off-book expense,
A door has been opened, one long shut and boarded,
War fought for just cause soon becomes a pretense.
It's a slippery slope, this allegiance for hire,
Strange outcomes from deals like this can accrue,
Mix profit and warfare, one day you might find,
The bite that you bought has come back to bite you.
For more political verse
from Mark
Another Bumpersticker
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny, windy day.
Today is 'National Pie Day.'
Come from a family of pie-eaters. Dear old Dad always has pie for his birthday, never a cake.
That reminds me, his birthday is next week.
Tonight, Friday, CBS opens the night with a RERUN 'Joan Of Arcadia', followed by a RERUN 'JAG', then a
RERUN 'The Handler'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Dave are Al Franken, Phantom Planet, and Jake Johannsen. (RERUNs all next week)
Scheduled on a FRESH Craiggers is Rooney.
NBC begins the night with 'Dateline', followed by a FRESH 'Ed', then a RERUN 'Third Watch'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Jay, are Albert & Janet Leding from "The Simple Life" and Avant.
Scheduled on a FRESH Conan is Topher Grace. (RERUNs all next week)
Scheduled on a FRESH Carson Daly are Carmen Electra, Dave Navarro, Erika Christensen, Jarod Miller, Judah Friedlander, and Cyndi Lauper.
ABC starts the night with a FRESH 'George Lopez', followed by a FRESH 'Married To The Kellys', then a
FRESH 'Hope & Faith', followed by a FRESH 'Bonnie', then '20/20'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Jimmy Kimmel are Amy Smart, Balthazar Getty, and Atmosphere, with this week's guest co-host Super Dave Osborne.
The WB offers a FRESH 'Reba', followed by a FRESH 'What I Like About You', then a FRESH
'Grounded For Life', followed by a FRESH 'Like Family'.
Faux has 'Totally Outrageous Behavior', 'World's Craziest Videos', and a FRESH 'Boston Pubic'.
UPN has the movie 'Species II'.
Check local PBS listing for 'NOW With Bill Moyers', the best show on over-the-air TV.
A&E has 'American Justice', 'Poirot', 'Poirot', and 'Between The Lines'.
AMC offes the movie 'From Russia With Love', followed by the movie 'The Usual Suspects', then the movie 'Army Of Darkness'.
BBC -
[6pm] 'BBC World News';
[6:30pm] 'Cash in the Attic' - Inglis;
[7pm] 'House Invaders' - Storridge;
[7:30pm] 'Changing Rooms' - Sheffield;
[8pm] 'The Thin Blue Line' - Fire and Terror;
[8:40pm] 'Blackadder' - Born To Be King;
[9:20pm] 'The Office' - Episode 2;
[10pm] 'At Home With The Braithwaites' - Episode 1;
[11pm] 'So Graham Norton' - Katie Holmes;
[11:30pm] 'So Graham Norton' - Stephen Fry;
[12am] 'The Thin Blue Line' - Fire and Terror;
[12:40am] 'Blackadder' - Born To Be King;
[1:20am] 'The Office' - Episode 2;
[2am] 'At Home With The Braithwaites' - Episode 1;
[3am] 'The Thin Blue Line' - Fire and Terror;
[3:40am] 'Blackadder' - Born To Be King;
[4:20am] 'The Office' - Episode 2;
[5am] 'At Home With The Braithwaites' - Episode 1; and
[6am] 'BBC World News'. (ALL TIMES EST)
Bravo has 'Celebrity Poker', the movie 'Highlander', and the movie 'The Vanishing'.
Comedy Central has 'MAD TV', 'Comedy Central Presents' (Wanda Sykes-Hall), 'Comedy Central Presents' (Dane Cook), 'Comedy Central Presents' (Nick Swardon),
'Premium Blend', and another 'Premium Blend'.
HBO has a FRESH 'Real Time With Bill Maher' at 8pm/est, with a REPLAY at 11:30pm/est.
History has 'Modern Marvels', 'Hitler: Tyrant Of Terror', and 'War Crimes'.
SciFi has 'Tremors: The Series', another 'Tremors: The Series', a FRESH 'Stargate SG-1', then 'Code Name: Eternity'.
TCM:
[6am] 'The Big Hangover' (1950);
[7:30am] 'The Magnificent Yankee' (1950);
[9am] 'A Life Of Her Own' (1950);
[11am] 'Never A Dull Moment' (1950);
[12:45pm] 'Mrs. O'Malley And Mr. Malone' (1950);
[2pm] 'Walk Softly, Stranger' (1950);
[3:30pm] 'The Big Steal' (1950);
[5pm] 'Crisis' (1950);
[6:45pm] 'Outrage' (1950);
[8pm] 'The Young and the Brave' (1963);
[9:30pm] 'Sands of Iwo Jima' (1949);
[11:30pm] 'Fort Apache' (1948);
[2am] 'Rules of the Game' (1939) [AKA: 'La Règle du jeu' ] ;
[4am] 'The Woman On The Beach' (1947);
[5:30am] 'Festival of Shorts #28' (2000). (ALL TIMES EST)
Irish rock musician Bono of the band 'U2' arrives with Irish singer Andrea Corrs for the American Film Institute awards luncheon in Los Angeles January 22, 2004. The AFI honors the year's most outstanding achievements in film and television for 2003. Bono and Corrs were recognized for their work on the title song to the film 'In America.' Bono composed the song, which was sung by Corrs.
Photo by Robert Galbraith
The Information One-Stop
Moose & Squirrel
Letterman 'Top 10'
Howard Dean
Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean poked fun at his fist-pumping outburst in his concession speech after Monday's Iowa caucuses by delivering a self-mocking Top Ten on David Letterman's CBS "Late Show" on Thursday.
The list included, No. 10 - "Switch to decaf," No. 4 - "Start working out and speaking with an Austrian accent," and No. 1 - "Oh, I don't know - maybe fewer crazy, red-faced rants?"
The "Late Show" skewered Dean on Tuesday, the night after his surprising Iowa defeat with "Top 10 Howard Dean Excuses," which included, No. 8 - "Weekend before the caucus, wasted 55 crucial hours marrying Britney Spears," No. 6 - "Due to fatigue on campaign trail, kissed hands and shook babies," and No. 2 - "Bad idea to keep asking self, 'What would Dukakis do?"'
Howard Dean
Ending Retirement From Acting
Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda is ending her 14-year retirement from acting to appear in a film opposite Jennifer Lopez.
Fonda will appear in "Monster-in-Law," playing the difficult mother of Lopez's fiance, her publicist, Pat Kingsley, said Thursday.
Fonda, a longtime political activist, has recently made public appearances to promote the nonprofit organization V-Day. The group is led by "Vagina Monologues" playwright Eve Ensler and campaigns around the world to combat violence against women.
Jane Fonda
Joshua Marshall, of Talkingpointsmemo.com a blogger Web site, looks up from his computer while listening to presidential hopeful Wesley Clark, Wednesday Jan. 21, 2004 during a campaign stop at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, N.H. His daily audience of about 45,000 is comparable to a medium-sized newspaper. That makes his blog, he hopes, as influential as talk radio.
Photo by Tim Boyd
'This Is America'
Richard Belzer
Richard Belzer, who has become a familiar TV face solving sex crimes on "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," is returning to his comedic roots.
The actor is teaming up with Madonna's Maverick Films to create an episodic, sketch-style comedy feature called "This Is America."
Belzer said the film project will take on everything from online dating to advertising and the justice system, and he wants to have animation segments, interstitials and even factoids on the screen. He hopes to turn out an "America" film once every 18 months.
Richard Belzer
New Letter Surfaces
Vincent Van Gogh
A Dutch museum dedicated to the life of Vincent Van Gogh said Thursday it had unveiled a newly discovered letter by the 19th century painter, shedding fresh light on his turbulent life.
The two-page letter written on Aug. 3, 1877, in black ink -- turned brown with age -- on cream colored paper was recently discovered in a private collection and has gone on temporary loan to Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum.
Van Gogh's 1877 letter of condolence to his art dealer friend Hermanus Gijsbertus Tersteeg on the death of one of his children was written before he became an artist. Van Gogh was 24 at the time and preparing to study theology in Amsterdam.
The newly unearthed letter contains Van Gogh's first known direct reference to the stillbirth of a brother -- also named Vincent -- a year before his own birth in 1853.
Vincent Van Gogh
NBC Tones Down 'Friends' Praise in Ads
Kelsey Grammer
OK, maybe "Friends" isn't the "best comedy ever."
NBC promised Thursday not to rerun a promo using that phrase to refer to the show, which will go off the air after 10 years in May.
The ad irked some people, most prominently Kelsey Grammer, star of "Frasier," five times the Emmy winner for best comedy. "Friends" has won the best comedy Emmy once.
"I don't blame them for saying that," Grammer told reporters last week. "Although, we all know it's not true."
Grammer admitted feeling a little overshadowed during the final year of his sitcom. "Frasier" will end its run a week after "Friends."
Kelsey Grammer
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Rare Songs To Be Released
Bob Marley
Previously unpublished tracks from Bob Marley's early years are to be released this spring, more than 20 years after the reggae icon's death, Universal Music said on Thursday.
The record company said it had signed a 10-year global licensing deal with reggae label JAD Records for their early catalog recordings of Bob Marley & The Wailers.
Over 200 tracks, recorded between 1967 and 1972, feature a young Marley with street attitude, influenced by the U.S. civil rights movement and beginning to explore Rastafarianism.
The first release is a three-CD set, which will hit start hitting the shops in March.
Bob Marley
Models pose during French designer Chantal Thomass' lingerie Autumn-Winter 2004-2005 show, in Paris, January 22, 2004.
Photo by Philippe Wojazer
Performing at NBA All-Star Game
OutKast
When the best players in the NBA are introduced at the start of their annual all-star game next month, there will be no generic synthesizer music blaring in the background.
Instead, the players will get to strut onto the floor to the sounds of OutKast.
Big Boi and Andre 3000 will perform their hits "The Way You Move" and "Hey Ya!" at the beginning of the Feb. 15 game, the NBA announced this week.
Christina Aguilera will sing the national anthem before the game at Staples Center in Los Angeles, and Nelly Furtado will sing the Canadian anthem.
OutKast
www.nba.com
Museum of Television & Radio Honors
Tom Brokaw
Tom Brokaw will make some news of his own when he's honored at the Museum of Television & Radio's annual gala.
Brokaw will be recognized at the Feb. 19 event at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York for "his extraordinary body of work as he approaches his retirement later this year as anchor and managing editor of 'NBC Nightly News,'" the museum said this week.
Tom Brokaw
Museum of Television & Radio
Formerly 'The Vidiot'
Passes TV Ownership Cap Compromise
Congress
The U.S. Senate on Thursday approved legislation that will prevent two television networks from gobbling up additional local stations, News Corp.'s Fox and Viacom Inc.'s CBS.
The legislation, tucked into an omnibus spending bill, will bar television networks from reaching more than 39 percent of the national audience, overturning a decision by the Federal Communications Commission to lift the cap to 45 percent from 35 percent.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed the $375 billion spending bill, which includes the television cap compromise, last month. It now goes to resident Bush for his expected signature.
Congress
Young carpenters open a coffin shaped in the form of a Coca Cola bottle in Teshie, a suburb of the Ghanaian capital of Accra January 22, 2004. For about 30 years Ghana has earned a special reputation for the world's most colorful and imaginative coffins for their dead. It's not unusual that fatalities are kept in the fridge of the morgue for almost three weeks until the carpenters have finished their shaped coffins to show mourners the profession or the individuality of the casual. Prizes for an imaginative coffin vary between five and six million Cedis (about 500 to 600 US dollars).
Photo by Wolfgang Rattay
Unseen Paintings In London Show
Edward Hopper
A major exhibition of paintings by inspirational American artist Edward Hopper, including some pictures never before seen in public, will be mounted in London between May and September.
It will be the first show in England for 23 years of works by the pictorial poet whose evocative images caught the mood of America from the depression of the 1930s through World War II to the revolutionary 1960s.
Hopper's works, which featured everyday images of American life, were inspired by the romantic painters of Europe from Vermeer to Degas and in turn inspired modern artists and filmmakers including Norman Mailer and Alfred Hitchcock.
Edward Hopper
Mock Street Sign Honor
Hilton & Richie
Folks looking for the intersection of Paris Hilton Boulevard and Nicole Richie Avenue can find it in the middle of Altus' town hall.
The mock street sign was featured at a Fox-sponsored ceremony in Altus honoring the stars of the TV series "The Simple Life," spawning comments that residents had renamed two of their streets.
The 8-foot-tall sign features faux fur, pink beads, and pink feather boas wrapped around the sign post, which is crowned with a tiara. The Fox-made sign, which went on display Sunday, sits on a base adorned with decorative hat boxes, more beads and more feathers.
Hilton & Richie
It's All Over
Jen & Ben
Actress-singer Jennifer Lopez has ended her stormy, high-profile engagement to actor Ben Affleck, her spokesman said on Thursday.
"I am confirming the reports that Jennifer Lopez has ended her engagement to Ben Affleck. At this difficult time, we ask that you respect her privacy," Lopez's spokesman told Reuters.
Jen & Ben
Greece Seeks Return
Elgin Marbles
Greece, seeking to woo the British Museum into sending the disputed Elgin Marbles to Athens for this summer's Olympic Games, said Thursday the reluctant museum could use part of a new Athens site as its own branch.
The fifth-century BC fragments of sculpted marble from Athens' Parthenon temple are one of Europe's great artistic treasures.
They were taken from the Parthenon at the turn of the 19th century by British diplomat Lord Elgin and sold to the British Museum.
The British Museum, which has a special room to display the large blocks of carved marble, has steadfastly refused to return or lend the pieces to Greece.
Elgin Marbles
In Memory
George Woodbridge
George Woodbridge, an illustrator for Mad magazine for nearly 50 years whose exquisitely detailed pen-and-ink drawings were featured in nearly every issue, has died. He was 73.
Woodbridge died of emphysema Tuesday, said his wife, Deborah Woodbridge. "He had a tremendous eye for detail that showed up in his drawings," Mad editor John Ficarra said Thursday. "We especially played to his history knowledge. When we gave him a piece on World War I, he would draw the exact gun and belt buckle they were using then."
Woodbridge's delicate cross-hatched illustrations were the result of careful research, particularly in rendering historical scenes. In fact, Woodbridge had a second career as an illustrator of military history books, including the three-volume American Military Equipage, 1851-1872.
A native of New York, Woodbridge began as a freelance artist for Mad in 1957, five years after the satirical magazine's inception.
One of Woodbridge's most memorable illustrations was for the 1965 sports satire "43-Man Squamish," about a nonsensical game in which the equipment included shepherd's crooks and diving flippers.
"It's arguably our most requested piece to reprint," Ficarra said. "It struck a chord. Colleges all over formed teams and played this crazy game, with these ridiculous-looking helmets. George captured that lunacy."
He was a stickler for detail, authenticating even the drape of clothing through the study of historical documents.
George Woodbridge
In Memory
Ann Miller
Ann Miller, the raven-haired, long-legged actress and dancer whose machine-gun taps won her stardom during the golden age of movie musicals, died Thursday of lung cancer. She was 81.
Miller died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, said Esme Chandlee, her longtime friend and former publicist.
A onetime childhood dance prodigy, she reached the peak of her film career at MGM in the late 1940s and early '50s with "On the Town," "Easter Parade" and "Kiss Me Kate."
She remained a dazzling tapper in her 60s and earned millions on Broadway and touring with Mickey Rooney in "Sugar Babies," a razzmatazz tribute to the era of burlesque.
Miller's legs, pretty face and fast tapping (she claimed the record of 500 taps a minute) earned her jobs in vaudeville and night clubs when she came to Hollywood. An appearance at the popular Bal Tabarin in San Francisco won a contract at RKO studio.
Her first film at RKO, "New Faces of 1937," featured her dancing. She next played an acting hopeful in "Stage Door," with Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Lucille Ball and Eve Arden.
A contract at Columbia Pictures started impressively with the role of the would-be ballerina in Frank Capra's Oscar-winning "You Can't Take It with You." Then she was cast in a series of wartime B musicals with titles like "True to the Army," "Priorities on Parade" and "Hey Rookie."
When Cyd Charisse broke a leg before starting "Easter Parade" at MGM with Fred Astaire, Miller replaced her. That led to an MGM contract and her most enduring work.
She was teamed with Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra in "On the Town," Red Skelton in "Watch the Birdie," and Bob Fosse in "Kiss Me Kate."
Other MGM films included: "Texas Carnival," "Lovely to Look At," "Small Town Girl," "Deep in My Heart," "Hit the Deck" and "The Opposite Sex."
Ann Miller
For many more details - Ann Miller
Mei Sheng, a five-month-old giant panda cub, hangs onto a tree inside the SBC Giant Panda Research Station at the San Diego Zoo, on Wednesday. The 19-pound male giant panda is becoming more and more adventurous in his exhibit, as he learns to climb the trees.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
'The Osbournes'
'The Osbournes' ~ Page 5
'The Osbournes' ~ Page 4
'The Osbournes' ~ Page 3
'The Osbournes' ~ Page 2
'The Osbournes' ~ Page 1
