'Best of TBH Politoons'
But Untrue
Strangely Believable
Bill O'Reilly has announced plans to introduce a line of adult toys, called the Defense of Marriage Marriage Enhancing Products. His line of vibrators includes the 7" Fair and Balanced Super Patriot Penetrator, which is sound-activated and shouts "Shut Up!" whenever it detects cries of pain or pleasure.
~Jeff Crook
Jeff Crook is the Ceci Connolly of the Left. ~ J. Howard Tuft
Strangely Believable but Untrue is now available online at the Untrue Fact of the Day web calendar. Help spread disinformation and misunderstanding by sharing this with your friends and enemies.
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Ron Scherer: Budget Cuts on Main Street (Christian Science Monitor)
From fewer Head Start programs to outdated police gear, Bush's proposed federal budget calls for spending cuts close to home.
Bill Gross: Sizing Up Social Security
Size does matter you know. There are basketball players, NFL linemen, and the more popular but unmentionable allusion to the bedroom that makes my point, although the older one gets, the more irrelevant playing basketball and football become, if you get my drift.
Baseball star's wife makes ultimate threat
The wife of a top US baseball player has vowed to have sex with all of his team mates if he ever cheats on her.
Dave White: Rough trade (The Advocate)
When TV's Wife Swap landed an ultraconservative Texas homemaker in a two-mommy household in Arizona, the homophobia flowed hot and heavy. How did it feel to be in the direct path of the bigotry? The Advocate talks to lesbian mom Nicki Boone.
Mary Ann Petersen: An Ellen lovefest, but no hugging (The Advocate)
One fan's visit to a taping of The Ellen DeGeneres Show provides a glimpse behind the cameras, including a "no hugging" rule that keeps all the mutual affection channeled into dancing and laughter.
Military expenditures
World: $950 billion (2004 est.)
Rest-of-World [all but USA]: $500 billion (2004 est.)
United States: $466 billion (FY04 actual)
Mostly Classical
Crooks & Liars
Reader Correction
Bad Link
Marty,
Wednesday's [9 Feb 05] Bill Moyers' [There is No Tomorrow] excerpt has a link in it to Grist, but you pointed the link to grist.com when it should go to grist.org.
Would have told you sooner but it took me an entire afternoon of 404 errors before I figured it out. [doh!]
And of course, by the time you get this, it's the very definition of old news - but you archive it so maybe you want to fix it.
jim
Thanks, Jim!
Corrections were made.
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Overcast day, rainy night.
Did the CostCo run - there were lots of food ladies, which pleased the kid greatly.
Amazes me the things he'll try if an older woman with a hairnet hands it to him - even things he's turned his nose up at home.
Rules Out Senate Run in 2006
Al Franken
Comedian and Democratic activist Al Franken on Thursday ruled out a run for a Senate seat from Minnesota next year but left open the possibility of a potential candidacy in 2008.
"Not running for the Senate in 2006," he told reporters and his Air America Radio audience. "Minnesotans are very serious about their politics and it would be silly. I don't live there."
Franken, who has written several books satirizing conservatives and is perhaps best known for his performances on the NBC program "Saturday Night Live," said he had committed to two more years at Air America Radio, a liberal talk show network.
"I have been looking at the 2008 Senate seat, people know that," he said. "If I go in 2008, you're going to see me moving back there."
Al Franken
Performing for AIDS Benefit
Elton John
Singer Elton John will entertain at Fourth of July events in Philadelphia to promote awareness and raise money for the fight against HIV/AIDS.
John will perform with Peter Nero and the Philly Pops orchestra at the Philadelphia Freedom Concert and Ball.
Organizers said they hope to draw 1.5 million people and raise $2 million for the Elton John Aids Foundation and Philadelphia's Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld Fund.
The Fourth of July events will include a free concert and fireworks display in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and a fund-raising ball, with ticket prices from $500 to $2,500. Funds also will come from corporate sponsors, concert concessions and donations, organizers said.
Elton John
Fox Prescribes More
'House'
Fox has ordered an additional four episodes of its fledgling medical drama "House," bringing the total number of episodes ordered to 22, a full season's worth.
Fox said it hoped to have fresh episodes of the show to air in April. Hugh Laurie ("Flight of the Phoenix") plays the title character, a pill-popping doctor who hates his patients
"House," which debuted in November, hit its highest ratings yet on Tuesday with the benefit of an "American Idol" lead-in.
'House'
CNN Exec Clarifies Comment
Eason Jordan
Despite comments that may have left a different impression, CNN's chief news executive said Thursday that he does not believe the U.S. military intended to kill journalists in the Iraq war.
CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan is involved in a controversy over comments he made at the World Economic Forum last month. One Web logger has already called it "Easongate," and an online petition is circulating calling on CNN to release a full transcript of what Jordan said.
Jordan, speaking at the Jan. 27 panel in Davos, Switzerland, said he believed that 12 journalists who were killed by coalition forces in Iraq had been targeted.
CNN said that Jordan was responding to a comment made by another panelist that journalists killed in Iraq were collateral damage. He had intended to draw a distinction between reporters killed because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when a bomb fell, for example, and those killed because someone mistook them for the enemy, CNN spokeswoman Christa Robinson said on Thursday.
Eason Jordan
Loses 'Today' Gig
Steven Cojocaru
Red-carpet fashion maven Steven Cojocaru's gig on NBC's "Today" show is over. "He's not going to be on the program again," "Today" show publicist Lauren Kapp told The Associated Press Thursday. "We are going our separate ways and we wish him all the best."
Cojocaru is scheduled to talk about his recent kidney transplant operation on an upcoming interview on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," Carly Ubersox, a spokesman for Winfrey's Harpo Productions, said Thursday.
There had been speculation that Cojocaru was being dropped as a "Today" contributor because of the upcoming interview.
Steven Cojocaru
Deals Blow to TV Broadcasters
FCC
U.S. regulators on Thursday dealt a blow to television broadcasters by rejecting requests that cable operators be required to carry more than one of the stations' primary channels.
The Federal Communications Commission voted 4-1 to turn down requests by broadcasters such as Paxson Communications Corp. that cable systems like Comcast Corp be required to carry all the digital channels offered by each local television station.
As broadcasters move to digital from analog transmission, the efficiencies of the new, higher quality signals give stations additional space to offer up to six channels, known as multicasting.
The agency unanimously refused to force cable operators to carry more than one signal from a broadcaster during the digital transition, which could last several years. Stations wanted both existing analog and new digital signals carried during the move.
FCC
Legal Saga Comes to a Close
Courtney Love
Rock singer Courtney Love on Thursday admitted to reduced charges in two outstanding assault and drug possession cases, bringing to a close a lengthy legal saga.
The widow of Nirvana rocker Kurt Cobain was sentenced to three years' probation and anger management counseling after pleading no contest to a misdemeanor assault for attacking a woman at the Los Angeles home of an ex-boyfriend last April. She had originally been charged with a felony assault.
In the second case, Love, 40, pleaded guilty to an amended charge of possessing a forged prescription and the drug oxycodone found in her home in October 2003. She was sentenced to 18 months' probation and ordered to continue with a drug rehabilitation program. She had originally been charged with two felony drug possession counts.
Courtney Love
New Cut Of 'Passion'
Mel Gibson
Hollywood mogul Mel Gibson will release a new, low-violence version of his 2004 surprise mega-hit "The Passion of Christ" next month.
The star, dubbed Hollywood's most powerful figure since the huge success of the low-budget, graphically gory film, is trimming five to six minutes of violent scenes ahead of the film's March 11 reappearance on US screens, Daily Variety reported Thursday..
"The Passion Recut," will be beamed onto 500 to 750 screens by distributor Newmarket Films, Variety said, adding that the new versions would not be lumbered with an audience age restriction.
Mel Gibson
Fails Drug Test, Jailed
Tom Sizemore
Judge Antonio Baretto ordered police guards to arrest actor Tom Sizemore in court yesterday and take him into custody after hearing he had violated his probation terms by failing a drug test.
In his defence, Sizemore told the court he was destitute and living in a garage in Whittier, California. He also claimed to be an expectant father, but Baretto was far from sympathetic, stating, "I had hoped and wanted to see a positive performance."
Last month Sizemore had requested permission from the courts to go to Cambodia to shoot a new film. Baretto had agreed, on the condition that he undergo and pass a drug test every day prior to his departure.
According to the City Attorney, Sizemore failed the test on the very first day.
Tom Sizemore
To Sue Via Videolink
Roman Polanski
Legal precedent will be set when film director Roman Polanski gives evidence in an English court via videolink from a Paris hotel room in order to avoid the risk of extradition to the United States for a child sex offence.
England's highest court ruled Thursday the 71-year-old should be allowed to sue the publishers of U.S. magazine Vanity Fair for libel from the safety of France.
Polanski's lawyers say it will be the first time a libel claimant has given evidence at his trial via video link.
In a decision that surprised legal experts, the Law Lords overturned an earlier ruling by the Court of Appeal that Polanski should live by the "normal processes of the law" and come to England to take the witness stand.
Roman Polanski
Back From Libya
Heavenly States
Frustrated at coming close to be the first American rock band to play public concerts in Libya since Muammar Gaddafi took power 35 years ago, a California group wants to try again, its manager said on Thursday.
The Heavenly States, an indie rock group from Oakland, traveled to Libya last week for what was billed as a "historic" tour to bring rock and roll to a desert country long isolated by international sanctions and a reputation of a pariah state.
Libyan authorities scuppered their plans, saying there was a problem with the group's visa and denied them permission to play at venues in the capital Tripoli, the eastern port of Benghazi and in the Roman ruins of Leptis Magna.
Heavenly States
Loose 'Gannon'
James D. Guckert
Jeff Gannon, the controversial White House correspondent for the obscure, conservative Web site Talon News who resigned from his job Tuesday, confirmed late Wednesday, in a phone interview with National Public Radio, that he has been using a false name. A few hours later, Howard Kurtz, writing in The Washington Post, confirmed earlier tips, arising from liberal blogs, that the reporter's real name is indeed James D. Guckert.
Despite the ruse, "Gannon" still managed to gain access to many White House briefings and was one of the few reporters allowed to ask resident Bush a (very friendly) question at a press conference two weeks ago.
This "begs further investigation," James Pinkerton, a media critic for Fox News, told the online magazine Salon.com. He recalled that in the six years he worked for Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush, the White House was "strict about who got in. It's inconceivable to me that the White House, especially after 9/11, gives credentials to people without doing a background check. ... If [Gannon] was walking around the White House with a pass that had a different name on it than his real name, that's pretty remarkable."
The New York Daily News' story on Thursday carried the headline, "Bush press pal quits over gay prostie link." Washington reporter Helen Kennedy wrote: "A conservative ringer who was given a press pass to the White House and lobbed softball questions at resident Bush quit yesterday after left-leaning Internet bloggers discovered possible ties to gay prostitution."
Another intriguing issue is his involvement, along with the better-known Robert Novak, Judith Miller, and others, in the Valerie Plame/CIA episode. Gannon's name turned up on a list of reporters targeted for questioning by the federal prosecutor in the case. Froomkin of the the Washington Post wrote last spring that "the reason Gannon is on the list is most likely an attempt to find out who gave him a secret memo that he mentioned in an interview he had with Plame's husband, former ambassador and administration critic Joseph Wilson."
Keith Olbermann on his TV show Wednesday referred to Gannon as "HBO's Ali G, without the satire."
James D. Guckert
Faith-Based Ban
Alberto Gonzales
The Bush administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to block a New Mexico church from using hallucinogenic tea that the government contends is illegal and potentially dangerous.
The appeal from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales argues that a lower court was wrong to allow the Brazil-based O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal to import and use the hoasca tea as part of its religious services.
The church, which has about 140 members in the United States and 8,000 worldwide, said the herbal brew is a central sacrament in its religious practice, which is a blend of Christian beliefs and traditions rooted in the Amazon basin.
The group has won several rounds at the lower courts, most recently at the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in November.
Alberto Gonzales
