'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Andrew Tobias: Daily Comment (andrewtobias.com)
Bush is hardly a moron. He wanted the rich - in particular the oil guys - to do well and they have (phenomenally well). He promised to appoint more Justices like Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia and he did. He didn't want to work terribly hard and he hasn't. He wanted to show that government can't do things very well, and he has. Morons are not usually so successful in getting what they want.
Jim Hightower: BIG OIL ROLLS ON (jimhightower.com)
Big Oil has announced its profits for the first three months of this year, and the numbers are producing an outburst of champagne celebrations - assuming you're on the corporate side of the gas pump. Exxon Mobil hauled off $10 billion in first quarter profits, Shell grabbed $9 billion, BP took $7.6 billion, and ConocoPhillips made off with $4 billion.
Mark Morford: You and your puny salary (sfgate.com)
You think a $100K salary is a lot? $500K? Please. The truly wealthy scoff at your paltry breadcrumbs.
MAY-LEE CHAI: "HAPA NATION: A 'Loving' Memorial" (popmatters.com)
Mildred Dolores Loving was one of those quiet American heroes who changed the course of US history.
Mark Morford: How to stay very, very dumb (sfgate.com)
It's a fact: TV sitcoms destroy your brain. But what else can you do with all that unused mental power?
Rachel Campbell Johnston: Robert Rauschenberg, American pop art rebel, dies at 82 (entertainment.timesonline.co.uk)
The art world has lost one of its most loved and respected and ebulliently rebellious figures. Robert Rauschenberg, the American pop artist, died of heart failure on Monday at his home in Florida. He was 82.
Bill Holdship: The Muggs Have One of the Most Inspiring Stories in Detroit Rock History (Metro Times)
The city's music fans already know them from their incredible live performances, delivering what sounds like classic rock with heavy instrumental interludes and big hook-filled choruses. But beyond the music, it's a powerful story of friendship and loyalty, of faith against horrible odds.
Amy Christian: Laugh-In (Metro Spirit)
She may be a failed stand-up comedian, but Jennifer Daniels is anything but when it comes to writing and performing songs.
Pete Freedman: Electronic Folk Duo Mom Remains a Force in Denton (Dallas Observer)
You've gotta hear them. See them too. Two thin-as-rails college students on a stage filled with equipment, hustling around, playing violin, cello and acoustic guitar, stomping on foot pedals, twiddling with sampler and loop machine knobs, and slurping into microphones.
JENNIFER HOWARD: Measuring the 'Aeneid' on a Human Scale (chronicle.com:80)
The first translation by a woman renders the tenderness in Virgil's war epic.
JONATHAN YARDLEY" In 'Cannery Row,' a Preserved Simplicity (washingtonpost.com)
All of the books of John Steinbeck are still in print. Why does the work of this earnest but artless writer continue to enjoy such popularity?
Sarah T. Williams: Novelist Michael Ondaatje's borderless imagination (Star Tribune)
"Inhale," Michael Ondaatje said as he opened the door to Coach House Press in Toronto, inviting visitors to take in the aroma of ink, paper, wood and well-oiled machinery.
Aspiring Authors (Kids) at Lulu.com
If you're in grades K-8, Aspiring Authors will help you create your very own book. Have your teacher register your class on Lulu and start writing your original story. Each student that completes a book will receive their first printed copy for free.
From 'Dick Eats Bush'
A New Video
A little different. Stolen from a movie called revolver. 5 min 24 seconds. No captions (I didn't write any text in..). Some language and slight blood. NOT political.
Reader Comment
Re: Phil Specter
Many of us in the industry have called him "Fill Sphincter" all along.
- Olde Engineer
Thanks, OE!
Reader Suggestion
An Engineer's Guide to Cats
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and dry.
Johannesburg Visit
Hawking Meets Mandela
Scientist Stephen Hawking hailed the peaceful end of South Africa's apartheid era as one of the great achievements of his lifetime Thursday as he met the first black president Nelson Mandela.
"I am very pleased to meet you. I admire how you managed to find a peaceful solution to a situation that seemed doomed to disaster," the British astrophysicist told Mandela who stood down as president nine years ago.
"It was one of the great achievements of the 20th century. If only the Israelis and the Palestinians could do the same."
Hawking, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, was in South Africa for the launch of the Next Einstein initiative which is designed to unearth budding scientists and mathematicians throughout Africa.
Hawking Meets Mandela
Votes To Roll Back Media Ownership Rule
Senate
The Senate Thursday night voted to nullify a Federal Communications Commission rule that allows media companies to own a newspaper and a television station in the same market.
The unusual "resolution of disapproval," sponsored by Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and 24 other senators, was approved by a voice vote. The measures sponsors include both Democratic candidates for president, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois.
Republican FCC Chairman Madam Kevin Martin has lied describeding the agency's action as a "relatively minor loosening" of broadcast media ownership restrictions. The rule was approved by the FCC on a 3-2 party-line vote in December with both Democrats dissenting.
Senate
Legalizes Gay Marriage
California
California's Supreme Court declared gay couples in the nation's biggest state can marry - a monumental but perhaps short-lived victory for the gay rights movement Thursday that was greeted with tears, hugs, kisses and at least one instant proposal of matrimony.
Same-sex couples could tie the knot in as little as a month. But the window could close soon after - religious and social conservatives are pressing to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot in November that would undo the Supreme Court ruling and ban gay marriage.
In its 4-3 ruling, the Republican-dominated high court struck down state laws against same-sex marriage and said domestic partnerships that provide many of the rights and benefits of matrimony are not enough.
Republican Gov. Arnold $chwarzenegger, who has twice vetoed legislation that would have granted marriage to same-sex couples, said in a statement that he respected the court's decision and "will not support an amendment to the constitution that would overturn this state Supreme Court ruling."
California
CBS Buying
CNET
CBS Corp said on Thursday it would buy web media company CNET Networks Inc for about $1.8 billion to boost the television broadcaster's reach across the Internet.
The deal could also put to rest a brewing fight between CNET and an activist investor group led by hedge fund Jana Partners, which wants to shake up the web company. The deal values CNET at $11.50 per share and represents a 45 percent premium to its closing price on Wednesday.
On completion of the purchase, expected in the third quarter, CBS's digital properties would be home to 54 million unique monthly users in the United States and about 200 million users worldwide, the companies said.
While overshadowed by the number of users who visit sites from Yahoo Inc, Google Inc or News Corp's Fox Interactive each month -- between roughly 90 million and 140 million -- the deal would still make CBS's properties among the most popular in the United States.
CNET
Archaeological Institute of America
Harrison Ford
The actor who helped glamorize archaeology on the big screen is lending his star power to the Archaeological Institute of America.
Harrison Ford, who portrays the adventure-seeking Indiana Jones, has been elected to the Boston-based organization's board of directors. The group promotes archaeological excavation, research, education and preservation worldwide.
AIA President Brian Rose says Ford's Indiana Jones character has played a major part in stimulating interest in archaeological exploration.
Harrison Ford
Splitsville
Shania Twain
Shania Twain and husband-producer Robert "Mutt" Lange are splitting up after 14 years of marriage.
The 42-year-old Canadian country superstar and 59-year-old Lange married in 1993 and have a 6-year-old son named Eja.
Her publicist provided no further details Thursday about the couple's breakup.
Shania Twain
Convicted On 76 Of 77 Charges
Anthony Pellicano
Anthony Pellicano, known as Hollywood's private eye to the stars, was convicted on Thursday of running a vast criminal enterprise involving wiretapping and bribery to fix the problems of his wealthy clients.
After a two month trial that exposed the seamy side of the movie industry and featured a celebrity-heavy witness list, a Los Angeles federal jury convicted Pellicano on all but one of the 77 charges against him.
Pellicano, 64, who pleaded not guilty and conducted his own rambling defense dressed in prison clothes, is expected to spend the rest of his life behind bars when he is sentenced in September. He has already served time for weapons and explosives possession.
The veteran private investigator, who once worked for lawyers representing Tom Cruise, Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Jackson, presented himself as the ultimate problem solver.
He was charged with racketeering -- under U.S. laws originally used against the Mafia -- and with wiretapping and unlawfully obtaining information about troublesome foes.
Anthony Pellicano
Cleared Of Piracy In DISH Suit
News Corpse
A federal court jury on Thursday broadly cleared News Corp's NDS unit of satellite television piracy charges in a suit brought by DISH Network that could have been worth more than $1 billion.
The jury awarded only $1,500 in damages from NDS for a single test incident with a satellite television smart card.
DISH claims it lost $900 million in revenue and system-repair cost. Punitive damages could have taken the award to as much as $1.6 billion.
But NDS had argued that it used and uses former hackers to stop piracy, and that it had in fact found a piracy ring in Canada that was the culprit for DISH's hack.
News Corpse
Win Case Against Photo Agencies
Grant & Hurley
Two photo agencies have agreed to pay $113,000 to Hugh Grant, his ex-girlfriend Liz Hurley and her husband for taking photos of them while they were vacationing in the Maldives.
Britain's High Court says The Big Pictures and Eliot Press Sarl agencies apologized Thursday for using a long lens to violate the trio's privacy while they were at an island resort in October. The pictures appeared in several newspapers.
The trio plan to donate the money to a cancer charity.
Grant & Hurley
'Conspiracy Of Good' in Vichy France
Chambon-Sur-Lignon
The mostly Protestant villagers of this tiny mountain plateau didn't talk about it at the time. Today, they still mostly don't talk about it.
But during World War II, in defiance of the Vichy and Nazi regimes, they hid some 4,000 Jews, many of them children. Ordinary French farmers and shopkeepers risked their lives to rescue Jews from the Holocaust in the largest communal effort of its kind in Europe. What they did has been largely ignored or forgotten in France, experts say.
Yet in Israel, Chambon is one of two European towns honored at Yad Vashem, the official Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. Opposite a stone Protestant church in this French hamlet sits a plaque presented by Jews to "the righteous."
At a time when targeting and deporting Jews was considered patriotic, residents of Chambon refused. Instead, they fed, clothed, and housed Jews; sanctioned an industry of false passports and identity papers; and developed an underground railroad to Switzerland.
Chambon-Sur-Lignon
Hosts China's Terra Cotta Warriors
Bowers Museum
More than a dozen Chinese terra cotta warriors crafted more than 2,000 years ago to protect their emperor in the afterlife have arrived in the United States with a very different mission: cultural ambassadors.
As China gears up for the 2008 Olympics, the ancient life-sized clay statues of warriors, archers and chariot drivers go on display at the Bowers Museum as the largest loan of the warriors in U.S. history.
"Terra Cotta Warriors: Guardians of China's First Emperor" opens Sunday and runs for five months before the warriors travel to Houston, Atlanta and Washington, D.C. over the next two years. It's a debut timed to the Beijing Olympics that was millions of dollars and four years in the making, said Peter Keller, Bowers president.
The exhibit at Bowers will feature 14 life-sized figures, including a horseman, a foot soldier, a chariot driver, archers, armored generals and officers, boatmen, a strongman, court officials and servants and a clay horse. Dozens of other items unearthed from the tomb site, including life-sized bronze birds, weapons, armor, pins and pendants and large bells will also be on display.
Bowers Museum
In Memory
Warren Cowan
Legendary Hollywood press agent Warren Cowan, who represented stars such as Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman and Frank Sinatra, has died. He was 87.
Cowan and his mentor, Henry C. Rogers, founded Rogers & Cowan in 1950 and saw it become one of the world's biggest entertainment public relations firms. Among its stable of celebrity clients were Danny Kaye, Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis, Shirley MacLaine, Roberto Benigni and Elton John.
In 1988, Rogers & Cowan was sold to the British conglomerate Shandwick PLC. Cowan set up his new company, Warren Cowan & Associates, six years later. Rogers died in 1995 at age 82.
According to a biography from his firm, Cowan was already moonlighting as a publicist for actress Linda Darnell (the beautiful brunette in "The Mark of Zorro" and "Forever Amber") while studying journalism at UCLA. He joined up with Rogers in 1946, following his graduation.
He was born in New York in 1921; famed "Daily Variety" columnist Army Archerd was his friend from childhood. His father, Rubey Cowan, and brother Stanley were both songwriters; Stanley Cowan was also later a publicist in his brother's firm.
Cowan was married to Barbara Gilbert-Cowan, mother of actresses Melissa and Sara Gilbert and actor Jonathan Gilbert. He had two daughters from previous marriages: Fox News reporter Claudia Cowan, from his marriage to actress Barbara Rush; and Bonnie Fleming.
Warren Cowan
In Memory
John Phillip Law
John Phillip Law, the strikingly handsome 1960s movie actor who portrayed an angel in the futuristic "Barbarella" and a lovesick Russian seaman in "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming," has died. He was 70.
Law was World War I ace Baron Manfred von Richtofen in the 1971 "The Red Baron" and Charlton Heston's son in "The Hawaiians," a 1970 sequel to "Hawaii," based on James Michener's sprawling novel "Hawaii."
In Otto Preminger's 1967 film, "Hurry Sundown," he was a war veteran struggling to preserve his farm against a land speculator played by Michael Caine.
He continued his career in a variety of U.S. and foreign films and television over the past 30 years, including appearances in "The Young and the Restless" and "Murder, She Wrote."
Law was a California native, born in 1937 to actress Phyllis Sallee, and her husband, a police officer. He told the Los Angeles Times he did some extra work in films as a child. He said he put acting ambitions aside in his teens, but his interest was renewed in a college drama class.
John Phillip Law
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