'Best of TBH Politoons'
Thanks, again, Tim!
Reader Suggestion
Interesting Site
Discovery Channel :: Shark Video Cam
Looking into the 200,000-gallon, four story-tall Giant Ocean Tank exhibit at the New England Aquarium
Marianne M
Thanks, Marianne!
from Mark
Another Bumpersticker
Reader Comment
Janeane Garofalo on "The Daily Show"
Did anyone see Janeane Garofalo on "The Daily Show" Wednesday night?
She called DUMBya "a fundamentalist" and Jon Stewart questioned
that. "I knew he was a born-again Christian but..."
Without missing a beat, Janeane said "No, he IS a fundamentalist. He
believes in all this 'Rapture' stuff. THAT's why he's trashing the
environment!"
Even if this stuff he believes in was true (ha ha), what gives
DUMBya the impression that the folks in heaven would take HIM? (The
guy's as delusional as he is arrogant, greedy and stupid!)
Terry C
NJ
Thanks, Terry C!
Eric Idle presents
The FCC Song
"Here's a little song I wrote the other day while I was out duck hunting with a judge… It's a new song, it's dedicated to the FCC and if they broadcast it, it will cost a quarter of a million dollars."
The Wall Street Poet
Beating Inflation
When it comes to inflation, the Fed likes to focus on a so-called "core rate" that excludes changes in the cost of food and energy. Maybe individuals should do the same. Maybe the best way to beat inflation at the personal level is to adopt a core rate lifestyle.
Beating Inflation The Core Rate Way
If you want to beat inflation
Here's a sure and easy way,
Live your life to match the core rate
Then few extra costs you'll pay.
Food and energy? Bad habits!
They're what's running up your bills;
Stop your eating, don't go driving,
This will cure inflation's ills.
Feel a morning pang of hunger?
Feed it with computer chips;
Since chip prices keep on falling
Breakfast chips check price hike blips.
Don't commute in cars on workdays
Such behavior is dead wrong,
Tell your boss it's just too pricey
He will surely go along.
If you want to beat inflation,
All its worries to defray,
Live a core life at the core rate,
Watch the monster fade away.
© 2004
**********
For more political verse:
http://www.beltwaybard.com
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Still sunny & breezy.
Had to attend a meeting at the middle school the kid is supposed to attend next fall. Wish I was happier with what I saw.
First off, the school motto is 'Working together to raise standards in dress, behavior and achievement.' Dress is their first priority? Mother O'God!
Yes, we have 'open enrollment' and supposedly we can place him in another school - but the schools are overcrowded, with huge waiting lists - and we've been warned the odds are not in our favor.
Between 'leave no child behind' & Ahnold in charge up in Sac, there's nothing to worry about. < /sarcasm>
Former President Clinton speaks to graduating seniors at Tougaloo College in Jackson, Miss., on May 18, 2003.
Photo by Rogelio Solis
The Information One-Stop
Moose & Squirrel
Speaking at NYC Commencement
Bill Clinton
Former President Clinton is scheduled to speak at commencement at City College, not far from his Harlem office.
Clinton will deliver the June 4 keynote speech to 2,700 graduates at the school's uptown Herman Goldman Center. He'll also receive an honorary degree.
Clinton also is scheduled to deliver the senior convocation address to graduating Cornell University students on May 29.
Bill Clinton
Verbal Bullets Fly
Cannes
If there's been a story that has actually managed to prick the bubble of star-struck and self-absorbed Cannes Film Festival, it's been politics. Politics of all kinds, local and international, electoral and cultural, screen and off, but especially the war in Iraq. If the premiere on Monday of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 made the biggest explosion in that regard, further rumblings have been felt just about everywhere.
Following the press screening of Robert Greenwald's documentary Uncovered: The War In Iraq, Joseph Wilson, the former U.S. ambassador to Gabon who is interviewed in the troubling film about his experiences running afoul of the Bush administration, stood for a no-punches-pulled Q & A.
Wilson, a Democrat who also served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. embassy in Iraq, became headline news when his wife's identity as a CIA undercover agent was leaked to the neo-conservative journalist Robert Novak. This incident followed Wilson's highly publicized insistence there was no evidence to suggest Saddam Hussein engaged in trading lethal materials with Niger.
Asked how the neo-conservative agenda has managed to dominate the mainstream news media in America after Sept. 11 - an issue addressed in both Moore's and Greenwald's films - Wilson offered a theory.
For the rest & a great Tom Hanks quote, Cannes
Chinese concert pianist Lang Lang reacts after he played the Steinway Peace Piano in rehearsal before a performance at the UNICEF Headquarters in New York, May 20, 2004. The 22-year-old pianist was named UNICEF's youngest Goodwill Ambassador and he played a concert on the new piano. The piano is one of only two in Steinway & Sons 'Legendary' line and is considered priceless. It is an adaptation of Steinway's 1939 World's Fair piano and features the flags of all nations of the world and a peace dove with an olive branch on the case. The piano will tour the world for three years to raise funds and awareness for UNICEF.
Photo by Ray Stubblebine
Lauds WWII-Era Women
Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek said she was a tomboy growing up in Texas, riding cows, chewing tar and sneaking out at night in her pajamas. She thought if she could kiss her elbow, she'd turn into a boy.
In honoring Rosies - women who worked and managed the home front during World War II - the movie star told about 60 people at Arlington National Cemetery that those women "paved the path" for later generations.
The original Rosie the Riveter, Rosie Will Monroe, worked on the assembly line at Ford building B-29 and B24 military planes. She caught the eye of Hollywood producers who were casting a "riveter" for a promotional film. Her exposure in the film resulted in the "We Can Do It!" poster. She came to symbolize the generation of women who entered the workplace during the war.
Sissy Spacek
Caps Star-Studded AIDS Gala in Cannes
Liza Minnelli
"Cabaret" star Liza Minnelli brought a star-studded AIDS benefit at the Cannes film festival to an emotional close on Thursday with a heartfelt tribute to her mother Judy Garland.
"I've never done this before," a nervous Minnelli told the audience at the gala before launching into an a cappella rendition of the classic "You Made Me Love You."
The performance capped an evening of musical entertainment from the likes of Sheryl Crow and Natalie Portman, which raised more than $1.8 million for the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR).
Liza Minnelli
Raising New Cash
Air America
Air America Radio, the upstart liberal talk show network that has been plagued by management troubles, is seeking to raise new money in efforts to pay off debts and steer the business toward profitability.
A group of early investors that include Florida plaintiffs lawyer Mike Papantonio, Chicago entrepreneur Sheldon Drobny, and Rob Glaser, chairman of RealNetworks Inc., have committed to invest new capital, people familiar with the company said.
Earlier this month former CEO Evan Cohen was pushed out after the board lost confidence in his management.
Air America has racked up unpaid debts, which include payroll to sales forces it hired in Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco, but was forced to let go after backing out on plans to lease radio stations in those markets.
Papantonio and others attributed the company's troubles thus far to mismanagement by Cohen, a former Republican political operative in Guam.
Air America
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Slams Europe Over Myanmar
Bono
Irish rock star and political activist Bono told a US Congressional hearing he was ashamed by Europe's lukewarm support for punitive sanctions against military-ruled Myanmar.
"I am deeply ashamed as a European of the pitiful lack of volume of support for her (Aung San Suu Kyi)," Bono, the lead singer in superstar band U2, told a Senate foreign operations appropriations subcommittee hearing this week.
U2 dedicated the hit song "Walk On" to Aung San Suu Kyi in its last album, and all U2 music is banned by the Myanmar regime. Bono had lobbied US Congress to back humanitarian efforts, including the battle against AIDS.
Bono
Jim Halbach, owner of the strip club Isabella Queen, helps Beverly Fischer of Janesville, Wis., with a voter registration form in the club Tuesday, May 18, 2004, in Beloit, Wis. Halbach has registered more than 200 voters in the past month, in an effort to make sure that resident Bush is not re-elected in November.
Photo by Morry Gash
Best Movie Death Ever
'Psycho'
Janet Leigh's shower scene in "Psycho" is the "best movie death" of all time, according to a critics' poll published Thursday.
The 1960 Alfred Hitchcock thriller beat other iconic movies such as "The Godfather" (22nd) and Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs" (23rd) in the non-scientific poll by Total Film magazine.
Stanley Kubrick's "Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb" (1964) came in second, with its surreal ending in which Slim Pickens rides an atomic bomb.
Other highly rated movie deaths were the fatal plunge of the ape in 1933's "King Kong," which came in third place, and the demise of Bambi's mother in the 1942 Disney movie "Bambi," which came in sixth.
'Psycho'
Belongings to Be Auctioned
Johnny Cash
One piece at a time, Johnny Cash's guitars, banjos, handwritten lyrics, photographs, vintage black leather clothing, Grammy awards and other belongings will be auctioned this fall by Sotheby's.
More than 650 pieces from the estate of the country music icon and his wife, June Carter Cash, will be offered Sept. 14 and 15, Sotheby's said Thursday. The collection is valued at about $1.5 million.
Johnny Cash
DJ on Radio Show
Jerry Springer
Jerry Springer will spend a week as a disc jockey on a British radio show.
The American television talk-show host will present Capital Gold's 4-7 p.m. show when its DJ, Paul Coyte, is on vacation.
Springer is expected to play a selection of his favorite songs from the '60s, '70s and '80s during his stint, which begins May 31.
Jerry Springer
Fox to Debut Across Calendar
New Series
Fox is launching its new series in June, August, November and January this year - nearly every month but the traditional September start of the television season.
The critically-acclaimed but ratings-challenged comedy "Arrested Development" has been renewed, and Fox will shift two of its most popular dramas: "The O.C." will move to Thursday nights in November, and "24" will shift to Monday in January, the network announced Thursday.
Fox took the odd step Thursday of releasing not one, but three separate future schedules: one for June to October, another for November to January 2005 and another for January to June. It risks confusion for advertisers who are being asked to buy commercial time.
New Series
Formerly 'The Vidiot'
Creator Sues Disney Over Royalties
'Millionaire'
The British creator of "Who Wants to Be A Millionaire?" on Thursday sued the Walt Disney Co., accusing it of "sweetheart deals" with its broadcast and production subsidiaries to cut him out of profits from its U.S. version of the game show.
In a Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit, series creator Paul Smith and his company, Celador International Ltd., said Disney and subsidiaries ABC and Buena Vista Television manipulated costs to keep the series "at prices well below the fair market value."
The suit seeks unspecified damages and asks a judge to order Disney and its subsidiaries to disgorge its profits from "Millionaire."
'Millionaire'
Sir Richard Branson makes an entrance wearing a rocket pack in the Virgin Megastore in New York's Times Square, Thursday morning May 20, 2004. Surrounding Branson are people waiting to register to compete in his new reality show 'Branson Protege,' to air this fall on the Fox Network.
Photo by Mark Greenberg
Picked Up
'Enterprise'
There's good news and bad news for fans of Star Trek: Enterprise.
The good: The show will live on for another season, moving to a Friday night time slot, UPN announced Thursday at its annual upfront presentation in New York.
The bad: Despite the official pick-up, the buzz on sci-fi fan Websites is that the fourth season will be the ratings-challenged series' last ride on UPN.
'Enterprise'
Festival in Vermont
Phish
Burlington-born jam band Phish will hold its first-ever home state festival this summer.
The Aug. 14-15 festival will be held on the grounds of the Newport State Airport and adjacent fields in the rural town of Coventry, Phish said on its Web site.
Phish
Principals, Principles & Politics
Bill Nevins
Bill Nevins, a New Mexico high school teacher was fired last year and classes in poetry and the poetry club at Rio Rancho High School were permanently terminated. It had nothing to do with obscenity, but it had everything to do with extremist politics.
In March 2003, a teenage girl named Courtney presented one of her poems before an audience at Barnes & Noble bookstore in Albuquerque, then read the poem live on the school's closed-circuit television channel.
A school military liaison and the high school principal accused the girl of being "un-American" because she criticized the war in Iraq and the Bush administration's failure to give substance to its "No child left behind" education policy.
The girl's mother, also a teacher, was ordered by the principal to destroy the child's poetry. The mother refused and may lose her job.
After firing Nevins and terminating the teaching and reading of poetry in the school, the principal and the military liaison read a poem of their own as they raised the flag outside the school. When the principal had the flag at full staff, he applauded the action he'd taken in concert with the military liaison.
Get your blood pressure up & read the rest - Bill Nevins
One of the three six-week old Asiatic lion cubs born at Chessington World of Adventure in Surrey, England, stands alongside his father Thursday May 20, 2004, as he makes his public debut. The species is critically endangered with just 500 left in the world.
Photo by Tim Ockenden
'The Osbournes'
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