Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Is bank robbery clip real? (snopes.com)
No.
Ted Rall: IF I DIE IN AFGHANISTAN
Please Spare Me the Hypocritical Obituaries.
Bill Press: Republican Party Platform: Welfare for the Rich (Tribune Media Services)
Something important happened this week: Republican leaders in Congress finally came out for something.
Tom Danehy: Red-light cameras reduce accidents, and we need more (tucsonweekly.com)
More (mostly) bad news for all you bad drivers out there. (You know who you are ... and the poor souls whose bad luck it is to be driving next to, behind, or in front of you know who you are, too.) While the governor and some people in the state Legislature are looking out for your "right" to endanger others with your selfish disregard for safety, you've only been given a reprieve on the state highways. All of those pesky red-light and speeding cameras here in town are still active, and more are coming online.
Jim Hightower: WALL STREET'S CONNECTED LOBBYISTS
Old Congress critters never die, they just fade away. Into lobbying firms, that is.
Connie Schultz: Looking for Blame in Glenn Beck's America (creators.com)
Ever since I watched Glenn Beck's Fear-extravaganza on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial last Saturday, I've been trying to figure out who ran off with America.
Susan Estrich: The Generic Race (creators.com)
Gallup is out this week with a new poll showing the generic Republican beating the generic Democrat in House contests by 10 points. The gap, Gallup points out, is the biggest one it has seen in midterm generic polls since it started doing them. It is substantially larger than the gap in 1994, when Republicans took control of the House in the first midterm election of the last Democratic president, Bill Clinton.
Grace Dent: What I've learned about teenagers (guardian.co.uk)
Writing 11 novels for teenagers gives you a special insight on their world, from their use of language to their taste in fashion.
Susan King: Boris Karloff, a monster talent remembered (latimes.com)
Boris Karloff may have created two of cinema's greatest horror film ghouls -- the Frankenstein monster and The Mummy -- but in real life, he didn't even like to use the word horror.
Steven Zeitchik: 'Machete's' Danny Trejo will kill again (latimes.com)
The actor will reunite with "Machete" costar Michelle Rodriguez in a new indie called "Skinny Dip."
John Anderson: Robert Rodriguez unleashes edgy 'Machete' (Newsday)
One of the deciding moments in the making of the neo-exploitation, ultra-violent-comedy thriller "Machete" came when star-to-be Danny Trejo was doing an autograph signing in England. "These guys came up and they had pictures of 'Machete' tattooed on their backs," Trejo said. "Talk about responsibility."
David Bruce: The Funniest People in Families, Volume 6: 250 Anecdotes
A Kindle Book: $1.
The Weekly Poll
NEW POLL SEPTEMBER 7th... Stay tuned!
BadToTheBoneBob
wrote:
replied:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Guy in Neighborhood Responds
Islamic Center on Park Place
I live just 6-8 blocks north of the much distorted Park51 project!
Amid all this turmoil, the mainstream media wall-to-wall hate speech, lies
and Islamophobia, countrymen set against each other, friends de-friending
each other on Facebook, I was torn up by WHAT those of us who want a
teaching moment about religious liberty, private property and
anti-violence should DO?
The betrayal of bedrock American values goes deep here, horrifyingly deep.
Honestly, I am terrified that the *tyranny of the majority* is going to
crush our founding principles and the Constitution, and extend the Bush
wars into an Orwell-style permanent war with all 1.5 BILLION Muslims, just
because most Americans are too ignorant/misled to recognize the huge
difference between the Park51 Sufis and the war crimes of radical Wahhabi
Sunnis on 9/11.
All I could come up with was making this blog/video: it's my response to
the right-wing talking heads on your TVs and internets about this Islamic
Center, really not a mosque and really not at "Ground Zero," but a Y to be
built in a disused Burlington Coat Factory IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD!
Thought you would find my take interesting. Please feel free to spread
the link.
I have a desperate urge to fight for the soul of the nation, and I don't
really know what to do. Any ideas of HOW to fight back, how to help stem
my overwhelming sense of helplessness and frustration appreciated!
Yours in activism,
Nick
Thanks, Nick!
Please check out his video - Nick is one of the most amazing people I've ever known.
Reader Suggestion
Sarah Palin's Dark Universe
Even as Sarah Palin's public voice grows louder, she has become increasingly secretive, walling herself off from old friends and associates, and attempting to enforce silence from those around her. Following the former Alaska governor's road show, the author delves into the surreal new world Palin now inhabits-a place of fear, anger, and illusion, which has swallowed up the engaging, small-town hockey mom and her family-and the sadness she has left in her wake.
Sarah Palin: The Sound and the Fury | Politics | Vanity Fair
MAM
Thanks, Marianne!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and warmer.
God Did Not Create The Universe
Stephen Hawking
God did not create the universe and the "Big Bang" was an inevitable consequence of the laws of physics, the eminent British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking argues in a new book.
In "The Grand Design," co-authored with U.S. physicist Leonard Mlodinow, Hawking says a new series of theories made a creator of the universe redundant, according to the Times newspaper which published extracts on Thursday.
"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist," Hawking writes.
"It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going."
His latest comments suggest he has broken away from previous views he has expressed on religion. Previously, he wrote that the laws of physics meant it was simply not necessary to believe that God had intervened in the Big Bang.
Stephen Hawking
'Brazil Series' On Display In Denmark
Bob Dylan
Denmark's National Gallery is displaying 40 acrylic paintings by Bob Dylan that have never before been shown to the public.
Curator Kasper Monrad said the paintings in Dylan's "Brazil Series" were specifically made for the Danish exhibition, which opens Friday.
The collection includes figurative scenes from Brazilian slums, farms and beaches. The 69-year-old folk singer sketched the scenes during visits to the South American country and then painted them on canvas in a studio.
"I chose Brazil as a subject, because I have been there many times and I like the atmosphere," Dylan said in a statement released by the museum Thursday.
Bob Dylan
Indonesia's Smoking Toddler Habit
Ardi Rizal
A two-year-old Indonesian boy who smoked about 40 cigarettes a day has kicked the habit after receiving intensive specialist care, a child welfare official said Thursday.
Ardi Rizal shocked the world when a video of him drawing heavily on cigarettes appeared on the Internet in May and drew attention to Indonesia's failure to regulate the tobacco industry.
Accompanied by his mother, the boy left his village on Sumatra island in July to undergo treatment in the capital.
"He received psychosocial therapy for one month, during which therapists kept him busy with activities and encouraged him to play with kids of the same age," Sirait said.
"We diverted his addiction from cigarettes to playing."
Ardi Rizal
Hospital News
Zsa Zsa Gabor
Hollywood fixture Zsa Zsa Gabor, whose health has been failing in recent months since she fell and broke her hip, has returned home after being hospitalized this week, her spokesman said on Thursday.
The 93-year-old actress remains in a great deal of pain from being bedridden for around seven weeks, said spokesman John Blanchette.
Gabor, who is as famous for her lavish lifestyle and number of husbands -- she married nine times -- as for acting, broke her hip on July 17 and had replacement surgery two days later.
Zsa Zsa Gabor
Rapper, Wife Arrested
T.I.
Grammy-winning rapper T.I. was arrested along with his wife on suspicion of possessing methamphetamines, five months after the hip-hop star finished a prison stint on weapons charges.
The 29-year-old rapper and his wife, Tameka Cottle, were arrested Wednesday night in West Hollywood after deputies smelled marijuana and pulled the couple over, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said. They were released from jail at about 4 a.m. Thursday after posting $10,000 bail each, sheriff's Deputy Luis Castro said.
T.I. served seven months in an Arkansas federal prison and three months in a Georgia halfway house on federal weapons charges for possessing unregistered machine guns and silencers. He was sentenced to serve three years of supervised release after his prison sentence ended.
He was ordered not to commit another federal, state or local crime while on supervised release, and also ordered not to illegally possess a controlled substance. He was also told to take at least three drug tests after his release and to participate in a drug and alcohol treatment program.
T.I.
Ex-Employee Sues
Sean "Diddy" Combs
A New York woman has sued rapper-producer Sean "Diddy" Combs, saying he fired her because of her age two decades after she helped launch his career.
Fifty-one-year-old Francesca Spero filed the age discrimination lawsuit Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan.
The lawsuit says the Malverne resident introduced Combs to hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons and Uptown Records after meeting Combs in 1988. It says she worked at Combs' Bad Boy Entertainment record label as an executive for 12 years before being fired in March.
The lawsuit says Spero was fired after having hip surgery and confiding to an executive that she was treated for a drug dependency relapse.
Sean "Diddy" Combs
Tries Dublin's Patience
Axl Rose
Axl Rose, it seems, needs a little more patience - and a much louder alarm clock.
The 48-year-old singer of U.S. hard-rock band Guns N' Roses irritated thousands of his Dublin fans at the 02 Arena on Wednesday night by showing up nearly an hour late - a recurring problem on his band's European tour - and then walking off after an unruly minority in the crowd hurled water bottles on the stage.
Most of the fans left, but Irish concert promoters MCD wouldn't let Rose leave until he finished the gig. The band went back on stage an hour later to a mostly empty venue and didn't stop playing until nearly 1 a.m.
MCD and the 02 issued a joint statement criticizing Rose for having "a long history for being late on stage," but emphasized that "no artist should be subjected to missiles and unknown substances being thrown at them."
Axl Rose
Freed From NY Jail
Robert "Joe" Halderman
The former television producer who tried to blackmail David Letterman was freed Thursday after four months in jail for a plot that put a spotlight on the comic icon's office affairs, city Correction Department records show.
Robert "Joe" Halderman got time off for good behavior from his six-month term at the Rikers Island jail complex, but he isn't done with his sentence: He still has to complete 1,000 hours of community service, and he'll be on probation for five years.
Halderman, 52, pleaded guilty earlier this spring to attempted grand larceny. He admitted he demanded $2 million in hush money last fall to keep from revealing personal information about Letterman, presenting his threat in a somewhat colorful form: as an outline for a thinly veiled screenplay about the "Late Show" host being ruined by disclosures about his personal life.
Halderman's scheme was fueled by both financial problems and romantic jealousy, his lawyer has said. Halderman had peeked in his former girlfriend's diary and read her account of a relationship with Letterman, her boss - information he used to bolster his threat to make the comic icon's world "collapse around him," authorities said.
Robert "Joe" Halderman
Feds Sue Arizona Sheriff
Joe Arpaio
The Justice Department sued the nation's self-proclaimed "toughest sheriff" on Thursday, calling Joe Arpaio's defiance of an investigation into his office's alleged discrimination against Hispanics "unprecedented."
It's the first time in decades a lawman has refused to cooperate in one of the agency's probes, the department said.
The Arizona sheriff had been given until Aug. 17 to hand over documents the federal government first asked for 15 months ago, when it started investigating alleged discrimination, unconstitutional searches and seizures, and jail policies that discriminate against people with limited English skills.
Arpaio called the lawsuit "a ruse" and said the federal government is just trying to score a win against the state, which has found itself at the center of the nation's argument over illegal immigration since passing a law that mirrors many of the policies Arpaio has put into place in the greater Phoenix area.
Joe Arpaio
Worked For Mossad
Simon Wiesenthal
A new book claims renowned Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal worked for Israel's Mossad spy agency, providing information on war criminals and Germans working in Arab countries.
The assertions in "Wiesenthal - The Life and Legends" shed a different light on the Holocaust survivor previously believed to have conducted a lone quest to bring war criminals, such as top Nazi Adolf Eichmann, to justice.
The founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, Rabbi Marvin Hier, said Wiesenthal had told him he had assisted the Mossad. But Hier said he never realized how formal the relationship had been or that Wiesenthal had been paid for it.
In the book, Israeli historian Tom Segev writes that the famed Nazi hunter worked with Israeli agents even before the establishment of the Mossad in 1949. In December 1948, Wiesenthal helped a forerunner of the agency mount a failed attempt to capture Eichmann, who was known as "the architect of the Holocaust."
Simon Wiesenthal
Jury Struggles
Fernanda Romero
A federal jury weighing whether a Mexican-born actress committed marriage fraud has ended a second day of deliberations without reaching any verdicts and has expressed discord in its ranks.
The jury weighing whether to convict Fernanda Romero and her U.S-born husband reported that one of its members was "hostile" Thursday afternoon. U.S. District Judge Manuel Real instructed the panel to continue deliberation after defense attorneys said they thought the jury could reach some verdicts.
Deliberations continued for another hour without any agreement. They will return Friday morning.
A forewoman said the panel has not yet reached any agreement on the seven charges the pair face. The pair are also charged with lying on immigration forms.
Fernanda Romero
In Memory
Cammie King Conlon
Cammie King Conlon, the actress who portrayed the doomed daughter of Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone With the Wind," has died at 76.
Her friend, Bruce Lewis, says Conlon died of lung cancer Wednesday morning at her home on California's north coast. Her son, Matthew Ned Conlon, was by her side.
Conlon was picked to play the small, but pivotal role of Bonnie Blue Butler in the 1939 film at age 4. Her character's death in a fall from a pony irrevocably damages Rhett and Scarlett's tumultuous marriage.
Conlon also voiced the young doe Faline in Walt Disney's "Bambi" three years later. It would be her final film role.
Lewis says she never stopped gamely reprising her Bonnie Blue days for "Gone With the Wind" enthusiasts.
Cammie King Conlon
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