The Weekly Poll
Current Question
Barack Obama - The Movie Edition
If you were to cast the lead for a movie about Obama's life, campaign and election who would have in the role?
A. Will Smith
B. Denzel Washington
C. Eddie Murphy
D. Samuel L. Jackson
E. Forest Whitaker
F. Other
Send your response, and a (short) reason why, to BadToTheBoneBob ( BCEpoll 'at' aol.com )
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Mike Cassidy: This time, Silicon Valley's technology changed U.S. politics (San Jose Mercury News)
It struck me as I sat at the computer in the kitchen the night of Nov. 4, with the TV blaring election results in the background.
Anna Quindlen: The Loving Decision (newsweek.com)
Same-sex marriage was beaten back at the ballot box. Now here's a history lesson on why victory is inevitable in the long run.
Andrew Tobias: I Got Nothing (andrewtobias.com)
Roses are red, / Violence, appalling. / With a rhyme such as this one, / I'm obviously stalling.
Tim Dowling: Deflation - what's not to like? (guardian.co.uk)
It's only a problem if you're the one trying to sell the cheap thing, or if the incredibly cheap thing is your salary.
Mark Morford: Misery loves TV (sfgate.com)
Unhappy people watch lots more toob. But it doesn't stop there.
JENNIFER HOWARD: St. Olaf Wrestles With Milton's Angel, and Prevails (chronicle.com)
When Richard J. DuRocher, a professor of English at St. Olaf College, in Northfield, Minn., told one of his classes that he was running a marathon, everybody cheered. Then he told them what kind of marathon: a straight-through, out-loud reading of John Milton's Paradise Lost - all 12 books of it, from Satan's fall to Adam and Eve's eviction from the Garden of Eden.
Claude Peck: In his first novel in 10 years, Wally Lamb sweeps up history, violence and family heartbreak (Star Tribune)
Wally Lamb's new novel, 450,000 copies of which have just arrived in bookstores, is big enough to threaten Thanksgiving and maybe even Christmas, as readers ignore turkey basting and tinsel tossing to turn the 723 wide-ranging, heavily plotted pages of "The Hour I First Believed."
Rick Bentley: Stephenie Meyer's saga about young love and vampires heads to the big screen (McClatchy Newspapers)
Stephenie Meyer did what many professed to be impossible. She convinced millions of teens and tweens to read something other than a text message or a computer screen. She got them to read her book called "Twilight," which is a novel about star-crossed lovers where one of the high school juniors happens to be a vampire.
Gary Giddins: Buster Keaton's "The General" (slate.com)
Yeah, it's silent. So what? You'll barely notice. It's that good.
Unleash your inner boom (guardian.co.uk)
Langhorne Slim is one of the greatest live acts Laura Barton has ever seen. Why did it take a film soundtrack to get him noticed?
PS: Speaking of McDonald's, don't they just make the tastiest french fry's in the word?? Yum!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Nights are finally cooling off to where I'm thinking about taking the fans out of the windows.
Tours Eastern Congo Refugee Camps
Ben Affleck
Ben Affleck is talking to children and aid officials in refugee camps in war-torn eastern Congo in an effort to raise awareness of the conflict that has displaced at least 250,000 people.
The actor has visited the Central African country four times since 2007 and also has made a documentary about its problems.
Affleck said he first became interested in Congo a few years ago, when Hollywood's attentions began to focus another African crisis, Darfur. After doing more research on Africa, he was shocked to learn about Congo's four-year war, during which an estimated 5 million people died.
Ben Affleck
Free Soda Sunday
Dr Pepper
Dr Pepper is making good on its promise of free soda now that the release of Guns N' Roses' "Chinese Democracy" is a reality. The soft-drink maker said in March that it would give a free soda to everyone in America if the album dropped in 2008. "Chinese Democracy," infamously delayed since recording began in 1994, goes on sale Sunday.
"We never thought this day would come," Tony Jacobs, Dr Pepper's vice president of marketing, said in a statement. "But now that it's here, all we can say is: The Dr Pepper's on us."
Beginning Sunday at 12:01 a.m., coupons for a free 20-ounce soda will be available for 24 hours on Dr Pepper's Web site. They'll be honored until Feb. 28.
Dr Pepper
Delivers Gurkha Petition
Joanna Lumley
Actress Joanna Lumley has led a rally which called on the Government to pay back a "debt of honour" to Gurkhas.
Around 2,000 veterans and campaigners gathered in London to deliver a petition and to take part in a wreath-laying ceremony in memory of those who died serving the British Army.
I
n the wake of a High Court ruling, the Gurkha Justice Campaign wants new measures to be introduced to give Gurkhas who retired or were discharged from the Army before 1997 the automatic right to settle in the UK.
Currently only Gurkhas who retired or were discharged from the army after July 1, 1997 are eligible to settle here. In September, the High Court ruled that the immigration policy used to exclude pre-1997 retired Gurkhas from the UK was unlawful.
Joanna Lumley
Grave Found
Nicolaus Copernicus
Researchers said Thursday they have identified the remains of Nicolaus Copernicus by comparing DNA from a skeleton and hair retrieved from one of the 16th-century astronomer's books. The findings could put an end to centuries of speculation about the exact resting spot of Copernicus, a priest and astronomer whose theories identified the Sun, not the Earth, as the center of the universe.
Polish archaeologist Jerzy Gassowski told a news conference that forensic facial reconstruction of the skull, missing the lower jaw, his team found in 2005 buried in a Roman Catholic Cathedral in Frombork, Poland, bears striking resemblance to existing portraits of Copernicus.
The reconstruction shows a broken nose and other features that resemble a self-portrait of Copernicus, and the skull bears a cut mark above the left eye that corresponds with a scar shown in the painting.
Moreover, the skull belonged to a man aged around 70 - Copernicus's age when he died in 1543.
Nicolaus Copernicus
18 Wheel Migration
Monarch Butterfly
About three weeks ago, Jeannette Brandt was out for a bike ride in rural Hadley when she spied the injured butterfly and took it home in her emptied water bottle.
She and her partner, Mike Parwana, fed it rotting pears and water mixed with honey from bees they keep. The butterfly fattened but the question remained: What about the broken wing?
A search of the Internet turned up a nine-minute video demonstration posted by the Live Monarch Foundation, a nonprofit group from Boca Raton, Fla., on how to fix a broken butterfly wing. A little contact cement on the wing, some tiny cardboard splints, and the bruised butterfly was back in business.
On Sunday, the couple took the healed monarch in a shoebox to Scotty's, a popular and busy truck stop about 35 miles north of Albany. Anybody looking for company on the trip south?
Monarch Butterfly
5 More Years
Roger Ailes
Roger Ailes, the veteran television executive propagandist who launched the Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network, has signed a new five-year contract with News Corp, Rupert Murdoch's media conglomerate.
Ailes, 68, joined News Corp in 1996 when he launched the Fox News Channel. Under the new contract, Ailes will continue to oversee the news and financial channels, as well as Fox Television Stations, Fox Business Network, My Network TV and Twentieth Television.
He also will advise Murdoch on TV and news matters, according to a statement released by News Corp on Thursday.
Ailes had more than a year left on his previous contract, company spokesman Brian Lewis said. He declined to say how much money Ailes would earn under the new contract.
Roger Ailes
John 'Sour Grapes' McCain
Jackson Browne
John McCain may have lost the presidential election to Barack Obama, but his campaign seems absolutely determined not to lose to Jackson Browne.
The singer/songwriter sued McCain in August after the Republican candidate for the highest office in the land used his song, "Running on Empty," in a campaign commercial that targeted Obama's energy plan. At the time, many didn't take the legal threat very seriously, but based on two motions filed this week in U.S. District Court in California, the McCain campaign sure does.
Represented by attorney Lincoln Bandlow at Spillane Shaeffer, McCain has filed two 20-page motions.
Jackson Browne
To Testify In British Court
Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson will appear in a British court next week to testify in a lawsuit brought against him by a Bahraini prince, the singer's lawyer said on Thursday.
The reclusive 50-year-old pop star is being sued by Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad al-Khalifa, the second son of the king of Bahrain, who says Jackson reneged on a contract to record a new album and write an autobiography.
He also says Jackson owes him $7 million after the prince paid for his legal costs, travel and other expenses.
Jackson contests that there was no valid agreement with al-Khalifa and that the sheikh's case is based on "mistake, misrepresentation and undue influence."
Michael Jackson
Settles Suit
Sean Stewart
A case against Rod Stewart's son over a brawl at a Hollywood nightclub has been resolved.
Seal Bral, an attorney for the man who sued Sean Stewart in 2007, says the parties reached a settlement after undergoing private mediation. A Los Angeles court dismissed the case on Tuesday.
The case had been scheduled to go to trial in January, although Stewart's attorneys had been seeking a dismissal. An attorney for Stewart did not return a phone message Thursday.
Stewart appeared in the A&E show "Sons of Hollywood" and is also one of the patients featured on this season's "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew" on VH1.
Sean Stewart
Taco Bell Lawyers Get Tough
50 Cent
Rapper 50 Cent is facing a challenge to his street cred - from Taco Bell.
Lawyers for the fast-food chain are calling his federal lawsuit, filed in Manhattan, another attempt to "burnish his gangsta rapper persona by distorting beyond all recognition a bona fide, good faith offer."
The squabble is over a fake letter sent out by Taco Bell Corp. asking 50 Cent to change his name for one day to 79 Cent, 89 Cent or 99 Cent to help publicize its value menu.
In return, the company offered to donate $10,000 to the charity of his choice.
50 Cent
Lawmaker Apologizes For Blocking
Wikipedia
A member of parliament who got a court order blocking online encyclopedia Wikipedia in Germany for two days because of entries linking him to communist-era security police apologized on Tuesday for overreacting.
Lutz Heilmann, a little-known MP of the Left party, made headlines across Germany and stirred complaints about censorship for winning the court injunction temporarily blocking the popular reference data base.
Heilmann told Tageszeitung newspaper he took the step because the entry about him in Wikipedia included false information, suggesting he worked for former communist East Germany's Stasi. He said he realized he had made a mistake.
Wikipedia
Cable Nielsens
Ratings
Rankings for the top 15 programs on cable networks as compiled by Nielsen Media Research for the week of Nov. 10-16. Day and start time (EST) are in parentheses:
1. NFL Football: San Francisco vs. Arizona (Monday, 8:30 p.m.), ESPN, 8.68 million homes, 11.87 million viewers.
2. "Jeff Dunham's Very Special Christmas Special" (Sunday, 9 p.m.), Comedy Central, 4.03 million homes, 6.61 million viewers.
3. Movie: "ICarly Movie: Go to Japan" (Monday, 7 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.45 million homes, 4.83 million viewers.
4. "Hannah Montana" (Sunday, 8 p.m.), Disney, 3.37 million homes, 4.61 million viewers.
5. College Football: Mississippi St. vs. Alabama (Saturday, 7:41 p.m.), ESPN, 3.25 million homes, 4.95 million viewers.
6. "NCIS" (Tuesday, 7 p.m.), USA, 3.25 million homes, 4.28 million viewers.
7. Movie: "The Two Mr. Kissels" (Saturday, 9 p.m.), Lifetime, 3.24 million homes, 4.16 million viewers.
8. NFL Football: N.Y. Jets vs. New England (Thursday, 8:16 p.m.), NFL Network, 3.13 million homes, 4.41 million viewers.
9. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 10 p.m.), USA, 3.12 million homes, 4.59 million viewers.
10. "ICarly" (Monday, 6 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.1 million homes, 4.09 million viewers.
11. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 9 p.m.), USA, 3.05 million homes, 4.68 million viewers.
12. "The O'Reilly Factor" (Monday, 8 p.m.), Fox News Channel, 3 million homes, 4.03 million viewers.
13. "ICarly" (Monday, 6:30 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.966 million homes, 4.02 million viewers.
14. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Saturday, 9:30 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.964 million homes, 3.82 million viewers.
15. Movie: "ICarly Movie: Go to Japan" (Tuesday, 4 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.95 million homes, 3.96 million viewers.
Ratings
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