'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Bruce is vacationing.
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Jeff Crook
In the Headlines
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Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Overcast but little rain.
Here's a complete list of the SAG Award Nominations - 2008.
Returning To Air
Stewart & Colbert
"The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report" will resume production on Jan. 7 without their striking writers, the Comedy Central network announced Thursday.
In a joint statement, Stewart and Colbert said: "We would like to return to work with our writers. If we cannot, we would like to express our ambivalence, but without our writers we are unable to express something as nuanced as ambivalence."
A spokesman for Comedy Central said neither the network, Stewart nor Colbert would have any further comment. A call to the Writers Guild of America was not immediately returned late Thursday.
Stewart & Colbert
AP Celebrity of the Year
Stephen Colbert
While most TV characters remain boxed inside the frames of our sets, Stephen Colbert has routinely injected his on-screen persona into everything from the presidential race to ice cream.
Colbert failed to get onto the primary ballot in his home state of South Carolina, dooming his hopes for the White House. And his show went 0-for-4 at the Emmy Awards, including an especially painful loss to Barry Manilow.
But Colbert did win one honor: He was voted AP Celebrity of the Year by newspaper editors and broadcast producers who said Colbert had the biggest impact on pop culture in 2007.
He finished just a nudge above J.K. Rowling, who authored the final book in her enormously popular "Harry Potter" series. Finishing third was Al Gore, whose year included an Oscar, an Emmy, a Nobel Peace Prize and the global concert Live Earth.
Stephen Colbert
Meeting With Writers
Worldwide Pants
Leaders of striking television writers plan to meet Friday with David Letterman's production company in an attempt to reach a separate deal that could make the "Late Show" the only late-night TV program on the air with a writing staff.
The union's announcement last week that it would negotiate separately with production companies was seen as an indication that writers would work out something with Worldwide Pants, the Letterman-owned company that produces his show and Craig Ferguson's CBS talker.
It hasn't worked out that way, a sign that some in the Writer's Guild may be having second thoughts. Meanwhile, Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien and Jimmy Kimmel have all said they would resume their programs on Jan. 2 without their writing staffs.
Letterman is also aiming for a Jan. 2 return.
Worldwide Pants
Celebrates Tearing Down Of Borders
Europe
Nine mainly ex-East bloc countries on Friday tore down their borders to join a European zone allowing 400 million people to travel from the Arctic Circle in Norway to Portugal without showing a passport.
"The free movement of people is one of the main rights of human beings," European Commission president Jose Manuel Barrosso said as he hailed the addition of the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia to 15 other states already in the Schengen Treaty zone.
Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico sawed down the frontier barrier at the Berg-Petrzalka crossing point between their countries to start three days of commemorations for the landmark change.
The Hungarian and Austrian interior ministers, Albert Takacs and Guenther Platter, dismantled the barriers at the Sankt Margarethen im Burgenland-Fertorakos crossing point, where in 1989 the two countries' foreign ministers cut the fence that symbolized the Iron Curtain.
Europe
Break Away From US
Lakota Indians
The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the United States, leaders said Wednesday.
"We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us," long-time Indian rights activist Russell Means told a handful of reporters and a delegation from the Bolivian embassy, gathered in a church in a run-down neighborhood of Washington for a news conference.
A delegation of Lakota leaders delivered a message to the State Department on Monday, announcing they were unilaterally withdrawing from treaties they signed with the federal government of the United States, some of them more than 150 years old.
The new country would issue its own passports and driving licences, and living there would be tax-free -- provided residents renounce their US citizenship, Means said.
Lakota Indians
Man With Opinions
Jack Nicholson
At 70, without a thing left to prove, Jack Nicholson is sharpening his political edges. Not that he'll be showing up at any presidential campaign rallies.
"I, by choice, am not an activist at this point," Nicholson said. "I think Sean Penn is the greatest living American in a certain way, because he's a man of action. ... I feel by being a neutralist in this area, in my actual field of endeavor I can be more effective."
He calls former British Prime Minister Blair a "rock star ... he's wonderful" and says he supports Hillary Clinton in the presidential race ("I'm a friend of the family"). Nicholson acknowledges being "a lifelong Irish Democrat. What more can I say? I voted for what's his name, (1988 presidential candidate Michael) Dukakis. This was the real test for a Democrat."
Nicholson was last politically active during George McGovern's 1972 campaign against Richard Nixon, and he points to his beliefs at that time in explaining why he left that realm of the public eye.
For a lot more - Jack Nicholson
The National Ballet of Canada
'The Nutcracker'
Author Margaret Atwood and Barenaked Ladies lead singer Steven Page will don clown-like costumes on Saturday for their roles as "cannon dolls" in "The Nutcracker."
The National Ballet of Canada's holiday classic will be broadcast live, in high-definition, from the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts to 70 Cineplex movie theatres from B.C. to Quebec.
The cannon dolls appear halfway through the first act, right before the big battle scene, and shoot a fake cannon into the audience.
'The Nutcracker'
Switzerland Home To Become Museum
Charlie Chaplin
Screen legend Charlie Chaplin's Swiss retreat is set to become a museum dedicated to his life, with the signing of a deal to purchase the house Thursday, one of the agreement's backers said.
The house, overlooking Lake Leman, was Chaplin's home for the final 25 years of his life, and will now house a permanent exhibition, a 200-seat cinema, a shop and a restaurant.
Under the sales agreement, the house is to be sold for 35 million Swiss francs (21 million euros, 30 million dollars) by the Foundation for the Charlie Chaplin Museum to investors from Luxembourg, enabling the residence to be turned into a tourist attraction, promoter Philippe Meylan told AFP.
Charlie Chaplin
Police Made Him Late
R. Kelly
R. Kelly avoided arrest Thursday by showing up in court, but the judge presiding over his child pornography case said he'll consider revoking the singer's bond despite his excuse: that police made him late.
Judge Vincent Gaughan said he was "very disappointed" that Kelly, in the midst of a concert tour, failed to show up for a scheduled Wednesday appearance.
Kelly attorney Ed Genson explained his client was tardy because police who pulled over his bus in Utah discovered the log book didn't document enough rest for the driver and ordered it stopped for eight hours.
Gaughan admonished the R&B superstar in court anyway, saying he'll decide Friday whether he should revoke Kelly's bond. The Cook County judge also was to set a trial date Friday.
R. Kelly
Thieves Steal Painting In Brazil
Picasso
Thieves broke into the Sao Paulo Museum of Art and made off with paintings by Pablo Picasso and Candido Portinari in a brazen heist Thursday morning that lasted just three minutes as recorded by security cameras.
They stole Picasso's "Portrait of Suzanne Bloch," which he painted in 1904 during his Blue Period and is among the most valuable pieces in the museum's collection, said museum spokesman Eduardo Cosomano.
They also took "O Lavrador de Cafe" by Portinari, a major Brazilian artist.
"O Lavrador de Cafe," which depicts a coffee picker, was painted in 1939 and is one of the most renowned works by one of Brazil's most famous painters. Portinari (1903-1962) was an influential practitioner of the "neo-realism" style. His most famous works outside Brazil are the "War and Peace" panels at the United Nations building in New York.
Picasso
Original Trans-Am On eBay
KITT
An original KITT - the talking car that helped David Hasselhoff escape bad guys on the '80s TV series "Knight Rider" - is up for sale on eBay.
The black 1984 Pontiac Trans Am is being sold to satisfy the debts of a slain real estate developer, whose killing last year is unsolved. Boats, cars and other items owned by car aficionado Andrew Kissel already have been sold after creditors claimed he owed $30 million.
Another original KITT was put up for sale by a California auto dealer in April. The 1982 Trans Am was fully restored and had documentation as one of the four "camera cars" used for close-ups and scenes where Hasselhoff, who played Michael Knight, was behind the wheel.
That car sold in July for about $100,000, down from the asking price of $149,995, said dealer Johnny "Vette" Verhoek of Kassabian Motors in Dublin, Calif., in a telephone interview Thursday. He declined to identify the buyer.
KITT
Policy Violations Found In Arrest
Mel 'Sugar Tits' Gibson
A sheriff's supervisor considered withholding details about Mel 'Sugar Tits' Gibson's anti-Semitic rant from an arrest report but was eventually overrruled by a captain, a department watchdog said Thursday.
Gibson was arrested July 28, 2006, for misdemeanor drunken driving on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. The actor-director's remarks, detailed in a report leaked to celebrity Web site TMZ.com, provoked outrage and he later apologized.
The report also says three Los Angeles County sheriff's employees violated policy in Gibson's arrest.
The employees - two sergeants and a jailer - have since been disciplined for the minor procedural violations, sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said. One received a one-day suspension; the other two received a written reprimand.
Mel 'Sugar Tits' Gibson
Sci-Fi Shows Snuffed
USA Network
After months of speculation, USA has officially canceled veteran sci-fi dramas "The Dead Zone" and "The 4400."
Although things didn't look good for the two series because they are older and expensive to make, during the past several months the cable network looked for ways to bring them back. But it ultimately opted to end their run.
"Dead Zone," along with "Monk," put USA on the original programming map when they launched in summer 2002.
USA Network
NBC Delays
'Celebrity Apprentice'
NBC is taking the premiere of "Celebrity Apprentice" out of the cross hairs of the last original episode of ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" . . . or so it seems.
NBC said Wednesday that it will push the launch of "Apprentice" to January 10 from January 3, expanding "Deal or No Deal" to two hours January 3.
But ABC said late Wednesday it would move the premiere of "Cashmere" to January 6 from January 3, where it will air after the last original episode of "Desperate Housewives."
There is speculation that ABC also is mulling moving the original "Grey's" from January 3, the night of the Iowa caucuses, possibly to January 10, where it again might go against the premiere of "Apprentice."
'Celebrity Apprentice'
Truck Driver Pleads Guilty
Francisco de Goya
A New Jersey lorry driver pleaded guilty on Thursday to stealing the Francisco de Goya painting "Children with a Cart" while it was in transit and then later attempting to claim a $50,000 reward.
Steven Lee Olson, 54, pleaded guilty in Newark federal court to conspiring to steal an object of cultural heritage, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Newark said. His accomplice, restaurant worker Roman Szurko, 27, pleaded guilty to the same charge on Monday.
The men broke into a truck that was carrying the 1778 Spanish artist's painting from the Toledo Museum of Art in Toledo, Ohio, to the Guggenheim Museum in New York, prosecutors said. They later turned in the painting to claim the reward.
Francisco de Goya
Exiled Muslim Writer
Taslima Nasreen
An exiled Bangladeshi Muslim woman writer whose presence in India sparked riots said on Thursday that New Delhi was forcing her to live under virtual house arrest, and appealed for more freedom.
Award-winning writer Taslima Nasreen, who criticizes the use of religion as an oppressive force, has lived in the east India city of Kolkata since 2003.
She was rushed from her home and moved from city to city last month when radical Islamist protests against her led to riots, and the army had to be called in.
Several of her books have been banned in India and Bangladesh. The European Parliament awarded her the Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought in 1994.
"I haven't done anything wrong. I wrote for human rights, women's rights and secular humanism and I am not a criminal," she said. "Why should I be punished in this way, why shouldn't I be able to meet my friends and relatives?"
Taslima Nasreen
Frescoes On Display In Rome
Pompeii
Scenes of Roman life, myths and decorations buried nearly two millennia ago by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius go on display for the first time in years in an exhibit opening Thursday in Rome.
The show at the National Roman Museum brings together more than 100 artworks that adorned private and public buildings in Pompeii, Herculaneum and other towns near Naples that were destroyed by the eruption in AD 79.
Many of the works have not been seen for as much as a decade while they sat in storage at the Archeological Museum in Naples, which has been undergoing years-long renovations, officials said.
Pompeii
Apple Rumour Site Shutting Down
ThinkSecret
Apple Inc and a popular Web site that published company secrets about the maker of the Mac computer, the iPhone and the iPod have reached a settlement that calls for the site to shut down.
Apple and the site, ThinkSecret.com, settled the suit, which Apple filed in January 2005, and no sources were revealed, Apple and ThinkSecret said in statements.
College student Nick Ciarelli, ThinkSecret's publisher, said he plans to move on. He started the site at 13.
ThinkSecret
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