'TBH Politoons'
But Untrue
Strangely Believable
While a junior Congressman from Wyoming, Vice President Dick Cheney sponsored a bill to declare the opossum the National Marsupial..
~Jeff Crook
Jeff Crook is the Ceci Connolly of the Left - J. Howard Tuft
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Purple Gene Reviews
Teatro Museu de Dali, Figueres, Spain
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Peter S. Canellos: Plan for Social Security relies on an immediate, familiar Bush strategy
The run-up to President Bush's plan to deal with Social Security is looking a lot like the run-up to his plan to deal with Saddam Hussein. The expected Social Security shortfall has been a perennial domestic concern in much the same way that Hussein's intransigence with arms inspectors was a perennial foreign-policy concern: From the White House to Congress to think tanks, policy makers worried about it, but presidents (including Bush) felt no immediate need to deal with it.
Christopher Hitchens: Susan Sontag, Remembering an intellectual heroine
Between the word "public" and the word "intellectual" there falls, or ought to fall, a shadow. The life of the cultivated mind should be private, reticent, discreet: Most of its celebrations will occur with no audience, because there can be no applause for that moment when the solitary reader gets up and paces round the room, having just noticed the hidden image in the sonnet, or the profane joke in the devotional text, or the secret message in the prison diaries. Individual pleasure of this kind is only rivaled when the same reader turns into a writer, and after a long wrestle until daybreak hits on his or her own version of the mot juste, or the unmasking of pretension, or the apt, latent literary connection, or the satire upon tyranny.
Dr. Teresa Whitehurst: Careful Not to Get Too Much Education...Or You Could Turn Liberal
I've been giving a lot of thought lately to a conversation I overheard at a Starbucks in Nashville last winter. It was a cold and rainy night as I worked away at my laptop, but the comforting aroma of cappuccino kept me going. My comfort was interrupted, however, by two young men who sat down in upholstered chairs near my table. One was talking, the other listening, in what appeared to be an informal college orientation. "The only trouble with David Lipscomb (a conservative Christian college nearby) is that old man Lipscomb apparently didn't like football. So we don't have a football team, but we have a great faculty." "But you do have to be careful about one thing," he said more quietly, coming closer and speaking in hushed tones, "My professor-I have this great professor-told me that you have to be careful not to get too much education, because you could lose your foundation, your core values."
Amy Probst: The Advice Goddess speaks!
MT: What's your take on the book The Rules?
Alkon: I call it, "How to Erase Your Personality in Order to Trap a Wallet Attached to a Man's Body." I try to be the most myself I can be on a first date, because if someone doesn't like me, they should take a hike. And quite frankly, I'm perfectly happy by myself. I don't need to trap somebody into liking me.
Ask the Advice Goddess
The Advice Goddess
"The Adventures of Trex: Blind Dater": Movies
Schlock and Awe: Movie
Grand Lake Theater Marquee
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
A bit of sun, but another storm is on the way.
Guess we can figure out the audience NetZero is going after with Dennis Miller shilling for them.
In Top 10 Again
'Monday Night Football'
The average national rating for "Monday Night Football" this season was the lowest in the ABC program's 35 years, though it still ranked among the top 10 prime-time shows for the 15th straight season.
The season average of an 11.0 rating dipped below 2002's 11.4 rating for the lowest ever. It was down 4 percent from last year's 11.5 average, which was the first year since 1994 that the average rating for "MNF" had not dropped. The program ranked seventh in prime time and continued to perform extremely well with male viewers.
"Monday Night Football" is heading into the final year of its contract with the NFL. The exclusive negotiating period for ABC and its broadcast partner ESPN, which has the Sunday night game, extends for nearly another year. But there's been speculation that other networks might challenge for the Sunday night and Monday night packages.
'Monday Night Football'
Donates $100,000 to Tsunami Relief
Linkin Park
With memories of a successful summer tour in Southeast Asia still fresh in their minds, the members of Linkin Park are spearheading an effort to help victims of the earthquake and tsunami that have devastated the region.
The Los Angeles-based rock act has set up an organization called Music for Relief with an initial donation of $100,000. It will directly support American Red Cross (http://www.redcross.org) programs.
"We are fortunate to be in a position to help, but this needs to be a broader effort," said guitarist Brad Delson.
Linkin Park
Raises Tsunami Funds
Vienna Philarmonic
Moved by last weekend's earthquake-tsunami catastrophe, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra said it would donate $136,000 to the World Health Organization to help provide drinking water to survivors.
The death toll rose above 114,000 Thursday, and the U.N. World Health Organization said up to 5 million people around the tsunami-struck Indian Ocean region did not have access to the basics they need to stay alive - clean water, shelter, food, sanitation and health care.
"International solidarity is their only hope, and in this way, we would like to convey some of the hope communicated by the music of the Strauss dynasty to the survivors of this disaster," Hellsberg said, in a reference to the Viennese musical family that included the composers of the "Blue Danube Waltz" and "Die Fledermaus."
Vienna Philarmonic
Sarajevo to Name Street
Susan Sontag
Sarajevo authorities will name a street after Susan Sontag, who helped the city's residents during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
"The city of Sarajevo (and) its citizens express their sincere thanks to an author and a humanist who actively participated in the creation of the history of Sarajevo and Bosnia," said a statement Thursday from the office of Mayor Muhidin Hamamdzic.
A plaque in Sontag's honor will be installed on one of the city's theaters, the statement also said.
Susan Sontag
Poker Champ Fights Off Attackers
Greg Raymer
Greg Raymer, the 2004 World Series of Poker champion, apparently knows how to wield more than a stack of chips when everything is riding on it.
The soft-spoken patent attorney from Stonington, Conn., fought off a pair of attackers Dec. 20 at the Bellagio hotel-casino after he had finished playing a cash game of poker, according to a Las Vegas police report.
Raymer was returning to his room about 2 a.m. when two men approached, the report said. As he opened the door to the room, they tried to push him in.
Raymer, known as the "Fossilman" in poker circles, won the WSOP Texas Hold'Em title and $5 million in cash. He beat out a field of 2,576 in May to win the prestigious event.
Greg Raymer
Tsunami Boosts Ratings
Cable News
Coverage of the Asian earthquake and tsunami disaster has increased cable news channel ratings during the usually dormant year-end period.
Both Fox News Channel and CNN have seen double-digit increases to their total-day and primetime ratings this week versus the same time last year, but nowhere near the viewership levels that flocked to other major news stories.
Although news of the tsunami, which has claimed the lives of more than 87,000 people, broke early Sunday morning, ratings in the opening hours did not fluctuate much from 2003 levels. But by day's end, Fox's primetime total viewership increased 34% to 931,000, and its total-day average (from 3 a.m.-3 a.m.) rose to 770,000 (up 17% from last year). CNN's viewership dropped 11% in total-day to 408,000 while picking up 6% in primetime to 628,000.
Cable News
Loses Fortune
Anna Nicole Smith
A federal appeals court Thursday threw out a judge's ruling that awarded $88.5 million to former Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith from the estate of her late husband, an oil tycoon who died at age 90 just over a year after they wed.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a Texas probate court's decision that the oilman's son was his sole heir should stand. The appeals court said the federal judge in California who ruled in Smith's favor in 2002 should never have even heard the case.
The decision comes after years of wrangling in three courts over the fortune of J. Howard Marshall II.
Anna Nicole Smith
Artifacts Stolen
Dagget Museum
Skilled burglars looted a Mojave Desert museum of its most prized possessions, including antique dolls and Native American artifacts on loan from local families.
The thieves made sure an alarm system was disabled before clearing out the glass display cases in the Daggett Museum, said curator Beryl Bell, who discovered the losses when she went to feed her goldfish on Christmas Day.
Stolen Native American artifacts included a basket appraised at $3,500, a Navajo sash and two clay Acoma pots that had never been appraised but are very valuable, said Leslie Lloyd, the president of the Daggett Historical Society, which runs the museum near Barstow.
Indian Artifacts
Colorado Town Won't Name Street for Commander
Longmont
City officials will rename a street honoring a Civil War-era colonel blamed for the slaughter of more than 150 Indians at an encampment southeast of Denver.
"It was racist and insensitive to the Native American community," activist Glenn Sagnuolo said after the City Council vote Tuesday night to rename Chivington Drive.
Militiamen under the command of Col. John Chivington launched an unprovoked attack on a Cheyenne and Arapahoe encampment at Sand Creek in 1864. Most of the dead were elderly men, women and children.
Longmont
First Water, Now Cup
Elvis Auctions
Miss your chance to buy some water from a cup once used by Elvis Presley? Don't be disappointed - now you can bid on a chance to see, but not own, the cup that held the water.
The North Carolina man who sold the water on eBay last week is now auctioning off a one-time appearance of the Styrofoam cup that originally held the water.
The water, sealed in a plastic vial, sold for $455 on the online auction site on Saturday.
Elvis Auctions
Prefer Subordinate Women to Equals
Men
Men would rather marry their female assistants than equal-ranking women or their supervisors, according to social psychologists.
The results are based on a study of men's ratings of imaginary women with different job titles, during which they judged them according to their appeal as a one-night stand, friend, or long-term partner.
Men said they would prefer a less-dominant women both as long-term partners and as friends they would enjoy doing things with, such as exercising and going to a party.
In contrast, for women, a man's status had no influence on his desirability as a partner.
Men
Diary Solves Hess Mystery
Mrs. Foley
A brief entry in the diary of the wife of a British spy has led to the discovery of the true story behind one of the greatest mysteries of the Second World War - the bizarre 1941 flight to Britain of Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess.
No single incident in Britain's wartime history has given birth to so many conspiracy theories, all of them centred on an alleged plot by the intelligence services to lure Hess to Britain.
They range from suggestions that the man imprisoned by the Allies after the war was not the real Hess, who allegedly died in the 1942 air crash that killed the Duke of Kent, to claims that British psychological warfare experts conned him into coming to Britain so they could use him in an anti-Nazi propaganda campaign.
The response from academics has always been disparaging. They regard the conspiracy theories as patent nonsense and, perhaps in response, invariably dismiss any claim of major MI6 involvement in the affair.
But the diary has revealed that MI6 was not only heavily involved in the run-up to Hess's flight but even planned "a sting operation" aimed at luring Hess or another prominent German into bogus peace talks with Britain.
For the rest, Mrs. Foley
Museums Advised to Check
Bible-Era Relics
Experts advised world museums to re-examine their Bible-era relics after Israel indicted four collectors and dealers on charges of forging items thought to be some of the most important artifacts discovered in recent decades.
The indictments issued Wednesday labeled many such "finds" as fakes, including two that had been presented as the biggest biblical discoveries in the Holy Land - the purported burial box of Jesus' brother James and a stone tablet with written instructions by King Yoash on maintenance work at the ancient Jewish Temple.
Shuka Dorfman, head of the Israel Antiquities Authority, said the scope of the fraud appears to go far beyond what has been uncovered so far. The forgery ring has been operating for more than 20 years.
Bible-Era Relics
In Memory
Artie Shaw
Jazz clarinetist Artie Shaw, famed for classic recordings of "Begin the Beguine" and "Oh, Lady Be Good" as well as turbulent marriages to movie stars Lana Turner and Ava Gardner, died on Thursday at age 94, his manager Will Curtis said.
Shaw, who died at his Los Angeles-area home, had been in ill health for several years since he fell and broke a hip while walking his dog, Curtis said.
Born Arnold Jacob Arshawsky to a seamstress mother and photographer father in New York City on May 23, 1910, Shaw was about as restless a jazz star as one could find.
He formed and reformed bands, married and divorced eight times, gave up music for more than 30 years and put down his clarinet in 1954 never to play it in public again, quitting at age 44.
Critics dismissed his work at first. But soon they hailed him as a unique voice in swing-era jazz, especially for his beautiful tone and control of his instrument's top register.
Shaw's bands in the 1930s and 1940s featured a who's who of jazz greats including Billie Holiday, Buddy Rich, Roy Eldridge and "Hot Lips" Page. At the height of his popularity, he earned $30,000 a week, a huge sum for the Depression Era.
He was one of the few white bandleaders who sought out black talent. Decades after Billie Holiday sang with him, Shaw still marveled at the sound of her voice.
Shaw called himself a difficult man, a view his eight former wives, including novelist Kathleen Winsor and actresses Evelyn Keyes, Ava Gardner and Lana Turner might have agreed with. He recalled once almost erupting when a woman asked if he could play something with a Latin beat.
Of Shaw's string of former wives, manager Curtis recalled, "He said he never had to pay any alimony because they were all as rich as he was."
Artie Shaw
