Paul Krugman: Rule by the Ridiculous (New York Times)
There must be a way to construct a word for this out of Greek roots; something like kleptocracy, but meaning rule by ridiculous people instead. But it's all Greek to me. Anyway, a couple of stories today.
Paul Krugman: Yes, They're Frauds (New York Times)
I hear that a lot of journalistic insiders were annoyed when I began calling out self-styled deficit hawks like Paul Ryan as flim-flammers. But they are; nobody, and I mean nobody, in a position of influence within the GOP cares about deficits when tax cuts for the affluent are on the line. Deficit hawkery is just a stick with which to beat down social programs.
Susan Estrich: Zachary Furnish-John (Creators Syndicate)
Born on Christmas day in California to a surrogate mother, weighing in at 7 pounds 15 ounces. The son of proud fathers Sir Elton John and his civil partner David Furnish.
"Ding Dong Daddy from Dingburg (Zippy Annual #10)" by Bill Griffith: A review by Paul Buhle
Not everyone, unfortunately, is lucky enough to have a daily paper carrying "Zippy the Pinhead," and readers who began admiring Bill Griffith's work forty years ago may be yielding to poor eyesight or worse. This is already the tenth number of Zippy annuals (books collecting a year's worth of strips), so most people may now see the antic artist as part of popular culture history. Still, Ding Dong Daddy from Dingburg is an especially delightful entry point for new readers to jump on board.
"The Memory Chalet" by Tony Judt: A review by John BroeningIn 2008
Judt, a well-regarded historian of postwar Europe and a public intellectual, was diagnosed with ALS, an always-fatal motor neuron disease. In the two years before his death this August, he completed a torrent of work: Ill Fares the Land, an eloquent argument for European- style social democracy; an as-yet-unreleased collaboration with Timothy Snyder on intellectual currents of the 20th century; and The Memory Chalet, a series of autobiographical essays.
David Bruce has 39 Kindle books on Amazon.com with 250 anecdotes in each book. Each book is $1, so for $39 you can buy 9,750 anecdotes. Search for "Funniest People," "Coolest People, "Most Interesting People," "Kindest People," "Religious Anecdotes," and "Maximum Cool."
Well, then, Poll-Fans... Let's do our own '2010 Year in Review' thing, eh?
Be-damn'd to all those other corporate media lists, I'm sayin'... I'm thinkin' we can do it better, Dagnabbit! (Or, at least have us some more fun at it and all...)
Everything and everybody is fair game... People, events, TV shows, Movies, Books, Music, Weather, inanimate objects... you get the idea, right?
zEN mAN (observing the nail in the coffin of film for photography..."dwayne's Photo shop in Parsons, Kansas (where my dad was born 101 years ago) it's the last place in the western world where one can get a roll of analog kodachrome film processed...I am not crying over spilled acid and toners (and other chemicals) its sort of like going from gas guzzling cars to electric!...long live the digital revolution))
As of 2007, Peru is the world's leading asparagus exporter, followed by China and Mexico.
Source
Alan J was first, and correct, with:
Peru
Jim from CA, retired to ID, replied:
Peru is the world's leading asparagus exporter
Adam wrote:
Peru. For some reason I had a feeling it was a South American Country, but I'm not sure why I knew that.
Charlie answered:
Peru
Sally said:
HAPPY KWANZAA!
(A celebration of life based upon the principals of African culture)
To all who celebrate the event.
Now, it looks like Peru has become the largest exporter of asparagus in the world.
MAM wrote:
Peru! As a kid I hated asparagus; as an adult I love it, if cooked properly.
And, Joe S answered:
Peru has become the largest exporter of asparagus in the world, earning more than $450m a year from the trade. Around 95% of that asparagus comes from the Ica valley (more)
Tuesday night Carla was admitted to the our local hospital, West Shore Hospital. Some folks call it Death's Door Hospital. I won't go into all the details but I took Carla to Emergency because she was experiencing chills and fever. I took her temp at home and it was 99.4. When they took her temp in the exam room it was 98.6 so naturally they didn't believe it had been elevated, even though I am a CNA and Carla's main caregiver and have been for the past 12 years when she started renal dialysis.
She had a lot of blood drawn and a lot of tests run and during the course of the evening she started feeling hot to me. No one seemed interested in taking her temp because, "it was normal when she came in." About 10:00pm, four hours after we got to the hospital, the 16 year old doctor came in and said all the tests were negative and her lungs were clear so he was going to discharge her. I told the doctor she felt really hot to my touch. He then performed a very scientific test. He put his hand on Carla's forehead then he put his hand on his own forehead and said, "She feels about the same as me." He got up to leave and said the nurse would be in to take Carla's vitals for discharge.
The nurse came in and took blood pressure and listened to heart and lungs and then was ready to leave. Carla said you didn't take my temperature and the nurse said it wasn't necessary because it was normal when she came in. I said it's not normal now and Carla said she was hot. The nurse took Carla's temp, it was 102.9. I guess the doc feels he's pretty hot stuff.
Shit like that agitates me. I stayed up past my bedtime then crashed about 4:00am, then I was really tired all day Wednesday. Carla was in very rough shape all day Wednesday. Her regular doctors were there to take care of her and they feel her new dialysis access is infected and are pumping the antibiotics to her. Today (Thursday) she is 100% better, but very tired. And that's why I didn't do the quiz yesterday.
CBS begins the night with a RERUN'NCIS', followed by a RERUN'CSI: The 3rd One', then a RERUN'Blue Bloods'.
On a RERUNDave (from 11/16/10) are Jay-Z, Jamie Oliver, and Rihanna.
On a RERUNCraig (from 10/28/10) is Michael Caine.
NBC starts the night with a FRESH'Minute To Win It', followed by 'Dateline', then the FRESH'NBCs New Year's Eve With Carson 'The Scab' Daly'.
On a RERUNLeno (from 12/3/10) are Louis C.K., Aron Ralston, and Josh Turner.
On a RERUNJimmy Fallon (from 12/10/10) are Kirsten Dunst, Dee Snider, and Maroon 5.
On a RERUNCarson 'The Scab' Daly (from 9/21/10) are Steve-O, Freddie Wong, and Nas & Damian Marley.
ABC opens the night with the movie 'Wild Hogs', followed by the FRESH'Dick Clark's Primetime New Year's Rockin' Eve With Ryan Seacrest'.
On a RERUNJimmy Kimmel is pre-empted.
The CW offers a RERUN'Smallville', followed by a RERUN'Supernatural'.
Faux fills the night with the movie 'Rocky Balboa'.
MY has an old 'Monk', followed by another old 'Monk'.
AMC offers the movie 'Back To The Future', followed by the movie 'Back To The Future, Part II'.
BBC -
[6:00 AM] Doctor Who - Ep 1 Partners in Crime
[7:00 AM] Doctor Who - Ep 2 The Fires of Pompeii
[8:00 AM] Doctor Who - Ep 3 Planet of the Ood
[9:00 AM] Doctor Who - Ep 4 The Sontaran Strategem
[10:00 AM] Doctor Who - Ep 5 The Poison Sky
[11:00 AM] Doctor Who - Ep 6 The Doctor's Daughter
[12:00 PM] Beatles Biggest Secrets
[1:30 PM] Rebel Truce: The History of the Clash
[3:00 PM] Doctor Who - Ep 10 Midnight
[4:00 PM] Doctor Who - Ep 11 Turn Left
[5:00 PM] Doctor Who - Ep 12 The Stolen Earth
[6:00 PM] Doctor Who - Ep 13- Journey's End
[7:00 PM] Doctor Who: The Next Doctor
[8:15 PM] Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead
[9:30 PM] Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars
[10:45 PM] Doctor Who: The End of Time, Part One
[12:00 AM] Doctor Who: The End of Time, Part Two
[1:30 AM] Doctor Who: The Next Doctor
[2:30 AM] Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead
[3:30 AM] Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars
[4:30 AM] Doctor Who - Doctor Who: Voyage of the Damned (2007) (ALL TIMES EST)
Bravo has 'Real Housewives Of NJ', 'Real Housewives Of Atlanta', another 'Real Housewives Of Atlanta', still another 'Real Housewives Of Atlanta', followed by the FRESH'Watch What Happens: Live'.
Comedy Central has the movie 'Hot Rod', 'Tosh.0', another 'Tosh.0', still another 'Tosh.0', and yet another 'Tosh.0'.
FX has the movie 'The Simpsons Movie', followed by the movie 'The Waterboy', then the movie 'You Don't Mess With The Zohan'.
History has 'American Pickers', 'Pawn Stars', another 'Pawn Stars', 'American Pickres', 'Pawn Stars', and another 'Pawn Stars'.
IFC -
[6:00 AM] The Whitest Kids U'Know
[6:30 AM] The Whitest Kids U'Know
[7:00 AM] The Whitest Kids U'Know
[7:30 AM] Hero
[9:30 AM] The Heroic Trio
[11:15 AM] FX 2
[1:45 PM] Hero
[3:45 PM] The Heroic Trio
[5:30 PM] FX 2 (ALL TIMES EST)
Sundance -
[6:55 AM] Army Of Shadows
[9:25 AM] Uncertainty
[11:10 AM] Flame & Citron
[1:35 PM] A Prairie Home Companion
[3:25 PM] Army Of Shadows
[5:55 PM] Mammoth
[8:00 PM] THE COMEBACK - Valerie Gets a Magazine Cover (Episode 10, Season 1)
[8:30 PM] THE COMEBACK - Valerie Gets a Magazine Cover (Episode 11, Season 1)
[9:00 PM] THE COMEBACK - Valerie Shines Under Stress (Episode 12, Season 1)
[9:30 PM] THE COMEBACK - Valerie Does Another Classic Leno (Episode 13, Season 1)
[10:00 PM] GIRLS WHO LIKE BOYS WHO LIKE BOYS - The Perfect Couple
[10:30 PM] GIRLS WHO LIKE BOYS WHO LIKE BOYS - Three's a Crowd
[11:00 PM] GIRLS WHO LIKE BOYS WHO LIKE BOYS - Baby On My Mind
[11:30 PM] GIRLS WHO LIKE BOYS WHO LIKE BOYS - Matchmaker Matchmaker
[12:00 AM] GIRLS WHO LIKE BOYS WHO LIKE BOYS - Flying Blind (Episode 5, Season 1)
[12:30 AM] GIRLS WHO LIKE BOYS WHO LIKE BOYS - Great Expectations (Episode 6, Season 1)
[1:00 AM] GIRLS WHO LIKE BOYS WHO LIKE BOYS - Out of the Closet (Episode 7, Season 1)
[1:30 AM] GIRLS WHO LIKE BOYS WHO LIKE BOYS - Til Death Do Us Part (Episode 8, Season 1)
[2:00 AM] GIRLS WHO LIKE BOYS WHO LIKE BOYS - The Perfect Couple
[2:30 AM] GIRLS WHO LIKE BOYS WHO LIKE BOYS - Three's a Crowd
[3:00 AM] GIRLS WHO LIKE BOYS WHO LIKE BOYS - Baby On My Mind
[3:30 AM] GIRLS WHO LIKE BOYS WHO LIKE BOYS - Matchmaker Matchmaker
[4:00 AM] GIRLS WHO LIKE BOYS WHO LIKE BOYS - Flying Blind (Episode 5, Season 1)
[4:30 AM] GIRLS WHO LIKE BOYS WHO LIKE BOYS - Great Expectations (Episode 6, Season 1)
[5:00 AM] GIRLS WHO LIKE BOYS WHO LIKE BOYS - Out of the Closet (Episode 7, Season 1)
[5:30 AM] GIRLS WHO LIKE BOYS WHO LIKE BOYS - Til Death Do Us Part (Episode 8, Season 1) (ALL TIMES EST)
SyFy has 'Twilight Zone' marathon with an interruption for a FRESH'WWE Steroid SmackDown!', then back to the 'Twilight Zone' marathon.
Pianists Romuald Koperski and Stanislaw Deja play the biggest concert piano in the world, during a concert marking the end of the year-long celebrationsof the 200th anniversary of the birth of Polish composer Frederic Chopin in Szymbark, Poland, Thursday, Dec. 30, 2010. The instrument, which is 6,07 meters long, 2,495 meters wide, 1,925 meters high and weighting 1,820 kilograms, is used in an attempt to beat the Guinness Record as the world's largest piano.
Photo by Maciej Kosyczarz
Sweet dreams are made of this for Annie Lennox, honored by Queen Elizabeth II in the monarch's New Year list of awards.
The statuesque Scottish singer, who came to fame in 1980s duo Eurythmics, was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, or OBE, for her work with charities fighting AIDS and poverty in Africa. She is an ambassador for development group Oxfam and founded the SING campaign to help women and children with HIV.
Lennox, 56, is among several 1980s icons honored in Friday's list. Fashion designer Katharine Hamnett, creator of that decade's oversized "Choose Life" slogan T-shirts, and Grammy-winning music producer Trevor Horn, who honed the futuristic sound of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, were both named Commanders of the Order of the British Empire, or CBE.
Actor David Suchet - best known for playing Agatha Christie's Belgian detective Hercule Poirot on television - and actress Sheila Hancock both received CBEs. So did sculptor Richard Wentworth and Turner Prize-winning artist Steve McQueen, whose work includes a series of stamps featuring portraits of British troops killed in Iraq. He has unsuccessfully lobbied the Royal Mail to issue them for postal use.
John Lloyd, the radio and television writer-producer behind comedy classics including "Spitting Image" and "Blackadder" received a CBE.
Actresses from the Guo Guang Opera Company pose after their rehearsal for a new program titled 'Pan Jin Lian', which will be performed on New Year'sEve, at the National Theatre Concert Hall in Taipei December 30, 2010.
Photo by Pichi Chuang
Novelist Abdellah Taia, who has won acclaim in France and readers abroad, has challenged a taboo in his native Morocco and won't back down: he is the first writer to come out as gay in a country that bans homosexuality.
For 37-year-old Taia, who has lived in Paris for the last decade, being homosexual and Muslim are not mutually exclusive. He "feels Muslim" and is from a country where Islam is the state religion.
"I am the first Moroccan writer who has spoken openly about his homosexuality, to acknowledge it, but without turning my back on the country I'm from," he said.
Taia, who writes in French and has been translated into Spanish and English, emerged from obscurity to make a splash on the French literary scene with novels such as the 2005 "Le Rouge du Tarbouche" (The Red of the Fez), an autobiographical account of his life in Paris, where he moved in 1999.
One of seven historic paintings hang in the lobby of the Georgia Department of Agriculture Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2010, in Atlanta. The incoming Georgia agriculturecommissioner wants to remove the paintings including one depicting idealized versions of slavery and put them into storage when he takes office next month. The paintings have hung in the lobby of a state building for half a century without causing a stir.
Photo by David Goldman
Gabe Okoye says the despair he felt on "Million Dollar Money Drop" was even worse than millions saw on the Fox gameshow - and countless YouTube views - after he appeared to give a wrong answer that cost $800,000.
But the support his girlfriend Brittany Mayti has given him from moment one in the ordeal has carried him through -- even after the startling revelation, weeks after the taping, that he got the answer right.
"I was haunted for a long time between the taping and the actual airing. I was distraught," he tells The Hollywood Reporter. "I'd like to know someone who has lost money like that and just smiled about it."
"She forgave me, right away. She's a good woman," says Okoye. "It really touching how she supported me. She stuck by me even when we were 'wrong.' "
Of course he wasn't wrong on that answer. Fox's revelation that indeed Okoye was correct in insisting that Post-it notes were available in stores before Sony Walkmans has sparked an internet furor and an invitation from the show's producers to have the couple back on.
Val Kilmer owes nearly $500,000 in federal taxes, and a lien has been placed on the "Batman Forever" actor's property, including a New Mexico ranch he's trying to sell.
The Internal Revenue Service filed the lien last month in Santa Fe for an assessment balance of $498,165 for 2008 income taxes.
Kilmer has lived in New Mexico for two decades. He put his 5,300-acre Pecos River Ranch on the market for $33 million in 2009.
The ranch is now listed for sale at $18.5 million, down from $23 million in October.
A halo forms around Mount Rainier as a thin layer of clouds and blowing snow on the mountain are backlit as seen from Seattle, Thursday, Dec. 30, 2010.While much of the west battled nasty winter weather, western Washington is expected to have mostly clear skies and moderate temperatures for the next several days.
Photo by Elaine Thompson
A judge at a regional court in the southern Polish city of Krakow approved a settlement that Anders Hogstrom, 35, had reached with prosecutors, court spokesman Rafal Lisak said.
Hogstrom had confessed to involvement in the December 2009 theft and was convicted of instigating it. He is expected to be transferred to Sweden in the coming weeks to serve his term, Lisak said.
Experts on Sweden's far right say Hogstrom founded and led the Swedish neo-Nazi group National Socialist Front in the 1990s. However, he left the organization in 1999 after two of its members were convicted of a high-profile police murder, and became an active opponent of the extreme right, according to Expo, a research foundation.
Prosecutor Robert Parys said the main motive of the group of six that carried out the theft was financial.
A worker walks on a snow sculpture featuring camels prior to the Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival in Harbin, in Heilongjiang province December 24, 2010. The 27th Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival will kick off on January 5, 2011, according to local media.
Photo by Sheng Li
Box office receipts for the top grossing concert tours slipped sharply around the world in 2010, as music fans cut back on the number of shows they attended and top acts put on fewer shows.
The 50 most popular tours, by artists such as U2 and Lady Gaga, grossed $2.93 billion worldwide in 2010, down 12 percent from 2009, according to concert industry magazine Pollstar.
Concert goers bought 38.3 million tickets globally for those shows, down 15 percent from last year, and the total number of shows on the top world tours was down 8 percent.
The top grossing tour worldwide was by Bon Jovi, whose 80 shows grossed $201 million worldwide. Other top grossing acts in 2010 included Roger Waters of Pink Floyd fame, heavy metal bands AC/DC and Metallica, ex-Beatle Paul McCartney and 1970s-era hitmakers the Eagles.
A snowdrift left behind from a recent storm stands along the banks of Delaware River in view of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge in Philadelphia, Thursday,Dec. 30, 2010.
Photo by Matt Rourke
Soviet spy veteran Grigor Vardanyan looked at Kim Philby's immaculately-kept pipe and sighed.
"He was such a cultured man," the former agent said of one of Britain's most notorious turncoats.
"So educated. So well prepared. He served our cause until the end."
Such fond memories were being murmured through the great halls of Moscow's World War II museum as Russia's foreign intelligence service, in a rare exhibition, revealed the tools it has been using for the past decades to outsmart the West.
There was the British "Cambridge Five" member Philby's Olympia Splendid 99 typewriter and KGB identification card.
A boy runs past an ice sculpture of a castle during a light testing prior to the Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival in Heilongjiang province December25, 2010. The Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival will kick off on January 5, 2011, according to local media. Picture taken December 25, 2010.
Photo by Sheng Li
North Koreans got a rare treat this week: a state TV broadcast of the British soccer film "Bend it Like Beckham."
The 2002 film starring Keira Knightley and Jonathan Rhys Myers was a break from the regular programming of news, documentaries and soap operas. Western films are largely off limits in the isolated country.
The broadcast, monitored in Seoul on Dec. 26, appeared to be edited; it was only an hour long.
In a tweet Thursday, British Ambassador to South Korea Martin Uden called the broadcast the "1st ever western-made film to air on TV" in North Korea. The British Embassy arranged it.
A Michigan factory worker used as the unwitting model for the wartime Rosie the Riveter poster whose inspirational "We Can Do It!" message became an icon of the feminist movement has died.
Geraldine Doyle died Sunday, a spokesman for the Hospice House of Mid Michigan told AFP. She was 86.
Doyle didn't realize she had a famous face until she was flipping through a magazine in 1982 and spotted a reproduction of the poster, her daughter told The New York Times.
But while Doyle recognized her face under the red and white polka dot bandana, the strong arm held up in a fist wasn't hers.
"She didn't have big, muscular arms," Mrs. Gregg said. "She was 5-foot-10 and very slender. She was a glamour girl. The arched eyebrows, the beautiful lips, the shape of the face -- that's her."
Doyle was just 17 when she took at job at a metal pressing plant near Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1942.
She quit about two weeks later after learning that another woman had badly injured her hand on the job -- she was worried she'd lose the ability to play the cello, her daughter said.
She was there, however, when a United Press International photographer came to the factory while documenting the contribution of women to the war effort.
A picture of Doyle was later used by J. Howard Miller, a graphic artist at Westinghouse, for the poster which was aimed at deterring strikes and absenteeism.
The poster was not widely seen until the 1980's when it was embraced by the feminist movement as a potent symbol of women's empowerment.
The iconic image now graces a US postage stamp and has been used to sell lunch boxes, aprons, mugs, t-shirts and figurines.
The term "Rosie the Riveter" stems from a 1942 song honoring the women who took over critical factory jobs when men went off to war.
Another Michigan woman, Rose Will Monroe, was the best-known "Rosie" after being featured in a wartime promotional film about female factory workers.
Doyle was quick to correct people who thought she was the original Rosie the Riveter, Gregg told the Lansing State Journal.
"She would say that she was the 'We Can Do It!" girl," Gregg said. "She never wanted to take anything away from the other Rosies."
Bobby Farrell, whose group Boney M topped the 1970s European charts with its glittering showmanship and blend of disco and Calypso music, was found dead in his hotel bed Thursday while on tour in Russia, his agent said. He was 61.
The frontman appeared as scheduled in St. Petersburg Wednesday night, but complained of breathing problems before and after his show, said the agent, John Seine.
The group had 38 top 10 hits, including 15 number ones in Germany. They included "Brown Girl in the Ring" and "Mary's Boychild." Their version of "By the Rivers of Babylon" sold nearly 2 million records in Britain alone, keeping it No. 1 for five weeks in 1978.
The same year, Boney M became the first Western music group invited by a Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev, to perform in the Soviet Union. A Soviet military plane flew the performers from London to Moscow, where they sang for an audience of 2,700 Russians in Red Square.
Alphonso "Bobby" Farrell left his home on the Caribbean island of Aruba at 15 to work as a sailor, then drifted to Norway and Germany to pursue a career as a DJ, according to his official biography.
He was chosen in 1974 to front Boney M, put together by German singer and songwriter Frank Farian, who did much of the recorded singing while Farrell was more a dancer and showman.
The band, based in Germany, broke into the charts with "Daddy Cool" and "Sunny" in 1976.
The original group of Farrell and three women broke up in 1986 and Farrell, who lived in Amsterdam, continued on his own or with various female back-up singers, maintaining his flamboyant style and flashy costumes. In recent years he toured under the name Bobby Farrell's Boney M.
A wallaby stands on a large round hay bail trapped by rising flood waters outside the town of Dalby in Queensland, Australia Thursday, Dec. 30, 2010. Daysof torrential downpours have left parts of central and southern Queensland state inundated, flooding thousands of homes and businesses, cutting off roads and forcing the entire populations of two towns to evacuate.
Photo by Anthony Skerman
You have reached the Home page of BartCop Entertainment.
Make yourself home, take your shoes off...
Go ahead, scratch it if it itches.
The idea is to have fun.
Do you have something to say?
Anything that increased your blood pressure, or, even better, amused or entertained?
Do you have a great album no one's heard?
How about a favorite TV show, movie, book, play, cartoon, or legal amusement?
A popular artist that just plain pisses you off?
A box set the whole world should own?
Vile, filthy rumors about Republican hypocrites?
Just plain vile, filthy rumors?
This is your place.
wrote:
answered:
