'Best of TBH Politoons'
Baron Dave Romm
By Baron Dave Romm
360° view of Saturn's moon
Titan
That's one small electronic step for man, one giant digital leap for mankind.
The Huygens Space Probe fulfilled its destiny on January 14, 2002CE. The seven year journey reached fruition with astonishing pictures and even sounds from a billion kilometers distant.
This will be short, as I hope all my faithful readers link to the pictures and reports from NASA and the ESA. I have little to say, except to awe and wonder. Huygens is a European Space Agency project, and updated information can be found here. Cassini is a NASA project, and Huygens hitched a ride. To quote NASA,
Meanwhile, A Bartcop E...
Contest!
What does the sound of Titan most remind you of? Listen to the mp3 of Huygens' descent onto Titan and send me your impressions. It could be a mood, a place, a piece of music. I'll print the responses in this column next week.
Speeding through Titan's haze and Radar echoes from Titan's surface can be found on the ESA Sounds of an alien world page.
Ben Huset came and visited Shockwave. Ben is a member of the Minnesota Space Frontier Society and longtime Shockwave Rider.
We tap him when our necks get tired of looking up. You can listen to his comments on the archive of the most recent Shockwave Radio broadcasts kept at KFAI (scroll down to Shockwave; it'll be the most recent show for a week and then the previous show for a week).Well, happy exploring! This is why the net was created: To bring you instant information of events happening a long way away, plus more background material and ancillary science than you can shake a Saturnian stick at, if that's your idea of a brainy time. Whee!
Baron Dave Romm is a conceptual artist and a noble of Ladonia with a radio show, a very weird CD collection and an ever growing list of political links. Dave Romm reviews things at random for obscure web sites. You can read all his music recommendations from Bartcop-E , and you can hear the last two Shockwave broadcasts in Real Audio (scroll down to Shockwave). Thanks to everyone who has sent me music to play on the air.
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But Untrue
Strangely Believable
Attorney General John Ashcroft played one season of minor league baseball before going into politics. His batting average was .069 for the
~Jeff Crook
Jeff Crook is the Ceci Connolly of the Left. ~ J. Howard Tuft
Strangely Believable but Untrue is now available online at the Untrue Fact of the Day web calendar. Help spread disinformation and misunderstanding by sharing this with your friends and enemies.
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting: ACTION ALERT: ABC Muddles the Social Security Debate
As the debate over Social Security privatization continues, so do the mainstream media distortions of the debate. On January 11, ABC News muddied the waters further with two one-sided and inaccurate reports.
Iraq: The Devastation
It was quickly apparent, even to a journalistic newcomer, even in those first months of last year that the real nature of the liberation we brought to Iraq was no news to Iraqis. Long before the American media decided it was time to report on the horrendous actions occurring inside Abu Ghraib prison, most Iraqis already knew that the "liberators" of their country were torturing and humiliating their countrymen. In December 2003, for instance, a man in Baghdad, speaking of the Abu Ghraib atrocities, said to me, "Why do they use these actions? Even Saddam Hussein did not do that! This is not good behavior. They are not coming to liberate Iraq!" And by then the bleak jokes of the beleaguered had already begun to circulate. In the dark humor that has become so popular in Baghdad these days, one recently released Abu Ghraib detainee I interviewed said, "The Americans brought electricity to my ass before they brought it to my house!"
Dana Priest: Iraq New Terror Breeding Ground; War Created Haven, CIA Advisers Report (Washington Post)
Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of "professionalized" terrorists, according to a report released yesterday by the National Intelligence Council, the CIA director's think tank.
Dante Zappala: Why My Brother Died (Los Angeles Times)
This week, the White House announced, with little fanfare, that the two-year search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq had finally ended, and it acknowledged that no such weapons existed there at the time of the U.S. invasion in 2003. For many, this may be a story of only passing interest. But for me and my family, it resonates with profound depth.
Nina Shapiro : Company for the People (Seattle Weekly)
If Wal-Mart represents red-state America's ruthless race to the bottom line, then Issaquah-based retailer Costco offers a blue-state alternative. The company is proving Wall Street wrong by adhering to a radical idea: Treating customers and employees right is good business.
ROGER EBERT: Coach Carter
Samuel L. Jackson made news last week by refusing to co-star with 50 Cent in a movie based on the rapper's life. He not only refused, but did it publicly, even though the film is to be directed by six-time Oscar nominee Jim Sheridan ("In America"). A clue to Jackson's thinking may be found in his new film, "Coach Carter," based on the true story of a California high school basketball coach who placed grades ahead of sports. Like Bill Cosby, Jackson is arguing against the anti-intellectual message that success for young black males is better sought in the worlds of rap and sports than in the classroom.
Mike Luckovich Political Cartoons
Internet Archive
Purple Gene Reviews
'Friday Night Lights'
Purple Genes' review of the movie "Friday Night Lights" (2004) Directed by Peter Berg:
With the Super bowl a couple of weeks away, I felt it was my duty to see a real football flick….not one about professional pricks like Terrell Owens or Randy Moss….not one about big money contracts and dancing in the end zone……not even one about half time entertainment and exposed boobs…….I'm talking about High School football fanatics from Odessa Texas…..I'm talking about Family Football not crass corporate crap….I'm talking about a real life story called "Friday Night Lights" !!!!!!!!!
Welcome to Odessa, Texas August 6th 1988. We've got the local High School football team, the Permean Panthers, playing their first game of a long season that they hope will take them to the State Championship. But this is not normal high school football…..this is small town texas - big time football…this is everybody in town lives and breathes football…..this is the only game in town on Friday night football!!!!!!! We've got Coach Gary Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton - "Chopper Chicks in Zombie Town" - "Sling Blade" - "Bad Santa") with what looks like a winning team with a super-star running back named "Boobie" Miles (Derek Luke - "Antwone Fisher") who is your typical trash talking cocky big mouth brother…….then you have Mike (Lucas Black) the quarterback and Chavez (Jay Hernandez) the running back and Ivory "Preacher" Christian (Lee Jackson) the defensive end …and Don Billingsly (Garrett Hedlund) the fumbling receiver with the sadistic psycho sot father Charles (Tim McGraw - Faith Hills' Husband and "Tug" McGraws' son)…….
The ball is snapped and the Panthers receive and we get a one man show as "Boobie" Miles runs up the score to 45 to 7 and what looks like a rout turns tragic as "Boobie" gets side tackled and his A.C.L. knee ligament gets "Torn"….The team loses the next game without him but pull themselves together and start playing like a "Team" and keep winning……Here come the semi-finals and "Boobie" wants to play because his future is fucked without football……so he and his uncle lie about the M.R.I. and "Boobie" plays and really gets hurt this time but the team loses and there is a three way coin toss in a secret Truck Stop somewhere to determine what 2 teams go to the finals……Fate has the Panthers going to the finals and finally to the state championship…….
So the villain opponent is the big, bad and black west Texas Dallas Carter team and nobody gives the smaller Parmean Panthers a chance……Whistle blows…ball is snapped and the Panthers start getting mowed down like Florida Blue Grass…..Bang to the head …boom to the guts ….foul after foul and finally it's half time and the Panthers are behind 26 to 7…..It's locker room inspirational speech time…………Coach Gaines comes in to a bloodied and silent squad and starts talking about "Love"….wow…instead of saying "let's go kick their asses" ….He says, "Look at each of your fellow players - show them that you love them …Show them that you believe in the future…because Forever is about to happen"……
I guess I better not give away the ending….suffice is to say that the Panthers came alive in the second half and played their hearts out……….
Purple Gene gives "Friday Night Light" 8 stinky but effective jock straps out of 10 for being better sports entertainment than the NFL Play-offs.
Purple Gene
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and warm.
The kid has another cold, and he's more than a bit cranky. Ack.
Here's a Complete List of Golden Globe Awards Winners
Organizers Await Tally
Tsunami Concert
Organizers of a national benefit for tsunami victims on Sunday awaited the final fund-raising tally from the two-hour televised concert that featured a constellation of movie and music stars.
NBC spokeswoman Rebecca Marks said Sunday that the network would need two days to complete a tally of money collected during the program, which aired on NBC Universal-owned stations. All donations went to the American Red Cross International Response Fund.
Madonna sang John Lennon's "Imagine," dressed in a black dress. Gloria Estefan sang "There's Always Tomorrow," former Beach Boy Brian Wilson sang "Love and Mercy" and Lenny Kravitz sang "Let Love Rule." In pre-taped performances from London, Elton John sang "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" and Pink Floyd founder Roger Waters sang "Wish You Were Here," accompanied by Eric Clapton.
Besides NBC, the program was carried on CNBC, MSNBC, USA, Bravo, Telemundo, Pax TV, Trio and the Sci-Fi Channel.
Tsunami Concert
Hosting Radio Talk Show
Jerry Springer
Jerry Springer has been a politician, television news anchorman and host of a raucous TV show. Now he can add radio talk show host to the list.
Springer, 60, will host a politically oriented radio talk show in Cincinnati - where he once served as mayor - and he promises to challenge the Bush administration on issues ranging from Iraq to Social Security.
Clear Channel, which owns WSAI-AM in Cincinnati, is scrapping the station's oldies format and changing to an all-talk format with a schedule of liberal commentators. The call letters will change to WCKY-AM on Monday.
Jerry Springer
War of Words Erupts
'Comfort Women'
Allegations that a Japanese public television network was pressured by politicians to soft-pedal a program on Japan's legacy of sexual enslavement during World War II has pitted liberal Japanese media against their conservative counterparts.
Liberal Japanese media have attacked Japan Broadcasting Corp., known also as NHK, for leaving out large portions of interviews it had conducted with critics of Japan's wartime conduct and victims of sex slavery, allegedly after discussions with senior political leaders.
Just before the program was to be aired, senior NHK officials met with lawmakers of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, Shinzo Abe and Shoichi Nakagawa, who had expressed concerns over the program, according to the program's chief producer Satoru Nagai, who held a tearful news conference Thursday as a whistle blower.
Top NHK officials then re-edited and shortened the program, Nagai said, adding that: "NHK bowed to political pressure."
Historians say at least 200,000 young women, mostly Korean but also from Taiwan, China, the Philippines and Indonesia, were forced to serve in frontline Japanese army brothels during the war.
'Comfort Women'
Treasures Revealed in Buffalo
Musicians Club
More than just history has been piling up at the Colored Musicians Club since it opened in 1918 as a union for black musicians.
More than 30 Americorps volunteers spent a service day Friday sorting, moving, crating and pitching the clutter that accumulated in the downtown jazz club.
The club, chartered in 1935, served as a watering hole and rehearsal hall for the likes of Count Basie, Billie Holiday and Nat "King" Cole, and in more recent years, McCoy Tyner and Freddie Cole.
As musicians came and went, documents, instruments and other objects were haphazardly stored in various rooms of the two-story building.
Musicians Club
Colored Musicians Club
Spain Celebrates 400th Birthday
Don Quixote
If Don Quixote were to ride around La Mancha today, he'd probably be tilting at power pylons rather than windmills.
The vast dusty plains where the errant knight roamed with his faithful squire Sancho Panza are now dotted with factories and crisscrossed by truck-filled highways. But as the world celebrates the 400th anniversary of the publication of Cervantes' legendary novel Sunday, there are still a dozen or so windmills left to excite the day-trippers who come in search of the Quixote experience.
The fame of Don Quixote, the world's most acclaimed novel, and even the fanfare of the fourth centenary, seem to have made little impression on La Mancha. But in the wider world, 2005 promises conferences, readings, adaptations, concerts and new plays and films.
Many know Don Quixote from movie versions and the Broadway hit Man of La Mancha. Some of its phrases have become everyday speech, from "tilting at windmills" to "haves and have-nots." The very name has produced "quixotic," the adjective that means hopelessly idealistic and extravagantly chivalrous.
Don Quixote
Loses Bid to List Estate As Farm
Mel Gibson
Mel Gibson asked to have 17 of his 75.7 acres in Greenwich (CT) taxed as farm land, but town officials rejected the request.
"Anyone can have a few pigs in their back yard, but a viable farm is more than having something for personal use," town Assessor John "Ted" Gwartney said. "It's about producing a viable product."
Gibson would have saved about $10,000 per year in property taxes on his $17.7 million estate if granted the exemption for owners of working farms. His annual property tax bill is about $137,000, the Greenwich Time reported Thursday.
Gwartney, in a letter to Gibson's representatives in November, ruled that Gibson's property was "not being used as a bona fide productive farming activity."
Mel Gibson
