While I'm off at CONvergence picking up new
music, here are a few quick comments and and a few links, gleaned
from various sources.
Pushing the phone button for capitalism. I keep hearing,
from my right-wing friends, just how angry they are about illegal
immigration. What's the object of their anger? That they have to
(are you ready) "push 1 for English! Oooh, I'm mad! I bet you don't
have to push 1 for Spanish in Mexico!" I've heard variants of this
several times over the past couple of months. But wait... How many
illegal immigrants from Mexicon bank in the same places we do in
Minnesota? Very few, I'd wager. The reason for the language choices
in Voice Messaging Systems has nothing whatsoever to do with
immigration, legal or otherwise. The sheer laziness of the far right
is coming to the fore. Once again, they have a stick up their butt
for a completely wrong reason. In fact, the language choices are
there because more and more customers prefer to do business in
Spanish. The companies have customer service because they're good
capitalists: They want to make money off the widest number of
Americans possible. If you are against pushing the phone button to
chose a language, you are against capitalism. And just whom is
against capitalism? That's right: The Communists. If you are
whining about having to push the phone button, you're a godless
commie. Oooh....
Good news isn't. For years, the right wingers have whined
that the "media" isn't reporting "the good news out of Iraq". In
fact, the conservative news media isn't reporting all the bad
news, and it usually fails to paint the larger picture. Independent
and foreign news sources do a much better job covering the war. Iraq
much worse than reported says Foreign Policy
correspondent Rod Nordland:
Rod Nordland: It's a lot worse over here [in Iraq] than is
reported. The administration does a great job of managing the news.
Just an example: There was a press conference here about [Abu Musab
al] Zarqawi's death, and somebody asked what role [U.S.] Special
Forces played in finding Zarqawi. [The official] either denied any
role or didn't answer the question. Somebody pointed out that the
president, half an hour earlier, had already acknowledged and thanked
the Special Forces for their involvement. They are just not giving
very much information here.
FP: The Bush administration often complains that the reporting
out of Iraq is too negative, yet you say they are managing the news.
What's the real story?
RN: You can only manage the news to a certain degree. It is certainly
hard to hide the fact that in the third year of this war, Iraqis are
only getting electricity for about 5 to 10 percent of the day. Living
conditions have gotten so much worse, violence is at an even higher
tempo, and the country is on the verge of civil war. The
administration has been successful to the extent that most Americans
are not aware of just how dire it is and how little progress has been
made. They keep talking about how the Iraqi army is doing much better
and taking over responsibilities, but for the most part that's not
true.
Building gated communities. For all the talk about Nation
Building our efforts are largely creating a Potemkin
Village, a series of buildings, behind walls and armed guards,
that don't help Iraqis and serve as targets of terrorism. As
demonstration, the building of Bush's 104 acre, $592 billion American
Embassy in Badgad, behind 15-foot walls, built by imported labor.
For all the talk about the transfer of power, of letting the Iraqi
army handle the insurgents, we can't even trust Iraqis to build
American buildings in Iraq.
July 6, 2006 | The Supreme Court ruling in the case of Hamdan
v. Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, et al., on June 29 did
far more than settle the limited question of whether alleged
terrorist detainees can be tried before secret military tribunals. By
declaring Bush's position unconstitutional, the court in effect
judged his concept of his presidency and his methods in his "global
war on terror" illegitimate. In his majority opinion, Justice John
Paul Stevens' strategic capitalization emphasized the larger point:
"The Executive," he wrote, "is bound to comply with the Rule of
Law."
Inside the Bush administration, senior legal authorities refer to
their novel framing of the law as the "war paradigm." Its origins can
be traced to Vice President Dick Cheney's experience with the
thwarting of Richard Nixon's imperial presidency and Cheney's
subsequent decades-long effort to re-create it on a new basis. The
attacks of Sept. 11 provided the casus belli for the concentration of
power in an executive unfettered
by checks and balances. Legal doctrines developed by
neoconservative theorists, who happened to be appointed to key posts
in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, were
applied.
Instantly, the war paradigm became operational. Cheney and his
then-legal counsel and current chief of staff David Addington,
directed John Yoo, deputy assistant director in the OLC, to write the
key memos detailing the new imperial presidency. The first principle
is that president as commander in chief can set or obey laws as he
wishes. From that flowed Bush's dismissal of the Geneva Conventions,
denigrated as "quaint" by then-White House legal counsel Alberto
Gonzales, now U.S. attorney general. On Feb. 2, 2002, Bush signed a
directive unilaterally withdrawing enforcement of the Geneva
Conventions, specifically Common Article 3,
which prohibits torture. He has also evaded the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court, ordering the National Security Agency to engage
in warrantless eavesdropping on Americans; invested his vice
president with presidential powers over classified intelligence; and
imprisoned thousands of alleged terrorists without due process of
law.
The political dimension of the war paradigm is inextricably linked to
its legal one. It has the advantage of serving a polarizing politics.
"Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists," Bush said
repeatedly after 9/11. Against the war paradigm Bush's warriors
propped up a straw man they call the "law-enforcement paradigm." The
efficacy of law enforcement or the ineffectiveness of waging "war" is
beside the point. Those for "war" are true patriots and strong, but
those for "law enforcement" are weak and wimpy. "One is sort of a
crime-solving approach, a law-enforcement approach, and the other is
a national strategy, military, intelligence, wartime approach,"
Cheney said.
But even more than Cheney, Karl Rove, Bush's chief political advisor,
has been the public advocate of the war paradigm as political wedge
issue. Speaking before the Conservative Party of New York state last
year, Rove said, ''Perhaps the most important difference between
conservatives and liberals can be found in the area of national
security. Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and
prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and
wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for
our attackers." In the demonized politics and legal netherworld of
the war paradigm, the rule of law is for sissies.
. . . . . .
The ruling is sweeping in its rejection of Bush's claims; it
leaves none of the precepts of his war paradigm standing. In its wake
his imperial presidency, at least before the majesty of the law, is a
ruin.
What a difference DeLay makes. While I disagree with the
decision, I can't help but pounce on the irony:
DeLay must remain on the ballot:
HOUSTON (Reuters) - Indicted former U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay must
stay on the November congressional ballot despite withdrawing from
the race, a federal court ruled on Thursday in a decision that could
help Democrats win this key seat.
Texas Republicans quickly responded they would appeal the decision by
the U.S. court in Austin, Texas, for the right to choose another
Republican to run against Democrat Nick Lampson. The seat is crucial
to Democratic hopes to pick up the 15 seats needed to regain control
of the House of Representatives.
Yeah, DeLay and/or the GOP should be allowed to run whoever they want
in the race, even late in the game. On the other hand, DeLay has
screwed Texas electoral politics so badly he should be held
accountable to the voters. On even yet another hand, he may win:
It's time to mess with Texas.
Grade level: Fifty-seven percent of the expulsions were students
in high school, 30 percent were in junior high and 13 percent were in
elementary school.
Charleton Heston is in his second childhood.
Another bin Laden for Bush: Robert Parry, over at
Consortium News, knocks down another Republican sacred cow: CIA: Osama
Helped Bush in '04:
On Oct. 29, 2004, just four days before the U.S. presidential
election, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin-Laden released a videotape
denouncing George W. Bush. Some Bush supporters quickly spun the
diatribe as "Osama's endorsement of John Kerry." But behind the walls
of the CIA, analysts had concluded the opposite: that bin-Laden was
trying to help Bush gain a second term.
This stunning CIA disclosure is tucked away in a brief passage
near the end of Ron Suskind's The One
Percent Doctrine, which draws heavily from CIA insiders. Suskind
wrote that the CIA analysts based their troubling assessment on
classified information, but the analysts still puzzled over exactly
why bin-Laden wanted Bush to stay in office.
Have any millionaires ever been executed in the United
States? Yes, but not many, says the Straight
Dope.
Democrats support our troops, Republicans want them to die in
time for the election. Anytime you hear a goppie whine about the
"cut and run" Democrats, hold up a mirror to the "sitting duck"
Republicans. Republicans just don't give a damn about our brave
soldiers, and are more than willing to let them die to push the
failed conservative political agenda down your throat. Pathetic.
I think this story sums up the Bush administration quite nicely, if you
can't win the arguement, hide the arguement.
Washington, DC - In an extraordinary letter of protest, representatives
for 10,000 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency scientists are asking
Congress to stop the Bush administration from closing the agency's network
of technical research libraries. The EPA scientists, representing more
than half of the total agency workforce, contend thousands of scientific
studies are being put out of reach, hindering emergency preparedness,
anti-pollution enforcement and long-term research, according to the letter
released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility
(PEER).
In his proposed budget for FY 2007, President Bush deleted $2 million of
support for EPA's libraries, amounting to 80% of the agency's total budget
for libraries. Without waiting for Congress to act, EPA has begun
shuttering libraries, closing access to collections and reassigning staff.
The letter notes that "EPA library services are [now] greatly reduced or
no longer available to the general public" in agency regional offices
serving 19 states.Source
Chris
P.S. Added bonus: A lot of folks will probably die!
P.P.S. How long do you think that money would last in the war in Iraq?
Thanks, Chris!
An another appalling decision from the appalling administration.
Kera Abraham: Filling the Silence: A Chat with Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman (eugeneweekly.com)
I think it's very important for us as journalists to go to where the silence is, and to push very hard to get at the truth. As I.F. Stone said, "Governments lie." And I don't know who said this quote: "I think back on all the times I thought I went too far, and I realize now I didn't go far enough." For journalists, it's about doing a story and not letting go until you understand what happens. We have to do that, no matter how uncomfortable it makes the people around us.
SARA DONNELLY: Eli Pariser talks about virtual campaigning, winning back the house, and his move back to New England
I think our goal is to win back the House [for the Democrats]; I think that's going to be a stretch. I think if we win six or seven seats that would be a great step toward where we want to be. It's not a binary situation. Really, it's not about 2006. It's about enacting the policies our members want us to enact, from a real energy solution for the country to health-care coverage for everybody. So any kind of victory [in elections] is only kind of a partial victory because we're not the Democratic Party. Our goal isn't to keep a certain group of people in power; it's to get stuff done for the country.
MARC SAVLOV: An interview with producer Tommy Pallotta and animators Jason Archer and Paul Beck (austinchronicle.com)
Viewed in the context of the times we live in, Philip K. Dick's novel A Scanner Darkly, first published in 1977, seems remarkably prescient, with overtones of government surveillance, corporate malfeasance, and jagged bursts of paranoia that, in the end, are entirely warranted. It's almost as though reality is finally catching up to Philip K. Dick's fevered bad trip of an imaginaton.
Rod Dreher: "Harry Potter" and childhood (beliefnet.com)
You can't get it because it's behind the NYT firewall, but there was today a lovely reflection today from Judith Warner, on children, "Harry Potter," and preparing for life's tragedies.
Shauna Swartz: The Long Laugh: Comic Karen Williams (afterellen.com)
... Karen Williams knows what it means to have an open heart and an open mind. "I'm one person who never, ever, ever felt bad or ashamed or any negativity about the fact that I love women. Never. From day one."
Cheryl Ingro: Purgatori: The Ultimate Evil Lesbian Vampire (afterellen.com)
Purgatori's sexuality is not merely mentioned in passing or moved to the back burner altogether once the story takes off. Rather, it is fused into her being and is simply one part of her amazingly complex character: vampire, goddess, lesbian. Even when not at the forefront of the storyline, Purgatori's affinity for women is never completely abandoned. Whether she's merely looking for a bite to eat at the local lesbian S&M club or a roll in the hay to pass the time, she is never a lesbian in name only.
SUE STURGIS: 9 ways YOU can achieve energy independence! (indyweek.com)
It's about all of us taking small and medium steps at home that will reduce the demand for energy--and the fossil fuels we burn so voraciously to create it. It's little things, and it's not hard. But multiplied by thousands of people or more, it's more than enough to stem the tide. And time's running out.
SHUTUP! I COULDN'T HELP MYSELF. THIS IS NOT ONLY A BAD MOVIE MAKING IT WOULD BE BAD TELEVISION. THIS IS "THE MUPPETS IN TORTUGA" WITHOUT THE LAUGHS. THIS MAY BE THE MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM IN A VERY DISAPPOINTING YEAR. WATCHING JOHNNY DEPP TAKE A MICKEY MOUSE DICK UP HIS ASS DOES NOT GIVE ME HOPE. HAVE THE REPUGS TAKEN OVER HOLLYWOOD?
KEEP THEM STUPID
KEEP THEM DUMB
KEEP THEM SUCKING ON THEIR THUMB.
THIS IS THE WAL-MART OF FILMS. GARBAGE WITH A REALLY GOOD AD CAMPAIGN. DOES ANYBODY IN HOLLYWOOD KNOW HOW TO WRITE A SCRIPT? IS ANYONE IN HOLLYWOOD NOT A MONEYGRUBBING PANDERING ASSHOLE? THIS FILM IS A GIANT RED ASS PIECE OF SHIT THAT LASTS LONGER THAN THE GIANT RED ASS PIECE OF SHIT PRESIDENCY OF GEORGE BUSH. ARRRGH MATEY.
CBS opens the night with a RERUN'King Of Queens', followed by a RERUN'How I Met Your Mother', then a RERUN'2½ Men', followed by another RERUN'How I Met Your Mother', then a RERUN'CSI: The 2nd One'.
Scheduled on a FRESHDave are Michael Douglas, John Witherspoon, and The Fray.
Scheduled on a FRESHCraig are Toni Collette, Lawrence Block, and Joe Theismann.
NBC begins the night with a RERUN'Treasure Hunters', followed by a FRESH'Treasure Hunters', then a RERUN'Medium'.
Scheduled on a FRESHLeno are Kate Hudson, Kevin Smith, and Soul Asylum.
On a RERUNConan (from 10/13/05) are Darrell Hammond, Jason Schwartzman, and My Morning Jacket.
On a RERUNCarson Daly (from 5/11/06) are Ian McKellen and Train.
ABC starts the night with a RERUN'Wife Swap', followed by a RERUN'Supernanny', then a FRESH'How To Get The Guy'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJimmy Kimmel are Ed Burns, NBA Finals MVP Dwayne Wade, and Flyleaf.
The WB offers a RERUN'7th Heaven', followed by another RERUN'7th Heaven'.
Faux has a RERUN'Hell's Kitchen', followed by a FRESH'Hell's Kitchen'.
UPN has a RERUN'One On One', followed by a RERUN'All Of Us', then a RERUN'Girlfriends', followed by a RERUN'Half & Half'.
A&E has'Crossing Jordan', 'History Detectives', and 'How Art Made The World'.
AMC offers the movie 'M*A*S*H', followed by the movie 'The Sting', then the movie 'The Great Escape'.
BBC -
[2:00 pm] 'As Time Goes By' - Episode 5;
[2:40 pm] 'Are You Being Served' - The Clock;
[3:20 pm] 'Keeping Up Appearances' - Episode 8;
[4:00 pm] 'My Hero' - Living Dead;
[4:40 pm] 'My Family' - Trust Never Sleeps;
[5:20 pm] 'My Family' - Death and Ben Take a Holiday;
[6:00 pm] 'BBC World News';
[6:30 pm] 'Cash in the Attic' - Episode 6;
[7:00 pm] 'The Benny Hill Show' - Episode 2;
[8:00 pm] 'Whose Line Is It Anyway?' - Episode 10;
[8:30 pm] 'Whose Line Is It Anyway?' - Episode 5;
[9:00 pm] 'Extremely Dangerous' - Episode 1;
[11:00 pm] 'Spaced' - Episode 4;
[11:30 pm] 'Peep Show' - Episode 2;
[12:30 am] 'Just For Laughs' - Episode 4;
[12:00 am] 'Black Books' - Episode 3;
[1:00 am] 'Extremely Dangerous' - Episode 1;
[3:00 am] 'NY-LON' - Episode 1;
[4:00 am] 'Murphy's Law' - Jack's Back;
[5:00 am] 'Murphy's Law' - Bent Moon;
[6:00 am] 'BBC World News'. (ALL TIMES EDT)
Bravo has 'West Wing', followed by the movie 'To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar', then the movie 'To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar'.
Comedy Central has the movie 'Coneheads', 'Chappelle's Show', 'South Park', 'Blue Collar TV', and another 'Blue Collar TV'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJon Stewart is TBA.
Scheduled on a FRESHColbert Report is Amy Sedaris.
History has 'Modern Marvels', 'UFO: Deep Sea UFOs', 'Lost Worlds', and 'Blackbeard'.
IFC -
[06:00 AM] Hedwig and The Angry Inch;
[07:45 AM] July: IFC Short Film Collection II;
[09:45 AM] IFC In Theaters;
[10:00 AM] Shadow of China;
[11:45 AM] Media Lab Uploaded;
[12:15 PM] Walking And Talking;
[01:45 PM] Rabbit-Proof Fence;
[04:30 PM] Shadow of China;
[05:15 PM] Walking And Talking;
[06:45 PM] Rabbit-Proof Fence;
[08:30 PM] At The IFC Center #15;
[09:00 PM] Shattered Glass;
[10:40 PM] Before Night Falls;
[01:00 AM] Shattered Glass;
[02:45 AM] Before Night Falls. (ALL TIMES EDT)
SciFi has the pilot of 'Dark Angel', followed by 2 one-hour episodes of 'Dark Angel'.
Sundance -
[07:30 AM] Nowhere in Africa;
[09:45 AM] Interesting Times: The War of Love;
[10:30 AM] Screaming Men;
[11:45 AM] Buena Vista Social Club;
[01:30 PM] The Take;
[03:00 PM] Wall;
[04:45 PM] Screaming Men;
[06:00 PM] Interesting Times: The War of Love;
[06:45 PM] Buena Vista Social Club;
[08:30 PM] TBA;
[08:30 PM] House of Boateng: Episode 3;
[09:00 PM] Air Guitar;
[10:00 PM] Fahrenheit 9/11;
[12:05 AM] Memento Mori;
[01:45 AM] Dirty Work;
[02:45 AM] AKA;
[04:30 AM] Stryker. (ALL TIMES EDT)
Roger Daltrey (L) and Pete Townsend from Britain's The Who, perform on the main stage at the 'T in the Park' music festival in Balado, Scotland July 9, 2006.
Photo by David Moir
Dracula's eternal sleep can remain undisturbed after Romanian authorities decided to scrap a project for an amusement park dedicated to everybody's favourite vampire.
Following a plague of difficulties, the Romanian government spelt the death of the theme park project in Snagov, a resort town some 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of Bucharest once favoured by late Communist dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu.
The Dracula Park company had under the former Social Democrat government in 2003 acquired the right to build the park on a 460-hectare (1,150-acre) piece of land near Snagov, where Dracula himself or rather Vlad Tepes, the inspiration for the fictional character of the vampire, is buried.
It had also been promised state funds for construction but the contract was found to be full of "irregularities" and was cancelled, the government said Friday.
Placido Domingo from Spain, left, Anna Netrebko from Russia, center, and Rolando Villazon from Mexico, right, stand together during a dress rehearsal in Berlin Thursday, July 6, 2006 for their performance in the Berlin Waldbuehne Friday, July 7, 2006. Domingo's eyes filled with water and his voice choked with emotion. He was singing ahead of the World Cup soccer final, and his frequent partner wasn't with him. After performing with Luciano Pavarotti and Jose Carreras as The Three Tenors before four World Cup finals over 16 years, Domingo was joined by tenor Rolando Villazon and soprano Anna Netrebko for Friday night's concert at Berlin's Waldbuehne, just down the street from Olympiastadion.
Photo by Roberto Pfeil
The Guggenheim announced plans Saturday for a Frank Gehry-designed art museum in Abu Dhabi, a coup for the small Persian Gulf nation and the latest international franchise for the ambitious foundation.
With its flagship museum in New York and branches in Las Vegas; Berlin; Venice, Italy; and Bilbao, Spain, the Guggenheim said its new outpost in Abu Dhabi would be its biggest venture yet.
The museum would sit on a manmade spit jutting into the Gulf from the currently uninhabited Saadiyat Island, which lies adjacent to Abu Dhabi. With a price tag of just over $200 million, the building would be completed in about five years.
An American soprano fired by the Royal Opera House because of her weight has been rehired after undergoing stomach surgery and losing 135 pounds, her spokeswoman and the prestigious theater said Sunday.
Deborah Voigt, one of the world's top opera singers, lost her part in Richard Strauss' "Ariadne on Naxos" in 2004 because the Royal Opera House decided a slimmer singer would be better.
She now has a contract to return to the role in the 2007-2008 season, a Royal Opera spokeswoman said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the house does not officially announce its casts so far in advance.
A model displays an Afghan burqa designed by Gabriella Ghidoni and Zolaykha Sherzad during Afghanistan's first fashion show in years, held at a luxury hotel in the capital Kabul July 8, 2006.
Photo by Ahmad Masood
Brigitte Nielsen can call it legal now. The model and actress married her fifth husband, Mattia Dessi, on Saturday - 17 months after a ceremony that wasn't legal because she hadn't finished divorcing No. 4, People magazine reported on its Web site.
The ceremony last year between Nielsen, 42, and Dessi, a 28-year-old Italian former model, was "more like an official engagement," said Nielsen's manager, Luigi Balduini.
They officially tied the knot in Malta, People reported. Their earlier ceremony took place in the Dominican Republic, while Nielsen was still married to former racecar driver Raoul Meyer.
Sanitizing movies on DVD or VHS tape violates federal copyright laws, and several companies that scrub films must turn over their inventory to Hollywood studios, an appeals judge ruled.
Editing movies to delete objectionable language, sex and violence is an "illegitimate business" that hurts Hollywood studios and directors who own the movie rights, said U.S. District Judge Richard P. Matsch in a decision released Thursday in Denver.
Matsch ordered the companies named in the suit, including CleanFlicks, Play It Clean Video and CleanFilms, to stop "producing, manufacturing, creating" and renting edited movies. The businesses also must turn over their inventory to the movie studios within five days of the ruling.
A worker cleans up a statue of Ramses II which has stood in Ramses Square for over 50 years in Cairo July 9, 2006. The statue will be moved to a new location in August overlooking the Giza plateau to save it from deterioration from pollution and vibrations caused by traffic.
Photo by Amr Dalsh
When Scottish art dealer Alexander Reid returned from Paris with two paintings by Vincent van Gogh, his father berated him for bringing such "atrocities" home and sold them to a French dealer for five pounds ($9) each.
It did not matter that the paintings, a portrait of Reid and a still life of a basket of apples, were in fact gifts to the young Scot, who had lived for several months in Paris with Vincent and his brother, Theo, in Montmartre in 1886-87.
The two paintings and another van Gogh portrait of Reid are included in an exhibition of the Dutch painter's works that opened recently at Edinburgh's Dean Gallery, part of the National Galleries of Scotland. It runs to September 24.
Guests ride the popular roller coaster Scream at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Santa Clarita, Calif., Thursday, July 7, 2006. The thrills experienced by the park's guests may disappear if the park's parent, Six Flags Inc., decides to reap a windfall by selling the park to land-hungry developers in Southern California.
Photo by Ric Francis
Organisers of a rock festival have been forced to change its circus theme after a number of ticketholders told them they had a phobia of clowns.
The "Bestival" event on the Isle of Wight, off England's south coast, in early September was to have encouraged festival-goers to dress up in curly red wigs and oversized shoes.
Last year's "Cowboys or Indians" theme broke a world record for the biggest fancy dress party when 10,000 people turned up in disguise.
But organisers feared thousands of clowns in one place could spark mass panic in the psychedelic atmosphere of the festival, which is popular with so-called "nouveaux hippies", the Times newspaper said Saturday.
Undated picture of Liechtenstein's Prince Castle in Vaduz that is undergoing complete renovation. Ruling Prince Alois von und zu Liechtensteine can see almost his entire realm from the castle, from mountain ridge to mountain ridge, encompassing a fast flowing river and eagle eye views of the capital far below. It sounds like make believe, but it's no fairy tale kingdom that Prince Alois rules.
Photo by Tomasz Surdel
Grace Sherwood was a healer, a midwife and a widowed mother of three sons. Her neighbors thought she also was a witch who ruined crops, killed livestock and conjured storms.
On July 10, 1706, the 46-year-old woman was tied up and "ducked" - dropped into a river - in what is now Virginia Beach. The theory behind the test was that if she sank, she was innocent, although she would also likely drown.
She floated - proof she was guilty because the pure water cast out her evil spirit, according to popular belief at the time.
Three hundred years later, a modern-day resident of this resort city has asked the governor to exonerate Sherwood, Virginia's only convicted witch to be tried by water.
Tai Shan looks over a frozen treat that was made for him on his first birthday, Sunday, July 9, 2006, in the outdoor panda exhibit at the National Zoo in Washington. The frozen melange was filled with apples, yams, carrots and fruit juices. More than 1.2 million have visited the panda exhibit since the cub first went on display last December.
Photo by Leslie E. Kossoff
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 musicians?
Just plain vile, filthy rumors?
This is your place.
