Terry Savage: Red, White and Blue Keeps Flag Company in the Black (Creators Syndicate)
There is one manufacturing business in America that doesn't worry too much about competition from Chinese imports. Makers of American Flags know their customers are patriotic enough to look for the "Made in America" label on their products. And business has been booming.
"The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris" by David McCullough: A review by David A. Bell
Ever since the eighteenth century, the French have held a contradictory place in the American imagination. When we need a frivolous, effeminate, weaselly antagonist to highlight our supposed simple and manly virtues, we call on them. Yet when we search for an ideal of refined, worldly sophistication to place above our own more roughhewn tastes, they also fit the bill.
20 Questions: David Bromberg (Popmatters)
You're proud of this accomplishment, but why?
I played as a studio guitarist on a session with Tom Rush. He'd spent three hours and countless takes trying to get a particular song right. When I played it with him, the first take was it. My part wasn't on the LP, but Tom says, and I believe that he wouldn't have gotten the performance he liked without me. I'm proud of the track even though I didn't appear on it. I did my job; I brought the singer into the song.
David Bruce has 42 Kindle books on Amazon.com with 250 anecdotes in each book. Each book is $1, so for $42 you can buy 10,500 anecdotes. Search for "Funniest People," "Coolest People, "Most Interesting People," "Kindest People," "Religious Anecdotes," "Maximum Cool," and "Resist Psychic Death."
A coprolite is fossilized animal dung. Coprolites are classified as trace fossils as opposed to body fossils, as they give evidence for the animal's behaviour (in this case, diet) rather than morphology.
Coprolites, distinct from paleofaeces, are fossilized animal dung. Like other fossils, coprolites have had much of their original composition replaced by mineral deposits such as silicates and calcium carbonates. Paleofaeces, on the other hand, retain much of their original organic composition and can be reconstituted to determine their original chemical properties.
Source
Alan J was first, and correct, with:
Animal Dung
mj wrote:
It doesn't float
Fossilized poop. I got my spousal unit a bunch of dinosaur coprolites for Christmas once. I figured, if everyone was giving him a ration of shit, he should at least have some evidence of it on his desk (that didn't stink.) Actually, they were quite pretty.
Marian responded:
animal dung
maurice answered:
Shit.
Sally said:
A coprolite is fossilized animal dung. Who knew??
Gross, gross, gross!
PS: "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." Mahatma Gandhi.
Jim from CA, retired to ID, replied:
Coprolite" is a scientific name for the fossilized excrement, feces or
droppings of ancient animals
Charlie wrote:
Feces, dung, excrement ...
Adam answered:
Poo. Fossilized animal dung.
Ed K (The Thalia Street Gallery) replied:
Coprolite is fossilized ___?___
Shit, Crap, Doo Doo. By the way, the same answer applies to 'Religion is __?__"
John I from Hawaii says:
"dinosaur feces."
Michelle in AZ responded:
dino-shit
MAM wrote:
Animal dung. The name is derived from the Greek words kopros meaning 'dung' and lithos meaning 'stone'. They were first described by William Buckland in 1823, 20 years before dinosaurs were known to science.
And, Joe S answered:
Coprolite is fossilized shit. I think everyone knows that, or at least everyone who was ever a 12 year old boy with at least a slight interest in science.
CBS opens the night with a RERUN'How I Met Your Mother', followed by a RERUN'Mike & Molly', then a RERUN'2½ Men', followed by a RERUN'Mike & Molly', then a RERUN'Hawaii Five-0'.
Scheduled on a FRESHDave are Bono & the Edge, and a performance from "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark"
Scheduled on a FRESHCraig are Elizabeth Banks and Rich Fulcher.
NBC begins the night with a RERUN'America's Got Talent', followed by a RERUN'L&O: CI', then a RERUN'Harry's Law'.
Scheduled on a FRESHLeno are Neil Patrick Harris, Buddy Valastro, and Imelda May.
Scheduled on a FRESHJimmy Fallon are Mila Kunis, Joshua Topolsky, and Wye Oak.
On a RERUNCarson 'The Scab' Daly (from 3/30/11) are Liana Liberato, Alex Prager, and Goldheart Assembly.
ABC starts the night with a FRESH'Bachelorette', followed by a FRESH'Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJimmy Kimmel are Roseanne Barr, Aaron Paul, and Viva Brother.
The CW offrs a RERUN'Gossip Girl', followed by a RERUN'One Tree Hill'.
Faux has a FRESH'Hell's Kitchen', followed by a FRESH'MasterChef'.
MY recycles an old 'L&O: CI', followed by another old 'L&O: CI'.
A&E has 'The First 48', 'Hoarders', followed by a FRESH'Hoarders', then a FRESH'Intervention'.
AMC offers the movie 'Collateral Damage', followed by the movie 'The Matrix', then the movie 'The Matrix', again.
BBC -
[5:00 AM] Top Gear - Episode 8
[6:00 AM] BBC World News
[7:00 AM] BBC World News
[8:00 AM] The Graham Norton Show - Episode 13
[9:00 AM] Gordon Ramsay's F Word - Episode 1
[10:00 AM] Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - Ep 2 The Dovecote
[11:00 AM] Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - Ep 12 Casa Roma
[12:00 PM] Dragons' Den - Episode 1
[1:00 PM] Gordon Ramsay's F Word - Episode 1
[2:00 PM] Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - Ep. 1 Bonapartes
[3:00 PM] Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - Ep 2 Piccolo Teatro
[4:00 PM] Star Trek: The Next Generation - Ep 26 Time's Arrow - Part 1
[5:00 PM] Doctor Who - Ep 6 The Age Of Steel
[6:00 PM] Top Gear - Episode 1
[7:00 PM] Top Gear - Episode 5
[8:00 PM] Top Gear - Episode 5
[9:00 PM] Top Gear - Episode 5
[10:20 PM] James May Drinks to Britain - Episode 2
[11:00 PM] Top Gear - Episode 5
[12:00 AM] Top Gear - Episode 5
[1:20 AM] James May Drinks to Britain - Episode 2
[2:00 AM] Top Gear - Episode 9
[3:00 AM] Top Gear - Episode 1
[4:00 AM] Top Gear - Episode 2
[5:00 AM] BBC World News (ALL TIMES EST)
Bravo has 'Real Housewives Of NYC', 'Real Housewives Of NJ', another 'Real Housewives Of NJ', and 'Real Housewives Of NYC'.
Comedy Central has the movie 'Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby', 'It's Always Sunny In Philly', another 'It's Always Sunny In Philly', still another 'It's Always Sunny In Philly', and yet another 'It's Always Sunny In Philly'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJon Stewart is Daniel Radcliffe.
Scheduled on a FRESHColbert Report is John Prendergast.
FX has '2½ Men', another '2½ Men', followed by the movie 'Death Race', then the movie 'Death Race', again.
History has 'Pawn Stars', another 'Pawn Stars', still another 'Pawn Stars', yet another 'Pawn Stars', followed by a FRESH'American Pickers', followed by a FRESH'Pawn Stars', then another FRESH'Pawn Stars'.
SyFy has the movie 'Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End", followed by a FRESH'Eureka', then a FRESH'Warehouse 13', followed by a FRESH'Afghan'.
TBS:
Scheduled on a FRESHConan are Bryan Cranston, Chris Hardwick, and Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros.
Scheduled on a FRESHLopez Tonight are Piers Morgan, Kunal Nayyar, and Jordan Knight.
It took the hacking of a murdered girl's phone to make the News of the World scandal explode, but British celebrities have wasted no time in using the row to press their own agenda against the tabloids.
Actor Hugh Grant has led the charge by becoming an investigative reporter himself for a day -- one newspaper joked that it was his best role yet -- and taping a former News of the World journalist saying the practice was widespread.
Yet there was little real outcry in Britain about phone hacking until July 4 when it was reported that Rupert Murdoch's News of the World had hacked and deleted the messages of Milly Dowler, a murdered 13-year-old schoolgirl.
Grant, who starred in the 1994 film "Four Weddings and a Funeral", has toured the TV studios in the past fortnight telling how he secretly recorded a conversation with Paul McMullan, a former News of the World journalist.
During the encounter -- which Grant wrote about in the New Statesman magazine in April with relatively little fanfare -- he said McMullan admitted "industrial scale phone-hacking" at the paper.
Sir Michael Caine, and wife Shakira, arrive for the UK film premiere of "Cars 2", in front of a real-size model of character Finn McMissile (who Caine voices) at Whitehall Gardens in central London, Sunday, July 17, 2011.
Photo by Joel Ryan
Playwright Eve Ensler is a survivor - of rape, of ensuing depression and alcoholism, of cancer.
So the creator of "The Vagina Monologues" speaks with authority when she tells girls and young women around the world not to give up hope as they struggle through adolescence.
Hope is the central theme of Ensler's newest play, "I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World," a work-in-progress that took the stage for the first time in Johannesburg on Friday.
The collection of monologues for a new generation is based on Ensler's 2010 book of the same name.
Andrew Wyeth's famous painting "Christina's World" shows a crippled woman dragging herself across a field toward a farmhouse. A tour of the house, which was declared a National Historic Landmark June 30, offers a fascinating, in-depth look at the real world of Christina Olson and her family, and also reveals the story of Wyeth's relationship with them.
Wyeth spent 30 years producing some 300 works of art depicting the Olsons and their home in Cushing, Maine. This summer and fall offer a rare opportunity to see 50 of those paintings and drawings at the Farnsworth Art Museum's Wyeth Center in the nearby town of Rockland, where they are on loan from Marunuma Art Park in Asaka, Japan, through Oct. 30, in a show called "Andrew Wyeth, Christina's World and the Olson House."
The original "Christina's World" painting is owned by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, but visiting the Olson House and the Farnsworth Art Museum allows you to stand in the artist's footsteps and see Christina's life as Wyeth beheld it. Looking out the windows of the upstairs bedrooms where he set up his easel, you see the field he depicted in the famous painting. You can even feel the breeze blowing through the window where he saw a tattered curtain that became the subject of another painting.
One of the most interesting artifacts in the house is an old wood stove by the kitchen door. A painting of Christina sitting by that stove is part of the Marunuma exhibit. As tour guide Nancy Harris put it, the kitchen of the house "truly was Christina's world." It's where Christina sat, greeting visitors and passers-by; it's where she and her brother huddled during cold Maine winters. The stove was used both for cooking and heating.
The first two floors of the house were built by Christina's maternal ancestors in the late 18th century; the third floor was added in 1871. Although Alvaro and Christina lived until the late 1960s, dying within a month of each other, the impoverished siblings never had running water or a phone. They are buried in a private cemetery across the road; Wyeth was buried there in 2009.
A person dressed as Doc Brown with his DeLorian car, from the movie Back to the Future, takes off during the Red Bull Flugtag event in Roundhay Park, Leeds, England, Sunday July 17, 2011. The Flugtag is a humorous festival of flight in Leeds, where 34 teams of avid aviators are launching their aircraft-type vehicles from the 6m high platform above Roundhay Park lake, to see how far their wacky devices can fly.
Photo by Anna Gowthorpe
Comedy Central is celebrating the 15th season of "South Park" in typically outrageous fashion by unleashing 1.5 million bags of Cheesy Poofs on our great nation's retailers.
Yes, bags of Cartman's favorite snack will be yours to purchase exclusively at Walmart in coming months, something that should tie over insatiable fans of the show until it returns with the second half of the milestone season on October 15.
Cheesy Poofs are being manufactured by Frito-Lay and will carry a hefty price tag of $2.99 for 2-and-3/8-ounce bag, something that would surely make Cartman unleash a torrent of curses.
But that's not all that Comedy Central is up to. Leading up to Comic-Con, the network has launched Year of the Fan, a promotional onslaught that asks viewers to send in "South Park"-inspired artwork for possible inclusion on the official website and involves a 15,000-square-foot exhibit at the San Diego event called "The Ultimate 'South Park' Fan Experience."
Rebekah Brooks, Rupert Murdoch's former British newspaper chief, was arrested Sunday on suspicion of phone hacking and bribing police, and the escalating scandal shaking Murdoch's global media empire also claimed the job of London's police chief.
The arrest of the 43-year-old Brooks, often described as a surrogate daughter to the 80-year-old Murdoch, brought the British police investigations into the media baron's inner circle for the first time.
Even more senior figures could face arrest, including James Murdoch, chairman of BSkyB and chief executive of his father's European and Asian operations. James Murdoch did not directly oversee the News of the World, but he approved payments to some of the paper's most prominent hacking victims, including 700,000 pounds ($1.1 million) to Professional Footballers' Association chief Gordon Taylor.
Police have already arrested nine other people, including several former News of the World reporters and editors, over allegations of hacking and bribery. Those include Andy Coulson, a former News of the World editor who became Cameron's communications chief before resigning in January. No one has yet been charged.
Some Murdoch critics were suspicious of the timing of Brooks' arrest, which may draw attention away from uncomfortable questions about police actions.
The collapsed main stage at the Ottawa Bluesfest is seen after a severe thunderstorm that sent thousands of people running for cover, Sunday July 17, 2011, in Ottawa, Ontario. Bluesfest said there were no serious injuries in the collapse.
Photo by Marc Desrosiers
A replica taxi used in the Canadian version of the TV game show "Cash Cab" struck and killed a pedestrian after finishing production for the day in Vancouver.
Vancouver Police said a 61-year-old man from Surrey, B.C., died in a hospital shortly after being struck by the mock yellow cab late Friday night in the city's Downtown Eastside district. Police did not immediately release the victim's identity.
The accident happened as a producer was driving the replica cab back to a storage facility after filming for the day had been completed, said Andrew Burnstein, president of Castlewood Productions Inc., which produces the show's Canadian version.
Vancouver Police Constable Lindsey Houghton said the circumstances leading to the accident were still being determined and no charges have been filed so far.
In this picture taken Friday night July 15, 2011, singers perform on a futuristic stage built into Lake Constance in Bregenz , Austria at a rehearsal of Umberto Giordano's opera ' Andre Chenier'. The premiere will be on Wednesday July 20, 2011.
Photo by Ennio Leanza
The primary fundraising committee for Sarah Palin (R-Quitter), who is considering whether to seek the Republican presidential nomination, raised a paltry $1.6 million in the first half of 2011 in a sign that she is not attracting big funds for a presidential run.
"That is peanuts," said Jan Baran, a partner at Wiley, Rein and former general counsel of the Republican National Committee. "It doesn't signify that there is a reservoir of financial support for her."
The former half-term Alaska governor, who was John McCain's vice presidential running mate on the Republicans' unsuccessful 2008 ticket, has said she will decide within months on whether to pursue the nomination.
The figures in a regulatory filing also are troubling because rules allow donors to give more to political action committees than to presidential committees, which the declared candidates are using, Baran said.
Festival goers lie in mud during the 14th Boryeong Mud Festival at Daecheon beach in Boryeong, about 190 km (118 miles) southwest of Seoul, July 17, 2011. Around 2 to 3 million domestic and international tourists visit the beach during the festival each year to enjoy mud activities such as mud slides, mud wrestling and mud massages. The festival runs from July 16-24 this year.
Photo by Jo Yong-Hak
Iowa has paid London filmmakers $450,000 to cancel plans to shoot a movie there about a flesh-eating lake monster and other films that could have qualified for millions of dollars in tax credits, newly released public records show.
London-based Midsummer Films and its subsidiaries won approval in 2009 to shoot six films in Iowa with the help of the state's aggressive tax incentives, which were advertised as "half-price filmmaking" and briefly made Iowa a top destination for producers.
But just one month after Midsummer's films were approved, then-Gov. Chet Culver suspended the program amid mounting evidence that fraud and mismanagement were costing taxpayers millions of dollars. Several top state officials resigned and Culver fired Iowa Film Office Manager Tom Wheeler, who was later charged with fraud along with several film industry representatives.
It is the second large legal settlement Iowa has approved in recent months related to the movie program, and others are expected to be finalized soon, Thompson said. In the other case, Iowa paid a $434,000 cash settlement to After Dark Films on top of $316,000 in tax credits after the company argued it received far fewer credits than was initially promised to make two horror movies in the state.
Hindu women carry decorated pots filled with cooked rice as an offering for the goddess Mahakali during the 'Bonalu' festival in Hyderabad, India, Sunday, July 17, 2011. Bonalu is a Hindu folk festival of the Telangana region in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.
Photo by Mahesh Kumar A
The boy wizard has vanquished the dark knight and a band of pirates with a record-setting magic act at both the domestic and international box office.
Warner Bros. estimates that "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2" took in $168.6 million domestically from Friday to Sunday. That beats the previous best opening weekend of $158.4 million, also held by Warner Bros. for 2008's Batman blockbuster "The Dark Knight."
Overseas, the film added $307 million in 59 countries since it began rolling out Wednesday, topping the previous best international debut of $260.4 million set in May by Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides."
Paramount's third "Transformers" blockbuster, which had been No. 1 the previous two weekends, slipped to second-place with $21.3 million domestically. It remains the year's top domestic hit with $302.8 million.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2," $168.6 million ($307 million international).
2. "Transformers: Dark of the Moon," $21.3 million ($39 million international).
3. "Horrible Bosses," $17.6 million.
4. "Zookeeper," $12.3 million.
5. "Cars 2," $8.3 million ($12.4 million international).
6. "Winnie the Pooh," $8 million.
7. "Bad Teacher," $5.2 million.
8. "Larry Crowne," $2.6 million.
9. "Super 8," $1.92 million.
10. "Midnight in Paris," $1.9 million.
Pelicans cool off during a heat-wave at Sofia's Zoo, Saturday, July 16, 2011. The temperatures rose to 39 degrees Celsius (102 F) throughout the Balkan country Saturday.
Photo by Oleg Popov
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