'Best of TBH Politoons'
Reader Suggestion
Harpo Marx
Harpo Speaks!
Hear the voice of Harpo Marx
And a Harpo Marx Tribute
Honk Honk
Kevkev in Apache Junction, Arizona
Thanks, Kevkev!
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Jim Hightower: MESSING WITH MEAT (jimhightower.com)
You probably aren't aware of it, but the big meat conglomerates are now charging meat prices for water. Up to 20 percent of the volume of your supermarket steak, pork chop, or drumstick is most likely H2O, plus a nice dose of salt and chemicals. These are being injected into the meats by industry, which even has a tasty-sounding term for the rip off: "deep marination."
Robert Scheer: Bush's Speech Is a Sad Attempt to Salvage His Name
Bush's talk of escalating the war is nothing more than a desperate strategy for salvaging what remains of his reign.
Jesus' General: Donald Duck wields a mean pair of scissors (Posted permanently at makethemaccountable.com)
I'm very impressed by how your company [the Walt Disney Company] is trying to crush the blogger, Spocko. Others will now think twice before attacking the talent at Disney radio's flagship station, KSFO, for endorsing castration, assassination, and genocide. Now, it's time to take bring their message to a wider audience.
Mark Morford: Tofu Will Make You Gay! (sfgate.com)
This just in: Soy will turn your kid into a fey girly man with a very small penis. Also: God hates vegans
Jon Stewart to Report for WashingtonPost.com?
The Washington Post's Web site is said to be in talks with Comedy Central to team up with "The Daily Show" to cover the 2008 presidential campaign. Host Jon Stewart's brand of irreverence would be expected to draw more readers. Also: The Post aims to collaborate with local bloggers.
James M. Murphy: Vidal in cancer valley (tls.timesonline.co.uk)
When Gore Vidal writes as his own Boswell, celebrity names are dropped at a rate unknown outside the pages of People (or Hello) magazine...
Joel Stein: Hall of Famers all (latimes.com)
From baseball to porn, we like to put stars on a pedestal and freeze them there.
Charlotte Allen: I got an A in Phallus 101 (latimes.com)
The list of the 12 most bizarre college courses in the U.S. includes offerings such as 'The Phallus' and 'Queer Musicology.'
Freshly Updated!
Dick Eats Bush
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny cold day - clear, colder night.
Surprises College President
Leonard Nimoy
Wright State University President Kim Goldenberg received a surprise at his retirement bash - a visit from Mr. Spock of "Star Trek," aka actor Leonard Nimoy.
Nimoy greeted Goldenberg with the Vulcan salute, usually paired with the well-wishing, "Live long and prosper."
Goldenberg, 59, said he and his wife, Shelley, are Trekkies.
Goldenberg will retire Jan. 31 after nine years as president of Wright State.
Leonard Nimoy
Faculty Opposes Library
SMU
Negotiations to build George W. Bush's presidential library at Southern Methodist University have divided the campus, pitting the administration and some alumni against members of the liberal-leaning faculty who say the project would be an embarrassment to the school.
Some professors have complained that the combined library, museum and think tank would celebrate a presidency that unnecessarily took the country into a war.
The fear is that the library "will continue to espouse the philosophy and practice of the Bush administration, which has seriously divided our nation and has brought the ire of other countries," said William McElvaney, a retired professor at SMU's theology school and co-author a November opinion piece in the campus newspaper titled "The George W. Bush Library: Asset or Albatross?"
SMU officials said the project is unlikely to be derailed by the faculty opposition, and said the professors opposed to it are in the minority.
SMU
Scientists Prepare To Move Forward
Doomsday Clock
The keepers of the "Doomsday Clock" plan to move its hands forward next Wednesday to reflect what they call worsening nuclear and climate threats to the world.
The symbolic clock, maintained by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, currently is set at seven minutes to midnight, with midnight marking global catastrophe.
The group did not say in which direction the hands would move. But in a news release previewing an event next Wednesday, they said the change was based on "worsening nuclear, climate threats" to the world.
When it was created by the magazine's staff in 1947, it was initially set at seven minutes to midnight and has moved 17 times since then.
Doomsday Clock
Plans Statue To Honor Hughes
Tonopah, Nevada
Howard Hughes could have tied the knot with the Hollywood glamour girl anywhere in the world. But the billionaire's obsession with privacy prompted him to marry actress Jean Peters in the remote mining town of Tonopah 50 years ago Friday.
After failing in an effort to save the improbable site of the secret Jan. 12, 1957 wedding - the L&L Motel - a group of Tonopah residents has announced plans to commemorate the event by building a life-size statue of the couple.
The group led by Tonopah businessman Bob Perchetti also is pursuing plans to open a Howard Hughes Museum and Wedding Chapel across the street from where the motel stood until it was razed about 18 months ago after the town board decided it would be too expensive to restore.
Tonopah, Nevada
Cancels Interviews
Paula Abdul
"American Idol" judge Paula Abdul canceled media interviews on Friday as an online video emerged of the television star slurring and gesticulating her way through a TV interview a day earlier.
Some viewers of the footage posted on the popular online video site YouTube.com suggested she should head into rehab because it appeared she had been drinking.
But Abdul's spokesman, Jeff Ballard, denied that was under the influence of alcohol or on some kind of medication and said the U.S. performer never drank.
"She never drinks. I have known Paula Abdul since she was 13, and I have never seen her drink ever in my life. ... And no, she is not on any kind of medication," he said. "She was a little tired."
Paula Abdul
$30,750 Fine For Downloading
Michelle Santangelo
Less than a month after the recording industry dropped a music piracy case against its best-known opponent, it has won a default judgment against her 20-year-old daughter.
Federal Judge Stephen Robinson ordered Michelle Santangelo to pay $750 for each of the 41 songs she is accused of downloading illegally - a total of $30,750 - because she failed to respond to the record companies' claims.
It was not clear whether the default judgment would end the case. Under federal procedure rules, such judgments are often later set aside so lawsuits can be decided on their merits.
Santangelo's lawyer, Jordan Glass, said Friday he was not permitted to comment on Wednesday's judgment. He would not elaborate.
Michelle Santangelo
Grand Ole Opry Hit By Lawsuit
Stonewall Jackson
For the first time in its 82-year history, the Grand Ole Opry is embroiled in an age-discrimination lawsuit, officials at the venerable country music palace said on Friday.
The $10 million lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court on Thursday by Stonewall Jackson, a 74-year-old singer and guitar player who also alleges breach of contract and retaliation.
"I asked (general manager Pete Fisher) what I had done wrong and he told me, 'I don't want gray hairs on the stage or in the audience,"' Jackson said. "He said I was too old and too country."
Jackson, whose hits in the 1950s and 1960s include "Waterloo" and "B.J. the D.J.," has been a member of the Opry since 1956.
Stonewall Jackson
Sues Lloyd's Of London
Steve Wynn
A day after filing a lawsuit, casino mogul Steve Wynn said Friday that Lloyd's of London has made an offer to settle his $54 million claim of lost value for a Picasso after Wynn accidentally poked a hole in the canvas with his elbow.
"They've started to negotiate," he said before quickly adding that the talks aren't going the way he'd like.
He attacked the insurance industry as a whole, saying they play "dirty tricks" and it was standard practice for insurance companies to delay responding to claims in the hopes of wearing down those making claims and getting them to settle for much less than what they are owed.
Steve Wynn
Porn Industry Says
HD DVD Vs Blu-ray
Knowing their audience quite well, the adult entertainment industry holds their annual get together in Las Vegas to coincide with the CES. There is also a very pertinent crossover between the adult and tech industries - porn has a tendency to drive, and be driven, by technology. Which means HD DVD when it comes to high-def.
Quite famously in the war between Betamax and VHS the latter won especially because the adult industry preferred it. If you've been around long enough, you probably remember that the very early home video rental stores were primarily responsible for driving Betamax out of the market. And those stores carried almost exclusively pornographic content.
Although the market environments from then do not really compare to today's home video market, parallels are drawn between the Betamax-VHS battle to the ongoing and escalating fight between Blu-ray and HD DVD. One of the key questions at this year's CES actually is "Which high-def format will win the current format war - Blu-ray or HD DVD?" Surprisingly, it seems that there is no such question in the minds of the adult industry luminaries.
Putting myself through the arduous trek through the floor of the adult expo I did a quick straw poll on, the virtues of HD DVD versus Blu-ray, and the answer from a dozen companies, big and small, including Pink Visual and Bangbros editor-in-chief, is going into a single direction: HD DVD is the preferred format. Period.
HD DVD Vs Blu-ray
Not Working
Satellite
U.S. officials are unable to communicate with an expensive experimental U.S. spy satellite launched last year by the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), a defense official and another source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday.
Efforts are continuing to reestablish communication with the classified satellite, which cost hundreds of millions of dollars, but "the prognosis is not great at this point," said the defense official, who asked not to be identified.
The official said the problems were substantial and involved multiple systems, adding that U.S. officials were working to reestablish contact with the satellite because of the importance of the new technology it was meant to test and demonstrate.
Another source said the satellite had been described to him as "a comprehensive failure."
Satellite
Archaeologists Find Ancient Stone Tools
Minnesota
What appear to be crude stone tools may provide evidence that people lived in Minnesota 13,000 to 15,000 years ago, which if confirmed would make them among the oldest human artifacts ever found in North America, archaeologists said Friday.
Archaeologists in the northern Minnesota town of Walker dug up the items, which appear to be beveled scrapers, choppers, a crude knife and several flakes that could have been used for cutting, said Colleen Wells, field director for the Leech Lake Heritage Sites Program.
Several archaeological experts who weren't involved with the dig expressed a healthy dose of skepticism, but they acknowledged they were also intrigued.
Minnesota
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