'Best of TBH Politoons'
Freshly Updated!
Dick Eats Bush
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
PAUL KRUGMAN: On Being Partisan (The New York Times)
American politics is ugly these days, and many people wish things were different. For example, Barack Obama recently lamented the fact that "politics has become so bitter and partisan" - which it certainly has.
Rick Perlstein: Legend of the Fall (The New Republic)
When Senator Hillary Clinton stepped up to the microphones Wednesday to introduce her new anti-surge bill, the language was so defensive you'd think she was proposing to outlaw Christmas-not to stop one of the most unpopular ideas a president has ever dared to propose.
Down and out with Paris and Lohan (guardian.co.uk)
Marina Hyde: I simply cannot go about the business of my daily life unless I know the state of play with the celebrity holy trinity that is Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.
Who are you calling a bitch? (guardian.co.uk)
It's an insult often thrown at women who are strong, ambitious and outspoken. We'll take that as a compliment then, says Kate Figes.
Buchwald's Farewell Column, Written to Be Released at Death (editorandpublisher.com)
Art Buchwald wrote a final column that he asked not be distributed until after he died. The piece was penned on Feb. 8, 2006, after Buchwald decided to check into a hospice. He eventually left the hospice, of course, and resumed his syndicated column. Buchwald died ... at the age of 81. Here's the farewell column, courtesy of Tribune Media Services:
Doree Shafrir: Go With God: The critical buzz on Alexandra Pelosi and Calvin Trillin (slate.com)
About Alice, Calvin Trillin (Random House). Trillin's ode to his late wife, who died of heart failure in 2001, has resonated with critics. ... as the Boston Globe points out, Trillin's book isn't so much about Alice's death as her life: "From the first page, Calvin Trillin makes it clear why we're here. We are going to spend a few hours with somebody we miss."
Dorothy Woodend: Pan's Labyrinth: A Shocking Fairy Tale (The Tyee. Posted on alternet.org)
In the new Spanish tragedy, beauty and horror are so closely intertwined it is sometimes hard to pick them apart.
Reader Comment
Pledge Boycott
Mesa Councilman Tom Rawles is under 24-hour police protection after
receiving threats in newspaper online chats, blogs and in a phone call for
refusing to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.
Police are assessing the threats that came after Rawles refused to stand
for the Pledge to protest U.S. involvement in the Iraq war. He said he
will not stand until U.S. troops come home or his term ends, on Dec. 31,
2008. ......
Pledge Boycott
kevkev in Apache Junction, AZ
Thanks, kevkev!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and warm.
Added a new flag - Angola 
Taking Sides
Hollywood
The entertainment industry has long been a cornerstone of support for Democrats seeking public office, and New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, like her husband, former President Bill Clinton, has been one of the chief beneficiaries.
But a newcomer to Hollywood's money trail, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, is headed next month to a fund-raiser hosted by three of the most influential moguls in show business -- Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg of DreamWorks.
All indications are that veteran Clinton loyalists like producers Haim Saban and Steve Bing, former studio chief Sherry Lansing and magnate Ron Burkle remain firmly in her camp.
Nevertheless, a parade of celebrities have expressed support for Obama, including Oscar winners George Clooney and Halle Berry and TV talk show host Oprah Winfrey.
Hollywood
Squares Off Against Oshawa Mayor
Stephen Colbert
Late-night funnyman Stephen Colbert had a lot riding on Friday night's Ontario Hockey League game between the Saginaw Spirit and the Oshawa Generals.
The host of the satirical news program "The Colbert Report" (pronounced coal-BEAR RAY-pore), has thrown his support behind the Spirit in recent months after learning that the Michigan team had named its mascot Steagle Colbeagle the Eagle, as a tribute to him.
After the Generals recently beat the Spirit on home turf, the Oshawa team held its annual teddy bear toss for charity. Colbert took mock offence and aired footage of the stunt, calling it "an obvious attempt to taunt me."
Gray said if the Oshawa Generals win the game, Colbert must wear a Generals jersey for an entire show. However, if the Spirit wins, Gray must declare Colbert's birthday "Stephen Colbert Day" in Oshawa.
Colbert accepted the challenge on his show Thursday night, but said he wants his day to be declared on Gray's birthday, March 20.
Stephen Colbert
Presenting Fiction As Fact - Again
Fox 'News'
Fox News Channel says it has obtained controversial unseen footage from ABC's miniseries "The Path to 9/11" and will air the video during "Hannity's America" on Sunday night.
Fox News recorded video of the unedited scene during a January 19 speech given by "Path" writer-producer Cyrus Nowrasteh at California State University, Channel Islands, in Camarillo, where he explained his side of the story and screened the footage. Because it was a public event, Fox News said, it was able to record the video and the speech.
"Hannity's America" senior producer John Finley said Fox News captured about 2-1/2 minutes of unedited footage and plans to show the scene, said to be of good quality, in its entirety as part of a roughly 15-minute segment centered around the scene itself. During the segment, Sean Hannity will interview Nowrasteh as well as Michael Scheuer, the former CIA agent who created and advised a secret CIA unit for tracking and eliminating bin Laden.
ABC declined comment but reiterated its statement from September that the miniseries is not a documentary but a dramatization, and "as such, for dramatic and narrative purposes, the movie contains fictionalized scenes, composite and representative characters and dialogue and time compression."
Fox 'News'
Hospital News
Molly Ivins
Liberal Texas columnist Molly Ivins has been hospitalized in her ongoing battle with breast cancer, her assistant said Friday.
Ivins, 62, had taken a break from her syndicated column, which appears in nearly 400 newspapers, but resumed writing earlier this month.
Her most recent column appeared two weeks ago, when Ivins urged readers to stand up against resident Bush's plan to send more troops to Iraq.
Ivins, a California native who grew up in Houston, got her third cancer diagnosis more than a year ago. She has undergone chemotherapy.
Molly Ivins
Buys Home Near Louisville
Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali and his wife, Lonnie, have bought a $1.8 million home that will bring the three-time heavyweight boxing champ closer to his native Louisville.
Mike Fox, president of the Muhammad Ali Center, told The Courier-Journal that the Alis have tried to come to Louisville to visit the center every two or three months, but that travel is becoming increasingly difficult for the 65-year-old Ali, who has Parkinson's disease.
Although it is uncertain when the Alis will move, "it is our understanding that at certain times of the year they intend to spend extended time in the community they love," Fox said.
Muhammad Ali
Tenor's Baritone Debut
Placido Domingo
Spanish tenor Placido Domingo will switch to a baritone role for the first time in nearly 50 years in a work to be performed in Berlin in 2009, a spokeswoman for the opera house said on Friday.
Domingo, who has enjoyed huge popular success as one of the "The Three Tenors" alongside Luciano Pavarotti and Jose Carreras, will sing the title role of Giuseppe Verdi's "Simon Boccanegra" at the Staatsoper in former communist east Berlin.
Domingo, 66, performed as a baritone when he was young, according to his authorized Web site but he has achieved fame as a tenor.
Placido Domingo
CNBC Protects Asset
Maria Bartiromo
CNBC's Maria Bartiromo has the support of her network in response to questions, and raised eyebrows, about her professional relationship with a former Citigroup boss.
The star financial anchor has reported extensively on Citigroup, and on Todd Thomson, formerly chief of Citigroup's wealth management unit. But last week, when Thomson was ousted, it was in part over issues of judgment, including his dealings with Bartiromo.
Among other complaints, Thomson was faulted by Citigroup Chairman Charles Prince for the decision to spend $5 million to sponsor Sundance Channel programming that Bartiromo was expected to co-host. According to the Journal, Bartiromo no longer will host the project.
Since 2004, Bartiromo has aired 11 major pieces on Citigroup, including four interviews with Thomson, according to the Journal's review of CNBC transcripts.
Maria Bartiromo
Racist Denies Being Racist
Ted Nugent
Ted Nugent has denied reports that he made offensive remarks about non-English speakers during his performance at Gov. Rick Perry's inaugural ball.
Nugent, a hunting and guns-rights advocate, wrote that he will recruit more National Rifle Association members, provide hunting trips for needy children and wounded soldiers and their families, and fight the war on drugs and drunken driving.
"I will intensify my fight for a united America by demanding all Americans speak English," he wrote.
Nugent, who lives in Waco, said he has collaborated with musicians of diverse ethnicity, has dedicated his albums to "many of my revered black heroes" including James Brown, and is not a racist.
Ted Nugent
Toronto Movie Set Fatality
David Ritchie
A stagehand was killed on the Toronto set of the Samuel L. Jackson thriller "Jumper" when frozen sand, earth and ice from an exterior set rained on workers below.
David Ritchie, 56, a veteran set dresser, died instantly Thursday, a second man was sent to hospital with serious head and shoulder injuries, while a third man escaped harm.
Staff Sgt. Joanne Verbeek, a police officer with Toronto's 51 Division, that sand and earth frozen to the wall for exterior design came unstuck as the set was being torn down and crushed Ritchie, causing his death.
David Ritchie
No Bail For Yoko Ono's Former Driver
Koral Karsan
Yoko Ono's former driver, accused of trying to blackmail the widow of John Lennon for $2 million, was denied bail again Friday.
State Supreme Court Justice Daniel FitzGerald said there was nothing new in the extortion case of Koral Karsan, 50, to justify setting bail and releasing him.
Karsan's lawyer, Robert Gottlieb has said Karsan was an abused and sexually harassed employee who was demanding, in effect, compensatory damages and was not trying to shake down Ono.
Gottlieb said he asked the judge for the earliest possible trial date, possibly in the beginning of February.
Koral Karsan
Sentenced For Tax Evasion
Phil Driscoll
Grammy-winning trumpeter Phil Driscoll was sentenced Thursday to a year and a day in prison for using his gospel music ministry in an income-tax evasion scheme.
U.S. District Judge Curtis L. Collier allowed Driscoll 45 days to report to prison and agreed to decide by that March 12 deadline on Driscoll's request to remain free while he appeals his conviction.
Last June, a jury found Driscoll, 58, guilty on charges of conspiracy and tax evasion from 1996 through 1999.
An IRS agent testified at the trial that Driscoll and his wife improperly used his Mighty Horn Ministries to shield the money and evade $128,627 in taxes.
Phil Driscoll
Painting Sold At Auction
Rembrandt
A rare late work by Rembrandt depicting the Apostle James in prayer was sold Thursday for US$25.8 million, Sotheby's auction house said.
"Saint James the Greater," painted by the artist in 1661, was described by the vice chairman of Sotheby's Old Master paintings, George Wachter, as "certainly one of the most important works by Rembrandt that Sotheby's has ever handled."
The painting, measuring 91 centimetres by 51 centimetres, had been in the collection of Stephen Carlton Clark, the grandson of the founder of the Singer Sewing Machine Company and brother of Sterling Clark, founder of The Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass.
Rembrandt
Papers Auctioned
John Steinbeck
A contract signed by John Steinbeck handing over "The Grapes of Wrath" motion picture rights to Twentieth Century Fox fetched $24,000 at a charity auction Thursday.
It and nearly 160 other contracts and papers signed by stars including Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn were donated by Twentieth Century Fox. The auction netted $267,280 for the Motion Picture & Television Fund, which helps take care of not-so-rich-and-famous actors and directors.
The Steinbeck contract had been expected to sell for $4,000 to $6,000, Swann Auction Galleries said.
John Steinbeck
Canada Worried By Plunging Population
Caribou
The caribou population in Canada's vast Northwest Territories is falling rapidly and the increasingly warm climate could slow the animals' chances of recovery, a wildlife specialist said on Friday.
Herds of barren-ground caribou -- which for centuries have been a crucial source of food and furs for local aboriginals -- have dropped by between 40 and 86 percent over the last 10 years. The largest single herd fell from 472,000 animals in 1986 to 128,000 in 2006 and is still declining.
He also expressed concern about modern forms of transport that allow hunters to reach once inaccessible areas where in the past the caribou would have taken refuge while herd levels gradually recovered.
Caribou
Super Special Immunity
Ari 'The Fluffer' Fleischer
Attorneys for former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby want more information about an unusual immunity-from-prosecution deal that government lawyers gave former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer in the CIA leak case.
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald says that in early 2004, as his investigation was heating up into who revealed CIA operative Valerie Plame's name to reporters, Fleischer stepped forward with an offer to prosecutors: Promise no prosecution and he would help their case.
Fleischer acknowledged being one of the leakers, but he wouldn't say a word without a promise of immunity.
Prosecutors normally insist on an informal account of what a witness will say before agreeing to such a deal. It's known in legal circles as a proffer, and Fitzgerald said Thursday that he never got one from Fleischer, who was chief White House spokesman for the first 2 1/2 years of resident Bush's first term.
Ari 'The Fluffer' Fleischer
Stolen Statue Missing Feet
Bigfoot
An imposing, wood-carved Bigfoot statue stolen from outside a doctor's office has been recovered - minus its big feet.
An anonymous tip led police to the 400-pound sculpture beneath a pile of debris in a backyard about a block from where it was snatched Monday. Two people confessed and could face theft charges.
The likeness of the legendary ape-like creature of the Northwest used to stand 8 feet high, but its 16-inch-long feet had been sawed off at the ankles, leaving it 18 inches shorter.
"I'm glad we got him before they cut him anymore," said chiropractor Tom Payne, who had the statue made 5 1/2 years ago and planted at the foot of his secluded driveway as a landmark for patients. "We're relieved to have him back at the office."
Bigfoot
In Memory
Liz Renay
Liz Renay, a stripper and cult movie actress whose real life included roles as a gangster's moll, convict, author, artist and Hollywood Boulevard streaker, died Monday from cardiopulmonary arrest and gastric bleeding, the Clark County, Nev., coroner's office said. She was 80.
Renay first gained attention as a fashion model and Marilyn Monroe look-alike in the 1950s. She developed a cult following for her role as Muffy St. Jacques in director John Waters' 1977 movie "Desperate Living."
She appeared in at least two dozen other movies ranging from "Date With Death" in 1959 and "The Thrill Killers" in 1964, to adult films like "Interlude of Lust" in 1981 and the feature flick "Mark of the Astro-Zombies" in 2002.
She painted canvasses during a 27-month stint in federal prison in the early 1960s for perjuring herself during the federal tax evasion trial of her then-boyfriend, Hollywood mobster Mickey Cohen.
In her 1992 book, "My First 2,000 Men," Renay claimed flings with a wide range of actors and celebrities.
She also wrote cookbooks and beauty books, including "My Face for the World to See" in 1971. As a stripper, she toured and performed with her daughter, Brenda, who died in 1982, on her 39th birthday.
Renay streaked down Hollywood Boulevard in 1974 but was acquitted at trial of indecent exposure and lewdness.
Born Pearl Elizabeth Dobbins on April 14, 1926, in Chandler, Ariz., she was married seven times, divorced five times and widowed twice.
Liz Renay
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