Nat Hentoff: The Torture President
Increasingly, as Powell predicted, while the president strongly insists that the CIA be allowed to continue practicing what Bush calls "its specialized interrogations" in its secret prisons, and "renditions" (kidnapping Europeans to be tortured elsewhere), we have lost the trust and respect of many our allies' citizens.
SUSAN ESTRICH: The Robot Rule (creators.com)
We called it "the robot rule." I still have an old and slightly rusty pin showing a robot with a red slash through it. "Delegates are not robots" was our rallying cry in seeking to defeat what was then Rule 11(h) of the Delegate Selection Rules, or Rule f(3)(c) of the Convention Rules, which bound delegates to vote at the convention for the candidate to whom they were pledged according to the results of their state's primary or caucus.
Froma Harrop: Bailouts -- Be Very Particular (creators.com)
If we're going to bail out Wall Street, shouldn't we also rescue homeowners? "Yes!" the Democrats answer. And faster than Roger Federer returns a tennis ball, conservative voices hit back with reasons - some rather odd - for helping the former and not the latter.
Froma Harrop: Social Security Remains Star in the Gloom (creators.com)
The stock market hasn't been this nasty since the 1970s. House prices continue their dive, and consumer confidence has gone splat. The rocketing federal budget deficit will probably orbit Mars by the time the government finishes cleaning up the mess left by the housing bubble it so blithely let fester.
JENNIFER KELLY: NOW HEAR THIS!: Chicha Libre [New York] (popmatters.com)
Blending the strains of native South American, Latin, African, and psychedelic music, Peruvian chicha music has a trippy, lighthearted vibe all its own. Olivier Conan talks to us about this fascinating genre, his band Chicha Libre, and the syncretism of global music.
Who was first male to appear on the cover of Playboy Magazine (April 1964)?
A: Kirk Douglas
B: Hugh Hefner
C: Peter O'Toole
D: Peter Sellers
E: Peter Ustinov
Source
Alan J was first, and correct, with:
Peter Sellers
Marian the Teacher responded:
Peter Sellers
DanD replied:
Wotcha tryin to do, Peter us all out? After a lingering suspicion and a
Google confirmation, I will choose (D) Dick Henry, who was then dubbed
"Peter" after his older, stillborn sibling (with that indicative kind of
family history, seems to me that evolving into a comedian would be
mandatory).
Charlie said:
I didn't notice it at the time, but it was
D: Peter Sellers
You can buy it
here.
Tony In Philly answered:
LOLOL! The Google Says: Peter Sellers!
Zexy!
Chuck replied:
Has to be D. Peter Sellers.....One of the best actors of the millennium.
Sally said:
Peter Sellers (D) was first male to appear on the cover of Playboy Magazine (April 1964).
Why Seller's was chosen, was always beyond me - there were a lot more attractive men in that era, let me tell you! Maybe it was because he seemed, "non-threatening" - especially when you think of him as the bumbling French police inspector, Jacques Clouseau, in the Pink Panther films.
That being said, does anyone remember Seller's great (but un-acclaimed) movie, "The Mouse that Roared?"
The fictitious but hilarious, country, "Grand Fenwick" (3 miles by 5 miles) borders Switzerland and France, and is allegedly located in the Alps, and the country is dependent, almost entirely, on making pinot noir wine. After a US-produced, "Pinot Noir Grand Fenwick" wine threatens to undermine their economy, the small country declares war on the United States!
Expecting to be dealt a crushing defeat (and then rebuild itself through the generous "rebuilding monies" that the United States bestows on its vanquished enemies) they march on the US Embassy to "Declare War!" (The scenes showing the, "army" marching, is just a scream.)
The twist, as I remember, is that the tiny government of Grand Fenwick, instead of losing, defeats the mighty superpower (purely by accident) by capturing the Q-bomb, a prototype that could destroy the world if triggered.
Sellers at his funniest for me.
How absurd it seemed back in those days...
PS: I bet this picture would be right up DanD's alley, because it's actually a longer, "kind of knee-slap joke held perpetually dear mostly by people with short attention spans...."
Right on, Danny boy. :)
And, Joe S ("There is no me. I do not exist. There used to be a me but I had it surgically removed."
~ Peter Sellers) said:
The obvious answer is Hugh Hefner, I mean if I were Hugh Hefner I would be on every cover. But I'm not Hugh Hefner, nor do I really want to be Hugh Hefner. I don't want to be Peter Sellers either, but that's the answer. (I'm very happy being Joe)
A Day Late -
Re: Peter Ustinov
Kris H. wrote:
Peter Ustinov's claim is far more interesting that merely having an Ethiopian great-grandmother. His Swiss great-grandfather was a missionary there and married a local girl who was a member of the royal family. And as everyone knows the Ethiopian royal family claims to descend from King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.
CBS begins the night with FRESH'NCAA Basketball - The Elite 8', followed, maybe, by '48 Hours'. The left coast is padded with local crap.
NBC kills the night with a RERUN'Law & Order: Criminal Intent', followed by a RERUN'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit', then a RERUN'Law & Order'.
'SNL' is a RERUN with Ellen Page hosting, music by Wilco.
ABC fills the night with the movie 'Catch Me If You Can'.
The CW fills the night with old episodes of 'Raymond' and 'Friends'.
Faux has the tradtional 'Cops', 'Cops', and 'America's Most Wanted'.
MY has 'Meet My Folks', followed by 'Decision House'.
A&E has the movie 'The Matrix', followed by the movie 'True Lies'.
AMC offers the movie 'In The Line Of Fire', followed by the movie 'The Godfather'.
BBC -
[12:00 PM] You Are What You Eat - Episode 6;
[12:30 PM] You Are What You Eat - Episode 7;
[1:00 PM] Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - Ep 3 Momma Cherri's;
[2:00 PM] Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - Ep 7 Oscars;
[3:00 PM] Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - Ep 4 La Riviera;
[4:00 PM] Top Gear - Episode 5;
[5:00 PM] Top Gear - Ep 4 Botswana Special;
[6:00 PM] Doctor Who - Ep 9 The Family Of Blood;
[7:00 PM] Doctor Who - Ep 10 Blink;
[8:00 PM] Torchwood - Ep 9 Something Borrowed;
[9:00 PM] Torchwood - Ep 10 From Out of the Rain;
[10:00 PM] The Graham Norton Show - Ep 13 Rupert Everett and Miriam Margolyes;
[11:00 PM] Torchwood - Ep 9 Something Borrowed;
[12:00 AM] Torchwood - Ep 10 From Out of the Rain;
[1:00 AM] The Graham Norton Show - Ep 13 Rupert Everett and Miriam Margolyes;
[2:00 AM] Torchwood - Ep 9 Something Borrowed;
[3:00 AM] Torchwood - Ep 10 From Out of the Rain;
[4:00 AM] The Graham Norton Show - Ep 13 Rupert Everett and Miriam Margolyes;
[5:00 AM] Cash in the Attic - Episode 7;
[5:30 AM] Cash in the Attic - Episode 9;
[6:00 AM] BBC World News. (ALL TIMES EDT)
Bravo has 'Top Chef', followed by the movie 'Coyote Ugly', then the movie 'Coyote Ugly', again.
Comedy Central has 'Scrubs', followed by the movie 'Without A Paddle', then 'Dane Cook Vicious Circle'.
FX has the movie 'The Transporter 2', followed by the movie 'XXX: State Of The Union', then the movie 'In Her Shoes'.
History has 'Modern Marvels', 'Written In Bone', and 'The Lost Book Of Nostradamus'.
IFC -
[07:20 AM] Short: Failure;
[08:00 AM] Rashomon;
[09:35 AM] Albino Alligator;
[11:15 AM] Mondays in the Sun;
[01:15 PM] Pumpkin;
[03:15 PM] Albino Alligator;
[04:55 PM] IFC In Theaters;
[05:05 PM] Mondays in the Sun;
[07:05 PM] Town & Country;
[09:00 PM] Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery;
[10:35 PM] Even Cowgirls Get the Blues;
[12:15 AM] Personal Velocity: Three Portraits;
[01:45 AM] Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery;
[03:25 AM] The Whitest Kids U'Know #203;
[03:55 AM] Even Cowgirls Get the Blues;
[05:40 AM] IFC News Special: 2008 Elections. (ALL TIMES EST)
SciFi has the movie 'Resident Evil: Apocalypse', followed by the movie 'The Insatiable'.
Sundance -
[05:00 AM] Tony Takitani;
[06:25 AM] Before the Flood;
[07:30 AM] Swimmers;
[09:00 AM] Episode 4: Isabella Rossellini + Dean Kamen;
[10:00 AM] Manufacturing Dissent;
[12:00 PM] The Hi-Lo Country;
[02:00 PM] Episode 3: Quentin Tarantino + Fiona Apple;
[03:00 PM] Episode 3: Rarer Monsters;
[04:00 PM] Red Lights;
[06:00 PM] Episode 3;
[06:30 PM] Episode 1;
[07:00 PM] The Guys;
[08:30 PM] Die Mommie Die!;
[10:00 PM] Seven-Per-Cent Solution;
[12:00 AM] Breakfast on Pluto;
[02:30 AM] Zoo;
[04:00 AM] Amos Lee, Randy Crawford & David Gilmour;
[05:00 AM] Edvard Munch (Part 1). (ALL TIMES EST)
"Superhero Movie" cast member Leslie Nielsen (L) poses with his wife Barbaree at the premiere of the film in Los Angeles, March 27, 2008.
Photo by Chris Pizzello
Money from Europe and a charity co-founded by Hollywood actors George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and Don Cheadle will help maintain humanitarian flights in Darfur through April, the United Nations said on Friday.
The $6 million donated by Ireland, the European Union and the Clooney-backed Not On Our Watch will allow the U.N.'s World Food Programme (WFP) to hire helicopters and aircraft to ferry aid workers to Sudan's war-torn region for 30 days.
The WFP's air link carries some 8,000 aid workers from 160 organizations to, from and within Darfur each month, WFP spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume said.
"We have received some funds which will allow us to maintain the flights for the month of April," she told a news briefing but added the reprieve is only short term as a further $71 million is needed to operate the service for the rest of 2008.
British film director Alan Parker looks through a cinema door window prior to meeting the media in Prague Friday, March 28, 2008. Parker received the Kristian prize for his contribution to world cinematography, at the opening ceremony of the 15th Febiofest international film festival and presented his famous film Commitments.
Photo by Michal Dolezal
Papers purporting to be FBI reports linking associates of music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs to a 1994 attack on rapper Tupac Shakur appear to be fakes, the agency said Friday. The documents had been cited in recent Los Angeles Times and Associated Press stories.
James Sabatino, a convicted con man who is serving a federal prison sentence for fraud, filed the documents last fall in Miami federal court as part of a $19 million lawsuit against Combs, claiming Combs never paid him for arranging a recording and video session by the late Notorious B.I.G.
The documents purported to be an FBI agent's reports on interviews conducted in 2002 of confidential informants linking Sabatino and associates of Combs to the 1994 shooting of Shakur in New York City. The shooting triggered a feud between East and West Coast rappers that later led to the killings of Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. None of the shootings have been solved.
The Web site The Smoking Gun first reported this week that the documents appeared to be fakes. The reports were written on a typewriter, not a computer, and contained misspellings identical to ones Sabatino made in other documents, its report pointed out.
Petra the black swan has been reunited with her beloved swan-shaped paddleboat after a failed romance with a real bird.
Officials at a Muenster zoo where Petra has been spending the winter took her to a nearby lake Friday and released her next to the paddleboat - shaped like a giant white swan.
Petra became so attached to the boat back in 2006 that she refused to leave its side. When winter came around, she and the boat were taken into the zoo.
In recent months, Petra had struck up a relationship with a real white swan. However, he abandoned her last weekend - and officials decided to reunite her with the boat, which was returned to its owner only last week.
A rocker, poet and activist, Patti Smith is already a Renaissance woman. With her first major solo exhibit of drawings and photographs opening in Paris this week, she earns the title of visual artist, too.
Smith, 61, calls the exhibit opening Friday at the Fondation Cartier "an open door welcoming people into my world." What may surprise fans is that her visual work is apolitical. From scratchy pencil drawings to Polaroid snapshots, it's dreamy and a touch surreal.
The exhibit, called "Land 250," draws from art Smith created from 1967 to 2007, some of it during stays in Paris. Though Smith has had smaller gallery shows, this is her first major exhibit, and most of the art on display has never been seen by the public before, said curator Grazia Quaroni.
Tibetan exiles take part in a candlelight protest in Rangpo village, north of the northeastern Indian city of Siliguri, March 25, 2008.
Photo by Rupak De Chowdhuri
US entertainment giant Walt Disney on Thursday unveiled pilot versions of television animation series it is producing in first-of-a-kind tie-ups with Japanese animation studios.
The move, first announced earlier this month, marks a change of strategy for Disney, which has traditionally distributed US-made characters Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck around the world.
A Japanese adaptation of the popular US "Lilo and Stitch" series will start in late 2008 as "the first Disney animation made in Japan and set in Japan," an official at the Japanese arm of Walt Disney said.
The Japanese version, jointly produced by mid-sized studio Madhouse, will feature a Japanese girl skilled at karate and be set on a fictional island in Japan's subtropical southern chain of Okinawa.
Poison drummer Rikki Rockett was arrested on a rape warrant and his case was turned over to the district attorney's office for possible grand jury consideration, officials said Friday.
Rockett, 46, was arrested Monday at or near Los Angeles International Airport, Los Angeles police said. He was booked and released, and was awaiting an extradition decision by Mississippi prosecutors.
A woman in Mississippi filed a complaint that she was raped on Sept. 23, 2007, at the Silver Star Casino, Neshoba County sheriff's investigator Ralph Sciple said.
Australian farmer James Stirton stands next to a ball of twisted metal, purported to be fallen space junk, on his farm in southwestern Queensland in this undated handout photograph received March 28, 2008.
Photo by James Stirton
Former "Quincy, M.E." star Jack Klugman sued NBC Universal Friday, claiming the studio is lying about the show's profits and owes him money.
His 1976 contract with NBC entitles him and his company, Sweater Productions, to 25 percent of the show's "net profits," according to the suit filed in Superior Court. Klugman claims his copy of the contract was lost when his agent died, and NBC has refused to provide a copy.
"I recently heard that they made $250 million and it's still on TV in Germany. I don't want their money. I want my money," Klugman told The Associated Press. "I worked my tail off. I got up at four in the morning and stayed at the studio. I did rewrite, I edited."
NBC provided Klugman with an accounting statement showing the series had lost $66 million through 2006, according to the suit. However, Klugman said he believes NBC is lying, and that it made money.
His mother suffered dark depressions and tried to dominate his life. His sister and daughter had severe mental problems, his father and wife died young and a beloved uncle committed suicide in his arms.
So what did Peter Mark Roget, the creator of Roget's Thesaurus, do to handle all the pain, grief, sorrow, affliction, woe, bitterness, unhappiness and misery in a life that lasted over 90 years?
He made lists.
The 19th century British scientist made lists of words, creating synonyms for all occasions that ultimately helped make life easier for term paper writers, crossword puzzle lovers and anyone looking for the answer to the age-old question: "What's another word for ..."
And according to a new biography, making his lists saved Roget's life and by keeping him from succumbing to the depression and misery of those around him.
Cars lining the street. A house full of young people. A keg and drinking games inside. Police thought they had an underage boozing party on their hands.
But though they made dozens of teens take breath tests, none tested positive for alcohol. That's because the keg contained root beer.
Dustin Zebro, 18, said he staged the party after friends at D.C. Everest High School got suspended from sports because of pictures showing them drinking from red cups.
The root-beer kegger was "to kind of make fun of the school," he said. "They assumed there was beer in the cups. We just wanted to have some root beer in red cups and just make it look like a party, but there actually wasn't any alcohol."
Steven Seagull has returned to the Super 8 motel here, looking for his customary cake doughnut. Year after year, the ring-billed gull has tapped at the lobby's front door until a staff member gives him the doughnut, said general manager Jodi Chambers.
"If it's quiet in the lobby, you can hear him tapping on it," Chambers said. "But if we're busy, he starts squawking like crazy."
Chambers said she's sure it's the same bird because he behaves the same way every year. For one thing, Steven chases away other gulls looking for his food.
"We don't feed them if there's more than one, and he's figured that out," Chambers said.
In this photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, a ring-tailed lemur nuzzles a cub at a zoo in Hefei, capital of east China's Anhui Province, on Thursday, March 27, 2008. The cub was born on March 24.
Photo by Liu Bingsheng
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