'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Self-Inflicted Confusion (nytimes.com)
Maybe Barack Obama's transformational campaign isn't winning over working-class voters because transformation isn't what they're looking for.
Did Clinton Stop the Growth of the National Debt in His Final Year in Office?
Set the beginning and ending dates to January 19, 2000. Then set the beginning and ending dates to January 19, 2001. That will give the size of the national debt at the beginning of Clinton's last year in office and at the end of Clinton's last year in office. If you want, take a look at how Bush has done by using more recent dates. (An extra: When you first go the site, it will show you the size of the current national debt.)
Mark Morford: All the president's liars (sfgate.com)
Fun new game! Which TV news "military expert" is really a whore for the Bush administration? (Hint: all of them)
Jim Hightower: A SPECIAL BREAK FOR CORPORATE CRIMINALS (jimhightower.com)
If you got caught robbing a bank, chances are excellent that you'd be facing some serious time in the pokey. But what if a bank robs you?
Mark Morford: Wal-Mart cross-dressers in Hell (sfgate.com)
30 years of wacky behind-the-scenes corporate behavior, all on videotape. It's a nightmare!
Nathan Dinsdale: Why You Don't Need to Feel Guilty About Eating at 7-Eleven (San Diego CityBeat)
I proudly declare (from on high, if necessary) that I regularly eat pre-packaged sandwiches from 7-Eleven.
Sinatra was, frankly, a terrific kid (entertainment.timesonline.co.uk)
I remember on his daughter Nancy's 30th birthday his gift to her was $1 million, wrapped up. Frank was very generous like that.
Madonna: more clout than the Beatles (entertainment.timesonline.co.uk)
The Fab Four may have set the benchmark, but the Material Girl outstrips them with her sheer cultural impact.
Hannah Pool: Singer Sarah Brightman on talent shows, her tough reputation and her relationship with ex-husband Andrew Lloyd Webber (music.guardian.co.uk)
Q: Is it true you tried to give Andrew Lloyd Webber back his £6m divorce settlement?
A: I did ask him once: "Look, I'm doing all right, would you like it back?" and he said, "No, you went through all of that, you keep it."
Sean Michaels: Lou Reed's perfect day (music.guardian.co.uk)
The former Velvet Underground frontman has married his long-term partner, the experimental performance artist Laurie Anderson.
I'm loving aliens instead (music.guardian.co.uk)
Robbie Williams disappeared from view at the end of 2006. Since then, he has become obsessed with UFOs and extraterrestrials. To gather evidence, he and Jon Ronson headed deep into the Nevada desert.
Twenty Questions: Nada Surf's Ira Elliot (popmatters.com)
19. What do you want to say to the leader of your country?
"F**k you, you f**king c**k-washer. sir."
Colin Covert: Aaron Eckhart takes comedy seriously with 'Meet Bill' (Star Tribune)
Aaron Eckhart is a serious actor - he has appeared in only four comedies in a 20-film career - who chooses roles carefully. His ruggedly handsome looks and athletic frame have secured him leading man roles in action movies and dramas, but he pursues distinctive acting options, playing a wily tobacco lobbyist in "Thank You for Smoking," a romantic chef in "No Reservations" and the schizoid villain Two-Face in this summer's Batman film "The Dark Knight."
Who was the youngest person to ever host Saturday Night Live?
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and warm.
Lifetime Achievement Award
John Hiatt
John Hiatt, whose rootsy songs have been recorded by artists as diverse as Bob Dylan, Iggy Pop, Willie Nelson and B.B. King, will receive the Americana Music Association's lifetime achievement award for songwriting.
The AMA announced the selection Thursday and will present the honor to Hiatt during its Sept. 18 awards show at the Ryman Auditorium.
Born and raised in Indianapolis, Hiatt moved to Nashville when he was 18 and got a songwriting job with Tree Publishing.
John Hiatt
Hand-Me-Downs eBay Auction
Celebrities
Matt Damon's diaper bag, Julianne Moore's high chair, Elisabeth Hasselbeck's car seat and other celebrity baby hand-me-downs are going up for auction on eBay.
Famous parents donated their used baby items to Johnson's Celebrity Hand Me Down Auction, which will benefit such charities as March of Dimes, Save the Children, Zero to Three and Baby Buggy. The online auction begins April 29 and ends May 9.
Damon provided his black, messenger-style baby bag while Moore, a mother of two, donated a beachwood highchair that she calls her daughter Liv's special "sit at the table with the grown-ups" chair. Mariska Hargitay from "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" gave an Adidas track suit outfit worn by her son, August.
Other celebrities participating in the auction include "Shark" actress Jeri Ryan and recent mother Elisabeth Rohm.
Celebrities
New York Times Columnist Pied
Thomas L. Friedman
A student faces disciplinary action after two people threw green whipped cream pies at New York Times columnist and author Thomas L. Friedman as he began an Earth Day speech at Brown University.
A video of the Tuesday incident posted on YouTube.com shows Friedman telling the audience, "It's great to be back here at Brown," shortly before Margaree Little, a senior English literature major, and an unidentified man storm the stage.
Friedman managed to avoid most of the cream, although his shirt and the back of his head were splattered and he appears to slip on cream on the stage. He left the stage to clean himself off before resuming his speech.
Little, 22, said Friedman's brand of environmentalism is a "sham" because she believes he supports things like biofuels that reduce the availability of food and displace thousands in Haiti and other developing nations. Friedman, an environmentalist, has written about taking a careful approach and ensuring biodiversity is preserved in areas where biofuel crops are grown.
Thomas L. Friedman
Wedding News
Anderson - Reed
US musician Lou Reed and his long-time companion Laurie Anderson recently married, the New York Post said Friday.
Reed, 66, the lead singer-songwriter and guitarist with the legendary group The Velvet Underground married experimental performance artist Anderson, 60, in a quiet ceremony in Colorado on April 12, the daily said.
The couple have been together since the mid-1990s.
Anderson - Reed
Hospital News
Jim Lehrer
Jim Lehrer, anchorman of PBS' "NewsHour," has undergone successful heart valve surgery.
Lehrer, who had the operation Wednesday, remained hospitalized Friday, but planned to be back on the broadcast within a few weeks, said "NewsHour" spokeswoman Anne Bell.
"The surgery went well and we expect his return by the end of May," she said, adding that Lehrer first felt ill last week and checked into Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
Filling in for Lehrer, who turns 74 next month, will be correspondents Gwen Ifill, Ray Suarez, Margaret Warner and Judy Woodruff.
Jim Lehrer
`Scud Stud' Sues
Arthur Kent
The Canadian reporter known as the "Scud Stud" during the 1991 Gulf War has sued the makers of "Charlie Wilson's War" over footage used in the Tom Hanks-Julia Roberts movie.
Arthur Kent, whose live NBC reports on Iraq's Scud missile attacks on Saudia Arabia made him a celebrity, claims in a federal lawsuit filed Thursday that filmmakers violated his intellectual property rights.
The lawsuit claims Universal Studios and other companies used segments of a 1986 news program Kent made about the Soviet Union's war in Afghanistan without his consent.
It seeks an injunction against distributing the movie, among other provisions, in addition to unspecified damages.
Arthur Kent
Charges Dismissed in Burbank
Shia LaBeouf
Can someone get Shia LaBeouf a light? A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has dismissed an unlawful smoking charge against the "Transformers" star.
LaBeouf pleaded not guilty to the charge last month after a judge issued a $1,000 warrant for his arrest when he failed to appear at a hearing. The bench warrant was later dismissed.
He was cited in February, but court documents did not contain details on the circumstances or location of the offense.
Shia LaBeouf
Visits `Divorce Court'
Gary Coleman
The honeymoon is over for Gary Coleman and his new bride.
The 40-year-old actor and his 22-year-old wife, Shannon Price, are set to appear on TV's "Divorce Court" on May 1 and 2. The couple wed in August after meeting on the set of the 2006 comedy "Church Ball."
Among the problems the pair discusses with Judge Lynn Toler are Coleman's anger and intimacy issues. Coleman and Price agree they have "ugly" monthly fights.
"If he doesn't get his way, he throws a temper tantrum like a five-year-old does," Price says, according to a transcript of the show provided to The Associated Press. "He like stomps the floor and yells, 'Meehhhh,' and starts throwing stuff around. He bashes his head in the wall, too."
Gary Coleman
Vegas Strip Show
Donny and Marie Osmond
Donny and Marie Osmond will perform in a variety show at the Flamingo Las Vegas hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip beginning in September.
The brother-sister duo, who starred in the "Donny & Marie" variety show in 1976, will play Tuesday-Saturday shows for 26 weeks spread over eight months at the Flamingo Showroom, a hotel official said Friday.
The 90-minute show, beginning Sept. 9, will be presented by Danny Gans and Chip Lightman of GansLight Entertainment. It is being billed as a greatest-hits multimedia spectacle on a custom stage with multiple video screens and a cast of dancers.
"My version of a variety show has been what Vegas has known thus far," said Gans, an impressionist and comedian who has long played in Las Vegas. "What we have now is a true variety show which conveys the real essence of America and the country's love of homegrown talent."
Donny and Marie Osmond
Scanning One by One
Every Book
In a dimly lit back room on the second level of the University of Michigan library's book-shelving department, Courtney Mitchel helped a giant desktop machine digest a rare, centuries-old Bible.
Mitchel is among hundreds of librarians from Minnesota to England making digital versions of the most fragile of the books to be included in Google Inc.'s Book Search, a portal that will eventually lead users to all the estimated 50 million to 100 million books in the world.
The manually scanning - at up to 600 pages a day - is much slower than Google's regular process.
Google, the Internet's leader in search and advertising, says the process it developed and is using for scanning the majority of the books in Book Search is proprietary. Employees will not discuss it except to say it is much faster than what Mitchel is doing and it's not destructive.
Every Book
In Memory
Kenneth Keith Kallenbach
Kenneth Keith Kallenbach, an actor, comedian and long-running member of Howard Stern's "Wack Pack," has died in custody. He was 39.
Kallenbach, who was arrested in March for allegedly trying to lure an underage girl into his car, contracted pneumonia at a prison outside Philadelphia and died Thursday morning at a suburban hospital, his mother, Fay Kallenbach, said Friday.
The long-haired Kallenbach, whose goofball antics included attempting to blow smoke from his eyes, made dozens of appearances on Stern's show beginning in 1990. Stern once likened him to MTV's Beavis and Butt-head and wrote in his 1993 book "Private Parts" that Kallenbach was the "ultimate airhead."
More recently, Kallenbach, of Boothwyn, Pa., starred in commercials for ESPN's "Monday Night Football" and Stride chewing gum. He also appeared on Jay Leno's "Tonight" show on NBC and had uncredited parts in HBO's "Sex and the City" and the Tom Cruise film "Jerry Maguire."
His mother accused the Delaware County Prison of failing to provide adequate medical care, saying her son, who had cystic fibrosis, called her a few days before his death and begged her to intervene.
Pablo Paez, spokesman for OBITGEO Group Inc., the Florida-based company that runs the prison said Kallenbach had been housed at the prison since March 27, and was taken to Riddle Memorial Hospital near Media, Pa., on Monday.
"We provide appropriate care for all the inmates at the facility," Paez said.
Kenneth Keith Kallenbach
| CURRENT MOON lunar phases |
