'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Daniel Engber : Can't the Feds Get Lay's Money? (slate.com)
How a heart attack saved Enron's founder $43.5 million.
Matt Singer: Overpaying For Jobs (tompaine.com)
Earlier this year, Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue offered an astounding $400 million in incentives to Kia, the Korean automaker, to develop a plan that would employ 2,500 Georgians. Each of those jobs came with a $160,000 price tag. But it was nothing compared with what Mississippi was reportedly willing to offer the Korean car company: $1 billion in incentives, or roughly $400,000 per new job created.
George Lakoff: Occupation: The Inconvenient Truth About Iraq (huffingtonpost.com)
We've begun with global warming. Now the U.S. and its military allies need to face another inconvenient truth, this one about Iraq: This is an occupation, not a war.
Tracy-Ann Oberman: Quick, I need to make myself cry! (guardian.co.uk)
Daniel Hardman (a misnomer if ever there was one) managed to get his six-month prison sentence for GBH suspended this week by crying copiously in front of the magistrate. So struck was said official by "the genuine remorse" that he gave Hardman 200 hours community service instead. I'm not suggesting for one minute that the remorse was not "genuine" but what a genius result! Speaking as an actor who has had to cry on demand for most of my professional life, I would like to offer the following advice to anyone who finds themselves in a similar position with the authorities and needs to quickly turn on the waterworks.
Dreams of the midwest (guardian.co.uk)
By his own admission, Garrison Keillor has a 'great face for radio' - yet he finds himself on the verge of becoming a Hollywood star now that A Prairie Home Companion, his widely loved show about small-town America, has come to the big screen. Oliver Burkeman meets him
Jess Row: Many Happy Returns, Your Holiness (slate.com)
The Dalai Lama is turning 71. Where will Buddhism be without him?
Stephen Metcalf: The Worst Best Movie (slate.com)
Why on earth did "The Searchers" get canonized?
Ebert reviews Johnny Depp
Just think: Johnny Depp could have had the career of, say, Richard Grieco. In 1988, they were both break-out stars, young TV cops working undercover as high school students in the fledgling Fox network's first hit show, "21 Jump Street."
Live in San Francisco? Borrow Bruce's Books (San Francisco Public Library)
Perform a title search for "Funniest People."
Purple Gene Reviews
Phil & Hill
Purple Gene's report from the St Regis Hotel this morning watching Hillary Clinton give Phil Angelides a "quickie" !
I was going to ask her about the war in Iraq and why she doesn't come out against it! I paid a fucking thousand dollars for runny eggs and shitty coffee.
I was going to take some pictures of the first female US president.
My friends Mark and Sydney and I got there early to the St Regis because we wanted to "press the flesh" with Hillary Clinton....maybe get a question in with a photo op!
She was coming out in support of Phil Angelides' bid to take the Governorship of California out of the hands of Aaaahnold the ASS!
Gov candidate Steve Westly was there!
Mayor Gavin Newsom was there!
Assemblyman Mark Leno was there!
Senator Barbara Boxer was there!
I was there!
Well Hillary blew in past the press, past all the important donors and past me...to the podium....She blew Phil then flew the coop...she's an important woman...and after all "Security"......
I was there!
Oh well, it was for a good cause and she looked real good....the jury is out on her for '08....but I'm glad she's helping Phil!
I was there !
Purple Gene gives Phil and Hillary 9 buttery layered coissants out of 10 for being light and tasty but leaving me still hungry!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Hot & humid, again.
No new flags.
Comedy Central's New Episodes
Dave Chappelle
Comedy Central couldn't resist the easy joke, opening the aborted third season of "Chappelle's Show" Sunday with a shot of an empty stage and introduction of a star who never appears.
It's the first of three episodes compiled from sketches left behind before Dave Chappelle's now legendary freakout, walking out on a $50 million contract and one of TV's hottest shows two years ago under still mysterious circumstances.
"This isn't a designed farewell," said Neal Brennan, the show's co-creator who put them together. "There's no cliffhanger. These were just three out of what was supposed to be 10 - and the other seven never happened."
Dave Chappelle
Hollywood's RockWalk
Kristofferson & Jennings
Songwriter Kris Kristofferson and his late friend, country singer Waylon Jennings, were inducted into Hollywood's RockWalk on Thursday.
"I guess it's an honor," said Kristofferson, 70, in a telephone interview before putting his hands in wet cement at the sidewalk gallery on Sunset Boulevard. "I wish Waylon were here to enjoy it, or hate it. I guess if you hang around long enough they give you these things."
Standing in for Jennings was his widow, Jessi Colter.
Kristofferson & Jennings
Gaining On XM
Sirius
Opie & Anthony, even with a forthcoming assist from Oprah Winfrey, are proving no match for the marketing juggernaut that is Howard Stern.
Sirius Satellite Radio, home to Stern, said Thursday that it added 600,460 new subscribers during the second quarter, a 64 percent increase over the same period a year ago. Rival XM Satellite Radio added 398,000 users, representing a 38 percent drop in its year-over-year growth.
While Sirius beat analyst estimates of adding about 555,000 subs in the quarter, XM missed estimates of about 408,000 subs. XM, though, remains the industry leader with 6.89 million subscribers at the end of the second quarter, compared with 4.7 million at Sirius.
Sirius
Hospital News
Luciano Pavarotti
Tenor Luciano Pavarotti underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer and is "recovering well," his manager said Friday.
The 70-year-old singer was preparing to leave New York last week to resume his farewell world concert tour in Britain when doctors discovered a malignant pancreatic mass, Terri Robson said from her London office.
As a result of Pavarotti's treatment, all remaining 2006 concerts have been canceled, she said. It is anticipated that tour plans will resume in early 2007.
Luciano Pavarotti
Golden Lion at Venice Film Festival
David Lynch
US filmmaker David Lynch is to be awarded a Golden Lion at the Venice Film festival for his contribution to modern cinema.
The Oscar-nominated director known for his dark and disturbing films including "Blue Velvet," "Eraserhead" and "Twin Peaks" will be awarded the prize on September 6, as part of the festival which opens in the Italian city on August 30.
David Lynch
Adding Roller Coaster
Dollywood
Dolly Parton is putting some more big curves into her Dollywood theme park. And some big dips and spins, too.
Tennessee's top tourist draw will add a $17.5 million steel roller coaster called "Mystery Mine" in 2007, the country singer and actress announced Friday. It's the biggest single capital investment in the park's 21-year history.
The coaster, with the theme of an abandoned coal mine, will take riders on a 2 1/2-minute trip featuring a weightless inversion known as a "heart-line roll," a double inversion known as a "rollover loop" and a kind of half-loop climb, turn and plunge perfected by combat pilots in World War I.
The 1,811-foot coaster will cover an acre and join Dollywood's other major coaster, the wooden Thunderhead.
Dollywood
Navy, Environmental Groups End
Sonar Suit
Four days after a judge halted the Navy's use of high-intensity sonar in Pacific warfare exercises because of concerns that marine mammals may be harmed, the Navy and environmental groups agreed to terms under which the sonar may be used, lawyers for both sides said Friday.
The settlement prevents the Navy from using the sonar within 25 miles of the newly established Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument during its Rim of the Pacific 2006 exercises, and also imposes a variety of methods to watch for and report the presence of marine mammals.
The environmental groups, led by the Natural Resources Defense Council, had obtained a court order Monday temporarily barring the use of the "mid-frequency active sonar."
After the settlement was reached, U.S. District Court Judge Florence-Marie Cooper signed an order dismissing the environmentalists' lawsuit.
Sonar Suit
Plans For New Home
Salvador Dali Museum
Salvador Dali never set foot in this Gulf Coast city where the dominant art form is the watercolor beachscape. But in a strange twist worthy of one of the Spanish surrealist master's paintings, St. Petersburg will soon be home to a new $30 million signature museum to house the world's most comprehensive collection of Dali's work.
St. Petersburg snatched up the private Dali collection in 1982 when more likely locales, such as New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, balked at its owner's strict conditions. Ohio philanthropists A. Reynolds and Eleanor Morse were charmed by the city's eclectic offer of an old boat warehouse to display their collection.
Like a lot of things in Florida these days, a 14-year-old plan to build a more fitting - and sturdy - home for the collection was kicked into high gear by the hyperactive hurricane seasons of 2004 and 2005.
Groundbreaking is set for early next year. The new building will open in 2010.
Salvador Dali Museum
Extinct In West Africa
Black Rhinos
West Africa's version of the black rhino appears to be extinct, the World Conservation Union said on Friday.
It said an intensive survey has failed to find any sign of the west African black rhino in its final refuge in northern Cameroon.
On a more positive note, it said rhino numbers are on the rise elsewhere on the world's poorest continent after decades of rampant poaching and habitat loss.
There are two species of the horned titans in Africa, the more aggressive black rhino and the larger white version. Scientists further recognize two sub-species of white rhino and four sub-species of the black. All are in fact grey in color.
Black Rhinos
Believed To Be World's Oldest
Tata the Crow
There's no way to prove Tata was the world's oldest crow when he died Sunday at age 59. But an expert on crows says it's possible.
Tata's tale began in 1947 when a thunderstorm blew the fledgling out of his nest in a Long Island cemetery, a mishap that likely led to his long life. Injured and unable to fly, the bird was scooped up by a cemetery caretaker and brought to a local family with a reputation for taking care of animals, Tata's most recent owner, Kristine Flones, told the Daily Freeman of Kingston.
"He was never able to fly, so he became their family pet," said Flones, a wildlife rehabilitator in the Woodstock, N.Y., hamlet of Bearsville, 95 miles north of New York City.
The Manetta family took care of Tata for more than half a century but gave the bird to Flones in 2001 because of their own health problems.
Tata the Crow
In Memory
Benjamin Hendrickson
Benjamin Hendrickson, an Emmy Award-winning actor on the "As the World Turns" soap opera, committed suicide this week with a gunshot to the head, police said.
Suffolk County police officers, called by concerned neighbors to Hendrickson's Long Island home, said they found him dead in his bed on Monday.
Hendrickson, 55, was a member of the first graduating class of the Juilliard School of Drama, along with actors Kevin Kline and Patti LuPone. He appeared on Broadway in the early 1980s as a replacement in the title role of "The Elephant Man" and in the 1984 revival of "Awake and Sing!"
He played Chief of Detectives Hal Munson for more than 20 years on CBS' "As the World Turns," winning a Daytime Emmy for outstanding supporting actor in 2003.
His last air date on the show will be July 12.
Benjamin Hendrickson
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