'Best of TBH Politoons'
Reader Suggestion
The Maverick That Never Was
I wanted to pass on an article I wrote yesterday about the implosion of
McCain and the facade of the maverick:
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
The Other War: Military Veterans Speak on The Record About Attacks on Iraqi Civilians (guardian.co.uk)
Over the past several months The Nation has interviewed fifty combat veterans of the Iraq War from around the United States in an effort to investigate the effects of the four-year-old occupation on average Iraqi civilians. These combat veterans, some of whom bear deep emotional and physical scars, and many of whom have come to oppose the occupation, gave vivid, on-the-record accounts. They described a brutal side of the war rarely seen on television screens or chronicled in newspaper accounts.
Jim Hightower: THE BILLIONAIRES' WAR (jimhightower.com)
Massive armies are being deployed, high-powered artillery is being arrayed, initial skirmishes are already being fought, and an all-out war is a dead certainty for later this year. This is not in Iraq... but Washington, D.C. The warriers being assembled are not brave young soldiers, but $600-an-hour lobbyists. The fight is not on some moral high ground, but on the low, low, ground of Wall Street billionaires trying to dodge paying taxes.
Rick Perlstein: The Foreclosing of America (commonsense.ourfuture.org)
The month of June come and gone. And down by the White House, a dog didn't bark. Most years, President Bush has celebrated June - National Homeownership Month - with a splashy speech. Not this year. This year, he stayed as far from the topic as he could get - a topic Karl Rove had hoped to make a cornerstone of his planned thousand-year Republican reign. What went wrong?
Franken raising big bucks for Minnesota Senate race (Politico.com)
Democratic Senate challenger Al Franken raised $1.9 million in the second quarter, outpacing all of his rivals. Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) raised $1.6 million for the quarter, while his Democratic primary opponent Mike Ciresi banked $750,000.
Bruce Reed: Bush's the One (slate.com)
Look who just tied Richard Nixon as the second-most unpopular president ever.
Mark Morford: Bush Pardons Entire GOP (sfgate.com)
Prez "pre-emptively" saves all Repubs from becoming "prison bitches." Dems: "Can he do that?"
Josh Tyler: SiCKO Spurs Audiences Into Action (Cinema Blend; Posted on blogforamerica.com)
Long time readers of this site no doubt know that I live in Texas. As everyone knows there's no more conservative state in the Union than here. And I don't just live in Texas; I live in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. Dallas isn't some pocket of hippy-dippy behavior. This isn't Austin. Dallas is the sort of place where guys in cowboy hats still drive around in giant SUVs with "W" stickers on the back windshield, global warming and Iraq be damned. It's probably the only spot left in America where you stand a good chance of getting the crap kicked out of you for badmouthing the president.
Mark Morford: All Your Butts Belong To Us (sfgate.com)
Forget the iPhone. What you need is a deluxe heated high-tech butt-rinsing toilet seat. Praise!
Thrifty Fun
Lynn Cheney's Lesbian Novel (whitehouse.org)
Reader Submission
Blog of Interest
Update From Colby
Another Republican Caught
Hi,
Nothing new on Katherine Harris, but a local McCain campaign co-chair was busted the other day looking for some action in the men's room.
Colby
In a Frost Free place.
Thanks, Colby!
Wonder if he'll use the Gay Sweater Defense, too?
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Still sunny, and about 10° hotter than yesterday.
Glasses At Online Auction
John Lennon
A pair of John Lennon's iconic glasses are expected to fetch £1 million at an online auction.
The gold rimmed glasses were given to Japanese translator Junishi Yore by Lennon during the band's 1966 tour of Japan.
The glasses have no lenses as Yore took them out as a sign of respect when he heard of Lennon's murder in 1980 - as tradition dictates in Japan.
John Lennon
New Rock Opera
Pete Townshend
More than 30 years after his seminal "Tommy" and "Quadrophenia," The Who's Pete Townshend has written a new rock opera that will be given a test run at a theater festival in New York this weekend.
Townshend, 62, who wrote over 100 songs for the classic British rock band The Who as well "Tommy" in 1969 and "Quadrophenia" in 1973, two pieces that defined a generation of disaffected youth, has written the book, lyrics and music to "The Boy Who Heard Music."
Townshend first wrote the new rock opera as an Internet novella, noting in the foreword that he likes to sketch out his operas in this way to settle the plots and storylines.
"The Boy" is described as "a hallucinatory tale about the rise and fall of a band made up of three teenagers from different ethnic backgrounds as seen through the eyes of an aging rock star."
Pete Townshend
Hollywood Mural Restoration
Thomas Suriya
It's not your typical night at the movies: Fred and Ginger dance in the aisle, King Kong hangs out with Frankenstein, Liz and Dick are together, again, surrounded by dozens of other old-time movie idols. And all are fading into history on a drab corner of Hollywood.
Thomas Suriya is back, with his brushes, paint and scaffolding, to restore the luster that 24 years of sun, smog and anti-graffiti coating have stolen from the 20- by 30-foot mural of a fantasy Tinseltown mash-up.
"You Are the Star," Suriya recalled, began, as so much does in this town, with a dream.
In 1983, he said, he had "a vision of a movie theater but in reverse, with the stars looking out at the world which is a projection - the opposite of what we do when we go to the movies."
Thomas Suriya
Surprise Halifax Shows
White Stripes
The White Stripes surprised fans in Halifax Friday with two unannounced appearances.
Meg and Jack White had fans running all over town after first appearing on Citadel Hill, an old fort in the heart of the city, to fire a cannon. They later played a free show at a small bar to about 100 people. Jack White's mom was in the crowd.
She says they were at the Citadel for a family event that had nothing to do with the impromptu show, or a planned White Stripes concert tonight.
Fans who couldn't get inside the bar lined up outside as the Detroit rockers played six songs, then left without saying a word.
White Stripes
The HBO Version
'Little Britain'
Matt Lucas and David Walliams are to make a U.S. version of their hit comedy series "Little Britain," a spokesman for the actors said on Friday.
The actors will appear in six half-hour episodes of the television sketch show on HBO, the channel that promoted "The Sopranos" and "Sex and the City" and fellow Briton Ali G.
The series, which made the characters Vicky Pollard and "I'm the only gay in the village" Daffyd famous, will feature a mix of existing characters from their BBC shows and new ones who will depict contemporary America.
Shooting will begin in the U.S. this autumn, with the series expected to go on air in 2008.
'Little Britain'
Shark Sculpture At New York Museum
Damien Hirst
A tiger shark suspended in a glass tank of formaldehyde, one of the best known works by contemporary British artist Damien Hirst, is to go on display in New York next month, officials said Friday.
"The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living," created by conceptual artist Hirst in 1991, is to go on display in The Metropolitan Museum of Art from the end of August, the museum said in a statement.
The almost four-meter (13-foot) shark in the sculpture is not actually the original animal, which was replaced last year by the artist during a "refurbishment" made necessary because the original shark was decomposing.
Damien Hirst
Appeals Court Rejects Delay
Webcast Royalties
The federal appeals court on Thursday rejected Webcasters' request to postpone implementation of a new royalty rate for music they air over the Web.
The decision hands a court victory to the music industry and performers who have been warring with Webcasters over the rate. By denying the Webcasters' stay, the court let stand the July 15 "true up" date when they are required to give copyright holders a new, higher royalty payment for digitally delivered music.
Webcasters had challenged the royalty, contending that a panel of copyright royalty judges erred when they dramatically increased the rate this year.
Internet radio royalties have become a thorny issue in part because conventional over-the-air stations pay nothing to use recordings. Both online and regular stations pay royalties to songwriters, but under a 1995 law, companies transmitting music using the Internet, cable or satellite must pay both the songwriter and for the performance. The money is split between the owner of the recording, usually the label, and the performers.
Webcast Royalties
No Longer Big Box Office
'Torture Porn'
Torture, it seems, doesn't pay at movie theater box offices like it used to.
In recent years, films dubbed "torture porn" have been the darlings of many a Hollywood producer looking to make a quick buck. The latest such release, "Captivity," opens in theaters on Friday.
But the popularity of movies like blood-and-guts thriller "Hostel: Part II" and zombie flick "28 Weeks Later," appears to have waned, prompting some to wonder if the trend is on its way out.
Youth-oriented, supernatural thrillers and fright flicks like "1408" ($56 million) and "Disturbia" ($79 million) are working. But adult-themed torture fantasies have mostly failed.
'Torture Porn'
5th Deployment For Reservist
Sgt. Erik Botta
Army Reserve Sgt. Erik Botta has been sent to Iraq three times and to Afghanistan once. He thinks that's enough.
Botta wants a court to block the military's plan to deploy him for a fifth time Sunday, most likely to Iraq. He isn't against the war -- but he thinks he can serve his country better now by working for a defense contractor and pursuing his education.
Botta, 26, of Port St. Lucie, contends in his petition that the Army's refusal to exempt him from deployment "constitutes unlawful custody." Botta argues the Army did not consider the length and nature of his previous tours "to assure a sharing of exposure to the hazards of combat."
Sgt. Erik Botta
Art Restorer Claims Find
Caravaggio
An Italian art restorer said she has identified a painting long thought to be a copy of a Caravaggio masterpiece, "St. Jerome Writing," as an authentic work of the Baroque master.
But the announcement this week by Roberta Lapucci - who studied the painting for six months aided by new techniques - has left some Caravaggio experts skeptical. It's also rekindled a debate in the art world about whether Caravaggio sometimes painted the same work twice.
Lapucci claims that underneath the layers of subsequent additions and restorations lies the hand of the master himself, who had started the composition but left it unfinished. She believes the painting was a preparatory sketch for the final version of "St. Jerome Writing" that currently adorns the Oratory of St. John's Co-Cathedral in the Maltese capital of Valletta.
Caravaggio
Quick Evolution
Samoa Butterflies
When faced with extinction, butterflies on two South Pacific islands quickly developed genetic defences that helped them fight back, a team of international researchers said on Tuesday.
They said the butterflies' tale is the fastest example of natural selection observed to date and shows evolution can happen quickly when the stakes are high.
In 2001, male Hypolimnas bolina butterflies on the Samoan islands of Savaii and Upolu were extremely rare. Just 1 percent of these butterflies -- known commonly as Blue Moon or Great Eggfly -- were male. They were under attack by the Wolbachia bacteria, a parasite passed down through the female that kills off male butterflies before they can hatch.
Last year, the numbers of males had either reached or were approaching those of females. They were helped by the development of a genetic mutation that suppresses the bacteria, sparing the males and allowing them to quickly repopulate.
Samoa Butterflies
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