'Best of TBH Politoons'
Next Week
Erin Hart
Please join Erin as she fills in on the afternoon drive on AM760 Progressive Talk in Denver
all next week (except Thursday) from 3pm to 6pm (pdt) | 4pm to 7pm (mdt) | 5pm to 8pm (cdt) | 6pm to 9pm (edt).
Senator John McCain, visits Colorado and the Dalai Lama in Aspen. He dared Obama to go abroad and now complains. . . .
Senator Barack Obama looks more and more like a Commander in Chief as he rocks the houses of Europe; and does very well in Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Territories.
Did Obama's trip increase his stature? It must have, because attacks coming out of the McShame camp sound truly pathetic.
Is McCain REALLY gaining in the polls in CO and other battleground states, and what does that mean at this stage?
Will the U.S. House of Representative hearings on GW Bush's whacking of executive power make any difference?
Will CO go blue all the way? Talk to delegates from all walks of life set to attend the Democratic Convention.
Who truly has the best plan for improvements in the U.S. economy and what can candidates say and do to make you feel more secure about whether our country is headed?
And talk to Sustainable Dave (Chameides) about his 365 Days of Trash project and learn tips on how to be even more green than we are blue right now!
For more information check out Erin Hart Show
Who Do You Think Should Be Obama's VP?
The Thursday Poll
The current question:
Last Sunday in an interview with CBS, Senator Obama said that an increase in troops, "...two Brigades, perhaps three..." is necessary in Afghanistan. Are you in favor of that escalation? (three brigades is approximately 15,000 soldiers)
Fresh poll questions appear on Monday and Thursday, with Monday's results on Thursday, and Thursday's results on Monday. Might even have some charts and graphs.
Send your responses, and a (short) reason why, to BadToTheBoneBob ( BCEpoll 'at' aol.com )
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Tom Danehy: T. Boone Pickens may be supporting renewable 'energy' but gaining a water monopoly is his real goal (tucsonweekly.com)
T. Boone Pickens is either best known as a corporate raider in the 1980s or as the buffoon who shelled out $3 million to fund the Swift Boat ads that killed John Kerry's presidential candidacy in 2004. (Pickens has recently been in the news for reneging on a promise to pay $1 million to anyone who could prove that the aforementioned ads were false.
Mark Morford: Kill yourself in Vegas (sfgate.com)
How to visit a land of astounding waste, and not die.
O'Sullivan: Catherine enjoys some time with various Customer Service Professionals (tucsonweekly.com)
I walked into The Bank the other day. I do that once in a while. The ATM machine is such a lousy conversationalist.
Question time: Sam Roddick (guardian.co.uk)
Sam Roddick, owner of erotic boutique Coco De Mer and daughter of Anita Roddick, talks about sex toys, human rights and her mother.
Zoe Williams: The mother of all celebrity news (guardian.co.uk)
Motherhood closes down a celebrity's possibilities, yokes her back to the earth, makes you think of incontinence.
PAUL CONSTANT: Vive Le Difference (thestranger.com)
There are two big Sherlock Holmes movies in production right now.
Will Harris: A Chat with Chris Lemmon, Author of "A Twist of Lemmon: A Tribute to My Father" (bullz-eye.com)
I thought I was writing something that might be worthy of publication, so I felt compelled to publish it, because I knew a side of Jack Lemmon that nobody else saw.'
Gillian Anderson's X Files encore (entertainment.timesonline.co.uk)
The 39-year-old actress always meant to play Dana Scully again - but until now life got in the way, she tells Will Lawrence.
Rick Bentley: 'X-Files' stars stay silent on specifics (McClatchy Newspapers)
The truth may very well be out there. But David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson aren't eager to share it.
The Funniest One in the Room by Kim 'Howard' Johnson (popmatters.com)
Close moonlighted as a fire-eating carnival performer, an LSD test subject for the US military, a film cameo artist and a producer of psychedelic light shows.
Chris Riemenschneider: The Hold Steady enjoy their status as the world's biggest bar band (Star Tribune)
"A lot of this record is about my idea of the attempt to age gracefully and trying to hold onto some kind of youthful exuberance as you grow older. It gets harder and harder to have fun when you accumulate more responsibilities - and more problems."
'Do I have to sell my soul?' (music.guardian.co.uk)
He's an R&B singer, and songwriter to the stars. But when the music stops, Ne-Yo vanishes from the spotlight. He tells Angus Batey why that's the key to success and sanity.
Reader Question
Obits
You have the best obituary write-ups of anyone! Do you do them yourself? Or how do you access such fine information for an amazing variety of people?
Linda >^..^<
Thanks, Linda!
Like when McCain was questioned 'boxers or briefs', the answer is depends.
If it's someone I really liked or admired, I might do some digging, then combine several & put in some links.
If it's someone whom I despised, I try to keep it to 1 or 2 of the most concise, but damning, sentences.
But, usually just tweak whatever I can find at Yahoo news.
Unless it's someone they're ignoring.
So, depends.
Reader Suggestion
How Many of Me
Check out How Many of Me
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and pleasant.
Supports Olympics Protest
Mia Farrow
Mia Farrow said Friday the world should use next month's Olympic Games as a platform to demand that China end its support for Myanmar's junta.
China is Myanmar's most important ally, providing economic, military and other aid while Western nations shun the military-ruled country because of its poor human rights record and failure to restore democracy.
China objects to Western criticisms of Myanmar's junta, saying conditions in the southeast Asian country have improved dramatically since a violent crackdown on peaceful protests in September last year.
The actress held a news conference in Bangkok after visiting the Myanmar-Thailand border with a delegation from the Nobel Women's Initiative, a group founded by female recipients of the Nobel Peace prize.
Mia Farrow
5 Hosts
Emmys
The reality is, there won't be an Emmy host this year - there will be five.
The reality-TV hosts nominated in the new category that honors their work will preside over the show, ABC and The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences told The Associated Press on Friday.
They are: Tom Bergeron, of "Dancing With the Stars"; Ryan Seacrest, of "American Idol"; Howie Mandel of "Deal or No Deal"; Heidi Klum of "Project Runway"; and Jeff Probst of "Survivor."
Emmys
Shocking - Approves Monopoly
FCC
Sirius Satellite Radio Inc's purchase of XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc was approved with conditions by U.S. communications regulators on Friday, clearing the way for a deal that will leave just one U.S. satellite radio service.
The Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 in favor of a proposal that would allow the deal to proceed as long as the companies meet a series of consumer protection conditions, including a three-year cap on prices, set-aside of channels for minority and non-commercial programming and payment of a $19.7 million penalty for past FCC rule violations.
FCC
Wants US Officials Probed
Physicians for Human Rights
A Nobel-prize-winning rights group said US officials committed war crimes by ordering what the group says was torture of detainees, and called for them to be probed and prosecuted.
"There must be a complete and independent investigation of what happened in Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and other places where terrorist suspects were detained," Allen Keller of Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) told a briefing in the US House of Representatives Thursday.
The doctors described graphically how detainees held at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and in Iraq and Afghanistan had been subjected to "torture and abuse while in US custody that was sadly second to none."
The ordeals suffered by the 11 detainees, all of whom have been released without charge, were outlined in a report compiled by PHR and released three weeks ago.
Physicians for Human Rights
Movie Epic
Danny Glover
US actor Danny Glover, who plans an epic next year on Haitian independence hero Toussaint-Louverture, said he slaved to raise funds for the movie because financiers complained there were no white heroes.
"Producers said 'It's a nice project, a great project... where are the white heroes?'" he told AFP during a stay in Paris this month for a seminar on film.
"Toussaint," Glover's first project as film director, is about Francois Dominique Toussaint Louverture (1743-1803), a former slave and one of the fathers of Haiti's independence from France in 1804, making it the first black nation to throw off imperial rule and become a republic.
Due to be shot in Venezuela early next year, the film will star Don Cheadle, Mos Def, Wesley Snipes and Angela Bassett.
Danny Glover
Hospital News
Connie Francis
Singer Connie Francis is being treated at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New York where she was hospitalized after falling ill earlier this week.
Her agent, Mike Church, says the 69-year-old singer had been scheduled to perform Wednesday night with Neil Sedaka at The Capital One Bank Theatre at Westbury. Instead, she was taken to the hospital with dangerously high blood pressure.
Church says that although she is "doing well," doctors decided she should remain in the hospital for observation for at least another day.
Connie Francis
Pushes Back
Halle Berry
Halle Berry says a paparazzi photographer went too far to get a shot of the actress holding her infant daughter, trespassing onto her private property and snapping them hanging out in the backyard.
The Oscar-winning actress was upset when pictures of her holding four-month-old Nahla Ariela Aubry showed up on the Internet and in two celebrity magazines. In a statement, Berry disputes the notion that the photos were taken when she was "out and about in Los Angeles."
Evan Spiegel, an attorney representing Berry, said a criminal complaint has been filed and an investigation is under way. He said there are witnesses who saw the photographers in the middle of a "very blatant and invasive trespass."
Halle Berry
Working On Jimmy Kimmel
Ed McMahon
Ed McMahon has a job. The former "Tonight Show" sidekick is reprising his role as pitchman with several comical commercial segments during "Jimmy Kimmel Live." The first of four spots, which were filmed Thursday evening and feature McMahon and Jimmy Kimmel together, will air Monday during the late-night ABC talk show.
"It felt very good to be out of the brace and working again," McMahon, who recently underwent a third neck surgery, said during a telephone interview Friday morning. "I spent my whole life doing commercials, so here I was back doing a commercial again. It was very comforting. Believe me."
In the four segments for Pontiac, McMahon and Kimmel point out the various amenities of the Pontiac G8, G5, G6 and Vibe. One of the spots features McMahon - who once pitched Budweiser and the American Family Publishing sweepstakes - teaching Kimmel how to properly sell a product. Another has the duo preparing for a road trip to Mexico.
Ed McMahon
'Monday Night Football'
Hank Williams Jr.
Hank Williams Jr., who has sung the opening theme for "Monday Night Football" since 1989, will continue the tradition this season.
ESPN spokesman Bill Hofheimer says Williams will again base the theme song on his hit "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight."
Williams is recording the tracks this week in Nashville, Tennessee, and will shoot the video next month in Los Angeles.
Hank Williams Jr.
Switch Labels
Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones, the world's top-earning music act last year, have signed a long-term, exclusive worldwide contract with Vivendi SA's Universal Music, dealing a major blow to the group's former recording company, EMI Group PLC.
Universal said on Friday that the new deal covered both future albums by the Stones and their back catalog including such albums as "Sticky Fingers" and "Black and Blue" and songs "Brown Sugar" and "Start Me Up."
Universal, the world's biggest recording company, did not disclose terms of the deal.
The Stones' departure from EMI, where they'd been for more than 20 years, is a low point in a bumpy ride for Terra Firma Capital Partners Ltd., the private equity firm that bought the London-based recording company last year.
Rolling Stones
Bitten By Its Lobbying $ucce$$
Food Industry
One of the worst outbreaks of foodborne illness in the U.S. is teaching the food industry the truth of the adage, "Be careful what you wish for because you might get it."
The industry pressured the Bush administration years ago to limit the paperwork companies would have to keep to help U.S. health investigators quickly trace produce that sickens consumers, according to interviews and government reports reviewed by The Associated Press.
The White House also killed a plan to require the industry to maintain electronic tracking records that could be reviewed easily during a crisis to search for an outbreak's source. Companies complained the proposals were too burdensome and costly, and warned they could disrupt the availability of consumers' favorite foods.
The Grocery Manufacturers Association spent $2.6 million on lobbying in 2003 and 2004, the period when the FDA rules were under consideration, according to federal lobbying records. The Food Marketing Institute spent $1.7 million during the period. The figures were for all lobbying by the trade groups and on their behalf.
Food Industry
In Memory
Johnny Griffin
US jazz tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin, who played alongside such luminaries as Lionel Hampton, Art Blakey and Thelonius Monk, died Friday in France, his agent Helene Manfredi said. He was 80.
Nicknamed the Little Giant, Griffin was due to perform Friday evening alongside US organist Rhoda Scott, French saxophonist Olivier Temime and drummer Julie Saury.
Griffin died at home in Mauprevoir, a village in the west-central La Vienne district, where he had spent the last 18 years of his life. The cause of death was not disclosed.
After studying music at the DuSable High School in his native Chicago, Griffin joined vibes star Hampton's orchestra in 1945 before leaving with trumpeter Joe Morris to join the latter's own band.
Throughout the 1950s, he played with a variety of combos, including Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers.
He also played alongside cornetist Nat Adderley and recorded with John Coltrane. The fruits of that collaboration produced the 1957 Blue Note album for which he is perhaps best remembered, "A Blowin' Session."
At the start of the 1960s, Griffin founded his own group along with another saxophone player, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, but in 1962 he decided to set up home in France.
A spell in the Netherlands followed in the 1970s, before his return to France, where he continued to record and tour right to the end.
Johnny Griffin
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