'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS: Impeach Now, Or Face the End of Constitutional Democracy (counterpunch.org)
Unless Congress immediately impeaches Bush and Cheney, a year from now the US could be a dictatorial police state at war with Iran.
Jim Hightower: LEGALIZE HEMP (jimhightower.com)
If you have any doubt that America's $45 billion-a-year drug war is a waste of money, an affront to our nation's liberties, and an exercise in zealous, bureaucratic goofiness - go talk to farmers in North Dakota.
Gregory Rodriguez: YouTube vigilantes (latimes.com)
Will Internet shaming turn Average Joes into Big Brother?
Joel Stein: I hate dog owners (latimes.com)
The disproportionate outcry against Michael Vick proves it: Americans are way too irrational about canines.
Luaine Lee: David Duchovny, unchanged (McClatchy-Tribune News Service; Posted on popmatters.com)
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - "The X Files" may have brought David Duchovny fame and fortune. But neither of those goddesses changed him. "Life's the same because that happened next to me, it didn't happen inside me," he says in a deserted conference room at a hotel here.
Terry Lawson: Chris Tucker's African awakening (Detroit Free Press; Posted on popmatters.com)
Where you been, Chris Tucker? "I know, I know, I been getting that a lot lately," says Tucker, who returns to the screen this weekend with "Rush Hour 3," after an absence of six years. "I figure I've been where I should have been."
Who knew a bad girl could be a good mum? (guardian.co.uk)
A rock critic who once got married in a gorilla mask, Evelyn McDonnell worried that having a child would curb her spirit. In fact, it made her more radical than ever.
How do you get arms like SJP? (guardian.co.uk)
Sarah Jessica Parker is the latest celebrity to show off spectacularly muscular arms. Emine Saner wonders what her secret is.
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and quite nice.
Democrats Dance Around Gay Rights
Logo TV Forum
Democratic presidential contenders Thursday sought to underscore their differences with Republicans on gay and lesbian rights, but leading candidates also faced sharp questions on their reluctance to embrace marriage for same-sex couples.
In a forum focusing on gay issues sponsored by a gay-rights organization and aired on a gay-oriented cable channel, Sen. Barack Obama argued that civil unions for same-sex couples wouldn't be a "lesser thing" than marriage. He disputed that his position on same-sex marriage made him a vestige of the past rather than an agent of change.
Six of the eight Democratic candidates answered questions at an event described as a milestone by organizers. It marked the first time that major presidential candidates appeared on TV specifically to address gay issues, organizers said.
The two-hour forum, held in a Hollywood studio with an invited audience of 200, was co-sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign, a gay-rights group active in Democratic politics, and Logo, a gay-oriented cable TV channel that aired the forum live.
Logo TV Forum
Released Fake Photos
Reuters
News agency Reuters has been forced to admit that footage it released last week purportedly showing Russian submersibles on the seabed of the North Pole actually came from the movie Titanic.
The images were reproduced around the world - including by the Guardian and Guardian Unlimited - alongside the story of Russia planting its flag below the North Pole on Thursday last week.
But it has now emerged that the footage actually showed two Finnish-made Mir submersibles that were employed on location filming at the scene of the wreck of the RMS Titanic ship in the north Atlantic some 10 years ago.
This footage was used in sequences in James Cameron's 1997 blockbuster about the 1912 disaster.
The mistake was only revealed after a 13-year-old Finnish schoolboy contacted a local newspaper to tell them the images looked identical to those used in the movie.
Reuters
French Legion of Honor
Francis Ford Coppola
Five-time Oscar-winning filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola was promoted to "Officier" in the French Legion on Honor by the France's consul general in San Francisco.
Frederic Desagneaux raised Coppola's rank from "Chevalier" to "Officier" in the legion, praising his contributions to cinema and culture along with his "passion for food, wine and art."
"I wasn't quite expecting this promotion," Coppola said after Desagneaux pinned the "Officier" medal to his lapel. "I'm very grateful and I'm very touched. My granddaughter Romy thanks you as well."
Coppola's daughter Sofia, an accomplished filmmaker whose works include "Lost in Translation" and "Marie-Antoinette," gave birth in Paris in November. Romy's father is French singer Thomas Mars.
Francis Ford Coppola
Back On Pop Charts
Ella Fitzgerald
Jazz icon Ella Fitzgerald is back on the U.S. pop album charts for the first time in just under 38 years.
"Love Letters from Ella" debuted at No. 97 on the Billboard 200 Wednesday, and it also entered the Top Jazz Albums tally at No. 2, behind Michael Bublé's "Call Me Irresponsible."
Fitzgerald, who died in 1996, had not been on the Billboard 200 since "Ella" peaked at No. 196 in October 1969. The new CD, released through a partnership between Concord Jazz and Starbucks, is her highest-ranked title since "Ella and Basie!" went to No. 69 in 1963. Counting only her solo LPs, this is Fitzgerald's finest hour since "Ella in Hollywood" starred at No. 35 in 1962.
Ella Fitzgerald
Will Quit If Outsold By Kanye West
50 Cent
50 Cent believes his new album will outsell Kanye West's upcoming disc, and he's betting his solo career on it. Both 50 Cent and West have albums due out Sept. 11. 50 Cent, who has sold better than West, has been riled by forecasts that sales of West's "Graduation" could rival those for his "Curtis" CD.
"Let's raise the stakes," the 31-year-old rapper told hip-hop Web site SOHH.com in an interview posted Friday. "If Kanye West sells more records than 50 Cent on September 11, I'll no longer write music. I'll write music and work with my other artists, but I won't put out anymore solo albums."
50 Cent, whose real name is Curtis James Jackson, has been publicly disparaging of West before. In 2005, he suggested the 29-year-old rapper's popularity was only possible because of 50's own success.
50 Cent
Fire Damage
Cinecitta Film Studios
A fire on the set of "Rome," a completed HBO series on the ancient empire, has damaged part of the famed Cinecitta film studios. No one was reported injured.
The blaze, which started late Thursday, burned through about 32,000 square feet, firefighters said. The sprawling complex on the outskirts of Rome covers more than 715,000 square yards, including buildings, gardens, movie sets and offices.
Officials said the site where the fire broke out contained a large amount of highly flammable, synthetic material. The cause of the fire wasn't clear, but officials ruled out arson.
The main set of "Rome," which includes a mock Roman forum, wasn't destroyed, but other parts were heavily damaged, said HBO spokeswoman Mara Mikialian. She said shooting of the second season had already been completed.
Cinecitta Film Studios
Jury Duty
Brad Pitt
Potential jurors in a Los Angeles court were forced to do a double-take on Thursday when their court-room duties were enlivened by a jolt of star power in the shape of Brad Pitt.
The Hollywood heart-throb reported for jury duty in Los Angeles, his publicist confirmed to AFP, before eventually being discharged after the case he was due to hear ended in a plea-deal.
The TMZ.com celebrity news website said Pitt had been ordered by justice officials to serve on a jury or else be held in contempt of court after being granted a string of delay orders.
Brad Pitt
Baby News
Beau Bunton Jones
Pop singer Emma Bunton gave birth to her own Baby Spice on Friday -- a boy called Beau.
Bunton, 31, known as Baby Spice during her days with the Spice Girls, and partner Jade Jones's first baby was born at 11:12 a.m. at London's private Portland Hospital.
Bunton and Jones, a former member of Nineties boy band Damage, have been together for eight years.
Beau Bunton Jones
Teacher Screwed
Jaison Biagini
A Monessen High School teacher resigned after winning a date with a porn star during a satellite radio contest. The school board voted to accept Jaison Biagini's resignation on Tuesday.
While listening to the "Bubba the Love Sponge" radio show on Sirius satellite radio, Biagini won the trip last month to St. Petersburg, Fla., to meet with porn star Akira.
Biagini, who uses a wheelchair, was interviewed on the radio show after returning home, and told the Valley Independent in Monessen that he was ridiculed for his disability and offended by how he was portrayed on the show. He also expressed concerns about his teaching job.
Biagini, who taught art for 14 years at the school, said he entered the contest because he wanted to win the free trip and visit the Salvador Dali museum in St. Petersburg. He described the date as being "all fake and staged."
Jaison Biagini
Crowned King Of Ireland
Jimmy The Goat
Jimmy, a feisty white mountain goat, was crowned king of Ireland on Friday at one of the country's oldest fairs.
Dating back centuries, the Puck Fair is an annual festival of drinking, music and dancing celebrated in the town of Killorglin in southern Ireland.
Each year a male goat is caught in the surrounding mountains, paraded through the town to a beat of drums and pipes, and then placed in a 40-feet (12 metre) stand where he reigns as king for three days.
The origins of the fair are not totally known, but it always falls on August 10-12.
Jimmy The Goat
Dubai Ice Bar
Chillout
Outside it was a sticky 111 degrees, but Ali Hamdan was shivering under two parkas as he sipped hot chocolate, surrounded by tables and chairs made of ice.
Chillout, its owners say, is the Middle East's first ice lounge - the latest venture in this desert Gulf emirate, which has been transformed by a mania for the biggest, first or most outlandish.
Everything is made of ice: the walls, tables and chairs; cups, glasses and plates; the art on the wall, the sculptures depicting Dubai's skyline, the beaded curtains, the 7-foot-chandelier and the bar.
It took 40,000 tons of ice to build the decor of the 2,400-square-foot restaurant. Every item was designed, carved and cut at a studio freezer at Iceculture Inc. in Canada and then shipped to Dubai.
Chillout
Japan Rewriting History
'Comfort Women'
As one of Japan's former top television newscasters, Yoshiko Sakurai used a sweet modulated voice to convey the view shared by the country's elite on a controversy dating back more than 60 years: Japan's wartime use of "comfort women," the euphemism for sex slaves.
No documents exist to prove that Japan's military coerced women into sexual servitude during the war, Sakurai said. The allegations "are not based on fact."
A great many historians outside Japan consider Sakurai's view mistaken, and the issue simmers abroad. On July 30 , the U.S. House of Representatives urged Japan to apologize "in a clear and unequivocal manner" for coercing thousands of women into laboring as sex slaves in World War II-era military brothels.
For the hundreds of women around East Asia who've come forward since the mid-1990s to say they were forced into sexual servitude during the war, that's easier said than done. Many historians abroad have found their testimonies to be compelling and overwhelming despite only scattered written documentation of the Japanese Imperial Army's links to operating the brothels.
'Comfort Women'
L.A. Zoo Welcomes Alligator
Reggie
Reggie, the alligator that cruised an urban lake for nearly two years while eluding what were purported to be some of the world's best gator wranglers, was introduced to adoring fans on Thursday at his new home in the Los Angeles Zoo.
The 7 1/2-foot-long, 114-pound alligator was brought in to his own exhibit area to cheers and chants of "We want Reggie." Hundreds of people, many wearing Reggie T-shirts and alligator hats, watched as about a dozen handlers lugged the gator into the compound, his jaws wrapped up in a towel and duct tape.
Reggie was spotted in Harbor City's Machado Lake in August 2005. Authorities say a man who illegally raised Reggie as a pet dumped the gator in the lake when it got too big.
The city spent about $180,000 trying to grab Reggie and on security measures to protect lakegoers from him, said Councilwoman Janice Hahn, whose council district includes Harbor City.
Reggie
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