Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Paralysis at the Federal Reserve (nytimes.com)
A decade ago, Ben Bernanke had some sharp criticism for how the Bank of Japan was handling a cool economy. Now he's the Fed chairman, and that critique of Japan could be applied to the Fed today.
Froma Harrop: Regulation Made Canada Fat and Happy (creators.com)
Suppose the U.S. government had posted a budget surplus in 12 of the past 13 years. Suppose not a single major American financial institution had failed or needed a government bailout. Suppose the U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 6.1 percent in the first quarter of this year, rather than at 2.7 percent. Wouldn't that make you happy?
Christopher Beam: Finishing School (slate.com)
The case for getting rid of tenure.
Ray Fisman: Clean Out Your Desk (slate.com)
Is firing (a lot of) teachers the only way to improve public schools?
MAUREEN DOWD: Don't Send In the Clones (nytimes.com)
College students are refusing to be strangers in a strange land by using online scouting and matching services to pick their roommates. Valuable lessons will be missed with campuses full of replicant roomies.
Mark Lawson: "Revealed: why American teenagers know their presidential history" (guardian.co.uk)
Fears that modern teenagers are rotting their brains in front of the TV might be wide of the mark.
Tim Rutten: Historian Tony Judt was fluent in civilized dissent (Los Angeles Times)
"Something is profoundly wrong with the way we live today," Judt said. "For 30 years we have made a virtue out of the pursuit of material self-interest. ... The materialistic and selfish quality of contemporary life is not inherent in the human condition. Much of what appears 'natural' today dates from the 1980s: the obsession with wealth creation, the cult of privatization and the private sector, the growing disparities of rich and poor. And above all, the rhetoric which accompanies these: uncritical admiration for unfettered markets, disdain for the public sector, the delusion of endless growth."
Sarah Boseley: Are you ready for a world without antibiotics? (guardian.co.uk)
Antibiotics are a bedrock of modern medicine. But in the very near future, we're going to have to learn to live without them once again. And it's going to get nasty.
Jacques Berlinerblau: You're Dead. Now What? (chronicle.com)
In the final analysis I, an unrepentant Jewish atheist, cannot accept that my death-yours, too, I guess-marks the absolute end of being as I know (and love) it. For no rational reason, I presently assume that when I have passed on, when my faculty line is gathered unto my dean and bloodlessly absorbed into a vast pool of new curricular priorities, a vague flickering consciousness of sorts will perdure.
Todd Martens: But is it as good as 'Spinal Tap'? Beck and Nigel Godrich discuss the music of 'Scott Pilgrim vs. the World' (latimes.com)
My benchmark was 'This Is Spinal Tap.' That's the best ever realized band in a film. They're playing, they look like they're playing and the songs work. That's something very difficult to do. So is this as good as 'Spinal Tap'? That was my internal discussion."
Todd Martens: 'Scott Pilgrim vs. the World': California teen crafts an epic trailer (latimes.com)
Fan lovingly re-imagines one of the "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" teasers with frames of the comic.
Paul Constant: Scott Pilgrim's Bonus Life (thestranger.com)
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: Edgar Wright's Nerd Explosion Is as Good as the Books
The Weekly Poll
EMMY CONTEST
Alert! Alert! Alert!
Announcing the... (drum roll... cymbal crash...)
The First Ever BadtotheboneBob Emmy Contest!™ ~ Starting August 17th!
With a Prize! Hoo ha! That's right, Poll-fans! A Prize!...
The contest will be a Poll asking you to predict the winners of five major Emmy nominations in four categories: Drama - Comedy - Miniseries or Movie - Reality and Variety. Now, what's the Prize, you ask? Well, if'n ya must know beforehand it is a...
$50 Visa Gift Card! Now, just how cool is that, eh?... Finer'n frog hair, I'm sayin'!
OK, now here's the deal... The nominations/categories will be posted August 17th and run daily until August 28th. Response cut-off time is 3pm EDT the 28th and will be posted for all to see August 29th (Emmy Day).
The winner will be the one with the most correct predictions and will be announced Tuesday, August 31st.
(Disclaimer: As in The First Ever Badtothebone Oscar Contest™, any ties will be resolved in a scientific manner involving my grand-daughter, Maddie Muffin, and no protests will be allowed as to NOT make her cry, OK? Results will be final and that's a fact!)... So, there it is!
Oh, and please make it easy on me and don't wait until, like, the last minute and flood me with your predictions, eh? Good luck be on ya, Poll-fans!
BadToTheBoneBob
wrote:
answered:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and a bit warmer.
Fundraiser With Lady Gaga
Sen. Frank Lautenberg
Sen. Frank Lautenberg is going gaga. Lady Gaga, that is.
The nation's oldest senator will hold a fundraiser at the pop singer's Monster Ball Tour at the Verizon Center in Washington on Sept 7.
The Washington Post reports the 86-year-old New Jersey Democrat is offering seats in a private suite for $2,500 a person for political action committees and $2,400 for individuals.
An aide says the fundraiser was Lautenberg's idea. The senator and his wife celebrated his 86th birthday in January at a Gaga show at New York's Radio City Music Hall.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg
Teams With Gang Green
Green Day
Gang Green and Green Day are ready to play together.
The New York Jets said Friday the band will play during their regular-season opener Sept. 13. The Jets face the Baltimore Ravens in the Monday night game at New Meadowlands Stadium.
Green Day will perform "Last of the American Girls" with the Broadway cast of the Tony Award-winning rock musical "American Idiot." The halftime show will finish with fireworks.
The guitarist Slash and Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger will play during a tailgate concert outside the stadium. Scherzinger will sing the national anthem.
Green Day
Takes Led Zeppelin Experience On Road
Jason Bonham
Jason Bonham knows better than to promise a Led Zeppelin reunion as part of his "Jason Bonham's Led Zeppelin Experience" show that goes on tour this fall. But he's certainly not opposed to the idea.
"I'm not going to hide it from them," Bonham, who filled his late father John "Bonzo" Bonham's spot and played with Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones at the 2007 Zep reunion concert at London's O2 arena, tells Billboard.com.
"I will invite them to every show I can, because my goal and dream is, 'Wouldn't it be cool if I did something that they thought was cool and they would get up and play with me?' That's what I'm doing (this) for. I'd love it."
Plant has, in fact, already given his public blessing to Bonham's multimedia show, which is due to hit the road this October in North America. Bonham says he has yet to hear from Page and Jones, whom he worked with on an unrealized project shortly after the O2 show.
Jason Bonham
Hospital News
Shannon Tavarez
An 11-year-old girl who played young Nala in "The Lion King" on Broadway is getting a potentially lifesaving procedure.
Shannon Tavarez has leukemia and will get an umbilical-cord blood transplant Tuesday. The blood-producing stem cells used in transplants can come from cord blood, bone marrow or blood.
Her mother, Odiney Brown, says she's praying it will work.
The actress was forced to quit the show in April. Cast members held a bone marrow donor registration drive for her last month.
Shannon Tavarez
More Hospital News
Zsa Zsa Gabor
Zsa Zsa Gabor's publicist says actress Zsa Zsa Gabor has returned to a hospital because of complications in her recuperation from hip-replacement surgery.
Publicist John Blanchette says an ambulance was summoned to Gabor's home to take her to an emergency room Friday.
Blanchette, who was in touch with Gabor's husband, Frederic von Anhalt, by telephone, says Gabor was in great pain and was bleeding from the hip.
The 93-year-old Gabor broke her hip in a fall at home on July 17. She underwent hip-replacement surgery at UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Center and was discharged on Wednesday.
Zsa Zsa Gabor
Like Father, Like Son
Ben Quayle
Seems like old times - Jay Leno cracking Quayle jokes on late night. But now the rising target of comics is Ben Quayle, son of the gaffe-prone former vice president, who is committing doozies of his own in his campaign for Congress.
Campaigning as a family-values conservative, Ben Quayle first denied then admitted that he wrote for a sex-steeped Arizona website.
The racy website's founder, Nik Richie, said Quayle used the alias "Brock Landers," the name of a character from the 1997 movie "Boogie Nights" about porn stars in California, and wrote lines such as: "my moral compass is so broken I can barely find the parking lot." The website, now known as TheDirty.com, recently reposted the 2007 entries.
Quayle said he couldn't recall what his posts involved or when he made them.
This came out just days after Quayle sent a campaign mailer showing his wife and two young girls, with the words, "We are going to raise our family here." He and his wife have no children; the girls were his nieces. Campaign rival Vernon Parker accused Quayle of "renting a family."
Ben Quayle
Hits Vegas
$chwarzenegger
How is Gov. Arnold $chwarzenegger (R-Austrian Passport) killing time between budget negotiations? Vegas, baby!
$chwarzenegger said "Hasta la vista" to his day job for a few hours Wednesday, jetting off to Las Vegas to help friend Sylvester Stallone promote his the new action flick "The Expendables."
$chwarzenegger posted a video on Twitter Thursday showing him at a red-carpet event with Stallone the previous night. He also posted a picture of the two eating sushi.
Last week, $chwarzenegger attended the Hollywood premiere of "The Expendables" at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles, where he was met by members of a state workers union upset over his furlough plan.
$chwarzenegger
Alters Hometown
Ben Roethlisberger
For Ben Roethlisberger, there really is no place like home.
In his Steelers biography, Roethlisberger now lists his birthplace as the fictitious and the incorrectly spelled Corey Rawson, Ohio. There is no such community, although he did attend Cory-Rawson School in Rawson, Ohio, before his junior high days.
Roethlisberger apparently made the change because he was displeased with unflattering comments made about him by some residents of hometown Findlay, Ohio, following a March incident in which he was accused of sexual assault. He was not charged, but drew a six-game suspension for violating the NFL's personal conduct policy.
Until this season, Roethlisberger identified Findlay as his hometown.
Ben Roethlisberger
Completes Drug Diversion Program
Redmond O'Neal
Officials say the son of the late Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O'Neal has successfully completed a drug diversion program.
Los Angeles County district attorney's spokeswoman Jane Robison says Redmond O'Neal's graduation from the treatment program has led to the dismissal of two drug-related cases.
Robison says O'Neal will remain on probation for another two years for a case in which the 25-year-old brought drugs to a jail facility.
Redmond O'Neal
Discovery Commits More Cash
Oprah Network
Discovery Communications Inc agreed to almost double the funding commitment to its cable network venture with television talk show host Oprah Winfrey, just months ahead of the network's launch.
Winfrey has agreed to increase her on-air commitment to the Los Angeles-based venture -- The Oprah Winfrey Network -- which is expected to be launched on or before Jan 1.
Discovery previously said Winfrey would appear in a primetime travel series on OWN called "Oprah's Next Chapter."
Discovery, which owns a 50 percent stake in OWN, said in a regulatory filing that it would increase its funding commitment to $189 million from $100 million. It expects to provide the funding in the form of a revolving loan from Discovery and/or debt financing from a third party.
Oprah Network
Top-Grossing Animated Film Of All Time
"Toy Story 3"
Woody and his pals have elbowed aside the green ogre, with Disney/Pixar's "Toy Story 3" climbing above Paramount/DreamWorks' "Shrek 2" to become the top-grossing animated film worldwide.
Walt Disney Studios announced Friday that "Toy" has taken in $920 million at the global box office, topping "Shrek's" $919.8 million. Globally, it's Disney's fourth-highest-grossing film, trailing two of the installments in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise and Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland."
The 3D toon also has crossed the $400 million mark domestically, the second Disney film to hit that level, after 2006's "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," which took in $423 million domestically.
Released June 18, "Toy Story 3," directed by Lee Unkrich, recorded Pixar's highest-grossing opening weekend, taking in $109 million in North America, and was the 11th Disney/Pixar title to debut in the No. 1 position on its opening weekend of wide release. The movie will be released on Blu-ray and DVD November 2.
"Toy Story 3"
Pulled From Frozen Crate
100-Year-Old Scotch
A crate of Scotch whisky that was trapped in Antarctic ice for a century was finally opened Friday - but the heritage dram won't be tasted by whisky lovers because it's being preserved for its historical significance.
The crate, recovered from the Antarctic hut of renowned explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton after it was found there in 2006, has been thawed very slowly in recent weeks at the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch on New Zealand's South Island.
The crate was painstakingly opened to reveal 11 bottles of Mackinlay's Scotch whisky, wrapped in paper and straw to protect them from the rigors of a rough trip to Antarctica for Shackleton's 1907 Nimrod expedition.
Though the crate was frozen solid when it was retrieved earlier this year, the whisky inside could be heard sloshing around in the bottles. Antarctica's minus 22 Fahrenheit (-30 Celsius) temperature was not enough to freeze the liquor, dating from 1896 or 1897 and described as being in remarkably good condition.
This Scotch is unlikely ever to be tasted, but master blenders will examine samples of it to see if they can replicate the brew. The original recipe for the Scotch no longer exists.
100-Year-Old Scotch
In Memory
Richie Hayward
Richie Hayward, co-founder of the Little Feat, an eclectic jamband that maintained a strong cult following throughout the decades, has died. He was 64.
The drummer had been suffering from liver cancer and died Thursday at a hospital near Vancouver, Canada, after complications of pneumonia, his publicist, Bridget Nolan, confirmed Friday.
"He was waiting for a liver transplant," said Nolan. Over the past year, benefits had been staged on Hayward's behalf; he had no health insurance.
In a letter to fans last August, Hayward wrote about his predicament, but sounded hopeful: "My intent is to come back to the band, as soon as I am physically able. Your love and support will mean a lot to me, more than I can say. I love and will miss you all, and I will see you again on the proud highway."
Hayward helped form Little Feat in 1969, along with frontman Lowell George, Bill Payne and Roy Estrada. The jamband mixed a variety of genres including rock, country, jazz and blues, and were known for songs like "Willin." The group fell apart in 1979 after George died, but reformed in 1987, and had been a fixture on the touring circuit.
Besides his work with Little Feat, Hayward also performed with acts including Eric Clapton, Robert Plant, Buddy Guy and Barbra Streisand.
Richie Hayward
| CURRENT MOON lunar phases |
