The Monday Or Thursday Poll
Results
The current question:
T. Boone Pickens, self-proclaimed lifelong oil man and CEO of BP Capital Management that specializes in energy investments has been touting a 'plan' to reduce America's dependence on foreign oil.
Do you think his 'plan' is viable and should it be seriously considered?
Send your response to BadtotheBoneBob ( BCEpoll 'at' aol.com )
Fresh poll questions appear on Monday and Thursday, with Monday's results on Thursday, and Thursday's results on Monday.
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: The Great Illusion (nytimes.com)
The conflict in the Caucasus may be an omen. Will nationalism kill globalization again?
THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN: Eight Strikes and You're Out (nytimes.com)
Senator McCain did not show up for the crucial vote on July 30, and the renewable energy bill was defeated for the eighth time. In fact, John McCain has a perfect record on this renewable energy legislation. He has missed all eight votes over the last year - which effectively counts as a no vote each time. Once, he was even in the Senate and wouldn't leave his office to vote.
A Review by Simon Blackburn: "Beyond the Hoax: Science, Philosophy and Culture" by Alan Sokal (powells.com)
... in 1996 the radical "postmodernist" journal Social Text published an article submitted by Alan Sokal, a mathematical physicist at New York University, with the mouthwatering title "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity." Sokal then revealed the article to be a spoof, a tissue of nonsense that he had painstakingly assembled in order to parody the portentous rubbish that flew under the colors of postmodernism.
Marian Wright Edelman: The Pact (huffingtonpost.com)
The dedication of Dr. Jenkins, Davis and Hunt to serve and contribute to their community is the kind of commitment we all must make to reroute children away from entering the Pipeline.
'No, that wine won't do!' (guardian.co.uk)
Simon Callow remembers great times with the smoking, laughing writer, Simon Gray.
Any cows in tonight? (guardian.co.uk)
Flight of the Conchords star Kristen Schaal used to try her comedy act out on farm animals. I'm not surprised, says Brian Logan.
Roger Moore: Jack Black talks 'Tropic Thunder' and how he got the girl (The Orlando Sentinel)
They teach it in Interviewing 101: find common ground with your subject. But when your subject is rich, famous, plump and happy Jack Black, that might be tricky. Do your homework and there, in the details of his 2006 wedding to cellist Tanya Haden, is the hook.
Leave Warhol alone (guardian.co.uk)
Why are films about Andy Warhol always so bad? Jonathan Jones on wigs, myths and freaks.
Bill Gibron: Review of "South Park: The Complete Eleventh Season" (popmatters.com)
During a run which saw the boys take on terrorism in both the brilliant three part epic "Imaginationland" and the 24-inspired "The Snuke" while maintaining the kid friendly perspective via "The List" and "Lice Capades", Season 11 could be described as more of the same - and that's a good thing.
Greg Kot: "Hayes memories: Soul giant embraced 'raw truth'" (Chicago Tribune)
Draped in gold chains, with a shaved head and barrel chest, Isaac Hayes was an intimidating presence. He could bench-press 350 pounds, and his voice was as bottomless as the Grand Canyon.
John Paulsen: A Chat with Dustin Hawthorne, bassist of the Canadian foursome Hot Hot Heat (bullz-eye.com)
Bullz-Eye spoke with bassist Dustin Hawthorne about the new album, what it's like touring with Snow Patrol, and which Hot Hot Heat song he wishes was never written
Marsha's Backyard
Black Swallowtail Butterfly
Hey Marty!
Caught a pic of this beautiful Black Swallowtail Butterfly in the backyard.
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Not quite as humid, but still unpleasant enough.
Only Chri$tian$ Count
Rick Warren
The Rev. Rick Warren i$ $o prominent and re$pected that ju$t being $een with him i$ a boon for any pre$idential candidate. For Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, their appearance$ at a forum $aturday night at Warren'$ evangelical California megachurch bring ri$k$ along with reward$.
The candidate$ will appear $eparately, $pending one hour each with Warren, before coming together on $tage for a hand$hake. The pa$tor, who doe$ not endor$e candidate$, will be the only one a$king que$tion$.
Warren i$ be$t known for building $addleback Church into a 23,000-member megachurch in Lake Fore$t, Calif., and for writing the multimillion-$elling book "The Purpo$e-Driven Life."
Rick Warren
Church official$ $aid they'd hoped to have $ome ticket$ available for the public but ran out when they couldn't $ati$fy demand among church member$, who got the fir$t crack at ticket$ that $old for $500 to $2,000.
Church official$ $aid they decided to charge admi$$ion for people who wanted a chance to $ee the Republican and Democratic pre$idential hopeful$ becau$e of the expen$e$ to $tage the event and provide televi$ion feed$ to a ho$t of network$.
Ticket$
Texas Town Responds
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert's one-man campaign against towns named Canton has its latest target firing back. A city councilman in Canton, Texas, joked that he would "mash his nose" after the comedian referred to the town as an "incorporated outhouse."
In an ongoing gag on his Comedy Central show "The Colbert Report," Colbert has been taking pot shots at various towns named Canton. It began when he referred to a Georgia town as "the crappy Canton."
Colbert then referred to Canton, Kan., with an unprintable epithet, and referred to Canton, S.D., as "North Dakota's dirty ashtray."
Leaders of the Texas town of Canton, which has a population of about 5,100, invited Colbert to the town's monthly flea market - which, according to a city Web site, harkens back to Texas' frontier traditions, "when it was common to trade a rifle for a good hunting dog."
Stephen Colbert
Applies For Free Software
Copyrights
In a crucial win for the free software movement, a federal appeals court has ruled that even software developers who give away the programming code for their works can sue for copyright infringement if someone misappropriates that material.
The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., helps clarify a murky area of the law concerning how much control programmers can exert over their intellectual property once it's been released for free into the so-called "open source" software community.
People are free to use that material in their own products, but they must credit the original authors of the programming code and release their modifications into the wild as well, a cycle that's critical for free software to continue improving.
Copyrights
NBC's Pronunciation Conundrum
Olympics
In the shadow of Olympic venues, Brian Williams has anchored NBC's "Nightly News" this week in a city he calls Bay-jing.
Yet Bob Costas, Meredith Vieira and many of NBC's sports announcers seem to be working in a different, more exotic place: Bay-zhing.
So which is it?
Williams is right, if you talk to experts in the Chinese language. He's even recorded something about the pronunciation puzzle for NBC's website, although it doesn't seem to be required viewing for everyone at the network.
"For you mousse-coiffed, Mr. Gravitas TV anchor types and you sotto voce public radio types, please oh please stop saying "Bay-zheeng," wrote Kaiser Kuo, who works for a China-based ad agency and wrote an online guide for journalists covering the Olympics. "The pronunciation of the city's name couldn't be easier."
Olympics
Getting New Landlord
Ed McMahon
Donald Trump will soon be Ed McMahon's landlord. Trump announced Thursday he would save the television personality's Beverly Hills mansion from foreclosure by buying it for an undisclosed amount and leasing it to McMahon.
The developer told the Los Angeles Times he doesn't know McMahon personally, but acted out of compassion because helping out "would be an honor."
McMahon's spokesman, Howard Bragman, told The Associated Press that paperwork on the sale had not been completed but that McMahon was "very optimistic" the deal would go through.
Ed McMahon
New Home-Grown Porn Channel
Canada
Canadians who may have become tired of being passed over as porn stars will have a new, home-grown outlet to showcase their erotic talents.
Federal regulators have granted Alberta-based Real Productions approval to launch a new digital pornography channel, which promises to serve up at least 50 percent domestic content.
The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) approved the Category 2 pay-television service on Wednesday, allowing Northern Peaks to become "Canada's first adult video channel offering significant Canadian adult content."
The CRTC only required 15 percent Canadian content, but Northern Peaks agreed to provide "not less than 50 percent of the broadcast day and not less than 50 percent of the evening broadcast period to Canadian programming," according to the license.
Canada
Faces Drug Charges
Craig Robinson
Prosecutors have filed felony drug charges against Craig Phillip Robinson, an actor best known for his role as Darryl Philbin on NBC's "The Office."
According to documents released Friday, police in Culver City arrested Robinson on June 29 on suspicion of possessing MDMA, also known as ecstasy, and methamphetamine. He was released the same day after posting bail, jail records show.
Los Angeles County prosecutors charged Robinson with two felony counts of drug possession and one count of being under the influence of illegal drugs.
Craig Robinson
Copyrights Issue
Mygazines.com
The magazine industry, already facing a decline in newsstand sales and falling ad revenue, is being besieged by a new foe: digital piracy.
A fledgling Web site called Mygazines.com encourages people to copy and upload popular magazines that are currently on newsstands. Visitors can read high-quality digital copies of dozens of current titles, including People, Men's Health and The Economist, in their entirety.
The site, with some 16,000 registered users as of Friday, is a "flagrant" violation of copyright laws, according to legal experts - but it is run by an offshore company of specious origin, making it difficult to shut down.
The challenge for the magazine publishers is that Mygazines's domain name is registered in the Caribbean island nation of Anguilla, which is a British overseas territory, and thus outside of the jurisdiction of U.S. copyright law.
Mygazines.com
Finds 4.42-Carat Diamond At State Park
Dennis Tyrrell
A local diamond hunter found a 4.42-carat stone Friday after about a 30-minute search at the Crater of Diamonds State Park, a park official announced.
Dennis Tyrrell, of Murfreesboro, searches for diamonds about three or four days a week at the state park and has found several others before, Assistant Superintendent Bill Henderson said. The white diamond Tyrrell found Friday was his largest find so far.
"It is a very nice diamond because of its size," Henderson said. "And it has what they call a silver cape on it. It's about the size of a Chiclet gum. It's rectangular in shape."
Dennis Tyrrell
Vodka Deal
Sylvester Stallone
U.S. actor Sylvester Stallone, mighty destroyer of Soviet opponents in the Hollywood "Rambo" and "Rocky" movies, now plans to advertise Russian vodka.
Russian vodka producer Synergy said Friday it had signed a one-year contract with Stallone, who will appear in television and newspaper advertisements for the vodka brand "Russian Ice" from September 1.
"The advertising campaign concept was based on the fact that the actor has Russian roots," Synergy said in a statement, referring to Stallone's great-grandmother, Rosa Rabinovich, from the Ukrainian town of Odessa.
Sylvester Stallone
Penguin Receives Norwegian Knighthood
Sir Nils Olav
Nils Olav already has medals for good conduct and long service. He made honorary colonel-in-chief of the elite Norwegian King's Guard in 2005. And on Friday he was knighted. Not bad for a 3-foot tall penguin - actually, three of them.
A resident of Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland, the original Nils Olav was made an honorary member of the King's Guard in 1972 after being picked out as the guard's mascot by lieutenant Nils Egelien. The guards adopted him because they often toured the zoo during their visits to the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, an annual military music festival, according to zoo spokeswoman Maxine Finlay.
The king penguin was named after Egelien and Norway's then-King Olav V. When the penguin died - Finlay said no one at the zoo knew exactly when - he was replaced by a second penguin, who inherited Nils Olav's name and rank.
The current Nils Olav, the third penguin to serve as the guards' mascot, was promoted from honorable regimental sergeant major to honorary colonel-in-chief in 2005, Finlay said.
Sir Nils Olav
Portal To Mythical Mayan Underworld Found
Mexico
Mexican archeologists have discovered a maze of stone temples in underground caves, some submerged in water and containing human bones, which ancient Mayans believed was a portal where dead souls entered the underworld.
Clad in scuba gear and edging through narrow tunnels, researchers discovered the stone ruins of eleven sacred temples and what could be the remains of human sacrifices at the site in the Yucatan Peninsula.
Archeologists say Mayans believed the underground complex of water-filled caves leading into dry chambers -- including an underground road stretching some 330 feet -- was the path to a mythical underworld, known as Xibalba.
According to an ancient Mayan scripture, the Popol Vuh, the route was filled with obstacles, including rivers filled with scorpions, blood and pus and houses shrouded in darkness or swarming with shrieking bats, Guillermo de Anda, one of the lead investigators at the site, said on Thursday.
Mexico
World's Newest Species
Olive-Backed Forest Robin
A red-breasted bird discovered by accident in the forests of Gabon is a new species, U.S. scientists said on Friday.
They have named the little bird the olive-backed forest robin, or Stiphrornis pyrrholaemus, but say they know little about it yet.
The Smithsonian Institution team found the bird while visiting the forest on a biodiversity project, said Brian Schmidt, a research ornithologist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.
Genetic tests confirmed the bird, which measures 4.5 inches in length and averages half an ounce (14 grams) in weight, was a unique species.
Olive-Backed Forest Robin
In Memory
Jerry Wexler
Legendary record producer Jerry Wexler, who helped shape R&B music with influential recordings of Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles and other greats, and later made key recordings with the likes of Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson, has died. He was 91.
Wexler earned his reputation as a music industry giant while a partner at Atlantic Records with another legendary music figure, the late Ahmet Ertegun. Atlantic provided an outlet for the groundbreaking work of African-American performers in the 1950s and 1960s. Later, it was a home to rock icons like Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones. He later helped Dylan win his first Grammy by producing his 1979 "Slow Train Coming" album.
Wexler helped boost the careers of both the "King of Soul," Charles, and the "Queen of Soul," Franklin. Wilson Pickett, Solomon Burke and Percy Sledge were among the other R&B greats who benefited from Wexler's deft recording touch. He also produced Dusty Springfield's classic "Dusty in Memphis," considered a masterpiece of "blue-eyed" soul.
Among the standards produced by Wexler: Franklin's "Respect," a dazzling, feminist reworking of an Otis Redding song; Sledge's deep ballad "When A Man Loves A Woman" and Pickett's "In the Midnight Hour," with a horn vamp inspired by Wexler's admittedly rhythmless dancing.
Wexler was named to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.
The son of Polish immigrants and a music buff since his teens, Wexler landed a job writing for Billboard magazine in the late 1940s after serving in World War II and studying journalism in college. There he coined the term "rhythm and blues" for the magazine's black music charts; previously, they were listed under "race records."
While working at Billboard, Wexler befriended Ertegun - a life-altering friendship for both. Ertegun and a partner had started Atlantic, then a small R&B label in New York. In 1953, when Ertegun's partner left for a two-year military hitch, Wexler stepped in as the label's co-director.
He never left.
While Ertegun enjoyed the more bohemian aspects of the music business, Wexler was a working partner. Wexler produced 16 albums and numerous hit singles for Franklin, who switched to Atlantic in the mid-1960s and rediscovered her gospel roots after several unhappy years singing show tunes for Columbia. "When it came to the studio, you could say the two of us were joined at the hip," he once said.
Wexler began working with a collection of Southern musicians in the 1970s, including guitar genius Duane Allman, Dr. John, and Delaney & Bonnie. He also produced albums for Willie Nelson.
In the 1980s, Wexler worked with Dire Straits, Carlos Santana and George Michael. In April 1988, Atlantic marked its 40th anniversary with an 11-hour concert at Madison Square Garden, with the stage shared by performers from Crosby, Stills & Nash to the Bee Gees to Ben E. King.
Wexler was the quintessential Jewish street kid who found a home in black music. He was born in 1917 in Manhattan's Washington Heights section, north of Harlem. He didn't take to school, preferring to hang out at places like Artie's Pool Room on 181st Street.
When his mother tried to refocus his energies by sending him to Kansas State University in 1936, Wexler instead began taking the 100-mile drive to Kansas City, Mo., to see performers like Count Basie and Joe Turner. His poor grades put him back in New York within two years.
Days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Wexler was drafted into the Army. He spent the war stationed in Texas and Florida, then returned to college to earn a degree in journalism in 1947.
Jerry Wexler
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