'Best of TBH Politoons'
Reader Suggestions
Some Links
Marty,
Here're a few links for you:
Good Firefox ad
My results came up with no brains at all
Great time waster. Look Ma, I'm an artist. (left click to change color)
Thanks for all you do!
_BeaverBoy
Thanks, BeaverBoy!
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
John McDonald: 'Notes from the angry left fringe' (smirkingchimp.com)
It seems that my "liberal" friends and I who supported Ned Lamont in the Connecticut Senate race have been encouraging Al Qaida terrorists, so much so that they immediately hatched a plan to rush onto jumbo jets and light their Gatorade on fire. If I had only known, I would never have dared to express my constitutional rights at the voting booth. I've thought about trying to change my vote, but I figure if it's really important, George or Dick will change it for me anyway. Maybe they can just throw it out.
EDWARD WONG and DAMIEN CAVE: Iraqi Death Toll Rose Above 3,400 in July (nytimes.com)
July appears to have been the deadliest month of the war for Iraqi civilians, according to figures from the Health Ministry and the Baghdad morgue, reinforcing criticism that the Baghdad security plan started in June by the new Iraqi government has failed.
CONNIE MABIN: Ohio voting problems deemed severe (Associated Press)
Problems with elections in Ohio's most populous county are so severe that it's unlikely they can be completely fixed by November, or even by the 2008 presidential election, a report commissioned by Cuyahoga County and released Tuesday says.
Fred Kaplan: The Money Pit (slate.com)
Can the Pentagon pay for the war and its new toys?
Jeremy Langmead: Forget about underage drinking - we should worrying about overage drug-taking (guardian.co.uk)
Not entirely naive, I expected to see a few tabs of ecstasy when we hit one of the superclubs (how else was everyone going to dance until 8am and then drive home?) but I wasn't prepared for the mountains of coke, MDMA and, scariest of all, bumps of ketamine (a horse tranquilliser) that were casually scattered around the villa like bowls of pot pourri.
Jeffrey Williams: Another Way Out Of College Debt (Dissent Magazine. Posted on AlterNet.org)
Offering federal debt relief in exchange for national service would lessen the economic pain suffered by debt-ridden college grads.
Marilyn Elias: After 60, the crabbiest people are the smartest, study suggests (usatoday.com)
A hunger for knowledge and adventure seems to sharpen minds in early adulthood and middle age, but after age 60, it's not the most gung-ho but the most disagreeable people who are the smartest, a psychologist reports.
Live in South Dakota? Borrow Bruce's Books
Perform a KEYWORDS search for "Funniest People." By the way, did you know that you can request that your public library buy a book that you would like to read? (Hint, hint.)
The Wall St. Poet
Homeland Security
Bush people wonder why so many other folks are concered about their warrantless wiretaps.
Reader Suggestion
Kris Kristofferson
Hey Marty,
We're trying to get word out on this protest video from Kris Kristofferson. It's for the song "In The News" which packs a pretty solid left wing punch.
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
No new flags.
500-Page Catalog Of Memorabilia
'Star Trek' Bible
Fans of "Star Trek" get a new chronicle of the enormously popular franchise with the release next week of a 500-page catalog of the memorabilia to be auctioned off this fall in Manhattan.
The splashy two volumes feature some 4,000 items, from a costumer's clipboard to a model of the starship Enterprise estimated to sell for as much as $35,000 at the three-day auction at Christie's in October.
With color photos, extensive footnotes, commentary, anecdotes and quotes, the coffeetable-worthy tome is limited to a run of 10,000 and is pre-selling well at $90, Elkies said.
Most of the items on auction are models and miniatures, costumes and props and, with price estimates as low as $100, fans can at least dream of scoring an item.
'Star Trek' Bible
Delay In Recovery
Roger Ebert
Film critic Roger Ebert says his recovery from cancer surgery is taking longer than he expected due to complications from radiation therapy but doctors are "enthusiastically optimistic" about his prognosis.
The 64-year-old Pulitzer Prize winner, a patient at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, gave readers a lengthy update on his medical condition in a statement posted on Friday on his Web site.
Ebert said he will need voice rehabilitation and physical therapy to regain his strength after being confined to bed for so long.
Nevertheless, Ebert said he is "doing well" and passes his time communicating with family and friends, listening to music, watching movies and writing.
Roger Ebert
Returns Painting Looted By Nazis
National Gallery of Canada
A 20th-century French oil painting by Edouard Vuillard, looted by the Nazis during World War Two, will be returned to the family of its original owner, the National Gallery of Canada said on Friday.
This is the first time a work stolen by the Nazis has been identified and returned to its rightful owners by the Ottawa gallery.
The National Gallery first tried to return the painting in 1997 to the family of Alfred Lindon, a French businessman of Jewish descent who died in 1948, after a curator discovered it had been stolen by the Nazis in France.
At the time, the family had no record of having owned the 1904 oil painting and refused its return.
National Gallery of Canada
L.A.'s Only Country Music Station
KZLA
There is a tear in the beer of country music fans here. After more than 20 years on the air, the city's only country music station, KZLA-FM, abruptly left the air Thursday and was seamlessly replaced with the rhythmic pop of "Movin' 93.9," which plays artists such as Beyonce, Janet Jackson and Jennifer Lopez.
KZLA's sudden and unannounced demise leaves America's two most populous cities, Los Angeles and New York, without country music stations.
In Los Angeles, longtime country fans and station employees wondered at the logic of ending country radio in their city, which ranks in the top two for album sales and where concerts for big-name country artists repeatedly sell out. The station's last day coincided with opening night of Tim McGraw and Faith Hill's "Soul II Soul" concert. All three nights of their tour stop in LA were sold out.
The transition by Emmis Communications was swift and shocking for listeners, who heard George Strait and Keith Urban in the morning and Pink and the Black Eyed Peas by lunchtime. Even the station's veteran morning crew, including Peter Tilden, didn't know of the format change until just minutes before it happened.
KZLA
Hospital News
Barry Manilow
Barry Manilow has canceled his three remaining performances at the Las Vegas Hilton to undergo surgery to repair torn cartilage in both hips, his publicist said.
The 60-year-old singer, who has a four-year concert contract with the hotel, suffers from labrum tears in his hips - a painful condition exacerbated by his high energy performances, publicist Carol Marshall said in a statement Thursday.
He is still expected to make his Aug. 27 appearance at the Emmys and will then be admitted to a Southern California hospital for outpatient arthroscopic surgery, Marshall said.
Barry Manilow
Suit Filed Over 1960s Series
'Batman'
A New Mexico woman is suing 20th Century Fox Film Corporation alleging she was defrauded out of $4.4 million she was entitled to receive for the popular 1960s "Batman" television series.
Deborah Dozier Potter, whose father William Dozier was one of the producers of the show, filed the lawsuit Wednesday in Superior Court that alleges fraud, concealment and breach of contract.
She is an heir to her father's estate and holds a portion of the assets of Greenway Productions Inc. which produced the series four decades ago that Fox distributed, according to the lawsuit.
Both companies, Greenway and Fox, signed a contract in the 1960s, the lawsuit said. Another contract was also signed between Fox and ABC, the station which televised the show. In March 2005, Potter came across the agreement between Fox and ABC and discovered she was entitled to 26 percent of the net profits from that agreement as well.
'Batman'
TiVo Fight
EchoStar
EchoStar Communications Corp. won a temporary reprieve on Friday when an appeals court said it could still sell digital video recorders that a lower court had ruled infringed on a TiVo Inc. patent.
But industry analysts said it was not clear if EchoStar, the No. 2 satellite television provider, could permanently avoid a ban on sales of the offending DVRs, which could hurt its ability to attract new customers and retain current ones.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington D.C. stayed a lower court injunction against EchoStar to halt the use and sale of several of its DVRs within 30 days, a ruling that could affect as many as 3 million of its 12.5 million subscribers.
EchoStar
Star Trek Convention
Google
Google duplicated the helm of the fictional Starship Enterprise and embarked on a mission in Las Vegas to recruit engineers, at a gathering of cultish Star Trek devotees.
More than 10,000 fans of the Star Trek franchise that began with a television series debut in September of 1966 were expected by organisers to make pilgrimages to the official annual convention at the Las Vegas Hilton.
Google deemed the convention a prime place to search for talent because the fans tend to be tech-savvy, passionate, and in tune with the show's theme of expanding the boundaries of human accomplishment, according to Google Earth chief technologist Michael Jones.
Google
Show Will Go On
'America's Next Top Model'
A top executive of the fledgling CW television network is assuring its affiliates of an unspecified "contingency plan" to keep the soon-to-relaunch "America's Next Top Model" on the air despite ongoing labor strife at the reality show.
In a letter to affiliates, CW chief operating officer John Maatta said the show will premiere as planned September 20. Show reps added that all 13 episodes for the show's run through December already have been shot and are not affected by the walkout by a dozen of "Top Model's" writer-producers, who are demanding recognition as members of the Writers Guild of America.
Show producers have declined to recognize the petition unless the employees seek representation through a lengthier process administered by the National Labor Relations Board. The standoff has had some wondering when the job action might threaten actual airing of the Tyra Banks-hosted show, which the CW plans to make a key part of its launch programming next month.
Still, no talks among the warring parties are scheduled for the time being. So the CW's Maatta sought to reassure affiliates over the issue of show continuity.
'America's Next Top Model'
Faces California Suit
Duane 'Dog' Chapman
A lawsuit filed by a Daly City man in U.S. District Court on Wednesday seeks unspecified damages from television bounty hunter Duane "Dog" Chapman and his Hawaii-based group of bondsman, the A&E television network and police.
The suit filed by Simaile "Cisco" Lutu, 29, claims the group wrongly tried to apprehend him when trying to snare a bail jumper who played for the Daly City Renegades semipro football team. He said police then continued to target him.
The lawsuit claims the incident began when Chapman's son tried to grab and restrain Lutu, thinking he was suspected drug dealer Samu Savea. The elder Chapman conceded that Lutu wasn't his fugitive.
The lawsuit says the following day Daly City police, who were working with Chapman, handcuffed Lutu and held him at gunpoint at a health club. The lawsuit charges that Lutu was later handcuffed and held at gunpoint again by Daly City officers in a second incident.
Duane 'Dog' Chapman
Trapped Waist-Deep In Chocolate
Darmin Garcia
It might sound like a chocoholic's dream, but stepping into a vat of viscous chocolate became a two-hour nightmare for a 21-year-old man Friday morning.
Darmin Garcia, an employee of a company that supplies chocolate ingredients, said he was pushing the chocolate down into the vat at Debelis Corp. because it was stuck. But it became loose and he slid into the hopper.
The chocolate was 110 degrees, hotter than a hot tub, said Capt. Greg Sinnen of the Kenosha Fire Department.
Co-workers, police and firefighters tried to free the man but couldn't get him loose until the chocolate was thinned out with cocoa butter.
Darmin Garcia
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