The Weekly Poll
Question
The current question:
What is the scariest movie you've ever seen?
Anecdotes are welcome...
Send your response to BadtotheBoneBob ( BCEpoll 'at' aol.com )
Due to a large response, results are postponed until Monday.
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Andrew Tobias: Daily Comment (andrewtobias.com)
Fun Stuff:
1. Copy this into your word processor (or anyplace):
http://www.thelopezfamilyonline.com/play.php?first=FIRSTNAME&last=LASTNAME
2. Replace the red parts with your real first and last names . . . or your kid's
3. Copy the result into your browser, follow the link, and be amazed
Paul Krugman: Now That's Rich (nytimes.com)
One thing's for sure: Barack Obama isn't planning to raise taxes on the middle class, by any reasonable definition.
CATHERINE O'SULLIVAN: If history is always written by victors... then what is the point? (tucsonweekly.com)
I don't know when I got tired of paying attention to the particulars of history.
Craig McLean: I'm with the band (guardian.co.uk)
Before "Notting Hill," before "Twin Town," Rhys Ifans was the original lead singer of the Super Furry Animals. Now he and SFA drummer Dafydd Ieuan have formed their own 10-strong Welsh rock band.
Sharon Horgan: I've devised a game for bland celebrity interviews: swap one star's questions with another's answers (guardian.co.uk)
Since reading one brutally honest interview, I've started to resent the bland crap so many celebrities bestow on us.
Tom Danehy: "The late, great Isaac Hayes: 1942-2008" (tucsonweekly.com)
I let Isaac Hayes down. For nearly 40 years, I tried on dozens of occasions, with dozens of different people, to get just one of them to listen to Hayes' classic rendition of "By the Time I Get to Phoenix." Unfortunately, I felt obligated to tell them that the "song" was about 20 minutes long (actually 18 minutes, 42 seconds) and included his talking ("Ike's Rap") for the first 10 minutes or so (by coincidence, actually 8 minutes, 42 seconds).
JENNIFER BENDERY: "A Righteous Babe in Uncharted Territory: An Interview With Ani DiFranco" (popmatters.com)
DiFranco doesn't take the usual approach to the music business, but her horse-and-buggy style, as well as her motherhood, may turn out to be assets.
Sean Connery on being a Scot and Scotland's influence on Hollywood (timesonline.co.uk)
From its earliest days Hollywood has owed a debt to Scotland and Scottish talent, explains Sean Connery.
Roger Moore: Tommy Chong gets last laugh on Bush administration (The Orlando Sentinel)
Tommy Chong's glory days of starring as the latter half of the pothead comedy act Cheech & Chong were decades behind him. And then he went to prison. A documentary, "a/k/a Tommy Chong," on how he was jailed for his reputation, part of a nationwide sting aimed at sellers of pot paraphernalia, has won awards at film festivals. The movie comes out on DVD Tuesday.
Steven Rea: Woody weird? His new star begs to differ (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
Rebecca Hall wants to debunk some Woody Allen myths. All the A-listers and ingenues who have gasped about how the bespectacled auteur appears aloof and indifferent on the set, proffering little in the way of direction and less in small talk - well, the Vicky of "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" would like to challenge that perception.
Ellen Gray: 'Buffy' creator Joss Whedon talks about 'Dollhouse,' his new TV thriller (Philadelphia Daily News)
We enter the sleeping chamber. Sleek and circular, its individual beds recessed below floor level, it's meant to look spa-like, a place where the residents of a Fox series called "Dollhouse" can relax when they're between missions, missions that require them to be imprinted with new memories and personalities each time.
Will Harris: A Chat with Alfonso Ribeiro, Host of "Catch 21" (bullz-eye.com)
There are certainly times in '21' when people make decisions with the cards, and you're like, 'Uh, okay, all right, that's an interesting move. That's not one I would've done, but let's see how it plays outŠ'
Fun Facts
Income Distribution
Income Distribution Fun Facts
Mark Kleiman says "If you had made last year as much money as John McCain spent on household help alone $273,000 - you'd be richer than 95% of American families."
As I've said before, I'm not sure percentiles are the best way of expressing this kind of information. Rather, I think the main fact is that the median household income in the United States is $48,201 per year, meaning that McCain spent over five times as much on servants as the typical household earns in an entire year. On the other hand, McCain's relatively lavish household staff expenditures probably explains why he sees tax cuts for high-income individuals as a sound job-creation strategy - perhaps he wouldn't be able to afford nearly as many if he had to groan under the oppressive yoke of Clinton-era top income tax rates.
Source
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and pleasantly cool.
Added a new flag - Turks and Caicos Islands 
Usage Cap Raises Questions
Internet Providers
Three months ago, Guy Distaffen switched Internet providers, lured from his cable company to his phone company by a year of free service on a two-year contract. But soon the company quietly updated its policies to say it would limit his Internet activity each month.
"We felt that were suckered," said Distaffen, who lives in the small village of Silver Springs in upstate New York.
The phone company, Frontier Communications Corp., is one of several Internet service providers that are moving to curb the growth of traffic on their networks, or at least make the subscribers who download the most pay more.
Cable companies have been at the forefront of imposing and talking about usage caps, because their lines are shared between households. Frontier's announcement is noteworthy because it is a phone company - and it is matching a seemingly low ceiling set by a main cable rival: just 5 gigabytes per month, the equivalent of about 3 DVD-quality movies.
Internet Providers
New Stargate
Sci Fi Channel
Sci Fi Channel is set to announce the order of a new series from MGM Television, "Stargate: Universe," that will mark the third entry in Sci Fi's longest-running original series franchise.
The green light comes on the heels of Sci Fi's confirming Thursday that "Stargate: Atlantis" will not receive a sixth-season order. The "Universe" pickup ensures the continuation of the popular "Stargate" franchise, which has been on the air in various incarnations since 1997.
"Universe" -- which will premiere as a two-hour movie in early 2009 and assume a regular hourly slot in the summer -- introduces a team of explorers who find an ancient unmanned ship called the Destiny. Unable to return to Earth, the crew must fend for themselves aboard the ship, which has a preprogrammed mission taking them to the far reaches of the universe.
Also on Thursday, Sci Fi announced an order for a two-hour "Atlantis" movie in lieu of a sixth-season order. Airing two-hour movies of such franchises as "Stargate" and "Galactica" and quickly releasing the films as stand-alone DVDs has been a successful strategy for the network. But the news depressed "Stargate" fans, who saw the long-running sci-fi television franchise, like "Star Trek" a few years back, being retired as a weekly series.
Sci Fi Channel
Get Probation
Typo Fixers
Two self-styled vigilantes against typos who defaced a more than 60-year-old, hand-painted sign at Grand Canyon National Park were sentenced to probation and banned from national parks for a year.
Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson pleaded guilty Aug. 11 for the damage done March 28 at the park's Desert View Watchtower. The sign was made by Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter, the architect who designed the rustic 1930s watchtower and other Grand Canyon-area landmarks.
Deck and Herson, both 28, toured the United States this spring, wiping out errors on government and private signs. They were interviewed by NPR and the Chicago Tribune, which called them "a pair of Kerouacs armed with Sharpies and erasers and righteous indignation."
An affidavit by National Park Service agent Christopher A. Smith said investigators learned of the vandalism from an Internet site operated by Deck on behalf of the Typo Eradication Advancement League, or TEAL.
Typo Fixers
Splitsville
Tutt - Kattan
Chris Kattan's marriage to his model wife lasted almost as long as a "Saturday Night Live" skit.
The comedian filed for legal separation from model wife Sunshine Tutt after only eight weeks of marriage. The couple were married June 28 in Yosemite Valley.
They spent roughly a month together; Kattan's filings indicate they separated on Aug. 10. The couple have no children together, and Kattan's filing in Los Angeles Superior Court on Friday indicates the pair have a prenuptial agreement.
Tutt - Kattan
Evil Bastards Trying End Run
Interior Department
The Bush administration is providing insufficient time for public comment as it seeks to loosen rules protecting endangered species, representatives of more than 100 conservation groups charged Friday.
The Interior Department set a 30-day public comment period last week on an administration proposal that would allow federal agencies approving or funding dams, highways and other projects to decide for themselves - without input from government experts - whether endangered species are likely to be harmed.
A shorter timeframe would give the administration a better chance of imposing the rules before November's presidential election.
Representatives of 103 organizations urged Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez in a letter Friday to quadruple the time for public comment from 30 to 120 days and to hold public hearings.
Interior Department
Sells Home, Not To Trump
Ed McMahon
Ed McMahon is on the move.
A spokesman for the former "Tonight" Show sidekick says McMahon has agreed to a deal with a private buyer for his hilltop home.
McMahon spokesman Howard Bragman says the buyer isn't mogul Donald Trump, who had recently offered to buy McMahon's home and act as a landlord.
Bragman says McMahon will move out of the home, which is in the same exclusive neighborhood as Britney Spears, after the sale is complete.
Ed McMahon
Copyright Case
Bratz Dolls
A California jury considering awarding damages to Mattel Inc in a trial against MGA Entertainment Inc over the Bratz doll line on Friday asked a question suggesting they might find copyright infringement for early dolls but not later ones.
"Can we find that the first generation dolls violate copyright but the second generation do not?" the jury asked in a note to the court. Federal Judge Stephen Larson responded that the jury could split its decision in that way.
The jury also asked a question for which Larson requested clarification. "Our dilemma: appropriation of first generation is $4 M in profits," the jury wrote.
The questions hinted at possible damages in the case, where Mattel has argued that MGA and its chief executive, Isaac Larian should surrender nearly $2 billion in profits as well as pay punitive damages.
Bratz Dolls
Open Ocean Swims
Polar Bears
Nine polar bears were observed in one day swimming in open ocean off Alaska's northwest coast, an increase from previous surveys that may indicate warming conditions are forcing bears to make riskier, long-distance swims to stable sea ice or land.
The bears were spotted in the Chukchi Sea on a flight by a federal marine contractor, Science Applications International Corp.
It was hired for the Minerals Management Service in advance of future offshore oil development. The MMS in February leased 2.76 million acres within an offshore area slightly smaller than Pennsylvania.
Observers Saturday were looking for whales but also recorded walrus and polar bears, said project director Janet Clark. Many were swimming north and ranged from 15 to 65 miles off shore, she said.
Polar Bears
Teenage DNA Sleuths Expose
Fish Fraud
Up to a quarter of fish in stores and restaurants in New York City was mislabeled as a more expensive variety, according to samples collected by two U.S. teenagers and tested with modern genetic identification methods.
"We never expected these results. People should get what they pay for," Kate Stoeckle, 18, told Reuters of the project with Louisa Strauss, 17.
The two classmates from New York's Trinity school collected and sent off 60 fish samples to the University of Guelph in Canada. Of 56 samples that could be identified by a four-year-old DNA identification technique, 14 were mislabeled.
In all cases, the fish was labeled as a more costly type, apparently ruling out simple chance. It was the first known student use of DNA barcoding technology in a public market.
Fish Fraud
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