'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Norman Solomon: Here's the Smell of the Blood Still
When Martin Luther King Jr. publicly referred to "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today - my own government," he had no way of knowing that his description would ring so true 40 years later. As the autumn of 2007 begins, the reality of Uncle Sam as an unhinged mega-killer haunts a large minority of Americans. Many who can remember the horrific era of the Vietnam War are nearly incredulous that we could now be living in a time of similarly deranged official policy.
Jim Hightower: GIVING AWAY APPALACHIA (jimhightower.com)
Boy, things are hectic inside the Bush regime these days! The clock is ticking, and Corporate America is rushing to get all the favors it can before Bush & Company closes down in 2009. Sure enough, the Bushites are delivering.
Paul Krugman: Where's My Trickle? (The New York Times)
Four years ago the Bush administration, exploiting the political bounce it got from the illusion of success in Iraq, pushed a cut in capital-gains and dividend taxes through Congress. It was an extremely elitist tax cut even by Bush-era standards: the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center says that more than half of the tax breaks went to Americans with incomes of more than $1 million a year.
DAVID OSHINSKY: No Thanks, Mr. Nabokov (nytimes.com)
In the summer of 1950, Alfred A. Knopf Inc. turned down the English-language rights to a Dutch manuscript after receiving a particularly harsh reader's report. ... Knopf wasn't alone. "The Diary of a Young Girl," by Anne Frank, would be rejected by 15 others before Doubleday published it in 1952. More than 30 million copies are currently in print, making it one of the best-selling books in history.
Alicia Rebensdorf: The Entertainment Industry's Love Affair With Immature Men (AlterNet.org)
In Hollywood, a pudgy slacker man can always get a hot can-do woman.
Bird brain - or parrot prodigy? (guardian.co.uk)
His death has been reported in the New York Times; an internet condolence book has been set up in his memory. So what made Alex the parrot so special - and so controversial? Stephen Moss reports.
Robert Krulwich: Galactic Gold (npr.org)
Ever wonder where the gold in your wedding ring came from? ... we ask Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium, to explain the history of the rare element. According to Tyson, author of Death by Black Hole and Other Cosmic Quandries, all gold on Earth started out in the center of a star; he says stars are "in the business of cosmic alchemy."
Sound File: Periodic Table (npr.org)
The Elements - Satirist Tom Lehrer's recitation of all the names of the chemical elements to the tune of I am a Very Model of a Modern Major General (1:00). The song The Elements is from the CD The Remains of Tom Lehrer, on Rhino Records.
James Christopher: Is Quentin Tarantino losing the plots? (entertainment.timesonline.co.uk)
Quentin Tarantino still talks a great movie, as our chief film critic discovers. But can he still make them?
Kurt Russell: Escape from maturity (arts.independent.co.uk)
Kurt Russell has brought his tough-guy persona out of retirement. It took Tarantino to do it, the actor tells James Mottram.
Stevie Nicks: a survivor's story (telegraph.co.uk)
Thirty years after she sold her soul to the devil and, with Fleetwood Mac, set new records for rock'n'roll overindulgence, Stevie Nicks has somehow lived to tell the tale - and what a tale it is. Now if only she could remember where she lives. Interview by Mick Brown.
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny with a nice breeze.
Don't know if it's my computer, or my crappy dial-up, or the ftp, or what, but spent over 6 hours trying to upload the Friday page, and still didn't have it all done when I called it quits around 4:22am.
Nah, not frustrating at all.
Don't want to watch the edited & censored Creative Emmy's on E! tonight? Here's the Complete List Of Creative Emmy Winners (And A Complete List Of Primetime Emmy Nominations).
France Debunks Credentials
Alexis Debat
The French Defense Ministry on Friday debunked the credentials of a former ABC News consultant who claimed to have worked as an adviser to the ministry, saying the man was just an intern for five months.
Alexis Debat, who was fired by the TV network last year, quit a Washington think tank on Wednesday after being accused of faking an interview with Barack Obama.
Previously, he had been identified in stories by a range of media, including The Associated Press, as a former French Defense Ministry official or analyst. The National Interest, an online publication he wrote for, identified him as a "former adviser to the French minister of Defense on Transatlantic affairs."
But the ministry said Friday that the only trace it could find of Debat in its records was a five-month internship at a ministry advisory office in 2000 and one month of military service.
Alexis Debat
UCLA Student
Shakira
For the past month, Colombian pop star Shakira has been taking a class at the University of California, Los Angeles, called "Introduction to Western Civilization: Ancient Civilizations from Prehistory to Circa A.D. 843."
"She went when she finished her tour, for the summer," Shakira's manager Fifi Kurzman told The Associated Press.
For years the 30-year-old has studied on her own, also taking tutorials on the history and languages of the countries she visits, Kurzman said.
She decided to take a musical rest this summer following her worldwide "Oral Fixation" tour to focus on social causes, Kurzman said.
Shakira
Signature Dress Stolen
Carol Channing
Carol Channing's signature dress - a shimmery number she wore in the stage production of "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" - was stolen at a Hollywood hotel.
The 86-year-old actress and her husband were checking into the Hollywood Renaissance Hotel on Thursday when a man swiped one of her bags from a bell cart in the lobby, said Officer Jason Lee, a police spokesman. The bag contained the dress, which Channing told police was valued at $150,000, Lee said.
Her representative told celebrity Web site TMZ.com that the dress was on its way to the Smithsonian museum for an exhibit, along with her 1964 Tony award for "Hello Dolly." The award was in a different bag.
Carol Channing
UPDATE: Carol's Dress Returned - By Homeless Fan
Drips For Prostate Awareness
Mannekin Pis
The usual free-flowing stream coming from Belgium's Manneken Pis, a bronze boy that pees into a fountain in central Brussels, slowed to a drip Friday to raise awareness about prostate cancer.
For passers-by in the Belgian and European capital on what was European prostate awareness day, a banner was set up alongside marked: "Having trouble urinating? Get your prostate checked in time."
The European Commission, for its part, also expressed concern at the low number of men who have their prostate checked as they get older, as well as undergo tests for colorectal cancer.
According to a Eurobarometer survey published Friday, only eight percent of men have tests to detect cancer of the prostate, while 13 percent get checked for colorectal cancer.
Mannekin Pis
Kabbalah Conference
Madonna
Clapping and singing, Madonna joined in a Kabbalah conference Friday in Tel Aviv to celebrate the Jewish New Year.
Madonna was singing Jewish songs with the crowd of hundreds at the David Intercontinental Hotel, site of the conference on Jewish mysticism. At one point she pressed another participant - apparently a friend of hers - up to the front where he danced excitedly, making the singer and the crowd giggle and clap enthusiastically.
The 49-year-old pop star wore a black jacket with elbow-length sleeves that was held at the waist with a belt with a large buckle. She also donned a baseball-type, red-and-black plaid hat with her hair in a ponytail.
Madonna
Suspect In Armed Robbery
O.J. Simpson
O.J. Simpson says he only went into a casino hotel room to retrieve memorabilia that he felt was stolen from him. But police are investigating it as an armed robbery and named the fallen football star as a suspect Friday in yet another surprising chapter to his legal saga.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Simpson insisted there were no guns involved and he only went to the room at the Palace Station casino to retrieve stolen mementos that included his Hall of Fame certificate and a picture of the running back with J. Edgar Hoover.
Simpson, who was in Las Vegas for a friend's wedding, said he arranged to meet auction house owner Tom Riccio at the hotel. Riccio had set up a meeting with collectors under the guise that he had a private collector interested in buying Simpson's items.
Simpson said he wasn't sure where the items were taken.
O.J. Simpson
Pleads No Contest
Fred Durst
Fred Durst pleaded no contest to seven misdemeanors, including assault, battery and reckless driving, for deliberately hitting two people with his car.
William Fred Durst, 37, entered the pleas Aug. 16 and was handed a suspended 120-day jail sentence, ordered to perform 20 hours of community service and fined $1,500, according to Superior Court documents.
The documents, first obtained by CelebTV.com, also show the Limp Bizkit lead singer was slapped with a restraining order saying he cannot "annoy, harass, strike, threaten or otherwise disturb the peace" of the two victims, whose names weren't disclosed.
Durst allegedly hit the two Los Angeles residents with his vehicle Oct. 26, 2006, according to the documents. Misdemeanor charges filed in January included two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, three counts of battery, one count of making a criminal threat and one count of reckless driving.
Fred Durst
Sentenced To 1 Year
Mindy McCready
Mindy McCready was sentenced Friday to a year in prison on a probation violation after being charged in a domestic dispute in Florida.
The 31-year-old country singer has been in jail since July, when she returned to Nashville after being accused of scratching her mother in a scuffle and resisting sheriff's deputies in her hometown of Fort Myers.
Bivins sentenced her to a year in the county jail with credit for 75 days of time served. After her release she will face another two years of probation.
Deputy District Attorney General Derek Smith said McCready violated probation by being charged in a new offense, not reporting those charges immediately to her probation officer and by the nature of the new assault charges.
Mindy McCready
Now $188
`$100 Laptop'
The vaunted "$100 laptop" that Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers dreamed up for international schoolchildren is becoming a slightly more distant concept.
Leaders of the nonprofit One Laptop Per Child that was spun out of MIT acknowledged Friday that the devices would cost $188 if mass production, expected to begin this fall, were to start now. The last price the nonprofit had announced was $176; it described $100 as a long-term goal.
One Laptop Per Child says it has commitments for at least 3 million of its rugged "XO" computers, though it won't disclose which countries are first in line. Among the nations that have shown interest are Brazil, Libya, Thailand and Uruguay.
The "XO" machines feature an open-source interface designed to be intuitive for children; a sunlight-readable display; very low power consumption; built-in wireless networking; and a pull cord for recharging by hand. The laptops are being made by Taiwan's Quanta Computer Inc., the world's leading manufacturer of portable computers.
`$100 Laptop'
Backs Off Banning Odd Names
Venezuela
Venezuelan officials withdrew a proposal to bar parents from giving their children names like Edigaith, Mileidy or Superman, the state-run news agency reported Thursday.
The National Electoral Council had proposed banning "names that expose (children) to ridicule, are extravagant or difficult to pronounce" or raise doubts about whether a child is a girl or a boy.
The council also proposed to draw up a list of traditional names for parents to use "as a reference" when registering their children.
But the clause prohibiting odd monikers was axed after child protection officials warned it could violate "the right to liberty," Electoral Council member Sandra Oblitas was quoted as saying by the Bolivarian News Agency.
Venezuela
Billboard's Woman Of The Year
reba mcentire
Billboard magazine has picked Reba McEntire for its first "Woman of the Year" award.
The magazine says the award coincides with its second annual Women in Music issue, which will be published in early October.
Billboard Group editorial director Tamara Conniff says the country star was chosen for the honor because of her wide success in music, television, movies and publishing.
reba mcentire
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