'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
PAUL KRUGMAN: Will the Levee Break? (The New York Times)
The conventional wisdom says that the Democrats will take control of the House of Representatives next month, but only by a small margin. I've been looking at the numbers, however, and I believe this conventional wisdom is almost all wrong.
BOB HERBERT: Sacrifice of the Few (The New York Times)
"Right now it's such a small minority of families who have a stake in all of this. I hear people say things like, 'We lost a lot of good people over there.' I sort of snap around and say, 'We? You didn't lose anybody.' You know what I mean?"
Comment: Afghanistan Unliberated (progressive.org)
George Bush likes to view himself as the Great Liberator, and he has said many times that he's freed fifty million people: the combined populations of Iraq and Afghanistan. But Iraq is going to hell, with 100 civilian deaths a day due to the civil war-oh, I'm sorry, I mean the sectarian violence. Afghanistan is headed down the same road.
A special Media Matters for America report: debunking the Foley myth machine
To aid members of the media in covering the scandal, Media Matters for America has compiled a list of the top myths, falsehoods, and baseless assertions surrounding the controversy.
Will Durst: The Boogeyman
Fee fi fo fum, I smell the blood of some Republicans...
John DeSio: SIX DEGREES OF HUFFINGTON
Arianna Huffington opens a new dialogue with America as the rules of media and politics change before our very eyes
Will Durst: Dennis Hastert's Crow Plate Special
In the face of overwhelmingly lurid evidence, Hastert's major priority was to cover his ass.
Roger Ebert: A crowning achievement (4 stars)
The opening shots of Stephen Frears' "The Queen" simply show Helen Mirren's face as her character prepares for it to be seen. She is Queen Elizabeth II, and we know that at once. The resemblance is not merely physical, but embodies the very nature of the Elizabeth we have grown up with -- a private woman who takes her public role with great gravity
SARAH ROWLAND: Decent exposure (montrealmirror.com)
Sook-Yin Lee and director John Cameron Mitchell offer penetrating insights in the emotionally wrenching and very sexy comedy Shortbus.
'It was like being videoed making love' (guardian.co.uk)
Can one of Britain's best-loved actors make the switch from silver screen to printed page? Julie Walters talks to Emine Saner about her partying years, motherhood, and the alarmingly intimate experience of writing a novel.
Young, out and proud (guardian.co.uk)
Sexual health experts have expressed concern that - with no chance of pregnancy and few worries about STDs - lesbian teenagers are more promiscuous than their straight peers. Is this really a problem though, asks Lotte Jeffs.
JUDITH LEWIS: Last Orgasm in Hollywood: Movie sex, dirty and clean, through the ages (laweekly.com)
What makes movie sex dirty?
JAMES DIGIOVANNA: God's Children (tucsonweekly.com)
Christian extremists train kids to be warriors in the horrifying 'Jesus Camp'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
First rain since last spring! And some thunder, too.
The local airport has reversed the landing pattern the last 2 days. The planes are descending over the house, instead of taking off.
Files Chapter 11
Air America
Air America Radio, the liberal talk and news radio network that features the comedian Al Franken, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Friday, but will stay on the air while it reorganizes with funding from its investor group.
The network had denied rumors just a month ago that it would file for bankruptcy protection. On Friday, Air America spokeswoman Jaime Horn told the AP that the filing became necessary only recently after negotiations with a creditor from the privately held company's early days broke down.
Horn declined to name the creditor, but the company had tussled earlier with a business partner, MultiCultural Radio Broadcasting Inc., which is also a creditor to Air America's parent company, Piquant LLC.
The network will operate in the interim with funding from Democracy Allies LLC, its investor group, which includes RealNetworks Inc. CEO Robert Glaser.
Air America
Gallery Exhibition In San Francisco
Michele Pred
Michele Pred's "Marijuana Project" is part of a new show at the Frey Norris Gallery called Who's Afraid of San Francisco?
The 60-centimetre cannabis plant stands in a plain, plastic pot on a square, white podium. It's covered by a clear, Plexiglas box with air holes. On the wall nearby is the artist's medical marijuana card and grower's permit, which she obtained for this project.
California is one of 11 states that allow medical marijuana, though it remains illegal under federal law.
Also displayed are buds encased in resin and mounted in petri dishes, which Pred calls "Marijuana Culture." She recently stopped by the gallery to sign a set of three dishes that sold for US$1,200.
Michele Pred
Seeks To Trademark Name
Paul McCartney
Former Beatle Paul McCartney sought on Friday to cash in on his name by registering it as a trademark for use on everything from waistcoats to vegetarian food.
In addition to vegetarian items, he is also seeking permission for the name on meat, fish, poultry and game.
The application has been made by McCartney's company, MPL Communications Ltd, and if successful will give it the exclusive right to use of the name McCartney on clothing, footwear, headgear and a variety of other goods.
The full application specifies such disparate items as articles of fancy dress, overalls, waistcoats, hosiery, dressing-gowns, bath robes, sports clothing and swimwear.
Paul McCartney
Reunites With Sun Records
Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley will be reunited with Sun Records as part of a licensing agreement between the owner of the historic label and the singer's estate.
The company said Memphis-based Elvis Presley Enterprises has licensed the use of its trademarks in the name, image and likeness of Presley to Sun for several commemorative retail products. Terms of the deal were not immediately available.
Original Sun Records owner/producer Sam Phillips and his company played a pivotal role in the careers of not only Presley, but also Johnny Cash, B.B. King, Jerry Lee Lewis, Charlie Rich, Ike Turner, Rufus Thomas, Roy Orbison and other important artists in rock, country and R&B music in the 1950s.
Elvis Presley
Historian Uncovers New Evidence
Samuel Pepys
A British academic says she has uncovered new details about the life of a famous literary paramour - the 17-year-old servant caught consorting with diarist Samuel Pepys.
Pepys' journal describes the moment in 1668 that his wife discovered him in mid-embrace with Deb Willet, a young employee of his London household.
Pepys (pronounced peeps) says it was "the greatest sorrow to me that ever I knew in this world; for my wife, coming up suddenly, did find me imbracing the girl con my hand sub su coats (under her skirts)."
Loveman said she had unearthed documents in London and at Oxford University's Bodleian Library showing that Willet re-established contact with Pepys a few years later, asking for his help in getting a job for her new husband, Jeremiah Wells.
Samuel Pepys
More Republican Family Values
Sara Evans
Country singer Sara Evans alleges in divorce papers that her husband committed adultery, was verbally and emotionally abusive, drank excessively and frequently watched pornography in their home.
Evans, 35, filed for divorce Thursday from Craig Schelske and announced through a spokesman that she was quitting ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" "to give her family full attention at this difficult time."
Schelske, 43 and currently unemployed, ran for Congress as a Republican from Oregon's 5th District in 2002. He is a native of Salem, Ore.
In the filing in state court in suburban Franklin, where the couple has a home, Evans alleges that Schelske watched pornography on the couples' computers and has at least 100 nude photographs of himself in a state of arousal.
Sara Evans
Expose Ancient Artifacts
Wildfires
An oak tree was still burning nearby when Margaret Hangan made her way across a wildfire-scorched landscape and spotted to her delight a set of flat-topped granite boulders that served as kitchen counters in an ancient village 2,000 years ago.
In the rocks were manmade oval depressions in which acorns were ground into flour.
For all the damage they do, wildfires can be a boon to archaeologists, laying bare the traces of long-gone civilizations.
Around the country, government archaeologists often move in to see what has been exposed after the flames have burned away the underbrush; sometimes they accompany firefighters while a blaze is still raging to make sure artifacts are not damaged.
Wildfires
Peruvian Lettuce Proves Deadly
Moroccan Camels
Healthy eating has proved fatal for a group of camels donated to Peru by Morocco's King Mohammed.
Two camels died this week and another is sick after being fed a type of Peruvian lettuce that poisoned the animals with its high nitrate levels, initial tests showed on Thursday.
"The animal feeders thought that the lettuce would have lots of protein and that's why they gave it to them," said William Raffo, head of animal hygiene in Peru's desert coastal city of Ica, which has a climate similar to North Africa's Sahara.
King Mohammed donated the camels to Peru in 2003 to boost bilateral diplomatic and trade ties.
Moroccan Camels
Was On eBay
Mummy
Officials are trying to track down the origins of a mummified human skeleton that a Michigan woman tried to sell on eBay.
The St. Clair County medical examiner's office confiscated the mummified remains Tuesday from the home of Lynn Sterling.
Sterling, 45, told police she got the remains from a friend who works in demolition and said he found them in a Detroit school he helped tear down nearly 30 years ago, police said. She said she had contacted an attorney before posting the remains for sale.
"It's an anatomical, medical-use skeleton," Sterling told The Times Herald of Port Huron. "I would never have put it on (eBay) if I thought it was anything other than an anatomical, medical thing."
Mummy
Radioactive Snails
Glowing Escargot
The discovery of radioactive snails at a site in southeastern Spain where three U.S. hydrogen bombs fell by accident 40 years ago may trigger a new joint U.S.-Spanish clean-up operation, officials said Wednesday.
The hydrogen bombs fell near the fishing village of Palomares in 1966 after a mid-air collision between a bomber and a refueling craft, in which seven of 11 crewmen died.
Hundreds of tons of soil were removed from the Palomares area and shipped to the United States after high explosive igniters on two bombs detonated on impact, spreading plutonium dust-bearing clouds across nearby fields.
Spanish authorities say the appearance of higher than normal levels of radiation in snails and other creatures shows there may be dangerous levels of plutonium and uranium below ground, and a further clean up could be necessary.
Glowing Escargot
In Memory
Gillo Pontecorvo
Gillo Pontecorvo, the Italian film director famous for "The Battle of Algiers (La Battaglia di Algeri)," a starkly realistic depiction of Algeria's war of independence from France, has died in Rome, aged 86.
Born into a wealthy Jewish family in Pisa, Pontecorvo worked in journalism before making his first films in the 1950s and is regarded as one of Italian cinema's greatest film-makers despite making relatively few movies.
The Battle of Algiers, which Pontecorvo co-wrote and directed in 1966, won the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion and was nominated for three Oscars: best director, best screenplay and best foreign language film.
After The Battle of Algiers, Pontecorvo directed Marlon Brando as a mercenary who instigates a slave revolt on a Caribbean island in the film "Queimada" (Burn).
Gillo Pontecorvo
In Memory
Jerry Belson
Jerry Belson, an Emmy-winning comedy writer for "The Tracey Ullman Show" whose wit graced numerous other films and TV shows, including "The Odd Couple" and "The Dick Van Dyke Show," has died. He was 68.
Belson died of cancer at his Los Angeles home on Tuesday, said friend and writing partner Garry Marshall.
A signature scene that Belson wrote into "The Odd Couple" involved the character Felix Unger describing the funeral of a dog named "Spot Moskowitz," attended by dogs wearing yarmulkes.
After teaming with comedic actor Tracey Ullman, Belson won three Emmy awards - in 1989 and 1990, for his work on her Fox comedy, and in 1997, for writing on the HBO show "Tracey Takes On...". He was nominated for 17 Emmys in his career, which primarily focused on targeting the cocky and pretentious.
Belson left his home in southeastern California for Hollywood after graduating high school and, following a struggle as a magician, comic book writer and drummer, finally sold a script he wrote to "The Danny Thomas Show" at the age of 22.
He is survived by his wife, actress and artist Jo Ann Belson; three children: Kristine, Julie and Willi; a sister, screenwriter-novelist Monica Johnson; a brother, radio personality Gordon Belson; and two grandchildren.
Jerry Belson
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