'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Eric Alterman: The death and life of the American newspaper (newyorker.com)
It is a point of ironic injustice, perhaps, that when a reader surfs the Web in search of political news he frequently ends up at a site that is merely aggregating journalistic work that originated in a newspaper, but that fact is not likely to save any newspaper jobs or increase papers' stock valuation.
Jim Hightower: AMERICA'S ONGOING REBELLION (jimhightower.com)
Finally, after three years of litigation, city officials have backed away from their unconstitutional position and settled the case. In this important victory for free speech, the city will pay $500,000 in legal costs that the groups incurred, and officials will no longer set an arbitrary limit on protest numbers, nor deny access to the Great Lawn on political grounds.
Joel Stein: No typing, all casting (latimes.com)
Think most journalism today isn't fit to print? You should see what's on TV.
Camilla Mortensen: "Rodeo Royals: Yoncalla's Cowgirl Queens" (eugeneweekly.com)
Picture a tiara-wearing beauty queen greeting a screaming crowd. She's smiling and waving without a hair out of place. Now put that queen on the back of a horse galloping full tilt, replace her high heels with a pair of cowgirl boots and stick that tiara on top of a cowgirl hat, and you're starting to get an idea of what a rodeo queen looks like.
Shannon Stevens: How To Be a (Gold-Diggger) Patronage Seeker (lasvegasweekly.com)
The lovely art of getting something for nothing as a companion in Vegas.
Walter Tunis: Hot Rize's Tim O'Brien made his latest album in the company of instruments (McClatchy Newspapers; Posted on popmatters.com)
For the better part of his American roots-music career, Tim O'Brien has kept some impressive and sizeable company.
Roger Moore: Rolling Stones film 'Shine a Light' combines Martin Scorsese's two greatest loves (The Orlando Sentinel; Posted on popmatters.com)
Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese is knee-deep in his new film, an adaptation of Dennis Lehane's thriller "Shutter Island" starring Leonard DiCaprio and Ben Kingsley, among others. And he's stumped. Just a little.
Joan Collins: Bette Davis taught me to be a bitch (entertainment.timesonline.co.uk)
Getting on the wrong side of Bette Davis taught actress Joan Collins all she needed to know about playing the bitch.
Lewis Beale: 'Snow Angels' star Sam Rockwell loves playing offbeat characters (Newsday; posted on popmatters.com)
Rockwell has made a career of indelible, often bizarre screen portrayals, from game show host/CIA hit man Chuck Barris in "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind," to two-headed galactic president Zaphod Beeblebrox in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."
Kim Morgan: Richard Widmark: 1914-2008 (huffingtonpost.com)
And just after my tenth (eleventh?) viewing of one of my favorite film noir, that daylight ménage à trois (or rather, ménage à trois by way of intimidation, which only makes the picture all the more fascinating and kinky) -- Road House -- just when I was really wrapping my head around my obsession with both the movie and that hot blonde laughing lunatic of menace and twisted sex appeal, he ups and leaves me.
Leigh H. Edwards: Review of Cary Grant 4-Disc Collector's Set (popmatters.com)
All these films reflect the gendered assumptions of their era. But Grant emerges victorious, no matter the role. His coat of armor is his charm, and he inhabits it seamlessly.
Dr. David Lipschitz: Prevention is Preferable to Diabetes, Complications (creators.com/)
The message is clear: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Exercise, eat right, avoid obesity, and diabetes can be prevented. ... Paying attention to all aspects of health - including diet, exercise, treating high blood pressure, preventing heart disease and lowering cholesterol, in combination with approaches to adjusting blood sugar toward the normal range - is required to assure that diabetics have a longer, better and more productive life.
wrote:
Reader Suggestion
Re: AZ TV Stunts
Check out Phoenix mayor: Arpaio raids are 'made-for-TV stunts'
Reader Comment
computer problems
hi
regarding your recent computer problems
recently i surfed the "something really funny" website and had 3 episodes of virus download attempts.----------really nasty stuff too.
some of the items on the site looked familliar as some of the stuff i've seen on your site
maybe it is the source of your problems?
just a fyi i hate this virus crap
great site by the way
gary
Thanks, Gary!
Coincidentally, came across this today:
A blossoming Web attack, first reported by security researcher Dancho Danchev earlier this month, has expanded to hit over a million Web pages, including many well-known sites.
"The number and importance of the sites has increased," wrote Danchev in a Friday blog posting where he reported that trusted Web sites such as USAToday.com, Target.com and Walmart.com have been hit with the attack.
The criminals behind this have not actually hacked into servers, but they are taking advantage of Web programming errors to inject malicious code into search results pages created by the Web sites' internal search engines.
Here's how an attack would work: the attacker searches for popular keywords, such as "Paris Hilton," on the Web site's internal search engine. But instead of conducting a normal search, the bad guy tacks an HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) command to the end of his search. This command that opens up an invisible iFrame window in the victim's browser that then redirects it to a malicious Web site, which then tries to install fake antispyware or a version of the Zlob Trojan Horse malware on the victim's PC.
In order to boost their Google rankings, Web sites often save a copy of these search results and submit them to Google. When a victim searches Google for the keyword, these cached search results then pop up, with the malicious code now inside them.
"Malicious parties are actively poisoning these sites search query caching feature to position the keywords among the top ten search results, thereby infecting anyone coming across them," said Danchev, in an instant-message interview.
He believes that over 1 million Web pages have been infected using this technique.
Major Web Sites Hit With Growing Web Attack
As Emily Litella would have said "It's always something."
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Mostly cloudy and cool.
Another police action outside the house - it's still going on (as of 11pm).
The corner is blocked with a couple of motorcycles and there are several cruisers down the middle of the street. Of course, a police copter is droning in tight circles overhead, its spotlight skipping across the front yards.
Heard one of the motorcycle officers tell a pedestrian that there was an armed suspect on the loose and to leave the area.
He then yelled at one of my neighbors, telling him to get back inside his house, lock the door, and stay there.
Metropolitan Opera Honors
Franco Zeffirelli
Franco Zeffirelli, who has directed film, theater and opera worldwide, is being honored this weekend for the dozen lavish productions he created for the Metropolitan Opera.
Three are being performed this season, including "La Boheme," which was opening Saturday night on the stage where the Italian made his Met directorial debut in 1964 with a production of Verdi's "Falstaff."
On Monday, stars from Zeffirelli's film and stage productions will attend a Metropolitan Opera Guild luncheon at Manhattan's Waldorf-Astoria hotel.
Soprano Angela Gheorghiu - who sings in the current "Boheme" - and Jeremy Irons will offer musical and spoken tributes for an audience that will include actors Lynn Redgrave and Eli Wallach, Met General Manager Peter Gelb, tenor Marcello Giordani, baritone Thomas Hampson, sopranos Patricia Racette and Kiri Te Kanawa, cabaret legend Barbara Cook, designer Oscar de la Renta, and Cardinal Edward Egan, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York.
Franco Zeffirelli
Canada's Disbanding
CBC Radio Orchestra
Classical musicians are mourning the demise of the country's last radio orchestra, set to disband in November after championing the works of Canadian composers for 70 years and producing award-winning recordings.
Members of the Canadian Music Centre, Canadian League of Composers and Royal Conservatory of Music were among those Friday criticizing a move by the CBC to disband its Vancouver-based orchestra, warning that Canadian talent - and culture - would suffer from the blow.
CBC executives delivered the news Thursday to some 45 members of the orchestra in a closed-door meeting in Vancouver. A hastily assembled rally at the site drew dozens of classical music supporters to denounce the decision as soon as it was announced, said Elisabeth Bihl of the Canadian Music Centre, which promotes the works of Canadian composers.
The CBC wouldn't reveal the orchestra's budget, saying only that it was under $1 million.
CBC Radio Orchestra
Social Networking
Musicians
50 Cent has more than 1 million friends on MySpace, but if the rapper ever decides to leave the social network, he'll be leaving behind those friends, too. So like a growing number of artists, he's started his own social networking site.
On Thisis50.com, fans can create profiles and friend lists just like on MySpace, but 50 Cent has direct access to the site's users and their e-mail addresses.
More and more acts, from Kylie Minogue to Ludacris to the Pussycat Dolls, are launching their own social networks, which are becoming a sort of next-generation version of artist Web sites.
The social networking component gives fans a reason to hang out on a site and visit more often than they would a standard Web site. And artists can sell advertisements on their sites and offer downloads and merchandise for sale -- options they don't have on MySpace or Facebook. Plus, they own the content and data on how fans use their site, which they don't get on other social networks.
Musicians
His 'Supernatural Moment'
Mr. T
Former The A-Team star Mr. T once stunned a sick child's family by bringing him out of a coma - after doctors begged the actor for help.
The poorly kid fell unconscious in Detroit, Michigan in the mid-1980s - and the only physical movement he made was in response to hearing Mr. T's name.
He tells Empire magazine, "Somebody told the doctors I was in town, so they called me down there. I closed the curtains and prayed. Then, as I was walking down the hall, the kid suddenly came out of the coma and hollered out.
"That was my supernatural moment."
Mr. T
New Dream Team Needs More Time
Phil Spector
Phil Spector made a brief court appearance Friday in which his new lawyer said he could not be ready for the music producer's murder retrial until September at the earliest.
The lawyer also filed a writ asking that a neutral judge be appointed to decide if Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler should be disqualified from Spector's second trial because of alleged bias.
Fidler earlier rejected the bid to remove him, saying he was impartial in the case and that it was too late to file such a motion.
At Friday's court session, Fidler set another hearing for May 22, when a new trial date could be set.
Phil Spector
May Have To Repay Money
Katrina Victims
Imagine that your home was reduced to mold-covered wood framing by Hurricane Katrina. Desperate for money to rebuild, you engage in a frustrating bureaucratic process, and after months of living in a government provided-trailer that gives off formaldehyde fumes you finally win a federal grant.
Then a collector announces that you have to pay back thousands of dollars.
Thousands of Katrina victims may be in the same boat.
A private contractor under investigation for the compensation it received to run the Road Home grant program for Katrina victims says that in the rush to deliver aid to homeowners in need some people got too much. Now it wants to hire a separate company to collect millions in grant overpayments.
Katrina Victims
Electro-Dance Style Sweeps France
Tecktonik
Enter any nightclub in Paris right now, and chances are you'll bump into a group of weird-looking teenagers, seemingly trying to rip their own heads off. If so, don't worry -- you have just entered the world of Tecktonik.
This electro-dance scene was born in 2000 at Paris nightclub Metropolis, and has gradually become an all-encompassing teenage lifestyle, incorporating a highly distinctive dance and dress code (skinny-fit trousers and tight T-shirts, Day-Glo colors and punk-inspired spiky haircuts). It's now ubiquitous in France: on TV, in newspapers and magazines, in discos, even in schools.
EMI France international development director Laurence Muller compares it to hip-hop.
"It involves fashion, visuals, music and dance," he says, "with maybe graphic arts a bit behind."
Tecktonik
Name Anonymous Dead
The Doe Network
His obsession began two decades ago, when his wife Lori told him about the unidentified young woman wrapped in canvas whose body her father had stumbled on in Georgetown, Ky., in 1968. She had reddish brown hair and a gap-toothed smile. And no one knew her name.
Todd Matthews began searching library records and police reports, not even sure what he was seeking. He scraped together the money to buy a computer. He started scouring message boards on the nascent Internet.
In the process, Matthews discovered something extraordinary. All over the country, people just like him were gingerly tapping into the new technology, creating a movement - a network of amateur sleuths as curious and impassioned as Matthews.
Today the Doe Network has volunteers and chapters in every state. Bank managers and waitresses, factory workers and farmers, computer technicians and grandmothers, all believing that with enough time and effort, modern technology can solve the mysteries of the missing dead.
The Doe Network
Finds Mystery Space Junk
James Stirton
A cattle farmer in Australia's remote northern outback on Friday said he had found a giant ball of twisted metal, which he believes is space junk from a rocket used to launch communications satellites.
Farmer James Stirton found the odd-shaped ball last year on his 40,000 hectare property, about 800 kilometres (500 miles) west of the northern Queensland state capital of Brisbane.
But Stirton only started inquiring into what the ball of metal really was, and where it had come from, in the past week.
Sydney's Powerhouse Museum said it was not uncommon for people to find spacejunk in remote areas of Australia.
James Stirton
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