CHARLES KAREL BOULEY: Fat Unfit Nation (huffingtonpost.com)
In 2007, according to a new report, not one state decreased their state-wide obesity statistic. That means, America is on the fat train towards tubbo land and there's no sign of a retreat. The predictions vary in only one way, timing, but all agree that within the next seven to 10 years at this pace nine out of 10 Americans will be obese, with a body mass index of 30 or more.
Susan Eisenhower: Reflections on Leaving the Party (nationalinterest.org)
I have decided I can no longer be a registered Republican. For the first time in my life I announced my support for a Democratic candidate for the presidency, in February of this year. This was not an endorsement of the Democratic platform, nor was it a slap in the face to the Republican Party. It was an expression of support specifically for Senator Barack Obama.
Tom O'Neil: Expect 'Religulous' and Bill Maher to raise Oscars hell (goldderby.latimes.com)
When I attended a press screening for Bill Maher's "Religulous" in New York on Tuesday, it struck me like a lightning bolt on the road to the Kodak Theatre via Damascus: yeah, "Religulous" will probably be nominated for best docu at the Oscars - and God help us all after that.
Roger Ebert: I.O.U.S.A. (PG; 3 1/2 stars)
A letter to our grandchildren, Raven, Emil and Taylor: I see you growing up into such beautiful people, and I wish all good things to you as you make the leap into adulthood. But I have just seen a documentary titled "I.O.U.S.A." that snapped into sharp focus why your lives may not be as pleasant as ours have been. Chaz and I had the blessing of growing up in an optimistic, bountiful America. We never fully realized that we were paying for many of our comforts with your money.
Thor Christensen: My Morning Jacket take its cues from R&B, rock (The Dallas Morning News)
The guys in My Morning Jacket live in Kentucky, play electric guitars and sport facial hair, all of which can add up to only one thing. They're Southern rockers, right? No dice. As the band proves on its fifth CD, "Evil Urges," it's more influenced by R&B and funk than by Lynyrd Skynyrd.
A: baba
B: fingerling
C: jack
D: nail
E: spat
Source
DanD was first, and correct, with:
Google confirms my initial consideration, as I used to occasionally hunt oysters during my post-toddler days while fulfilling the role of a recently-graduated nursery-school inmate down in Ft Walton Beach Florida. You see, my father had been stationed at an immediately nearby Air Force base in that vacinity, and for an all-too-short while, we (my parents, brother and me) lived in an idealic little community of beach-house cottages on the sound.
As it is, I believe that the crustacean term "spat" had been used in my presence perhaps even several times during those wonder(ful) years, as "E" was my first choice before I confirm - ationally succumbed to the search-engine malady.
Anyway --
I think there is a trend of some sort going on here Marty. Again, you have plainly defied your own determination while confirming a previous WotD. First you establish:
On average, how many teeth does an adult crocodiile have?
A: between 21 & 25
B: between 33 & 37
C: between 44 & 48
D: between 50 & 54
E: between 64 & 68
And yet, then you "declare:"
Marian the Teacher, still vacationing in Philly, was first, but wrong, with:
Somewhere between 64 and 68 I think but I've been wrong before (see yesterday !).
Perhaps I am mistaken, but doesn't choosing "between 64 and 68" make the Teacher (beyond Da Vinci) correct? Or perhaps we're talking about a more bizzaro-world kind of "crocodiile" and not a crocodile ... (ultimately encompassing maybe a "Warhol puzzle," or perhaps even some alternative kind of "Salvidor Dali-code?").
Sorry Marty if it seems that I'm having some fun at your expense, but well, yeah, I guess I am (snicker).
Anyway, take a percocet this evening and email me in the morning. I'll do the same and then we'll see what comes of the whole hazy matter ~
(If G_d didn't intend us to take drugs, he'da' never created Pfizer)
mj answered:
Who was the first person to think eating an oyster
was a good idea, and what made him/her think that?
I'm pretty sure it's E, and I'm not going to speculate any further about why.
Alan J responded:
Spat
Marian the Teacher replied:
spat
Sally said:
A baby oyster is called a Spat (E).
If you lived in Brooklyn in the 1950s, they would be known as baby "errsters." Everyone went down the Sheepshead Bay for them on the half shell, eaten raw of course. Nowadays, despite the many red tides, vast blooms of algae that collect along coastlines, and the toxic outbreaks of V. vulnificus bacterium - I am still known to eat them - raw of course - now and again.
Snip: "Though the blue point oysters are large and scintillatingly fresh, I prefer the littleneck clams ($9.95), so delicate and sweet you can easily down a dozen as an appetizer or an afterthought. Clams are the logical choice, anyway. This is Brooklyn, after all, not Maine..."
Gads, it's almost lunchtime - and I'm getting hungry!
PS: Hey, BTW, "Marian the Teacher, still vacationing in Philly, was first, but wrong, with: Somewhere between 64 and 68..."
No sirree; if I was right, than so was she!
Charlie answered:
Same as past tense of "spit," or one of these
A baby oyster, other than being called a "baby oyster," is called a
E: spat
And, Joe S ("He was a bold man that first eat an oyster."
~ Jonathan Swift) responded:
E: spat, exactly what an oyster looks like. (hawk ------- spat!) Good though, smoked oysters make my toes curl.
CBS starts the night with '60 Minutes', followed by a FRESH'Big Brother 10', then a RERUN'Million Dollar Password', followed by a RERUN'Cold Case'.
NBC nbc fills the night with one last pre-taped, time-delayed, sanitized, and appallingly jingoed-up 'Olympics'.
ABC begins the night with a RERUN'America's So-Called Funniest Home Videos', followed by a 2-hour RERUN'Extreme Makeover: Home Edition', then a RERUN'Desperate Housewives'.
The CW offers a RERUN'One Tree Hill', followed by a RERUN'Everybody Hates Chris', then a RERUN'Aliens In America', followed by a RERUN'The Game', then a RERUN'Girlfriends'.
Faux has a RERUN'Til Death', followed by another RERUN'Til Death', then a RERUN'Simpsons', followed by a RERUN'Family Guy', then a RERUN'Sarah Connor Chronicles'.
MY has an old 'King Of Queens', followed by an old 'Raymond', then the movie 'From Justin To Kelly'.
A&E has 'Gene Simmons', another 'Gene Simmons', still another 'Gene Simmons', yet another 'Gene Simmons', still another 'Gene Simmons', followed by a FRESH'Gene Simmons', and another 'Gene Simmons'.
AMC offers the movie 'The World Is Not Enough', followed by a (F) 'Mad Men'.
BBC -
[12:00 PM] Top Gear - Episode 5
[1:00 PM] Doctor Who - Doctor Who: The Runaway Bride (2006)
[2:00 PM] Coupling - Episode 1 - 9 1/2 Minutes
[2:40 PM] Coupling - Episode 2 - Night Lines
[3:20 PM] Coupling - Episode 3 - Bed Time
[4:00 PM] Coupling - Episode 4 - Circus of Epidurals
[4:40 PM] Coupling - Episode 5 - The Naked Living Room
[5:20 PM] Coupling - Episode 6 - 9 1/2 Months
[6:00 PM] Primeval - Episode 2
[7:00 PM] Primeval - Episode 3
[8:00 PM] 476-lb. Teenager - 476-lb. Teenager
[9:00 PM] Skins - Ep 2 Cassie
[10:00 PM] Skins - Ep 3 Jal
[11:00 PM] 476-lb. Teenager
[12:00 AM] Skins - Ep 2 Cassie
[1:00 AM] Skins - Ep 3 Jal
[2:00 AM] 476-lb. Teenager
[3:00 AM] Skins - Ep 2 Cassie
[4:00 AM] Skins - Ep 3 Jal
[5:00 AM] Cash in the Attic - Ep. 7 Chamberlain
[5:30 AM] Cash in the Attic - Ep. 8 Anthony
[6:00 AM] BBC World News (ALL TIMES EDT)
Bravo has all 'Law & Order: Criminal Intent' all night.
Comedy Central has has the movie 'Joe Dirt', followed by the movie 'Super Troopers'.
FX has the movie 'Assault On Precinct 13', followed by the movie 'S.W.A.T.'.
History has 'Ice Road Truckers', another 'Ice Road Truckers', followed by a FRESH'Ice Road Truckers', and 'MonsterQuest'.
IFC -
[7:00 AM] IFC Short Film Showcase
[8:00 AM] Sansho the Bailiff
[10:15 AM] Onibaba
[12:00 PM] The Seventh Seal
[1:45 PM] The Virgin Spring
[3:20 PM] IFC in Theaters
[3:30 PM] Happy Here and Now
[5:05 PM] Camp
[7:00 PM] Fabulous: A Story of Queer Cinema
[8:30 PM] Transamerica
[10:25 PM] Indie Sex: Extremes
[11:30 PM] Z Rock
[1:00 AM] Happy Here and Now
[2:35 AM] Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
[5:00 AM] Ulee's Gold (ALL TIMES EST)
SciFi has the movie 'Dawn Of The Dead', followed by the movie 'Resident Evil: Apocalypse'.
Sundance -
[05:30 AM] Dying at Grace
[08:05 AM] Actuality: The Art and Life of Allan King
[09:00 AM] The Subways, Gnarls Barkley & Herbie Hancock w/ Sonya Kitchell
[10:00 AM] Episode 5
[11:00 AM] Howard Schultz + Norman Lear
[12:00 PM] The Talent Given Us
[02:00 PM] Teenage Wasteland
[03:00 PM] Episode 4
[03:35 PM] Ice Breaker
[04:35 PM] Fashion
[05:05 PM] K
[06:30 PM] Episode 1
[07:00 PM] Keane
[08:35 PM] Be Quiet
[09:00 PM] Episode 6
[10:00 PM] A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints
[12:00 AM] The Coast Guard
[01:45 AM] Height of Sky
[03:00 AM] Episode 4
[03:30 AM] Episode 6
[04:00 AM] Dumplings
[05:30 AM] The Galindez File (ALL TIMES EST)
This photo provided by Empire Expo Center, shows rocker Joan Jett performing one of two free concerts at the New York State Fair on Saturday, Aug. 23, 2008, in Geddes, N.Y.
Photo by Mike Okoniewski
London 2012 will unveil its blueprint to be the cool Olympics with an eight-minute slot in the Beijing closing ceremony that will combine the best of British rock, glamour, culture and sport.
Rock legend Jimmy Page and singer Leona Lewis will star in London's set, performing a stunning new version of the Led Zeppelin classic Whole Lotta Love, while footballer David Beckham will also be involved.
The set will kick in after London mayor Boris Johnson receives the Olympic flag in the handover ceremony, and starts with a red London double decker bus driving around the Bird's Nest stadium being pursued by Team GB cyclists Chris Hoy, Victoria Pendleton and Shanaze Reade.
The dancers will surround the red double-decker when it halts at a bus stop and a ten-year-old girl from east London, Tayyiba Dudhwala, who was chosen in a Blue Peter competition, will emerge to receive a football from another girl Erika Tham.
Veteran Hollywood actor Tony Curtis, and his wife Jill, arrive at the North American Premiere of their documentary 'The Jill & Tony Curis Story' in Montreal on Saturday August 23, 2008, as part of the Montreal World Film Festival
Photo by Graham Hughes
Customers in China of Apple Inc.'s iTunes online music store were unable to download songs this week, and an activist group said Beijing was trying to block access to a new Tibet-themed album.
In Internet forums, iTunes users complained they had been unable to download music since Monday. That was a day after the Art of Peace Foundation announced the release of "Songs for Tibet," with music by Sting, Alanis Morissette, Garbage and others, and a 15-minute talk by the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader.
Michael Wohl, executive director of the New York City-based group, said he believed the album was the reason for the iTunes interruption, though he had no proof.
"We issued a release saying that over 40 (Olympic) athletes downloaded the album in an act of solidarity, and that's what triggered it. Then everything got blocked," Wohl said by phone.
Two boats carrying activists challenging an Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip reached the shore of the Hamas-controlled territory on Saturday.
The 44 "Free Gaza" activists from 17 nations, who had set out on Friday from Cyprus in two wooden boats, were met by thousands of Palestinians who cheered along the shoreline at their arrival.
Several boats carrying flag-waving Gazans met the seafaring activists just offshore and escorted them on the last leg of their 240 nautical mile voyage.
The activists were the first foreigners to cross the coastal blockade and brought with them a symbolic shipment of hearing aids. Despite the cordon, Israel allows humanitarian goods and medical equipment to enter the Gaza Strip.
Craig "Hot Lixx Hulahan" Billmeier of the U.S. performs during the 2008 Air Guitar World Championships in Oulu August 23, 2008. Billmeier won the competition.
Photo by Roni Rekomaa
The daughter of British former prime minister Margaret Thatcher tells how her mother's dementia has left her struggling to remember the simplest facts in book extracts published Sunday.
Carol Thatcher wrote that, on her worst days, her mother struggles to finish sentences but shows occasional glimpses of her old self, particularly when talking about her time in Downing Street.
"I had always thought of her as ageless, timeless and 100 percent cast-iron damage-proof," Carol Thatcher wrote in her memoir, "A Swim-On Part In The Goldfish Bowl", which was serialised in the Mail on Sunday newspaper.
"Whereas previously you never had to say anything to her twice because she'd already filed it away in her formidable memory bank, Mum started asking the same questions over and over again, unaware she was doing so."
Signs are emerging that history is repeating itself in the Big Easy, still healing from Katrina: People have forgotten a lesson from four decades ago and believe once again that the federal government is constructing a levee system they can prosper behind.
In a yearlong review of levee work here, The Associated Press has tracked a pattern of public misperception, political jockeying and legal fighting, along with economic and engineering miscalculations since Katrina, that threaten to make New Orleans the scene of another devastating flood.
Dozens of interviews with engineers, historians, policymakers and flood zone residents confirmed many have not learned from public policy mistakes made after Hurricane Betsy in 1965, which set the stage for Katrina; many mistakes are being repeated.
A recent University of New Orleans survey of residents found concern about levee safety was dropping off the list of top worries, replaced by crime, incompetent leadership and corruption.
Lucy Moore walks across a record breaking photo mosaic of her grandfather in Birmingham, central England, August 23, 2008. The Big Picture mosaic is 900 metre square in size and creates an image made of thousands of photographs submitted by the public. It is constructed from 288 panels, each holding 392 individually placed photographs to meet World Record rules.
Photo by Darren Staples
Fort Hays State University has fired its debate coach for losing his temper at a tournament, engaging in a videotaped shouting match that included pulling down his shorts to expose his underwear.
University President Edward H. Hammond also announced Friday that the school was immediately suspending its debate program until problems are addressed at the national level. He said it was important to take a stand against the declining standards of college debate.
The argument between Fort Hays State debate coach William Shanahan and another coach following a tournament match at Cross Examination Debate Association event at Wichita State University in March received nationwide attention after it was posted on YouTube on Aug. 2.
Hammond said no one from the tournament staff notified university officials about the incident until it was posted on YouTube. Shanahan, an assistant professor of communication studies, taught at the university for 10 years but did not have tenure. He led the university's debate team to a national championship in 2002.
Da Brat was sentenced Friday to three years in prison for hitting a hostess in the head with a rum bottle during an altercation at a suburban Atlanta nightclub last fall.
The 34-year-old rapper, whose given name is Shawntae Harris, pleaded guilty to aggravated assault in DeKalb County. Superior Court Judge Gail Flake sentenced her to three years behind bars and seven on probation, plus 200 hours of community service and completion of substance abuse treatment, mental evaluation and anger management classes.
Harris was at a private Halloween party at Studio 72, a club in Tucker, when she struck then-Atlanta Falcons cheerleader Shayla Stevens, who was working part-time as a hostess.
A police report indicated Harris and Stevens got into a squabble after they bumped into each other. Stevens walked away and moments later was hit in the face with the bottle.
Filipino artist Sunshine Plata paints using coffee as paint during an art session in a kindergarten in Pasig city, suburban Manila August 21, 2008. Plata produces different shades of brown by mixing varying quantities of coffee powder with water. Her works have been exhibited locally and in the Ripley's Museum in New York City. Her paintings sell for $895-1791.
Photo by Romeo Ranoco
The roar of 1,000 motorcycles accompanied a steel beam from the World Trade Center on Saturday as it traveled to Pennsylvania, where it will be part of a memorial to those who died there in a Sept. 11 airliner crash.
Hundreds of current and retired FDNY firefighters escorted the beam from Brooklyn's Floyd Bennett Field to Shanksville, Pa.
In a new memorial being built next to a volunteer fire company, the 2-ton, 14-foot long beam will sit on a base shaped like the Pentagon.
One moment Howard Hawkins Jr. was driving to get an early morning cup of coffee and the next he hit a large grizzly bear running at a full gallop across one of Anchorage's busiest streets.
"It is just unreal," Hawkins said Friday, less than 12 hours after his 2002 Land Rover struck the bear. "I didn't have time to react. I wasn't even able to hit my brakes or anything. What stopped the forward motion of the car is that I ran into a big bear."
Hawkins, 57, plowed into the bear shortly before 4 a.m. in what is the latest in a summer of close encounters between human and bruin in Alaska's largest city.
The male bear came out of the woods from one of Anchorage's many greenbelts. It was struck on a four-lane highway near a large car dealership and RV campground. The collision pushed in the front end of Hawkins' Land Rover. The vehicle's air bags deployed but Hawkins was uninjured.
Corrections were made March 28, 2008, including an added comma and apostrophe, in the first paragraph of a rare, hand-painted sign in the South Rim of the Grand Canyon are seen in this undated photo provided by Grand Canyon National Park. A man from Somerville, Mass., and his friend who went around the country this year removing typographical errors from public signs have been banned from national parks after vandalizing the sign, a historic marker at the Grand Canyon.
It was the dog days of August when the British launched a massive attack to smash the rebellion spreading through the colonies. Landing from ships on the Brooklyn shore, 15,000 redcoats and Hessian mercenaries independent contractors outflanked and then routed Gen. George Washington's amateur army in what would be the biggest battle of the American Revolution.
Trapped, outnumbered and facing certain defeat, the ragtag Americans managed a stealthy escape across the East River to Manhattan, where they would continue the fight, losing battle after battle until they won the war seven years later.
That near-miraculous exploit on Aug. 29, 1776, ended the Battle of Brooklyn, being remembered this week on its 232nd anniversary - a lopsided British victory that humiliated Washington in his first outing as commander and nearly scuttled the American patriots' fight for liberty, less than two months after the Declaration of Independence.
On Saturday, history-minded citizens also will mark the 100th anniversary of the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument, a 149-foot granite obelisk erected over the mass grave of 11,500 people who died aboard British prison ships off Brooklyn during the revolution.
More than 100 reports of Sasquatch sightings are made every year in Southern California, and local members of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Association say they are frustrated that a reported Sasquatch capture in Georgia turned out to be yet another man in a monkey suit, it was reported Saturday.
"These people who conspired to make this hoax brought all the research down, in my opinion," said Palmdale resident Richard Hucklebridge in an interview with the Daily News.
"It kind of upset me," he told the newspaper. "We've been at this for years now and we're trying to prove these things are real."
Hucklebridge said Bigfoots living in the Los Angeles County mountains have "a bad attitude" and are hiding because target shooters take potshots at them.
A new-born Javan Lutung (Trachypithecus auratus), also known as Javan Langur, baby is embraced by Smirre, the mother, in the Budapest Zoo in Budapest, Hungary, Saturday, Aug. 23, 2008. The Javan Langur baby was born on August 18, the mother arriving from the Netherland
Photo by Attila Kovacs
You have reached the Home page of BartCop Entertainment.
Make yourself home, take your shoes off...
Go ahead, scratch it if it itches.
The idea is to have fun.
Do you have something to say?
Anything that increased your blood pressure, or, even better,
amused or entertained?
Do you have a great album no one's heard?
How about a favorite TV show, movie, book, play, cartoon, or legal amusement?
A popular artist that just plain pisses you off?
A box set the whole world should own?
Vile, filthy rumors about Republican musicians?
Just plain vile, filthy rumors?
This is your place.
