'TBH Politoons'
Thanks, again, Tim!
Reader Comment
Re: NFL Preseason football
Hi Marty...
That's right! It's that time of year again! Football! Yeah! Football! I luv ya, girl, but, GET OVER IT!
There's NOT a thing you can do about it. It's in your face, haha! All football, all the time, I say...
badtotheboneBob
p.s. love yer site. It's one of my first reads daily...
Thanks, BTTBBob!
Don't get me wrong - I actually like football, especially college football.
Even worked at the old SportsChanneLA, way back when.
What annoys me is this preseason shit.
Start the season already (although once the season really starts the networks will cut back on the number of games aired).
It's just having grown up on the east coast, football this time of year seems weirdly out of sync.
Football is the season of autumn leaves and brisk days not smog alerts and beach weather.
OTOH, LA no longer has a pro team.
And it's not as if Georgia & her little lambs or Al Davis & the Raiders left a bad smell behind.
from Mark
Another Bumpersticker
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
The too-cool-for-the-season weather is becoming a fond memory.
Did anyone see Maureen Dowd on Letterman Friday night? Have never seen Dave devote the whole show to 1 person like that before.
Also watched Craigger's farewell show. Wonder what the real story is there.
Still looking for a 'Survivor' reporter. Figure it has to be someone's 'guilty pleasure' - share!
Team co-owner and actor Paul Newman drives his scooter after visiting the Newman/Haas team at the end of morning practice session Saturday Aug. 28, 2004 in Montreal.
Photo by Jacques Boissinot
The Information One-Stop
Moose & Squirrel
Palm Springs to Dedicate Road
Kirk Douglas
Motorists cruise Coachella Valley desert streets named Gerald Ford Drive, Ginger Rogers Road, Dinah Shore Drive, Gene Autry Trail, Frank Sinatra Drive and Bob Hope Drive.
Now, there's Kirk Douglas Way near Palm Springs International Airport.
The city will rename Airport Road in honor of the film legend, a Palm Springs resident for more than a half-century. The renaming ceremony takes place Oct. 17, assistant city manager Troy Butzlaff said Thursday.
Kirk Douglas
Lashes Out In Open Letter
Michael Moore
Michael Moore has entered the fray over Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry's Vietnam war record with a sarcasm-soaked open letter to resident George W. Bush accusing him of "attacking a wounded vet."
"It Takes Real Courage to Desert Your Post and Then Attack a Wounded Vet," is the opening salvo of the letter, dated Thursday, by the man whose Bush-bashing documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" was a box office blockbuster in the United States last month after winning the coveted Palme d'Or prize at the Cannes Film Festival.
The letter accuses Bush of links to a veterans group that has questioned Kerry's honesty and his record in Vietnam, where he was wounded three times and awarded the Silver and Bronze Stars for valor.
Moore accused Bush of using the same tactic with his rival in the 2000 Republican primaries, Vietnam veteran Senator John McCain, and with former senator Max Cleland, a triple amputee who lost his 2002 election bid following a campaign in which opposition groups released ads comparing him to Osama bin Laden.
Michael Moore
Arthur Ashe's widow Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe (L) and daughter Camera Ashe look at the Arthur Ashe commemorative stamp unveiled at the USTA National Tennis Center, during the 'Arthur Ashe Kid's Day' in Flushing, New York on August 28, 2004.
Photo by Dave Allocca
Up 'Late' for Last Time
Craig Kilborn
Craig Kilborn bid farewell to viewers of CBS' "Late Late Show" on Friday, concluding five seasons as its host despite the program's expanding audience.
Since announcing two weeks ago that he was leaving, the 42-year-old Kilborn has had difficulty explaining why he is walking away from a show that has seen its audience grow by more than a third during his tenure.
He has said it was simply time to do something else and returned to that theme Friday.
"It's one of the happiest days of my life, and I'll tell you why," he said. "I got to do a dream job ... My job is done here. It's time for me to move on. I dreamed of early retirement and that's probably what I got."
Some of Kilborn's favorite guests returned to say goodbye, including actors Vince Vaughn, Marlee Matlin, Martin Mull, Adam West and comedian Will Ferrell. Wayne Newton sent his regards via satellite from Las Vegas.
Craig Kilborn
GOP Family Entertainment Values
Britney Spears
A Republican group has blamed pop rebel Britney Spears for "undermining the sexual morality" of American citizens after learning she has been approached to perform at this year's Republican National Convention.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports the singer has been asked to sing at George W Bush's political party bash at New York's Madison Square Garden next week, much to the disgust of Republican group the Illinois Family Institute.
American website The Scoop reports the institute emailed members, saying, "Through her immature antics, Spears has probably done more to undermine sexual morality than all the misguided legislation introduced in the United States over the last decade.
The group is urging Republicans to phone the Republican Party convention hotline to protest Spears' unsuitability, due to her infamous kiss with Madonna at last year's MTV Video Music Awards and her Las Vegas 55 hour marriage to childhood pal Jason Alexander in January
Britney Spears
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Wants to Display Memorabilia
Jane Withers
Actress Jane Withers hopes to create a museum to preserve her vast collection of Hollywood memorabilia, which is now scattered among the living rooms, garages, basements and backyards of her friends.
Through the years, the star of more than 50 films has amassed dolls, costumes, scripts and other Hollywood mementos, an awe-inspiring collection of more than 42,000 keepsakes that included an autographed pair of Fred Astaire's dancing shoes and the movie set from "My Fair Lady."
After the warehouse storing her collection raised the rent, friends across the city agreed to take the items. Now Withers is trying to let go of her collection and hopes to get help from the Hollywood community to establish a museum and learning center.
Jane Withers
Greek activists display banner on the Acropolis hours before a scheduled visit by the Secretary of State Colin Powell to Greece August 28, 2004. Powell abruptly canceled plans to attend the Olympics closing ceremony in Athens on Sunday, a visit that had triggered angry protests from anti-war groups. The Greek reads: 'Don't forget in Najaf they're slaughtering innocents, in Palestine they're building a wall', in Athens Saturady Aug. 28, 2004.
Photo by John Kolesidis
Worked to NBC's Advantage
Taped Events
NBC packaged the taped events of its prime-time Athens Olympics broadcast as if they were unfolding live, assuming that viewers didn't take advantage of plenty of opportunities to learn the results in advance. That's like thinking everyone comes to a complete stop before turning at a stop sign. In Athens, this wink-wink, nod-nod game with the viewers helped NBC.
Through Thursday, the average prime-time viewership in Athens was up 13 percent from Sydney. Because of those rosy ratings, NBC may beat its anticipated profits from advertising by 50 percent after all the invoices are added up.
The success of Athens means NBC will almost certainly keep the same approach. The network has the rights to each Olympics through 2012 and its production guru, NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol, has a contract that runs through that year.
The 2006 winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, have a time difference (six hours ahead the eastern U.S.) similar to Athens (seven hours). The 2008 summer games in Beijing will present a Sydney-like challenge with a 13-hour time difference.
Taped Events
Formerly 'The Vidiot'
Banned Dutch Ship
Women on Waves
The operators of a Dutch boat made into a floating abortion clinic vowed to take Portugal to court after the country refused permission for the ship to enter its territorial waters.
Rebecca Gomperts, the doctor who five years ago founded the Women on Waves Foundation which manages the clinic, said the ban violated European Union rules on the freedom of movement between member states.
The ship requested permission late Friday to dock in the northern port of Figueira da Foz, where it planned to stay for two weeks to hand out abortion pills to women with unwanted pregnancies of up to six and a half weeks.
But Portugal's center-right government refused Saturday to give the vessel permission to enter national waters, saying the measure was intended to ensure respect for the staunchly Roman Catholic country's strict laws against abortion.
It was the first time the ship, which visited Ireland in 2001 and Poland two years later, has been refused entry into a country's territorial waters.
Women on Waves
Arun Gandhi the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi writes graffiti on a concrete wall section of the controversial Israeli security barrier in the village of Nazlet Isa near the West Bank town of Tulkarm August 28, 2004. The grandson of Mahatma Gandhi told about 2,000 protesters at Israel's West Bank barrier on Friday that the wall recalled the way South Africa's former white-minority regime treated blacks.
Photo by Mustafa Abu Dayha
Voice of Bart Simpson
Nancy Cartwright
She walks the streets unrecognized despite providing the voice of TV's most infamous animated rapscallion, but it seems a little bit of Bart Simpson has seeped into Nancy Cartwright.
Cartwright has been the voice of Bart for more than 330 episodes of "The Simpsons." To the public she seems to be an average Homer or Marge -- and that's how she wants it.
"I love being a celebrity where nobody knows my face," she said at Edinburgh's Fringe Festival late Friday.
Cartwright also does the voices for "Simpsons" mainstays Nelson "Smell ya later" Muntz and Ralph "My cat's breath smells like cat food" Wiggum, along with Rod and Todd Flanders
For the rest, Nancy Cartwright
GOP Fete Stirs Debate
Johnny Cash
Was the man in black a Democrat or a Republican? The son of the late singer Johnny Cash, who captured the hardscrabble life of those on the margins in songs such as "Folsom Prison Blues" and "One Piece at a Time," says his dad never hinted about his party choice.
Uncertainty aside, Republicans plan to pay tribute to Cash as Sotheby's auction house in New York Tuesday night, one of many convention-related celebrations. Sotheby's will be auctioning Cash memorabilia Sept. 14-16.
But the event, sponsored by the American Gas Association and Nissan Motor Co., has a handful of folks upset and planning to protest. Cash, they argue, shared the views of a Democrat.
Cash's daughter, Rosanne Cash, who has been linked to Democratic causes, released a statement saying the Cash estate did not object to the Sotheby's party. She said the party was approved based on the "personal relationship between our family and (Sen. Alexander), NOT as a show of support for the Republican agenda."
Johnny Cash
Japanese women perform at a Samba festival in Tokyo August 28, 2004. The annual samba carnival attracted hundreds of thousands of people while 4,500 samba dancers and participants paraded with floats along downtown streets in the Asakusa district.
Photo by Toshiyuki Aizawa
World's Most Dangerous Volcano
Mount Vesuvius
Mount Vesuvius in southern Italy is the world's most dangerous volcano, and a constant threat to hundreds of thousands of people who live in its shadow, an Italian expert said.
Some 700,000 people live in the area of the Vesuvius, near the southern city of Naples which itself has a population of one million.
Before the volcano's last major eruption, in 1631, 17th-century documents suggest that warning signals -- ground tremors, dense smoke -- had started appearing for several weeks.
Italian authorities have made plans for a mass evacuation, with every region in Italy having agreed to provide for a town in the Vesuvius area, and simulated evacuations have been staged.
Mount Vesuvius
In Memory
Laura Branigan
'Eyes Wide Open', an exhibit on the human costs of the Iraq war includes more than 970 combat boots on display in Central Park, New York, August 28, 2004. There is also a wall of remembrance to memorialize the U.S. military and Iraqi civilian casualties of the war.
Photo by Heidi Schumann
'The Osbournes'
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