'TBH Politoons'
Thanks, again, Tim!
#23
Reader Suggestion
from 'Mr. B'
Recent discussion at DU produced the following idea.
The current 37 cent stamp has a picture of the US Flag. Please encourage all who are against giving Bush authority to initiate a preemptive war to place the 37 cent stamp in the inverted position when they mail letters, etc.. That is a passive protest against our elected representatives who are ignoring their constitutents.
Thanks, 'Mr. B'
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Was a beautiful day - bright blue sky, with a nice breeze.
Got up to find that the kittens had been in the African violets. The kitchen sink is set at an angle, and there are windows looking east & north with a lovely
tiled platform that is just perfect for plants. The Venetian blind on the north side is now missing slats, and several of the remaining are broken and/or askew, too. The poor plants
were pretty much de-leaved, while the kittens had guilty grins.
Also had to transfer Jo 'the lucky lizard' (as the kid refers to it - or the 'remaining' lizard as I tend to think), to another habitat.
Did anyone see the last bit on SNL - 'The War In Iraq'? Yeah, I guess the 'given' is that there will be a lot of
moustaches involved.
Tonight, Sunday, CBS, as is tradition, starts the night with '60 Minutes', and is followed by the season premiere of 'Becker', then the series premiere of 'Bram & Alice', followed by the tv-movie 'Hell On Heels: The Battle Of Mary Kay', starring Shirley MacLaine', wearing a lot of pink.
NBC offers up 'Dateline', a fresh 'American Dream', then a fresh 'Law & Order: Criminal Intent', and a fresh 'Boomtown'.
ABC opens with the movie 'Toy Story 2', then a fresh 'Alias' and a fresh 'The Practice'.
The WB starts with a rerun 'Gilmore Girls', then a fresh 'Charmed' and a fresh 'Angel'.
Faux has a rerun 'Futurama' and then the movie 'Die Hard'.
UPN has 'Buffy', 'Enterprise', and 'Stargate SG-1'.
TCM has the seldom-seen Alice's Restaurant (1969), which was a much better song
than movie. It stars Arlo Guthrie, and includes an appearance by
Pete Seeger, so I tend to be partial.
Anyone have any opinions?
Or reviews?
(See below for addresses)
Big Dog Watch Continues
Bill Clinton In Munich
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton reacts after receiving the European SME award, during a gala dinner of the European Union of small and medium-sized
enterprises in Munich, southern Germany, Friday, Oct. 4, 2002.
Photo by Uwe Lein
Offers Cash For Highway Signs
The 'Dave Letterman Expressway'
David Letterman has an offer: He'll pay for new road signs if Mayor Bart Peterson renames the highway that circles Indianapolis the "Dave Letterman Expressway."
On the "Late Show" that aired on CBS Thursday night, the talk-show host extended the offer after joking for weeks about renaming Interstate 465.
"How about this: What if we change the name of that to the 'Dave Letterman Expressway'?" Letterman said in an on-air conversation with Peterson.
"You know, Dave, I will tell you, I like that idea," the mayor said.
Letterman had been saying he would pay $10 million for the renaming rights, but when he actually reached the mayor he pledged only to pay for new signs.
"What happened to the $10 million?" Peterson asked.
"That's a different telephone call," Letterman replied.
The 'Dave Letterman Expressway'
Good Works With A Twist Of Irony
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand gave $45,000 to Bill Clinton's William Jefferson Clinton Foundation in 2000, more than twice the amount she doled out to any other charity. According to financial filings of the Barbra Streisand Foundation posted
on drudge's site, Streisand distributed $580,810 that year, after donating $3,184,028 to her foundation. The ex-president received more than anyone else. The Quincy Jones Listen Up Foundation got $1,000. The Nelson Mandela Foundation
got $10,000. Norman Lear's People for the American Way netted $20,000. Streisand, an avid stock market player, made $1.44 million in trading profits on the foundation's $3.2 million portfolio. Unlike her contributions, the investments
seem to be blind to politics. Her foundation briefly held 800 shares of Halliburton, the oil service giant where Dick Cheney was CEO before he became vice president. The trades lost the foundation $1,838.
Barbra Streisand
Planetarium Re-Named For Star Trek Creator
Gene Roddenberry
A Texas school district's planetarium is boldly going where no other stargazing facility has gone before.
The El Paso Independent School District's 33-year-old facility was renamed Gene Roddenberry Planetarium on Friday. Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, was born in El Paso in 1921. He died in 1991.
At a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the renaming, and dinner afterward, district officials were joined by Star Trek actors and astronaut Richard Gordon, who orbited the moon on Apollo XII.
"It's particularly meaningful because Gene hired us," said Michael Dorn, who played Worf on "Star Trek: The Next Generation," and "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine."
Roddenberry's son, Eugene Roddenberry Jr., also visited the address where his father was born.
Gene Roddenberry
Anti-war protesters demonstrate in Manchester, N.H. Saturday Oct. 5, 2002 where President Bush is helping Rep. John Sununu, R-N.H., campaign for the U.S. Senate.
Photo by Jim Cole
fork-you.com - Learn how to BEND FORKS with your mind like psychics do
Live Video From Atlantis!
'Shuttlecam'
In a dramatic first for human space flight, a camera will beam down live video as shuttle Atlantis soars into orbit this week.
The shuttlecam view will start with the launch pad, then the whole launch site and then all of Cape Canaveral and the Eastern Seaboard as Atlantis
blasts off and climbs higher and higher.
Two minutes into the flight, viewers should see the booster rockets peeling away. Six minutes later, Atlantis will separate from its fuel tank,
with the grand curvature of Earth below.
Show time is Monday afternoon, after nearly seven weeks of delay.
The shuttlecam, mounted near the top of Atlantis' 154-foot external fuel tank, will be activated 15 minutes before liftoff. A timer will turn it off 15 minutes after liftoff to prevent radio
interference in the countries below, said Mike Butler, an engineer with NASA's external tank project.
The entire ride to orbit will be televised live by NASA and available on its Internet site.
The color video camera, an off-the-shelf model just six inches long, costs $2,200. But design and installation of the heavily insulated camera system jacked up the price. Two antennas had
to be placed on Atlantis' fuel tank to transmit the video to ground stations, along with an electronics box.
'Shuttlecam'
NASA
Non-Hate Based Talk Radio !
Erin Hart
Non-hate based talk radio - what a concept!
Join Erin Hart at regulation time (9 pm to 1 am [pst] Sat & Sun ) on www.710kiro.com or www.kiro710.com (It's
a browser thing), even though KIRO no longers streams audio - BOO. HISS.
There's a chatroom, too!
For more details, visit Erin's fan page (courtesy of 14Dem),
http://www.erinhartshow.com, or to join her mailing list, drop a
note to erinistas@aol.com
Targets Net Swappers
Music Industry
Music companies tried to persuade a judge Friday to let them obtain the names of people suspected of trading music files online without going to court first,
a move that could dictate how copyright holders deal with Internet piracy in the future.
Internet service provider Verizon is resisting the music industry's subpoena, saying that it could turn Internet providers into a turnstile for piracy suits
and put innocent customers at risk.
U.S. District Judge John D. Bates, who heard the case, lamented ambiguities in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which was enacted to uphold copyright
laws on the Internet while shielding technology companies from direct liability.
The subpoena hearing, which is normally a tame affair, was contentious because the music industry sees it as a test case. If it succeeds, it plans to send
reams of cease-and-desist letters to scare file-swappers into taking their collections offline.
For a lot more, Music Industry
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Sold at Auction
Paul McCartney
A handwritten note by Paul McCartney that includes a two-line quotation from a Beatles song has fetched 1,350 pounds (US$2,100) at auction.
McCartney quoted the opening lines of "Penny Lane," the song he penned about a street in his hometown of Liverpool, in a note to an old family friend.
Richard Westwood-Brookes of Swindon's Dominic Winter Book Auctions said Saturday that such quotations are "extremely rare."
The song's opening lines are: "In Penny Lane there's a barber showing photographs of every head he has had the pleasure to know, and all the people that come and go, stop and say hello."
The bank, roundabout and fire station mentioned in the song are all still on the street and the barber shop is now a unisex hair salon — with a photograph of the Beatles in the window.
The 1960s note, sold on Friday, closes with the words "All the best, to Dad xxx".
Paul McCartney
Nellis Air Force Base
Heritage Flight
An Air Combat Command heritage flight passes in formation at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., Saturday, Oct. 5, 2002, as part of the Aviation Nation Airshow. The heritage formation consisted of a modern F-15, top, two World War II-era P-51s, middle, and a
Korean war-era F-86.
Photo by Joe Cavaretta
TV Coverage Wins Casey Journalism Award
Nick's Crusade
The Casey Journalism Center on Children and Families is a non-partisan national resource for professional journalists who cover the lives of children and families in the United States, particularly the disadvantaged. CJC is a program of the
Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland and is funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation and The David and Lucile Packard Foundation.
The winner in ''Television: Short Form'' is Bruce Mildwurf, WPMI-TV/Mobile, Ala ('NBC 15')., for ''Nick's Crusade.''
Judges' comments included: An original, moving piece of journalism that explored a little-known policy quirk with a major impact: Alabama's Medicaid coverage requires disabled youths to move into out-of-home nursing care once they reach 21. Refusing
to succumb to television's chronic memory lapses, Mildwurf continued to follow the battle of Nick Dupree for months, to the state capital and even to Washington, D.C. He captured the larger picture without ever losing the drama of Dupree's plight.
To read the whole story, Bruce Mildwurf, WPMI-TV/Mobile, Ala
Better yet, check out Nick's Crusade!
Recalls Nebraska Hometown
Marg Helgenberger
Marg Helgenberger fantasized about becoming a star while plunging knives into beef carcasses during her summer job at a meatpacking plant in her Nebraska hometown.
"I would just daydream about doing Broadway, sing songs through my head. I guess I am sort of proof that dreams do come true," said the Emmy-winning actress, star of the CBS hit "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation."
"I just kind of put one foot in front of the other and got lucky," said Helgenberger, who worked as a meatpacker in North Bend, Neb. (population 1,213), more than 20 years ago.
She went from college graduation to a four-year role on the daytime soap "Ryan's Hope." Then came her Emmy-winning role of K.C. Koloski, a heroin-addicted prostitute, on "China Beach."
Helgenberger, who plays crime scene investigator Catherine Willows, says she isn't surprised that "CSI" is one of television's top-rated shows.
"A good mystery is always going to be in vogue," the 43-year-old said by phone from Las Vegas, where she was shooting scenes for the drama.
Marg Helgenberger
Marg Helgenberger Web site
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
BartCop TV!
Rome Festival Celebrates The 'Fab Four'
Beatlemania
Beatlemania is again sweeping the Italian capital, with a 17-day "Fab Four" festival starting Saturday, including cover bands blaring the group's songs around Rome from trucks, theatrical productions and even new mobile-phone rings.
City officials, led by Mayor Walter Veltroni, have organized the tribute to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the band's first single, "Love Me Do," which made the Top 20 in Britain in October 1962.
Many events will take place in the hip Trastevere neighborhood, with documentaries and films such as "Yellow Submarine" screened at the area's Museo di Roma. This museum will also show three exhibitions of photos and art of the band.
On Oct. 20, '60s pop star Donovan will perform at Rome's newly built Auditorium.
And for those preferring a more modern take on nostalgia, a mobile phone company has agreed to offer customers new rings: "Love Me Do," "Yellow Submarine" and "Hey Jude."
Beatlemania
Saturday
Portland, OR
Elena Rodriguez, front, cheers during an anti-war demonstration in Portland, Ore., Saturday, Oct. 5, 2002. Over 5,000 people attended the protest.
Photo by John Gress
Company Seeks New Face
Brawny Man
He's still tough and sexy, but the new Brawny man doesn't mind helping with the housework.
The paper towel maker was expected to announce five finalists for its new product model Saturday, and the nominations make the traditional mustachioed lumberjack look like a throwback.
Thousands of women who sent nominations for the new beefcake rated helpfulness over muscles and said a perfect man would be using the paper towels, not just selling them.
The five finalists are firefighters from St. Louis, Ohio and Los Angeles, a former firefighter from Minnesota and a social worker from New York. Online voting continues
for two weeks, with the new Brawny man to appear on towel rolls late this year.
Over the years, the heartthrob got new hair (shorter with a side part) and a new shirt (he ditched the flannel one for blue denim two years ago), but otherwise he's
the same guy who's been pitching paper towels for years.
Brawny Man
Pictures of the Brawny man finalists
Magazine Requests Libel Cost Repayment
John Major
A British political magazine said on Friday its lawyers were trying to get former Prime Minister John Major to repay libel damages he won from it over claims he had an affair.
The New Statesman, a left-of-center weekly, paid damages and costs in 1993 after falsely accusing the ex-premier of having an affair with a caterer.
The former Conservative premier said the reports harmed his reputation and successfully sued the magazine.
But the New Statesman wants its money back after Major's admission last week that he had a four-year affair in the mid 1980s with former Conservative minister Edwina Currie.
"John Major's view was that it was damaging to him even to suggest that he could have had an adulterous affair," the New Stateman's editor, Peter Wilby, told Reuters.
The Times newspaper broke the news of the affair between Major and Currie when it began publishing extracts from Currie's diaries last Saturday.
John Major
Returns to Dalai Lama's HQ
Richard Gere
When not dealing with requests for funds for everything from penniless refugees to a Tibetan beauty pageant, Richard Gere fretted this week over the garbage and traffic chaos around the headquarters of the exiled Dalai Lama.
Visiting for the first time in 2 1/2 years, the 53-year-old actor said he was appalled at the filth and deterioration in Dharmsala, where the Dalai Lama has lived with thousands of Tibetan refugees since 1957.
In 2000, the Gere Foundation drafted a comprehensive plan, including waste management strategies and a traffic control program. None of it has come to pass. Sewers are half-finished and the roads are rubble.
"I haven't been able to devote the time to it that I thought I could," said Gere, who's been a supporter of the Tibetan cause for 15 years. "I thought I'd be back before 2 1/2 years."
Now he's found someone to take over in his absence, the Dalai Lama's younger sister Jetsun Pema, the force behind the extensive Tibetan school system in India.
Richard Gere
Gere Foundation
'The Osbournes'
'The Osbournes' ~ Page 3
'The Osbournes' ~ Page 2
'The Osbournes' ~ Page 1
#17
