'Best of TBH Politoons'
PURPLE GENE'S
PORTA-POTTY POETRY
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Jim Hightower: FORECLOSING ON RENTERS (jimhightower.com)
Ponzi schemes are illegal - unless they're being run by Wall Street bankers and delivering fat profits to some of the world's richest speculators. Then, such scams are legal, unregulated, and have respectable banker monikers like "subprime mortgage pools."
Mark Morford: The top 12 'Top 10' lists of 2007 (sfgate.com)
Best movies? Music? Look elsewhere. Here's the real list to help digest the year gone by.
Top Ten Astronomy Pictures of 2007
Astronomy is arguably the most beautiful of the sciences. I'm biased, of course, but it's nearly impossible to gaze upon a picture of a galaxy, a moon, a nebula, and not see in it something compellingly artistic. Sometimes it's the color, sometimes the shape, and sometimes it's the knowledge that we can understand the subject of the picture itself.
Annalee Newitz: A New Law of Version of Moore's Law
The amount of information in the world is always expanding faster than the data storage systems available to capture it.
PEOPLE WHO DIED (orlandoweekly.com)
They changed the world a little, even if you've never heard of them.
Stress can be managed, even if it seems so overwhelming
Mission possible (telegraph.co.uk)
Susie Bright: The Reality Behind Hollywood Pregnancies
Here's some of the things you can look forward to in your unplanned Hollywood pregnancy.
'I feel like an immoral success story' (guardian.co.uk)
She got her big break in a Hollywood flop and hasn't looked back since. Olivia Williams tells Maddy Costa about movies, motherhood - and her talent for annoying people.
Luaine Lee: Post-'Sopranos,' Steven Van Zandt keeps on rockin' (McClatchy-Tribune News Service ; posted on popmatters.com)
"There's no time for development, you know. We didn't break till our fifth album or something. Most bands don't. If you look back at everybody's history, you'll find - from Led Zeppelin to U2, you name it - most of the big albums are, like, fourth, fifth. Now if you get a second record you're lucky."
Aaron Barnhart: Your mother wouldn't know Craig Ferguson live (McClatchy Newspapers; posted on popmatters.com)
Ferguson's stage show can be, shall we say - in a Scottish accent - a little uncouth. "It's rawer, more freewheeling," he said in a recent interview. "The change is probably philosophical in that, when I'm on television, I'm a guest in your home. When I'm in the theater, the dynamic is more you're a guest in my home. I can say more of what I want. I can put my feet up on the furniture. I can cuss if I like. I can ramble on about stuff that would give the sponsors and the FCC nightmares."
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Overcast and cool.
Pre-taped Show Bombs
People's Choice Awards
The People's Choice Awards bombed in the television ratings as viewers tuned out the strike-altered CBS broadcast, sounding an alarm for upcoming awards programs including the Oscars.
The two-hour show hosted by Queen Latifah on Tuesday averaged just 6 million viewers overall, down 5.3 million from last year, while ratings among viewers ages 18 to 49 -- the group most coveted by advertisers -- fell to less than half the 2007 level, Nielsen Media Research reported on Wednesday.
The film and television awards show had been scaled back from a traditional ceremony, in which stars accept trophies and make speeches onstage, to a "magazine"-style format in which winners gave thank-you speeches in pre-taped interviews.
People's Choice Awards
Pampers-UNICEF Partnership
Salma Hayek
New mom Salma Hayek also has a new job: as spokeswoman for the "One PackOne Vaccine" program, which will provide tetanus shots for needy mothers and their infants in the United States and Canada.
For every pack of Pampers diapers sold between April 1 and June 30, the company will donate funding to UNICEF for one maternal or neonatal tetanus vaccine.
"In our own small way, this is an opportunity for moms like me here in North America to help other mothers on a global level," Hayek, 41, said in a statement Wednesday.
According to UNICEF, tetanus kills 140,000 infants and 30,000 women each year in developing countries.
Salma Hayek
Defends Breaking The FCC
Kevin Martin
U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin (R-Greed Monkey) defended the agency's rule-making procedures and management practices on Wednesday, a day after a congressional committee said it would investigate.
"The practices at the commission I run are very similar to how the commission has been managed under previous Republican and Democratic commissioners and chairmen," Martin, a Republican, told bullshitted reporters after speaking to the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition's and Citizenship Education Fund's Wall Street Project economic summit in New York.
Martin's comments came amid growing friction between Martin and some lawmakers. The House Energy and Commerce committee said Tuesday it launched a formal investigation to determine if the agency had been fair, open, efficient and transparent when crafting regulations.
Kevin Martin
Tentative Deal For Staffers
CBS News
Unionized CBS News staffers who have been working under an expired contract for nearly three years reached a tentative labor agreement with the network, the Writers Guild of America said Wednesday.
The 500 affected employees - who work in New York, Los Angeles, Washington and Chicago, in both TV and radio - must vote on the contract. Positions covered by the contract range from desk assistant to producer, with average base salary between $20,000 and $70,000. The union urged its members to ratify the deal.
The preliminary deal struck between CBS and WGA will give the union staff raises of 3.5 percent annually plus a $3,700 contract bonus. The contract would run through April 1, 2010.
In reaching this agreement, CBS dropped its demand for a two-tiered pay scale that would have given less to local radio workers, and to assign nonunion staff certain writing duties currently reserved for union employees.
CBS News
Denies Euros Only Story
Gisele Bundchen
Euros? Dollars? Pounds? Gisele Bundchen insists she's perfectly happy with them all, again denying reports that the Brazilian supermodel is shunning the weak U.S. dollar in favor of European currency.
Bundchen - known to U.S. sports fans as the girlfriend of quarterback Tom Brady - has been struggling for months to knock down recurring reports that she insists on being paid in euros, which have been rising against the dollar.
"The story of the euro is a lie," she told the Brazilian newspaper O Globo in comments published Wednesday. "I work with many international companies, I earn salaries in different currencies, that's all."
Gisele Bundchen
Scarce In Hollywood
Female Writers
As Hollywood's striking scribes ventured out to their picket lines over the last two months, it's been plain to see - female writers are outnumbered by their male colleagues.
"I'm surprised when I see a woman on the picket line and I always wonder, 'Hmm, do I know her?'" said Sarah McLaughlin, who wrote for "That 70s Show." "If I don't know a woman writer personally, I know of them."
Women make up 27 percent of television writers and 19 percent of feature film writers, according to the most recent Guild membership report from 2005, according to figures supplied by the Writers Guild of America.
Writers attribute the scarcity of women in their midst to tokenism, a tradition of bawdy humor in the writers room, and the dearth of women in key managerial positions.
Female Writers
Tribute Concert Canceled
Johnny Cash
A concert marking the 40th anniversary of Johnny Cash's famous concert at Folsom State Prison has been scrapped, with the prison and the promoter blaming each other for the cancellation.
The tribute concert, scheduled for Sunday, was to have been staged in the same prison cafeteria where Cash performed before inmates on Jan. 13, 1968. That breakthrough performance became a popular live album.
Prison officials called off the show late Monday, citing problems over filming rights, media access and security concerns.
Johnny Cash
Ratings Whore Went Too Far
Dr. Phil
Britney Spears' family says "Dr. Phil" McGraw crossed the line by not keeping his mouth shut after making a house call on the singer last week.
Lou Taylor, a business manager for Spears' mother, Lynne, and younger sister, Jamie Lynn, appeared on NBC's "Today" show Wednesday and said McGraw had betrayed the family's trust by talking to the media about Spears' mental health after showing up at the 26-year-old pop star's hospital room on Saturday for a visit.
"The family basically extended an invitation of trust for him to come in as a resource to support them, not to go out and make public statements," Taylor said. "Any statement publicly that he made, because he was brought in under this cloak of trust, (is) just inappropriate."
Taylor said McGraw was invited to the hospital by Spears' family, but "he was not invited to make this part of a public display or part of the media."
Dr. Phil
Representing Self In Trial
Anthony Pellicano
A federal judge on Wednesday reluctantly allowed Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano to take over as his own lawyer in his trial on charges of illegally wiretapping celebrities.
U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer told Pellicano it was a bad decision but he was required by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling to allow the private investigator to do so if he insisted.
Pellicano's lawyers said later that his motivation was to save them from having to represent him for free in a lengthy trial after the judge refused to appoint them at court expense.
Anthony Pellicano
A&E Renews
'The Two Coreys'
A&E Network is bringing back "The Two Coreys" to air out their grievances, giving a second-season pickup to the reality series starring former child stars Corey Haim and Corey Feldman.
The cable network has ordered 10 new half-hour episodes of the show, and is tentatively targeting a spring premiere.
Haim and Feldman, longtime friends who starred together in such 1980s films as "The Lost Boys" and "License to Drive," were last seen feuding at the end of Season 1, and executives say the two have not seen each other since. In the second season, Haim and Feldman will decide whether to work through their differences or part ways.
'The Two Coreys'
May Cut 1,000 Jobs
Warner Bros.
Up to 1,000 employees on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank could be laid off anytime after Friday as a result of the Hollywood writers strike.
The studio distributed legally mandated warning notices on November 12, five days after the Writers Guild of America walkout began, stating that recipients could be subject to layoff after 60 days. The notices represent the first concrete sign that the strike could trigger massive job cuts across Hollywood.
Those receiving WARN notices are employees of Warner Bros. Studios Facilities, primarily production workers and others involved in lot maintenance and facility management.
Warner Bros.
Rome Robbery
Dionne Warwick
Thieves stole valuables worth more than $100,000, including a diamond ring and a Rolex watch, from pop singer Dionne Warwick's room in a posh Rome hotel, Italian newspapers reported on Wednesday.
The robbers made off with two rings, a necklace, the watch and a pair of earrings left on a night table while the five-time Grammy Award winner was preparing for a concert in Rome on Monday, La Repubblica newspaper said.
The robbery occurred in the same room at the luxurious Hotel De Russie where actress Cameron Diaz encountered a pair of thieves seven years ago, newspapers said.
Dionne Warwick
Women Enter Male-Only Community
Mount Athos
About a dozen Greek women violated a 1,000-year ban on the male-only monastic community of Mount Athos on Tuesday during a protest over disputed land, one of the demonstrators said on Wednesday.
The Greek Orthodox community of 20 monasteries on the Mount Athos peninsula in northern Greece has been off limits for women since it was set up more than 1,000 years ago and is regarded as Orthodox Christianity's spiritual home.
"About 10 women jumped the fence marking the border of the community on Tuesday and spent some 20 minutes on the monks' territory in a symbolic move," Litsa Ammanatidou-Paschalidou, an MP who took part in the protest, told Reuters.
The demonstrators, some 1,000 in total, were opposing claims by five of the community's monasteries to some 20,000 acres of land on the nearby Halkidiki peninsula, among the most popular tourist destinations in Greece.
Mount Athos
Ethiopia
Khat Wine
An Ethiopian scientist is preparing to launch a new tipple for those looking for a twist on the usual glass of the grape -- "wine" made from khat.
Instead of grapes, Eyasu Haile Selassie has been making wine from khat leaf, which is widely chewed throughout East Africa and the Middle East for its narcotic effect.
Also a medical doctor, Eyasu has registered the beverage with the country's Quality and Standard Authority and plans to start commercial production as soon as possible.
But for those hoping the wine will replicate the stimulating buzz of khat leaf, Eyasu was quick to say the drink was purely alcoholic and studies showed that khat leaves lost their amphetamine qualities within 48 hours of harvest.
Khat Wine
In Memory
Johnny Grant
Johnny Grant, Hollywood's longtime honorary mayor, died Wednesday night of apparent natural causes in his bed at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, police said.
Known worldwide as Mr. Hollywood, the short-in-stature but tall-in-spirit Grant represented everything good about the town and the industry he loved and unabashedly promoted like few others.
Grant, the hotel's only full time guest, was found in his bed shortly before 7 p.m., Officer Jason Lee, an LAPD spokesman said.
He regularly appeared alongside celebrities as they received their stars on the Walk of Fame from the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and as they pressed their hands into concrete outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre.
Grant received his star on the Walk of Fame in 1980 for his contributions to television and for his support of the Hollywood community.
His 57 overseas USO tours to entertain America's armed service men and women eclipsed the total tours of his friend and mentor Bob Hope, according to the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce's Web site.
Johnny Grant
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