'Best of TBH Politoons'
Reader Suggestion
Video
Hi marty,
Here is a link to one of the silliest videos I've seen in a while…
It quacks me up. ;-)
(it doesn't end, btw, just keeps repeating)
As always, love your site.
ducks
Thanks, ducks!
Reader Comment
Re: "Rocky"
Thanks for the "Rocky" article
We love driving by the steps of the Art Museum, and seeing folks running
up them - day, night, rain and sun.
Also, thanks for all the fun news clips I might have missed otherwise
(can you imagine the height-challenged Leslie Jordan trying to hijack a
flight using only his Emmy?)
Keep up the good work!
Pattie O
Thanks, Pattie!
We saw Leslie Jordan last year in Del Shores' Southern Baptist Sissies.
At the time, didn't realize Leslie Jordan once played a Ferengi named Kol.
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Aussie refused entry to jet over shirt
MELBOURNE, Australia - A man was removed from a Qantas flight to London because he would not take off a T-shirt with a picture of President Bush and the slogan "World's No. 1 terrorist."
ROBERT C. SOLOMON: Pessimism vs. Existentialism (chronicle.com)
In short, existentialism is not a philosophy that allows us to feel sorry for ourselves in the midst of our malaise. It is a philosophy with which we can come to grips with these terrible times and actually change them. The recent midterm election was encouraging. What it suggests is that America is collectively recouping its existentialist roots, not because of national pessimism but because of what I hope is the beginning of a cooperative optimism and the sense that things as they are cannot stand.
Kathy Adams and Julio Trujillo: Philosophy professor, 64, dies in Switzerland (media.www.dailytexanonline.com)
UT philosophy professor Robert C. Solomon, 64, died Jan. 2 on a trip to Europe to visit his brother.
KAY S. HYMOWITZ: Scenes From the Exhibitionists (opinionjournal.com)
Some of my best friends are women--heck, I am a woman--but I've come to the conclusion that we've seen too much of the fairer sex. For me, the final straw came last month when Britney Spears jauntily revealed her waxed nether-regions to waiting photographers as she exited her limo. Britney's stunt made her the Internet smash of the season. But in providing America's workers with this cubicle distraction, Britney was doing a lot more than making her own privates public.
Roger Ebert: Ebert's take on the Oscar picks
Oscar is growing more diverse and international by the year. This year's Academy Award nominations, announced Tuesday, contain a few titles that most moviegoers haven't seen and some they haven't heard of. That's perhaps an indication that the Academy voters, who once went mostly for big names, are doing their homework and seeing the pictures.
BETH FOUHY: Gore 'thrilled' by Oscar nominations (Associated Press)
Who says politics is show business for ugly people? "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore's film on the perils of global warming, scored two Oscar nominations Tuesday - for best documentary feature and best original song.
Why I hate trying on clothes (guardian.co.uk)
A new survey is highly critical of crowded, smelly, littered high-street changing rooms. No wonder, writes Lucy Mangan, who was recently reduced to tears in one.
Reader Suggestion
Re: Virtual Memory Message
Go Online
bring up your home page
click on tools
click on Internet options
click on Delete Cookies wait till finished
click on Delete Files wait till finished
click on Setting
click on view Files
click on edit
click on select all
click on file
click on delete
now close
now ok
click on clear history
click yes
click ok
restart computer.
should run a little faster.
Go to www.speedzip.com/ down load the free version of dap. That will increase your download speed times (4)
You should NOT change processes that are running, unless you know what you are doing.
If you can get a good Registry editor that will help a lot.
Good Luck
Les
Thanks, Les!
Contributor Comment
Re: Comet
Marty,
The comet continues to change. Check out this spectacular photo. The tail has really grown.
Tip From Kip
Re: Virtual Memory
Sorry, I didn't respond yesterday because the fix is so easy I figured you
would have gotten several responses already.
Here's what you need to do
And then read this
and this
Kip
********
"What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of
little consequence. The only consequence is what we do." - John Ruskin
1000000milesaway.blogspot.com
Thanks, Kip!
Reader Comment
Dakota Fanning
Is Dakota Fanning's Latest Movie Kiddie Porn?
Hounddog premiered at the Sundance Film Festival Monday, despite controversy over its depicted rape of a character played by 12-year-old Dakota Fanning. Online petitions have demanded the arrest of Fanning's mother and agent, alleging that the film could be considered child pornography and asking federal prosecutors to investigate the matter. Is Hounddog kiddie porn?
No - it's free speech. According to federal law, you're not allowed to show anyone under the age of 18 engaging in a sexual act. You're also forbidden from creating a scene that even appears to depict a real kid having real sex; in legalese, you're in trouble if "an ordinary person viewing the depiction would conclude that the depiction is of an actual minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct." (Similar rules can be found in the penal codes for California, which governs most big-budget Hollywood productions, and North Carolina, where Hounddog was filmed.) Hounddog does contain a sex scene involving a real-life minor. But for the film to run afoul of the law, an average viewer would have to think that Dakota Fanning really did engage in sexual intercourse on the set during production.
For the rest - Is Dakota Fanning's Latest Movie Kiddie Porn?
Jim K
Thanks, Jim!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and summerlike.
Ethics Questions
Maria Bartiromo
The friendship between television news anchor Maria Bartiromo and former Citigroup executive Todd Thomson raises questions about ethical boundaries between reporters and their sources, experts said.
Thomson found himself out of a job recently after spending $5 million of Citigroup's money to sponsor a show hosted in part by CNBC news anchor Bartiromo, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
The report said Citigroup executives were also irked by Thomson's flying Bartiromo, called "the Money Honey" by tabloid newspapers, to New York from Beijing, China in a Citigroup corporate jet.
This is not the first time Bartiromo has been at the center of controversy.
Maria Bartiromo
Japanese Comics Conquer France
Manga
With its talking cats and wandering samurais, Japanese manga is taking France's booming comic-book market by storm, challenging home-grown icons like Asterix as young readers lap up the eastern fare.
Whole generations of French people were raised on a diet of comic books, known here as "bandes dessinees", feasting on the adventures of Asterix, the potion-drinking Gaul, the intrepid boy-reporter Tintin, and their descendants.
Last year alone, more than 4,000 new comic book titles hit the shelves in France and French-speaking Belgium and Switzerland -- a three-fold increase since 2000 -- with more than 40 million copies sold, according to market researchers GfK.
But in recent years, characters with names like "Kakashi" or "Mamoru" have been jostling for elbow room with their French-sounding counterparts, with manga now making up 40 percent of all comic book sales in France.
Manga
Jimi Hendrix Energy Drink
'Liquid Experience'
A new energy drink doesn't promise to give you the juice to play guitar like Jimi Hendrix, but it does hope to give you a "Liquid Experience."
Beverage Concepts says its nonalcoholic "Liquid Experience" drinks, named for Hendrix's breakthrough album, "Are You Experienced?" will debut in April.
The image of Hendrix, who died in 1970 from a drug overdose in London, has been licensed for products including baby clothing, an air freshener, lava lamp and a Christmas ornament. Portions of royalties have gone to several educational causes, including the United Negro College Fund, said Bruce Kuhlman, director of licensing and brand development for Authentic Hendrix, the Seattle-based company that controls use of Hendrix's name and images.
'Liquid Experience'
Bored By Iraq Pitch
Susan Sarandon
Actress Susan Sarandon says she was bored by resident Bush's State of the Union address asking Americans to give his troop buildup in Iraq a chance.
"He didn't talk to me about anything new," she said Wednesday, her own anti-war stance unaltered.
Sarandon said she will appear with fellow Hollywood war critics Sean Penn and Tim Robbins at an Iraq war protest this weekend in Washington. Last year, she attended a Mother's Day war protest here and also marched in New York City with "peace mom" Cindy Sheehan.
Susan Sarandon
Leaving Air Force Base
Film Repository
A film repository at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base that for decades has stored and preserved original copies of some of the nation's most famous movies is heading to a new home.
The Library of Congress Motion Picture Conservation Center, which has the original negatives of such classics as "The Maltese Falcon" and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," is moving to a new facility being built in Culpeper, Va., about 90 miles southwest of Washington, D.C.
The conservation center at Wright-Patterson has 98-degree, humidity-controlled vaults housing about 125,000 reels of film containing 25,000 to 30,000 movie titles. Some of the material dates to the 1890s.
The Air Force built the vaults after World War II to store reconnaissance film and military newsreels. In 1969, they were turned over to the Library of Congress, which had been looking for a place to store nitrate film.
Film Repository
Firefighters Damage Mural
Sargent Johnson
A mural, by renowned Harlem Renaissance artist Sargent Johnson, that was produced in 1949 and hung in the Richmond City Hall's council chamber. Two weeks ago the chamber was being readied for major renovation, and employees were tagging furniture and other belongings for removal.
Richmond Fire Battalion Chief Erik Newman noticed the mural, called "The City of Richmond," wasn't tagged.
So, acting on his own, he recruited five firefighters to help him pry the approximately 12-by-20-foot, iron-and-enamel mural made of 13 separate panels from the wall. In the process, enamel along the joints connecting the panels chipped.
A renovation project manager was shocked when he realized what was going on, and told the firefighters that the city had hired professionals to move it, because of its value.
Sargent Johnson
Single Again
Anne Heche
Anne Heche and her husband are separating after five years of marriage, her spokeswoman said Wednesday.
Heche, 37, and Coleman Laffoon, a motion picture cameraman, were married in September 2001. The couple have a 4-year-old son, Homer.
They met while working on a documentary about Ellen DeGeneres' return to stand-up comedy.
Anne Heche
Fined $500,000
Joe Francis
The founder of "Girls Gone Wild" videos featuring young women who take off their tops was fined $500,000 on Monday for violating rules designed to prevent exploitation of minors.
Joe Francis, 33, also was ordered by a federal judge to perform 200 hours of community service and was placed on two years' probation as part of a plea agreement he reached with the Justice Department last September.
In pleading guilty to the two felony counts, Francis admitted he knowingly included footage of two females in his "Ultimate Spring Break" video series without having legible documentation of their ages, as required by law.
Joe Francis
Judge Postpones Paternity Test
Anna Nicole Smith
A Los Angeles judge has pushed back the deadline for Anna Nicole Smith to determine the father of her baby as part of a lawsuit by an ex-boyfriend, a lawyer for the former Playboy Playmate said on Wednesday.
The judge postponed a required paternity test for Smith's daughter, Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern, because a doctor assigned to collect the DNA sample did not have the required work permit for the Bahamas, attorney Richard Rale said. The judge set a new hearing for February 7
Her ex-boyfriend, Larry Birkhead, sued Smith in October, claiming he was the father and demanding a paternity test. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert Schnider ruled in Birkhead's favor and gave Smith until January 23 to provide samples of the baby's DNA.
Anna Nicole Smith
Restaurant Group Objects To Ad
K-Fed
A restaurant trade group says it is insulted by an insurance company's planned Super Bowl ad that stars Kevin Federline as a fast-food worker.
Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co.'s 30-second spot shows Federline, who is estranged from pop princess Britney Spears, performing in a glitzy music video. However, the punch line is that he's daydreaming - while cooking french fries at a fast-food joint.
The ad amounts to a "strong and direct insult to the 12.8 million Americans who work in the restaurant industry," wrote National Restaurant Association President and Chief Executive Steven Anderson in a letter to Nationwide CEO Jerry Jurgensen.
The commercial "would give the impression that working in a restaurant is demeaning and unpleasant," Anderson wrote.
K-Fed
No Charges
Jared Paul Stern
Jared Paul Stern, a former contributor to the New York Post's Page Six gossip column said he was thankful he wouldn't be charged with trying to shake down a billionaire in exchange for good press, but the sensational case has left his life in tatters.
An individual familiar with the federal investigation, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision had not been made public, said the case was being closed because there was no basis to proceed.
Stern, 35, was under federal investigation into whether he tried to extort money from Ronald Burkle, a California billionaire who has given millions of dollars to political causes and is known for his investments in supermarkets.
Jared Paul Stern
Pleads Not Guilty
Snoop Dogg
Snoop Dogg pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a charge of possessing a deadly weapon, a collapsible police baton found in his luggage at an airport.
Snoop Dogg (real name: Calvin Broadus) was charged with the felony count after a security screener at John Wayne Airport noticed the baton in his computer bag on Sept. 27.
He has said the baton was a prop for a video he was filming in New York.
Snoop Dogg
Internet Offerings
Paris Hilton
For those who haven't yet, somehow, had their fill of Paris Hilton, there's a new Web site that has posted a seemingly endless offering of the celebutante's belongings.
The Web site, ParisExposed.com, launched Tuesday. It boasts that it has an array of Hilton photographs, home videos, diaries, love letters, recorded phone conversations and phone numbers of friends and celebrities, all left behind at a Los-Angeles based storage facility.
Users must pay a monthly fee of $39.97 to gain access to the site, which promises footage of the 25-year-old heiress in a "sexy bubble bath" video. It also says it has various shots of Hilton in "racy situations," and footage of her drinking with friends and using illegal substances.
Paris Hilton
Involved In Fatal Traffic Crash
Brandy
R&B singer Brandy was involved in a four-car freeway crash last month that left a 38-year-old woman dead, authorities said Wednesday.
The 27-year-old actress-singer (full name: Brandy Norwood) was driving a 2007 Land Rover on the 405 Freeway on Dec. 30, when the collision occurred.
She failed to slow down and struck the back of a 2005 Honda at about 65 mph, according to a California Highway Patrol report.
Brandy
Treasure Trove Of Fossils
Australia
Caves in the Sun-scorched, treeless wilderness of southern Australia's Nullarbor plain have revealed one of the world's most remarkable collections of fossils, including species of now-extinct kangaroos that lived hundreds of thousands of years ago.
The three Thylacoleo caves, located about 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the coast, were uncovered by potholers in 2002.
The fossils date back to the Middle Pleistocene era, between 800,000 and 200,000 years ago.
They include 23 species of kangaroo, eight of which had never been identified before. Two of the species were tree kangaroos which had adapted to living in branches.
Australia
| CURRENT MOON lunar phases |
