'Best of TBH Politoons'
Thanks, again, Tim!
Jazz From Hills
TrimmedBush and Hedges
Retail Sales, Memorial Days, and Tutorials
Today is Memorial Day, May 31st, 2004. It's a holiday where retail mattress sales supercede what should really be honored: pure materialism. What? What's wrong? Oh yeah, it's patriotism. Or what the...
There are countless stories from veterans that could be made into cool movies about how guys jumped out of planes in the pitch black of night, landing in occupied territory only to shrug it off as a days work. These fuckers survived, and goddammit, who in the fuck am I to doubt their bravery? No one, I only have cool stories about women, drugs, Mexico, and music.
I don't doubt anything these guys say because of the look on their faces when they tell these accounts of history, plus, we kicked the the living shit out of Hitler, we made the guy blow his brains out of his skull so....
I'm a writer who knows that history has proved that leaders during wartime tend to blind-side the fuck out of the American Republic, and that the guys that serve in forces and truly protect our freedom tend to be mid-class and lower, from all races, creeds and colors.
Rich kids, like our current president, never serve, they never did. Get real. George Sr.'s son going to combat? God forbid. Bunnypants preferred to lie about his record at the AARP, or whatever little unit he joined.
Landing on the carrier in his little Air Force costume in the combat jet was the closest Smirky has ever been to the frontline. That qualifies him as an evil man who made our young men go to Iraq for, god, now I have no clue.
There are only two options of reality. One is to accept the story that his intel was so bad that he made the call to invade based upon his neo-con staff telling him lies as to what they knew, and when they knew what. The second option of reality is that we invaded Iraq purely out of spite. If it is nothing than a spite war, then we have a non-elected "president" who happens to be what makes Watergate seem like a pissing contest, and might qualify the asshole as a war criminal, pleae read my aticle in the January archive.
What has this man done? It's time to decide. Two troops per day is the average now coming into Delaware in a box cloaked in a flag. Do you really think this was necessary?
I recently received some nice hate mail threatening my life because of one of my articles. I responded like I usually respond, what makes you think any war was necessary? Every day seems like more bullshit.
George Senior is now chief consultant for the Carlyle Group, who turns out to have received a no-bid contract re-building infrastructure in Iraq, specifically telephone/cable lines, and other utility related projects. The company's stock soared, and who has a shitload of that stock? Mother Barbara. Cheney and Halliburton and Brown and Root receiving no-bid contracts, where is the sense of conflict of interest, or morality?
Seems awfully reminiscent of the whole election process of 2002, doesn't it? Just think of what one man can do in that Oval Office. It's sickening.
The blatant manner of this shit seems like that an "average joe" such as myself would get it now that war profiteering is an ungodly inhumane and disgusting way to make money. I wonder how it differs from murder in a moral sense, or does it?
Next time you vote, Republicans like contracts amongst themselves, Democrats tend to prefer jobs for themselves so they don't eat dog food. And by the way, you hate-mail boys, please go and have a flying fuck in the moon. Come to Placitas and we can chat.
--
Posted by phillip vincent to to TrimmedBush
Mr. Hawk's Suggestion
Blackadder Goes Forth
This week begins the last of the series for Blackadder. I am ambivelent about this particular series. While there are good laughs some things I
definitely don't care for. The big 2 are 1. Blackadder is now just a lowly
captain, in series 1 he was the King's son, how low could he go. 2. Baldric
has gone from an upperwardly moblie peasant to just being crude and
disgusting, even his cunning plans... aren't.
But as always comedy is topical. This weeks episode has Blackadder trying
to escape the hell of the trenches by becoming a war reporter. He believes
this will get him back to the fleshpots of Paris. But to his horror he's
really volunteered to be a sketch artist spying between the lines. As this
occupation has as much life expectancy as truth has in Bush's White House
something has to be done. Blackadder becomes the antithesis of Chalabi. The
war elephants are a nice touch.
One more thing, I said last week that BBC America was running 'Fawlty Towers'
at 2 pm, well its now the 'Vicar of Dibley' at 2 followed by 'Are You Being
Served?'.
~ Mr. Hawk
Dissent is not Terrorism
Freedom is not Legislated
Thanks, Mr. Hawk!
from Mark
Another Bumpersticker
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Bit cooler, still sunny.
This week is the PTA book-sale, so the kid & I stopped by after school and bought some books.
Busted him about an hour ago reading with a flashlight under the covers in bed.
So it turns out he had 2 flashlights in his room and I just busted him again.
Once this semester is over I'll be happy to turn a blind eye to flashlight-under-the-covers reading. Not that I ever did anything like that when I was a kid.
Resident Bush, right, holds his wind-blown umbrella upright as he walks towards Air Force One during a rainstorm Tuesday, June 1, 2004, at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington. Man at left is United States Air Force Deputy Wing Commander Col. John R. Ranck, Jr.
Photo by Charles Dharapak
The Information One-Stop
Moose & Squirrel
Moore Releases Trailer
'Fahrenheit 9/11'
The trailer for Michael Moore's incendiary new documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" debuts in theaters Friday, but the curious can find it on his Web site a day earlier.
The Academy Award-winning filmmaker's new movie criticizes resident Bush's response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, portrays the Iraq war as a conflict that has unnecessarily endangered the American military, and connects the Bush family to Osama bin Laden's.
"Fahrenheit 9/11" debuts in theaters June 25.
'Fahrenheit 9/11'
Next Week's Fund-Raisers
John Kerry
Two major concerts will be held next week -- one Monday in Los Angeles at the Walt Disney Concert Hall and one June 10 in New York at Radio City Music Hall -- to raise money for the John Kerry campaign.
The Los Angeles gala will feature performances by Barbra Streisand, Neil Diamond, Willie Nelson and Billy Crystal, while the New York show boasts Bette Midler, James Taylor, John Mellencamp, Jon Bon Jovi, Wyclef Jean, Robin Williams and Whoopi Goldberg.
"It's very ambitious. I don't think the artistic community has gotten together to raise this much money in one effort in my recollection," said Jann Wenner, editor and publisher of Rolling Stone, who is executive producing both events. "The artist community is united on this because of the kinds of values that the artist community shares and feels deeply are very threatened by the current administration.
The Los Angeles show also is being produced by Miramax co-chair Harvey Weinstein, Streisand's manager Marty Erlichman and special-event producer Ken Ehrlich. The host committee includes Rhea Perlman and Danny DeVito, Laurie and Larry David, Warren Beatty and Annette Bening, Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen, Dustin Hoffman, Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Affleck and Rita Wilson.
For the New York event, Wenner and Weinstein are working closely with John Sykes, chairman and CEO of Infinity Broadcasting System. The host committee includes Chevy Chase, Jimmy Fallon, Richard Gere, Jessica Lange and Uma Thurman. Darlene Love also will be on hand to do a surprise performance with Midler. Kerry will speak at both galas.
John Kerry
Italian peace activists, lying down, pretend to be the victims of a bombing on the Ponte Sant' Angelo bridge, as part of a demonstration against US and Italian forces in Iraq, during the Republic Day military parade and celebrations in Rome, Wednesday June 2, 2004. In background at left, a statue of an angel is hooded with a garbage bag, put there to protest against reported acts of torture by US forces in Iraq. In background, Castel Sant' Angelo fortress.
Photo by Corrado Giambalvo
London's Mayor Says Sack Bush
Ken Livingstone
London's outspoken mayor Ken Livingstone, facing a re-election bid next week, made an impassioned plea to US voters come November to remove resident George W. Bush.
"What I want is the people of America to get rid of him," he told BBC radio.
"They didn't vote for him last time," he said, referring to the controversial 2000 race, one of the closest in US history, in which Democrat Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the election after the Supreme Court intervened to award Bush the deciding electoral votes.
Livingstone said another four years with Bush in the White House would spell catastrophe for the environment and world affairs.
For more, Ken Livingstone
Filmmaker Defends Documentary
'The Hunting of the President'
A film that claims to expose "the 10-year campaign to destroy Bill Clinton)" is scheduled for its first public screening June 15 in Little Rock.
"The Hunting of the President," a 90-minute documentary that re-creates interviews for the New York Times best-selling book by the same name, has already played at four film festivals and will premiere by invitation only in New York on June 11. The movie's general release date is June 23.
Director Harry Thomason will attend the Little Rock premiere and is to be joined by the authors of the book, journalists Gene Lyons and Joe Conason, as well as some of those interviewed in the film, including Whitewater figure Susan McDougal.
Oscar-nominated actor Morgan Freeman is the film's narrator.
'The Hunting of the President'
Fifth-Season Finale This Sunday
'Sopranos'
"The Sopranos" airs its fifth-season finale Sunday at 9 p.m. EDT on HBO. Then 10 more episodes in 2005 will close this magnificent saga.
Exactly what awaits Tony, his New Jersey mob and the family at home is known to only one man: series creator David Chase. But mounting evidence ensures that few, if any, of these characters will dodge some measure of damnation. Or deserve to.
For the rest, 'Sopranos'
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Wedding News
Shannon - Chesnut
Molly Shannon married artist Fritz Chesnut in a private ceremony Saturday at the Four Seasons Hotel in Santa Barbara. The couple has an 8-month-old daughter, Stella Shannon Chesnut.
Shannon was best-known in "SNL" sketches as nerdy Catholic schoolgirl Mary Katherine Gallagher, a role she also played in the 1999 movie "Superstar."
hannon - Chesnut
An Iranian couple walk past mural paintings depicting scenes from the torture of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, on a major highway in the Iranian capital Tehran. The US government illegally withheld documents relating to the abuse of detainees in military custody, including those in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, rights groups said in a lawsuit.
Photo by Behrouz Mehri
Talks About Past Drug Use
Paul McCartney
"I tried heroin just the once," Paul McCartney said in interview published Wednesday in the Daily Mirror newspaper about his drug use in decades past.
"It didn't do anything for me, which was lucky because I wouldn't have fancied heading down that road," the former Beatle was quoted as saying. The full interview is published this week in Uncut magazine.
"I did cocaine for about a year around the time of Sgt. Pepper," he said, referring to The Beatles' 1967 album.
"Coke and maybe some grass to balance it out. I was never completely crazy with cocaine.
for even more, Paul McCartney
Thanks, Marian!
First DVD Boxed Set
SCTV
Johnny LaRue, Edith Prickley, Bob and Doug, Guy Cabellero, Bobby Bittman, Lola Heatherton.
Those memorable characters from the now-iconic SCTV comedy shows of the late 1970s and early '80s are coming to DVD, with the first of four boxed sets to be released Tuesday, and the remainder over the next year.
SCTV began as a cheesy little syndicated comedy show in a cheesy little Global TV studio in Toronto. And then in 1981 it got picked up by NBC as a late-night companion to Saturday Night Live. But unlike SNL, the Canadian-based show developed more of a cult following, seen as absolutely brilliant by such future comics as a young Conan O'Brien, while network suits of the day scratched their heads in bewilderment.
For much, much more, SCTV
Formerly 'The Vidiot'
This photo made available by Antarctica NZ shows part of the ice-free area in Antarctica 'Dry Valleys.' The 15,000 square kilometre (6,000 square mile) Dry Valleys will become the first 'Antarctic Specially Managed Area.'
Photo by Craig Potton
Taking Sides Over Houdini Exhibit
Magicians
How did Harry Houdini do his signature Metamorphosis escape, where he was handcuffed inside a sack and locked in a trunk and yet somehow managed to switch places with an assistant on the outside?
Visitors to an exhibit that opened Wednesday at the Outagamie Museum in Houdini's home town found out the secret.
Magicians say their code of ethics prohibits revealing secrets to the public. The famous and not-so-famous alike, including David Copperfield and Ronald (Rondini) Lindberg, have called to protest its A.K.A. Houdini show.
But museum officials in Appleton, a city of about 70,000, insist the exhibit hasn't revealed anything not already available in books and on the Internet. They also say people will appreciate magic more by knowing the secrets.
For the secret, and more, Magicians
Bluesman's Son Gets His Due
Claud Johnson
Robert Johnson was a blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. Disgusted with fieldwork, he left his sharecropping family around 1930 and took to the highway, recording, in his unearthly voice, 29 songs.
Johnson's music was so good, other men said, that his talent could not be natural: Delta legend has it that one day at a backcountry crossroad, Johnson waited for the devil to come by. After that, Johnson could play any song he wanted, but he had surrendered his soul.
Johnson was just 27 when he died in August 1938 - poisoned, most people believe, by a jealous husband in a Greenwood, Miss., juke joint. He was so poor and unloved, it is said, that his body was dumped into the ground without a coffin, and to this day, no one is entirely sure where he's buried. But the brooding songs he wrote and recorded have been discovered and rediscovered by the generations that came after him.
In the midst of all this celebrity is Claud Johnson, who did not know until he was almost 40 that his father had recorded music.
For a lot more & an interview, Claud Johnson
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, left, and the Mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit, second left, follow the widow of photographer Helmut Newton, June Newton, during the funeral of the late photographer in his hometown Berlin, on Wednesday, June 2, 2004. Carrying the urn is funeral assistant Rolf-Peter Lange, right. The grave of Newton is four graves away from German-born actress Marlene Dieterich's tomb.
Photo by Markus Schreiber
Caught On Tape
Enron Traders
When a forest fire shut down a major transmission line into California, cutting power supplies and raising prices, Enron energy traders celebrated, CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales reports.
"Burn, baby, burn," the traders sang.
"He just f---s California," says one Enron employee. "He steals money from California to the tune of about a million."
"Will you rephrase that?" asks a second employee.
"OK, he, um, he arbitrages the California market to the tune of a million bucks or two a day," replies the first.
The tapes, from Enron's West Coast trading desk, also confirm what CBS reported years ago: that in secret deals with power producers, traders deliberately drove up prices by ordering power plants shut down.
For more of these jolly traitors - er - traders humorous banter, Enron Traders
Prime-Time Nielsen
Ratings
Prime-time viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen Media Research for May 24-30. Listings include the week's ranking, with viewership for the week and season-to-date rankings in parentheses. An "X" in parentheses denotes a one-time-only presentation.
1. (3) "American Idol" (Wednesday), Fox, 28.8 million viewers.
2. (2) "American Idol" (Tuesday), Fox, 25.1 million viewers.
3. (9) "CSI: Miami," CBS, 21.3 million viewers.
4. (11) "Everybody Loves Raymond," CBS, 18.3 million viewers.
5. (15) "Two And a Half Men," CBS, 18.2 million viewers.
6. (1) "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," CBS, 14.9 million viewers.
7. (12) "Without a Trace," CBS, 12.5 million viewers.
8. (52) "24," Fox, 12.3 million viewers.
9. (13) "Law & Order," NBC, 12.2 million viewers.
10. (31) "Still Standing," CBS, 12.1 million viewers.
11. (X) "39th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards," CBS, 11.6 million viewers.
12. (X) "Super Millionaire" (Tuesday), ABC, 11.4 million viewers.
13. (X) "CBS Tuesday Movie: Reversible Errors, Part 2," CBS, 11 million viewers.
14. (28) "Navy NCIS," CBS, 10.9 million viewers.
15. (57) "The Swan," Fox, 10.7 million viewers.
16. (40) "Yes, Dear," CBS, 10.4 million viewers.
17. (X) "Super Millionaire" (Wednesday), ABC, 9.9 million viewers.
18. (X) "According to Jim" special, ABC, 9.8 million viewers.
19. (27) "Fear Factor," NBC, 9.8 million viewers.
20. (57) "According to Jim," ABC, 9.5 million viewers.
Ratings
A Savanna monitor lizard looks out from foliage in its tank in the reptile house of St.Petersburg June 2, 2004. The zoo, one of the oldest in Europe, houses 117 species of reptiles.
Photo by Alexander Demianchuk
'The Osbournes'
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