'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Jim Hightower: WHINING AUTO EXECUTIVES (jimhightower.com)
To be CEO of a Detroit auto company, is it required that you be born without a lick of common sense?
Jim Hightower: O'REILLY'S INSIGHTFUL BRAIN SPASM (jimhightower.com)
l... This caused O'Reilly to have a double-barreled brain jerk. First, he blasted the other networks for covering the violence in Iraq, saying that they're only doing it to embarrass the Bushites. "All their reporting consists of is here's another explosion," O'Reilly declared. "Bang. Here's more people dead. Bang."
Clive James: Don't worry, be happy (news.bbc.co.uk)
There are lots of reasons to be cheerful about the world, many the result of human creativity - the difficulty is remembering not to be miserable.
Gioia to graduates: 'Trade easy pleasures for more complex and challenging ones' (news-service.stanford.edu)
I have a recurring nightmare. I am in Rome visiting the Sistine Chapel. I look up at Michelangelo's incomparable fresco of the "Creation of Man." I see God stretching out his arm to touch the reclining Adam's finger. And then I notice in the other hand Adam is holding a Diet Pepsi.
Michael Glover: Pop's magical mystery tour (entertainment.timesonline.co.uk)
He's famous for the Sgt. Pepper cover, but Peter Blake is much more than the genial mixer of high and low culture.
More Mr. Nice Guy (telegraph.co.uk)
Gary Oldman was the angry young man of British film who cornered the market in cinema psychos. Now, as he approaches his 50th birthday, he is taking his life and work a little easier, preferring to be at home with his sons to hanging out at premieres and parties. Craig McLean meets him on the eve of his third Harry Potter outing.
The renewed Avenger (entertainment.timesonline.co.uk)
In March she confronted a man with a gun in a Sheffield bar, but is Joanna Lumley absolutely fearless? Tim Teeman meets her.
'Mozart made me lose my mind' (guardian.co.uk)
Visionary choreographer Mark Morris used to think Mozart and dance didn't mix. Not any more, finds Judith Mackrell.
Human Rights Campaign: Expanding the Hate Crimes Act (Video)
Reader Suggestion
grizzly cam
hiya marty,
I'm a wee bit early but I just wanted to remind you of the National Geographic grizzly bear cam...according to sources in the know, it should start around July 5th. It all depends on when the salmon gets to the river and the mcneil falls. Some of us enjoyed it so much last year that, after it ended, we either got involved in some of the other cams (polar bear, sand cranes, California seals, the Australian outback, and a pond in Africa called Pete's Pond) or we just hung out at the grizzly forum where we had posts that showed how many days until the next bear cam and what the current weather is in Homer Alaska.
It's now countdown time to the bear cam and if you've never had a chance to see it, it's Nature at it's best imho. You have to have the latest free version of real player to see the cam and it's live streaming so dial-up might not look as good as dsl, but it's still worth the effort.
Here is the link but not much will happen for a few more days.
I hope you get a chance to see it. We got to watch until the last week of August last year, so we hopefully will get at least six or seven weeks of bears this year. Don't tell my boss, but I fully expect my productivity to decline during bear watching hours, which are pretty good on the west coast since we are only one hour ahead of Alaska. It's tougher on the Europeans who are part of our group and for the viewers down under.
Sorry, I rambled but I get pretty enthusiastic about them bears. And we are working to keep them safe from hunters and human encroachment.
Whenever or even if you go back east, I hope you have a totally swell time. I know the risks of visiting family but it'll be nice, I'm sure.
ducks
Thanks, ducks!
We usually spot at least one bear a trip in PA.
Lot more deer, though. OTOH, the first day of buck season is a legal school holiday.
Here is
the park where the reunion will be held.
Surprisingly, it even has a
Wikipedia page,
as does the old hometown.
Reader Suggestion
Harry Nilsson
From the Obscure Video Department at youtube:
The late great Harry Nilsson on the TV show "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir", March 29, 1969
Purple Gene's Almost Reviews
Dark Storm
David
About Dark Storm (2006) -
Some things are better left unreviewed.... but try this
user comment at IMDb
Oh dear...another SciFi morsel of awfulness. This one is destined to be one of their classic awful movies. Not even god enough to be a classic "bad" movie - just awful. Find a buzzword science term and then make a movie around it with scant regard (or actually any regard whatsoever) for scientific fact. Continues...
Purple Gene
Thanks, Purp!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
JD's taking a well-deserved day off.
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
The marine layer gets smaller every day, and the days get warmer.
Cast Raised Millions For Darfur
George Clooney
"Ocean's Thirteen" stars have donated $5.5 million to humanitarian efforts in Sudan's Darfur region, according to actor George Clooney.
Clooney told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Rome that he was joined by Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle and producer Jerry Weintraub in raising $9.3 million for Darfur, most of which was contributed at a dinner during the film's premiere last month at the Cannes Film Festival.
Clooney said more than half the money has already been donated to various charities dealing with Darfur. He said his group wants to keep emptying and replenishing the coffers of the humanitarian organization they co-founded, called Not on Our Watch, to focus global attention on the plight of the 2.5 million civilians in Darfur who have fled their homes.
George Clooney
Israeli Writer Wins Spanish Prize
Amos Oz
Israeli intellectual Amos Oz was awarded the annual Prince of Asturias prize for literature Wednesday in recognition of his works denouncing extremism and advocating Israeli-Palestinian peace.
The jury meeting in the northern city of Oviedo said Oz had "contributed to turning the Hebrew language into a brilliant literary instrument while revealing certain truths about the most pressing and universal realities of our times, with as much attention to defending peace between different communities as denouncing all forms of extremism."
Oz, 68, was born in Jerusalem and has lived in the town of Arad since 1986. Much of his fiction is centered on the Jerusalem house where he grew up. Oz spent over 30 years living on a kibbutz in central Israel and later criticized the kibbutz lifestyle in his essays. He served in the Israeli Defense Forces during the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War.
Amos Oz
FBI Recovers Manuscript
Pearl S. Buck
2007 BET Awards
Winners
Female R&B artist: Beyonce
Male R&B artist: Ne-Yo
Group: Gnarls Barkley
Gospel artist: Kirk Franklin
Hip-hop artist: T.I.
New artist: Jennifer Hudson
Collaboration: Ludacris / Mary J. Blige, "Runaway Love"
Video of the Year: Beyonce, "Irreplaceable"
Actor: Forest Whitaker
Actress: Jennifer Hudson
Male Athlete of the Year: LeBron James (Basketball)
Female Athlete of the Year: Serena Williams (Tennis)
BET J Cool Like That: Gerald Levert
Viewers' choice: Birdman & Lil Wayne, "Stuntin' Like My Daddy"
Winners
Monday's Top Program
Univision
The finale of Univision's "La Fea mas Bella" ("The Prettiest Ugly Girl") earned good-looking ratings as it beat the English-language network competition.
The two-hour ending Monday of the Mexican telenovela, which like ABC's "Ugly Betty" is based on a Colombian show, drew an average audience of 7.4 million, according to Nielsen Media Research figures.
That gave Univision the edge over the major U.S. broadcast networks, which from 8 to 10 p.m. EDT showed mostly reruns with a sprinkling of new shows. CBS drew an average audience of 7.06 million viewers; Fox, 5.65 million, and NBC and ABC under 5 million.
Univision
ABC Renews
'According to Jim'
After mulling the fate of "According to Jim," ABC decided to bring the James Belushi sitcom back next year. The network said Wednesday it has ordered 18 episodes to air in midseason.
ABC presented its 2007-08 schedule in May to advertisers but didn't say whether "According to Jim" would be renewed. The comedy, which also stars Courtney Thorne-Smith, averaged about 6.6 million viewers last season airing in different time slots.
'According to Jim'
5-Count Indictment
Lou Pearlman
The creator of the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync was indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury on charges he defrauded a bank out of $20 million dollars.
Lou Pearlman, 53, was indicted on three counts of bank fraud, and single counts of mail and wire fraud for business with Evansville, Ind.-based Integra Bank N.A., according to court documents.
Pearlman is most famous for forming boy bands in the '90s, but was also involved in airplane charter, real estate, model scouting and restaurant ventures. He stands accused of fraudulently securing millions in bank loans with documents from a fake accounting firm.
Assets have been liquidated in two bankruptcy cases against Pearlman and his companies, and the entertainment mogul has ignored court actions against him for months.
Lou Pearlman
Ire In Berlin
Tom Cruise
Two hot-button issues in Germany - the Nazi era and Scientology - are being pushed simultaneously by a new film in which Tom Cruise plays the country's most-famous anti-Hitler plotter, sparking controversy in Berlin.
Cruise, one of Scientology's best-known adherents, is to play Col. Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg - the aristocratic army officer executed after a failed attempt to assassinate Hitler in 1944 - in director Bryan Singer's new film "Valkyrie."
Germany's federal agency that tracks extremism has had Scientology under observation for a decade on allegations that it "threatens the peaceful democratic order" of the country. The Scientologists long have battled to end the surveillance, saying it is an abuse of their right to freedom of religion, and the U.S. State Department regularly criticizes Germany in its annual Human Rights Report for the monitoring practice.
Stauffenberg's son Berthold Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg has spoken out against Cruise playing the role, telling the Sueddeutsche Zeitung that "he should keep his fingers off my father," and adding that he feared the movie would be "terrible kitsch."
Tom Cruise
Sentenced Reduced
Tom Sizemore
Tom Sizemore's 16-month prison sentence for violating probation in a drug case was dramatically reduced Tuesday.
Superior Court Judge Cynthia Rayvis gave the actor 213 days of credit for time he has already spent in jail and two live-in drug programs, leaving him with about nine months in state prison.
Sizemore will likely serve about 4 1/2 months of that, said Deputy District Attorney Sean Carney.
Tom Sizemore
Food Seasoning
Indonesia
Indonesian Vice President Jusuf, who opposes legalising marijuana, doesn't mind the drug being used in cooking, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.
"It's alright to use it as a food seasoning, but it should not be fully legalised," Kalla was quoted as saying by the Jakarta Post daily.
Many of dishes in Aceh province, where hemp plants are grown, such as mutton and beef curry are said to be laced with marijuana seeds to give them a distinctive local flavour.
Indonesia
Spawning In S. Dakota
Sturgeon
Scientists have documented natural spawning by the endangered pallid sturgeon in the Missouri River.
They had suspected the six dams in the Dakotas and Montana kept the fish from spawning by altering flow, temperature and sediment content.
But starting in March, they found successful spawning for the first time by closely following two female sturgeon between Vermillion and Blair, Neb.
Using radio tags implanted in March, scientists from several agencies followed the sturgeon upstream. When the sturgeon were recaptured in May, both had released their eggs in an apparent attempt to spawn, said Craig Fleming, of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers near Yankton.
Sturgeon
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