'Best of TBH Politoons'
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Dick Eats Bush
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Gore Vidal: America's warrior nation - The legacy of 9/11 (comment.independent.co.uk)
The shortcomings of the American leader were alarmingly exposed on the day the terrorists struck. He and his acolytes are now leading their empire towards permanent conflict with lslam
(Here, also.)
Bruce Reed: Dull and Duller (slate.com)
Bush can't scare voters if they think he's boring.
Barbara Ehrenreich: It's the (Tanking) Economy, Stupid (AlterNet.org)
Conservatives say struggling Americans are just too dumb to grasp the wonders of our 'knowledge-based economy.'
Annalee Newitz: Death by Satire (AlterNet.org)
Thanks to the Internet, political satire can be instant and lethal.
Kim Sterelny: Escaping Illusion? (americanscientist.org)
Daniel Dennett's fine book on religion is unlikely to reach the audience he wants - his decent, civil, morally serious Christian neighbors...
Sanford Pinsker: Running Into a Former Student at the Beach (irascibleprofessor.com)
I pass along the following story in the hope that it will do a bit of heavy uplifting just at the beginning of a new term when a whole new crop of eager "freshpersons" are pounding on classroom doors.
David Leonhardt: Distractions and Bargains Bought in Bulk (nytimes.com)
WE were in the vicinity of the two-gallon tubs of mayonnaise when my wife committed warehouse club heresy. "Sometimes I wonder how much of this stuff is actually a good deal," she said.
Generation stressed (guardian.co.uk)
Junk food, computer games, relentless marketing and competitive schooling are making British children depressed, according to an influencial group of experts. But why pick on kids when you could say just the same about all of us, says Anne Karpf.
And now for something completely difficult ... (guardian.co.uk)
Three decades after the Monty Python team made the silliest film ever, it's been reborn as a hit musical. And it's even got the killer rabbit! As Spamalot prepares to open in London, Eric Idle tells Dave Eggers why this was something he had to get right.
Lucy Mangan: How to dump your ex-favourite TV show (guardian.co.uk)
Given that America has supplied the bulk of my most meaningful relationships over the years - the educational jingles of Sesame Street, the valuable lessons imparted by Little House On the Prairie (total blindness need be no barrier to making your own weight in pokebonnets every evening), the inspirational heroism of Buck Rogers, the subtle historical revisionism of The A-Team, the bittersweet viewings of Joe 90 and the dying art of puppeteering, and of course the glorious decade that belonged to Friends and Frasier - it is only right that from there should also emerge the answer to the question of what to do when these relationships fail.
Dear God
Avery Ant
Purple Gene Reviews
'The Skinny Black Pant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Buddy the kitten is getting back to his old feisty self.
(And I have scars to prove it.)
Liar Says Liar's Lying
Novakula
Robert Novak has changed some details of his involvement in the Plame/ CIA leak case as time has gone on. Today, in his latest syndicated column, he challenged the story of Richard Armitage, the former Bush administration official who stepped forward recently as one of Novak's sources in that controversy.
Here are some highlights from the Novak column:
"When Richard Armitage finally acknowledged last week he was my source three years ago in revealing Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA employee, the former deputy secretary of state's interviews obscured what he really did. I want to set the record straight based on firsthand knowledge.
"First, Armitage did not, as he now indicates, merely pass on something he had heard and that he 'thought' might be so. Rather, he identified to me the CIA division where Mrs. Wilson worked, and said flatly that she recommended the mission to Niger by her husband, former Amb. Joseph Wilson.
Read the rest - Novakula
Biggest Tour Of 2006
Tim McGraw & Faith Hill
Nashville couple Tim McGraw and Faith Hill have smashed the record for the highest-grossing tour in country music history, selling $89 million worth of tickets on their just-completed trek, a spokesman said on Wednesday.
The previous record of $62 million was set by Kenny Chesney last year. Additionally, the couple's Soul2Soul II tour is currently the top-grossing North American tour of any musical genre for 2006, just ahead of the $86 million raked in by Madonna, according to concert trade publication Pollstar.
But Pollstar editor Gary Bongiovanni expects the Rolling Stones to finish the year on top with sales of more than $100 million. The British rockers earned $52.5 million during the first half of the year, and will kick off a two-month stadium tour in Boston next Wednesday.
Tim McGraw & Faith Hill
Wiccan Sign Finally Allowed
Sgt. Patrick Stewart
The widow of a soldier killed in Afghanistan won state approval Wednesday to place a Wiccan religious symbol on his memorial plaque, something the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs had refused.
Sgt. Patrick Stewart, 34, was killed in Afghanistan last September when a rocket-propelled grenade struck his helicopter. Four others also died. Stewart was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart.
He was a follower of the Wiccan religion, which the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs does not recognize and therefore prohibits on veterans' headstones in national cemeteries.
But state officials said they had received a legal opinion from the Nevada attorney general's office that concluded federal officials have no authority over state veterans' cemeteries. They now plan to have a contractor construct a plaque with the Wiccan pentacle - a circle around a five-pointed star - to be added to the Veterans' Memorial Wall in Fernley.
Sgt. Patrick Stewart
Islamic TV Network Seeks To Create Dialogue
Bridges TV
Dissatisfaction with media coverage following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks prompted banker Mo Hassan to quit his job to create a television channel aimed at fostering understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims.
Five years after 9/11, the nation's largest cable operator announced Tuesday that Hassan's Bridges TV is now part of its basic digital package in Michigan, giving Bridges hundreds of thousands of potential new viewers.
Comcast Corp. previously offered the 24-hour English-language channel on a subscription basis. But Bridges - which features lifestyle and cultural programming, as well as news and interfaith dialogue shows - has recently shifted away from that model in order to reach more non-Muslims.
"We're trying to create a dialogue between 300 million Americans and 1 billion Muslims worldwide," Hassan said at a news conference at the Muslim Center in Detroit.
Bridges TV
Rea Award
John Updike
John Updike has won yet another literary award. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author is this year's recipient of the Rea Award, a $30,000 honor for making a "significant contribution to the discipline of the short story as an art form."
"How rarely can it be said of any of our great American writers that they have been equally gifted in both long and short forms of fiction," reads a citation issued Wednesday by Rea judges Richard Ford, Ann Beattie and Joyce Carol Oates, all previous winners of the prize.
John Updike
XM Radio
Maya Angelou
Poet and novelist Maya Angelou said she agreed to host a weekly show for XM Satellite Radio's "Oprah & Friends" channel partly because she's never hosted a radio show before.
Angelou will host an hourlong show that she hopes will be called "Maya Angelou's America," although the title hasn't been decided. She plans to interview ordinary people, along with the "famous and infamous," asking them what they think it means to be an American.
Maya Angelou
Launches All-Women Radio Talk Network
Greenstone Media
Greenstone Media, a radio company whose founders include social activist Gloria Steinem and actress Jane Fonda, has launched an all-women, all-talk network across the United States.
Steinem said the network, which is run by women, aims to provide an alternative to current radio talk, which she describes as "very argumentative, quite hostile, and very much male-dominated."
This network "has a different spirit. It has more community. It's more about information, about humor, about respect for different points of view and not constant arguing," Steinem told Reuters in an interview.
Greenstone Media
Unpublished Manuscripts
The Sobol Award
A new and lucrative literary prize has just been started, with some unusual credentials for the winner: The book must be unpublished and the author must not have an agent.
The Sobol Award offers $100,000 for the best unreleased, agentless novel, with prizes of $25,000 and $10,000 for the runners-up and $1,000 each to seven others. The award was created by Sobol Literary Enterprises, a for-profit venture started by technology entrepreneur Gur Shomron, as "a venue to discover talented, unknown fiction writers and help them get the recognition they deserve."
"For many talented writers, finding a publisher is more difficult than writing their novel," Shomron said Wednesday in a statement. He added that "not a single writer will face silent rejection," receiving two or more evaluations from a panel of editors, librarians and others in the book community.
The Sobol Award Web site will accept up to 50,000 manuscripts, online only, with applicants required to pay an $85 entry fee. Winners will be announced next summer.
The Sobol Award
Wants To Test Weapons On US Civilians
Air Force
Nonlethal weapons such as high-power microwave devices should be used on American citizens in crowd-control situations before being used on the battlefield, the Air Force secretary said Tuesday.
The object is basically public relations. Domestic use would make it easier to avoid questions from others about possible safety considerations, said Secretary Michael Wynne.
"If we're not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should not be willing to use it in a wartime situation," said Wynne. "(Because) if I hit somebody with a nonlethal weapon and they claim that it injured them in a way that was not intended, I think that I would be vilified in the world press."
Air Force
Wisconsin Farm Has Third
White Buffalo
A farm in Wisconsin is quickly becoming hallowed ground again for American Indians with the birth of its third white buffalo, an animal considered sacred by many tribes for its potential to bring good fortune and peace.
Dave Heider said he was inspecting damage on his farm after a late August storm when he saw the newly born buffalo, a male. His last white buffalo, a female named Miracle, died in 2004 at the age of 10. Thousands of people came to see the animal, whose coat became darker as it aged.
This time around Heider plans to recruit volunteers to handle the visitors he expects at his farm, called Davalas, in Janesville, about 70 miles southwest of Milwaukee. About 50 American Indians held a drum ceremony at the farm this past weekend to honor the calf, which has yet to be named, he said. It is no relation to Miracle, he said.
It's no surprise that the farm has had another white buffalo, said Floyd "Looks for Buffalo" Hand, a medicine man in the Oglala Sioux Tribe in Pine Ridge, S.D. He said it was fate that the white buffaloes chose one farm, which will become a focal point for visitors, who make offerings like tobacco and dream catchers in the hopes of earning good fortune and peace.
White Buffalo
Creators Go Public
Lonelygirl15
The creators behind the Internet video mystery teen Lonelygirl15 have revealed themselves and want their fans to know they are not a front for a big Hollywood studio marketing some upcoming film.
Instead, the three friends launched the adventures of the doe-eyed, 16-year-old homeschooled "Bree" as an experiment in storytelling that they intend to continue on their own Web site that was launched Tuesday.
The creators identified themselves to The Associated Press as Miles Beckett, 28, of Woodland Hills, Calif.; Mesh Flinders, 26, of Petaluma, Calif., and Greg Goodfried, 27, of Los Angeles.
Lonelygirl15
Must Change Name
Supernova
A California judge has ordered producers of the CBS reality show "Rock Star" to find a new name for its group Supernova, ruling that an established band already exists with that moniker.
The original Supernova, best known for contributing the song "Chewbacca" to the cult movie "Clerks," had previously filed for a preliminary injunction protecting its name.
As part of the judge's ruling, the CBS-spawned group is enjoined from using the Supernova name for performances and recordings.
Supernova
Melting Rapidly
Arctic Ice
Arctic sea ice in winter is melting far faster than before, two new NASA studies reported Wednesday, a new and alarming trend that researchers say threatens the ocean's delicate ecosystem.
"It has never occurred before in the past," said NASA senior research scientist Josefino Comiso in a phone interview. "It is alarming... This winter ice provides the kind of evidence that it is indeed associated with the greenhouse effect."
For more than 25 years Arctic sea ice has slowly diminished in winter by about 1.5 percent per decade. But in the past two years the melting has occurred at rates 10 to 15 times faster. From 2004 to 2005, the amount of ice dropped 2.3 percent; and over the past year, it's declined by another 1.9 percent, according to Comiso.
Arctic Ice
Files For Divorce
Whitney Houston
Grammy-winning pop star Whitney Houston has filed for divorce from singer Bobby Brown, her spokeswoman said on Wednesday, following 14 tumultuous years of marriage and tabloid headlines.
Publicist Nancy Seltzer confirmed that Houston, one of the most celebrated pop artists of the 1980s and '90s who has since largely retreated from the public eye, had filed the court papers.
Whitney Houston
He's Back
Barney
Barney, the sugary sweet dinosaur loved by toddlers, is back for another season on public television, where he has been singing and dancing for 14 years.
There's a new twist to the old story, as well: The first new dinosaur to appear in 13 years on the Texas-based show will join the main character alongside the usual cast of adoring children.
The new season that kicks off Monday adds a new splash of color, a tiny orange hadrosaur named Riff. The pint-sized cousin of Barney's pals BJ and Baby Bop loves music, showing his enjoyment when his crest blinks with colorful light.
Barney
New Spider Species
Matt Bowser
A previously unknown creature has been roaming the Kenai Peninsula's Mystery Hills - or at least its alpine rock crevices.
Matt Bowser, 26, a University of Alaska Fairbanks graduate student, has identified what is believed to be a new species of spider, a thumbtack-sized daddy longlegs, or harvestman. Bowser is writing a journal article on the spider with a national arachnid expert that will undergo peer review.
He searched books but could not find a spider to match his specimen. He sent a sample to a harvestman expert, James Cokendolpher, an associate at the Natural Science Research Laboratory at Texas Tech University. The internationally recognized expert classified the spider as a new species and is collaborating with Bowser on the journal article.
Matt Bowser
NBC Pisses On Rules Of Engagement
U.S. Military
The U.S. military said Wednesday it is looking into the unauthorized release of a photo purportedly taken by an American drone aircraft showing scores of Taliban militants at a funeral in Afghanistan.
NBC-TV claimed that U.S. Army officers wanted to attack the ceremony with missiles carried by the Predator drone, but were prevented under rules of battlefield engagement that bar attacks on cemeteries.
The grainy black and white photo shows what NBC says are some 190 Taliban militants standing in several rows near a vehicle in an open area of land. The black outline of a box - apparently the sight of the drone - is positioned over the group.
U.S. Military
Diebold Voting Machines
Princeton
Main Findings The main findings of our study are:
Malicious software running on a single voting machine can steal votes with little if any risk of detection. The malicious software can modify all of the records, audit logs, and counters kept by the voting machine, so that even careful forensic examination of these records will find nothing amiss. We have constructed demonstration software that carries out this vote-stealing attack.
Anyone who has physical access to a voting machine, or to a memory card that will later be inserted into a machine, can install said malicious software using a simple method that takes as little as one minute. In practice, poll workers and others often have unsupervised access to the machines.
AccuVote-TS machines are susceptible to voting-machine viruses - computer viruses that can spread malicious software automatically and invisibly from machine to machine during normal pre- and post-election activity. We have constructed a demonstration virus that spreads in this way, installing our demonstration vote-stealing program on every machine it infects.
While some of these problems can be eliminated by improving Diebold's software, others cannot be remedied without replacing the machines' hardware. Changes to election procedures would also be required to ensure security.
Center for Information Technology Policy » Executive Summary
Center for Information Technology Policy » Voting Study
In Memory
Ann Richards
Former Gov. Ann Richards, the witty and flamboyant Democrat who went from homemaker to national political celebrity, died Wednesday night after a battle with cancer, a family spokeswoman said. She was 73.
She died at home surrounded by her family, the spokeswoman said. Richards was found to have esophageal cancer in March and underwent chemotherapy treatments.
The silver-haired, silver-tongued Richards said she entered politics to help others - especially women and minorities who were often ignored by Texas' male-dominated establishment.
"I did not want my tombstone to read, 'She kept a really clean house.' I think I'd like them to remember me by saying, 'She opened government to everyone,'" Richards said shortly before leaving office in January 1995.
Born in Lakeview, Texas, in 1933, Richards grew up near Waco, married civil rights lawyer David Richards and spent her early adulthood volunteering in campaigns and raising four children. She often said the hardest job she ever had was as a public school teacher at Fulmore Junior High School in Austin.
Richards served on the Travis County Commissioners Court in Austin for six years before jumping to a bigger arena in 1982. Her election as state treasurer made her the first woman elected statewide in nearly 50 years.
Survivors include her children, Cecile Richards, Daniel Richards, Clark Richards and Ellen Richards; their spouses; and eight grandchildren.
Ann Richards
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