'Best of TBH Politoons'
PURPLE GENE'S
PORTA-POTTY POETRY
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Mark Morford: Iraq named "War of the Year"! (sfgate.com)
Bloody nation cheers 4th straight title. Afghanistan sulks. "I'm speechlost!" sniffled Bush.
PAUL KRUGMAN: Wobbled by Wealth? (The New York Times)
At just about every stop I've made so far on my book tour, what I've come to think of as The Question comes up. I talk about the origins of the long right-wing dominance of American politics, and the reasons I believe that dominance is coming to an end. Then someone asks, "How can you be optimistic about the prospects for progressive change, when big money has so much influence on politics?"
Jim Hightower: A SENSIBLE BUSH APPOINTEE (jimhightower.com)
Who would've believed it? Here's a Bush appointee who's actually making sense! Sheila Bair is her name, and she was appointed by George W in 2006 to be chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which is a bank regulatory agency. Bush regulators, as we've learned in sad case after sad case, tend to be industry lapdogs, rather than public watchdogs, so it's a refreshing surprise to find one on the side of the folks.
American Business At Its Best (andrewtobias.com)
Bob Fyfe: "I understand your frustration with trying to cancel service contracts that were so easy to enter into. It can be infuriating. I'd like to share a couple of examples of excellent customer service
The late developer (guardian.co.uk)
Ridley Scott didn't start making films until he was 40, but he's been cranking out a hugely varied list of hits ever since, from Thelma and Louise to Gladiator. As his new film American Gangster is released on the eve of his 70th birthday, he tells Stephen Moss why he's far from done yet.
Tara Murphy: "Sarah Silverman: Pretty Vacant" (philadelphiaweekly.com)
Silverman says she might float a sex tape with Jimmy Kimmel.
Robert Kahn: 'Young Frankenstein' cast is puttin' on the shtick (Newsday; Posted on popmatters.com)
"What am I, a robber baron?" Mel Brooks barks into the phone from his Upper East Side apartment. "I'm giving you a performance to enjoy. I deserve whatever the hell I can get out of it."
Rafer Guzman: The Fiery Furnaces turn user-friendly (Newsday; Posted on popmatters.com)
Fans of the The Fiery Furnaces got a surprise a few weeks ago when the band played a semi-secret show at Manhattan's Mercury Lounge. The songs were-of all things-recognizable.
Mark Steyn: Twenty years ago today (newcriterion.com)
We are all rockers now. National Review publishes its own chart of the Fifty Greatest Conservative Rock Songs, notwithstanding that most of the honorees are horrified to find themselves on such a hit parade. The National Review countdown of the All-Time Hot 100 Conservative Gangsta Rap Tracks can't be far away.
Jon Azpiri: "Brander's remorse: what to do when your tattoo's appeal fades" (straight.com)
"The amount of regret we see is amazing," says Dr. Sachit Shah as he's about to perform a tattoo removal at Surrey's Beautiful Canadian Laser and Skincare Clinic.
Reader Observation
Googlewhack
Hey, you're a googlewhack!
"dubyavirus" + "frog", found
on Friday, 7 January, 2005.
well done!
Murdo
Thanks, Murdo!
That's the third googlewhack.
The first one was Friday, 7 January, 2005, with the words "cardigans" + "froglets", but those terms are no longer valid.
The 2nd one was Sunday, 2 September, 2007, with
the words "philatery" + "homophobia" (and it's still valid).
Reader Suggestion
100 Movies
Marty
I am not a big movie 'buff', but I thought that this was interesting and surprised at how many movies I could identify!
Reader Comment
Re: Harper Lee
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Overcast most of the day, and still on the brisk side.
Co-Hosting Nobel Peace Prize Concert
Tommy Lee Jones
Tommy Lee Jones will co-host the Nobel Peace Prize concert for former Vice President Al Gore - his roommate at Harvard University - and representatives from the United Nations' climate change panel.
The lineup for this year's Dec. 11 concert honoring Nobel Peace Prize laureates includes Alicia Keys, Annie Lennox and Melissa Etheridge, who won an Oscar for the song "I Need to Wake Up," which was featured in Gore's environmental documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth."
His co-host for the concert will be announced later, organizers said Tuesday.
Tommy Lee Jones
More Censorship From Idiots
Pat Conroy
Graphic depictions of violence, suicide and sexual assault in two Pat Conroy books are at the heart of a First Amendment debate, pitting offended parents against high school students who object to being told what they can't read.
Even Conroy has interjected himself into the debate. In an e-mail to a student, Conroy slams those who would ban his works as "idiots."
A student group is vowing to sue the Kanawha County Board of Education if the removal of "Beach Music" and "The Prince of Tides" from two Nitro High School classes is made permanent and expanded countywide.
Steve Shamblin, who teaches honors and Advanced Placement courses at Nitro High, said the graphic depictions in Conroy's books are found in newspapers every day. He also noted that several literary groups have deemed the books as age-appropriate for high school upperclassmen.
"The world of literature has everything in it, and it refuses to leave anything out," Conroy wrote. "I've been in ten thousand cities and have introduced myself to a hundred thousand strangers in my exuberant reading career, all because I listened to my fabulous English teachers and soaked up every single thing those magnificent men and women had to give."
Pat Conroy
Brings Fishing Fears To WTO
Ted Danson
American actor Ted Danson changed roles from barman to lobbyist on Wednesday as he brought his bid to protect the world's oceans and marine life from over-fishing to the World Trade Organisation.
Danson, 59, is best known for his role as bartender Sam Malone in the 1980s TV comedy "Cheers," but is also a board member of Washington-based environmental group Oceana, which campaigns for drastic cuts in global fishing subsidies.
"Seventy percent of our fisheries have reached the point where they are either overexploited ... or they're at the brink... 30 percent of our fisheries around the world are in decline, they've taken way too many fish out," Danson told AFP in an interview.
He said the problem is simply that there are "too many boats" on the seas, far more than what a sustainable fishing level requires.
Ted Danson
CMA Awards
Winners
Winners at Wednesday's 41st annual Country Music Association Awards:
• Entertainer of the Year: Kenny Chesney
• Single: "Before He Cheats," Carrie Underwood.
• Album: "It Just Comes Natural," George Strait.
• Song: "Give It Away," Bill Anderson, Buddy Cannon and Jamey Johnson.
• Female Vocalist: Carrie Underwood.
• Male Vocalist: Brad Paisley.
• Vocal Group: Rascal Flatts.
• Vocal Duo: Sugarland.
• Musical Event: "Find Out Who Your Friends Are," Tracy Lawrence with Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney.
• Musician: Jerry Douglas.
• Music Video: "Online," Brad Paisley.
• Horizon Award: Taylor Swift.
Winners
UMass Conference
Grateful Dead
Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart says he and other members of the band never really understood the forces that turned them into a 30-year cultural phenomenon.
"It was an alchemical thing," Hart said. "It's for other people to decide our fate in history, our place in the culture."
That is exactly why fans, followers and some of those who were in the inner circle of the Grateful Dead plan to travel to the University of Massachusetts for three days in November.
UMass is hosting an academic conference on all things Dead. It will feature panel discussions on topics as diverse as the band's innovations in sound engineering, the symbolism in Robert Hunter's lyrics, the sociological phenomena associated with the nomadic fans who followed the Dead from concert to concert, and the band's reflection of the American culture throughout the 30 years they were making music.
Grateful Dead
Turns To Cartooning
David Mamet
David Mamet found an immediate outlet for his creativity during the Hollywood writers strike.
In a cartoon published Tuesday on the op-ed page of the Los Angeles Times, Mamet played the labor dispute for laughs, appearing to lampoon Writers Guild of America strikers.
The cartoon, drawn in a rough scribble, shows two men, each wearing a "WGA on Strike" button. One, with sunglasses and a palm tree-decorated shirt, says: "Whaddaya think, will we end up on the breadline?"
"I don't touch carbohydrates," the other cartoon figure responds.
David Mamet
Moves To Sue Fan Web Sites
Prince
Fan sites dedicated to Prince say they have been served legal notice to remove all images of the singer, his lyrics and "anything linked to Prince's likeness," and have vowed to fight what they said was censorship.
The move was a shock to many of his followers and came two months after Prince threatened to sue YouTube and other major Internet sites for unauthorized use of his music and image.
But by targeting fan sites directly, Prince risks a backlash, and the sites have vowed to unite under the banner "Prince Fans United" and take the matter to court if necessary.
Some Prince fans were surprised at the artist's threat to sue, pointing out that the 49-year-old was seen as a pioneer of online music distribution. He won an Internet award last year for "reshaping the relationship between artist and fan."
Prince
Arrested In Crash
Nick Bollea
Wrestler Hulk Hogan's son turned himself in Wednesday on charges stemming from a street-racing crash this summer that critically injured a passenger in his car, police said.
Nick Bollea, 17, was arrested on charges of reckless driving involving serious bodily injury, Clearwater police spokeswoman Elizabeth Daly-Watts said. He arrived at the Pinellas County Jail handcuffed and accompanied by two police officers, The Tampa Tribune reported.
Police said Bollea was racing his father's 1998 Toyota Supra against a Dodge Viper on Aug. 26 when the car Bollea was driving struck a curb, spun across two lanes of traffic and slammed rear-end first into a palm tree. His passenger, John Graziano, was critically injured.
In addition to the reckless driving charge, authorities cited Bollea for using a motor vehicle in commission of a felony, being a driver under 21 while operating a vehicle with a breath-alcohol level of .02 percent or higher and having illegal window tinting. The blood-alcohol level at which Florida law presumes a driver to be impaired is .08 percent.
Nick Bollea
Pleads No Contest To DUI
Kirsten Storms
Kirsten Storms was ordered to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings after pleading no contest Wednesday to a misdemeanor charge of drunken driving.
The 23-year-old actress, who wasn't in court, entered the plea through her attorney to one count of driving with a blood-alcohol level of .08 or more - right at the legal limit for driving in California.
A Superior Court commissioner ordered Storms to attend a dozen AA meetings and complete a 90-day alcohol program, city attorney's spokesman Frank Mateljan said. She also must pay $1,643 in fines and penalties and was placed on three years' probation.
Storms voices the snippy cheerleader Bonnie Rockwaller on the Disney animated series "Kim Possible." She also plays Maxie Jones on ABC's "General Hospital" and was Belle Black on NBC's "Days of Our Lives" from 1999 to 2004.
Kirsten Storms
Photos Stolen
Leni Riefenstahl
German police are investigating the theft of 250 photographs by Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's official filmmaker, from the basement of a firm in Cologne.
The Riefenstahl photos and 300 works by American photographer Elliott Erwitt disappeared from a basement storage unit at the offices of Photo Estate GmbH, a subsidiary of Berlin gallery Camera Work AG, police said.
The estimated value of all the works taken is as much as 4 million euros ($5.9 million), they added.
Leni Riefenstahl
1 in 4 Homeless in US
Veterans
Veterans make up one in four homeless people in the United States, though they are only 11 percent of the general adult population, according to a report to be released Thursday.
And homelessness is not just a problem among middle-age and elderly veterans. Younger veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are trickling into shelters and soup kitchens seeking services, treatment or help with finding a job.
The Veterans Affairs Department has identified 1,500 homeless veterans from the current wars and says 400 of them have participated in its programs specifically targeting homelessness.
Some advocates say such an early presence of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan at shelters does not bode well for the future. It took roughly a decade for the lives of Vietnam veterans to unravel to the point that they started showing up among the homeless. Advocates worry that intense and repeated deployments leave newer veterans particularly vulnerable.
Veterans
Stalker Priest
Conan O'Brien
A priest has been arrested on charges of stalking late-night talk show host Conan O'Brien by writing him threatening notes on parish letterhead, contacting his parents and showing up at his studio, prosecutors said Wednesday.
The Rev. David Ajemian, a priest in the Archdiocese of Boston, was arrested last week while trying to enter a taping session of NBC's "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" at New York's Rockefeller Plaza, said Barbara Thompson, a spokeswoman for the Manhattan prosecutor's office.
Ajemian referred to himself as "your priest stalker" in one note and complained of not being allowed in to see an earlier taping of the O'Brien show, court papers say.
The letters and e-mails, which started coming in September 2006, continued even after Ajemian was asked to stop and were "intended to cause annoyance and alarm," Thompson said. Ajemian also has been in contact with O'Brien's parents, Thompson said.
Conan O'Brien
MSGOP Deal Fell Apart
Rosie O'Donnell
It looks as though Rosie O'Donnell won't be facing off with Larry King after all. The acid-tongued talk-show host, who famously clashed with Elisabeth Hasselbeck on "The View," announced on her blog Wednesday that talks to give her a prime-time show on MSNBC had fallen apart.
Saying the development was "just as well," O'Donnell wrote in her usual shorthand style: "poof/my career as a pundit is over/b4 it began."
The deal would have placed O'Donnell in the 9 p.m. slot, she said, opposite CNN's "Larry King Live" and Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes." Fox News dominates prime-time ratings for cable news channels, according to Nielsen data; CNN is second, and MSNBC is a distant third.
Rosie O'Donnell
Beware Of Falling Cows
Lake Chelan
A cow plunged from a 200-foot (61-metre) cliff onto the hood of a minivan on a highway in central Washington state, according to police.
The car's occupants, Charles and Linda Everson, were not hurt in Sunday's accident, but the cow was euthanized at the scene.
"If the cow had fallen a split second later, the animal would have landed right in their laps," said Jeff Middleton, criminal deputy of the Chelan County Sheriff's Department.
Middleton estimated the animal weighed 600 lbs (272 kilograms), or the average size of a mature cow. It had been missing for two days and wandered 5 miles (8 km) from home near the popular Lake Chelan tourist area.
Lake Chelan
Cable Nielsens
Ratings
Rankings for the top 15 programs on cable networks as compiled by Nielsen Media Research for the week of Oct. 29-Nov. 4. Day and start time (Eastern) are in parentheses.
1. NFL Football: Packers vs. Broncos (Monday, 8:30 p.m.), ESPN, 10.16 million homes, 14.02 million viewers.
2. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 9 p.m.), USA, 3.41 million homes, 5 million viewers.
3. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Saturday, 11:30 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.3 million homes, 4.83 million viewers.
4. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Sunday, 9:30 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.29 million homes, 4.44 million viewers.
5. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 10 p.m.), USA, 3.27 million homes, 4.75 million viewers.
6. "SportsCenter" (Monday, 11:40 p.m.), ESPN, 3.11 million homes, 4.03 million viewers.
7. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Sunday, 9 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.09 million homes, 4.1 million viewers.
8. "Nip/Tuck" (Tuesday, 10 p.m.), FX, 3.05 million homes, 4.34 million viewers.
9. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Sunday, 12 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.01 million homes, 4.06 million viewers.
10. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Sunday, 11:30 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.01 million homes, 3.85 million viewers.
11. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Saturday, 11 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.94 million homes, 4.41 million viewers.
12. "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" (original), (Thursday, 10 p.m.), USA, 2.93 million homes, 3.59 million viewers.
13. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Sunday, 12:30 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.87 million homes, 3.91 million viewers.
14. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Saturday, 9:30 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.82 million homes, 3.79 million viewers.
15. Movie: "Freaky Friday" (Friday, 9 p.m.), Disney, 2.78 million homes, 3.64 million viewers.
Ratings
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