'Best of TBH Politoons'
Reader Suggestion
'Write Bush'
stumbled upon this website
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Bruce is vacationing
Reader Suggestion
Smart Girl
Cute, in a blasphemous anti bill o'reilly sorta way
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and cool.
Seeks Sudan Aid In Egypt
George Clooney
George Clooney lobbied Wednesday for Egypt's help in getting protection for victims of Darfur's increasing violence.
The Oscar-winning actor met with Gamal and Suzanne Mubarak - the powerful son and wife of Egypt's president - and with Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit in his campaign to bring relief to the war-torn region of western Sudan.
Clooney said he was focusing on trying to find some way to at least ensure protection for those who have been displaced in the fighting.
George Clooney
Tribute Concert And The Clear Channel Connection
Princess Di
Tuesday's announcement that Princes William and Harry are organizing a pop concert to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the death of their mother, Princess Diana, is set to prompt a bidding frenzy among broadcasters for the U.K. and international television rights.
The Concert for Diana, slated for July 1 at Wembley Stadium in London, will feature a slew of the late princess' favorite acts, including Elton John, Duran Duran and Bryan Ferry.
The concert -- which takes place on what would have been the princess' 46th birthday -- will be filmed by American outdoor events venture Live Nation (formerly Clear Channel Entertainment). The company has tendered out the U.K. and international television rights and will announce the broadcasters selected early in the New Year.
Princess Di
Philanthropist Bails Out Edinburgh International Festival
Carol Colburn Hogel
An American heiress is donating $982,000 to help bail out the debt-ridden Edinburgh International Festival.
Chicago-born Carol Colburn Hogel, who lives in the Scottish capital, made the contribution through her family's Dunard Fund charitable trust. The Scottish Arts Council said Wednesday that it would match the commitment with a $982,000 donation of its own.
Hogel stepped in to help at the world's largest arts festival after three years of mounting debts led to a $2.9 million deficit.
Carol Colburn Hogel
Santa Barbara Memorial Can't Keep Pace
'Arlington West'
The toll of war is measured here on an acre of Pacific sand, where each Sunday volunteers array handmade wooden crosses in regimental columns to honor U.S. service members lost in Iraq.
Now, as the nation approaches the grim milestone of 3,000 war fatalities, the seaside memorial in one of California's most popular coastal destinations has reached a crossroads of its own. The group of veterans that organizes the weekly tribute has decided to stop adding crosses because it is struggling to keep pace with the tally of death.
The display has grown as the national mood has soured on the war. The first crosses went into the sand on Nov. 2, 2003, when they numbered 340.
Now the crosses, which numbered 2,928 as of last weekend, weigh more than a ton.
'Arlington West'
Former CNN News Chief Launches Site
'IraqSlogger'
For the past four years there has been no shortage of news and views on Iraq and the long-running war there. What's been missing: a one-stop-shopping clearinghouse for nonpartisan information, including material coming out of Iraq itself from natives of that country, not from foreign correspondents.
Now that need is finally being addressed in the form of IraqSlogger, but due to be officially launched next week. Its director is the former CNN news division chief, Eason Jordan, who quit that post suddenly in 2005 after 23 years with the company. The name of his new venture, he says, was inspired by a Donald Rumsfeld reference to this war being a "long, hard slog."
"Iraq is the story of our time," he declares. His goal for the site is for it to become nothing less than "the world's premier Iraq-focused information source" -- and with no "political slant."
'IraqSlogger'
Pledges $500,000 To Hospital
Dolly Parton
Honoring the country doctor who delivered her, Dolly Parton pledged $500,000 to a $90 million hospital and cancer center in her Smoky Mountains hometown.
"I have wonderful, wonderful memories of Dr. (Robert F.) Thomas," Parton said Tuesday in a surprise appearance at a dinner hosted by health care provider Covenant Health to celebrate state approval of the new hospital.
Parton, 60, is honorary chairman of the Dr. Robert F. Thomas Foundation, which plans to raise $10 million for a 79-bed hospital and cancer patient center in Sevierville.
Dolly Parton
Pledges Money For L.A. Elephant
Bob Barker
Bob Barker will pledge $300,000 toward housing an elephant from the Los Angeles Zoo in an animal sanctuary.
The pledge would match donations in support of sending Ruby, a 45-year-old African elephant, to a sanctuary in San Andreas in Northern California, publicist Henri Bollinger said Tuesday.
Bob Barker
Oprah's Next
Kitty Kelley
Kitty Kelley, the best-selling biographer known for dishing dirt on her subjects, is taking on one of America's most loved celebrities -- Oprah Winfrey.
Crown Publishers, an imprint of Random House, said on Wednesday it will publish the upcoming biography of Winfrey by Kelley, who has already tackled the Bush family, the British royals, Nancy Reagan and Frank Sinatra and has been credited with inventing the unauthorized, unflattering biography.
Kitty Kelley
Chump Change Fine
Joe Francis
The "Girls Gone Wild" video empire agreed to pay $1.6 million and its founder was sentenced to community service Wednesday for filming drunken, underage girls in the raunchy videos.
Mantra Films Inc. pleaded guilty in a case that stemmed from its use of two 17-year-olds in its DVDs and videos, which feature young women baring their breasts in public. The videos at issue were filmed on Panama City Beach during spring break in 2003.
U.S. District Judge Richard Smoak ordered Mantra's multimillionaire founder, Joe Francis, to read aloud in court a victim impact statement from one of the women, who said she was emotionally tormented by her appearance on a "Girls Gone Wild" video and that the video damaged her relationship with her family.
The fine represents less than 3 percent of Mantra's profits since 2002 and only 12 percent of Mantra's 2005 profits, Smoak said.
Joe Francis
Assault Charge Dropped
Naomi Campbell
Naomi Campbell will not be charged with assault because there is insufficient evidence, Britain's Crown Prosecution Service said Wednesday.
Campbell, 36, was detained and questioned by police in London in October following an alleged altercation with another woman.
The Prosecution Service said it had advised police there was no realistic prospect of a conviction, in part because the complainant had left Britain and would not return to testify.
Naomi Campbell
Melts In Balmy Austria
Ice Tree
Unprecedented balmy temperatures at the start of Austria's winter have melted away a towering Christmas tree of ice a week after it went on display.
The tree, fashioned from 30 tonnes of imported Belgian ice by internationally known ice sculptor Gert Hoedl, was erected on December 6 to add some unusual Christmas cheer to Klagenfurt.
But temperatures persisting well over the freezing mark plus a bout of heavy rain, typifying what meteorologists say has been the warmest beginning to winter in the Alps for 1,300 years, finished off the 5.4-metre (18-foot) tree.
Ice Tree
Pays Embargo Fine
Oliver Stone
The producer and others involved in Oliver Stone's documentary on Cuban leader Fidel Castro have agreed to pay the U.S. government more than US$6,000 to resolve allegations they violated a long-standing embargo against the communist country.
According to government documents, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Controls, which oversees the economic embargo against Cuba, said the payment of $6,322.20 would settle alleged violations that occurred between February 2002 and May 2003 in the making of the documentary film "Comandante."
"Comandante" was the precursor to Stone's more recent documentary on the Cuban leader called "Looking for Fidel."
Oliver Stone
Workers Sacrifice Camel At Airport
Turkish Airlines
Workers at Turkish Airlines celebrated a job well done by sacrificing a camel at Istanbul airport and their boss has now been suspended.
The national flag-carrier said on Wednesday maintenance staff killed the camel at Turkey's busiest airport after sending a batch of aircraft back to the supplier ahead of schedule.
Turkish newspapers carried pictures of the camel, two rugs thrown over his hump, ahead of Tuesday's sacrifice. They also showed pictures of the beast chopped up into chunks of meat.
Top-selling daily Hurriyet said 700 kilos of camel meat were distributed among the workers. Turkish Airlines was accepted last week into the Lufthansa-led Star Alliance.
Turkish Airlines
'Fame Becomes Me' to Closing In January
Martin Short
"Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me," a musical revue starring the zany comedian, will close Jan. 7 after a nearly six-month Broadway run.
The show, which will have played 165 performances, opened last August. Short, who was born in Hamilton, Ont., will star in a 35-week national tour, which will begin sometime in 2007 with the schedule to be announced shortly.
Martin Short
Correspondence Fetches $1.7 Million
Claude Monet
A collection of about 1,000 letters to French impressionist painter Claude Monet from his friends and admirers fetched more than $1 million at an auction Wednesday, Artcurial auction house said.
The letters sold for $1.7 million - more than double the estimated price. The letters, which date from 1874 until the artist's death in 1926, offer an intimate glimpse into a close circle of artists: Many are by Monet's fellow impressionist painters, including Edouard Manet, Paul Cezanne, Edgar Degas, Alfred Sisley and Mary Cassatt. Others were written by sculptor Pierre-Auguste Renoir and writer Guy de Maupassant.
Monet carefully preserved the letters, and they became a family treasure, passed down through generations. The painter's great-grandson Michel Cornebois - Monet's sole direct descendent - turned them over to the auction house.
Claude Monet
Shocks Country With Fake News
Belgian TV
The Belgian public television station RTBF shocked viewers late on Wednesday with a dramatic -- but fake -- news report that the Dutch-speaking half of the nation had declared independence.
The Francophone station abruptly interrupted programing with the mock report, hoping to stir up debate a few months before an election in a country with distinct divisions between its Dutch and French-speaking regions.
"Up until now, the debate has been confined to academic and political circles. We want a more public debate," said Yves Thiran, head of news at RTBF.
He compared the station's attempt to stir political debate to the radio theater staged by U.S. director Orson Welles in October 1938, when he fooled many Americans with mock news announcements that Martians had invaded Earth.
Belgian TV
In Memory
Oscar Klein
Austrian-born jazz legend Oscar Klein, who fled when the Nazis took power and recorded with Lionel Hampton and other greats during a career that spanned four decades, has died at the age of 76, local media reported Wednesday.
Born Jan. 5, 1930, to a Jewish family in the southern Austrian city of Graz, Klein and his family fled the country after the Nazi regime annexed Austria just before World War II and settled in Switzerland. He had planned to celebrate his 77th birthday next month with a concert in Innsbruck, APA said.
Best known for his aggressive and expressive Chicago-style trumpeting, which made him a fixture on the European club and festival scene, Klein also played clarinet, guitar and harmonica and began his career when jazz was just taking hold in Vienna in the 1950s.
Klein, who was self-taught, never learned to read music, but he made nearly 200 recordings in his 40-year career, specializing in "old" jazz, Dixieland, swing and blues.
Trained as a graphic artist, he spoke seven languages and worked as an art teacher in Florence, Italy, when he was 18.
Klein
In Memory
Peter Boyle
Peter Boyle, the actor who transformed from an angry workingman in "Joe" to a tap-dancing monster in "Young Frankenstein" and finally the comically grouchy father on "Everybody Loves Raymond," has died. He was 71.
A member of the Christian Brothers religious order who turned to acting, the tall, prematurely balding Boyle gained notice in the title role of the 1970 sleeper hit "Joe," playing an angry, murderous bigot at odds with the emerging hippie youth culture.
Briefly typecast in tough, irascible roles, Boyle began to escape the image as Robert Redford's campaign manager in "The Candidate" and left it behind entirely after "Young Frankenstein,"Mel Brooks' 1974 send-up of horror films. The latter movie's defining moment came when Gene Wilder, as scientist Frederick Frankenstein, introduced his creation to an upscale audience. Boyle, decked out in tails, performed a song-and-dance routine to the Irving Berlin classic "Puttin' On the Ritz."
Boyle first come to the public's attention in the critically acclaimed "Joe." He met his wife, Loraine Alterman, on the set of "Young Frankenstein" when she visited as a reporter for Rolling Stone magazine and Boyle, still in monster makeup, asked her for a date.
On television, he starred in "Joe Bash," an acclaimed but short-lived 1986 "dramedy" in which he played a lonely beat cop. He won an Emmy in 1996 for his guest-starring role in an episode of "The X Files," and he was nominated for "Everybody Loves Raymond" and for the 1977 TV film "Tail Gunner Joe," in which he played Sen. Joseph McCarthy.
In the 1976 film "Taxi Driver," he was the cabbie-philosopher Wizard, who counseled Robert DeNiro's violent Travis Bickle.
The son of a local TV personality in Philadelphia, Boyle was educated in Roman Catholic schools and spent three years in a monastery before abandoning his religious studies. He later described the experience as similar to "living in the Middle Ages."
Through his wife, a friend of Yoko Ono, the actor became close friends with John Lennon. "We were both seekers after a truth, looking for a quick way to enlightenment," Boyle once said of Lennon, who was best man at his wedding.
Despite his work in "Everybody Loves Raymond" and other Hollywood productions, Boyle made New York City his home. He and his wife had two daughters, Lucy and Amy.
Peter Boyle
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