The Weekly Poll
Results Delayed
BadToTheBoneBob has experienced some technical difficulties, but, of course, he's on top of it.
Results tomorrow (or maybe Wednesday).
The 'Eye for an Eye' Edition...
The recent domestic terrorist murders of Dr. George Tiller in Wichita, Kansas, Army recruiter Pvt William Long in Little Rock, Arkansas and security guard Stephan Johns at the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. occurred in jurisdictions that have the capital punishment. Prosecutors of these crimes will, no doubt, consider asking for it due to obvious premeditation of the perpetrators.
Are you in favor of Capital Punishment?
Send your response to
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Health Care Showdown (nytimes.com)
American voters are ready to change the ailing health care system, and "centrist" Democrats who oppose the public option run the risk of undermining effective reform.
Christopher Beam: Lies, Damn Lies, and Votes for Obama (slate.com)
Why do so many people say they voted for the president when they didn't?
MAUREEN DOWD: Hold the Fries (nytimes.com)
President Obama sends a mixed message about nutrition when he puts his organic tea aside and makes a show of heading for the nearest greasy spoon.
Froma Harrop: Timid Obama Succumbs to Old Politics (creators.com)
This has been a tough week for the hopeful ones who believed President Obama's vow to break with the old politics. Every day, it seems, the president caved in to another Democratic interest group working against the public weal.
Susan Estrich: Gay Rights (creators.com)
Since President Obama took office, more than 250 men and women who volunteered to serve in the military and were doing so honorably have been discharged for no reason other than their sexual orientation. Although the president vowed to get rid of that policy, he has taken no steps to do so, frustrating those who expected a moratorium on discharges if not an outright change of policy.
Ed Tahaney: Lady of the Night (advocate.com)
After coming out as a lesbian in 2006, Batwoman finally gets her own comic book series -- and this time, she's out, proud, and here to stay.
Dorothy Snarker: Is 'Buffy' about to get animated, again? (afterellen.com)
Apparently, you just can't keep a good vampire slayer down. Rumors surfaced this week that 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' might come back from the dead, so to speak, in a new animated television series. A writer at TV Overmind reported that one if his friends, who he declined to name, is helping to produce a new 'Buffy' series with Joss Whedon's blessing.
Dorothy Snarker: "Dollhouse" gets ready to go gay (afterellen.com)
Eliza Dushku tells 'Hollywood Crush' that there will definitely be some LGBT characters in the show's second season.
Trish Bendix: "Jane's World: Hot Tub, Interrupted" (afterellen.com)
Paige Braddock puts herself in the strip to figure out how a hot tub made it into her comic.
Vicki Iovine: "Girlfriends' Guide To Very Personal Grooming: Business Above The Belt, Party Down Below" (huffingtonpost.com)
So, at a friend's annual Christmas Party for her 150 closest girlfriends, I asked my tablemates if they knew what to do with the gray hair down below.
Alec Baldwin: Remembering My Father (huffingtonpost.com)
As a father, he was tough and uncompromising. My brothers and I knew that any missteps of ours carried inevitable consequences. But he was also more selfless and thoughtful than anyone I have known.
David Bruce: "The Funniest People in Music, Volume 3: 250 Anecdotes" (lulu.com) Print: $11.00; Download: $1.25
This book contain 250 anecdotes, including this one: Long ago, singer/songwriter Billy Bragg made a music video for a song called "The Boy Done Good" with some of his nieces and nephews. During a visit, a niece mentioned the video, and Billy's son, who was a toddler when the video was made, wanted to see it. So Billy spent a week looking everywhere in his home for the video, including getting out a ladder so he could look in the attic. Finally, he gave up and telephoned his niece to ask, "Where did you see the video? 'Cause I can't find it anywhere. Have you got a copy?" She replied, "Duh, Uncle Bill, it's on YouTube." Perhaps unnecessarily, Billy says, "I felt such an idiot, such an old guy."
said:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Vic In Alaska
Fun lil Quake
Sitting in my room this morning and my head started to vibrate and my eyes lost focus, I thought I was having another seizure , then everything started rolling and moving "Earthquake" I says to my self, stacked dishes in my cupboard fell"Big Earthquake" I told myself, as it went on and on I opened my window/escape hatch and was ready to bail when it all stopped.
A couple of car alarms were going off but after 30 seconds of temblor all was relatively quiet. I almost crapped myself but my sphincter was too clenched to allow it.
5.74 (upgraded from a preliminary 5.4) on the Richter scale (why they named it after marginal comedian Andy Richter I'll never know) with a 4.2 aftershock 30 minutes later, all centered 30 miles southwest of Talkeetna
Vic
Thanks, Vic!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Mostly sunny.
The kid's first summer school class started at 7:35am this morning.
Ticketmaster Battle Escalates
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen's manager has come out swinging against the Newark Star Ledger and Ticketmaster Chairman Barry Diller following a news report that the rocker's organization kept many of the best tickets to a recent show out of the public's hands.
The Ledger reported last week that about 2,300 total tickets for a May 21 performance at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, N.J., were held back for "friends of the band, the record label and the New Jersey Sports and Exhibition Authority, which operates the venue."
Diller was quoted in the New York Post as saying Springsteen "has been one of our most vocal critics on our ticketing policies and while he's more than entitled to his opinion, it seems minimally fair-minded to point out that in the concert that created the battle, where Ticketmaster apologized for making a technical mistake, it seems that Mr. Springsteen held back from his fans all but 108 of the 1,126 tickets closest to the stage," Diller said.
The entire fracas dates back to February 6 Springsteen on-sale chaos for the Izod show, where the Springsteen camp claimed Ticketmaster directed fans to its in-house secondary site TicketsNow in a "bait-and-switch" maneuver.
Bruce Springsteen
'Prairie Home' Celebrates 35th Anniversary
Garrison Keillor
Humorist Garrison Keillor is returning to Lake Wobegon to celebrate the 35th anniversary of his popular "A Prairie Home Companion" radio show.
Keillor has added a Fourth of July broadcast of his show from Avon the central Minnesota town that helped inspire Lake Wobegon, his fictional hometown.
Avon is on the Lake Wobegon Trail, a 46-mile hike-and-bike pathway in Stearns County, which Keillor says "is about as close to Lake Wobegon as you can get."
"A Prairie Home Companion" debuted on July 6, 1974, at Macalester College in St. Paul. The show is now heard on nearly 600 public radio stations nationwide and every week more than 4.3 million people listen to his tales about life in Lake Wobegon.
Garrison Keillor
Burqas 'Not Welcome' In France
Nicolas Sarkozy
President Nicolas Sarkozy declared Monday that the Islamic burqa is not welcome in France, branding the face-covering, body-length gown as a symbol of subservience that suppresses women's identities and turns them into "prisoners behind a screen."
But there was a mixed message in the tough words: an admission that the country's long-held principle of ethnic assimilation - which insists that newcomers shed their traditions and adapt to French culture - is failing because it doesn't give immigrants and their French-born children a fair chance.
In a high-profile speech to lawmakers in the historic chateau at Versailles, Sarkozy said the head-to-toe Muslim body coverings were in disaccord with French values - some of the strongest language against burqas from a European leader at a time when some Western officials have been seeking to ease tensions with the Muslim world.
"In our country, we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity," Sarkozy said to extended applause of the lawmakers gathered where French kings once held court.
"The burqa is not a religious sign, it's a sign of subservience, a sign of debasement - I want to say it solemnly," he said. "It will not be welcome on the territory of the French Republic."
Nicolas Sarkozy
Pritzker Military Library Literature Award
Gerhard L. Weinberg
Historian Gerhard L. Weinberg has received a $100,000 lifetime achievement prize for excellence in military writing.
The Pritzker Military Library Literature Award, founded in 2007, honors writers who have "profoundly enriched the public understanding of American military history," prize officials said Monday.
Weinberg, 81, has written numerous books on World War II, including "A World at Arms" and "World in the Balance." The award is sponsored by the Chicago-based Tawani Foundation.
Gerhard L. Weinberg
Cops Plea, Skates
Chris Brown
Chris Brown has pleaded guilty to one count of felony assault on pop star Rihanna.
Brown will be sentenced on Aug. 5, but the terms of the plea deal call for him to serve five years of formal probation and six months - roughly 1,400 hours - of community labor. Brown will be able to complete his probation in his home state of Virginia; he will have to do either graffiti removal or roadside cleanup for his service.
A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office said the terms were in line with what others receive when they're charged with similar crimes and who have no prior criminal history.
After Brown entered his plea and left the courtroom, Rihanna entered and was addressed by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Patricia Schnegg, who explained to the Barbados-born singer that she had issued a stay-away order.
Rihanna, 21, had not been seeking a stay-away order, but the judge imposed one. The order requires that Brown and Rihanna stay at least 50 yards from each, except at industry events when the distance is reduced to 10 yards.
Chris Brown
Black Eye
Perez Hilton
Police have charged the tour manager of the Black Eyed Peas with assault after he allegedly gave celebrity blogger Perez Hilton a black eye outside a Toronto nightclub.
Hilton said he got into an argument with band members Fergie and will.i.am at the Cobra nightclub early Monday morning and was punched outside by Polo Molina, the band's tour manager. They were at the club following a Sunday night video awards show.
Hilton, whose real name is Mario Lavandeira, complained about the incident on the microblogging site Twitter. He tweeted at 4 a.m.: "I am bleeding. Please, I need to file a police report. No joke."
Hilton, who is openly gay, said in interview with The Associated Press that he called will.i.am a "faggot," a gay slur, inside the club after the musician told the blogger not to write about his band on his Web site.
Perez Hilton
NY Restaurant
Enoteca Maria
Now that's Italian! A Staten Island restaurant is relying on a group of Italian-born grandmothers for its menus. The women take turns cooking at 35-seat Enoteca Maria, using recipes from the different parts of Italy they come from.
They decide what to cook based on whatever ingredients owner Joe Scaravella brings in. A crew of cooks and staff help them feed the daily crowds.
Enoteca Maria
Taken Away
Kodachrome
The Eastman Kodak Co. announced Monday it's retiring its oldest film stock because of declining customer demand in an increasingly digital age.
The world's first commercially successful color film, immortalized in song by Simon, spent 74 years in Kodak's portfolio. It enjoyed its heyday in the 1950s and '60s but in recent years has nudged closer to obscurity: Sales of Kodachrome are now just a fraction of 1 percent of the company's total sales of still-picture films, and only one commercial lab in the world still processes it.
Those numbers and the unique materials needed to make it convinced Kodak to call its most recent manufacturing run the last, said Mary Jane Hellyar, the outgoing president of Kodak's Film, Photofinishing and Entertainment Group.
Unlike any other color film, Kodachrome is purely black and white when exposed. The three primary colors that mix to form the spectrum are added in three development steps rather than built into its layers.
Because of the complexity, only Dwayne's Photo, in Parsons, Kan., still processes Kodachrome film. The lab has agreed to continue through 2010, Kodak said.
Kodachrome
World's Deepest Underground Lab
Davis Cavern
Far below the Black Hills of South Dakota, crews are building the world's deepest underground science lab at a depth equivalent to more than six Empire State buildings - a place uniquely suited to scientists' quest for mysterious particles known as dark matter.
Scientists, politicians and other officials gathered Monday for a groundbreaking of sorts at a lab 4,850 foot below the surface of an old gold mine that was once the site of Nobel Prize-winning physics research.
The deepest reaches of the mine plunge to 8,000 feet below the surface. Some early geology and hydrology experiments are already under way at 4,850 feet. Researchers also hope to build two deeper labs that are still awaiting funding from Congress.
"The fact that we're going to be in the Davis Cavern just tickles us pink," said Tom Shutt of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, referring to a portion of the mine named after scientist Ray Davis Jr., who used it in the 1960s to demonstrate the existence of particles called solar neutrinos.
Davis Cavern
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