'Best of TBH Politoons'
PURPLE GENE'S WEIRD WORD OF THE WEEK
BABLATRICE
"BABLATRICE"
ON LINE DEFINITION: A very talkative woman
ON THE STREET: A chatty Kathy
IN A SENTENCE: My neice signed a lease with a "Bablatrice"...couldn't get a word in edgewise!
(Read BartCop Entertainment and learn a useless new word each Tuesday)
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Jim Hightower: TAKING TAXPAYERS FOR A RIDE (jimhightower.com)
Yessiree, our Nation's top officials will leave no dollar unspent in their unstinting effort to keep us safe from terrorists - including spending several million dollars on the essential need of transporting the FBI director to speaking engagements.
PAUL KRUGMAN: Sacrifice Is for Suckers (The New York Times)
On this Fourth of July, President Bush compared the Iraq war to the Revolutionary War, and called for "more patience, more courage and more sacrifice." Unfortunately, it seems that nobody asked the obvious question: "What sacrifices have you and your friends made, Mr. President?"
Joshua Holland: America's Declining Stature: How Did We Become Shorter Than Europe? (alternet.org)
Junk food diets and shoddy health care are making Americans shorter than the residents of all the countries in Western Europe.
Simon Mills: Why have male models got so skinny? (guardian.co.uk)
In times of prosperity and optimism, thighs are muscular and calves are like hams. In this age of anxiety, we're back to skinny. The model du jour is thin, flat-chested and small-arsed, with scrawny calves.
Paul Krassner: Bong Hits 4 Repression (huffingtonpost.com)
The Supreme Court sucks so badly it turned itself inside out. An utterly outrageous 5-4 ruling has made it acceptable to suspend a high school student for an off-campus act like holding a 14-foot banner saying "Bong Hits 4 Jesus." That simple joke became a federal case ending with...
Paul Krassner: Review of Mort Sahl Tribute (huffingtonpost.com)
"I'm embarrassed tonight," said Albert Brooks. "And angry. And I'm confused. I was told that Mort Sahl passed away. So you can imagine my shock, my dismay, and quite frankly my disappointment, when I arrived here this evening and saw him standing there.
Hua Hsu: Where's the Beef? (slate.com)
It's on YouTube. Why that's a problem for hip-hop.
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Lots of sun and a bit of wind.
Leads In Fundraising
Al Franken
Democratic Senate candidate Al Franken raised nearly $2 million in the latest reporting period, pulling in more money than both his Democratic rival and the Republican incumbent, Sen. Norm Coleman.
Franken, a comedian-turned-candidate, announced Monday he had pulled in $1.9 million in the second quarter of the year, covering April through June. Last week, Coleman, R-Minn., said he had raised about $1.6 million in the period, and Democrat Mike Ciresi said he had raised $750,000.
According to Franken's campaign, more than 95 percent of his contributions in the last reporting period were $100 or less.
Al Franken
Woman With Opinions
Kathy Griffin
Comedian Kathy Griffin has a message for the producers of "The View" as they ponder their choice of replacement for the outspoken Rosie O'Donnell: learn some lessons from O'Donnell herself.
"What Rosie proved is that soccer moms and stay-at-home women really do want to talk about the war and about how disappointed they are in this administration," Griffin says from California, where she's on tour for her standup act.
Americans, in fact, want to discuss weightier issues than Paris Hilton's self-made messes - something proven by O'Donnell, whose fiery stint on "The View" significantly boosted ratings.
"The audience would burst into applause when she said: 'Impeach Bush.' It shouldn't obviously become some radical show, but I hope it doesn't become 'and here's how to make a good omelette for your husband.' And if it does, someone else is going to scoop them. Rosie will do it somewhere else."
Kathy Griffin
Pays Tribute To The Beatles
Hamburg
Forty-five years after the Beatles launched their international career in Hamburg, the music-loving German city is putting up a monument to the rock legends.
Radio station Oldie 95, the organiser, said that construction will begin this year of a steel monument representing the Fab Four - Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr - as well as Stuart Sutcliffe, an early Beatle who died in Hamburg in 1962.
The station says the £310,000 monument will be built on a corner of the St Pauli district near clubs where the group launched an international name for themselves with songs such as Love Me Do.
Hamburg
Man With Opinions
Spike Lee
Spike Lee, in Tuscany, Italy, to scout locations for his next film and to receive the 41st Fiesole Masters of Cinema Award, took swings Monday at Hollywood for its portrayal of black characters, at Washington for its foreign policy and at the film industry in general for leaving him on the outside looking in.
Lee was introduced at a standing-room-only news conference at the Hotel Villa San Michelle in Fiesole, just outside Florence, by town Mayor Fabio Incatasciato and a handful of other local figures who praised the director's work. But there was no shortage of opinions once Lee started speaking.
Said the two-time Oscar nominee, here for preproduction work on his latest project, "Miracle at St. Anna," a $45 million World War II drama set in Italy: "My last feature film, 'Inside Man,' was my most successful so far, and I was naive enough to think that that meant I could go from there and make any film I wanted to make. But I was very, very wrong about that. Anybody who thinks that I've become part of the mainstream doesn't understand the way it works."
Commenting on Washington, Lee said there has been no war in which the U.S. had been involved since World War II that he would consider a "just" war.
Spike Lee
Anounces ESPN Departure
Dan Patrick
Dan Patrick, one half of the duo that helped bring "SportsCenter" to its snarky fame in the 1990s, will leave ESPN next month.
Patrick announced his departure on his ESPN Radio show Monday from San Francisco, where he was covering the lead-up to Tuesday night's Major League Baseball All-Star Game. Patrick's last radio show will air August 17. It wasn't immediately clear when his last appearance on TV will be.
Patrick, 51, was a "SportsCenter" anchor from 1989 to 2006, when ESPN's signature show became synonymous with sports TV. Patrick and co-anchor Keith Olbermann rocketed to fame as the face of ESPN and served as models for the short-lived ABC series "Sports Night."
"(I) would like to go out on my own. I have not been a free agent. I've spent 18 years here. It's been home, but I thought I was taking it for granted," Patrick told radio listeners Monday.
Dan Patrick
Visits Fans Hurt By Fireworks
Beyonce
Two people injured when pyrotechnics went awry at Beyonce Knowles' concert in St. Louis received a surprise emergency room visit from the singer.
The accident happened Sunday night, just as the R&B star's concert began. A spokeswoman for Scottrade Center didn't return phone calls seeking comment, but broadcast reports said pyrotechnics meant for the stage accidentally spilled into the front row.
Two concertgoers were taken to Barnes-Jewish Hospital. Spokeswoman Kathy Holleman wouldn't release their names but said the injuries were minor. Both were expected to make a full recovery.
Knowles, 25, met with the fans for about 45 minutes.
Beyonce
Baby News
Baby Girl Priestley
Jason Priestley, star of '90s TV series "Beverly Hills, 90210," is a proud father.
His wife, Naomi Lowde-Priestley, gave birth to a baby girl July 2, the 37-year-old actor told KTTV-TV on Monday. She is the couple's first child.
Priestley wouldn't reveal his daughter's name.
Baby Girl Priestley
Fired NBC Programmer Slithers To Fox
Kevin Reilly
Less than two months after being fired as NBC's entertainment president, Kevin Reilly has been hired by Fox for the same job as part of a restructuring that includes the promotion of Peter Liguori to entertainment chairman.
Liguori, who has served as Fox's entertainment president since 2005, and Reilly are being reunited: The two worked together from 2000 to 2003 at cable channel FX, which, like Fox, is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
In his job as chief programmer, Reilly will report to Liguori, whose new duties include developing ways to use Fox broadcast content across the Internet and other emerging digital platforms.
Reilly was ousted from NBC only three months after being given a new three-year contract.
Kevin Reilly
Vie For Simpsons' Debut
Springfields
It's the battle of the Springfield's with residents in 14 towns with that name across the United States competing to be chosen on Tuesday to host the premier of the upcoming Simpsons movie.
The creator of the popular cartoon television series, Matt Groening, located Homer, Marge and their children Bart, Lisa and baby Maggie in the fictional town of Springfield after noting that this was one of the most common U.S. town names.
But in the series' 18-year history it has never been clear which of the 34 Springfield's in the United States was the basis for the version in the cartoon, a satirical parody of Middle American lifestyle.
The winner will be announced on Tuesday after an online vote with people asked to choose the video entry that best represents the "Simpsons' spirit."
Springfield's
Fined Over Kids' Show Scam
BBC
Britain's BBC was ordered to pay an unprecedented 50,000 pound ($100,000) fine on Monday over a faked phone-in contest on its flagship children's TV show.
The BBC was guilty of serious breaches of the broadcasting code by allowing a young studio guest to pose as a fake competition winner on the programme "Blue Peter," the regulator Ofcom ruled.
It was the first time Ofcom had imposed a financial penalty on the public service broadcaster.
When the scandal of the faked contest was first reported in March, the show's presenters apologized to viewers on air, a huge embarrassment for a show loved by generations of British children. The show celebrates its 50th birthday next year.
BBC
Conde Nast Closing Down
Jane Magazine
Conde Nast is closing down Jane magazine after a 10-year run for the fashion and beauty publication targeted at women in their 20s, the publisher said on Monday.
The August issue will be the last published by Conde Nast, which is also closing down the magazine's associated Web site.
Jane, which has struggled with depressed advertising, was founded in 1997 by Jane Pratt. In 2005, Pratt left the magazine.
Jane Magazine
$12 Billion A Month
Bush's Wars
The boost in troop levels in Iraq has increased the cost of war there and in Afghanistan to $12 billion a month, and the total for Iraq alone is nearing a half-trillion dollars, congressional analysts say.
All told, Congress has appropriated $610 billion in war-related money since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror assaults, roughly the same as the war in Vietnam. Iraq alone has cost $450 billion.
The figures come from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, which provides research and analysis to lawmakers.
For the 2007 budget year, CRS says, the $166 billion appropriated to the Pentagon represents a 40 percent increase over 2006.
Bush's Wars
Murder In The Park
Long Beach
Police arrested a number of people this week in connection with the fatal stabbing of a 13-year-old boy - including the 30-year-old mother of an alleged local gang member who authorities say drove the killers to the site of the attack.
Tension at 14th Street Park and in the surrounding neighborhood has been high since Jose Cano was killed there on June 26.
Authorities responded with an aggressive investigation that identified eight individuals, seven of them minors, who police said were responsible for the killing. The eight were arrested throughout the week, and by Friday all had been charged at Long Beach Superior Court in connection with the slaying, police spokesman Jackie Bezart said.
Preliminary information indicated that the stabbing was gang-related and that it was the result of at least one previous confrontation between the victim and members of a local gang, she said.
Long Beach
The park is located at the south end of the middle school the kid graduated from last month.
Save Over 800 Cats
Internet Surfers
The power of the Internet has saved more than 800 cats from being skinned and served up on Chinese dinner tables.
About 30 animal lovers rushed to a parking lot in Shanghai after reading an Internet posting sparked by animal rights activist Huo Puyang that said two trucks carrying cats in wooden boxes had been intercepted, Huo said on Monday.
Huo's daughter-in-law had been looking for their missing pets and stumbled into the trucks, one of which sped away. The daughter-in-law called Huo, whose animal-loving friends then sent out an Internet alert last Friday.
After hours of haggling, the animal lovers paid more than 10,000 yuan for 840 cats.
Internet Surfers
Wards Off Parkinson's Disease
Smoking
There is more evidence to back up a long-standing theory that smokers are less likely to develop Parkinson's disease than people who do not use tobacco products, researchers reported on Monday.
The apparent protective effect of tobacco against the degenerative nerve disease has been observed for years but a University of California Los Angeles School of Public Health report said a new review of existing studies seems to confirm it, with long-term and current smokers at the lowest risk.
The review also found that the effect seems to extend beyond cigarettes to pipes and cigars, and possibly to chewing tobacco, and that it persisted among those who had stopped smoking years earlier.
What would cause such a preventive effect is not well understood, said the report in the Archives of Neurology, but studies on test animals suggested two possibilities.
Smoking
Florida Protects 6-Toed Cats
Ernest Hemingway
City officials have sided with Ernest Hemingway's former home and its celebrated six-toed felines in its catfight with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The Key West City Commission exempted the home from a city law prohibiting more than four domestic animals per household. About 50 cats live there.
The house has been locked in a dispute with the USDA, which claims the museum is an "exhibitor" of cats and needs a special license, a claim the home disputes.
The new ordinance, approved Tuesday, reads in part, "The cats reside on the property just as the cats did in the time of Hemingway himself. They are not on exhibition in the manner of circus animals. ... The City Commission finds that family of polydactyl Hemingway cats are indeed animals of historic, social and tourism significance."
Ernest Hemingway
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