Robert Scheer: Bush's Blind Spot on Iran (AlterNet)
"To the citizens of the United States of America: We understand your anger and anxiety over the memories of the horror of the 9/11 terrorist attacks," he said. "Yet, is your security enhanced by your government's policies of maintaining 10,000 nuclear weapons?"
Paul Krugman: Don't Prettify Our History (Click on "Columns," then on "Don't Prettify Our History")
The 2000 election is still an open sore on the body politic. That was clear from the outraged reaction to my mention last week of what would have happened with a full statewide manual recount of Florida.
Tina Blue: Students: Take Care of Business! (irascibleprofessor.com)
One of my students sent me this email at the end of Spring semester: I need to bring you my last essay, but I don't remember your office number, and I can't find my copy of the syllabus with the number on it.
"ODE TO BILL MURRAY'S FASCINATING FACE" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
After sitting through 15 minutes of Coca Cola ads and crash and burn trailers at the Green Hills 16 theater in Nashville…..me and that MadCat settled in to see "Broken Flowers"…the new Jim Jarmusch (written specifically for Bill Murray's FACE!!!!! ) Anyone who has watched Mr. Murray's bland, blasé blank stare all the way back to "Meatballs", "Ghost Busters", "Groundhog Day" and "Lost in Translation"…..know full well what to expect….but wait…this is an Oscar winning perfected pock marked deadpan with subdued skewed smirky eyed sparkless FACE…….diffident, disillusioned and indifferent that's sitting on the leather couch listening to jazz and just staring as his sorta girlfriend Sherry (Julie Delpy - "Before Sunrise" - "But I'm a Cheerleader" - "Frankenstein") is leaving him…because, it seems, Don has given up on life!!!!!!
Endless ENNUI ! No thoughts, no ambition……nothing there but that blank stare.
Unmoved by Sherry leaving him, Don picks up his mail, with a suspicious Pink Letter on top and walks next door to his neighbor Winston (Jeffrey Wright - "Shaft 2000" - "Ali" - "Angels in America") who is a wanna be Jamaican sleuth with a stunning wife and 5 cool kids! Don shows Winston the Pink Letter which is not signed and has no return address……but an old typewriter form tells Don that he has a 19 year old son who might be looking for him……..Don thinks it's a joke but Winston, for some reason, thinks it's a great opportunity for Don to explore his past…and get out of the house……Sooooo…
Don gives Winston the names of the 4 likely ladies from 20 years ago and Winston researches and finds all their addresses and provides Don with maps, plane tickets, car rentals and hotels for a journey of discovery…drives him to the airport and even gives him a CD of road music….
First stop is Laura (Sharon Stone - "Action Jackson" - "Above the Law" - "Casino")…Don drives up and knocks on her door and is greeted by Laura's nearly naked (soon to be totally naked) nymphy daughter Lolita (Alexis Dziena - "She's Too Young" - "Stone Cold" - "Havoc")……who entertains Don with inane small talk until Mom arrives…..they have dinner together….Don stays over and fucks Laura and leaves in the morning knowing Laura has no son.
Next Don travels to see Dora (Frances Conroy - "Catwoman" - "The Aviator" - "Six Feet Under") who is married to a pre-fab home salesman and is frightenly straight. Don has dinner with them and finds out that there is no son here either.
Third up, Don arrives at the wooded sanctuary of Carmen (Jessica Lange - "King Kong" - "Tootsie" - "Frances") who is successful, self-absorbed incense burning (maybe lesbian) "Pet Listener"….Don gets to wait and stare at her secretary's luscious thighs until he gets his 10 minutes in between her animal patients…..There's certainly no son here……
Finally, Don finds his way down a dusty dirt road to a barn with Harley's and a couple of greasy bikers……he asks the surly pair if they know where Penny (Tilda Swinton - "Vanilla Sky" - "Thumbsucker" - "Constantine") is and they begrudgingly point to a ramshackled house…….Don knocks and Penny appears….she says to Don…"What the fuck are you doing here? Did you drive all that way to upset me again? Get the fuck outa here!" The Biker boys hear the commotion and come up and change the shape of Don's FACE!!!!!!
A discouraged Don returns home and meets Winston at a little Café and tells him that the whole thing was a big mistake and he has a note from Sherry (on Pink paper) saying that she loves him and that she wants to come back….but the mystery is still not solved and Winston leaves to continue to dig. Just as Don walks outside he sees a 19 year oldish boy hanging around and offers to buy him some food (could this be his son searching for his dad?). The kid tells Don he is writing a book on wisdom and asks Don if he has any brilliant epithets……Don says…."Well, the past is done, the future hasn't happened yet and the present is all we have!" Don thinks this is his Son and tries to embrace him and the kid freaks out and runs away calling Don a "Perv"…but the words still ring true…..
We think Don will get a new attitude from all this…but we find him back on the couch, listening to Jazz…with that Jejune and enigmatic FACE of Bill Murray just staring….
I really loved this film with it's measured pace and slow silent spaces and most of all Bill Murray's FACE!Purple Gene gives "Broken Flowers" 9 completely vapid empty stares out of 10 for a "tour - de - FACE" performance by Mr. Murray!
CBS begins the night with the RERUN'NCIS', followed by a FRESH'Big Brother 6', then a FRESH'Rock Star: INXS'.
On a RERUNDave (from 7/18/05) are Billy Bob Thornton and Jermaine Dupri.
Scheduled on a FRESHCraig are Minnie Driver and Todd Zeile.
NBC starts the night with a FRESH'Meet Mister Mom', followed by a FRESH'Tommy Lee Goes To College', then a RERUN'The Office', followed by a RERUN'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit'.
On a RERUNLeno (from 7/1/05) are Owen Wilson, "Dancing with the Stars" winners, and Kem.
On a RERUNConan (from 5/18/05) are Andy Richter, Matthew Fox, and Nick DiPaolo.
Scheduled on a FRESHCarson Daly are Richard Kind and Robert Downey Jr.
ABC opens the night with a RERUN'Jim', followed by a RERUN'Rodney', then another RERUN'Jim', followed by another RERUN'Rodney', then a RERUN'Boston Legal'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJimmy Kimmel are Kathy Griffin, Dr. Drew Pinsky, Relient K.
The WB offers a RERUN'Gilmore Girls', followed by another RERUN'Gilmore Girls'.
Faux has a RERUN'House', followed by another RERUN'House'.
UPN has a RERUN'One On One', followed by a RERUN'Eve', then a RERUN of last week's 'R U The Girl With T-Boz & Chilli'.
A&E has 'American Justice', 'Cold Case Files', followed by an hourlong FRESH'Dog The Bounty Hunter', then a FRESH'Biography' (Tommy Lee).
AMC offers the movie 'Moonraker', followed by the movie 'For Your Eyes Only', then the movie 'For Your Eyes Only', again.
BBC -
[2pm] 'Knowing Me, Knowing You' - Episode 2;
[2:40pm] 'Worst Week of My Life' - Episode 2;
[3:20pm] 'Blackadder' - Potato;
[4pm] 'Prime Suspect' - Episode 2;
[6pm] 'BBC World News';
[6:30pm] 'Cash in the Attic' - Chislett;
[7pm] 'The Benny Hill Show' - Episode 52;
[8pm] 'Cash in the Attic' - Episode 6;
[9pm] 'Changing Rooms' - Episode 1;
[9:30pm] 'What Not To Wear' - Meeta;
[10pm] 'Brand New You' - Episode 6;
[11pm] 'The Benny Hill Show' - Episode 52;
[12am] 'Changing Rooms' - Episode 1;
[12:30am] 'What Not To Wear' - Meeta;
[1am] 'Brand New You' - Episode 6;
[2am] 'Cash in the Attic' - Episode 6;
[3am] 'Changing Rooms' - Episode 1;
[3:30am] 'What Not To Wear' - Meeta;
[4am] 'Brand New You' - Episode 6;
[5am] 'Cash in the Attic' - Episode 6;
[6am] 'BBC World News'. (ALL TIMES EDT)
Bravo has 'West Wing', 'Kathy Griffin: My Life On The D-List', 'Queer Eye', and another 'Queer Eye'.
Comedy Central has 'Comedy Central Presents' (Ted Alexandro), another 'Comedy Central Presents', last night's 'Jon Stewart', still another 'Comedy Central Presents' (D.C. Benny), 'Reno 911!', 'South Park', another 'Reno 911!', and a FRESH'Stella'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJon Stewart is Rachel Weisz.
History has 'Modern Marvels', 'Wild West Tech', followed by a FRESH'Shootout!', then a FRESH'Man Moment Machine'.
IFC -
[6AM] 'The Bad Sleep Well' (1960);
[8:45AM] 'Haiku Tunnel' (2001);
[10:30AM] 'Sunshine State' (2002);
[1PM] 'Bad Behavior' (1993);
[2:45PM] 'Haiku Tunnel' (2001);
[4:30PM] 'The Last Broadcast' (1991);
[6PM] 'The Spanish Prisoner' (1997);
[8PM] 'Twin Falls, Idaho' (1999);
[10PM] 'Hopeless Pictures #1' (2005);
[10:20PM] 'Greg the Bunny #7: "Bunnie Hall"' (2005);
[10:30PM] 'The Festival #1' (2005);
[11PM] 'Waterland' (1992);
[12:45AM] 'IFC in Theaters' (2005);
[1AM] 'Hopeless Pictures #1' (2005);
[1:20AM] 'Greg the Bunny #7: "Bunnie Hall"' (2005);
[1:30AM] 'The Festival #1' (2005);
[2AM] 'Hopeless Pictures #1' (2005);
[2:20AM] 'Greg the Bunny #7: "Bunnie Hall"' (2005);
[2:30AM] 'The Festival #1' (2005);
[3AM] 'Waterland' (1992);
[4:45AM] 'At the IFC Center' (2005);
[5:15AM] 'Henry's Film Corner #109' (2005);
[5:45AM] 'IFC in Theaters' (2005). (ALL TIMES EDT)
Sundance -
[7AM] 'The Al Franken Show': (08/22/05);
[8AM] 'Star Wars Dreams';
[9AM] 'Mystery Science Theater 3000': The Movie;
[10:30AM] 'The Last Just Man';
[11:45AM] 'The Dog Walker';
[12PM] 'Ginger and Cinnamon';
[1:45PM] 'Def';
[2PM] 'Hermitage-niks: A Passion for the Hermitage: Episode 4 - Silent Sabotage;
[2:25PM] 'Stealing The Fire';
[4:05PM] 'Crackers';
[5:45PM] 'Star Wars Dreams';
[6:45PM] 'Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie';
[8PM] 'Going All The Way';
[9:45PM] 'Gerry';
[11:30PM] 'The Al Franken Show': (08/23/05);
[12:30AM] 'Crackers';
[2:05AM] 'Def';
[2:30AM] 'The Al Franken Show': (08/23/05);
[3:30AM] 'Henry & June'. (ALL TIMES EDT)
This photo illustration supplied by VH1 shows a rendering of the slain rapper Notorious B.I.G., which VH1 commissioned Kehinde Wiley to create. This is a representation of one of this year's VH1 Hip Hop Honors honorees. For the Notorious B.I.G., Wiley searched for a photo that connoted a sense of grandiosity as well as elegance, and with that, he found a body double to pose then digitally placed the rapper's form within that body double and created this art work. A number of hip hop pioneers will honored at the second annual ceremony at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom on September 22, 2005. The show will air on VH1 on Sept. 26.
Photo by Kehinde Wiley
"Larry King Live" substitute host Bob Costas declined to host an episode last week that dealt with the BTK killer's sentencing, saying he didn't think the subject matter was appropriate for him.
Costas' latest stint on "Larry King Live" was to last all week, Monday-Thursday live from New York; a pretaped show with King was previously scheduled for Friday. But sometime Thursday, Costas objected to the topic of the show, which was all over cable TV news all day: the Wichita, Kan., sentencing of BTK killer Dennis Rader, who had terrorized the region for more than 20 years.
"I didn't think the subject matter of Thursday's show was the kind of broadcast that I should be doing," Costas said. "I suggested some alternatives, but the producers preferred the topics they had chosen."
Wendy Walker, senior executive producer of "Larry King Live," said Costas wasn't comfortable with the subject matter and added that it was a mutual decision for him to step aside. Attorney Chris Pixley, one of the stable of guest hosts for "Larry King Live," stepped in.
Last Friday it was reported Costas refused to do the show because it was about Natalee Holloway (see BartCop Entertainment - Saturday, 20 August, 2005), but today it's because the show was about BTK.
The exact same quotes are used in both stories, too.
Janeane Garofalo will guest star as a controversial media strategist for three episodes on NBC's "The West Wing" this fall.
Garofalo's character, Louise Thornton, is hired by Democratic Congressman Matt Santos ( Jimmy Smits) as the new director of communications for his presidential campaign. She urges Josh Lyman ( Bradley Whitford) and the other staffers to stop playing politics and start concentrating on connecting with the electorate.
Her first appearance is expected to air Oct. 2, NBC said in a statement.
Former Los Angeles Dodgers shortstop Maury Wills, left, listens as state Sen. President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, right, reads a Senate resolution durng his visit to the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., Monday, Aug. 22, 2005. Both houses of the Legislature presented Wills with resolutions honoring baseball's 1962 Most Valuable Player.
Photo by Rich Pedroncelli
Alec Baldwin will receive the Linda McCartney Memorial Award at PETA's 25th anniversary gala in Hollywood, Calif., on Sept. 10.
Pamela Anderson and Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders are previous recipients of the award. McCartney, a dedicated vegetarian, died of breast cancer in 1998.
Anderson, the Rev. Al Sharpton, Dennis Rodman, Andy Dick and Heather Mills McCartney are among those expected to attend the event, hosted by actor-comedian Fred Willard at the Paramount Pictures Studios.
A Los Angeles writer has sued ABC and producer Touchstone Television for allegedly appropriating his 1977 television concept "Lost" for the network's current hit.
Anthony Spinner filed the suit Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court, seeking unspecified damages for claims including breach of contract and fraud.
Spinner claims that he was hired by Sid and Marty Krofft Prods. in 1977 to write, produce and develop a script for a TV program to be produced by ABC that was titled "Lost." It was about a group of airplane crash survivors who struggle to survive in a jungle where they encounter strange creatures and dangerous characters.
Spinner said the assignment was memorialized in a written contract among himself, Krofft and ABC. He said he was entitled to a "written by" and "created by" credit as well as episodic royalties, producing fees and a percentage of the profits.
Iron Maiden was pelted with eggs, interrupted by chants for Ozzy Osbourne, and inexplicably had its power cut several times during its final OzzFest performance in Devore, California on Saturday night (August 20), according to Blabbermouth.net. In addition, Osbourne's wife and manager, Sharon Osbourne, came onstage following Maiden's set to call Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson a 'prick,' while offering thanks to the rest of Maiden and its crew.
Blabbermouth received numerous eyewitness reports about Saturday night's fracas. Many of the witnesses believed that the egg-throwing, power loss and other events were orchestrated by Sharon Osbourne amid rumors of bad blood between Dickinson and the OzzFest camp. One witness called the event "the most unprofessional thing I have ever seen in my 20 years of going to rock shows."
Trouble began when the show's MC began leading a chant of "Ozzy, Ozzy..." during Maiden's intro tape. As soon as the band launched into its opening number, it was pelted with eggs from one area of the venue floor. Many witnesses indicated their belief that the egg-throwers were planted, saying that they could have not gotten that many eggs past concert security.
Terry Stern, with Refuse & Resist, holds a protest sign as she walks in front of the federal courthouse in Atlanta, Monday, Aug. 22, 2005 after the sentencing hearing for convicted bomber Eric Rudolph. Rudolph was ordered Monday to serve a life of isolation behind bars as a prisoner of the government he professed to hate, after victims of the deadly 1996 Olympics blast and two others described him as a small man who cowardly fled amid his carnage.
Photo by Ric Feld
Congressman Dennis Kucinich has married a British woman, shedding the bachelor status that made headlines during his long-shot presidential campaign in 2004.
Kucinich and Elizabeth Harper, who works for a monetary-policy think tank in Chicago, married on Sunday before about 250 guests outside City Hall, where he once served as mayor.
Guests included some of his colleagues in Congress and actors Shirley MacLaine and Sean Penn. MacLaine and Kucinich are longtime friends, and Penn endorsed the Democrat for president last year.
Former mobster-turned-chef Henry Hill, whose experiences inspired the 1990 gangland movie "GoodFellas," has been found guilty of attempted possession of methamphetamine, a misdemeanor.
Hill had been charged with two felony counts of possessing meth and cocaine, but he was allowed to plead no contest on Aug. 8 to the lesser charge.
A visitor gets up close and touch one of the stones that form the largest stone circle in Europe at Avebury, Wiltshire, April 23, 2005. The circle may not be as famous as Stonehenge but visitors can walk amongst the stones as there is no restriction on access and no entrance fee.
Photo by Martin Cleaver
A flying ad banner came loose from its towing plane and landed on power lines in a Los Cerritos neighborhood Sunday afternoon, creating momentary panic and a longer power outage.
Jim Kubik said he was walking upstairs shortly after 12:45 p.m. at his home in the 4100 block of Del Mar Avenue, when he looked outside his window and saw what he thought was a parachute dangling from the power lines between his back yard and his neighbor's.
He went outside and saw the Del Taco banner and its attached steel pole sliding slowly down the lines, and heard what he thought were transformer explosions.
Long Beach fire Capt. Jim Arvizu said the banner pulled down electrical wires between five poles.
The Coast Guard says it is investigating the disappearance of Olivia Newton-John's longtime boyfriend, who failed to return from an overnight fishing trip off the California coast seven weeks ago.
Patrick Kim McDermott, 48, left San Pedro, 20 miles south of Los Angeles, June 30 on an overnight fishing trip. The Los Angeles Police Department said McDermott has been listed as missing.
Coast Guard officer Nathan Henise told The Associated Press Monday that McDermott was last seen on the fishing vessel and that his personal items were found on the boat.
Authorities said McDermott's family became concerned when he didn't attend a July 6 event. They contacted the Coast Guard after his car was found in the marina's parking lot on July 11.
A model presents a creation by Boudoir on the last day of the Bangkok Fashion Week August 21, 2005. Designed to raise Bangkok's status as a regional fashion hub, the Bangkok Fashion Week seeks to promote Thai garments and jewellery.
Photo by Adrees Latif
The Ilulissat glacier in Greenland, a UN heritage site considered one of the wonders of the world, has shrunk by over 10 kilometers in just a few years, in one of the most alarming examples of global warming in the Arctic region.
"We are witnesses to one of the most striking examples of climate change in the Arctic," US expert Robert Corell said during a recent helicopter flight over the glacier.
The lower extremity of the glacier "has receded by more than 10 kilometers (six miles) in two or three years after having been relatively stable since the 1960s," he said.
US astronomers said they had pinpointed the moment and location when one of the most famous landscape pictures in photographic history was taken.
"Autumn Moon, the High Sierra from Glacier Point," taken by Ansel Adams in Yosemite National Park, is a thrilling view of the American West, featuring a waxing Moon rising over dark, ice-tinged peaks.
But precisely when Adams took the iconic black-and-white picture has never been clear, and dates for it range from the mid to the late 1940s.
Using lunar tables, topographic maps, weather records and astronomical software, backed by a scouting trip to Glacier Point itself, the researchers believe that Adams pressed the shutter on September 15, 1948 at 7:03 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time.
Robert A. Moog, whose self-named synthesizers turned electric currents into sound, revolutionizing music in the 1960s and opening the wave that became electronica, has died. He was 71.
A childhood interest in the theremin, one of the first electronic musical instruments, would lead Moog to a create a career and business that tied the name Moog as tightly to synthesizers as the name Les Paul is to electric guitars.
Despite traveling in circles that included jet-setting rockers, he always considered himself a technician.
As a Ph.D. student in engineering physics at Cornell University, Moog - rhymes with vogue - in 1964 developed his first voltage-controlled synthesizer modules with composer Herb Deutsch. By the end of that year, R.A. Moog Co. marketed the first commercial modular synthesizer.
The arrival of the synthesizer came as just as the Beatles and other musicians started seeking ways to fuse psychedelic-drug experiences with their art. The Beatles used a Moog synthesizer on their 1969 album "Abbey Road"; a Moog was used to create an eerie sound on the soundtrack to the 1971 film "A Clockwork Orange."
Keyboardist Walter (later Wendy) Carlos demonstrated the range of Moog's synthesizer by recording the hit album "Switched-On Bach" in 1968 using only the new instrument instead of an orchestra.
He spent the early 1990s as a research professor of music at the University of North Carolina at Asheville before turning full-time to running his new instrument business, which was renamed Moog Music in 2002. The roster of customers includes Nine Inch Nails, Pearl Jam, Beck, Phish, Sonic Youth and Widespread Panic.
Moog is survived by his wife, Ileana; two daughters, a son, a stepdaughter, and his former wife, Shireleigh Moog.
A female snow leopard cub wakes from a nap a top a rock in the sun at the Bronx Zoo, Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2005 in New York. The rambunctious female was born on April 25, to mother Shikari and father Boris.
Photo by Mary Schwalm
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