'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
PAUL KRUGMAN: The Great Wealth Transfer (rollingstone.com)
It's the biggest untold economic story of our time: more of the nation's bounty held in fewer and fewer hands. And Bush's tax cuts are only making the problem worse.
Voters usher out Republicans in 2006
WASHINGTON - President Bush called it a thumping, but to Democrats, it felt more like a restoration after a long turn out of power in Congress and several big-state governorships. By any description, the 2006 elections marked a voter revolt, fueled by anger over the war in Iraq and corruption at home, yet carried out with remarkable precision.
Report: Federal deficit would be higher
WASHINGTON - The federal deficit for 2006 would have been 81 percent higher than the $247.7 billion that was reported two months ago if the government had to use the same accounting methods as private companies.
Mark Morford: I Apologize For My Nasty Slur. Yes, I said it. And I am very sorry. I was totally drunk. At least, I think I was. Forgive me? (sfgate.com)
It seems like the things we should be apologizing for -- like, say, launching interminably brutal wars, choking the planet, gagging the human spirit via adhering to stiff and sexually panicky religious doctrines, thinking "The King of Queens" is actually a watchable program -- these things never get the hotly apologetic, repentant energy they deserve. You know?
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2006/12/15/notes121506.DTL
Mark Dowie: The best investment advice you'll never get (sanfran.com)
For 35 years, Bay Area finance revolutionaries have been pushing a personal investing strategy that brokers despise and hope you ignore. The story of a rebellion that's slowly but surely putting money into the pockets of millions of Americans, winning powerful converts, and making money managers from California Street to Wall Street squirm.
'It was the start of a very different life' (guardian.co.uk)
Michelle Mullen had it all: good job, money, and a busy social life. Then she went to her doctor with numbness and blurred vision, and everything changed ...
JOSEF JOFFE: All Tomorrow's Euro-Muslims (nysun.com)
Mark Steyn, the Canadian columnist who lives in "blue" New Hampshire, is a true "red-stater" whose genius ranges somewhere between Mark Twain and Ambrose Bierce. He has got punch, wit, and smarts, and if he were teaching in a North American humanities department, they would send him off to "sensitivity training" for life, without parole.
Beth Quinn: An owed in rime two my come pewter spell check her (recordonline.com)
Eye don't no what eyed ever due
Without my spell check her.
Watch "30 Rock" on Your Computer
Let Alec Baldwin send your friends a personalized message (30rock.nbc.com)
Test Your Short-Term Memory
Man With An Opinion
Th' Rev
Hey Marty...
For some reason this really pissed me off...
Purple Gene Reviews
'Volver'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and brisk.
The kid is home, sick with another cold.
Bans Canadian Seafood
Jimmy Buffett
Jimmy Buffett says Canadian seafood is not welcome in his chain of Margaritaville Cafes.
The singer-songwriter is the latest celebrity to speak out on behalf of the U.S. Humane Society's campaign against the Canadian seal hunt. Buffett says his chain of restaurants is banning Canadian seafood until the Canadian government puts an end to the controversial kill.
The 59-year-old Buffett, whose restaurants are located in sun destinations in the southern United States and Caribbean, says he just wants to make people more aware of the issue.
Jimmy Buffett
May Drop All-Telenovela Strategery
MyNetwork
MyNetworkTV is considering cutting back on its strategy of "all telenovelas, all the time" in light of underwhelming ratings, sources said.
The network, which News Corp. launched September 5 largely with stations left out in the cold by the WB-UPN merger, has a schedule comprising two 13-week drama strips, with new episodes airing Monday-Friday and hour-long recaps airing Saturday.
The first two dramas, "Desire" and the Bo Derek- Morgan Fairchild starrer "Fashion House," each averaged a miniscule 0.7 household rating/1 share over their 13-week run.
The newest dramas -- "Wicked Wicked Games," starring Tatum O'Neal, and "Watch Over Me," starring Casper Van Dien and Catherine Oxenberg -- debuted December 6. In their first week on the air (a partial week consisting of three days because the shows debuted on a Wednesday), "Games" averaged a 0.7/1 among households, while "Watch" averaged a 0.6/1.
MyNetwork
Voted Worst Dog Owner
Britney Spears
When it comes to celebrity dog-parenting skills, Oprah Winfrey is tops and Britney Spears is the world's worst, according to an online vote by readers of two dog magazines.
"Britney was the overwhelming choice" for worst celebrity dog owner for 2006, Hilary O'Hagan, editor of The New York Dog and The Hollywood Dog magazines, said in a statement.
"She once had three Chihuahuas ... and never left home without at least one of them on her arm," O'Hagan said. "As soon as she met K-Fed and had kids they (the dogs) disappeared."
Paris Hilton, 2005's "worst" winner, placed second for "treating her dogs like accessories," the magazines said.
Britney Spears
Cancels Gospel Tour
Patti LaBelle
Patti LaBelle's current tour, "The Gospel According to Patti," is being canceled, the singer announced Monday.
LaBelle, who cited differences with the tour's promoter, said she had a good relationship with sponsors and hoped to restart the tour.
The tour, which began in October, had been scheduled to continue in Philadelphia, Cleveland and St. Louis, among other cities.
Patti LaBelle
Enters Rehab
Tawny Kitaen
Actress Tawny Kitaen, best known as the star of a series of 1980s heavy metal videos, has entered a drug rehabilitation program to resolve cocaine possession charges, her lawyer said on Monday.
Kitaen, 45, was facing a possible three years in prison on the felony charge of possessing 15 grams of cocaine but entered a six-month drug rehab program last week, lawyer Blair Berk told reporters.
Kitaen appeared in Orange County Superior Court last week, ahead of Monday's scheduled arraignment, and won a "deferred entry of judgment," Berk said. If she fails to comply with the terms of agreement she could be automatically convicted.
Tawny Kitaen
Baby News
Eve Julia Tambor
Former "Arrested Development" and "Larry Sanders" star Jeffrey Tambor has doubled his reasons for celebrating December 10th each year.
Tambor, 62, and his wife Kasia, 38, welcomed baby daughter Eve Julia that day, the same birthday as their 2-year-old son, Gabriel Kasper, spokeswoman Amy Zvi said Monday.
Eve Julia Tambor
Tepid Response To Controversial Opera
'Idomeneo'
Under heavy security, a controversial production of Mozart's opera "Idomeneo," dropped for fear of Muslim backlash over a scene with the severed head of the Prophet Muhammad, returned to the stage Monday without incident.
A powerful male voice called out "stop it!" and "boo!" as the heads of Islam's founder, along with those of Jesus, Buddha and Poseidon, the Greek god of the seas, came tumbling out of a sack hefted by Idomeneo.
But several voices from the other side of the hall yelled, "continue, continue," their cheers clashing with the voice of the critic, and the cast and orchestra received prolonged applause.
The reactions were somewhat anticlimactic. Plainsclothes security personnel lined the hall throughout the performance and audience members had to pass through metal detectors out of fears that the severed-heads scene could arouse unrest. Officials said 100 police officers were on duty.
'Idomeneo'
Unemployed And Parnoid
Judith Regan
In an explosive telephone argument that led to her firing, publisher Judith Regan allegedly complained of a "Jewish cabal" against her in the book industry and stated that "Of all people, Jews should know about ganging up, finding common enemies and telling the big lie."
A spokesman for Regan's former employer, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., told The Associated Press on Monday that the remarks were based on notes taken by HarperCollins attorney Mark Jackson, with whom Regan was discussing the future of a controversial new novel about baseball star Mickey Mantle.
The spokesman, Andrew Butcher, released the comments in response to a threatened libel suit from Regan's legal representative, Hollywood attorney Bert Fields, who had called earlier reports of anti-Semitic remarks "completely untrue" and added that the publisher "didn't have an anti-Semitic bone in her body.
Judith Regan
"Antarctica Is Easy"
Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog, who has made movies about grizzly bears in Alaska and a downed fighter pilot in Laos, just finished filming in Antarctica and one thing he wants to make clear: it was easy.
While he acknowledged it was cold, and the crew had to spend a couple days getting acclimatized before they could reach the 13,500-foot (4,118-meter) summit -- which feels about 3,000 feet higher due to low air pressure -- he praised the ease of the location.
People get the wrong impression of the harshness of the place, based on the heroic age of Antarctic explorers like Roald Amundsen, Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton, Herzog said.
"It's a perpetuated sort of image since the days of 1903 or 1910 or 1911, when Scott and Amundsen and Shackleton were out here," he said. "Now you have got a cafeteria, you have got the barber shop and the TV station. You've got the ATM machine, so what else can you ask for?"
Werner Herzog
Top US Cash Crop
Marijuana
U.S. growers produce nearly $35 billion worth of marijuana annually, making the illegal drug the country's largest cash crop, bigger than corn and wheat combined, an advocate of medical marijuana use said in a study released on Monday.
The report, conducted by Jon Gettman, a public policy analyst and former head of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, also concluded that five U.S. states produce more than $1 billion worth of marijuana apiece: California, Tennessee, Kentucky, Hawaii and Washington.
Gettman's figures were based on several government reports between 2002 and 2005 estimating the United States produced more than 10,000 metric tons of marijuana annually.
He calculated the producer price per pound of marijuana at $1,606 based on national survey data showing retail prices of between $2,400 and $3,000 between 2001 and 2005.
Marijuana
Mayor With A Mirror
Pierfranco Midali
A village in the Italian Alps is finally basking in winter sunlight thanks to a giant mirror installed on a mountain top to reflect the sun's rays into the main square.
Viganella, with a population of less than 200, lies in a valley so steep that each year from November 11 to February 2 it hardly receives any sunshine.
That was until Mayor Pierfranco Midali decided to do something about it.
Now a 5-metre (16-foot) high, 8-metre (26-foot) wide mirror tracks the sun's movement and reflects its rays into Viganella's historic piazza.
Pierfranco Midali
52 New Species Discovered
Borneo
Scientists have discovered at least 52 new species of animals and plants on the southeast Asian island of Borneo since 2005, including a catfish with protruding teeth and suction cups on its belly to help it stick to rocks, WWF International said Tuesday.
Much of Borneo, which is shared by Indonesia, Malaysia and the sultanate of Brunei, is covered by one of the world's last remaining rain forests.
The discoveries bring the total number of species newly identified on the island to more than 400 since 1996, according to WWF, known in North America as the World Wildlife Fund.
Borneo
In Memory
Joe Barbera
Joe Barbera, half of the Hanna-Barbera animation team that produced such beloved cartoon characters as Tom and Jerry, Yogi Bear and the Flintstones, died Monday, a Warner Bros. spokesman said. He was 95.
With his longtime partner, Bill Hanna, Barbera first found success creating the highly successful Tom and Jerry cartoons. The antics of the battling cat and mouse went on to win seven Academy Awards, more than any other series with the same characters.
The partners, who teamed up while working at MGM in the 1930s, then went on to a whole new realm of success in the 1960s with a witty series of animated TV comedies, including "The Flintstones," "The Jetsons," "Yogi Bear," "Scooby-Doo" and "Huckleberry Hound and Friends."
Hanna-Barbera received eight Emmys, including the Governors Award of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in 1988.
Neither Hanna, born in 1910, nor Barbera, born in 1911, set out to be cartoonists. Barbera, who grew up in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, originally went into banking. Soon, however, he turned his doodles into magazine cartoons and then into a job as an animator.
In addition to his wife, Sheila, the animator is survived by three children from a previous marriage, Jayne, Neal and Lynn.
Joe Barbera
In Memory
Chris Hayward
Chris Hayward, an Emmy-winning television writer who helped develop the bumbling animated Canadian Mountie Dudley Do-Right and other offbeat characters for the Rocky and Bullwinkle TV show, has died. He was 81.
Hayward contributed satire, wordplay and puns for "Rocky and His Friends," a witty cartoon that built a large adult following. The show debuted on ABC in 1959 and was renamed "The Bullwinkle Show" when it moved to NBC in 1961.
The first episode Hayward co-wrote for the two lead characters was "Rue Britannia," according to "The Moose That Roared" (2000), a history of the show. In the episode, Bullwinkle has to stay in the Abominable Manor in England.
With partner Allan Burns, Hayward later helped create "The Munsters," and in 1968 the pair received an Emmy for their work on the CBS sitcom "He & She."
Born in Bayonne, New Jersey, Hayward moved to Los Angeles at age 17. He took a night class in scriptwriting at a local high school and went into television in the 1950s. He worked on "Crusader Rabbit," the first cartoon show created specifically for television, as well as "Get Smart," "My Mother the Car" and "Barney Miller."
In addition to his wife, Linda, Hayward is survived by his children, Laurel, Victoria and Tony, from a previous marriage that ended in divorce.
Chris Hayward
In Memory
Denis Payton
Denis Payton, from rock group The Dave Clark Five which toured the United States in the 1960s and spearheaded the "great British invasion" alongside the Beatles, has died after a long illness aged 63.
"He had an amazing philosophy on life and will be greatly missed by me and all who knew him," said Dave Clark, one of the group's founding members. "Denis was extremely brave and not afraid of death."
The Dave Clark Five, which broke up in the 1970s, boasts record sales of more than 100 million and claims to have spearheaded the "Great British Invasion" of the United States that culminated in the Beatles' success there.
Payton is survived by Lindsay, his partner of 16 years, his two sons from his first marriage and two stepsons.
Denis Payton
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