Issue #85
Disinfotainment Today
By Michael Dare
Issue #85
is brought to you
by... 
Gay
Marriage
Good Ideas of the
Week 
Buried Stories of the Week
Remember Michael Schiavo trying to allow his wife Terri to die in Florida after she'd been in a coma for more than a decade? Headline news just a while ago, but according to the media with the attention span of a gnat, nothing much has happened since. Sorry guys, the story continues.
Christmas Present from
Hell
Get your loved ones a Threat Alert Jesus
Doing Dr. Strangelove
Proud
and/or
Marching Towards Doomsday
and/or
The Scumbag of the
Week
"I have been charged by the president with
making sure that none of the tyrannies in the world are negotiated with.
We don't negotiate with evil; we defeat it."
- Dick Cheney -
"Vice President Dick Cheney intervened last
week to insist on an uncompromising approach to nuclear talks with North
Korea, effectively blocking a resumption of negotiations this year,
according to a senior administration official."
- Warren P. Strobel: Cheney at center
of struggle to manage N. Korea talks -
"Congress, with only a limited debate, has
given the Bush administration a green light for the biggest revitalization
of the country's nuclear weapons program since the end of the Cold
War"
- James Sterngold: A
New Era of Nuclear Weapons -
"This has been a good year. I'm pretty happy
we essentially got what we wanted."
- Linton (Scumbag of the Week) Brooks: administrator of
the National Nuclear Security Administration -
Essay Question of the Week
The War on Plants
"A little-known provision buried within the
omnibus federal spending bill that the U.S. House of Representatives
approved [this month] would take away federal grants from local and state
transportation authorities that allow citizens to run advertising on
buses, trains, or subways in support of reforming our nation's drug laws.
If enacted, the provision could effectively silence community groups
around the country that are using advertising to educate Americans about
medical marijuana and other drug policy reforms. Meanwhile, this same bill
gives the White House $145 million in taxpayer money to run anti-marijuana
ads next year."
- Congress
Votes to Censor anti-War On Drug Ads -
"I am totally ecstatic about what this
decision will do not only for me, but for hundreds of thousands of
patients across the country. Not too many people get to come up against
someone who is as evil as John Ashcroft and actually win and that feels
very good. I have the truth on my side, and it was nice to see the
justices of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals care about my life."
- Angel McClary Raich: A Landmark
Victory - Court Shoots Down Ashcroft on Medical Pot -
Capitalist Pigs of the Week
I Feel So Much Safer Now
Plot Summary for The Last Patient (2004)
After enrolling in an experimental study on Rage Impulse Disorder at the Straun Foundation, Michael Dare discovers that the research is not what it seems. After learning that the Foundation's head, Dr. Timothy Straun has his own agenda for them, Dare and head resident Dr. Susan Verger team up to stop him. Straun's shocking family secret and twisted plan are then revealed in a stunning finale.
Interesting Search Terms People Used to Find My Site
Shockwave of the Week
History Lessons from Hell
"A democracy cannot exist
as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters
discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public
treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the
candidates promising the most benefits, with the result that a democracy
always collapses over loose fiscal policy, and is always followed by a
dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has
been two hundred years.
"These nations have progressed through this sequence: form bondage to
spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from great courage
to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to complacency; from
complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependence -- from dependence back
into bondage."
- Alexander
Tyler, 1787, writing about the fall of the Athenian Republic -
Don't Take My Word For It
"One of the few things I
know about writing is this: Spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all,
right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in
the book, or for another book, give it, give it all, give it now ... Some
more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from
behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to
yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive.
Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You
open your safe and find ashes."
- Annie Dillard
-
"Are al Qaeda's links to
Saddam Hussein's Iraq just a fantasy of the Bush administration? Hardly.
The Clinton administration also warned the American public about those
ties and defended its response to al Qaeda terror by citing an Iraqi
connection."
- Stephen F. Hayes: The
Clinton View of Iraq-al Qaeda Ties -
"The best way to find
these terrorists who hide in holes is to get people coming forth to
describe the location of the hole, is to give clues and
data."
-
Dubya -
"The line separating good
and evil passes not through states, nor between political parties, but
rather through every human heart."
- Alexander Solzhenitsyn
-
"I cannot go to the
bathroom while my people are in bondage."
- Captured Iraqi ex-President
Saddam Hussein, quoted on "Today" -
"Pressed to explain why
his administration had asserted Saddam possessed weapons, when at best
fragmentary evidence of programs had been found, Mr. Bush replied: 'So
what's the difference? If he were to acquire weapons, he would be the
danger,' he said in an interview with ABC
News' Diane Sawyer."
- Is
the search for weapons over? -
"One of the fascinating
aspects of the capture of Saddam Hussein is the way in which some people
have permitted U.S. officials to manipulate them into supporting what is
basically an immoral action - an illegal and unconstitutional invasion,
war of aggression, and occupation of an independent country. Think about
it: if Soviet forces had invaded an independent country with the purported
aim of disarming and arresting the nations ruler, and if Soviet military
forces were occupying the country, bashing peoples doors down in brutal
and intrusive raids of their homes and businesses, indefinitely
incarcerating people in secret military brigs, confiscating weapons,
imposing curfews, banning political demonstrations, and periodically
killing innocent people in the process, wouldn't the same Americans who
are supporting the U.S. government's actions in Iraq have been outraged at
the Soviet government for doing these things? Indeed wouldn't they even be
tempted to support those who were resisting the occupation and trying to
oust Soviet forces from their land? And if, all of a sudden, the Soviet
Union made a surprise announcement that they had taken the ruler of the
country into custody, would people's opposition suddenly evaporate and
change into enthusiastic support of Soviet forces?"
- Hornberger's Blog
-
"No one can read our
Constitution without concluding that the people who wrote it wanted their
government severely limited; the words 'no' and 'not' employed in
restraint of government power occur 24 times in the first seven articles
of the Constitution and 22 more times in the Bill of
Rights."
- Edmund A. Opitz -
"According to estimates by
the economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez - confirmed by data from
the Congressional Budget Office - between 1973 and 2000 the average real
income of the bottom 90 percent of American taxpayers actually fell by 7
percent. Meanwhile, the income of the top 1 percent rose by 148 percent,
the income of the top 0.1 percent rose by 343 percent and the income of
the top 0.01 percent rose 599 percent."
- Paul Krugman: The
Death of Horatio Alger -
"Have I not seen dwellers
on form and favour
Lose all, and more, by paying too much rent?"
- Shakespeare: Sonnet 75
-
"If Howard Dean and Wesley
Clark had their way, Saddam Hussein would be in power today and not in
prison, and the world and America would be a much more dangerous
place."
-
Joe
Lieberman -
"If Joe Lieberman had
attacked George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in the 2000 campaign the way he
attacks fellow Democrats in 2003, George W. Bush would not be president
today and the world would be a better place. Joe Lieberman was buddy-buddy
with Bush and Cheney in 2000, supports the Bush war in Iraq and votes more
often with Bush than the Democrats - maybe he is running in the wrong
primary."
-
Chris
Lehane -
"U.S.
Sen. Bill Nelson said Monday the Bush administration last year told him
and other senators that Iraq not only had weapons of mass destruction, but
they had the means to deliver them to East Coast cities.
"Nelson, D-Tallahassee, said about 75 senators got that news during a
classified briefing before last October's congressional vote authorizing
the use of force to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Nelson voted in
favor of using military force."
- John McCarthy: Senators
were told Iraqi weapons could hit U.S. -
"There is a great man who
makes every man feel small. But the real great man is the man who makes
every man feel great."
- Gilbert K. Chesterton -
"I read somewhere that 77%
of all the mentally ill live in poverty. Actually, I'm more intrigued by
the 23% who are apparently doing quite well for themselves."
- Jerry Garcia
-
"If the
police broke into someone's house and trashed the place entirely, killed
the pet dog and two of the kids, because they thought there were drugs in
the apartment, but it turned out, after they searched and searched and
searched, that they had been given a bad tip and there never were drugs to
begin with, those police would have some answering to do and a price to
pay.
"So since President Bush seems to have done
exactly the equivalent to an entire nation, who should be on trial,
Saddam, or President Bush?"
- The Moderate
Independent -
"There
are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa
doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist
children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million
according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of
3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes
there's at least one good child in each.
"Santa has 31
hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and
the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems
logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that
for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a
second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the
stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever
snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh
and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million
stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know
to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we
are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2
million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least
once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc. This means that Santa's sleigh
is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For
purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses
space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second; a conventional
reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour."
- Is There a Santa
Claus? -
"Politics is the art of
looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it
incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy."
- Ernest Ben
-
"In a high-tech cover-up,
the
Washington Post this morning reports the White House is actively
scrubbing government websites clean of any of its own previous statements
that have now proven to be untrue."
- White
House Covers Tracks by Removing Information -
"It is not the province of
the courts ... to rewrite the [law] in order to make it fit a new and
unforeseen Internet architecture, no matter how damaging that development
has been to the music industry."
- US Court of Appeals
-
"If all that comes out
during the trial is the crimes that Saddam committed -- and I'm not saying
those shouldn't come out -- then I think it could serve to buttress the
Bush administration, but if it also comes out about the role of the US in
setting up that regime, then I think there will be even greater
questioning about why this war happened and why this occupation is going
on and what the real interests of the US are at this point."
- Leslie
Cagan: national coordinator of "United for Peace and Justice"
-
"Few
Americans have heard of Katharine Gun, a former British intelligence
employee facing charges that she violated the Official Secrets Act. So
far, the American press has ignored her. But the case raises profound
questions about democracy and the public's right to know on both sides of
the Atlantic.
"Ms. Gun's legal peril began in Britain on
March 2, when the Observer newspaper exposed a highly secret memorandum by
a top U.S. National Security Agency official. Dated Jan. 31, the memo
outlined surveillance of a half-dozen delegations with swing votes on the
U.N. Security Council, noting a focus on 'the whole gamut of information
that could give U.S. policy-makers an edge in obtaining results favorable
to U.S. goals' - support for war on Iraq.
"The government of
British Prime Minister Tony Blair quickly arrested Ms. Gun. In June, she
formally lost her job as a translator at the top-secret Government
Communications Headquarters in Gloucester. On Nov. 13, her name surfaced
in the British news media when the Labor Party government dropped the
other shoe, charging the 29-year-old woman with a breach of the Official
Secrets Act.
"She faces up to two years in prison if
convicted."
- Norman Solomon: For
telling the truth -
"The elite ruling class
wants us asleep so we'll remain a docile, apathetic herd of passive
consumers, and non-participants in the true agenda of our governments -
which is to keep us separate, and present an image of a world filled with
irresolvable problems, that they, and only they, might one day, somewhere
in the never-arriving future, be able to solve. Just stay asleep, America,
keep watching TV."
- Bill Hicks
-
"Free Speech is the right
to yell 'Theater!' in a crowded fire."
- Abbie Hoffman
-
Everything Else
Zach Everson continues to take advantage of Amazon with Paris Hilton's Christmas Wish List.
Too embarrassed to look at the actual Paris Hilton tape? Check out the Barbie version.
I guess if Dick Cheney had to pick one website he didn't want anyone to see, it would have to be Cheney's Secrets.
John Rowland, the governor of the strait-laced New England state of Connecticut, has rejected calls for his resignation over corruption allegations saying he is in direct contact with God, who apparently took time off from his full time job of helping Christians win Grammys.
Go here to read the new Federal anti-spam law. Okay, they're not "official" and they're poorly formatted and they're basically just transcriptions made by a rabid fan, but they are, nevertheless, every single Seinfeld script.
For unlimited astronomical information, including everything happening in the sky from wherever you are, be sure to visit Heavens Above.
This story about the press and Howard Dean is a textbook case of how to take a quote out of context and make it sound like something else.
It's pornography. It's a puzzle. It's pornographic puzzles.
You know what? It doesn't matter who's on
Meria Heller's show. Just click here
and listen to whatever she's broadcasting right now.
'Best of TBH Politoons'
Thanks, again, Tim!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
The Wall Street Poet
Debt, Debt, Debt, Debt (The Poem)
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Kinda overcast, but pleasant.
It's been interesting inviting pals over for Christmas dinner, but not having an answer for 'What're we having?' The answer, until today, was whatever I can find at a store that's not on strike.
Found a big old ham this afternoon. Question answered.
We also made our first visit to the local mall in Lakewood.
Was surprised there was no problem finding a parking place. The only places with lines were a video store and 'sit-on-Santa's-lap.' But, the kid's favorite place was an 'As Seen On TV' store - jeez, all the infomercial 'stuff' in one location.
Tonight, Tuesday, CBS begins the night with a FRESH 'special' - 'A Home For The Holidays', followed by a
RERUN 'The Guardian', then a RERUN 'Judging Amy'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Dave are Renee Zellweger and Darlene Love. (RERUNs all next week)
Scheduled on a FRESH Craiggers are Juliette Lewis, Kathryn Morris, and Juliette & The Licks. (RERUNs all next week)
NBC starts the night with a RERUN 'Tracy Morgan', followed by a RERUN 'Whoopi', then a RERUN 'Frasier',
followed by a RERUN 'Happy Family', then a RERUN 'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Jay is Kirk Franklin.
Scheduled on a FRESH Conan are Julia Stiles and Marc Maron.
On a RERUN Carson Daly are Jennifer Connelly, Tom Welling, and David Banner. (RERUNs all next week)
ABC opens the evening with a FRESH '8 Simple Rules', followed by a FRESH 'I'm With Her', then a FRESH 'Line Of Fire'.
RERUN 'Jim', followed by a RERUN 'Less Than Perfect', then a
On a RERUN Jimmy Kimmel (from 6/20/03), are William H. Macy, Donal Logue, Jane's Addiction, guest co-host Perry Farrell. (RERUNs all next week)
The WB offers a RERUN 'Gilmore Girls', followed by a RERUN 'One Tree Hill'.
Faux has a RERUN 'That 70s Show', followed by a RERUN 'Simple Life', then 'American Idol Christmas'.
UPN has a RERUN 'One On One', followed by a RERUN 'All Of Us', then a RERUN 'Rock Me', followed by a RERUN 'Girlfriends'.
A&E has 'American Justice', 'Biography' (Jimmy Stewart), and 'Cold Case Files'.
AMC offers the movie 'Hud', followed by the movie 'Shenandoah', then the movie 'The Far Country'.
BBC -
[6pm] 'BBC World News';
[6:30pm] 'Cash in the Attic' - Fry;
[7pm] 'House Invaders' - Rugby/ Cawston;
[7:30pm] 'Changing Rooms' - Denford;
[8pm] 'Ground Force' - Portmellon;
[8:30pm] 'Ground Force' - Pitsea;
[9pm] 'Changing Rooms' - Tenerife;
[9:30pm] 'Changing Rooms' - St. Leonards;
[10pm] 'When Changing Rooms Met Ground Force';
[11pm] 'Ground Force' - Portmellon;
[11:30pm] 'Ground Force' - Pitsea;
[12am] 'Changing Rooms';
[12:30am] 'Changing Rooms' - St. Leonards;
[1am] 'When Changing Rooms Met Ground Force';
[2am] 'Ground Force' - Portmellon;
[2:30am] 'Ground Force' - Pitsea;
[3am] 'Changing Rooms' - Tenerife;
[3:30am] 'Changing Rooms' - St. Leonards;
[4am] 'When Changing Rooms Met Ground Force';
[5am] 'Ground Force' - Portmellon;
[5:30am] 'Ground Force' - Pitsea; and
[6am] 'BBC World News'. (ALL TIMES EST)
Bravo has 'West Wing', a seasonal 'Queer Eye', a FRESH 'Celebrity Poker Showdown' (Game 4), another 'Queer Eye', and another 'West Wing'.
Comedy Central has the movie 'Dogma', followed by the movie 'Office Space'.
Jon Stewart is Pre-empted all week. (RERUNs all next week)
History has 'Tabloid Eye', a FRESH 'Deep Sea Detectives', a FRESH 'Tactical To Practical', and a FRESH
'Modern Marvels'.
SciFi is all 'X-Files' all night.
TCM:
[6am] 'Let Us Be Gay' (1930);
[7:30am] 'Never Say Goodbye' (1946);
[9:15am] 'She's My Weakness' (1930);
[10:30am] 'Yes, My Darling Daughter' (1939);
[12pm] 'Janie' (1944);
[2pm] 'Pride And Prejudice' (1940);
[4pm] 'Andy Hardy's Double Life' (1942);
[6pm] 'The Mating Game' (1959);
[8pm] 'That Touch of Mink' (1962);
[10pm] 'The Bachelor And The Bobby-Soxer' (1947);
[12am] 'Third Finger, Left Hand' (1940);
[2am] 'Libeled Lady' (1936);
[4am] 'God's Gift To Women' (1931). (ALL TIMES EST)
Actor Ben Affleck plays with a dolphin at Bahrain's U.S. Navy base December 22, 2003. Affleck visited the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise to wish the crew seasons' greetings and previewed his new film 'Paycheck'.
Photo by Hamad I Mohammed
The Information One-Stop
Moose & Squirrel
Special to Come Out on DVD
Warren Zevon
The story of Warren Zevon's last album will expand when it hits DVD in March.
A VH1 special about the making of "The Wind" that aired in August will be released by Artemis Records on DVD with extra footage, Jordan Zevon, Warren Zevon's son, told The Associated Press on Monday.
"They're all moments that are uncut," said Zevon, executive producer of the album. "They're not edits-together for the sake of time and go from bit to bit, they're actually just little moments in the making of the record."
Zevon said the DVD will include full interviews with musicians such as Bruce Springsteen that show his father's true personality.
Warren Zevon
Headlining AIDS Drag Benefit
Tammy Faye Bakker Messner
Former televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker Messner will headline a drag bingo benefit for AIDS here next month.
The Alliance of AIDS Services-Carolina, which serves people with HIV and AIDS in Durham, Orange and Wake counties, is organizing the fund-raiser at the Durham Armory on Jan. 2.
In a telephone interview, Messner said her AIDS work was nothing new.
"Everyone has a right to be who they are. I believe that," she said. "I think people are just people. God does not put labels on people. People put labels on people. And it's none of my business what goes on in people's bedrooms."
Tammy Faye Bakker Messner
A cat watches the snow fall from the shelter of a bird feeder in Anchorage, Alaska Monday Dec. 22, 2003. More than 10 inches of snow fell in the Anchorage area in a period of 12 hours.
Photo by Al Grillo
Visited Pittsburgh Women's Shelter
Christina Aguilera
Christina Aguilera sings about the abuse she says she and her mother suffered at the hand of her father in the song "I'm Okay" — but Aguilera has done more than just sing about domestic abuse.
The 23-year-old pop singer, who hails from the Pittsburgh suburb of Wexford, on Sunday visited the Women's Center and Shelter of Greater Pittsburgh where she has donated $200,000.
Aguilera spent two hours signing autographs and talking to the 18 women and 23 children at the shelter in Pittsburgh's Oakland section. She also helped wrap Christmas presents for children at the shelter.
Her Web site, www.christinaaguilera.com, also has a link to the shelter, which gets about 194 referrals from the site each month.
Christina Aguilera
Women's Center and Shelter of Greater Pittsburgh
May Not Be Home For Christmas
Ozzy
Although his condition has improved in the last few days, it's not clear whether Ozzy Osbourne will be able to leave the hospital and go home for Christmas. The 55-year-old rocker is still at Wexham Park Hospital in Slough, England, where he has recuperating since injuring himself in an all-terrain vehicle crash on December 8. The hospital's medical director, Dr. Dick Jack, told U.K. newspaper the Scotsman that "Mr. Osbourne is very much better and continues to make steady progress. He has been breathing independently for five days now, is eating well and no longer confined to bed."
Wife and manager Sharon Osbourne recently stated that it may take her husband six months to recover from his injuries. Once Ozzy is strong enough, doctors will surgically insert a steel plate into his neck to support the damaged vertebra.
Ozzy
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Judge OKs Magazine Excerpt
Eminem Song
A federal judge on Monday allowed a hip-hop magazine to publish CDs containing limited excerpts of a previously unreleased recording by rapper Eminem that includes racially charged lyrics like "black girls are dumb."
U.S. District Judge Gerald E. Lynch authorized The Source magazine, which has been instigating attacks against Eminem, to publish up to 20 seconds of material from two Eminem recordings. The magazine said it would enclose the CDs in its next issue.
The judge said limited reproduction of the recording falls within the magazine's right to "fair use" of copyrighted material for the purpose of criticism.
Eminem Song
A mannequin dressed as Santa Claus 'relaxes' in a bathtub with a champagne glass in his hand, in the window of a local store, Monday, Dec. 22, 2003, in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Photo by Natacha Pisarenko
Baby News
Charles Spencer Crowe
Russell Crowe's wife, Danielle Spencer, gave birth to a baby boy, his publicist said Monday.
Charles Spencer Crowe was born Sunday night, weighing 6 pounds 2 ounces, Crowe's Australian publicist Wendy Day told Australian Associated Press.
Charles Spencer Crowe
All-Time Singles King In Britain
Elvis Rules
Elvis Presley is the all-time singles king in Britain, nearly a half-century after he first crashed into the pop chart here, according to a new list published Monday.
Presley has appeared on 1,193 of the weekly charts since 1952, when British Hit Singles, a book published by Guinness World Records, began keeping records.
At No. 2 is Cliff Richard with 1,152 weeks in the charts, followed by The Shadows at 771 weeks.
The rest of the top 10 are: Elton John, Madonna, Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Rod Stewart, the Beatles and David Bowie.
Elvis Rules
British Hit Singles
Formerly 'The Vidiot'
Postpones Trip To Britain
Michael Jackson
Beleaguered pop superstar Michael Jackson has delayed a Christmas trip to Britain his spokesman said, amid an outcry across the Atlantic against the planned visit.
The singer's publicist Stuart Backerman denied British press reports that the trip had been cancelled because Jackson had been cowed by opposition by a British MP and press to his visit.
Backerman said the outcry in Britain "doesn't bother him (Jackson) one bit because he knows he's innocent, knows who he is inside and is confident about himself."
The publicist said that the trip, if it goes ahead, would be a "private vacation in addition to his contractual obligations" and that little information of his plans would be made public.
Michael Jackson
People strolling with their dogs during sunset on the Elbe River near the northern German city of Hamburg, December 22, 2003.
Photo by Christian Charisius
Singer Charged with Assault
Jack White
Michigan prosecutors charged Grammy-nominated singer Jack White of the band The White Stripes with aggravated assault on Monday following a fight with another singer at a Detroit club.
White, 28, could face a prison charge of up to a year if convicted on the aggravated assault charge stemming from an unprovoked attack on Jason Stollsteimer, the singer from the local garage rock band the Von Bondies, the prosecutor for Wayne County, Michigan said.
White approached Stollsteimer, 25, at the Magic Stick club in Detroit on Dec. 13, spat on him, and punched him in the face, the prosecutor said. Stollsteimer fell to the floor and White continued to hit him until he was pulled off by onlookers, the prosecutor said.
Jack White
Sentenced
Impersonator
A man who impersonated rock band Creed's lead guitarist and scammed fans out of more than $1,000 and free drinks has been sentenced to more than two years in prison.
Kevin Eckenrod, 40, pleaded no contest Friday to fraudulent use of a credit card and scheming to defraud. He will have eight months reduced from his sentence for time served.
Eckenrod claimed to be Mark Tremonti, the lead guitarist for Creed. He handed out and autographed copies of publicity photos and attracted crowds of fans at Clearwater Beach bars.
Police arrested Eckenrod, who has more than 30 aliases, as he stood in the middle of a crowd signing autographs in April. Eckenrod does have a slight resemblance to Tremonti, though he is 11 years older than the guitarist.
Impersonator
Mansion Survives Quake
'Hearst Castle'
It has withstood time, critics, some of the world's most outsized egos and scathing depiction as a modern-day Xanadu in the movie "Citizen Kane."
And now Hearst Castle, the opulent home that media magnate William Randolph Hearst built for himself and his mistress decades ago in the lush mountains of central California, has withstood a major earthquake.
The castle, designed by architect Julia Morgan and built over a period of 28 years, was spared major damage in a magnitude 6.5 earthquake that struck the area on Monday, officials said.
Situated in San Simeon on the California coast about five hours north of Los Angeles, the castle is the centerpiece of an estate that stretches over 127 acres and features 56 bedrooms, 61 bathrooms and 41 fireplaces.
For more, 'Hearst Castle'
Two white-winged guan's rest on perches in their cage in a protected area in Olmos, northern Peru, November 6, 2003. A quarter of century ago, Perus white-winged guan, a species native only to this Andean bird paradise, was considered as dead as a dodo. Discovered in 1877 by a Polish ornithologist, the birds were believed extinct for 100 years until their rediscovery in 1977 by Gustavo del Solar, a hunter-turned-conservationist who founded a special breeding project to reintroduce it to the wild.
Photo by Mariana Bazo
'The Osbournes'
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