PAUL KRUGMAN: Talk-Show Joe (The New York Times)
Friday was a bad day for Senator Joseph Lieberman. The Connecticut Democratic Party's nominating convention endorsed him, but that was a given for an incumbent with a lot of political chips to cash in. The real news was that Ned Lamont, an almost unknown challenger, received a third of the votes. This gave Mr. Lamont the right to run against Mr. Lieberman in a primary, and suggests that Mr. Lamont may even win.
Larry Beinhart: With All This Horseshit (huffingtonpost.com)
Get on the stand and regale with tales of success. Of plots thwarted. Of desperate measures intercepted. Of terrorists captured or killed. Tell us how you've located Osama bin Laden.
Last week a bull market hit the skids. The Bush Administration has been on the skids for months. There are similarities here. But there's also one very big difference...
Markets And Governments
Markets, like governments, Oft' glitter 'fore they fade. Large fortunes, great power, Can unravel, get unmade. One thing though, 'bout markets, Is with a bit of luck, You can escape them quickly But with governments - you're stuck..
Purple Gene's review of the big theater premiere of the cult movie "Boondock Saints" (1999). [view trailer]
Written and directed by first timer Troy Duffy:
Man o man….I stumbled into a severely warped thrasher grunge tattooed and twisted packed and sweaty scene at the Emery Bay Theater last night….My pierced and tatted dark haired lawyer daughter had told me we really, really had to go……but she's in New Zealand so I went alone……I had no concept of what I was walking into… but I found a seat and started munching my no butter popcorn and small fruit punch….watching the excited freak fest unfold….
Suddenly, after 8 or 9 trailers, this bald rude boy punkish dude came out…it was Troy Duffy himself…and he proceeded to explain the history of "Boondock Saints"…He had made the original movie (his first effort) back in 1999 and after the censors cut the blood and gore scenes to get an "R" rating it was ready for release…but on the day before the theater opening, the Columbine High School Massacre occurred……suddenly the sky went dark…..the film was black listed and Troy was living on his best friends couch….again. Blockbuster Video picked up the rights and began selling the movie as a direct to video exclusive all over the world and overnight it became a cult classic…and in places like Japan, Germany and Jakarta……now after seven years of existing in the seedy recesses of dorms and dungeons, "Boondock Saints" is being shown for only one night, one time, on theater screens all over the world!
Two punk half drunk Irish brothers hear about some unsolved rapes and murders in the Boston area and decide to take things into their own hands….while celebrating St. Paddy's day at their local pub, the Russian mafia comes in to strong arm the owner….they get the shit kicked out of them and the local cops find them in an alley the next day …dead…they call in the FBI and get a gay long haired silly CSI opera loving agent named Smecker (Willem Dafoe - "Wild at Heart" (1990) - "Lulu on the Bridge" (1998) - "Spider-Man" (2002) who puts his white gloves on and dances through the crime scene to "La Boheme" and decides there are 2 killers……
Cut to Connor MacManus (Sean Patrick Flanigan - "Young Indiana Jones" 1992) - "Stargate SG-I" (2001) - "The Dead Zone" (2004) who has a hangover and a busted hand…and his brother Murphy Macmanus (Norman Reedus - "Mimic" (1997) - "Blade II" (2002) - "The Notorious Bettie Page" (2005) who is bloodied up pretty good…in their stoned stupor and with a little latin prayer, they decide to rid the streets of Boston of the criminal element…once and for all …..and they are off to a friends to pick up ammo….lots of ammo!
After offing about 18 bad guys and having the Boston cops shadowing the shenanigans of Smecker who is beginning to like them, the 2 Micks pick up some unexpected back up from the freshly released from prison and legendary bad ass…Il Duce (Billy Connolly - "Still Crazy" (1998) - "Dial M for Dick" (1999) - "White Oleander" (2002) and a Jesus Christ looking long hair named the "Funnyman" (David del la Rocca) and they are all heading for a showdown with the Don of all Mafioso's…the Fat Man.
We get an inked up arm wrestling dyke (Dot Jones) …an Elvis Presley styled Pimp (Ron Jeremy - "Porn Star" (2001) - "Fuck Pigs" (1999) - "Big Boob Bukkake" (2000)…a large breasted dead dancer (Jeanna Fine) and…the director himself in a cameo (ala Hitchcock)……
In a final scene right out of "Dressed to Kill" (1980) we find Dafoe wearing the blonde wig and party dress into the bad guys abode where the brothers have already wasted 9 or 10 thugs with multiple rounds….shell casings flying….blood spattered walls….kung fu crotch kicking by the coifed Dafoe and even heads exploding (we get one kitty cat completely splattered) and the audience is bent over laughing at all the action…and I must admit it made good comedy…..
The opening song in the bar room brawl is called "Holy Fool" and is performed in an "Enter Sandman" Metallica kinda way by Troy Duffy's band "The Brood"…they also perform the song that carries the credits…"Pipes"…perfect background music for the movie and the live crowd.
Of course the boys turn themselves in at the end and nobody wants to prosecute them….they send a reporter out with a live cam to get man on the street cinema verite reactions to all the vigilante violence and the subsequent peace afterwards…opinions vary like the leaves in the wind but the Emery Bay crowd wanted more…and it looks like Troy has a sequel in the works…"Boondock Saints: All Saints Day" but to date it is hung up with the lawyers….maybe he could get the brothers to go in and loosen up their ties…so to speak !!!!!
Purple Gene gives "Boondock Saints" 6 foamy cold Guinness Stouts out of 10 for being a surprise way over the top self absorbed and hilarious hit!
CBS starts the night with a FRESH'Dr. Phil Primetime Special: Escaping Addiction No.2', followed by a RERUN'Criminal Minds', then a RERUN'CSI: The 3rd One'.
Scheduled on a FRESHDave are Jennifer Aniston and Rob Zombie.
Scheduled on a FRESHCraig are Ricki Lake and the Wreckers.
NBC opens the night with 'Dateline', followed by a RERUN'Law & Order', then another RERUN'Law & Order'.
Scheduled on a FRESHLeno are Jarod Miller and Fort Minor.
Scheduled on a FRESHConan are Hugh Jackman, Tim Russert, and Gnarls Barkley.
Scheduled on a FRESHCarson Daly are Anna Paquin and Matchbook Romance.
ABC begins the night with a RERUN'Lost', followed by the 2-hour SEASON FINALE'Lost'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJimmy Kimmel are Jon Favreau, Mike Iaconelli, and Elefant.
The WB fills the night with the movie 'Daredevil'.
Faux has the 2-hour SEASON FINALE'American Idol'.
UPN fills the night with the movie 'Hair Show'.
A&E has Kids Behind Bars', 'Dog The Bounty Hunter', another 'Dog The Bounty Hunter', 'Inked', 'Criss Angel', and another 'Criss Angel'.
AMC offers the movie 'The Sting', followed by the movie 'The Poseidon Adventure', and the movie 'The High And The Mighty'.
BBC -
[2pm] 'As Time Goes By' - Episode 5;
[2:40pm] 'Are You Being Served' - Coffee Morning;
[3:20pm] 'Keeping Up Appearances' - Episode 1;
[4pm] 'My Hero' - Episode 4;
[4:40pm] 'My Family' - Trust Never Sleeps;
[5:20pm] 'My Family' - Death and Ben Take a Holiday;
[6pm] 'BBC World News';
[6:30pm] 'Cash in the Attic' - Episode 1;
[7pm] 'The Benny Hill Show' - Episode 25;
[8pm] 'Whose Line Is It Anyway?' - Episode 10;
[8:30pm] 'Whose Line Is It Anyway?' - Episode 1;
[9pm] 'What Not To Wear';
[10pm] 'What Not To Wear' - Episode 2;
[11pm] 'The Catherine Tate Show' - Episode 2;
[11:40pm] 'Coupling' - The Naked Living Rooms;
[12:20am] 'The Benny Hill Show' - Episode 7;
[1am] 'What Not To Wear';
[2am] 'What Not To Wear' - Episode 2;
[3am] 'This Life' - The Bi Who Came in From the Cold;
[4am] 'This Life' - How to Get in Bed By Advertising;
[5am] 'This Life' - Small Town Boyo;
[6am] 'BBC World News'. (ALL TIMES EDT)
Bravo has 'Top Chef', another 'Top Chef', still another 'Top Chef', then the SEASON FINALE'Top Chef'.
Comedy Central has 'Jim Gaffigan', an old 'Jon Stewart', an old 'Colbert Report', 'Mind Of Mencia', 'South Park', another 'South Park', and 'Mind Of Mencia'.
On a RERUNJon Stewart (from 5/8/06) is David Remnick.
On a RERUNColbert Report (from 5/8/06) is Shere Hite.
History has 'Modern Marvels', another 'Modern Marvels', 'More Snackfood Tech', and another 'Modern Marvels'.
IFC -
[6AM] Happy Accidents;
[8AM] The Sheltering Sky;
[10:30AM] SXSW: Behind the Badge;
[11AM] Shadow Magic;
[1PM] IFC Short Film Collection II: May;
[3PM] Joe Gould's Secret;
[4:50PM] The Secret Agent;
[9PM] All About My Mother;
[10:45PM] Sweet Sixteen;
[12:35AM] Rocked With Gina Gershon #4;
[1AM] All About My Mother;
[2:45AM] Sweet Sixteen;
[4:45AM] IFC In Theaters;
[5AM] IFC Short Film Showcase: May. (ALL TIMES EDT)
SciFi has 'Ghost Hunters', another 'Ghost Hunters', then a FRESH'Ghost Hunters', followed by 'Dark Prince: The True Story Of Dracula'.
Sundance -
[6AM] In the Edges: the Grizzly Man Session;
[6:55AM] The Mighty Celt;
[8:15AM] Our House: A Very Real Documentary About Kids of Gay and Lesbian Parents;
[9:15AM] I Am Cuba, the Siberian Mammoth;
[10:45AM] Hairspray;
[12:20PM] A Slipping-Down Life;
[2:10PM] Jane Birkin - Mother of All Babes;
[3:05PM] The Mighty Celt;
[4:30PM] In the Edges: the Grizzly Man Session;
[5:25PM] Lesser Prophets;
[7PM] A Slipping-Down Life;
[9PM] Kath & Kim: Wedding;
[9:30PM] Slo-Mo;
[10PM] My Dad is 100 Years Old;
[10:15PM] Open City;
[12AM] L'Inondation;
[1:45AM] Bobbycrush;
[2AM] City of Men: Episode 4: Uolace and Joao Victor;
[2:35AM] Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance;
[4:35AM] Guy. (ALL TIMES EDT)
British singer Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart (R), former members of the Eurythmics, reunite to perform at the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) Pop Music Awards in Beverly Hills, California May 22, 2006. Lennox received the ASCAP Founders Awards, which is given to songwriters who have made pioneering contributions to music.
Photo by Fred Prouser
Songwriters turned out to honor their own Monday as the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers presented its top Pop Music Awards.
Songwriter of the Year honors went to 50 Cent for his contributions to five award-winning songs in 2005.
For Song of the Year, Green Day's "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" tied with "We Belong Together," written by Johnta Austin, Jermaine Dupri and Manuel Seal. Green Day also earned the ASCAP Creative Voice Award.
Lennox captured the ASCAP Founders Award for her inspirational contributions to music. EMI Music Publishing was named Publisher of the Year for its 17 award-winning songs.
Peruvian-born novelist Mario Vargas Llosa poses next to a poster during the presentation of his new book, 'Travesuras de la Nina Mala' (Mischiefs of the Bad Girl) in Madrid, Tuesday, May 23, 2006.
Photo by Daniel Ochoa de Olza
Continuing a remarkable period of upheaval at the top ranks of broadcast news, ABC appointed Charles Gibson on Tuesday to replace Elizabeth Vargas as anchor of its hard-luck "World News Tonight" evening newscast.
Gibson starts Monday, and will continue on "Good Morning America" until the end of June. Vargas, who is pregnant, will return to "20/20" when she comes back from maternity leave in the fall.
Scrapped, for now, are the separate West Coast broadcasts. Gibson will take over the "World News Tonight" afternoon Webcast. He will have the job for an indefinite period of time.
For those of you wondering about Art Buchwald, he's doing unexpectedly well months after declining dialysis and entering a hospice to die.
In a Tuesday column syndicated by Tribune Media Services, Buchwald wrote: "In February I was warned that if I didn't take dialysis I wouldn't survive more than two or three weeks. Since I didn't want dialysis, I decided to move into a hospice and go quietly into the night. For reasons that even the doctors can't explain, my kidneys kept working, and what started out as a three-week deathwatch has turned into nearly four months."
"I never realized dying was so much fun," Buchwald wrote in today's column. "Then a few weeks ago, my doctor said I had to change course. He advised me to go to Martha's Vineyard. Things I didn't care about because I was going to die, I now had to care about. This included shaving in the morning, buying a new cellphone that works, rewriting my living will, and scrapping all the plans for my funeral. I also had to start worrying about Bush again.
CBS Corp., a television company that also owns a large radio broadcasting business, said Tuesday it will consider selling radio stations in 10 smaller markets.
CBS, which split with Viacom Inc. at the beginning of the year, has said it would trim its portfolio of smaller-market stations as part of a broad effort to revitalize its struggling radio business. Most of CBS Radio's stations are in larger markets.
The 39 stations CBS is considering selling are located in San Antonio and Austin, Texas; Buffalo, N.Y., and Rochester, N.Y.; Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio; Fresno, Calif.; Greensboro-Winston/Salem, N.C., as well as Kansas City, Mo., and Memphis, Tenn.
A new born Egyptian tortoise sits on the finger of its keeper at Chester Zoo, north west England, May 23, 2006. The zoo has hatched six of the tortoises also known as Testudo Kleinmanni, which are currently on the critically endangered list.
Photo by Phil Noble
Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman's legion of fans worldwide no longer have to learn his native language to navigate his official website.
An English-language version of the site, run by the Ingmar Bergman Foundation, went online this week, a spokesman said Tuesday.
The site, which includes thousands of photographs, video clips and texts about Bergman and his work, was launched in Swedish in September. It is the world's largest multimedia collection showcasing the iconoclastic filmmaker's professional career, which dates back to 1938.
Joe Galloway, the fabled war correspondent, now reporting on military affairs for Knight Ridder's Washington bureau, retires next week after more than four decades in journalism, during which he covered numerous foreign wars, from Vietnam to Iraq, and was one of the rare civilians awarded a Bronze Star for bravery.
Not surprisingly, he is going out with a bang. A series of combative and revealing emails between Galloway and chief Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita concerning Donald Rumsfeld's management of the military and the Iraq war have surfaced which cut to the heart of the country's current trauma. Retired General Barry McCafferty, a familiar figure nowadays as a cable news commentator, urged Galloway to release the emails, calling them "the most powerful stuff hands down I have ever read about this war. ...this exchange ought to be your going away gift to the capital."
It all began on April 26, with a typically toughminded Galloway column.
Protesters display signs near the entrance to the Sheraton San Diego Hotel and Marina, where Vice President Dick Cheney was to deliver a speech at a luncheon held for congressional candidate Brian Bilbray at the Sheraton Hotel and Marina Tuesday, May 23, 2006 in San Diego, Calif.
Photo by Chris Park
An elderly man on an American Airlines flight was restrained by passengers, including television's "Dr. 90210," after he got out of his seat and shoved a flight attendant late Monday, officials said.
The jetliner landed safely in Los Angeles and police took the 80-year-old man, who did not speak English, to a hospital for a 72-hour mental observation, airport spokeswoman Nancy Castles said.
Dr. Robert Rey, a plastic surgeon who practices martial arts, told The Associated Press he got out of his seat and intervened when he heard the man make a "big noise" as he pushed a female flight attendant toward the cockpit.
Rey, who stars on the E! Network reality show "Dr. 90210" about a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon, was returning home after taping a segment for "The Insider."
Rey also appears as himself on a Carl's Jr. commercial in which he advises a chicken to undergo breast augmentation surgery.
Actress Michelle Rodriguez, who served five days in jail in Hawaii last month for drunk driving, must serve 60 days for violating her probation with that arrest, a spokesman for the city attorney said Monday.
Judge Rex Hesseman also sentenced the former star of television's "Lost" to 30 days of community service with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, stints with the Mothers Against Drunk Driving victim impact panel and the city's hospital and morgue program, said spokesman Frank Mateljan. She must also attend an alcohol education program.
The Honolulu arrest violated the three-year probation term the actress was given in 2004 after pleading no contest to charges of hit-and-run, driving on a suspended license and driving under the influence of alcohol, Mateljan said.
In this photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, three baby tigers are seen near their mother at the Siberian Tiger Park in Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, Tuesday, May 23, 2006. More than 100 Siberian tigers, one of the rarest animals, are expected to be born this year at a breeding center in China's northeast, an official said Monday.
Photo by Lu Jinbo
Larry Williams, the father of actress Michelle Williams, was granted bail Tuesday by a Sydney court after being arrested on international tax evasion.
Australian Federal Police, responding to a request from U.S. authorities, arrested the prominent stock market trader Saturday after he flew into Sydney to begin a monthlong speaking tour in Australia and New Zealand.
The U.S. Internal Revenue Service has been seeking the 64-year-old Virgin Islands resident over allegations that he evaded $1.5 million US in taxes on royalties from his books on the stock market and proceeds from international seminars between 1990 and 2001.
Lithuanian police were so astonished by a breath test that registered 18 times the legal alcohol limit, they thought their device must be broken. It wasn't.
Police said Tuesday 41-year-old Vidmantas Sungaila registered 7.27 grams per liter of alcohol in his blood repeatedly on different devices after he was pulled over Saturday for driving his truck down the center of a two-lane highway 60 miles from the capital, Vilnius.
Jason Poland from Houston, Texas, builds a fire breathing snowman out of Lego bricks during the finals of the Legoland National Model Builder search at Legoland California on Tuesday, May 23, 2006 in Carlsbad, Calif. Poland won the national search which toured seven cities in four months and was narrowed down to 23 finalists.
Photo by Sandy Huffaker
Workers at a factory making chips were evacuated two days running last week after bomb parts turned up in potatoes imported from France and Belgium, the site of battles in World War One and Two.
The Scarborough plant, owned by Canada's McCain Foods, the world's largest producer of frozen chips, was emptied on Friday after a worker spotted a shell tip among the potatoes as they were being cleaned for slicing.
On Saturday, an entire hand grenade was discovered in the potatoes and the Yorkshire plant was evacuated again.
McCain's Whittlesey plant near Peterborough has also been evacuated several times this year after World War Two ordnance was found in batches of potatoes.
Long John Wade (Carl Wehde), 66, a radio "boss jock" at WFIL-AM in Philadelphia during the rock-and-roll explosion in the 1960s and the only disc jockey to accompany the Beatles on their first U.S. tour, died of heart failure May 15 at his retirement home on Cape Cod.
When the Beatles traveled to New York in 1964 to appear on the Ed Sullivan Show, Mr. Wade, who was working at nearby WDRC-AM in Hartford, Conn., snagged an interview with them and was invited to join the tour. For 35 days, 26 cities and 15,000 miles, Mr. Wade accompanied the Beatles on their ground-breaking tour.
Mr. Wade was a radioholic from his childhood in New York. He ran the station at his prep school, New Hampshire School for Boys. After graduating in 1958, he worked for a series of radio stations while attending Boston University.
He lived first in Upper Darby, then in Roxborough. He left WFIL in 1970 to start the American Academy of Broadcasting. The school, at Sixth and Chestnut Streets, closed in 1979. He worked at several stations while running the school.
In 1979, Mr. Wade was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and gave up the school and broadcasting. Mr. Wade received treatment for his bipolar condition in a number of hospitals in California and Florida. He tried to study film in California, "but he went into mania again," his brother said.
He settled in Cape Cod in 1993. In 1995, he had the first of a series of strokes that affected his speech.
In addition to his brother, Mr. Wade is survived by daughters Jennifer Luney and Stephanie Bass; four grandchildren; and another brother, Thomas Wehde.
Zoo-keeper Klaus-Dieter Grahl and his 100-day-old Spectacled Owl ( Pulsatrix perspicillata) meet the press in the Berlin Zoological Garden on Tuesday, May 23, 2006.
Photo by Fritz Reiss
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