'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Thom Hartmann: When Americans No Longer Own America (commondreams.org)
The Dubai Ports World deal is waking Americans up to a painful reality: So-called "conservatives" and "flat world" globalists have bankrupted our nation for their own bag of silver, and in the process are selling off America.
Jane Hamsher: NARAL and Planned Parenthood Are Now the Enemies of Pro-Choice (huffingtonpost.com)
That NARAL and Planned Parenthood don't seem to care about this simple truth is nothing short of shocking and they do not deserve to be the guardians of pro-choice in this country until they make a commitment to show up and defend it.
Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith: Wanted: A Few Good Americans ( TheNation.com; Posted on alternet.org)
If President Bush won't halt the abuse of U.S. captives, Congress stands next in line for responsibility. Last December, it passed the so-called McCain amendment, which supposedly abolished all torture by U.S. forces anywhere in the world. But the U.N. report makes clear that torture is continuing at Guantánamo.
MARGARET EBRAHIM and JOHN SOLOMON: Tape: Bush, Chertoff Warned Before Katrina (Associated Press)
In dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms, federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, put lives at risk in New Orleans' Superdome and overwhelm rescuers, according to confidential video footage.
Walter Cronkite: Telling the Truth About the War on Drugs (huffingtonpost.com)
As anchorman of the CBS Evening News, I signed off my nightly broadcasts for nearly two decades with a simple statement: "And that's the way it is."
Garrison Keillor: Why not be all that we can be? (pantagraph.com)
It's been four years since Richard Reid attempted to set fire to his explosive shoes on that Paris-Miami flight, and thanks to him we still do our little dance in stocking feet through airport security, a testimony to the power of the individual to gum up the works for millions of others.
CHRISTOPHER HART: The innocence of the striptease (timesonline.co.uk)
My favourite stripper by far in this gallery of nudes must be the wonderful Gypsy Rose Lee, with her "regal persona". The girl was Dorothy Parker in a G-string. Hard-nosed and sassy, she understood her craft precisely.
Annalee Newitz: Attention! (alternet.org)
Watch out for the robber-barons of the attention economy.
MzNicky: The War on Women: A Modest Proposal
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Mostly sunny, breezy & cooler than seasonal.
Had some unexpected company - postposed mail til tomorrow.
No new flags.
Santana, Los Lobos, Hancock
L.A. Benefit
Carlos Santana and Herbie Hancock joined roots-rockers Los Lobos on stage Wednesday during a fundraiser that saluted the guitarist's charity work.
Together, they performed the Santana track "Guajira" for attendees at the Beverly Hilton event, and Hancock stuck around to play some jazzy piano on Los Lobos' cover of Ritchie Valens' "La Bamba," their biggest hit.
The event was hosted by the San Francisco-based California Rural Legal Assistance Inc., which represents migrant farm workers and their families.
In his acceptance speech, Santana said more was being spent per capita on incarceration than on education, and inspired a chorus of booing when he invoked the names of California Governor Arnold $chwarzenegger and resident George W. Bush.
L.A. Benefit
Join Effort to End Seal Hunt
McCartneys
Paul McCartney and his wife took to the frigid ice floes off the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday in a bid to halt Canada's annual slaughter of weeks-old seal pups.
The former Beatle acknowledged residents have hunted seals for hundreds of years.
"Well, in our view, that doesn't make it justifiable," he said. "Plenty of things have been going on for a long time, like slavery. Just because it's been going on for a long time doesn't make it right."
About 325,000 seal pups were killed last year, bringing local fishermen $14.5 million, which they say their families badly need. The start of this spring's hunt has yet to be announced as mild temperatures have made the ice thin.
McCartneys
Multiproject Deal With HBO
Dane Cook
HBO said Wednesday that it has signed a multiproject deal with stand-up comedian Dane Cook that will include series, specials and other projects, marking the first deal of its kind for the premium cable service.
Among the initial projects under the agreement are a feature-length concert film, development of a scripted series and a comedy documentary series titled "Tourgasm." In addition, HBO said it will have exclusive rights to Cook for all nontraditional media platforms, including mobile and broadband.
In addition, Cook and HBO will develop a pilot for a half-hour comedy series. Cook's deal also calls for him to develop original content for new media including broadband and mobile phones, pointing to HBO's exclusive multiyear deal inked in December with Cingular Wireless that will see the two entities team for two premium wireless content services. HBO added that other projects will be announced as they are confirmed.
Dane Cook
Books-For-Kids Program Grows
Dolly Parton
The excitement is a big reason for the growing popularity of Imagination Library, a children's literacy program started 10 years ago by country singer Dolly Parton in her native east Tennessee.
The program now is in 572 communities in 41 states. This year Tennessee became the first to take it statewide; some lawmakers in Indiana want to do the same.
In Tennessee, the cost is $27 per child, with half the money coming from the state through matching grants and the rest from the communities, whether local governments, businesses or civic clubs. So far, 90 of Tennessee's 95 counties are on board.
Dolly Parton
Producers Fight Over Screen Credits
'Crash'
The feud over producing credits on Oscar best picture nominee "Crash" has escalated as producers Cathy Schulman and Tom Nunan have sued real estate mogul and movie financier Bob Yari, alleging that he withheld millions in profits, damaged their reputations and used their joint venture to promote his other interests.
Separately on Wednesday, Yari sued the Producers Guild of America and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for allegedly denying him a fair procedure when they ruled against his producing credit on "Crash." In addition to damages, Yari asked the Los Angeles Superior Court to force the Academy and PGA to modify future credit arbitrations by identifying the people who made the decisions and allowing further opportunities to challenge the results.
The interconnected disputes had been simmering behind the scenes, but all the parties involved waited until final Oscar balloting closed Tuesday to make their latest legal moves.
'Crash'
Demands Playboy Pull Issue
Jessica Alba
Film star Jessica Alba demanded that Playboy magazine pull its March issue, saying on Thursday that its editors made her an unwitting cover girl and misled readers into thinking they could see her nude inside.
A Playboy spokeswoman said Alba was placed on the cover after being chosen "sexiest star of the year" by its readers. She was included inside the magazine in an article on the top 25 sexiest celebrities as chosen in an online poll
"Many celebrities have appeared on the cover of Playboy, but not nude, including Claudia Schiffer, Paris Hilton, Goldie Hawn, Raquel Welch, Barbra Streisand, Brooke Shields and Donald Trump," Playboy spokeswoman Lauren Malone said.
Jessica Alba
Stars For Free In New TV Show
Barry Bonds
Baseball slugger Barry Bonds, one of the most private and prickly giants of pro sports, has agreed to appear in a weekly reality television show, apparently in an effort to improve his public image.
In an announcement on Wednesday, Bonds said he would open his life for a weekly show on the cable station ESPN, starting next month.
Two film crews will follow Bonds four to 12 hours a day, with highlights worked into the weekly show, although it is up to the baseball star to set the limits.
Barry Bonds
Art Skewers Neo-Nashville
Jon Langford
It's an arresting image: Hank Williams, wild-eyed and skeletal, pierced with arrows like the Christian martyr St. Sebastian.
This astonishing graphic and dozens more like it are on view in "Nashville Radio" (Verse Chorus Press), the first collection of art works by Jon Langford, the prolific vocalist-guitarist of the Mekons, the Waco Brothers and the Pine Valley Cosmonauts.
The Wales-born Chicago resident says of his multiple portraits of Hank-as-martyr: "The guy was just in agony his whole life. . . . I think of Kurt Cobain and Hank Williams -- their careers are so parallel."
Langford had studied art at Leeds University during the Mekons' formative years but had abandoned painting for music. However, a 1988 trip to Tootsie's Orchid Lounge in Nashville -- the Lower Broadway bar that was the dry Grand Ole Opry's wet "backstage" in the days when the show was broadcast from the Ryman Auditorium -- proved to be an artistic epiphany.
Jon Langford
Stapp 'Idiot' for Losing Tape
Kid Rock
Kid Rock blames Scott Stapp for losing a sex video showing them with several strippers, but appreciates Stapp for one thing. "What perfect timing," Rock told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday. "I got a record coming up ... Maybe I should thank him."
Still, Rock (aka Robert Ritchie) has fired back against Stapp's claim that the tape was stolen, saying the former Creed singer filmed the tape, which was made in Rock's motor home in 1999, and is responsible for losing it.
"He's the idiot because it's out," the 35-year-old Rock said. "I'm holding him responsible."
Kid Rock
Ex-Manager Ordered to Pay
Leonard Cohen
Singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen may never see the $9.5 million a court ordered his former business manager to pay after she failed to respond to allegations of stealing from his retirement savings, Cohen's attorney said.
A Superior Court judge granted the 71-year old Cohen, known for reflective songs such as "Suzanne," a default judgment Monday. He claimed in a lawsuit that Kelley Lynch siphoned $5 million from his personal accounts and investments.
He was left with a nest egg of about $150,000, the lawsuit claims.
Leonard Cohen
Sued by Fan Over Beating
Busta Rhymes
Busta Rhymes and his bodyguard have been sued by a fan who says the two men beat him after he asked for the rapper's autograph.
Melvin Smith, 37, says in a lawsuit filed in Manhattan's state Supreme Court that Rhymes and Troy Green, both 33, "maliciously assaulted, beat, pushed and shoved him" outside the Corner Gourmet II deli near City Hall on Sept. 6, 2005.
Smith's lawsuit, made public Wednesday, seeks unspecified damages from Green and Rhymes, whose real name is Trevor Smith.
Busta Rhymes
Journos In Iraq Told: Do Not Carry Guns
International News Safety Institute
The International News Safety Institute (INSI) Friday urged journalists in Iraq not to carry guns despite the latest murders of a Al Arabiya News correspondent and her crew.
"Journalists increasingly are being targeted in conflict largely because they have lost, in the eyes of certain elements, their status as neutral observers, INSI Director Rodney Pinder said. "If they bear arms they reinforce this misguided belief by placing themselves on one side or another. A journalist with a gun says some people in the situation I'm covering are my enemies and I am prepared to kill them if necessary. That is not the position of a neutral civilian."
Pinder also said that armed journalists would lose even the protection--"flimsy though it is"--afforded civilians in war by the Geneva Conventions. INSI said the 1977 Additional Protocol to the conventions demands that working journalists in conflict areas must be considered civilians, "provided they take no action adversely affecting their status as civilians."
International News Safety Institute
Missing Bush Brother?
Prince Charles
Prince Charles criticized landmark human rights legislation in correspondence printed in a British newspaper Thursday, a leak likely to fuel criticism of the heir to the throne's role in politics.
In the 2001 letter, the prince underlined a passage in which Lord Irvine described Britain becoming a society more "based on responsibilities and rights."
"But this is rubbish," Charles purportedly wrote in the margins. "We're a society based on rights alone."
Prince Charles
17 Stations Join Fox Mini-Network
Sinclair Broadcast Group
Seventeen TV stations owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. will carry programming from a new mini-network being launched by News Corp.'s Fox television unit this fall, the companies announced Thursday.
Adding to the 10 Fox-owned stations already lined up to carry the shows from MyNetworkTV, the new mini-network will now be available in 36 percent of American homes when it launches Sept. 5.
MyNetworkTV will start out carrying just two shows, soap-opera style dramas modeled after the hugely successful and steamy "telenovelas" that appear on Spanish-language television. The shows will air Monday through Saturday from 8pm to 10pm.
Sinclair Broadcast Group
Don't 'Overpay' Your Bills
'Suspicious Behavior'
Walter Soehnge is a retired Texas schoolteacher who traveled north with his wife, Deana, saw summer change to fall in Rhode Island and decided this was a place to stay for a while.
The balance on their JCPenney Platinum MasterCard had gotten to an unhealthy level. So they sent in a large payment, a check for $6,522.
After sending in the check, they checked online to see if their account had been duly credited. They learned that the check had arrived, but the amount available for credit on their account hadn't changed.
They were told, as they moved up the managerial ladder at the call center, that the amount they had sent in was much larger than their normal monthly payment. And if the increase hits a certain percentage higher than that normal payment, Homeland Security has to be notified. And the money doesn't move until the threat alert is lifted.
For the whole story, 'Suspicious Behavior'
Sentenced for Obscene Acts
Gary Glitter
A Vietnamese court Friday sentenced former British rocker Gary Glitter to three years in prison for obscene acts with two young Vietnamese girls, and a melee erupted in the courtroom when Glitter shouted "I'm innocent" after the verdict.
Glitter, 61, whose real name is Paul Francis Gadd, was convicted of committing obscene acts with two girls, ages 10 and 11, at his rented seaside villa in southern Vung Tau last year. He was then sentenced to three years in prison, followed by deportation from Vietnam.
Glitter, who hit his musical peak in the 1970s, had hits with "Leader of the Gang" and "Do You Wanna Touch" but is perhaps best known for his crowd-pleasing rock anthem "Rock and Roll (Parts 1&2)," which is still played at sporting events.
Gary Glitter
Basic Cable Networks
Ratings
Rankings for the top 15 programs on basic cable networks as compiled by Nielsen Media Research for the week of Feb. 20-26. Day and start time (EST) are in parentheses.
1. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Monday, 8 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 5.43 million homes, 8.56 million viewers.
2. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Monday, 7:30 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 4.09 million homes, 6.09 million viewers.
3. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Monday, 8:30 p.m.), Nickelodoen, 3.85 million homes, 5.62 million viewers.
4. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Saturday, 9:30 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.8 million homes, 5.2 million viewers.
5. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Monday, 7 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.7 million homes, 5.25 million viewers.
6. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 10 p.m.), USA, 3.69 million homes, 5.04 million viewers.
7. "Fairly Odd Parents" (Sunday, 10 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.51 million homes, 4.21 million viewers.
8. "Fairly Odd Parents" (Saturday, 10 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.5 million homes, 4.44 million viewers.
9. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 9 p.m.), USA, 3.47 million homes, 4.88 million viewers.
10. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Saturday, 9 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.36 million homes, 4.88 million viewers.
11. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Sunday, 9:30 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.36 million homes, 4.24 million viewers.
12. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Monday, 6:30 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.3 million homes, 4.33 million viewers.
13. "Fairly Odd Parents" (Saturday, 10:30 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.19 million homes, 4.06 million viewers.
14. (tie) "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Monday, 5 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.15 million homes, 4.39 million viewers.
14. (tie) "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Sunday, 9 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.15 million homes, 3.91 million viewers.
Ratings
In Memory
Edward Nalbandian
Edward G. Nalbandian, the owner of Zachary All clothing whose live TV ads made him a local celebrity and inspired a song by the legendary rock satirist Frank Zappa, has died. He was 78.
The Boston native became locally famous for commercials touting his $99 tuxedo and ability to fit sizes including ``Cadet, Extra Short, Regular, Long, Extra Long and Portlies.''
Johnny Carson once mentioned the Wilshire Boulevard store on ``The Tonight Show'' and the late Zappa lampooned Nalbandian's commercials in the 1972 song ``Eddie, Are You Kidding?'' Among his customers were comedian Buddy Hackett and actor Cary Grant.
In addition to his wife of 55 years, Nalbandian is survived by his son, Edward; daughter, Nancy Barajas; and three grandchildren.
Edward Nalbandian
In Memory
Jack Wild
Actor Jack Wild, best known for playing the Artful Dodger as a teenager in the 1968 film "Oliver!," has died from cancer aged 53.
Nominated for an Oscar for that role aged just 16, he went on to star in the U.S. television series "H.R. Pufnstuf" and in several films before his career began to derail, in part because of excessive drinking from an early age.
Wild, also a heavy smoker, was diagnosed with cancer in 2001 and underwent an operation in 2004 to remove part of his tongue and several vocal cords. As a result he lost his speech, but appeared on stage after the surgery miming his part in a pantomime.
Wild married his long-term partner Claire last year.
Jack Wild
H.R. Pufnstuf , H.R. Pufnstuf - wavs, H.R. Pufnstuf , H.R. Pufnstuf TV Show
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