'Best of TBH Politoons'
Today Is:
Slap Your Irritating Co-workers
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Matthew Davis: Soldier lifts lid on Guantanamo 'abuse' (BBC News)
A former US soldier who worked on interrogations at Guantanamo Bay has written a damning expose of the brutal, degrading treatment he says was meted out to prisoners there.
Mark Morford: My Totally Gay Boy Scout Leader
The tormented Republican mayor of Spokane might have molested young boys. Boys like, well, Mark Morford.
Molly Bingham: Home from Iraq (Courier-Journal)
Photojournalist urges Americans to search for truth, freedom
Paul Krassner: My Favorite Luddite
Kurt Vonnegut, my favorite Luddite, occasionally sends something my way via snail-mail. For example, his idea for a bumper sticker: "Your Planet's Immune System Is Trying to Get Rid of You."
The Huffington Post
Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation
Filibuster Frist at Princeton
Give Bush a Brain Game
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and much warmer.
Last night my computer froze up, wouldn't respond to a 3-finger salute, and had to be turned off at the power strip.
Fired it up again, but there was only a black screen. Swapped monitors. Still a black screen - which matched my mood.
It didn't heal itself overnight, so took it to the shop this am - turns out I blew another CPU.
Anyways, lost nothing but time. Whew.
Leaving '60 Minutes'
Christiane Amanpour
Christiane Amanpour, television's best-known international correspondent, said Thursday she's ending her part-time stint at CBS' "60 Minutes" because the arrangement had "run its course."
Amanpour is continuing as chief international correspondent for CNN.
She had been contributing to "60 Minutes" since 1996, usually four or five stories a year. This season she's done two: a profile of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, and a story about how the U.S. military sent a psychology unit to Iraq to help deal with battle fatigue.
Christiane Amanpour
Sparks New Review
PBS Monitoring
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting will begin an internal review of political monitoring of PBS programming in response to Democratic complaints, the CPB's inspector general said Thursday.
Reps. David Obey and John Dingell have asked for the review into several actions by CPB board chairman Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, a Republican, including the hiring of a consultant to review the guests on the show "Now With Bill Moyers."
The New York Times reported last week that the consultant kept track of "anti-Bush," "anti-business" and "anti-Tom DeLay" guests on the show. Moyers has left the show and now hosts "Wide Angle" on PBS.
In their letter to Konz on Wednesday, Obey, D-Wis., and Dingell, D-Mich., said Tomlinson's actions may have violated the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, which bans interference by federal officials over public programming. The CPB, a private, nonprofit corporation funded by Congress, provides funds for PBS.
The lawmakers also questioned Tomlinson's decision to secure corporate money to fund the "Journal Editorial Report," hosted by the editor of The Wall Street Journal editorial page, and pressing PBS into distributing it.
PBS Monitoring
Marches On
Comedy Central
Along with Jon Stewart, Dave Chappelle is Comedy Central's biggest star. Now he's gone, with some question about whether "Chappelle's Show" will ever return.
At Comedy Central, they're looking to weather the storm but not from a position of weakness: the network's ratings are higher than ever, even without new shows from Chappelle.
Comedy Central will fill Chappelle's empty time slot with episodes of "Reno 911" before the June 14 debut of "Stella," an original series described as a Marx Brothers-like comedy, said network spokesman Tony Fox.
A new series featuring popular comic Carlos Mencia is also expected this summer, he said.
Comedy Central
HBO Pulls Plug
'Carnivale'
HBO has pulled up stakes on "Carnivale," opting not to order a third season of the circus-set Dust Bowl drama.
Prospects for a "Carnivale" renewal have appeared bleak since the sophomore season wrapped in March; the show didn't increase its viewership, and series creator/executive producer Daniel Knauf already signed on to produce a series for the rival Showtime cable channel.
'Carnivale'
Signs 8 Mile Road Bricks for Charity
Eminem
Eminem, who grew up on both sides of 8 Mile Road, is helping revitalize the highway he made famous in a hit song and film.
The 32-year-old rapper, born Marshall Mathers III, has autographed 30 bricks from the recently demolished Detroit Artillery Armory on 8 Mile in Oak Park. One brick was auctioned last month, and the rest are to auctioned on eBay within the next month.
Proceeds will be split between Eminem's charity, the Marshall Mathers Foundation, and the Eight Mile Boulevard Association.
Eminem
Helped Film With Delay
Jack Horner
A paleontologist who consulted on the "Jurassic Park" movies acknowledged that he delayed the announcement of a dinosaur find in Montana at the studio's request to help promote one of the film sequels four years ago.
The acknowledgment by Jack Horner was in response to a National Public Radio report Wednesday that looked at the promotion of the movie and the discovery in Montana of one of the largest Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons ever found.
Horner, who is one of the nation's leading fossil hunters and works at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, said that the skeleton was discovered in June 2000 and excavated the following year. The announcement was not made until just before the 2001 release of "Jurassic Park III."
Jack Horner
Pleads Guilty to Speeding
Chris Tucker
Chris Tucker has pleaded guilty to speeding and eluding police during a brief car chase last month. The actor told authorities he didn't hear their sirens because he was on his way to church.
Tucker, 32, entered the pleas Tuesday in Warren County Probate Court and paid a fine of $6,999, court clerk Jeremy Moore said Thursday.
Tucker was driving a Bentley at 109 mph on Interstate 20 on April 17 when Georgia State Patrol troopers attempted to pull him over, Moore said. The speed limit on that stretch of road is 70 mph.
Chris Tucker
Satan Not Involved
Goat Heads
A lazy worker, not a satanic cult, was responsible for severed goat heads that caused a scare at a Vancouver-area school, Canadian police said on Monday.
Police were called in after goat heads were twice found on a bench outside a school in nearby Chilliwack, British Columbia, prompting fears in the suburban community that it had been targeted by a satanic animal killing.
A 19-year-old worker at a local slaughterhouse has admitted he took the two heads with the intention of having them mounted, but then changed his mind and left them at the school in hopes a janitor would dispose of them.
Goat Heads
Michigan Court Says Talking Penis Is Indecent
Dick Smart
A three-judge panel of the Michigan Court of Appeals declared that the talking penis, nicknamed Dick Smart, telling "purportedly humorous" jokes on a Grand Rapids, Michigan, public access cable television channel constituted indecent exposure.
The court let stand a one-day jail sentence already served by the show's creator, Timothy Huffman.
Wednesday's ruling contained a transcript of the three-minute segment that aired twice in 2000, including the voice-over lines delivered in the style of the late comedian Rodney Dangerfield: "Hi, I'm Dick Smart. I am a comedian, yeah, stand up, ha."
Dick Smart
Top 15 Basic Cable Programs
Rankings
Rankings for the top 15 programs on basic cable networks as compiled by Nielsen Media Research for the week of May 2-8. Each ratings point represents 1,096,000 households. Day and start time (EST) are in parentheses.
1. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Saturday, 9:30 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.4, 3.76 million homes.
2. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 9 p.m.), Spike, 3.3, 3.641 million homes.
3. "WWE Raw Zone" (Monday, 10 p.m.), Spike, 3.3, 3.63 million homes.
4. "Fairly Odd Parents" (Saturday, 10 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.8, 3.08 million homes.
5. NBA Playoffs: Dallas vs. Houston (Thursday, 10:16 p.m.), TNT, 2.7, 3 million homes.
6. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Saturday, 9 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.7, 2.99 million homes.
7. "Fairly Odd Parents" (Sunday, 10 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.7, 2.91 million homes.
8. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Sunday, 9:30 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.6, 2.85 million homes.
9. "Law & Order: SVU" (Wednesday, 9 p.m.), USA, 2.5, 2.79 million homes.
10. NBA Playoffs: Houston vs. Dallas (Saturday, 9:38 p.m.), TNT, 2.5, 2.77 million homes.
11. "Fairly Odd Parents" (Sunday, 10:30 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.5, 2.73 million homes.
12. "Fairly Odd Parents" (Saturday, 10:30 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.5, 2.72 million homes.
13. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Friday, 8:30 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.4, 2.6 million homes.
14. Movie: "The Princess Diaries" (Monday, 8 p.m.), Disney, 2.3, 2.52 million homes.
15. NBA Playoffs: Denver vs. San Antonio (Wednesday, 9:56 p.m.), TNT, 2.3, 2.51 million homes.
Rankings
Why I Hate Cop Shows - Part 1
Saturday Afternoon
A Long Beach marine patrol officer shot and killed a homeless man near the fountain in front of the crowded Aquarium of the Pacific Saturday afternoon after the transient threatened him by swinging a bike chain, authorities said.
The officer, whose name was withheld, approached the homeless man at about 3:51 p.m. in an effort to dissuade him from rifling for recyclables in a trash can near the refreshment stand at the aquarium's entrance, said LBPD Officer Israel Ramirez.
The officer fired several shots, but it is unknown how many bullets struck the transient, Ramirez said.
Visitors reportedly ducked and scattered when they heard gunfire, but no one else was injured.
Saturday Afternoon
Why I Hate Cop Shows - Part 2
Monday Night
COMPTON, Calif. - Angry residents poured out their emotions Wednesday to Sheriff Lee Baca, following a shooting in which 10 deputies fired more than 100 rounds at an unarmed driver.
Four bullets struck the driver, Winston Hayes; one hit a deputy who was only bruised because he was wearing a protective vest.
The 18-second period of gunfire followed a 12-minute chase of a sport utility vehicle that Hayes was driving.
A videotape showed deputies firing several shots when the SUV backed toward them, followed by a longer burst of gunfire after the Chevrolet Tahoe was surrounded. The vehicle then rolled forward and hit the back of a patrol car, prompting a final outburst of shooting.
Monday Night
Why I Hate Cop Shows - Part 3
Wednesday Evening
LONG BEACH, Calif. - A high-speed chase being televised live ended with police fatally shooting a suspected car thief brandishing a gun.
The nearly 40-minute chase Wednesday reached speeds of up to 100 mph. At one point, the driver crashed into a highway guardrail, and he also came within several feet of hitting a man and his 4-year-old daughter on a residential street.
The driver, whose identity was not immediately released, was shot after he jumped out of the car with a gun in his hand, and seemed to be heading toward a shopping center, police said.
News footage showed the man running from the car as officers open fire. A gun flies from the victim's hand, but the man appears to be reaching for something at his waist before collapsing.
Wednesday Evening
In Memory
Jay Marshall
Magician-ventriloquist Jay Marshall, dean of the Society of American Magicians, a 14-appearance veteran of the Ed Sullivan television show and the first entertainer to open for Frank Sinatra in Las Vegas, died Tuesday at Swedish Covenant Hospital, his family said. He was 85.
Although Jay Marshall was a noted historian of stage magic and wrote several books on the subject, his own act did not incorporate the spectacular illusions and escape stunts that were popular when he was a young vaudevillian. Instead, he concentrated on the magic of card tricks and sleight of hand, combining it with ventriloquism and often self-deprecating patter. He liked to bill himself as "one of the better of the cheap acts."
His usual stage partner was "Lefty," his left hand dressed in a white glove and wearing rabbit ears. Occasionally, "Righty," Marshall's other hand, would join them to sing trios.
For many years, Marshall and his wife, Frances Ireland Marshall, ran Magic Inc., a shop for professional magicians on Chicago's North Side. Mrs. Marshall, the widow of magician L.L. Ireland, was a professional magician in her own right. She died in 2002.
Jay Marshall
