'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Jim Hightower: LOOPHOLE NO. 17 IN IRAQ'S DEMOCRACY (jimhightower.com)
That's when Bush-the-Democracy-Bringer reminded the sovereign leaders of Iraq thatŠ wellŠ umŠ uhŠ the Iraqi government has no authority over the military contractors that are loose on their land. Specifically, Order No. 17, issued in 2004 by the American occupying authority, gives Blackwater, Dyncorp, Triple Canopy, and other corporate forces immunity from Iraqi laws. Nor are they subject to U.S. military law.
Annalee Newitz: Always Away on Instant Messenger
Instant Messenger occupies a distinct medium of communication between e-mail, which can be too slow, and the phone, which can be too fast.
Reviewed by Laurence Phelan: Gobbledygook, By Don Watson (Scroll Down; arts.independent.co.uk)
Cliché, wrote Orwell, "anaesthetises a portion of one's brain". Don Watson agrees, and in this impassioned, witty and elegantly composed polemic talks of "a creeping plague" of bad English which "deadens the senses". But cliché is the least of his worries. The public sphere has adopted the language of business management.
Glenn Garvin: Never enough Elvira? There's more to come (popmatters.com)
It's hard to say what they bode for the world, or even which is more startling, but here are two astounding facts: Elvira, the vampy, campy horror hostess with the enormous, um, following, envisions an America ruled by an army of her clones, one in every shopping mall and car wash. And when she held tryouts, 2,000 women (and men!) applied for the job.
Geoffrey Macnab: The knives are out: How Blade Runner was plagued by rows between its director and star (arts.independent.co.uk)
In hindsight, it is no surprise that the set of Blade Runner (1982) was so unhappy. In one corner was Harrison Ford, at that stage the most bankable star in movie history. "James Stewart, Humphrey Bogart - I don't care who you put up there. This guy was generating more box-office dollars than any human being ever," says his co-star in the film, Edward James Olmos. "He'd done Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and he'd just finished Raiders of the Lost Ark." In the other corner was ...
Bill Gibron: "Tromeo and Juliet - Independent Film's Last Hurrah" (popmatters.com)
Setting his story in the crime-ridden streets of a maleficent Manhattan, his warring clans (the Capulets and the Ques) involved in pornography and perversion, Gunn fed directly into the tried and true Troma system. He made sure to add plenty of sex, a few surreal stabs at standard scares (including the first act arrival of a 'penis monster') and a healthy dose of boldfaced bloodletting. Yet amongst all the tattoos and East Village eccentricity, scattered among the lesbian scenes and overdone fight sequences, Gunn snuck something into this film that few Troma entries had before - heart.
Interview by Laura Barnett: Mario Garcia Torres, conceptual artist: 'I wanted to be a hotel lobby singer, but it didn't work out' (guardian.co.uk)
High point: "I'm still waiting for it."
Low point: "Having to work as a curator and art critic in the late 1990s to support myself. It took up too much of my time."
Reader Suggestion
Colbie Caillat
Reader Observation
Separated At Birth
Annie Leibovitz and Jeff Goldblum separated at birth?
Purple Gene Responds
Spelling
Marty
Boy ..how about gettin' killed for spell check by the astute readers!
"Wankers" they are not!
Now I can quote the Sex Pistols.....
"....Oh God save history
God save your mad parade
Oh lord God have mercy
All crimes are paid...."
- From "God Save the Queen"
pERP
You got that right!
Update
Klutzo The Clown
Who would even consider letting this clown within reach-around range of kids?
Here're a couple "Jokes" from his web-site
.......DID YOU HEAR ABOUT ........
Two peanuts walk into a bar? One was "asalted".
Two cannibals eating a clown. One says to the other: "Does this taste funny to you?"
One joke about bars and assault and the other about putting clowns in your mouth?
Vic
in Alaska
Thanks, Vic!
That's disturbing, to say the least.
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and a bit cooler.
Not Impressed By Nobel Prize
Doris Lessing
Doris Lessing pulled up in a black cab where a media horde was waiting Thursday in front of her leafy north London home. Reporters opened the door and told her she had won the Nobel Prize for literature, to which she responded: "Oh Christ! ... I couldn't care less."
Lessing later said she thought the cameras were there to film a television program. Vegetables peeked out from blue plastic bags she carried out of the cab.
"I've won all the prizes in Europe, every bloody one, so I'm delighted to win them all, the whole lot, OK?" Lessing said, making her way through the crowd. "It's a royal flush."
"I'm already thinking about all the people who are going to send me begging letters - I can see them lining up now," she said. The phone in her house, audible from the street, rang continuously.
Doris Lessing
West Bank Peace Concert Called Off
One Voice
A West Bank peace concert for supporters of a two-state solution to the conflict with Israel has been called off because of security concerns, the organizer said late Thursday.
The concert was to have been held simultaneously in a football stadium in the West Bank town of Jericho and in a park in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv on Oct. 18.
The New York-based One Voice organization said the concerts were aimed at bolstering its campaign to collect one million signatures of ordinary Israelis and Palestinians demanding that their leaders sit down and finalize an agreement on a Palestinian state living at peace with Israel.
Organizer Daniel Lubetzky said he decided Thursday to call off the Jericho event. "Extremist ideologists have threatened our participants in Jericho, and we felt it is our responsibility not to play with their lives," he said, but did not provide details about the threats.
Lubetzky said the Tel Aviv concert would go ahead. "It is now all the more important for the people in Israel to speak with twice as loud a voice," he said. "We plan to continue representing the voice of moderate Palestinian and Israeli citizens who an end to the conflict through a two-state solution."
One Voice
CBS - What Conflict Of Interest?
Rita Braver
CBS News is defending the choice of correspondent Rita Braver to profile fluff Lynne Cheney, the vice president's wife, even though Braver's husband represented Cheney in publishing her new memoir.
The report, which aired last weekend on the CBS News magazine "Sunday Morning," was timed to the publication of Cheney's book "Blue Skies, No Fences," which recalls her growing up in Wyoming. The story included a statement from Braver disclosing that her husband, Washington lawyer Robert B. Barnett, had represented Cheney in the deal for the book's publication.
Despite that disclosure, the "Sunday Morning" piece raised questions that Braver had a potential conflict of interest.
In a posting on Romenesko, a media-oriented blog on the Poynter Institute Web site, Lee Rood, investigations editor of The Des Moines Register, wrote: "Braver's husband helped publish this book. How nice that she has a network at her disposal to help him with the advertising."
Rita Braver
Leaving Burbank
NBC
NBC Universal plans to sell part of its site in "beautiful downtown Burbank," home to the studio housing "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno," and move to a new broadcast facility across the street from Universal Studios.
NBC (which is owned by General Electric Co.) will take the "Access Hollywood" set, local news operations and other facilities with it when it moves into the new location in 2011.
Meanwhile, it plans to move "The Tonight Show" to the nearby Universal Studios' Stage One lot when Conan O'Brien takes over hosting duties upon Leno's departure in 2009.
The new facilities will be located in a new building adjacent to a subway line connecting Universal City, in the southeast corner of the San Fernando Valley, to downtown Los Angeles. They will be across the street from Universal Studios, the Universal Studios Hollywood theme park and the CityWalk tourist destination.
NBC
Script Orders
New Shows
Five freshman drama series -- NBC's "Bionic Woman," "Life," "Journeyman," "Chuck" and CBS' "Cane" -- have received orders for additional scripts.
NBC picked up three more scripts of all four of its freshman series, while CBS ordered four scripts for "Cane," the struggling Jimmy Smits drama.
While it has been a growing trend during the past couple of years for the networks to hedge their bets by ordering additional scripts of new series in lieu of early full-season pickups, the extra scripts carry an additional context this year when the industry is facing a potential writers' strike.
Most of the five series are shooting episodes 8-9, with the special-effects and action-heavy "Bionic" a little behind. Most shows already have the scripts for the entire initial 13-episode order in the pipeline in different stages, so an early order for additional scripts might help the networks to secure a couple more finished scripts before a potential strike, especially if it begins after the November 1 deadline.
New Shows
Auctions Part Of Art Collection
Alain Delon
Forty paintings belonging to Alain Delon were to hit the auction blocks on Monday.
Experts expected the French actor's paintings, mostly abstract works dating from the 1950s, to fetch between $6.5 and $8.8 million at the Cornette de Saint Cyr aution house.
The auction was expected to include works by French painters Nicolas de Stael, noted for his heavily textured abstract landscapes, and Pierre Soulages, who favored the color black.
Alain Delon
Trash Sentence
Snoop Dogg
Snoop Dogg will spend 160 hours picking up trash at an Orange County park as part of his sentence for carrying an illegal weapon in an airport last year, authorities said Thursday.
The rapper, whose real name is Cordozar Calvin Broadus Jr., will do "everything from raking leaves to painting benches" in order to meet the 160 hours of community service he was ordered to perform, his attorney, Donald Etra, said.
His sentence included community service, three years of probation, $1,000 in fines and court costs, and a $10,000 donation to a county charity for troubled children.
Snoop Dogg
Trial Delayed Again
Wesley Snipes
A judge postponed Wesley Snipes' tax evasion trial until early next year after the actor fired his legal team.
U.S. District Judge William Terrell Hodges on Wednesday called it a "ploy" for Snipes to delay trial, but said the motion was in the public interest.
Snipes expressed a "complete lack of trust and confidence" in attorney William R. Martin, who also represented former National Football League quarterback Michael Vick. Snipes said Martin ignored his case while working for Vick, hadn't reviewed boxes of documents and even lost information.
Wesley Snipes
Lohan Friend Sues For Defamation
Perez Hilton
A judged cleared the way Wednesday for a celebrity blogger to be questioned about his report claiming Lindsay Lohan's friend planted cocaine found in the actress's car after a crash.
Samantha Ronson has sued Perez Hilton for defamation after he repeated a report that first appeared on the Web site CelebrityBabylon.com.
"I am not now and have never been a drug user," Ronson stated in a supplemental declaration filed with the court on Monday. "I have never handled or touched cocaine. I did not ever place any cocaine at any place at any time."
According to the lawsuit, both postings defamed Ronson by stating she planted drugs that were found in Lohan's car after it crashed into a tree in Beverly Hills on May 26, and that she set up her friend to be photographed while under the influence of alcohol.
PerezHilton
Web Piracy Suit
Perez Hilton
Britney Spears' music label filed a copyright infringement suit on Thursday, accusing the popular Internet gossip site PerezHilton.com of posting unauthorized recordings from her forthcoming album.
The lawsuit came a day after Jive Records, part of Sony BMG Music Entertainment's Zomba Label Group, announced that it would release "Blackout" two weeks earlier than originally planned because some tracks had been leaked online.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, accuses PerezHilton.com and its proprietor, Mario Lavandeira, of illegally obtaining and posting at least 10 completed songs and unfinished demos during the past three months.
Perez Hilton
Sues Indian Group
J.K. Rowling
J.K. Rowling, creator of the Harry Potter series, is suing a community group in India for breach of copyright for recreating Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for a religious festival, group members said on Thursday.
The British author and Warner Brothers, who control the rights to the series in India, are seeking 2 million rupees ($50,000) in compensation from the community group in the eastern city of Kolkata.
The group is accused of erecting a massive structure in the shape of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for the Hindu festival of the Goddess Durga, which celebrates her killing a demon and the victory of good over evil.
A statue of the 10-armed goddess sitting on a lion, stabbing a demon emerging from a buffalo, dominates the set, and organizers are planning to also include lifesized models of the bespectacled Potter and his companions.
J.K. Rowling
Six-Figure Bonuses
US Commandos
The Pentagon has paid more than $100 million in bonuses to veteran Green Berets and Navy SEALs, reversing the flow of top commandos to the corporate world where security companies such as Blackwater USA are offering big salaries.
The retention effort, started nearly three years ago and overseen by U.S. Special Operations Command in Tampa, Fla., has helped preserve a small but elite group of enlisted troops with vast experience fighting the unconventional wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Defense Department statistics.
Overall, more than 1,200 of the military's most specialized personnel near or already eligible for retirement have opted for payments of up to $150,000 in return for staying in uniform several more years.
US Commandos
World's Oldest Wall Painting
Syria
French archaeologists have discovered an 11,000-year-old wall painting underground in northern Syria which they believe is the oldest in the world.
The 2 square-meter painting, in red, black and white, was found at the Neolithic settlement of Djade al-Mughara on the Euphrates, northeast of the city of Aleppo, team leader Eric Coqueugniot told Reuters.
"It looks like a modernist painting. Some of those who saw it have likened it to work by (Paul) Klee. Through carbon dating we established it is from around 9,000 B.C.," Coqueugniot said.
The world's oldest painting on a constructed wall was one found in Turkey but that was dated 1,500 years after the one at Djade al-Mughara, according to Science magazine.
Syria
Heresy Reprieve After 700 Years
Knights Templar
The Knights Templar, the medieval Christian military order accused of heresy and sexual misconduct, will soon be partly rehabilitated when the Vatican publishes trial documents it had closely guarded for 700 years.
A reproduction of the minutes of trials against the Templars, "'Processus Contra Templarios -- Papal Inquiry into the Trial of the Templars'" is a massive work and much more than a book -- with a 5,900 euros (4,125 pounds) price tag.
"This is a milestone because it is the first time that these documents are being released by the Vatican, which gives a stamp of authority to the entire project," said Professor Barbara Frale, a medievalist at the Vatican's Secret Archives.
Knights Templar
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