'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
PAUL KRUGMAN: Letter to the Secretary ( The New York Times)
If the tax cuts are made permanent, they'll eventually have to be offset by large spending cuts. In practical terms, that means cuts where the money is: in Social Security and Medicare benefits. Since middle-income Americans will feel the brunt of these cuts, yet received a relatively small tax break, they'll end up worse off. But the wealthy will be left considerably wealthier.
Robert J. Elisberg: It's Hard to Follow the Money When There Isn't Any Left (huffingtonpost.com)
The resulting national debt, the largest-ever in American history, doesn't just create actual problems for future "I don't care, I'll be dead then" generations, but today. If we piss off China for any reason ("Give us new episodes of 'Laverne & Shirley'! Now!" Or even, "Remove your ships, we are attacking Taiwan! Now!"), and they call in their loan, get into crash position.
Trav S.D.: Funny Money: Billionaires for Bush (villagevoice.com)
Audiences get to play games like "Pin the Brain on the President" and "Target Practice With Dick Cheney."
Julian Dibbell: eBay Atheist (villagevoice.com)
In the future, no marketing textbook will be complete without a chapter on Hemant Mehta, the 22-year-old who last month sold his soul on eBay. ... the stunt has racked up several ad campaigns' worth of exposure for the product he was actually marketing: atheism as a wholesome American way of life.
Joy Press: The Further Adventures of Artbabe (villagevoice.com)
Brooklyn graphic novelist Jessica Abel, up from underground
Ruth Conniff: 'Stop feeding the work monster' (progressive.org)
If we don't start making social policy that protects us from the business-uber-alles monster, we're going to find every noncash value in our lives subsumed. Family? Leisure? Art? Intellectual pursuits? Hobbies? Cooking? Health? Time with friends? Forget about it.
Roger Ebert: Thank You for Smoking (rated R; 3 and 1/2 Stars)
How can you tell when something is not good for you? Because of the efforts made to convince you it is harmless or beneficial. Consider the incredible, edible egg. "Drink responsibly." Prescription drug prices being doubled "to fund research for better health."
Ben Domenech Resigns (washpostblog)
... we learned of allegations that Ben Domenech plagiarized material that appeared under his byline in various publications prior to washingtonpost.com contracting with him to write a blog that launched Tuesday.
Liz Langley: Japan's Low Mojo (AlterNet.org)
According to a recent survey of 41 countries, the Japanese are having the least amounts of sex. But why?
Global Sex Survey
Commentoon: Submission Accomplished
Purple Gene Remembers
Buck Owens
Purple Gene's review of the life and death of the Bakersfield Buckaroo….Buck Owens:
Well we lost a great one! The legendary Buck Owens, inventor the "Bakersfield Sound" back in the 60's….."Hardcore Hillbilly Honky Tonk hero…..has passed away at the age of 76 in his home in L.A.
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Started out sunny, ended up with rain after the sun set.
Added a new flag - Greenland 
Paving Road to Dalai Lama's Home
Richard Gere
Hollywood actor Richard Gere wants to pave a pot-holed road leading to the palace of the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama in the northern Indian hilltop town of Dharamsala, a state legislature was told.
"Gere has promised funds to repair the road leading to the house of the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala provided the money is properly spent," lawmaker Vijay Singh Mankotia said on Friday in the assembly of the northern Himachal Pradesh, where Dharamsala is located.
The serpentine road is prone to avalanches and has been in a state of disrepair since July last year when torrential rains washed away parts of its surface, leaving behind massive craters.
Richard Gere
Mistaken for Hostage Situation
Film Shoot
A movie set at the downtown post office turned all too real for a group of high school filmmakers. Members of the high school Spanish club were shooting a movie Thursday night when the police showed up believing a hostage crisis was going on inside the post office.
But apparently, someone saw the teens carrying toy guns into the building on Centre Street, which is the heart of the town's historical district. When they couldn't get an answer to calls placed inside the building, they assumed the worst.
Police cordoned off the block, cleared nearby buildings and surrounded the post office ready for a hostage crisis. When a group of students left the post office, they were ordered to get on the ground, face down.
Film Shoot
Wins Round in Photo Lawsuit
Jay Leno
Jay Leno has won a round in court with a ruling that comedy deserves a break. A state appeals court ruled that a lower court should have dismissed a lawsuit that a woman filed against the "Tonight Show" host and NBC.
The lawsuit by Claire Walter, 40, of Irondequoit, claimed Leno violated the state's Civil Rights Law by commercially using an unflattering photo of her in an on-air joke without her permission in 2003. The photo was taken for internal use at her former employer, Dorschel Automotive Group Inc.
According to the lawsuit, Leno said "a customer would not want to have their car serviced by someone like Ms. Walter. There were comments about (the) plaintiff being scary looking, being big."
"Just because you're a comic doesn't give you the right to take someone who is an obscure person and make fun of the way someone looks," attorney Nira Kermisch said.
Jay Leno
Can Dance Again
Angela Lansbury
Angela Lansbury says she can dance again after having knee replacement surgery. "I'm not going to be dancing with the stars at this stage in my life," Lansbury said by phone from her Los Angeles home. "But I want to dance and bop around, and I did, and I can."
The 80-year-old actress, who is seeking to educate women about the procedure, says her dancer past left her "crippled" by intolerable knee pain for years.
"I had surgery, and I put it off for a long time. I want to tell women: Don't put it off," said Lansbury, who kicked off an education campaign Wednesday with DePuy Orthopaedics at a medical conference in Chicago.
Angela Lansbury
Hospital News
Oral Roberts
University founder and evangelist Oral Roberts fell and broke his hip, Oral Roberts University officials said Friday.
Roberts, 88, broke his right hip Thursday night while on the way to the kitchen at his home near Palm Springs, Calif., according to a statement released by the university.
Roberts was taken in an ambulance to a hospital, where he was expected to undergo surgery.
Oral Roberts
Sues Detective Pellicano
Keith Carradine
Actor Keith Carradine is suing Anthony Pellicano claiming the indicted Hollywood detective invaded his privacy by wiretapping his phone line.
Carradine and his fiancee allege in the complaint filed Friday that Pellicano conspired with the actor's ex-wife and two former phone company workers to illegally eavesdrop on their conversations.
The lawsuit says Sandra Carradine was trying to gain an advantage in divorce proceedings. She also is named in the suit.
Sandra Carradine has pleaded guilty to perjury for lying to a grand jury when she denied knowing about Pellicano's alleged wiretaps. She could face up to 10 years in prison.
Keith Carradine
Ordered to Stay Away From Wife
David Hasselhoff
A judge has issued a temporary restraining order requiring David Hasselhoff to stay away from his estranged wife, according to court papers unsealed this week.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mark A. Juhas signed the order March 6 ordering the former "Baywatch" star to stay at least 100 yards from actress Pamela Bach except for "peaceful contacts related to court ordered visitation" of one their two teenage daughters.
Bach, 42, has custody of one daughter while Hasselhoff, 53, has custody of the other.
David Hasselhoff
Eyes Daytime Talk Show
Patricia Heaton
Sources said Patricia Heaton, Emmy-winning co-star of "Everybody Loves Raymond," is in negotiations for a show targeted to launch in fall 2007. The project is described as being in the vein of ABC's daytime talker "The View," where Heaton would serve as one of multiple hosts, according to sources.
The project is being developed by Buena Vista Television, whose Disney corporate siblings Touchstone Television and ABC are already working with Heaton on an untitled comedy pilot being eyed for next season.
Patricia Heaton
Human Ancestor
Skull
Scientists in northeastern Ethiopia said Saturday that they have discovered the skull of a small human ancestor that could be a missing link between the extinct Homo erectus and modern man.
The hominid cranium - found in two pieces and believed to be between 500,000 and 250,000 years old - "comes from a very significant period and is very close to the appearance of the anatomically modern human," said Sileshi Semaw, director of the Gona Paleoanthropological Research Project in Ethiopia.
Archaeologists found the early human cranium five weeks ago at Gawis in Ethiopia's northeastern Afar region, Sileshi said.
Skull
Boat May Be Restored
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway's 40-foot, black-hulled fishing boat, the Pilar, could be getting a little restorative nip and tuck.
Local watercraft preservation specialist Dana Hewson and members of the Boston-based Hemingway Preservation Foundation are heading to Finca Vigia, Hemingway's estate in Cuba, where he will photograph and examine the Pilar.
The Boston group is working with the Cuban government to preserve the Pilar, along with Hemingway's home and thousands of Hemingway drafts, manuscripts, letters, photographs and books stored there.
Ernest Hemingway
Time Life's Best-Selling DVD Collection
'Hee Haw'
"Hee Haw" was Time Life's best-selling DVD collection of 2005 -- and that ain't hay.
Time Life says it has sold more than 1 million units of the multi-title series since it began marketing it via infomercials and TV ads in November 2003.
Notable in the case of "Hee Haw" is where and how the company makes the sales. Time Life executives say consumers purchased almost half the "Hee Haw" titles in stores like Wal-Mart and Target rather than over the phone, as is typically the case with many direct-response campaigns.
'Hee Haw'
In Memory
Richard Fleischer
Richard Fleischer, who directed several memorable films from sci-fi classics such as "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" to war movies as "Tora! Tora! Tora!" died Saturday. He was 89.
Fleischer died Saturday of natural causes at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in Woodland Hills, said his son, Mark.
The director's father, Max Fleischer, and his uncles Dave and Louis, pioneered animated shorts in New York, starting in 1920 with the innovative "Out of the Inkwell" series. In the 1930s, they became rivals to Walt Disney with their popular Betty Boop and Popeye the Sailor comedy shorts.
A quiet-spoken but firm-minded director, Richard Fleischer never achieved the recognition of his more flamboyant contemporaries, but his name was on a wide variety of well-known films, including "Fantastic Voyage" (1966); "Doctor Dolittle" (1967); "The Boston Strangler" (1968); "Che!" (1969); "The New Centurions" (1972); "Soylent Green" (1973); "Mr. Majestyk" (1974); "Mandingo" (1975); "Conan the Destroyer" (1984) and "Red Sonja" (1985).
Richard Fleischer
In Memory
Buck Owens
Singer Buck Owens, the flashy rhinestone cowboy who shaped the sound of country music with hits like "Act Naturally" and brought the genre to TV on the long-running "Hee Haw," died Saturday in Bakersfield. He was 76.
His career was one of the most phenomenal in country music, with a string of more than 20 No. 1 records, most released from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s.
An indefatigable performer, Owens played a red, white and blue guitar with fireball fervor. He and the Buckaroos wore flashy rhinestone suits in an era when flash was as important to country music as fiddles.
After his string of hits, Owens stayed away from the recording scene for a decade, returning in 1988 to record another No. 1 record, "Streets of Bakersfield," with Dwight Yoakam.
He spent much of his time away concentrating on his business interests, which included a Bakersfield TV station and radio stations in Bakersfield and Phoenix.
Alvis Edgar Owens Jr. was born in 1929 outside Sherman, Texas, the son of a sharecropper. With opportunities scarce during the Depression, the family moved to Arizona when he was 8.
Owens' first wife, Bonnie Owens, sometimes performed with him and went on to become a leading backup singer after their divorce in 1955. She had occasional solo hits in the '60s, as well as successful duets with her second husband, Merle Haggard.
One of her two sons with Owens also became a singer, using the name Buddy Alan. He had a Top 10 hit in 1968, "Let the World Keep on a-Turnin'," and recorded a number of duets with his father.
In addition to Buddy, he is survived by two other sons, Michael and John.
Buck Owens
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