'Best of TBH Politoons'
Tonight
Erin Hart Show
Please join
Erin Hart Saturday and Sunday night from 9pm - 1am (pdt) on 710 KIRO.
Tom DeLay's ugly Texas redistricting just got nailed by JUSTICE, JUSTICE?
JUSTICE will meet itıs fate in the Supreme Court.
The Pentagon is paying for propaganda in local Iraqi media, wow! What a
surprise, Donald Rumsfeld's boys and girls are planting stories. Because
it's all going so well in Iraq.
The second biggest attack ever. More dead, more dissent. Whose side
are you on in terms of withdrawal? Do Democrats need to agree?
And the death penalty, more and more heartily disliked in the United States.
Shall we abolish it altogether? What alternatives will work?
Immigration, the 900 pound political issue - what is fair and right and safe -
for us and those who are here illegally?
Airport security has been relaxed, for better or worse?
And let it snow - kind of fun to splash in the snow. Pedro made it through
surgery fine and has learned to negotiate life with a buster cone - he still
jumps with STITCHES.
Audio streams live - 710KIRO.com.
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Robert Scheer: U.S. Occupation Comparable to Hussein Regime
Isn't it time to give the Iraqis a chance to see if they can do better -- on their own?
JANE MAYER: OUTSOURCING TORTURE, The secret history of America's "extraordinary rendition" program (newyorker.com)
On January 27th, President Bush, in a interview with the Times, assured the world that "torture is never acceptable, nor do we hand over people to countries that do torture." Maher Arar, a Canadian engineer who was born in Syria, was surprised to learn of Bush's statement. Two and a half years ago, American officials, suspecting Arar of being a terrorist, apprehended him in New York and sent him back to Syria, where he endured months of brutal interrogation, including torture.
David Moberg: Throw the Books at Them (inthesetimes.com)
A slew of new essays and studies show that fighting against inequality is the battle of our time
Brian H. Kehrl: States Say No To Sex-Ed Dough (Stateline.org. Posted on alternet.org)
Maine has become the latest state to reject federal funding for sex education programs that teach only abstinence.
Allison Stewart: Peace Train (villagevoice.com)
It's somehow not at all strange that the red states' most visible anti-war album comes from Dolly Parton, an artist so guileless and girlish, so above reproach, she seems incapable of wounding. Those Were the Days is a bluegrass covers record populated (mostly) by Vietnam-era protest songs hailing from the Peter, Paul and Mary School of Non-Alarming '60s Folk. But Days is occasionally more subversive than it seems.
RICHARD ROEPER: A request to Oprah: Let's bury the hatchet (suntimes.com)
What a moment it would be. Perhaps I could get my TV friend Roger Ebert to do the honors, given that he had a now-famous date with this woman back in the 1980s.
Betty Bowers: Seasons Bleatings
Seasons Bleatings to those few remaining unindicted Republicans out there whose unblinking loyalty cannot be diluted by the vicious media's newfound, punctilious obsession with unpatriotic facts!
Hubert's Poetry Corner
DANIELLE FLOWERS AND HER ARBUCKLE DAGUERREOTYPES
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Clear, with a cold, dry wind.
No new flags, again.
Adopting Jolie's Children
Brad Pitt
Brad Pitt is seeking to become the adoptive father of Angelina Jolie's children, the actor's publicist announced Friday.
A legal petition seeking to change the names of the children to Zahara Jolie-Pitt and Maddox Jolie-Pitt was filed Friday in Los Angeles, publicist Cindy Guagenti said in a written statement to The Associated Press.
"We are confirming that Brad Pitt is in the process of becoming the adoptive father of both children," the statement said. "No further comment is being made."
Brad Pitt
Ski Season Starts
Dubai
Skiing has officially started at Dubai's new indoor Alpine ski resort, offering the world's first indoor black-run just minutes away from the Arabian desert emirate's sun-baked beaches.
The lower level slopes started welcoming skiers on Friday, while the upper ones were due to be open on December 14, Ski Dubai chief executive Phil Taylor told AFP.
Snowboarders can also test their skills on a 90-meter-long (300 feet) quarter pipe, as well as jumps and rails at the ski dome nestled inside the brand-new, gigantic Mall of the Emirates.
Snow here is made the same way as in nature, with water atomized to create a cloud of tiny ice particles that allow snow crystals to form and fall on the slopes, lodges and plastic trees.
Dubai
Wedding News
Sweet - Warner
(Von Teese - Manson)
Shock rocker Marilyn Manson married his longtime girlfriend Saturday in Ireland, People magazine reported on its Web site.
Manson, whose real name is Brian Warner, married 33-year-old Heather Sweet in front of about 60 guests at Castle Gurteen, the home of a friend in Kilsheelan, County Tipperary, the magazine reported.
Sweet is a burlesque dancer who uses the stage name Dita Von Teese. They have been dating for four years and Manson proposed at their Los Angeles home in March 2004, People reported.
Sweet - Warner
Philly Streets Packed With Hopefuls
'Rocky'
No one had to sprint up the Philadelphia Museum of Art steps or spar in a meat locker. All the hundreds of fans who packed the Philadelphia streets Saturday for an open casting call for extras for the new "Rocky" movie needed was a picture, a resume and a simple message that would have made the fictional ex-champ proud: "Yo, pick me!"
From the old to the beautiful, wannabe actors, aspiring models and regular folks grumbled their best "Yo, Adrian!" impressions at Heery Casting, trying to land a spot as an extra in the sixth - yes, sixth! - "Rocky" movie.
Fifteen years after starring in "Rocky V," Sylvester Stallone is reprising his role as the boxing champ from South Philadelphia in the upcoming movie "Rocky Balboa."
Casting director Diane Heery said filming has already started in Las Vegas and is expected to start in Philadelphia on Jan. 9 and last about four weeks. Stallone would pick many of the extras needed for scenes shot in various city locations, Heery said.
'Rocky'
Found Outside Tampa Football Stadium
Mobile Strip Club
Police in Tampa, Fla., arrested 10 people in connection with the discovery of a mobile strip club that featured nude dancers for tailgaters, according to a Local 6 News report.
Officers found a 40-foot-long mobile home filled with strippers, bouncers and tailgaters outside Raymond James Stadium before Tampa's game with the Chicago Bears on Sunday.
The mobile strip club featured a stripper pole and a disco ball, Local 6 News reported.
Undercover police said the men were given alcohol and then offered nude lap dances for money.
Mobile Strip Club
November 2005
Final Sweep Results
In a sweeps period of mixed leadership, CBS finished November 2005 a healthy No. 1 in total viewers and adults 25-54, outdelivering second-place ABC by an average of 2.92 million viewers and 10 percent among adults 25-54. ABC and CBS tied for dominance among adults 18-49, with ABC up 10 percent and CBS down 2 percent year-to-year in the demo. This marked CBS' fifth consecutive November win in total viewers and third straight for the month among adults 25-54. ABC delivered its highest adult 18-49 rating during any sweep period since Feb. 2001, with 5 of the top 6 shows in the demo (Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy, Lost, Monday Night Football and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition). This also marked ABC's first win in the coveted demo for any sweeps period since May 2000.
Also worthy of accolades in November was American Idol-less Fox, which built by margins of 7 to 10 percent from Nov. 2004 courtesy of a regularly scheduled line-up that includes House, Prison Break, Bones, Trading Spouses: Meet Your New Mommy, Family Guy and old faithful The Simpsons.
Once the proud leader in adults 18-49, NBC sunk to a distant third in the demo, trailing ABC and CBS by a hefty 25 percent. The sinking Peacock net, which slid by margins of 11 to 18 percent year-to-year, also finished No.3 in total viewers (a whopping 5.02 million behind CBS) and adults 25-54. UPN and the WB shared the No. 5 spot, with the WB down 7 to 13 percent in the three surveyed categories, and UPN closer to year-ago levels.
Final Sweep Results
Auction Brings $16,000
Christmas Card
A 162-year-old Christmas card - one of the first ever printed - sold at auction Saturday for $16,000.
The hand-colored card, which shows a family celebrating around a table, is one of about 10 surviving from an original batch of 1,000 printed in 1843, auctioneer Henry Aldridge said.
The cards were commissioned by Sir Henry Cole, a Londoner who is generally recognized as the inventor of the commercial Christmas card.
The card was originally sent to a Miss Mary Tripsack, a close friend of the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the wife of the poet Robert Browning.
Christmas Card
Exhibit Invites Visitors to Taste Art
Visionaire
It's the first commandment of museum visiting: Thou shalt not touch. Licking a painting, it would seem, would be equally taboo. But this weekend, visitors to an international art show are invited to place flavored strips representing paintings and photos on their palates.
Visitors to Visionaire art magazine's "taste bar" are offered postage-stamp-sized strips that dissolve like film breath mints. They were developed in conjunction with artists, and the artwork paired with each flavor is displayed menu-like above the bar.
Visionaire and New York-based International Flavors & Fragrances Inc. spent about a year on the project. The resulting 12 collaborations include "Mommy," a condensed milk flavor accompanied by a photo of a woman's breast by Yoko Ono.
Visionaire
Original Tomb Found
Edward the Confessor
The original tomb of King Edward the Confessor, the first patron saint of England, has been discovered by chance deep beneath the floor of Westminster Abbey.
Although Edward's current whereabouts are known after his body was moved twice in the 12th and 13th centuries, the location of the original tomb where he was buried after his death in January 1066 has always been a mystery.
Previous searches had concentrated on an area in front of the current High Altar which was moved to where it is now when the Abbey was rebuilt by Henry III in the middle of the 13th century.
Edward the Confessor
Erotic Moments From Bible
German Calendar
A German Protestant youth group has put together a 2006 calendar with 12 staged photos depicting erotic scenes from the Bible, including a bare-breasted Delilah cutting Samson's hair and a nude Eve offering an apple.
"There's a whole range of biblical scriptures simply bursting with eroticism," said Stefan Wiest, the 32-year-old photographer who took the titillating pictures.
Bernd Grasser, pastor of the church in Nuremberg where the calendar is being sold, was enthusiastic about the project which is explained online at www.bibelkalender.de.
German Calendar
In Memory
Mary Hayley Bell
Mary Hayley Bell, an actress and author who wrote the novel "Whistle Down the Wind," died Thursday, according to a family death notice published Saturday in The Daily Telegraph. She was 94.
The cause of death was not given, but Bell had been suffering from Alzheimer's disease.
Her best known work, "Whistle Down the Wind," was turned into a successful 1961 film starring her daughter Hayley Mills as the eldest of three farm children who mistake an escaped murderer for Jesus Christ. Andrew Lloyd Webber later turned it into a stage musical, relocating it to the Deep South.
Born in Shanghai, China, where her father was a customs official, Bell had a promising career as an actress in the 1930s, making her London debut in 1934 with "Vintage Wine" and later working with the Manchester Repertory Company. In 1937-8, she toured Australia in "Victoria Regina."
She gave up the stage after marrying actor Sir John Mills in 1942.
She is survived by her children
Juliet Mills,
Hayley Mills, and
Jonathan Mills, and several grandchildren.
Mary Hayley Bell
In Memory
John Stewart Detlie
John Stewart Detlie, the Hollywood set designer, artist and architect who led the effort to camouflage the Boeing airplane factory during World War II, died Wednesday of lung cancer, his wife, Virginia, said. He was 96.
Detlie was born in Sioux Falls, S.D., in 1908, and earned architecture degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. He moved to Hollywood to work in the movie industry, and in 1940, was nominated for an Oscar for design work on "Bitter Sweet." His art director credits include "A Christmas Carol" and "The Chocolate Soldier."
Detlie, whose first wife was movie star Veronica Lake, left Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios in 1942 to manage the camouflage project as a member of the Army Corps of Engineers.
To confuse enemy bombers, Boeing Aircraft camouflaged nearly 26 acres of the plant in Seattle, where the B-17 and the B-29 were built. The plant was covered with a three-dimensional wire, plywood and canvas structure that was made to look like a town instead of a wartime airplane factory.
He designed a number of landmark Seattle buildings while in the Northwest, including Children's Orthopedic Hospital, several University of Washington buildings and Temple De Hirsch.
John Stewart Detlie
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