Jim Hightower: PROFESSOR BUSH'S ECONOMIC NOSTRUM (jimhightower.com)
On this Labor Day, when working families all across America are struggling, it's fitting for us to reflect on the profound insight of that prominent economic theorist, George W. Bush. In 2000, explaining his approach to economic policy, W declared: "We ought to make the pie higher."
What can you do with a brick-sized Vogue? (guardian.co.uk)
Zoe Williams: It's the biggest Vogue ever, this month's American issue. At 840 pages, it is longer than any book I've ever read. You cannot read this ludicrous publication, and it has no other uses. Poor trees! (PS by Bruce: Check out the funny Guardian Weekly ad in this story.)
Flying high (guardian.co.uk)
Eddie the Eagle's spectacularly bad performance as a ski jumper at the 1988 Olympics made him a hero of sorts - and a national joke. Since then he's been working as a plasterer. But now his life story is being made into a film starring Steve Coogan. Stuart Jeffries meets him.
Jump into your space capsules and go back with me to a Time of Titans…Post Disco and Pre Punk…."Pac-Man Fever"....No cell phones, computers or Internet….a time right around 1982 when people packed Video Arcades and played Ms.Pac-Man, Frogger, Qbert, Centipede, Super Mario Brothers and the most competitive game of all……..Donkey Kong ! These are the great ancestors to all the Play Station punks.
ENTER THE VILLAIN DRESSED IN BLACK
Back in the Summer of '82 a dark bearded and mulleted maniac named Billy Mitchell, entered the Funspot Arcade in Hollywood, Florida and proceeded to set a record playing Donkey Kong that lasted 25 years. This guy became the super hero of the classic arcade gamers and he sort of built an empire on his fame. He started the first Chicken Wings outlet and then became a Hot Sauce Tycoon …all the time strutting around with his buxom be-jeweled Barbie babe…..this guy was a snake oil salesman……
WE NEED ANOTHER HERO
At the same time, in his garage in Seattle, Washington, Steve Wiebe had been practicing and playing for endless hours on his own personal Donkey Kong machine…. the opposite of Billy Mitchell…he got fired from Boeing the day he bought his house…choked as a pitcher on the baseball team has a plain jane wife and 2 little kids….this guy is a high school science teacher….
Steve Wiebe video tapes a record breaking game he played in his garage one night and submitted it to "Twin Galaxies" website for official recognition…..Walter Day, who is an old crony of Billy's is the chief scoring ref and gaming record book keeper. Well with Billy being Billy they sabotage Steve's machine and his record game. So….Steve has to come to Hollywood , Florida and beat Billy live at the Funspot !
TAKE THAT HOT SAUCE MAN
Steve walks into the Funspot, pulls up a stool and kicks Billy Mitchell's ass before a small crowd of game geeks…..now Steve is the new world record holder ! But Billy has some sinister shit up his sleeve…he surreptitiously slips a sealed envelope to the judge with a "sanctioned" video ….showing him eclipsing the record that Steve just scored……
SPOILER ALERT….SPOILER ALERT….SPOILER ALERT
By the time the movie is winding down, tears are shed and Billy Mitchell goes into the Guinness Book of World Records, the trailer show Steve going before a live crowd and stealing Billy Mitchells record back……the crowd in my theater (10 people) cheer and we all leave their seats with that David just beat Goliath feeling.
Purple Gene gives "The King of Kong: Fistful of Quarters" 9 nerdy nitwits and dimwits in dark and dim lit arcades out of 10 for being a great "good overcomes evil" film….
On July 13th of this year (25 years to the day the record was set) Billy Mitchell, before an audience of hundreds, set a new worlds record at Donkey Kong…1,050,200 points….I wonder what Steve's doing in his garage tonight
CBS begins the night with a FRESH'Power Of 10', followed by a FRESH'Big Brother 8', then a RERUN'NCIS'.
Scheduled on a FRESHDave are Former President Bill Clinton and Patti Scialfa.
Scheduled on a FRESHCraig are Jason Priestley, Sherri Shepherd, and Chris "Kid" Reid.
NBC starts the night with a RERUN'Singing Bee', followed by another RERUN'Singing Bee', then the SEASON PREMIERE'The Biggest Loser', followed by a RERUN'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit'.
Scheduled on a FRESHLeno (R-Enabler) are Dennis Miller, Capt. Ed Kiesel, and Rodrigo y Gabriela.
Scheduled on a FRESHConan are David Duchovny, Tim Gunn, and Kevin Brennan.
Scheduled on a FRESHCarson Daly are Bill Bellamy and Hellogoodbye.
ABC opens the night with a FRESH'Just For Laughs', followed by a FRESH'Just For Laughs', then a FRESH'i-Caught', followed by 'Primetime: Crime'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJimmy Kimmel are Kirk Douglas, Terrell Owens, and Gogol Bordello.
The CW ofers a RERUN'Gilmore Girls', followed by a RERUN'Beauty & The Geek'.
Faux has a RERUN'Bones', followed by a RERUN'House'.
MY has a FRESH'The Academy', followed by a FRESH'Jail', then another FRESH'Jail'.
A&E has 'CSI: The 2nd One', 'Dog The Bounty Hunter', another 'Dog The Bounty Hunter', still another 'Dog The Bounty Hunter', yet another 'Dog The Bounty Hunter', 'Criss Angel', and another 'Criss Angel'.
AMC offers the movie 'Rio Grande', followed by the movie 'Wyatt Earp'.
BBC -
[12:00 PM] Cash in the Attic - Episode 6;
[1:00 PM] Everything Must Go - Episode 9;
[1:30 PM] Everything Must Go - Episode 10;
[2:00 PM] The Weakest Link - Episode 9;
[3:00 PM] How Clean Is Your House? - Episode 8;
[3:30 PM] How Clean Is Your House? - Episode 9;
[4:00 PM] You Are What You Eat - Episode 1;
[4:30 PM] You Are What You Eat - Episode 2;
[5:00 PM] Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - Ep. 1 Bonapartes ;
[6:00 PM] My Family - Ep. 9 Auto Erotica;
[6:30 PM] My Family - Ep. 10 Handful of Dust;
[7:00 PM] BBC World News;
[7:30 PM] How Clean Is Your House? - Episode 1;
[8:00 PM] MI-5 - Ep 7 Clean Skin;
[9:00 PM] MI-5 - Ep 8 Strike Force;
[10:00 PM] Coupling - Episode 5 - The Naked Living Room;
[10:40 PM] The Catherine Tate Show - Episode 2;
[11:00 PM] MI-5 - Ep 7 Clean Skin;
[12:00 AM] MI-5 - Ep 8 Strike Force;
[1:00 AM] Coupling - Episode 5 - The Naked Living Room;
[1:40 AM] The Catherine Tate Show - Episode 2;
[2:00 AM] The Weakest Link - Episode 10;
[3:00 AM] Hollyoaks - Episode 2;
[3:30 AM] Changing Rooms - Ep. 10 Tolworth;
[4:00 AM] Bargain Hunt - Ep. 18 Ardingly;
[4:30 AM] Bargain Hunt - Ep. 9 Ardingly 49;
[5:00 AM] Cash in the Attic - Episode 5;
[5:30 AM] Cash in the Attic - Episode 6;
[6:00 AM] BBC World News. (ALL TIMES EDT)
Bravo has 'Kathy Griffin: Everybody', 'The Word According To Whoopi', 'Flipping Out', and another 'Flipping Out'.
Comedy Central has 'Scrubs', another 'Scrubs', an old 'Jon Stewart', an old 'Colbert Report', 'Mind Of Mencia', 'South Park', and 'Lewis Black: Black On Broadway'.
On a RERUNJon Stewart (from 8/21/07) is Alan Weisman.
On a RERUNColbert Report (from 8/21/07) is Michael Shermer.
FX has the movie 'Me, Myself & Irene', followed by the movie 'The Italian Job', and a FRESH'Damages'.
History has 'Engineering Disasters 20', 'The Universe', and 'Mega Disasters'.
IFC -
[06:05 AM] Mario Bava: Maestro of the Macabre;
[07:15 AM] Yo Soy Boricua, Pa'que Tu Lo Sepas!;
[08:50 AM] George Washington;
[10:30 AM] IFC News Special: Comic-Con Chronicles;
[11:00 AM] A Decade Under The Influence: Part 1;
[12:00 PM] Trauma;
[01:40 PM] ¡Yo Soy Boricua, Pa'que Tu Lo Sepas!;
[03:15 PM] George Washington;
[04:50 PM] Media Lab Results;
[05:00 PM] A Decade Under The Influence: Part 1;
[06:00 PM] ¡Yo Soy Boricua, Pa'que Tu Lo Sepas!;
[07:30 PM] Double Happiness;
[09:00 PM] Far from Heaven;
[11:00 PM] Son of the Bride;
[01:15 AM] Breaking the Waves;
[03:50 AM] Far from Heaven;
[05:40 AM] Son of the Bride. (ALL TIMES EDT)
SciFi has 'Dead Like Me', 'Eureka', followed by a FRESH'Eureka', and 'ECW'.
Sundance -
[06:00 AM] The Syrian Bride;
[07:00 AM] Nose, Iranian Style;
[08:00 AM] The Galindez File;
[10:00 AM] Be Here to Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt;
[12:00 PM] The Syrian Bride;
[02:00 PM] Forty Shades of Blue;
[04:00 PM] The Galindez File;
[06:00 PM] Paul Simon, Corinne Bailey Rae & Primal Scream | Directed by: AJ Jankel;
[07:00 PM] K;
[08:00 PM] The Firefly Man;
[09:00 PM] Episode 8;
[09:00 PM] A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash;
[11:00 PM] Episode 8;
[11:00 PM] Waterland;
[01:00 AM] K;
[02:00 AM] Episode 2: Too Much Month;
[03:00 AM] Episode 2;
[04:00 AM] Sonny. (ALL TIMES EDT)
U.S. actor George Clooney poses after he was awarded with the medal of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres' during the 33rd American Film Festival in Deauville, Normandy, France, Sunday Sept. 2, 2007.
Photo by Michel Spingler
British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking revealed his desire on Monday to make "real science as exciting as science fiction" as he publicised a new book for children about the cosmos.
"It is easier to explain things to children because they have open minds and are eager to learn," he told reporters at the prestigious Cambridge University, where he is a professor.
"George's Secret Key to the Universe", the first book in a planned trilogy, explains the workings of the solar system, asteroids, black holes -- one of Hawking's favourite topics -- and other celestial bodies with the help of a set of young heroes.
The book was written with his daughter Lucy, who came up with the idea, and Christophe Galfard, the first Frenchman to write a doctorate thesis on Hawking's observations.
U.S. actor Morgan Freeman and his wife Myrna arrive for an auction in Monaco organized by Sotheby's auction house, Sunday, Sept. 2, 2007.
Photo by Lionel Cironneau
Sweden said on Monday it will donate 20 million Swedish crowns ($3 million) to ensure the films and scripts of the late director Ingmar Bergman are preserved.
Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt and Culture Minister Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth, writing in the daily Dagens Nyheter, said the support would mainly cover films that Bergman directed or for which he wrote the script.
The donation will also go towards the purchase of copyrights and putting Bergman's scripts in digital form.
A vast private archive of Bergman's scripts, notes, sketches and photographs is managed by the Ingmar Bergman Foundation, but the ministers said the foundation lacks the resources to digitalize the archive.
Rock stars -- notorious for their "crash and burn" lifestyles -- really are more likely than other people to die before reaching old age.
A study of more than 1,000 mainly British and North American artists, spanning the era from Elvis Presley to rapper Eminem, found they were two to three times more likely to suffer a premature death than the general population.
Between 1956 and 2005 there were 100 deaths among the 1,064 musicians examined by researchers at the Centre for Public Health at Liverpool John Moores University.
More than a quarter of all the deaths were related to drugs or alcohol abuse, said the study in the Journal of Epidemial Community Health.
A ride that took theme park visitors "Back to the Future" is about to be relegated to the past.
The Universal Studios Hollywood ride based on the film trilogy starring Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd was taking its final passengers Monday. It was closing to make room for a new "Simpsons" attraction.
"Back to the Future - The Ride," was the theme park's first high-technology thrill ride when it opened in 1993.
U.S. director Woody Allen and his wife Soon-Yi arrive at the Cinema Palace in Venice September 2, 2007. Allen's movie "Cassandra's Dream" is being shown at the Venice Film Festival.
Photo by Alessandro Bianchi
A grocery tycoon and politician who planted a flag on the North Pole's seabed last month will now go into orbit as the first Russian space tourist, leading business daily Vedomosti said on Monday.
Vladimir Gruzdev, aged 40, underwent medical tests in June and had been formally approved for a flight on board a Soyuz-TMA spacecraft in September 2008, the newspaper quoted an unnamed source from the Russian space company Energia as saying.
Gruzdev is a part owner of Seventh Continent, a leading Russian grocery chain and a deputy in the State Duma for the United Russia party, which holds the majority of seats in the lower chamber.
Britain's domestic intelligence agency MI5 kept tabs on George Orwell for more than two decades but did not believe he was a mainstream communist, according to records made public on Tuesday.
The Security Service, as MI5 is officially known, also did not raise any objections when Orwell -- referred to by his real name Eric Blair -- was being vetted for a job with the Sunday Observer newspaper at Allied Forces Headquarters.
A January 1942 report from Special Branch describes Orwell as having "advanced communist views and several of his Indian friends say that they have often seen him at Communist meetings ... He dresses in a bohemian fashion both at his office and in his leisure hours."
But an MI5 officer wrote: "It is evident from his recent writings -- 'The Lion And The Unicorn' -- and his contribution to Gollancz's symposium 'The Betrayal Of The Left' that he does not hold with the Communist Party nor they with him."
Yeoman Warder Moira Cameron (2nd L), the first female Beefeater, starts work at the Tower of London, September 3, 2007. A 42-year-old Scottish woman became the first female 'Beefeater' on Monday, taking up her post as a guardian of Britain's Tower of London.
Photo by Luke MacGregor
A former CIA operative and Cuban exile plans to auction what he says is a lock of Che Guevara's hair, snipped before the Argentinian revolutionary and friend of Fidel Castro was buried in 1967.
Gustavo Villoldo, 71, was involved in Guevara's capture in the jungles of Bolivia, according to unclassified U.S. records and other documents. He plans to auction the hair and other items kept in a scrapbook since the joint CIA-Bolivian army mission 40 years ago.
The scrapbook also holds a map used to track down Guevara in Bolivia, photos of Guevara's body, intercepted messages between Guevara and his rebels and a set of Guevara's fingerprints taken before his burial.
The high demand and soaring prices for scrap metal appeared to be the reason a 7-foot statue of Buddha, covered in copper-laden bronze, was stolen from an outdoor temple shrine at the Thai Buddhist Center of Minnesota, police said.
Police Chief Jeff Beahen said a 45-year-old Elk River woman was arrested Friday night, and a male family member was being looked at as another suspect in the theft.
The statue, valued at $10,000, was stolen Wednesday night, and a detective issued a statewide alert to police and scrap dealers Thursday with a photo of the stolen statue.
Police recovered the right shoulder and right hip of the statue, each weighing about 60 pounds, and with the help of the recycler were able to identify the woman who had brought them in.
A child dressed as Hindu Lord Krishna attends celebrations of "Janamashtmi", at a school in the northeastern Indian city of Siliguri September 3, 2007. The Hindu festival of "Janamashtmi" is the birth anniversary of Lord Krishna.
Photo by Rupak De Chowdhuri
Hotel Zum Türken in southern Germany which allowed guests to see a swastika-covered bunker from World War Two in its cellar could lose its restaurant and alcohol licence and face criminal charges, a state finance ministry said.
The bunker, which was once the headquarters of Adolf Hitler's personal security staff, has been open to visitors via an advertised passageway at the hotel, located in the state of Bavaria near the Austrian border.
Critics say the bunker, located in Hitler's favourite vacation spot, Obersalzberg, has become a shrine to neo-Nazis who come to see Nazi propaganda and anti-Semitic statements scrawled and carved on its walls.
"There should be no hushing up, but most importantly, no hidden or open glorification of the Nazi regime," Bavarian Finance Minister Kurt Faltlhauser said in a statement sent to Reuters on Monday.
Rob Zombie's new take on John Carpenter's 1978 horror sensation "Halloween" slashed its way to a $31 million haul over the four-day weekend, surpassing the $20.1 million gross for 2005's "Transporter 2," which had held the record for best Labor Day opening.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Media By Numbers LLC. Final figures will be released Monday.
A sign directs musicians to the stage during the "Summer of Love" 40th anniversary concert at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, California, September 2, 2007.
Photo by Robert Galbraith
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