'Best of TBH Politoons'
Thanks, again, Tim!
Reader Comment
Bush Quote
George W. Bush says: "We've turned a corner, and we're not turning back."
Bruce responds: "Turn enough corners, and you end back up where you started."
Thanks, Bruce!
Maybe he can find Herbert Hoover's prosperity that was also supposedly just around the corner, too.
from Mark
Another Bumpersticker
Links From Bruce
Howard Stern Links
Reader Suggestion
Elephant Sanctuary
Hi Marty,
Enjoy your page every day, it's nice to have a break from the horrors of Bush Inc.
Thought I would share with you one of my favorite sites. Since I'm from Tennessee, the Elephant Sanctuary is one of our proudest achievements. These folks take in aging elephants and provide a safe haven for them to live out the remaining years of their lives without having to "perform" for anyone.
Hope you enjoy reading about these wonderful creatures, and perhaps if you link to the site, it will net some donations their way, they are totally dependent on the generousity of the public to keep the sanctuary going.
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Weather was so nice we played hooky & went to the beach.
Former President Bill Clinton, left, signs a book for CBS Late Show host David Letterman's son, Harry, during a taping of 'Late Show with David Letterman,' Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2004, in New York. Clinton wrote that carrying the book around would make him strong, and that he should be about 22 years-old when he finishes reading the book.
Photo by JP Filo
The Information One-Stop
Moose & Squirrel
Rock for Political Change
Vote for Change Tour
An announcement is expected Wednesday with details of the upcoming Vote for Change tour, featuring the likes of R.E.M., Bruce Springsteen, Dixie Chicks and James Taylor.
Presented by liberal groups MoveOn.Org and America Coming Together, the series is set to begin Oct. 1 in Pennsylvania and will include about 40 shows in such presidential election "battleground" states as Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, Missouri and Florida.
Sources say the format will be several concerts in different cities in one state on a given night; shows include R.E.M. with Springsteen, Dixie Chicks with Taylor, and Jackson Browne with Bonnie Raitt, along with performances by such acts as Jimmy Buffett, John Mellencamp and Dave Matthews Band. A host of additional acts are expected to participate.
Vote for Change Tour
Visitors stand around the original torch of the statue during a guided tour, Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2004, the first day since September 11, 2001 that tourists are allowed inside the statue.
Photo by Jennifer Szymaszek
Renews For $50 Million
Dave Chappelle
Dave Chappelle has signed a massive deal with Comedy Central that will return the comedian's hit series to the network for two more seasons.
Sources familiar with the deal indicate it could be worth about $50 million, vaulting Chappelle, 30, into the rarefied realm of television's top earners. The new contract is believed to mark not only a steep increase for Chappelle as star, writer, co-executive producer and co-creator of "Chappelle's Show," but more significantly, reward him with a hefty chunk of the series' robust DVD sales.
Also reaping the benefits of the deal was Chappelle's longtime partner, Neal Brennan, a director, executive producer, co-creator and writer of the series. While terms of the deal for Brennan were not disclosed, it is one of the richest deals in basic cable for a multihyphenate.
The first of 26 new episodes of "Chappelle's Show" is expected to premiere in the first quarter of next year. Each 13-episode season will consist of 10 original episodes, plus two "best-of" episodes and another devoted to music performances.
Dave Chappelle
Builds Animation Studio in Singapore
George Lucas
George Lucas, the man behind Star Wars and Indiana Jones, has teamed up with Singapore to set up his first animation studio and production house outside the United States, government and corporate officials said Tuesday.
The Lucasfilm venture is expected to be up and running in Singapore by 2005, the company's Chief Operating Officer Micheline Chau said.
The government has been actively courting media, arts and biotechnology firms to set up regional bases in Singapore as it loses its manufacturing business to lower-cost countries such as India and China.
George Lucas
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Cuban Telecast Raises Oscar Questions
'Fahrenheit 9/11'
A recent broadcast on Cuban television of Michael Moore's film "Fahrenheit 9/11" has raised questions about the Oscar eligibility of one of America's most talked-about and critically acclaimed movies of the year.
Under Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences rules, films are disqualified from competing in the Oscar race for best documentary if shown on television or on the Internet within nine months of their theatrical release.
However, an unauthorized or pirated display of a film would not render the movie ineligible, academy spokesman John Pavlik said on Tuesday.
'Fahrenheit 9/11'
Noh actors dance during a Takigi Noh performance, a form of Noh performed by torchlights on a traditional outdoor stage, at the Sensoji temple in Tokyo, August 3, 2004. Noh is a dance and drama that started in the 14th century and is based on folk myths and religious rituals.
Photo by Yuriko Nakao
Traffic's Fall Reunion Tour Cancelled
Jim Capaldi
The reunion tour of seminal U.K. rock act Traffic has been canceled due to illness suffered by founding member Jim Capaldi. The drummer was diagnosed last week with a severe gastric ulcer that will require treatment. The group's first trek since 1994 was due to begin Oct. 1 in San Francisco and visit North American theaters.
Capaldi and frontman Steve Winwood were due to be backed on the road by such sidemen as Rosko Gee, Randall Bramblett and Walfredo Reyes. Tour rehearsals were slated to begin next month in London.
Jim Capaldi
Drops Lawsuit Against Listener
Mancow
A nationally syndicated shock jock dropped his lawsuit against an Illinois listener who filed more than 70 indecency complaints with federal regulators since 1998.
Erich "Mancow" Muller sued David Smith in March, alleging his complaints about "Mancow's Morning Madhouse" were "a nuisance, repetitive, malicious, untrue and designed merely for the purpose of harassment" and to cause economic ruin.
Muller dropped the lawsuit last week, said attorneys for both men.
Muller said Monday he accomplished his goal - to bring attention to Smith's complaints - and that the lawsuit had become "a waste of time."
Mancow
Athens Olympics
Poppy, Bar & The Twins
Former US president George Bush, the leader of the US delegation to the 2004 Olympics, will lodge during his Athens stay aboard a luxury cruise ship parked in the neighboring port of Piraeus, the Greek navy said.
Resident Bush last month named his father, his mother Barbara and his twin daughters Jenna and Barbara to lead the US delegation in Athens.
Poppy, Bar & The Twins
SI Swimsuit Reality Series
NBC
The much discussed Sports Illustrated "cover jinx" has never applied to the Swimsuit Issue. While athletes often fall victim to bad luck and injuries after gracing the cover of the magazine, swimsuit models are catapulted to world fame.
Now models will have a chance for even greater celebrity in a new reality TV series, "Sport Illustrated's Fresh Faces Competition." On the show, to air on NBC, Sports Illustrated will launch a nationwide search for the "next great swimsuit supermodel," the winner of which will appear in the 2005 Swimsuit Issue.
The six-episode series will premiere in early 2005, leading up to the Feb. 15 Swimsuit Issue release, Sports Illustrated and NBC said Monday.
NBC
Formerly 'The Vidiot'
Gets 21 Months
Cris Kirkwood
Cris Kirkwood, former bass player for the Meat Puppets rock band, has been sentenced to 21 months in prison for attacking a security guard with a baton outside a post office.
Kirkwood, 43, pleaded guilty May 10 to a charge of assault with a dangerous weapon.
He was shot during the Dec. 26 incident at the post office in downtown Phoenix and authorities said he was on probation at the time for a 2000 drug offense.
Cris Kirkwood
Seven giant inflatable beer glasses stand aboard a ship on the river Rhine in Mainz, central Germany, Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2004, as a promotion for German beer.
Photo by Michael Probst
Costs California Taxpayers $86 Million A Year
Wal-Mart
Employment policies at Wal-Mart, the nation's largest employer, cost California taxpayers approximately $86 million a year in public assistance to company workers, according to a University of California, Berkeley, study released today (Monday, Aug. 2).
The study indicates that Wal-Mart workers in California rely on the state for about $32 million annually in health-related services, and $54 million a year in other assistance such as subsidized school lunches, food stamps and subsidized housing.
The researchers said they conservatively estimate that the approximately 44,000 workers at 143 Wal-Mart and its sister Sam's Club stores in California earn about 31 percent less than workers in large retail as a whole, and that 23 percent fewer Wal-Mart/Sam's Club workers generally are covered by employer-sponsored health insurance than workers in large retail.
For more, Wal-Mart
the complete Wal-Mart report
Brando's Tahitian Atoll
Tetiaroa
Actor Marlon Brando's Tahitian atoll could become a classified site to protect it from the appetites of investors following his death, officials said here.
Brando, who died on July 1, bought the atoll 42 kilometres (26 miles) north of Tahiti in the 1960s after filming "Mutiny on the Bounty" and used it as his private retreat.
Brando signed agreements with the territorial authorities in 1966 and 1984, which specified that the territory would have first rights in the case of the change of ownership of the atoll.
Tetiaroa
Home to Alaskan Petrified Forest
Unga Island
If you want to stroll through the only forest in the Shumagin Islands, you have to wear rubber boots and wait until the tide goes out.
In the Shumagins, where the wind never seems to stop, the few live trees were planted by people. But along a stretch of beach on the northwest corner of Unga Island, there's a grove that hasn't grown for millions of years.
Wind and water have worn away a 50-foot bluff to reveal a forest of petrified tree stumps that appear to be marching into the ocean. Unga is the largest of the dozen or so Shumagin Islands, 570 miles southwest of Anchorage near the tip of the Alaska Peninsula.
The trees are one of the oddities of Alaska, right up there with warm-blooded dinosaur fossils found north of the Brooks Range on the North Slope. The trees are believed to be sequoia, which grow in northern California, or metasequoia, now found mostly in China. Neither apparently have any business being so far north.
For the rest, Unga Island
Soon To Be Sentenced
Justin Helzer
A jury recommended the death penalty Tuesday for a man who killed the daughter of blues guitarist Elvin Bishop and an elderly couple as part of a quasi-religious extortion plot four years ago.
The jury also recommended a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for Justin Helzer for his role in the deaths of another couple.
Helzer, his older brother Glenn and a friend, Dawn Godman, killed five people during the crime spree in the summer of 2000. The killings of Selina Bishop, her mother, Jennifer Villarin, her mother's boyfriend, James Gamble, and Ivan and Annette Stineman, were part of an extortion scheme to earn money for a self-awareness group the Helzers said would hasten Christ's return to Earth.
The bodies of Bishop and the Stinemans were sawed up and stuffed into gym bags, their jaws removed to prevent identification, and the bags were thrown into a river.
Justin Helzer
Prime-Time Nielsen
Ratings
Prime-time viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen Media Research for July 26 to Aug. 1. Top 20 listings include the week's ranking, with viewership for the week and season-to-date rankings in parentheses.
An "X" in parentheses denotes a one-time-only presentation.
1. (2) "CSI," CBS, 13.5 million viewers.
2. (X) "CSI: Miami," CBS, 11.9 million viewers.
3. (17) "60 Minutes," CBS, 10.9 million viewers.
4. (16) "Cold Case," CBS, 10.3 million viewers.
5. (36) "CBS Sunday Movie: `The Pilot's Wife'," CBS, 10.2 million viewers.
6. (50) "Amazing Race 5," CBS, 10.1 million viewers.
7. (X) "Two and a Half Men," CBS, 9.6 million viewers.
8. (93) "Trading Spouses," Fox, 9.3 million viewers.
9. (X) "Everybody Loves Raymnd," CBS, 9.2 million viewers.
10. (69) "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," ABC, 9.1 million viewers.
11. (62) "Big Brother 5" (Tuesday), CBS, 8.8 million viewers.
12. (66) "Big Brother 5" (Thursday), CBS, 8.6 million viewers.
13. (21) "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," NBC, 8.5 million viewers.
14. (30) "Navy NCIS," CBS, 7.9 million viewers.
15. (24) "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," NBC, 7.9 million viewers.
16. (X) "Cold Case Special," CBS, 7.8 million viewers.
17. (X) "Two And a Half Men," CBS, 7.8 million viewers.
18. (41) "60 Minutes II," CBS, 7.7 million viewers.
19. (59) "Law & Order" (Wednesday), NBC, 7.6 million viewers.
20. (69) "Simple Life 2," Fox, 7.6 million viewers.
Ratings
A boy watches a beluga whale and its baby swim at the Vancouver aquarium in Vancouver Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2004.
Photo by Jonathan Hayward
'The Osbournes'
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