Common Enemies of the Paperboy, According to the Nintendo Game of the Same Name.Oscar-winning actress Jodie Foster will play the leading role of Leni Riefenstahl in a work that is bound to generate immense argument, as it examines the beautiful woman who became Adolf Hitler's favourite director and whose slick propaganda helped the Nazi war machine...
Fox News devoted airtime today to a lawsuit brought by a father after his sons stumbled across a book on lesbian sexuality in an Arkansas public library.
The Bentonville, AR man is seeking $20,000 in damages and the firing of the town's top librarian, claiming his two sons were disturbed after stumbling upon The Whole Lesbian Sex Book in the town's public library.
The Bush administration...has been "slow and timid" in pointing out ways in which Americans can support troops "and connect with the Iraqi people [the soldiers] are risking their lives to save."just a thought, from a non-military person, but you might want to get the electricity up and running in iraq first...but then let's not stop with craigslist...how about iraqi match.com?
...creating "a military craigslist-style" website where units or provincial reconstruction teams could "identify equipment and supplies that would help the Iraqi people."
Miss America Helps Cops in Sex Sting
Miss America Goes Undercover in New York to Try to Catch Sex Predators
Lauren Nelson recently went undercover with police in New York for a sting targeting sexual predators. Officers with Suffolk County's computer crimes unit created an online profile of a 14-year-old girl that included photographs of Nelson as a teenager...Nelson, 20, posed as a young teen online and went into chat rooms, where she said men would begin sending her instant messages asking her how old she was and where she lived..."I would say I'm a 14-year-old female from Long Island. Sometimes they would say, 'You're too young, sorry,' which is exactly what needs to happen, but some would continue chatting.
"It would only take a matter of time before it got pretty explicit."
Nelson then arranged to meet the men at a home in Long Island, where police and camera crews were waiting.
"The story was that they knew I was 14, and I told them I was cutting school to meet with them," Nelson said. "I stood outside on the porch, and I would say, 'Hi' to them and wave them inside."
Once she entered the home with the suspect, Nelson said, she left the room, and police and "America's Most Wanted" host John Walsh confronted the suspect.
on april 17, rep. dana rohrbacher (r-ca) had some choice words for members of the european union parliament’s committee on human rights who were invited guests and witnesses an the house of reps' foreign affairs european subcommittee hearing:Rohrabacher said if European countries did not cooperate with the United States and go along with whatever the Bush administration wanted, they were condemning their countrymen to death by not using extralegal methods to imprison terrorist suspects. When citizens attending the hearing, including members of Codepink Women for Peace and Veterans for Peace, heard Rohrabacher’s statement, they collectively groaned. Then, much to the shock and disbelief of everyone in the hearing room, Rorhbacker said to those who had expressed displeasure at his statements: "I hope it’s your family members that die when terrorists strike."now i realize the bar is set pretty low for u.s. representatives nowadays, but this is simply heinous and abhorrent.
In his attempt to dismiss us, Mr. Rove turned to head toward his table, but as soon as he did so, Sheryl reached out to touch his arm. Karl swung around and spat, "Don't touch me." How hardened and removed from reality must a person be to refuse to be touched by Sheryl Crow? Unphased, Sheryl abruptly responded, "You can't speak to us like that, you work for us." Karl then quipped, "I don't work for you, I work for the American people." To which Sheryl promptly reminded him, "We are the American people."
of all the comments and news and shumertastic coverage of the gonzalez kabobing yesterday in the senate, my favorite was a comment made by cnn's suzanne malveaux:
and who said congress never does anything worthwhile? it only took them 200 plus years to get around to it. score one for pelosi. it will surely not be signed into law by the president, but at least it's a fight worth having. all in all, this is great news, especially if it means i get to see more of eleanor holmes norton on tv (esp. the colbert report); she's fantastic.The people of the District of Columbia moved a step closer Thursday to gaining
voting rights they have been denied for more than 200 years.
But the legislation passed by the House on a 241-177 vote faced a veto threat from the White House, which said it was unconstitutional.
The bill would permanently increase full House membership to 437, giving the largely Democratic half-million residents of the district a seat and adding a temporary at-large seat for Republican-leaning Utah. The House has consisted of 435 seats since 1960.
The bill now goes to the Senate, where its fate is uncertain. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., echoing the position of the Bush administration, said it was unconstitutional and he would oppose it.
``This legislation corrects a serious flaw in our democracy,'' said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. ``We will not rest until full voting representation in the House is granted to the District of Columbia.''
Democrats had to pull a nearly identical bill from the floor a month ago after Republicans surprised them by proposing language, with a good chance of
passing, that would have lifted the district's ban on semiautomatic weapons and
other tough gun restrictions. This time, over strong protests from Republicans,
Democrats came prepared with a floor procedure blocking a gun vote.
Fred Thompson's top cheerleader on Capitol Hill -- Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn. -- said Wednesday that the former Republican senator's entrance into the 2008 presidential race is a matter of when -- not if.
Wamp offered his assessment that Thompson is going to jump into the presidential race after the Law & Order actor met at the Capitol Hill Club with 50 to 60 House Republicans.
Angry protesters in cities across India burned effigies of actor Richard Gere on Monday after he showered Bollywood starlet Shilpa Shetty with kisses at an AIDS awareness event, officials said.
Right-wing Hindus burned effigies of the 57-year-old Gere in India's entertainment hub of Mumbai and organised street rallies in the capital New Delhi one day after Gere's public display of affection, seen as taboo here.
"This is against Indian ethos... Don't touch our women," the demonstrators screamed in New Delhi, the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency reported.
Similar protests erupted in other cities like Benaras, Bhopal, Kanpur and Indore, with demonstrators demanding an apology from the silver-haired Hollywood actor, PTI said.
At an AIDS awareness function in New Delhi on Sunday, Gere embraced the 31-year-old Shetty -- winner of Britain's Celebrity Big Brother reality show -- and kissed her several times on the cheek in front of 4,000 onlookers.
"Such a public display is not part of Indian tradition," said the spokesman for the opposition Hindu nationalist BJP party, Prakash Javadekar.
The Portuguese newspaper Diário de NotÃcias reported yesterday that a man bit a police officer following an argument over a "dangerous dog".
The 35-year-old man was walking his Pit Bull Terrier in Cova da Moura on Sunday, 10:15 am, when two police officers stopped him for not having a harness and muzzle on his dog.
The man refused to identify himself and proceeded to threaten the officers with his dog, turning the animal loose upon them. The dog ran away.
The police officers then attempted to subdue the man who fought back, breaking one officer's finger and biting the other on the wrist. Both officers were treated at Amadora-Sintra Hospital, reports the Metropolitan Command Police.
The man, who was arraigned in the Criminal Court of Lisbon yesterday, has been placed under house arrest while police continue to search for the missing pooch.
"Head On, a headache remedy designed to be applied directly to the forehead. Its manufacturers try to sell it with possibly the most obnoxious commercial of all time, in which the product's name is screamed repeatedly at the viewer. Wednesday night, Head On pulled its commercials from “Imus in the Morning.” When Head On thinks you are damaging its reputation, you can pretty much guess you are pretty much finished."
the national journal made a boo-boo in their recent on-line piece about mothers in congress. a damn funny mistake. the graph gives bat-shit crazy congresswoman michele bachmann (r-mn) about 15 kids aged 13-18. that's republican family values for you.
Gov. Eliot Spitzer signed legislation Monday moving New York's presidential primary to Feb. 5, further setting the stage for a mid-winter political showdown that could leave Americans with the longest general election campaign ever. Parochially, the change could also benefit the Democratic and Republican front-runners, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Rudy Giuliani, both New Yorkers. Nearly a dozen other states, including California and New Jersey, have already moved their primaries or caucuses to Feb. 5. A dozen more are considering such moves, setting the stage for what is quickly becoming known as "Super-Duper Tuesday" just 22 days after the leadoff Iowa caucuses. "Moving the primary date to February, we will help secure New York's large and diverse population an influential voice in selecting the 2008 presidential nominees," said Spitzer. In New York, the shift could mean a big early haul of national convention delegates for Clinton, a New York senator, and for Giuliani, a former New York City mayor. The state had been scheduled to hold its primary on March 4 until Giuliani allies began pressing for the earlier date. The Clinton camp quickly gave its blessing and the measure won overwhelming approval from New York's Republican-led state Senate and Democratic-controlled Assembly last month.
from msnbc.com, the story of a sanitized american idol a la the people's republic of china. i'm sure mao would be soooooo proud. still, you couldn't pay me (unless you had a lot of cash to waste) to watch any version of the crapified talent show-format, especially the ones with dancing...but 'happy boys voice' is a pretty hilariously silly title for a show. i'm guessing something was lost in the translation...Tears, wild hair and unhealthy songs are banned when China’s latest version of
“American Idol” goes on the air next month.
“No weirdness, no vulgarity, no low taste,” the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television said Friday in a notice to the producers of “Happy Boys Voice,” according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
The talent show, to be broadcast beginning May 1, is a sequel to the hugely popular TV contest “Super Girls Voice” in 2005, which drew more than 400 million viewers. The woman who won that contest became a popular singer in China.
But Xinhua said the competition drew official and public criticism for promoting vulgarity.
“Happy Boys Voice” should include only “healthy and ethically inspiring” songs and avoid scenes of screaming fans or losing contestants in tears,” the regulator was quoted as saying.
The show should “maintain a happy atmosphere,” SARFT said in the notice to the show’s producer, a television station in the central province of Hunan.
Sexy, lanky, pouty Jonathan Rhys Meyers plays the sexy, lanky, pouty Henry the Eighth in the Showtime miniseries The Tudors. Not since Jennifer Love Hewitt's stunningly miscast but awesomely stacked portrayal of Audrey Hepburn has the grand gilt of history been roto-stripped and papered over with a new and improved veneer purchased in aisle 6 in a West Hollywood TargetIf The Tudors does what Showtime wants it to do, then we are certain to see an increase in production of quasi-historical epics featuring dumbed-down, beefed-up and tricked-out versions of their non-fictional inspirations. Already, the history-cum-video game 300 has whipped the box office into a steroid rage with its beefcakey Charge of the Lat Brigade and ticked off certain Farsi speaking cultures with its thoroughly pop interpretation of ancient events. Did people even have "six-packs" in those days? It's more likely they had "twelve-packs" or "fifteen-packs", since it was also more than likely that several of the individual "-packs" would have become resorbed early on, necessitating the development of more "-packs". Obviously, Hollywood's artistic license has been wielded with obscene recklessness, having given us everything from caucasian actor Walter Long's portrayal of the "renegade Negro slave" in D. W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation to a royally pissed off and loaded for bear Jesus in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, who practically cracks his knuckles before goin' out and gittin' some.
But times and approaches to dramatizing historical accounts have clearly changed. I mean, Raymond Massey at least had the bone structure that could suggest the homespun (read: acromegalic) features of Abe Lincoln; the porcine and brilliant Charles Laughton was a more than plausible representation of the original Hanky Panky Hank no. 8, possessing the beady, twinkling eyes, the moistened bee-stung lips and the substantial midriff so oft portrayed in oil, egg tempera and whatever other medium I can think of to sound knowledgeable about art. Gary Cooper could have been Lou Gehrig's brother, so similar a specimen was he. Hell, even Jackie Robinson played himself, leaving nothing to chance casting-wise. But when scant attempt is made to depict historical characters or events with accuracy rather than with an eye toward having a decent opening weekend the only question would be "what's next?" The inevitable answer is: Jake Gyllenhaal as a smoldering, puppyish Adolf Hitler; Russel Crowe as an expansive-shouldered and not-to-be-fucked-with President William Howard Taft, the film shot in a new 3-D process complete with an NC-17 bath scene showing the incident in which Taft got stuck in his tub---though not due to the girth of his stomach.
Now how, you might be asking yourself, do I somehow connect all this to the Bush Administration? I could easily do it, using my unerring tendency to see conspiracy in all things having to do with President McMonkey Head but the reality is it probably would still happen if, say, Alan Alda was president. It all goes back to my brilliant assertion that we live in a culture that extols triumph in the mediocre. Perhaps in the future this epoch will be dramatized by whomever the current arbiter of cinematic populism is. Probably by then people will be watching TV shows and movies on small screens pasted to their thumbnails. But perhaps, due to the shallowness of the culture that would be used for source material by the no doubt uber-hip, poly-pierced filmmaker/impresario/former American Idol winner, he or she would try to portray the the dark age Bush years positively, with an eye toward raising the collective IQ of the public, rather than smacking it down relentlessly as in a game of societal Whack-A-Mole the way we do now. A heavy lidded, slim-hipped, bed-headed heartthrob playing Henry the Eighth? Keep up that sort of thing and next we'll be seeing some beer and cocaine swilling frat boy with a rich dada and a hankering to be the commissioner of baseball sitting in the Oval Office! Nah, no one would ever buy that...
The botched Florida election that put George Bush in the White House and introduced the world to the butterfly ballot and the hanging chad is to be immortalised by Hollywood.
Oscar winner Sydney Pollack has been hired to direct the film Recount, which will look at events in the Sunshine State during the weeks after the controversial 2000 presidential election, in which 175,000 Floridians saw their votes rejected and Bush was declared the winner over Al Gore by a 537-vote margin.
michael savage (real name michael alan weiner, so you see why he changed it) has always been a loon of the uber-far right, but this latest rant may just take the crazy cake. a little while ago, he blamed columbine on sex-change operations. riiiiiiiiiight. now, he takes it a step further down crazy road and pulls the falwell-esque "god caused 9/11" argument together with his apparent obsession with gays and sex-change operations. from mediamatters.com:So-called post-Christian times. The churches are emptying out, the bathhouses are filling up, the sex-change operations are speeding up, the lesbian fertility clinics are increasing around the country. And the country is on the verge of an insane breakdown....Now, you come to a point where the spiritual vacuum has emerged in the United States of America. Enter the vacuum are very religious Muslims. They don't like the stuff that I don't like, frankly. The very same things that offend me, offend them. That's the strangest part of it. As they do offend -- for example, the city manager cutting his schmekel off to become a woman. To me it's disgusting; the doctor should be arrested, their licenses taken away, they should be given 10 years in prison for what they're doing to these poor mental cases. I mean these head cases who suddenly say, "Oh, I want to be a woman, all my life, there was a woman within --" this is a mass psychosis that's going on now in America...So, as I say to go back to my primary point, and forgive me for rambling here in this kind of filibuster-y kind of manner: God abhors a spiritual vacuum. That is why he has permitted, in fact probably not only permitted, but in a way orchestrated the rise of radical Islam... It's becoming increasingly clear to me that God wants radical Islam on this planet at this time -- that it's not actually the scourge you think it is. What it is -- it's a counterpoint to the Romanization of the United States of America and the West. The collapse -- the spiritual collapse of the West, the death of the West in that regard, is being countered by the birth of fanatic religion, which is fundamentally a fanatic love of God, when you think about it...And God, who is the center of this monotheistic religion, has said, "Oh, you don't worship me anymore? Oh, you don't like me anymore? Oh, I don't exist anymore? Really? All right, I'm going to show you boys in Hollywood and you girls in New York City that I do exist. But since you're very hard-headed, stiff-necked people, and you don't really believe that I exist because you've gotten away with everything you've done all your life without any repercussions, I'm going to show you I exist in a way that you can't believe." Down came the World Trade Center towers. That was God speaking.no, that was al qadea speaking, you idiot. and what is it with you and sex-change operations? for a guy whose name is weiner, me thinks he doth protest too much about the sex-changes.
