Onward and Downward
... Dems preemptively moving to compromise on tax cut politics? It appears House Democrats may be moving toward accepting half a loaf on the policy front in exchange for conceding the politics to the GOP.
Obama should debate Boehner and McConnell
BP is warning Congress that if lawmakers pass legislation that bars the company from getting new offshore drilling permits, it may not have the money to pay for all the damages caused by its oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
NC farm produces emerald shaped into massive gemAn emerald so large it's being compared with the crown jewels of Russian empress Catherine the Great was pulled from a pit near corn rows at a North Carolina farm.
The nearly 65-carat emerald its finders are marketing by the name Carolina Emperor was pulled from a farm once so well known among treasure hunters that the owners charged $3 a day to shovel for small samples of the green stones. After the gem was cut and re-cut, the finished product was about one-fifth the weight of the original find, making it slightly larger than a U.S. quarter…....
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for though art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
Trial Begins for Actress Accused of Sham Marriage
Elisabeth Shue,
Jessica Szohr, Christopher Lloyd and Richard Dreyfuss
--seem likely to have needed the money. 
about a film like this (or really any) is: Does it work? The answer is yes, it works very well indeed.A young [actress] named Rooney Mara ... bears watching as an up-and-comer.
Rooney Mara just landed the role of a lifetime as Lisbeth Salander in the much-hyped American version of Stieg Larsson's novel The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. She's set to star alongside Daniel Craig and Robin Wright in the cult favorite book-turned-flick.
A woman identified as an anti-war protester hit U.S. Sen. Carl Levin in the face with an apple pie during the Armed Services Committee chairman's meeting with constituents in northern Michigan, authorities said Monday.
Big Rapids police arrested Ahlam M. Mohsen, 22, of Coldwater, on assault and disorderly conduct charges. She has no listed telephone number.
Mohsen told the Big Rapids Pioneer she hoped "to send a message that liberals and Democrats are just as implicated in the violence (of war) as the Republicans."
Levin appeared to take the pie toss in stride.
"They didn't hurt me, but they hurt their cause even more than their own extreme words had already done," he said in a statement Monday afternoon.
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star told reporters:"Women are realizing it more and more knowing that they don't have to settle with a man just to have that child. Times have changed and that is also what is amazing is that we do have so many options these days, as opposed to our parents' days when you can't have children because you have waited too long."
Sacred Fools, my theater home of more than eleven years, is now conducting our summer fundraising campaign! The goal is $20,000 by the end of this month. Donors of $50 and over get free tickets and other perks - see the link below! Although we have had some sellout successes lately, we cannot survive on ticket sales alone; the expenses are just too high. Please donate (it's tax deductible!) and help us continue to make award-winning, fun theater!
On the pictures of her crotch being all over the internet: "I don't take [any of the stories about me] to heart; I just look at it this way: My fucking tampon's on the goddamn Internet."
On wearing a friendship bracelet from her vibrator: "It doesn't talk back to me, so it's really not a best friend ... I'm not a whore for masturbating, so fuck you if you want to call me one. I think women should equally be allowed to pleasure themselves as much as men. I think that if that has any more controversy than a man talking about pleasuring himself, then there's something wrong with the world."
On the most famous fetus in the world Justin Bieber: "I don't know who Justin Bieber is. I only know his name because it keeps being brought up to me. I listen to Led Zeppelin and The Beatles, so I have no idea who he is. That's not a dis; I just don't know."
Nevada Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle's understanding of the political press appears to have even conservative outlets scratching their heads.
The Tea Party favorite made another peculiar remark during an interview with Fox News on Monday evening, explaining that she wanted "to have the press be our friend," and "ask the questions we want to answer so that they report the news the way we want it to be reported."
Fox News's Carl Cameron told Angle that she sounded "naïve" before resorting to somewhat nervous laughter.
Do YOU want to be interviewed?
Interview rules:
1. Leave me a comment saying "Interview me."
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the
questions.
3. You will update your blog with a post containing your the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview
someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.
"Your goddamn mailbox is full! Hear you are at Sherman Oaks.
"Safe is best!
"I'm drowning in self doubt and depression. And pure rage.
"I'm just not digging it. Every minute like an agonized eternity. F*ck."
...we've made our Kickstarter fundraising goal - but that goal was just for the cost of renting a truck and driving the set/props across the country. We still need more to help with the rest of the show's expenses, though, so please either donate below, or come to the L.A. performances that begin this weekend... ticket sales entirely go towards the Fringe performances!
Movie panels in Hall H at San Diego Comic-Con 2010 came to a close with Marvel assembling the entire lead cast of The Avengers together on the stage with director Joss Whedon, including the official announcement of Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Hulk.
Finally, director Joss Whedon was announced and said “I had a dream all my life and it was not this good.” He joked that he was going to blow it.
Unbeknownst to the dastardly fanatics of the Westboro Baptist Church, the good folks of San Diego's Comic-Con were prepared for their arrival with their own special brand of superhuman counter protesting chanting "WHAT DO WE WANT" "GAY SEX" "WHEN DO WE WANT IT" "NOW!" while brandishing ironic (and some sincere) signs. Simply stated: The eclectic assembly of nerdom's finest stood and delivered.
The film was re-edited and submitted six times to the Motion Picture Association of America to bring it from an NC-17 to an R rating.
"I'm surprised we got it," says producer Mark Burg. "It's more violent than any of them. But it's in 3-D, it answers all the questions, it comes full circle. We have the goods on this one."
He couldn't say the same thing about the franchise's sixth installment, which earned $28 million last year, roughly half the take of its most recent predecessors.
...family groups accused the franchise of giving rise to "torture porn" films that relish punishing their victims, especially women.
...the Saw movies actually contain less torture than most horror movies, in that most of the excruciating pain is self-inflicted by the characters. John "Jigsaw" Kramer (Tobin Bell), the bogeyman of the series, places his victims in death traps that are usually fast-acting and can only be stopped by an act of self-mutilation or the murder of another person. These are definitely nasty things to do to someone, but they're quick and are done out of a deranged kind of philanthropy—Jigsaw believes those who survive will be stronger people for it—as opposed to the prolonged interrogations we usually associate with torture today.
"It's a free country," says Bell, who plays Jigsaw. "If people don't want to look at certain things, they shouldn't go. The people who don't go to films were more upset than the horror fans."
Those fans, Tobin says, are the only ones who matter. "You can say what you want about it, but Saw fans have loved and supported it every year. We must have been doing something right."
Manders: Is there any reason at all for an abortion?
Angle: Not in my book.
Manders: So, in other words, rape and incest would not be something?
Angle: You know, I'm a Christian and I believe that God has a plan and a purpose for each one of our lives and that he can intercede in all kinds of situations and we need to have a little faith in many things.
Taking a break from the nerve-wrecking political reality in Israel is becoming even more difficult these days, as a number of well known music artists are canceling their scheduled concerts in Israel. This comes in the wake of last week's flotilla incident that turned deadly when nine pro Palestinian activists were killed after clashing with Israeli commandos.
This week, the US rock band "Pixies" has cancelled their concert in Tel Aviv just two days before the show. The band did not specify the exact reason, but the organizers say the decision was related to last week's flotilla raid. This announcement follows recent concert cancellations by the British dance band "Klaxons" and the "Gorillaz Sound System". Elvis Costello has also recently cancelled a scheduled show in Israel, prior to the flotilla incident, to protest Israeli policies towards the Palestinians.
Others, such as Elton John and Rod Stewart, are still planning to perform in Israel this summer.
What we can't seem to accept is that the oil is leaking and we can't stop it. This doesn't fit the modern narrative in which we can fix anything if we get organized and throw enough money at it.
The difference is, Bush could have done more with Katrina, but I don't see what Obama can do with the Spill. He's instructed: "Take personal command!" Should the President be our go-to guy on oil spills? ... He can try to pass some energy legislation, but both parties are in the pockets of Big Oil. Those few legislators who work for meaningful federal solutions are pilloried as "socialists."
The paint is very neural so anyone could move right in with the furniture they own!
Composer, musician, and philanthropist Peter Buffett [the author], son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett...
Millionaire Population Bounces Back to Pre-Crisis Peak
Can we stop pretending the blockade is about keeping weapons out of Gaza?
An official document obtained by McClatchy reveals the Israeli blockade of Gaza is not about weapons, but instead "economic warfare" meant to collectively punish the Gazan civilians for having the audacity to vote in a free and fair election in a way Israel doesn't like. This is a crime.
The Geneva Convention, in which Israel is a signatory, expressly prohibits targeting civilians for "collective punishment." This fact apparently has made little impression on the Israeli leadership.
Lightning kills Tenn. woman before fiance proposed
Lightning struck three times as the Knoxville, Tenn., couple were on Max Patch Bald, near Asheville. The third hit Butler, 30, and his girlfriend, Bethany Lott, 25, killing her on Friday, he told the Asheville Citizen Times. He suffered third degree burns.
"I was spun 180 degrees and thrown several feet back," he told the newspaper. "My legs turned to Jello, my shoes were smoking and the bottom of my feet felt like they were on fire."
His mother, Janet Delaney, said her future daughter-in-law loved the mountains.
Butler suffered third-degree burns, but Delaney said he hasn't been to a doctor despite her urging him to go. She said his emotions seem to be in good shape.
Arizona School Demands Black & Latino Students’ Faces On Mural Be Changed To White
An Arizona elementary school mural featuring the faces of kids who attend the school has been the subject of constant daytime drive-by racist screaming, from adults, as well as a radio talk-show campaign (by an actual city councilman, who has an AM talk-radio show) to remove the black student’s face from the mural, and now the school principal has ordered the faces of the Latino and Black students pictured on the school wall to be repainted as light-skinned children.
“Guys should be clean and their underwear free of skid-marks,” she said earlier this month. “If they are not then run as fast as you can in the other direction and never date him again.
“Guys should also be funny, have a great smile, be trustworthy and have a good relationship with his mom.”
Al Gore once claimed his romance with wife Tipper inspired the novel "Love Story"
Now, after a 40-year marriage that survived the near-death of a child and the heartache of losing the disputed 2000 presidential election, the former high school sweethearts are calling it quits.
Watching President Obama coolly insist that he was taking responsibility was oddly comforting.
He got elected on charisma. He'll need a ton more than that to fix the horrors here that have only just begun.
Aha! Someone was listening during Obama’s press conference the other day, when he was sure to note that Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar had inherited a rotten Minerals and Management Service, “plagued by corruption for years.” Today on The Chris Matthews Show, Joe Klein of Time magazine acknowledged that unlucky inheritance, calling the BP oil spill catastrophe “more Bush’s second Katrina than Obama’s first.”
President Barack Obama's top energy adviser says the Gulf oil spill is probably the biggest environmental disaster the country has ever faced.
And Carol Browner says the government is responding with what she calls its largest environmental response ever.
Already it's been called the biggest oil spill in U.S. history.
Browner says more oil is leaking into the Gulf of Mexico than from any previous U.S. oil spill – including the Exxon Valdez spill off the coast of Alaska in 1989.
Suddenly Americans did not want an icy-cool leader but a superman. A nation whose distrust of central government has reached a post-Civil War high wanted a huge and powerful government to jump in. Perhaps no one summed up that desire more succinctly than Mr Obama’s daughter Malia, who peeked her head around the bathroom door last week to ask: “Did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?”
No, he has not, and of course he cannot. That job can be done only by BP.
“Did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?”
No, he has not, and of course he cannot. That job can be done only by BP.
"A vote to repeal the homosexual exclusion policy would inevitably mean more disease and death for members of our Armed Forces," stated Cliff Kincaid, the veteran journalist who runs ASI. "It is unconscionable to add this danger to the risks they already face in fighting for our freedom around the world."
"If Congress repeals the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' homosexual exclusion policy," declared Kincaid, "Corporal Klinger could become a reality in the Armed Forces." Klinger was the bizarre character on the MASH comedy show that dressed up as a woman so that he could be kicked out of the service.
"Klinger may now give way to the Pentagon actually permitting transgendered male soldiers that look like Klinger to openly wear women's clothing," noted the ASI president.
WH asks BP to share more information on spill
The White House is asking BP PLC to publicly disclose more information about the Gulf oil spill including measurements of the size of the leak 5,000 feet under the sea and air quality.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Thursday that the White House is writing to BP asking the company to put that information on its website and be more transparent about its response.
ATMs a mystery to senator
The Nebraska Democrat [Sen. Ben Nelson] pleaded ignorance when asked this week whether Congress should cap ATM fees. Nelson said that while he's no fan of unnecessary fees, he's unfamiliar with the charges.
“I've never used an ATM, so I don't know what the fees are,” Nelson said, adding that he gets his cash from bank tellers, just not automatic ones.
“But I could learn how to do it just like I've . . . I swipe to get my own gas, buy groceries. I know about the holograms.”
By “holograms,” Nelson clarified that he meant the bar codes on products read by automatic scanners in the checkout lanes at stores such as Lowe's and Menard's.
“I go and get my own seating assignment on an airplane,” Nelson said.
How America is creating an underclass
Experts say the country is in danger of turning into a two-class society
Oh, Tennessean. Your gullibility would be laughable were it not so very appalling. Seriously, what does this say about your reputation that a D.C. lobbyist has managed to fool you not once, not twice, but three times in one six month period? Somewhere on K street a corporate lobbyist is laughing his ass off at you.
In December 2009, The Tennessean ran an anti-minimum wage op-ed by “Kristen Lopez Eastlick,” identified as “senior economic analyst at the Employment Policies Institute.”
Today on ABC/Washington Post’s “Top Line,” Richard Socarides – a prominent Democratic gay-rights advocate who worked alongside Kagan in the Clinton White House – said the White House appeared “flat-footed” at the beginning, but appears to have gotten its messaging under control.
“I think the whole conversation now is probably more silly than anything else, and is probably mostly about bloggers trying to drive traffic to their blogs,”
Scarlett Johansson.
(But try getting that girl's ass out of a hot bath.)
Gwyneth Paltrow and Leslie Bibb on the way into the auditorium.
Leslie busied herself by making sure all her right places were seen in all the right places.
Tina Fey win, we decided to slip out for a bite to eat.
styled like a trucker-chick, and eating a pickle.
Connie Britton is having an affair.Socarides said Kagan will be able to fairly judge all issues that come before the court. That includes those touching on the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy banning gay and lesbian service-members from being open about their sexuality – a policy Kagan spoke out against as dean of Harvard Law School.
Don't worry about that pesky oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, BP CEO Tony Hayward says: It's "relatively tiny" compared to the "very big ocean."
Hayward launched this novel defense of the worst spill in U.S. history during an interview with the Guardian that deserves a full read, especially with BP fighting the Obama administration's push to make the company pay the full tab for cleanup costs. The BP chief executive acknowledged for the first time that he expects his future with the company to be "judged by the nature of the response" to the current crisis; this may help explain his stream of delaying tactics and excuses.
"We will fix it. I guarantee it. The only question is we do not know when," Hayward told the Guardian. "The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume."
The Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission plans to at least double the number of gray wolves hunters can kill this year.
The proposed quotas would reduce the state's wolf population between 8 percent and 20 percent from last year's minimum count of 524 wolves, according to state wildlife computer models.
The proposed quotas do not include wolves killed by wildlife officials responding to complaints of attacks on livestock. Some 145 wolves were killed that way in 2009.
First things first. An actor, no matter which sex they're attracted to, can't "play" gay or "play" straight. Gay and straight aren't actable things. You can act effeminate and you can act macho (though macho usually ends up reading as gay), but an actor can't play gay or straight anymore than they can play Catholic. The most disturbing thing to me about this episode is that the theater critic for Newsweek didn't know that. Of COURSE gay actors can play straight characters -- it's impossible to believe that Mr. Setoodeh would prefer if Ian McKellen would stop doing King Lear.
(The third story on my homepage yesterday was that Britain, our closest ally, has a new Prime Minister. The first story was about Justin Bieber. Unless the new Prime Minister is Justin Bieber, something's obviously gone wrong.)
Tyler Lambert, son of Diff'rent Strokes star Dana Plato, committed suicide last week, reports PopEater. He was 25.
The Tulsa, Okla., office of the Chief Medical Examiner told PopEater that Lambert died from a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head on May 6, almost exactly 11 years after his mother ended her life.
To describe my feelings at this event, I need a word that means both sorrow and disgust. Also, I suppose, marvel, because that I do, at how a family could go so wrong.
I also think, and this is an odd thing to think but I do think it, one of the more tragic things about it all is that...well have you looked at a Diff'rent Strokes rerun recently?
Dana Plato couldn't act; she had no business being a star of a television series. And I don't see that it did much for her but help shorten her life.
I guess what we can learn from this...which is what we're supposed to do with tragedy, as humans...is that someone nearly always has it worse than us. I don't use the word tragedy lightly (in this instance); BTW, I actually do think this whole family was a Greek play unto themselves.
Or maybe some Scotch-Russian plays (which is my derivation, if you get the point).
| Which philosopher are you? Your Result: Sartre/Camus (late existentialists) The world is absurd. No facts govern it. We live well once we truly accept the world's absurdity. YOU give our life's meaning, and YOU control your world. | |
| W.v.O. Quine / Late Wittgenstein | |
| Early Wittgenstein / Positivists | |
| Nietzsche | |
| Immanuel Kant | |
| Aristotle | |
| Plato (strict rationalists) | |
| Which philosopher are you? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz | |
President Barack Obama, after being briefed on the latest developments Monday, directed that more independent scientists get involved in seeking a solution to the spill.
Kagan in Context: Shafting Progressive Values
For more than 15 months, evidence has mounted that President Obama routinely combines progressive rhetoric with contrary actions.
The corporate-military centrism of the Obama administration has demoralized and demobilized the Democratic Party's largely progressive base - the same base that swept Nancy Pelosi into the House speaker's office and then Barack Obama into the White House.
And, now, if the president's nomination of Kagan is successful, the result will move the Supreme Court to the right.
Progressives should fight the Kagan nomination.
...Our politics is nothing if not tribal, and the duty of Every Good Democrat is now to favor Kagan's confirmation. Conservatives refused to succumb to those rules and ended up with Sam Alito instead of Harriet Miers, but they had a much different relationship to George Bush than progressives have to Obama (i.e., conservatives -- as they proved several times late in Bush's second term [Miers, immigration, Dubai Ports] -- were willing to oppose their leader whey they disagreed). The White House knows that progressives will never try to oppose any important Obama initiative, and even if they were inclined, they lack the power to do so (largely because unconditional support guarantees impotence).
