EFL The creators of The Muppets and Sesame Street are staging a puppet show that is strictly for adults only. Miss Piggy would blush over the antics in "Jim Henson's Puppet Improv" which spearheads a renaissance of puppet shows for grown-ups at this year's Edinburgh Fringe arts festival.
Every afternoon at the Fringe, an anarchic troupe of puppeteers led by the late Jim Henson's son Brian do an improvisational show for kids. Every evening the air turns blue as the show takes off into surreal flights of fancy dictated by the audience.
"It is lovely to do a show where you can go wherever your brain takes you," said Henson, after that night's audience asked the puppeteers to play half a dozen hot dog puppets auditioning to be Ricky Martin's backup singers.
Henson, who has performed the improvisation show in Aspen and Hollywood, would like to develop it into a TV show. Two other projects he is working on are also just for adults. Henson applauded the success on stage in New York and London of "Avenue Q" and the hit movie "Team America:World Police" which satirizes President George W. Bush's "war on terror." Yes, that's all the movie satirizes, Dumya Hitlerburton and his islamophobic genocide against the religion of peace and fluffy bunnies.
"Avenue Q was very, very clever. They are specifically parodying Sesame Street with an adult twist. Team America is a more unique choice as they decided to do it with marionettes." Anyone else reminded of the puppeteering-related scenes in Being John Malkovich?
THE British grouse shooting season, which begins this weekend, is contributing to global warming, an ecology specialist told the latest edition of New Scientist magazine today.
So does fox hunting. And fishing. And belching.
Adrian Yallop, from Cranfield University in southeast England, said the problem stemmed from increasing demand for the game birds, which is having a serious impact on the environment.
"Mmmmmm! Grouse!"
Gamekeepers burning vast swathes of moorland vegetation to encourage the growth of heather, a prime habitat for red grouse, threatens to release billions of tonnes of carbon locked in the peat bogs underneath, he said. "In terms of carbon storage, the moors can be thought of as Britain's rainforests. Where burning occurs, the hydrology changes and the peat is open to decomposition and erosion," Mr Yallop told the magazine. "This strips the moor of carbon as surely as setting fire to the Amazon forest."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/10/2006 00:00 ||
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underground peat fires can burn for years, but they don't equal one belch from a volcano or a Chinese factory
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/10/2006 8:26 Comments ||
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Open season on ecology specialists
-- J. Grouse
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/10/2006 16:27 Comments ||
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In related news, a FAUX gender neutral, culturally unbiased poll of liberaltree-huggers people on the street showed that the Sun has absolutely no effect on world weather.
Posted by: Almost Anonymous5839 ||
08/10/2006 18:05 Comments ||
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An Ethiopian Army general says he has defected to join the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), a rebel group backed by neighbouring Eritrea. Brig Gen Kemal Geltu told the BBC he had crossed the border into Eritrea with more than 100 soldiers.
He said would fight the Ethiopian government because force was the only language it understood. He said his hopes of peace had been dashed after last year's turmoil that followed disputed elections.
Gen Kemal previously commanded Ethiopia's 18th army division. Reliable sources say he was accompanied by a colonel and 150 troops. "It's a big force in hundreds. I don't want to mention the number. It will continue, I can confirm this. There are other soldiers in other areas in big numbers," he told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme through a translator.
Gen Kemal, who was speaking from Eritrea's capital, Asmara, said his intention was not "to give [military] secrets to the Eritrean government".
Ethiopian television said Gen Kemal had asked for further promotion soon after being promoted to the rank of brigadier general, but after this was rejected in engaged in "divisive activities". "Although his colleagues repeatedly tried to correct the commander from his anti-government and inappropriate activities, the commander was not willing to change," the television report said. But the general said reports that he feared military reforms were "lies, pure lies".
"Our first hope was to bring about a change in Ethiopia to bring about peace and for the peoples to live in equality, including the Oromo people, but the last year's experience is war, not peace. Our hopes were dashed and that's why we went out," he said. "The language they (the Ethiopian government) understand is force and we're going to challenge them by force."
The OLF which was at first a secessionist movement says it is fighting for more rights for the Oromo people in Ethiopia. The Oromo are the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia, comprising about half of its 70m people.
Demonstrations after Prime Minister Meles Zenawi was re-elected in May 2005 led to a crackdown on many Oromo and other opposition organisations. Ethiopia and Eritrea ended a border war in 2002, but Ethiopia has not withdrawn troops from the town of Badme which arbitrators awarded to Eritrea, and tensions between the two countries remain high.
Harare - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe said on Wednesday that he was in good health, and denied suggestions in the Internet-based media that he had left the country at the weekend to seek medical treatment.
State television said Mugabe returned home after a three-day private visit to Malaysia to join his wife, who had accompanied a group of local students to a university there. Zimbabwe Television showed a jovial-looking Mugabe bounding down the steps of a plane at Harare International Airport. Asked to comment on speculation that he was ill, Mugabe said: "Tell them I am dead. I am now a ghost that has come back!"
Couldn't somone have waxed the first step?
He said he was fit enough to box, and was ready to commemorate the dead heroes of Zimbabwe's bloody liberation war next week "in a grand style".
The health of Mugabe, one of Africa's longest-serving leaders, has been the subject of constant local and foreign media speculation over the past decade or so. He has dismissed talk that it is failing. Last year Mugabe's spokesperson denied rumours the veteran leader had succumbed to heart failure, describing him as "fit as a teenager".
Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, is presiding over an economic meltdown critics blame on his misrule, but which he says has resulted from a sabotage campaign by local and foreign opponents of his seizure of white-owned commercial farms for blacks. Thank you Robert. Good news is always so comforting.
OSLO: Shipping company Trico Marine Services said on Wednesday four foreign workers were kidnapped from one of its supply vessels off Nigeria. The head of Trico Marine's Norwegian subsidiary told Reuters that two Norwegians and two Ukrainians were abducted. "We will not come out with more information than that four of our crew were taken from a ship off Nigeria," Managing Director Bjoern Endresen told Reuters.
He said no demands had been made and did not specify where the ship was located expect to say it was in Nigerian territorial waters when the kidnapping occurred. Kidnappings of foreign workers are frequent in Nigeria, especially in the Niger Delta. Militant attacks on western firms are fuelled by widespread feelings of injustice in an oil-rich country where most people live in poverty. Criminal gangs have also been involved in kidnappings for ransom. Hostages are usually released unharmed after a few days when a ransom has been paid, which analysts say fuels the violence. Nigeria is the world's eighth largest oil exporter and the largest in Africa.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/10/2006 00:00 ||
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TV satellite dishes are a "germ-filled stew" which receive subversive propaganda, Communist officials told Cubans Wednesday as Washington increased transmissions of its TV channel to the island while Fidel Castro recovers from surgery. The Communist Party daily Granma also alluded to Miami news programs and talk shows that have been filled in recent days with speculation about Castro's health and the island's future. The shows are received on illegal dishes, highly popular here among those who can afford them.
'...a good part of the programming received this way has content that is destabilizing, interventionist, subversive and encourages, more and more, the carrying out of terrorist activities,' Granma said.
"In the case of Cuba, a good part of the programming received this way has content that is destabilizing, interventionist, subversive and encourages, more and more, the carrying out of terrorist activities," Granma said.
The U.S. government this week scaled up transmissions by its TV Marti, which features anti-Castro programming. TV Marti's stated objective is to break Cuba's "information blockade" by offering its own current affairs shows as alternatives to state television programming, the only thing Cubans receive if they don't have TV satellite dishes.
The government's attack on satellite dishes comes as Cubans' uncertainty over the health of the man who has ruled them for 47 years begins to ease. State-run media on Wednesday ran messages of support for Castro, who turns 80 on Sunday. Youth organizations said on the front page of the Communist Youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde: "We will fight and work harder every day to maintain and cultivate the values that the Revolution has sown in us."
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
08/10/2006 00:00 ||
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I'll bet the most popular shows are the MLB games.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
08/10/2006 0:45 Comments ||
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mmmmm Patti Ann
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/10/2006 8:24 Comments ||
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Whatever did happen to Patti Ann?
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/10/2006 9:21 Comments ||
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ScrappleFace:
Former Soviet Leaders to Castro: Ignore Rumors
by Scott Ott
(2006-08-05) â A troika of former Soviet leaders offered words of encouragement today to Fidel Castro as he continues his miraculous recovery from serious abdominal surgery while his brother Raul is so busy running the government he canât make public appearances.
Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov and Konstanin Chernenko issued the joint communique urging Mr. Castro to brush off rumors that his condition is worse than officially reported.
âIgnore the idle chatter and grave speculation,â the former Soviet leaders said. âIf we had listened to the voice of the people, we would never be where we are today.â
Indeed, the Cuban dictator apparently felt well enough this morning that his spokesman was able to issue an official statement saying Mr. Castro is making a strong recovery and that his brother Raul is âfully, totally and completely in charge of the government 24/7.â
In related news, the official U.S. News Agency released a brief statement saying President John F. Kennedy is âon the mendâ after a âsmall arms fire incident in Dallasâ and that, in the interim, Secretary of State Alexander Haig is fully in command.
A retired Russian special services colonel has been sentenced to 13 years in a penal colony for passing state secrets to MI6, in the latest espionage episode pitting London against Moscow.
The ruling by the Moscow district military court was announced today after a closed trial in which Sergey Skripal, 55, was prosecuted for high treason in the form of espionage. Yevgeny Komissarov, a spokesman for the court, told the Guardian Skripal had "inflicted significant damage on the Russian Federation and its external security".
Russian media, quoting unidentified security sources, said the 55-year-old former officer had disrupted Russia's network of spies in Europe by revealing the names of dozens of agents.
Skripal was arrested in Moscow in December 2004 by the federal security service, although his detention and prosecution were kept secret. Mr Komissarov said Skripal - who pleaded guilty - had become acquainted with British intelligence agents from MI6 (otherwise known as the Secret Intelligence Service or SIS) during a posting to western Europe in the mid-1990s. He retired from the armed forces in 1999 but continued to transfer documents to his handlers at meetings outside Russia until his arrest.
"It is named in the court records that he passed state secrets to the SIS," said Mr Komissarov. "I can't say what data he transferred, but the fact that the special service of another country became familiar with these secrets brought very serious consequences." It is thought that Skripal, a career officer who lived in Moscow, was paid at least £55,000 for the information. The cash was handed over in foreign currency or deposited into a Spanish bank account.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/10/2006 00:00 ||
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Remember the good old days, when a chrage of spying for...well, anyone, would quickly get you a bullet. If you were lucky. If you were very lucky. How times have changed.
A flashback to the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs.(NKVD, in russian.) Brrrr...
Posted by: N guard ||
08/10/2006 0:32 Comments ||
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Would you expect anything less from a panther lovin, nation of islam supporter, liberal democrat? Wait, she is supposed to be a liberal? How does that racism come from a democrat? I thought they and the ACLU fought for the minority rights. Oh, thats right the JOOOOS own everything and have all the land in the middle east. They aren't a minority.
HON. CYNTHIA A. McKINNEY of Georgia in the House of Representatives Monday, September 30, 2002
Ms. McKINNEY . Mr. Speaker, as you know, I recently suffered a setback in my bid for reelection. I am beginning to get over the disappointment that I will no longer be able to serve the people of Georgia in the next Congress. I will miss serving.
However, there were some alarming things about the campaign to defeat me that I think my colleagues of both parties should look out for. I am not talking about the Republicans who crossed over to vote for my opponent, but the heavy involvement of Indians in the primary. I am one of the Members of Congress who has tried to get out the truth about South Asia, and I am proud of that. Earlier this year, I was one of 42 Members of Congress who wrote to President Bush to urge the release of Sikh and other political prisoners in India.
Apparently, this irritated the Indians because the newspaper article I am inserting in the Record along with this statement shows that they admitted that they invested heavily in the effort to defeat me. To my colleagues of both parties who have also been involved in the effort to expose India's brutal record, I say: Watch out; they are coming after you, too.
India has a record of illegal interference in U.S. elections. Former Ambassador S.S. Ray publicly urged the reelection of former Senator Larry Pressler and in opposition to now Senator Robert Torricelli. An Indian American immigration lawyer named Lalit Gadhia funneled money from the Indian Embassy to Congressional candidates, according to the Baltimore Sun. Most of the candidates were of my party, people I am proud to have had as my colleagues during my service in Congress. But it is still illegal and wrong for India to funnel Embassy money to these Members' campaigns.
Now I have become the latest political officeholder in India's cross hairs. I won't be the last unless their activities are exposed. Mr. Speaker, whether I am in office or not, I don't intend to let a foreign power determine the results of American elections if I can help it.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to insert the article showing Indian involvement in my primary into the Record to help expose their activities.
Posted by: john ||
08/10/2006 18:13 Comments ||
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I'm sure the media will cover this with the same vigilance that they covered the Mel Gibson slurs. Oh, wait, she's a LLLib ...
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - Top Democrats on Capitol Hill abandoned Sen. Joe Lieberman one by one Wednesday and threw their support to Ned Lamont, the anti-war challenger who defeated him in the primary. Top Senate Democrats, including John Kerry and Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, Harry Reid of Nevada, Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey and Chuck Schumer of New York, said they supported Lamont as the duly elected choice of Connecticut's Democratic voters.
Reid and Schumer - the party's Senate leader, and the head of the Democratic Senate campaign committee - said: ``The perception was that (Lieberman) was too close to George Bush and this was, in many respects, a referendum on the president more than anything else. The results bode well for Democratic victories in November and our efforts to take the country in a new direction.''
Because you always look stronger tossing one of your own out of the boat and into the water.
Kennedy called Lamont's victory ``a clarion call for change,'' and a spokeswoman said Kennedy planned to campaign for the nominee.
Oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please ...
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton reiterated her pledge to back the winner of the primary. She stopped short of calling on Lieberman to quit the race but urged the senator to ``search his conscience and decide what is best for Connecticut and for the Democratic Party.''
Think he's done that, Hilde, that's why he's staying in.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/10/2006 00:00 ||
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Damn, I'm getting slow. It just occured to me that I worked with Ned on some campus technolgies projects in the early 1990s. Our company did the general contracting and Ned's company provided the cable television programming. (That tidbit plus four bucks will get you a latte at Starbucks.)
Posted by: Mike ||
08/10/2006 6:38 Comments ||
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If Joe wanted to do what is best for the Democrat party, hew would pull out and make them face what they have done. As it is they get to have their fun protest without any consequences.
#5
Political reality here. If Joe runs, Lamont can't win. Lamont will get anti-war vote. Lamont and Joe will split leftist vote. Joe will get most of that. I think the republican has a chance.
Does anyone have a clue about the republican in this race ? I don't even know his name.
Any right wingers in Conn ?
#7
Lamont probably got all the votes that he is going to get in the Nov. election. There are a lot more votes out there than Lamont's showing. If Lieberman runs as an independent and wins, then that is another nail in the dem's coffin and a warning to republicans to get off their fat asses and lead this country. I personally would like to see more independents in Congress. Both parties have sold their souls out a long time ago.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/10/2006 12:29 Comments ||
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Ned Lamont, great-nephew of Corliss Lamont, WASP plutocrat fund-raiser for Stalin. Lamont's main political asset is that he is a walking, breathing argument in favor of a massive inheritance tax. His plan for fighting the terrorists is to enact a single-payer government health plan and universal pre-K education programs. His goal is to unite the "cut" and "run" wings of his party into one glorious coalition.
Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, black anti-semites bussed into Conn. to finalize the deal.
Monitoring of wild migratory birds to prevent a deadly bird flu virus is expanding to cover the entire nation and U.S. territories in the Pacific.
The stepped-up testing will be done by scientists in the lower 48 states, Hawaii and other Pacific islands. They will begin keeping an eye out for the deadly H5N1 strain of the avian flu that has killed more than 100 people, mostly in Asia.
In Alaska, where the first migratory birds began arriving, monitoring started just before summer.
"This move to test thousands more wild birds throughout the country will help us to quickly identify, respond and control the virus if it arrives in the United States," Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said Wednesday. "Because we cannot control wild birds, our best protection is an early warning system."
Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said more coordinated monitoring by federal agencies, states and universities "will be important this fall as birds now nesting in Alaska and Canada begin their migration south through the continental United States."
The Agriculture and Interior departments are providing $4 million to state agencies to collect samples from specific species of migratory birds winging along four major U.S. migratory bird flyways. Congress budgeted $29 million for monitoring for the highly pathogenic strain of bird flu.
Feces or tissue samples from 75,000 to 100,000 wild birds will be collected, along with 50,000 samples of the water and ground that birds come into contact with. Locations where the samples will be collected will vary depending on weather and habitat conditions.
Likely sites include national and state wildlife refuges and parks, city ponds and parks, and private lands where owners have given approval.
Typically, the virus is spread by direct contact with contaminated birds. Scientists fear the virus could mutate and pass from person to person, leading to a pandemic. Best bets are to stock up on hand sanitizer, both thin surgical style and thick butyl rubber gloves, and ear loop masks. Get a few pair of clear shop glasses, too. When the stuff does hit, these things will disappear overnight.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The creators of The Muppets and Sesame Street are staging a puppet show that is strictly for adults only. Miss Piggy would blush over the antics in "Jim Henson's Puppet Improv" which spearheads a renaissance of puppet shows for grown-ups at this year's Edinburgh Fringe arts festival.
THE British grouse shooting season, which begins this weekend, is contributing to global warming, an ecology specialist told the latest edition of New Scientist magazine today.
Harare - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe said on Wednesday that he was in good health, and denied suggestions in the Internet-based media that he had left the country at the weekend to seek medical treatment.
OSLO: Shipping company Trico Marine Services said on Wednesday four foreign workers were kidnapped from one of its supply vessels off Nigeria. The head of Trico Marine's Norwegian subsidiary told Reuters that two Norwegians and two Ukrainians were abducted. "We will not come out with more information than that four of our crew were taken from a ship off Nigeria," Managing Director Bjoern Endresen told Reuters. 
TV satellite dishes are a "germ-filled stew" which receive subversive propaganda, Communist officials told Cubans Wednesday as Washington increased transmissions of its TV channel to the island while Fidel Castro recovers from surgery. The Communist Party daily Granma also alluded to Miami news programs and talk shows that have been filled in recent days with speculation about Castro's health and the island's future. The shows are received on illegal dishes, highly popular here among those who can afford them. 
A retired Russian special services colonel has been sentenced to 13 years in a penal colony for passing state secrets to MI6, in the latest espionage episode pitting London against Moscow.
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - Top Democrats on Capitol Hill abandoned Sen. Joe Lieberman one by one Wednesday and threw their support to Ned Lamont, the anti-war challenger who defeated him in the primary. Top Senate Democrats, including John Kerry and Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, Harry Reid of Nevada, Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey and Chuck Schumer of New York, said they supported Lamont as the duly elected choice of Connecticut's Democratic voters.
