Monkeyfister

This week on A Prairie Home Companion, we're uncorking a live broadcast from The Milwaukee Theater. With special guests, the legendary wanderers from Waukesha; The BoDeans, and the most famous American performer ever to wear a bow tie and panama hat, Leon Redbone.

Labels: BoDeans, Garrison Keillor, Public Radio

Actor and comic Tommy Chong says he is linked to FBI raids Wednesday in Newport and Clermont County's Union Township.
Chong tells Local 12 federal agents were after thousands of DVD copies of a documentary he recently made.

Tommy Chong, 30 years ago, appeared in the movie that made him famous, "Up In Smoke."

But today, Tommy Chong is 69-years-old and selling a different movie, called "The United States of America Vs. Tommy Chong."

The documentary details Chong's 2003 federal prosecution and guilty plea for distributing drug paraphernalia. He was selling pot pipes online. Chong served nine months in prison.

Wednesday night, Chong told Local 12 he's the focus of an FBI raid of two, local offices.

"They apparently confiscated 10,000 copies of the movie, "a/k/a Tommy Chong," said Chong.

Only Local 12 cameras were on Mt. Carmel Tobasco Road Wednesday evening, watching federal agents raid the offices of 513 Ventures Agents also took evidence from the Spectrum Labs offices in Newport.

The companies market "detoxification products," meant to help someone pass a drug test.

But Chong says agents seized 10,000 DVDs of his documentary.

Labels: American Fascism, Tommy Chong, War On Freedom, War On Some Drugs

Labels: Housekeeping, My Life... With Cats, The Blogohood

VITO: Hi, honey.
MRS. VITO: Fuck you, you filthy WOP. You're going to pay for this.
VITO: I know. What's for dinner?
MRS VITO: For you? Merdecotta!
VITO: Ah, it's reverse Passover -- this night is no different from other nights.
MRS. VITO: (hits him in head with rolling pin). In the words of America's greatest jurist, Vaffanculo!
VITO: Will you keep your voice down? The whole neighborhood can hear you.
MRS. VITO: I don't care if Guy Molinari, the ghost of Paul Castellano, and the Pope can hear me. Where's that putana of yours and her miserable brat! I'll fix you all!

Labels: GOP Hypocrites, Republican Family Values, Republican Values

May 7 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will require investment banks to disclose their capital and liquidity levels after the agency was criticized for regulatory failings in the wake of the Bear Stearns Cos. collapse. Wall Street firms declined on the news.

``One of the lessons learned from the Bear Stearns experience is that in a crisis of confidence, there is great need for reliable, current information about capital and liquidity,'' SEC Chairman Christopher Cox told reporters in Washington today. ``Making that information public can certainly help.''

The SEC is re-evaluating its oversight of securities firms after the Federal Reserve had to help rescue New York-based Bear Stearns in March to prevent a market panic amid a worldwide credit contraction. Concern that Bear Stearns was running short of cash prompted customers and lenders to desert the firm in March, forcing it to accept a takeover by JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Labels: Bush Economic Policies, Debt Economy, Wall Street Casino, Wall Street Failure, Wall Street Scam

These documents were released to the New York Times regarding the Pentagon's Military Analyst program.

Labels: American Media, DoD, DoD Scandal, Propaganda, That Wacky Librul Media

"I'm not pointing a finger at Bush and Cheney," Gore said when the book was published. "I am pointing to the cracks in the foundation of American democracy."

The former U.S. vice president is co-founder and chairman of Generation Investment Management, which focuses on sustainable investing. He is also co-founder and chairman of Current TV, a television network geared towards young people.

Gore won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his work spreading information about climate change and encouraging individuals to take action against global warming. An Inconvenient Truth, his documentary about the threatened environment, won an Oscar for best documentary.

He talks to Terry Gross about a range of issues, including why he sees the combination of money, TV and politics as a threat to reasoned discourse; the precedent set by the "signing statements" aggressively used by the Bush administration; and the ongoing campaign for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination — including the recent conversation about a gas-tax holiday.

Labels: Al Gore, NPR

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Georgia is "very close" to a war with Russia, a Georgian minister said on Tuesday, citing Moscow's decision to send extra troops to the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia.

"We literally have to avert war," Georgian State Minister for Issues of Reintegration Temur Iakobashvili told a news briefing during a trip to Brussels.

Asked how close to such a war the situation was, he replied: "Very close, because we know Russians very well.

"We know what the signals are when you see propaganda waged against Georgia. We see Russian troops entering our territories on the basis of false information," he said.

Russia has said the troop build-up is needed to counter what it says are Georgian plans for an attack on breakaway Abkhazia and has accused Tbilisi of trying to suck the West into a war -- both of which are allegations that ex-Soviet Georgia rejects.

An extra Russian contingent began arriving in Abkhazia last week. Moscow has not said how many would be added but said the total would remain within the 3,000 limit allowed under a United Nations-brokered ceasefire agreement signed in 1994. Diplomats expect the reinforcement to be of the order of 1,200.

Georgia, a vital energy transit route in the Caucasus, has angered Russia by seeking membership of NATO.

Labels: Wars and Rumors of Wars