Supremes Say City Council Has NO Say Over Casino Built In, Um, The City SugarHouse has won a major victory in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in its fight to build a casino on Philadelphia’s waterfront. The high court has ruled in favor of SugarHouse Casino in its battle with city council over zoning and other necessary approvals. Councilman Frank DiCicco has led the casino fight in council. His spokesman is Brian Abernathy: “We were surprised – maybe not shocked, but certainly surprised. More than anything, I think we’re outraged by the court’s decision.” Abernathy, who says he interprets the high […]
NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE ESTIMATE: Iran Halted Nuclear Weapons Program FOUR Years Ago
In a stunning reversal of Bush administration conventional wisdom, a new assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies concludes Iran shelved its nuclear weapons program over four years ago. “We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program,” reads a declassified version of the National Intelligence Estimate key findings. “We judge with moderate confidence that the earliest possible date Iran would be technically capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) for a weapon is late 2009.” The entire NIE report will remain classified, however the office of the Director of National Intelligence released a declassified […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR A couple of years ago, director Jake Kasdan woke up in the middle of the night, knowing suddenly that his next film would be a fake music biopic called Walk Hard. He went on to cast John C. Reilly as Dewey Cox, the putative legend at the heart of the story, who has trouble with women and drugs and who tries on a multitude of musical personalities. Walk Hard, due out Dec. 21, also features Jenna Fischer from NBC’s The Office; it was co-written and produced by Judd Apatow. Apatow and Kasdan worked together previously on the critically […]
TONIGHT: Madlibs, Peanut Butter & A Wolf
BY EVA LIAO Madlib is a super-mysterious musical magician. He’s involved in a billion different hip-hop projects, and chances are you’ve heard his music. But you wouldn’t know it since he’s so low-key and rarely gives interviews. When speaking to his publicist, she says, “Madlib only does interviews on select months.” Then real nonchalant-like, she’s all, “you’d be lucky to catch him during an ‘on’ month.” It seems it’s all a ploy to keep things simplistic at bay. But the irony is that there’s nothing simplistic about his music. In fact, the story of Madlib is actually a bit complicated […]
WORTH REPEATING: She’s Gotta Have It
As an artist and woman growing up in the West, one of the towers that fell on 9-11 was my view of what it meant to view and create art. After the cascade of news stories that brought front and center how my sisters throughout the world live in what I consider to be oppressive misogynistic cultures, I thought deeply about what it must be like where there is no visual representational art, where women are covered from head to toe and not allowed to be seen let alone depicted in any form, where billboards also have the female entirely […]
DUBIOUS ACHIEVEMENT: Didn’t Need To See THAT
Eric Draper/White House In the Blue Room of the White House, before the Kennedy Center Honors, from left, the pianist and conductor Leon Fleisher; the movie director Martin Scorsese; the singer Diana Ross; President Bush; the songwriter Brian Wilson; Laura Bush; and the actor and writer Steve Martin. [via NEW YORK TIMES]
10 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT M.I.A. AT THE ELECTRIC FACTORY SATURDAY NIGHT
TIGER BOMB: M.I.A., Electric Factory, Last Night CLICK TO ENLARGE Yes, the rumors are true — M.I.A. is absolutely beautiful, both in sparkly skintight spandex and a t-shirt three sizes too large, either standing tall like Shiva the Destroyer or seemingly trying to make a baby with the stack of speakers. Few things fire up a crowd more than opening with “Bamboo Banger.” And seeing as how it’s HER song, it only makes sense that she should open with it, if you think about it. Also, few things are as hard as waiting for the song to kick in after […]
NEWS CLUES: It’s Like Adderall For Your Eyeballs
STOPPING THE INSANITY: Teddy Bear Teacher Pardoned By President Of Sudan KHARTOUM, Sudan – Sudan’s president on Monday agreed to pardon a British teacher jailed here after she allowed her students to name a teddy bear Muhammad, British politician Lord Nazir Ahmed said. Ahmed and another Muslim representative from Britain’s House of Lords, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, met with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir Monday at his presidential palace to plead for Gillian Gibbons’ pardon. “The president has told us he has already signed the papers for her pardon,” Ahmed told reporters. Sudanese presidential spokesman Mahzoub Faidul told The Associated Press that […]
HALL MONITOR: Our Unofficial City Council Minutes
TIME CAPSULE: Lucien Blackwell presents proclamation to Maurice Barboza in Council chambers on February 25th, 1988. Also pictured, Anna Verna and young Ben Franklin. Unofficial Minutes of City Council Meeting at 10 a.m. on Thursday November 29, 2007 BY ABIGAIL SHEPHERD, CITY HALL CORRESPONDENT-IN-TRAINING 10:00 Is when the City Council meeting is scheduled to commence, but the Committee on Appropriations meeting being held in Council chambers is running late and seeing as how these guys dole out the dough, nobody has the balls to ask them kindly wrap it up. So we wait…and wait. 10:05 A group of […]
RIP: Evel Knievel 1938-2007
CLEARWATER, Fla. (AP) — Evel Knievel, the hard-living motorcycle daredevil whose exploits made him an international icon in the 1970s, died Friday. He was 69. Knievel’s death was confirmed by his granddaughter, Krysten Knievel. He had been in failing health for years, suffering from diabetes and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, an incurable condition that scarred his lungs. Knievel had undergone a liver transplant in 1999 after nearly dying of hepatitis C, likely contracted through a blood transfusion after one of his bone-shattering spills. [via SPORTS ILLUSTRATED]
KILLADELPHIA: One More Dead Since U Went To Bed
DAILY NEWS: A 20-year-old man was fatally shot in broad daylight yesterday in Point Breeze. Homicide Lt. Philip Riehl said Jamar Williams was sitting inside a white van on Dickinson Street near Capitol at 2:47 p.m. when he was shot in the back and abdomen. Williams, of Stanley Street near Dickinson, got out the van and collapsed. He died at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania at 3:30 p.m. Witnesses said they had not gotten a look at the driver of the vehicle, and it’s unknown what motivated the shooting, Riehl said. According to court records, Williams was arrested […]
SURRENDERED: Man With Bomb Road Flares Takes 2 Hostages At Clinton New Hampshire Campaign Office
UPDATE: Nobody was hurt, and after the man, identified as Leeland Eisenberg of nearby Somersworth, was taken into custody, the police said he had nothing more than road flares taped to his chest. They would not discuss Mr. Eisenberg’s motive or mental state, but said he could face federal as well as state charges once the investigation was complete. [via NEW YORK TIMES/Photo by BRIAN SNYDER for REUTERS] PREVIOUSLY: (CNN) — Two people are being held hostage by an armed man at Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign office in Rochester, New Hampshire, police said Friday. Emergency crews arrive at the office […]