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Nielsen has conducted an investigation into the ratings for Megyn Kelly’s new Fox News Channel show, “The Kelly File,” following grousing by MSNBC chief Phil Griffin. The investigation has revealed that the numbers for Kelly are accurate. Last Tuesday, the day after its debut, “The Kelly File” doubled its audience, crushing “The Rachel Maddow Show,” its MSNBC competition.

Alright y'all. Enough with the politics. Let's party. I'll start: Boondocks - Little Big Town

"The Rain, The Park and Other Things" is a single and track from the 1967 album, "The Cowsills". The album was originally released on MGM Records . The album, with it's sunny mix of late 1960s pop, peaked at #31 on the Billboard albums chart in December 1967 . "The Rain, The Park and Other Things" was written by Steve Duboff and Artie Kornfeld. The single was released on MGM and reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, spending 16 weeks on the chart and has sold over 3 million copies worldwide."

Senate Democrats hosted Deadliest Catch Captain Keith Colburn on the Hill today to say that he can’t go fishing because of the government shutdown. Colburn was testifying at this afternoon’s Senate Commerce Committee hearing on the economic impacts of the government shutdown. “This is the first time in my 28 years of fishing that I haven’t been in the Bering Sea in October getting ready to go fish,” Colburn said “Many fishermen and coastal communities are already facing tough times. This unnecessary shutdown may be the tipping point if the situation isn’t resolved soon… I’m a small businessman in a...

Visitors browsing through the YouTube channel of the pianist Valentina Lisitsa can watch her in hundreds of videos. There are live webcams of her practicing at her home in North Carolina, long blonde hair tossing and brow furrowed in concentration as she reads through new works. There she is in a red gown playing Schumann’s “Traumerei” at a concert in Seoul, and recording Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 3 at the Abbey Road Studios in London. Ms. Lisitsa, 43, resurrected a completely stalled career through YouTube.

If you thought the Shutdown Follies couldn’t get any more absurd and spiteful, you were quite mistaken. It was announced today that an annual sandcastle contest on San Francisco’s Ocean Beach has been cancelled out of sheer malice by the Obama administration, despite the fact that the beach on which it is held — part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area — normally has no lifeguards, no rangers, is permanently open to the public, and requires no funds for day-to-day operations:

His new MSNBC show may seem like just another gig in the illustrious career of Alec Baldwin, but this one could be a step toward the role of a lifetime: politician.

James Woods, the award-winning actor and outspoken conservative, has taken his unbridled bashing of President Obama on Twitter and elevated it to an art form. Woods’ latest post smacks Obama over the closure of national parks and memorial sites in Washington during the government shutdown.

Two hundred years ago today, in a small northern Italian village, a couple named Verdi — tavern owners by trade — welcomed the birth of a baby boy who would later change the face of opera forever. And, whether we recognize it or not, on the bicentennial of his birth, Giuseppe Verdi is still vital. His natural habitat is the opera house, but over the years Verdi's music has taken up residence in some surprising places, from the Marx Brothers' 1935 spoof of Il trovatore in A Night at the Opera, to last month when Renee Fleming sang the Top...

Soft ratings, a huge budget and "disdain" for her female audience — Q Scores report only 10 percent of women view Couric favorably — have the host's Disney/ABC talk show in jeopardy as a renewal decision nears.

...Joseph Callahan, 69, had about 100 pounds of ammonium nitrate among the frightening cache of guns, ammo and explosives cops found when they raided his home last week. ...He also told them he was making a bomb for the hard-partying Richards, who lives in Weston, Conn., a short drive from Callahan’s home in the posh Greenfield Hill section of Fairfield. ...Callahan – a former employee of gunmaker Remington Arms – was charged by Fairfield cops Monday with 112 counts of illegal possession of explosives, reckless endangerment and manufacture of bombs. Callahan told cops that explosives were only a hobby, and...

The three adult children of radio host Casey Kasem have filed a legal petition to gain control of his health care. The filing says Kasem is suffering from advanced Parkinson’s disease and is being isolated from his children, friends and family members by his wife. The petition for conservatorship filed Monday brought a long-running family feud into the courts. The applicants, Julie, Kerri and Mike Kasem, contend that Kasem’s wife Jean refuses to tell them the name of their father’s primary care physician and they are unable to check on his condition. …

Do you ever feel like the Universe/God/Whoever is trying to tell you something? A couple days ago I saw Miley’s new photos. Apparently she didn’t kill Hannah Montana hard enough at the VMA’s, so she let notoriously gross photographer/video artist Terry Richardson take photos of her topless and in various other compromised states. Richardson has been accused of inappropriately touching his teenage models and exploiting underage girls. He’s the brains – or some other body part – behind Miley’s disgusting “Wrecking Ball” video, in which she rides a wrecking ball like a stripper pole in a bizarre attempt to prove...

This week, Carnegie Hall stagehands who make on average $419,000 a year went on strike, forcing the cancellation of a gala that would have benefited nonprofit artistic and education programs. The dispute between the 122-year hall and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Union, reportedly the first ever strike at Carnegie Hall, was resolved on Friday.

Feudin' Fussin' and a-Fightin'

"634-5789" was a classic soul track written by Eddie Floyd and Steve Cropper. The song was first recorded by the legend Wilson Pickett on his 1966 Atlantic Records album - -The Exciting Wilson Pickett--. Pickett recorded three sessions at Stax Records in May and October 1965, and was joined by keyboardist Isaac Hayes for the October session"...."Wilson Pickett born March 18, 1941 in Prattville, Alabama, and sang in Baptist church choirs. He was the fourth of 11 children and called his mother "the baddest woman in my book," telling historian Gerri Hirshey: "I get scared of her now. She used...

Rodriguez took a swing for the fences in a bid to restore his reputation and lucrative career with the New York Yankees, accusing Major League Baseball and Commissioner Bud Selig in a lawsuit made public Friday of pursuing him in a “witch hunt” designed to smear Rodriguez’s character and cost him tens of millions of dollars. The lawsuit was filed Thursday in New York State Supreme Court by lawyers for the Yankees third baseman. It seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages for what it alleges was a relentless campaign by the league and Selig to “destroy the reputation and career...

ladTV has posted video of radio personality Star, sharing his thoughts on NBA basketball star J.J. Redick’s abortion contract with former girlfriend Vanessa Lopez. Star is cool with all that. In the video he says he has spent $45,000 himself on abortions, which he considers a great investment as opposed to paying child support for a “little f***er rugrat.” WARNING: Profanity…

I am extremely concerned for you that those around you have led you to believe, or encouraged you in your own belief, that it is in any way “cool” to be naked and licking sledgehammers in your videos. It is in fact the case that you will obscure your talent by allowing yourself to be pimped, whether it’s the music business or yourself doing the pimping. You ought be protected as a precious young lady by anyone in your employ and anyone around you, including you. This is a dangerous world. We don’t encourage our daughters to walk around naked...

"Law & Order SVU" is the last survivor of NBC's entire "Law and Order" family. They've always addressed current events, and advertise the program's stories as "ripped from the headlines," but last night's show was all that, on steroids. In 47 minutes, they address, and combined into one show Paula Deen, Trayvon Martin & George Zimmerman, and The NYPD's "stop and frisk" program. I'm wondering if anyone else saw it, and what you think.

For the dedicated Michael Jackson fans who came to the trial day after day, the singer still could do little wrong. They wore T-shirts expressing their love for the singer and their support for his aged mother. One fan even brought a bouquet of red roses to give Katherine Jackson and her attorneys. So when the judge announced Wednesday that jurors had decided AEG Live was not responsible for Jackson's death, they weren't just stunned, they were angry. They didn't understand how a five-month trial that seemed to expose the concert promoter as caring little about the singer's well-being could...

For the first time, Mia Farrow’s daughter Dylan has opened up about the shocking child molestation claims brought against her adopted father Woody Allen.

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WILLISTON, Vt. (AP) — The ship captain being played by Tom Hanks in a Hollywood movie said on Tuesday before a benefit screening near his home that he never felt empathy for the Somali pirates who hijacked his vessel and took him captive four years ago. "That never entered my mind," Richard Phillips said in an interview. "We were always adversaries. I thought it was important to make sure we both knew we were adversaries in that. I thought that was important for me and my survival. There was no Stockholm syndrome."

Listen to "Raise Em Up" Here

New York City Opera said Tuesday it is shutting down and filing for bankruptcy protection after seven decades as a fixture on the metropolitan cultural scene. The company announced Sept. 12 that it needed to raise $7 million by the end of September. Spokeswoman Risa Heller said about $2 million had been raised, plus another $301,019 was pledged from 2,108 donors in an online campaign. … Junior to and often feistier than the Metropolitan Opera, City Opera was a spawning ground for top opera talent that included Beverly Sills, Placido Domingo, Renee Fleming and Samuel Ramey. But it was derailed...

Gene Petit, who was best known nationally in the WWF as Cousin Luke of Hillbilly Jim's clan of wrestling relatives from Mud Lick, Kentucky, passed away this morning... Petit worked regularly until 2000, when back issues forced him out of the ring. He was later diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, which he had been battling for years, leading him to drop way down from his recognizable weight. He had also battled diabetes and in recent years, was in a long-term health care facility...

The 6-minute video includes a medley of 28 songs spanning over 50 years with guitar solos performed by Mark Sidney Johnson.

Motorists in Saudi Arabia demonstrate a new trend of driving cars using only two wheels. 'Teams' congregate on the country's many desert roads to do tricks, including passengers changing wheels while the vehicle is in motion. A member of Impossible Team says the feat is not as dangerous as it looks.

Michael Jackson died because of his own bad choices involving the drug that killed him and the doctor who provided it, not because of anything done by AEG Live, a lawyer for the producer of Jackson’s comeback concerts told jurors Wednesday. Delivering his closing argument in the long-running negligence case by Jackson’s family, defense attorney Marvin Putnam said the secretive singer never told the producers that he was using the hospital anesthetic propofol to overcome his chronic insomnia. If AEG Live had known, it would have pulled the plug on the planned tour, the lawyer said. …

Dream Theater's new self-titled album on Roadrunner Records arrives tomorrow (Sept. 24), and to celebrate Billboard is hosting the exclusive U.S. premiere of the video for the song "The Enemy Inside." The clip, which was directed by Bill Fishman (the Ramones, Steve Ray Vaughan), marks the first time in a long while that Dream Theater has created a strictly conceptual video to illustrate one of its songs. Instead of seeing the band, viewers will witness the torment of a soldier who's struggling with reintegrating into his life back home due to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). http://youtu.be/kivbHHazxFQ Guitarist John Petrucci says...

Nothing's better as a parent than possessing the power to soothe a sleepless child. For one man armed with a pink ukulele, a little daddy-daughter duet did the trick, and video of the adorable performance has gone viral.

Come On, How Hard Can It Possibly Be to Make a Good Awards Show? By Margaret Lyons Sing a song, dance a jig, tell a joke. Repeat. How hard can it possibly be to put together an awards show that is festive and not excruciating? Apparently harder than we think, given how the last few years have gone. While picking a good host is definitely part of engineering a good awards show, it's not the whole ball game — Neil Patrick Harris is a good host, certainly, but last night's Emmys left something to be desired. So here's a...

Okay, I just found out that the first of this season's South Park shows starting on September 25 will be based on the theme of NSA spying. So what do you predict will be the themes that might be included in the other South Park shows this coming season? I'll go out on the limb and predict they will riff on "Amish Mafia," the most ridiculous "reality" show ever conceived. I see Cartman remaking himself as a Lebanon Levi type of guy collecting protection money from the Amish with Butters as his enforcer. What else? I don't think they can...

Did a little more looking and came up with more 1950s record albums [and some 1960s thrown in, too] that were either owned me, my family or ones that I saw at friends houses or just know of being around. Enjoy!

The former frontman of The Police said he woke with the tune in his head and improvised the lyrics as he walked around a Munich hotel room. He said: “I woke and had that bass riff in my head (hums bass line) and started walking round the room. ““Walking on the moon” seemed a useful metaphor for being in love, that feeling of lightness, of being able to walk on air. It’s an old idea.” SNIP “I know “I see you’ve sent my letters back /And my LP records, and they’re all scratched” doesn’t rhyme. It’s meant to be funny....

As American Idol begins its 13th season with a new judges' panel, new producers and a whole new slew of hopefuls, the show's business practices are under scrutiny as a discrimination lawsuit filed by 10 black former contestants continues to wind its way to court. The plaintiffs, all of whom were disqualified from the show over six seasons for reasons other than singing -- including criminal history -- were recently issued notices of "right to sue" by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, allowing the 429-page lawsuit they filed in July to move forward. In response, American Idol, FOX and the...

Fifty years ago this week, Duke Ellington and his band played in a concert he later called one of the most memorable of his life. The performance was in Kabul, in Afghanistan, and even though Ellington was at the height of his fame, almost all traces of it have been lost. For the organiser, Faiz Khairzada, and hundreds of Afghans in the audience, the concert was a high point of the early 1960s. "It was very exciting for me to have him in Kabul," says Khairzada, then head of Afghanistan's cultural affairs organisation. It was he who met Ellington at...

Lost in the 1950s- The Cherry Bowl Drive In The Cherry Bowl Drive In... is located about an hour south of Traverse City on US-31, just outside of the small town of Honor [Michigan]. It is proudly ‘family owned and operated since 1953′. A trip to The Cherry Bowl is like stepping back into the 1950s. ...... [More photos at website]

The best Tom Waits song ever....{3 min.}

I always think Hank Williams appears so frail in comparison to the robust, chiseled country stars of today, but don’t let those looks fool you. Despite battles with illness and drug and alcohol addiction that lead to a career cut short by his death at 29, Hank had a career that today’s stars can only dream of. In six short years, Hank Williams wrote and recorded only 66 songs under his own name (he also recorded as “Luke the Drifter”, but that’s for another day)–but of those, an incredible 36 were Top Ten hits and 11 went all the way...

http://video.foxnews.com/v/2684115743001/96-year-old-widower-makes-billboard-chart-history/

Please... please. Calling all Freepers. Watch this movie this weekend. Rent it. Buy it for 99 cents. Watch it on Xfinity or Amazon... Buy it....Steal it...Anyway you wish... but please watch....OK? And one more thing.. Pray for Senator Ted Cruz. Pray that he will resurrect the spirit and strength of John Quincy Adams.. to do what is right...Pray for strength to filibuster...to teach Americans the truth...to stand tall. We are with you.. Run Ted Run!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Please watch...

U2 October/New Year's Day 16 year old me and my 12 year old brother were at this show. So many memories of this time period in my life. It was rainy and cold that day. We got there early. Bono came out before the show started and talked to the small crowd that was there. I got his autograph on my ticket stub. Still have it. Love this song combo. I know Bono is the great pontificator and world saver, but I love so much of their early stuff and a couple of more recent things.

Angelo Savoldi, believed to be the world's oldest living pro wrestler, passed away today at the age of 99. Savoldi dated back to the 1930s and wrestled into the 60s.

<p>LOS ANGELES (AP) — A new biopic on slain rapper Tupac Shakur is coming.</p> <p>Morgan Creek Productions and Emmett/Furla Films announced in a Thursday news release they are in final negotiations to partner on the production of "Tupac." The picture will begin filming next year in Atlanta.</p>