1. Happy Birthday Odienator! Two pieces from Edward Copeland on Film: "What a Lifetime of Movies Has Taught Me" & "For a Few Decades More: The Leone Trilogy Turns 40".

["Today is my birthday, and it's William Wyler's fault."]

["Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore is under investigation by the U.S. Treasury Department for taking ailing Sept. 11 rescue workers to Cuba for a segment in his upcoming health-care documentary "Sicko," The Associated Press has learned."]

["United States President George Bush on Thursday tried to buy a few more months for his Iraq war plan after a blunt warning by Republican congressmen that their patience would not last beyond September. The president's plea for time, so the 30 000 additional forces he sent to Iraq could produce results, came as the House of Representatives was expected to vote on a spending Bill to cut funding for the war by late July unless there are clear signs of progress on the ground."]

["Painstaking academic research indicates that promiscuous oral sex can carry a higher risk of throat cancer than smoking or boozing. A report based on a hospital study of 100 oropharyngeal cancer sufferers and 200 controls, carried out by Johns Hopkins scientists, appeared today in the New England Journal of Medicine. In it, the splendidly-named Dr Gypsyamber D'Souza and her co-authors make some noteworthy conclusions."]

["Filmmakers now might get an R rating as a thank you for smoking. The MPAA said Thursday that its rating board will consider film depictions of smoking among the criteria for assigning movie ratings. Anti-tobacco activists have been pressing for an automatic R rating for films with smoking scenes, but MPAA chairman and CEO Dan Glickman rejected the proposal for a more nuanced approach."]

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"Links for the Day": Each morning, the House editors post a series of weblinks that we think will spark discussion. Comments encouraged.