'Best of TBH Politoons'
Weekly Link
Humor Gazette
World leaders throw hats in the ring to fill headgear void left by Arafat
Reader Recommended Reading
'Control Room'
An Excerpt:
"Control Room," newly released on DVD and a BuzzFlash premium, is a documentary that leaves you both hopeful and despondent. BuzzFlash spoke with filmmakers Jehane Noujaim and Hani Salama about that paradox in August. Harvard educated Jehane Noujaim, the daughter of an American mother and Egyptian father, filmed in Qatar just before the commencement of the Iraq War. The footage at the Al-Jazeera headquarters and vicinity of Central Command is riveting. As both the film itself and our interview explore, even the westernized Al Jazeera journalism professionals, who should be our friends and allies, have been marginalized by a radical, extremist White House and one-party U.S. government.
Purple Gene Reviews
Marcia Clarks' New Hairdo
Purple Genes' review of Marcia Clarks' New Hairdo:
"MURDER ONE FOR MANURE MAN"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Today - in Redwood City, Calofornia, they announced the Guilty Verdict in the Scott Peterson Case !!!!!!!!!!! This is the Tabloid tittilating trial that saturated CNN during the 2004 presidential election. So after hearing the live jury pronouncements on the Radio ("Air America") - I drove home and turned on CNN News with Wolf Bltzer......just as the screen lit up ...he said "And now, Former L.A. County Prosecutor for the O.J. Simpson trial - Marcia Clark"........I was waiting with eager eyes for that familiar Afro hairstyle, chalky craggy face and her hyper, high speed speech and........Whoa....MS. Clark....somebody's had a little "WORK DONE".....cheek bones softened, lips more supple, eye make-up not so dark, nose not so long and pointed, silver angel earings, camaflage colored blouse.....and wow...A NEW "DO" !!!!! Behold the new Marcia!!! Watch out Gloria Allred - step back Janine Pirro......Marcia's back - in a brassy red pixie cut with blond streaks.....swept soflty across her severe forehead - her stylist is a wizard....abandoning forever that shrill and sassy AFRO for this new chanteuse chic - I mean it's - The Swan Darling!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Who gives a shit about what she had to say - I was stunned by her sartorial splendor!!!
She is on her way up as a new "Media Whore" - Watch out Paula Zahn - your gone!!! Ha Ha Ha Ha.........If you go to
But let it be known to those who care - Marcia's Back with a NEW DO!!!!!
Purple Gene gives Marcia Clarks' new hair do 9 swans out of 10 for such an extreme change - credit is really due to her probably gay and great stylist! Christiane Amanpour, on the other hand, gets my life long respect as one of the last of the BEST! ....Talking Heads ...that is!
Purple Gene
Thanks, Purple Gene!
Paul Berenson
Another Side of the News
Voting Irregularities..."Another Side of the News"
According to AP, on Nov. 2 Karen Hughes sat President Bush down to inform him that he'd lost the election. The exit polls were clear: Kerry was winning in a landslide. "Bush took the news stoically," noted the AP report.
The State of Florida, for example, publishes a county-by-county record of votes cast, and people registered to vote by party affiliation. In Florida's smaller counties the results from the optically scanned paper ballots - fed into a central tabulator PC and thus vulnerable to hacking - seem to have been reversed.
In aggregate they were enough to swing Florida from Kerry to Bush. If you simply go through the analysis of these counties and reverse the "anomalous" numbers in those counties that appear to have been hacked, suddenly the Florida election results resemble the Florida exit poll results: Kerry won, and won big.
We'll explain how to hack into the central tabulator PC. It's quite easy. We'll also talk more about Ohio. The Green and Libertarian candidates are demanding a recount, and are calling upon Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican who chaired the Ohio Bush campaign, to recuse himself from the recount process.
We're trying to get Bob Fertik of www.democrats.com to join us on a live call-in, and may hear more from Greg Palast on exit polls.
It's also our annual Pledge Drive and this is a great opportunity to support "The ray of light in the last chink in the Electronic Berlin Wall from Occupied Santa Barbara" (G. Palast on KCSB)
Tune in to "Another Side of the News" with Paul Berenson, Saturdays 9am-10am (PDT) on KCSB-FM 91.9 or listen on our webcast
Your local phone calls are welcome at:
893-2424
893-2425
Outside of the Santa Barbara (CA) area:
1-805-893-2426
1-805-893-3757
If you're tired of the Limbaugh's, Fox News, Corporate Media, etc. and want to hear a Democrat with attitude, this is for you!
Join listeners and callers on the South Coast and across the nation listening on our webcast.
Give Paul a listen - he's smart & funny - and on a roll!
Reader Recommended Link
Figure Skating
Purple Gene Reviews
Go Further
Purple Genes' review of "Go Further" (2003) directed by Ron Mann ("Grass") and starring Woody Harrelson ("Cowboy Way" - "Natural Born Killers" - "Wag the Dog" - "Kingpin"):
Remember when there was B.C. (before christ) and A.D. (anno domini)? Now we have B.E. (Before the Elections) and A.E. (After the Elections)! If I had seen "Go Further" before the 2004 Elections (B.E.) I might have come up with the Bi-Line - "Woody gets a woodie on the Hippie Highway" - but having seen this Ode to Ken Keseys' "Merry Pranksters" (A.E.) my Bi-Line is - "Go Further falls Short"!
I love to go back to the old days....."Festival Express" was a great train ride through my Hippie past....."Monterey Pop" - Jimi Henrix lights his guitar on fire...."Don't Look Back" with Dylan says it all - "A Hard Rain's a gonna Fall". "Go Further" is a harmless and helpless hiatus of tree huggers and Hippies on bikes and a bio-fueled bus descending down the Pacific Coast Highway....to save humanity from everything that is now both gospel and sacrament to the "Red States" ......that's right....yoga, raw food, hemp, tofu, spirulina, no clear-cutting forests, ro reliance on petroleum product, PEACE & LOVE....fucking forget about it Woody......It's A.E. and I want to see you shave your goddam head and grab Juliette Lewis and become Mickey and Mallory again....that's right "Natural Born Killers"!
I'm sorry...I'm stilled pissed....I mean - along comes an innocent and honest little movie and I have to Diss it ......I miss those days....free love, good dope, long hair....PEACE & LOVE ...oh that's right ...then Nixon got elected and Vietnam happened and we all hit the streets........wasn't that a time....Electric Kool-aid Acid Test, Summer of Love and the 68 convention in Chicago...........4 dead in OHIO......Bobby shot......Martin Shot.......but we didn't give up....DID WE???????
"Go Further" is well worth seeing if you can separate it from the prevailing political/socio/economic reality ...we've got work to do Woody....Fuck a bunch of "Hemp Burgers"......If were gonna stop the clear-cutting and the war-mongering and the hollywood-big-city-jew-hating-fag-bashing-back-to-the-bible bullshit that's about become LAW .....get off that Bio-fueled bus and let's go climb up on the Golden Gate Bridge again and SHUT 'EM DOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Purple Gene gives "Go Further" 6 red hot chili peppers out of 10 for a good music sound track and a sincere effort.
Purple Gene
Thanks, Purple Gene!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Bit cloudy, bit breezy, but nice.
Opens Thursday
Clinton Library
From the queen of soul to a king of comedy, celebrities are set to fete the opening of the Clinton Library. The week's excitement will come to a peak Thursday when former President Bill Clinton's library is dedicated.
Aretha Franklin will perform with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra on Tuesday night.
From Monday through Thursday, political satirist and former "Saturday Night Live" cast member Al Franken and radio co-host Katherine Lanpher will broadcast "The Al Franken Show," a liberal talk radio program, live from Little Rock.
John Glenn, the former astronaut and former U.S. senator, will help open the exhibit "Space and the Presidency" at the Museum of Discovery in downtown Little Rock on Wednesday.
Later that evening, a free concert with rock bands Better Than Ezra, The North Mississippi All-Stars and B-Side will perform at the Riverfest Amphitheater. The concert will be followed by a fireworks display billed as the largest Arkansas has ever had.
Clinton Library
Sixty-Six Stations Skip 'Private Ryan'
ABC
Sixty-six ABC affiliates, covering nearly one-third of the country, ultimately decided not to air the movie "Saving Private Ryan" on Veterans Day due to skittishness over whether the Federal Communications Commission would deem it indecent.
There are a total of 225 ABC stations. All 10 stations owned and operated by the network showed the movie, but affiliates in Boston, Atlanta, Dallas, Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Nashville, Honolulu, Phoenix, Orlando, Fla., and Charlotte, N.C., were among those that did not.
Two stations that had originally said they weren't going to air the movie, in New Orleans and Shreveport, La., wound up showing it.
When first shown on broadcast TV in 2001, it was seen by 17.9 million people.
ABC said it was unaware of any affiliates that opted out in 2001 and 2002. All three times, the network aired parental warnings about the content before the movie started.
ABC
Lawyer Calls Lawsuit Frivolous
Bill Maher
A lawsuit accusing political comic Bill Maher of welching on a promise to marry his former girlfriend is "frivolous" and should be dismissed by the court, Maher's attorney said Friday.
Nancy "Coco" Johnsen, a former model and flight attendant, is seeking $9 million and other unspecified damages, according to the action filed Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court. It accuses Maher of fraud, battery and assault.
"This is a completely frivolous lawsuit filed with false allegations that is part of a pattern by Ms. Johnson to seek retribution since the end of their short relationship," Maher attorney Adam F. Streisand said in a statement. "Mr. Maher is looking forward to having this dismissed by the court."
Bill Maher
Best Music Acts of Past Decades
Britain's Music Hall of Fame
Robbie Williams, Michael Jackson, Queen, the Rolling Stones and Cliff Richard have been inducted into Britain's first Music Hall of Fame, chosen by the public as the best music acts of the past five decades.
The honorees were selected by a public vote by Channel 4 television. Also inducted Thursday were honorary members Madonna, Bob Marley, Elvis Presley, U2 and The Beatles. So far, there's no building.
Madonna, U2 frontman Bono, Stones guitarist Ron Wood and Williams were among those who received their awards at the ceremony.
Acts needed only to have been influential or successful in Britain to qualify.
Britain's Music Hall of Fame
Fail to Force Audit
Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones failed to force an audit of the books of Decca Music Group, which they say may not have paid them all the royalties from their "40 Licks" greatest hits album.
The dispute centers on royalties from the album, which includes '60s hits such as "Paint It Black" and "Sympathy for the Devil," the rights to which are still owned by Decca.
A High Court judge ruled Friday that in terms of a 1976 agreement among Decca and the surviving members of the band - Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Charlie Watts - disputes over royalties must be referred to arbitration rather than the courts.
Rolling Stones
Producer Fired Over Arafat Special Report
CBS
CBS News has fired the producer responsible for interrupting the last five minutes of a hit crime drama with a special report on the death of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, a network source said on Friday.
Word of the dismissal came a day after CBS apologized to viewers for breaking into "CSI: NY," one of its top-rated shows, on Wednesday night.
"An overly aggressive CBS News producer jumped the gun with a report that should have been offered to local stations for their late news. We sincerely regret the error," the network said in a statement on Thursday.
CBS
Academy Honors Six Writers
Nicholl Fellowship
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences kicked off its run up to the Oscars, the U.S. film industry's top awards, by honoring six fledgling screenwriters Thursday night with its annual Nicholl Fellowship and a check for $30,000.
Screenplays from this year's Nicholl winners ranged from Irish romance "Fenian's Trace" by Sean Mahoney of Nicasio, California, to children's tale "Letter Quest" by Doug Davidson of Baldwin, New York, and the story of a Palestinian suicide bomber, "The Gaza Golem," by Daniel Lawrence of Los Angeles.
Other fellows were Whit Rummell of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, for coming-of-age tale "The Secret Boy" and John Sinclair and Nova Jacobs of Los Angeles with science-fiction story "Split Infinity."
Nicholl Fellowship
Sued Over Illustrations
Rush 'Hillbilly Heroin' Limbaugh
A New Hampshire artist has sued Rush Limbaugh, saying the radio host used his work without permission.
Doug Henry of Hanover said Limbaugh stopped paying to use his illustrations of Limbaugh after Henry suggested last year that the two publish a coffee-table book of the works.
Henry's depictions of Limbaugh have graced 67 covers of "Limbaugh Letter," a newsletter. He has worked for Limbaugh for nearly four years as the commentator's cover artist.
In his lawsuit filed in federal court this week, Henry is asking a judge to confirm his ownership of the artwork he did for Limbaugh and to order Limbaugh to stop using it unless he pays first. Henry is also seeking unspecified damages from Limbaugh.
Rush 'Hillbilly Heroin' Limbaugh
'More Popular Than Bush': Koizumi
Ahnold
Perhaps in a joking reference to the California governor's presidential ambitions, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told Arnold Schwarzenegger he's more popular than their mutual ally George W. Bush.
"You're very popular," a smiling Schwarzenegger told Koizumi, shaking the premier's hand at his official residence.
"You too," Koizumi replied in English. "More popular than Bush."
The governor met the prime minister as part of a four-day trade mission to Japan to revive flagging Japanese tourism to his state, invite more investment dollars and sell California-grown produce.
Ahnold
Tells Customers to Find New Carrier
AOL Broadband
America Online, which earlier this year stopped signing up new broadband customers, is telling existing broadband subscribers in nine Southern states that they must find a new broadband carrier by Jan. 17.
Those customers who do not switch to a new broadband carrier by that date will have their accounts revert to AOL's traditional dialup service, said AOL spokeswoman Anne Bentley.
Bentley said she expects AOL will phase out existing broadband customers in the rest of the country in a similar manner over the next year.
AOL Broadband
Urge U.S. to Slow Arctic Thaw
Indigenous Groups
Arctic indigenous peoples urged the United States on Friday to join other nations in cutting greenhouse gas emissions to brake an accelerating thaw of the polar ice.
On the last day of a four-day conference on the Arctic climate, they said hunting cultures were at risk from global warming and called on the foreign ministers of eight nations due to meet in Reykjavik on Nov. 24 to crack down.
"The Arctic is an early warning for the world," Sheila Watt-Cloutier, chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), said of a study which found the Arctic was heating twice as fast as the global average due to a build up of greenhouse gases.
The United States is isolated from the other seven nations stretching into the Arctic -- Russia, Canada, Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland -- by opposing caps on emissions of the heat-trapping gases.
Indigenous Groups
Withdrawing Troops from Iraq in March
Dutch
The Dutch cabinet has decided to bring home the 1,350 Dutch troops in Iraq in March next year, confirming a decision first made in June, the Dutch news agency ANP cited Defense Minister Henk Kamp as saying on Friday.
The Netherlands first sent troops to Iraq in August 2003 and won parliamentary approval this summer to extend their stay until March 2005.
Iraq's interim administration wants to hold elections in January despite mounting violence, and the Netherlands has come under increasing U.S. and British pressure to keep its troops there after March.
Dutch
News Corp Completes Move
Rupert Murdoch
Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. media empire officially became a US entity following the transfer of its headquarters from Australia.
News Corp.'s base is now in the eastern state of Delaware with its main share listing moving from Sydney to New York.
The media conglomerate's headquarters had previously been in the Australian city of Adelaide, where Murdoch founded his empire.
Murdoch is Australian-born but has also taken US nationality as he steps up his global reach.
Rupert Murdoch
Thousands Attend Funeral
John Peel
Musicians, broadcasters and hundreds of music fans gathered at an English church Friday for the funeral of John Peel, an influential DJ beloved by generations of British Broadcasting Corp. listeners.
Jack and Meg White of the White Stripes, Pulp's Jarvis Cocker and Undertones singer Feargal Sharkey were among mourners at the service for Peel, 65, who died of a heart attack last month while on holiday in Peru.
Peel was a BBC fixture for almost 40 years, playing an eclectic assortment of tunes, often by unknown bands, that reflected his wide-ranging tastes. Peel promoted reggae, hip-hop and punk on the sometimes conservative BBC, and championed acts ranging from Jimi Hendrix and David Bowie to The Smiths, The Fall, and Pulp.
After the service, Peel's coffin was borne from the church to applause and the sound of his favorite song - "Teenage Kicks" by The Undertones.
John Peel
