Michael J. Sniffen U.S. rates travelers for terror risk (Associated Press; Posted on michaelmoore.com)
WASHINGTON - Without their knowledge, millions of Americans and foreigners crossing U.S. borders in the past four years have been assigned scores generated by U.S. government computers rating the risk that the travelers are terrorists or criminals. The travelers are not allowed to see or directly challenge these risk assessments, which the government intends to keep on file for 40 years.
Mima Mohammed: U.S. prison numbers up 35% in 10 years (Los Angeles Times; Posted on michaelmoore.com)
WASHINGTON - About 7 million adults - accounting for 3% of the U.S. population - were incarcerated, on probation or on parole at the end of 2005, the Justice Department said Thursday. Of that total, 2.2 million individuals were in federal and state prisons or local jails, 4.1 million were on probation and more than 784,000 were on parole.
Today in History: December 1 (memory.loc.gov)
On the evening of December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, an African American, was arrested for disobeying an Alabama law requiring black passengers to relinquish seats to white passengers when the bus was full. Blacks were also required to sit at the back of the bus. Her arrest sparked a 381-day boycott of the Montgomery bus system and led to a 1956 Supreme Court decision banning segregation on public transportation.
Nora Ephron: Bad Manners (huffingtonpost.com)
I always love it when people in Washington attack people for bad manners. According to George Will, newly-elected Virginia Senator James Webb was guilty of bad manners when he was asked by President Bush how his Marine son was doing in Iraq, and responded instead by saying that he hoped the troops would be home soon.
and
Nora Ephron: Bad Manners (huffingtonpost.com)
I always love it when people in Washington attack people for bad manners. According to George Will, newly-elected Virginia Senator James Webb was guilty of bad manners when he was asked by President Bush how his Marine son was doing in Iraq, and responded instead by saying that he hoped the troops would be home soon.
Party on (guardian.co.uk)
The Christmas party season is upon us and you're looking forward to an occasion to remember. Let our experts offer their tips on how to do the season in style.
Land Grab (snopes.com)
A New Orleans lawyer sought an FHA loan for a client who lost his house in Hurricane Katrina and wanted to rebuild.. He was told the loan would be granted if he could prove satisfactory title to the parcel of property being offered as collateral. The title to the property dated back to 1803, which took the Lawyer three months to track down. After sending the information to the FHA, he received the following reply:
A friend of ours is on the Academy Awards jury...so every year around the end of November she starts getting DVD's of all the movies and documentaries that might be considered for Oscars...So we become the beneficiaries of first run movies that have been shown only in the theaters and sometimes movies that have not even been released yet. We stumbled upon a film set to be released at the end of December, that nobody has seen yet..."The Dead Girl"...and this turned out not to be a "Chick Flick" but rather a "Female Focused Film"...
Not unlike "21 Grams" (2003), "Crash" (2004) or "Nine Lives" (2005)..."The Dead Girl" is an "Ensemble" movie with strangely interconnecting character development around the very different lives of 5 women.
Part 1 is called "The Stranger" and opens with an absolutely stunning vista of the desert where a painfully plain looking Arden (Toni Collette) discovers the body of a murdered girl...she rushes back to her house where she lives with her wheelchair-bound and abusive mother (Piper Laurie) and calls the police. The cops and the media descend upon the area and Arden is all over the local TV news. A local tattooed store clerk named Rudy (Giovanni Ribisi) asks her out...they connect and Arden ends up escaping her hellacious life by abandoning her awful mother and running off with Rudy.
Part 2 is called "The Sister" and we find ourselves in a forensic lab with a student named Leah (Rose Byrne) who is examining the dead girl's body and thinks it might be her sister Jenny who disappeared 15 years earlier...she tell her mother (Mary Steenburgen) who is in a state of denial about the traumatic loss and still holds out hope that her daughter is still alive...but Leah has put her own life on hold for all this time and finally pulls all the newspaper articles off her bedroom wall and burns them in a frying pan...now she may be able to move on.
Part 3 is called "The Wife" and we find a pitiful middle aged couple fighting. The wife named Ruth (Mary Beth Hurt) is chastising her husband Carl (Nick Searcy) because he likes to just get up and leave her for days at a time...he says he's just driving around in his truck. But Ruth happens upon a stash of bloody girl's clothing...and girls ID's in a dresser in one of the back storage facilities that they rent out. Carl comes home from another long night and...in a truly creepy scene, Carl runs out back to stash something in the very same storage facility while Ruth watches him...he comes back in and Ruth heats his TV dinner and serves him in his lounge chair...slowly unwrapping the foil from the plastic tray...knowing that her husband is possibly a serial killer.
Part 4 is called "The Mother" and Melora (Marcia Gay Harden) thinks that the dead girl that was found might be her long lost daughter. She finds a flop house in East L.A. where her daughter was last seen. A drugged out prostitute name Rosetta (Kerry Washington) tells Melora that Krista (Brittany Murphy) had been hooking with her but recently moved out...she tells Melora why Krista took up whoring for money..."her step dad (Melora's husband) was screwing Krista at age 12 (Melora never knew) and that's when she ran away. It turns out that Krista has a young daughter (just recently abandoned) and Melora finds her and takes her in.
Part 5 is called "The Dead Girl" and here we get to meet Krista who is beautiful and bubbly and pretty messed up...she is trying to get a ride out of town to her daughter's birthday...her biker boyfriend blows her off (after she blows him). The local landlady lends her a motorcycle to get there...but it conks out...so she decides to hitch a ride on the interstate out past the all night gas station mini mart. Up pulls a truck and she hops in...yes, he can take where she needs to go...Carl is driving.
This was an unexpectedly brilliant film...with understated and believable characters, an interesting and arresting series of intertwining plots and great direction. This movie was about everyday women and events that connect all of them...and separate them as well!
Purple Gene gives "The Dead Girl" 9 flies buzzing over the body out of 10 for being graphic, gripping and gratifying!
We have "High School Information Day" bright & early on my favorite morning to sleep in.
Tonight, Saturday:
CBS begins the night with a RERUN'CSI: The 2nd One', followed by a RERUN'Without A Trace', then '48 Hours'.
NBC starts the night with a 2-hour 'Dateline', followed by a RERUN'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit'.
'SNL' is FRESH with Matthew Fox hosting, music by Tenacious D.
The late, late 'SNL' is from 8 December, 1990, with Tom Hanks hosting, music by Edie Brickell.
ABC has LIVE'College Football', then pads the left coast with local crap and an old 'Oprah'.
The CW here has LIVE'NBA Basketball', with the Lakers visiting the Clips.
Faux has the traditional 'Cops', 'Cops', and 'America's Most Wanted'.
'MAD TV' is a RERUN.
MY has a FRESH'Desire', followed by a FRESH'Fashion House'.
A&E has 'Death Detectives: LA Coroner', 'Cold Case Files', another 'Cold Case Files', and 'Red Light Districts'.
AMC offers the movie 'High Plains Drifter', followed by the movie 'Broken Trail'.
BBC -
[2:00 pm] Shipwrecked - Episode 20;
[3:00 pm] Everything Must Go - Episode 16;
[3:30 pm] Everything Must Go - Episode 17;
[4:00 pm] Cash in the Attic - Allen;
[5:00 pm] Cash in the Attic - Corry-Thomas;
[6:00 pm] Cash in the Attic - Foats;
[7:00 pm] Cash in the Attic - Singleton;
[8:00 pm] Cash in the Attic - Spurrey;
[9:00 pm] Doctor Who - Ep 2 The End of the World;
[10:00 pm] Afterlife - Ep 2 Lower than Bones;
[11:00 pm] Hex - Episode 2;
[12:00 am] Doctor Who - Ep 2 The End of the World;
[1:00 am] Afterlife - Ep 2 Lower than Bones;
[2:00 am] Hex - Episode 2;
[3:00 am] The Catherine Tate Show - Episode 1;
[3:40 am] The Catherine Tate Show - Episode 2;
[4:20 am] The Catherine Tate Show - Episode 3;
[5:00 am] The Benny Hill Show - Episode 6;
[5:30 am] The Benny Hill Show - Episode 7;
[6:00 am] BBC World News. (ALL TIMES EST)
Bravo has 'Law & Order: Criminal Intent', followed by the movie 'National Lampoon's Vacation', then the movie 'Twins'.
Comedy Central has 'Scrubs', another 'Scrubs', followed by the movie 'National Lampoon's Van Wilder', then the movie 'The Sweetest Thing'.
History has 'Modern Marvels', 'Godspeed To Jamestown', 'Race To The South Pole', and another 'Race To The South Pole'.
IFC -
[06:35 AM Way Off Broadway;
[08:05 AM Samurai 7 Episode #17: The Remembrance;
[08:30 AM Samurai 7 Episode #18: The Emperor;
[08:55 AM Seven Samurai;
[12:20 PM La Strada;
[02:10 PM Making of: World Trade Center;
[02:25 PM Way Off Broadway;
[03:55 PM Seven Samurai;
[07:20 PM Sweet and Lowdown;
[09:00 PM Greg the Bunny: Plush: Behind the Seams;
[09:15 PM Moulin Rouge;
[11:25 PM Greg the Bunny: Plush: Behind the Seams;
[11:40 PM Velvet Goldmine;
[01:40 AM Black Orpheus;
[03:30 AM Greg the Bunny: Plush: Behind the Seams;
[03:45 AM Moulin Rouge;
[05:55 AM IFC Short Film Showcase: December. (ALL TIMES EST)
SciFi has the movie 'Haunted Prison', followed by the movie 'Monster Man'.
Sundance -
[06:15 AM] The Take;
[07:45 AM] Wallace & Gromit: A Close Shave;
[08:15 AM] Reconstruction;
[09:45 AM] Milo 55160;
[10:15 AM] I Am Cuba, the Siberian Mammoth;
[12:00 PM] The Beguiled;
[01:45 PM] The Red Toy;
[02:00 PM] Iconoclasts Season 2: Episode 6: Dave Chappelle + Maya Angelou;
[03:00 PM] The Last Days;
[04:30 PM] It's All About Love;
[06:15 PM] The Apostle;
[08:30 PM] Reconstruction;
[10:00 PM] Breathless (1960);
[11:30 PM] IN SHORT: Animation;
[12:00 AM] City of Men - Season 3: Episode 6: Take It Like a Man;
[12:30 AM] The Last Temptation of Christ;
[03:15 AM] An Awfully Big Adventure;
[05:15 AM] The Beguiled. (ALL TIMES EST)
Al Gore, center, holds up the Environmental Leadership Award which was presented to him by actors Mary Steenburgen, left, and Ted Danson during the annual leadership awards event from California League of Conservation Voters in Culver City, Calif., Thursday, Nov. 30, 2006.
Photo by Kevork Djansezian
When Americans mail holiday greetings this month, Ed Asner hopes they'll remember U.S. soldiers serving overseas, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The 77-year-old Emmy-winning actor visited two military hospitals in the Washington area this week as part of the kickoff for a national "Cards for Troops" campaign.
"The unwavering dedication these men and women show for their cause - and each other - is remarkable beyond words," he said. "Their thoughts are never for themselves, but only for those comrades that are still in harm's way."
Months after his anti-war drama "Stuff Happens" opened in New York to largely positive reviews, British playwright David Hare's follow-up on the Iraq conflict -- his first work to premiere on Broadway -- drew a mixed reaction from critics.
Hare's latest play, "The Vertical Hour," opened on Thursday night with four-time Oscar nominee Julianne Moore and English actor Bill Nighy making their Broadway debut under the direction of Academy Award-winning director Sam Mendes.
It marked the first time the acclaimed playwright has debuted a play straight to Broadway after premiering many of his works at the National Theater in London, including "Stuff Happens," about political events leading to the Iraq war.
Actor George Clooney puts on a crown and 'Sexiest Man Alive' sash presented to him by NBC 'Today' television show co-host Matt Lauer, during the taping of an interview, in New York, Friday Dec. 1, 2006. Clooney was promoting his new movie 'The Good German.' One interview airs Monday, Dec.4, 2006, while another airs December 12.
Photo by Richard Drew
Blame it on the shots of limoncello. George Clooney says he woke up tipsy after a "brutal night" out on the town with his pal Danny DeVito. "Well the funniest thing was, ah, you know, we were just at a restaurant," Clooney says in an interview to air Monday on NBC's "Today" show.
"It wasn't like we were out drinking. We were at a restaurant, sitting down, drinking. I was in bed by 11:30 at night and I woke up at, you know, 7 (a.m.) and I was still drunk (laughs). ... It was a brutal night."
Clooney, 45, tells "Today" co-host Matt Lauer that he and DeVito "were doing shots of limoncello and that's all I can really say on the subject."
A "Brokeback Mountain" parody airing on Canadian television depicts an unusual type of summit between resident Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
In the sketch based on the acclaimed film about a love affair between two cowboys, Harper and Bush are portrayed naked from the waist up in a tent. Images of their faces are pasted over actors' bodies.
At one point, Bush throws cherries at Harper's nipples, which are covered with whipped cream. After the cherries land, separatist politician Andre Boisclair, who cooperated with filming of the spot, is seen opening the tent flap and stiffly saying that Quebec won't get involved "in something like that."
On Wynton Marsalis' upcoming CD, he criticizes political leadership in America, cultural corruption, and sex and violence in rap - and that's just on one song.
"From the Plantation to the Penitentiary" is due out March 6. Marsalis calls it his most political album in years.
"It's been in my mind for a while. Every decade I like to do one piece that has that kind of social involvement with American culture," he said.
But a look at some of the lyrics shows Marsalis is disenchanted with that culture. "The Return of Romance" appears to take rappers to task, accusing them of being modern-day minstrels with "song-less tunes"; "Super Capitalism" chastises those obsessed with materialistic goals; and "Where Y'all At," among other things, criticizes '60s radicals and idealists who have lost their revolutionary slant.
Comedian Stephen Colbert holds up a portrait of radio talk show host Bill O'Reilly while addressing a gathering at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, Mass., Friday, Dec. 1, 2006.
Photo by Charles Krupa
Friends and family of a soldier killed in Afghanistan will gather Saturday to dedicate what they call the first government-issued memorial plaque with a Wiccan symbol.
The plaque for Sgt. Patrick Stewart was installed last week on the Veterans Memorial Wall at the Northern Nevada Veterans Cemetery in Fernley, about 30 miles east of Reno.
Stewart's widow, Roberta, has been fighting to make the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs allow the Wiccan pentacle - a five-pointed star enclosed in a circle - for plaques and headstones at veterans' cemeteries.
Producer Saul Zaentz on Thursday filed a $20 million lawsuit against Walt Disney Co. and its Miramax Films unit, accusing them of failing to share profits from his 1996 best picture Oscar winner "The English Patient."
"Like Enron, Tyco and WorldCom, Miramax has used fraudulent and unfair accounting and business practices to deprive (Saul Zaentz Co.) of its profit participation," according to the suit, which was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.
Zaentz created a joint venture with Miramax to co-finance the picture and share in its profits, the suit states. Using inappropriate accounting practices, Miramax has attempted to show that it has yet to recoup costs associated with the acquisition, distribution and marketing of the film, it alleges.
U.S. actor Martin Sheen, left, arrives with actress Vera Farmiga at the opening ceremony of the Marrakech International Film Festival in Marrakech, Morroco, Friday, Dec. 1, 2006 at the Marrakesh Congress Palace . The festival runs through Dec. 1-9.
Photo by Abdeljalil Bounhar
Michael Richards will apologize in person to the four black men he targeted in a tirade of racial slurs during a recent comedy club performance.
A retired judge will mediate the meeting and determine whether he should take any other action to resolve the matter, Richards' spokesman and an attorney for the men said Friday.
A cash settlement could be part of the resolution, said Howard J. Rubenstein, who represents Richards.
Looted, but from whom? This is the central theme of a joint exhibition by the Dutch state and the Jewish Historical Museum of art plundered by the Nazis during World War II, which opens here.
"The goal of the show is to get a response from the public." said Rudi Ekkart of the Dutch state's Origins Unknown Agency.
During World War II, tens of thousands of art works that belonged to Jews from the Netherlands ended up in Germany through looting, confiscation or because the owners were forced to sell. After 1945 some 4,700 works of art of Dutch provenance found there were returned to the Netherlands and put in the custody of the Dutch state.
Eddie Vedder (R), lead singer of Pearl Jam, and 8 time surfing World Champion Kelly Slater exit the water at Waimea Bay after the opening ceremony for the Eddie Aikau Big Wave surf contest in Haleiwa, Hawaii, November 30, 2006.
Photo by Hugh Gentry
Is this some kind of dark plot to dump Juneau as Alaska's capital?
Political pundits drew their own interpretations this week after Gov.-elect Sarah Palin announced she would buck an unbroken tradition and take the oath of office outside the capital city.
She will be sworn in Monday in Fairbanks, more than 600 miles north of Juneau, the nation's most inaccessible state capital.
Palin, Alaska's first woman governor and at 42 the youngest ever to hold the office, said she chose Fairbanks to mark the 50th anniversary of the ratification of the Alaska Constitution, which was drafted in Fairbanks three years before statehood in 1959.
Russia's capital, renowned for its trademark frosty winters, started the calendar winter with the warmest day recorded in December, the state weather monitoring unit said on Friday.
Russia started to record temperatures in 1879. December 1 this year is likely to beat the previous record set on December 4, 1953, a Rosgidromet spokeswoman said.
"In 1953 the temperature was plus 4.2 degrees Celcius (39.6 Fahrenheit), and tonight it will be plus 4.5 degrees (40.1 Fahrenheit)," she said. "We can call it a new record."
The average temperature for December in Moscow is around minus 4 degrees Celcius. The spokeswoman said cylcones in the north Atlantic have created unusually warm weather in central Russia.
Ice hangs from branches of a tree at Doling Park in Springfield, Mo., Friday, Dec. 1, 2006. Parts of the Midwest were digging out Friday after a winter storm brought freezing rain, sleet, and snow.
Photo by Mark Schiefelbein
A grandmother found with a trunkful of marijuana was convicted of drug running in what prosecutors said was an attempt to earn cash for a bingo habit.
State troopers found 10 bundles of pot totaling 214 pounds hidden in Leticia Villareal Garcia's car trunk last year when they stopped her outside Bisbee, in far southeastern Arizona.
Villareal, 61, told jurors before they convicted her Thursday that her only regular income was a $275 monthly welfare check, but she frequently played bingo and occasionally won thousands of dollars.
"People who play bingo almost every night of the week end up losing in the long run," Johnstun told jurors. "The underlying issue is that she's got a bingo problem, which explains why an otherwise nice person might get sucked into something like this."
Anthropologists said they have pieced together Leonardo da Vinci's left index fingerprint - a discovery that could help provide information on such matters as the food the artist ate and whether his mother was of Arabic origin.
The reconstruction of the fingerprint was the result of three years of research and could help attribute disputed paintings or manuscripts, said Luigi Capasso, an anthropologist and director of the Anthropology Research Institute at Chieti University in central Italy.
The research was based on a first core of photographs of about 200 fingerprints - most of them partial_ taken from about 52 papers handled by Leonardo in his life. Capasso's work, presented in 2005 in a specialized magazine called Anthropologie, published in the Czech Republic, is on display in an exhibition in the town of Chieti through March 30.
Wanted: tie-dyed shirts, signs, guitars, snapshots, bits of trampled fence and other groovy artifacts from the 1969 Woodstock concert.
The Bethel Woods Center for the Arts wants the artifacts for a museum honoring Woodstock and the '60s, which could open next year. A 4,800-seat concert pavilion at the former farm 80 miles northwest of New York City opened this summer.
The planned museum already has film, tickets, posters, security jackets and other items from the concert but is looking for more donations and long-term loans, said Michael Egan, who is developing the museum for the not-for-profit Gerry Foundation. The foundation also is looking for '60s artifacts such as JFK campaign posters or ticket stubs from the Beatles concert at Shea Stadium.
A boater rows past as hot air balloons lift off over the reservoir in Leon's Parque Metropolitano during the city's fifth international hot air balloon festival December 1, 2006.
Photo by Mario Castillo
You have reached the Home page of BartCop Entertainment.
Make yourself home, take your shoes off...
Go ahead, scratch it if it itches.
The idea is to have fun.
Do you have something to say?
Anything that increased your blood pressure, or, even better,
amused or entertained?
Do you have a great album no one's heard?
How about a favorite TV show, movie, book, play, cartoon, or legal amusement?
A popular artist that just plain pisses you off?
A box set the whole world should own?
Vile, filthy rumors about Republican musicians?
Just plain vile, filthy rumors?
This is your place.
