'TBH Politoons'
Thanks, again, Tim!
Reader Suggestion
'The Doctor Is In'
I thought you might want to hear a great song called
The Doctor Is In - The Howard Dean song
by Dan Tyler.
Dan gave me permission to use his song on my site and encourages other websites to do the same. He has a beautiful voice, besides being an accomplished songwriter.
Lisa from All Hat No Cattle
Daily Fair and Balanced Parodies to Digest the Unrighteous Right
Thanks, Lisa! Will do.
Reader Commentary
Re: Buzzflash
In Requiem Pace Buzzflash
Y'know, when I first came across Buzzflash I was gobsmacked (a UK phrase
for being taken by surprise). So informative. So much work to keep it
updated. But after only a few days I noticed defects.
Defect number one is that it was a three-column spread. That works well in
print but is a pain in the arse on the web. The repeated scrolling up
and down made me seasick, but it was worth it.
Defect number two is that new items were inserted at random. Common sense
would dictate that new articles would appear at the top of the first
column,
make their way down the first column until the end, then appear at the top
of the second column. An alternative method would be that new articles
appeared at the top of any of the three columns and progressed downwards.
Instead, articles seem to be inserted randomly (a new article can appear
at the bottom of the third column) and their progression relies more upon
what mathematicians refer to as "drunkard's walk" than linear progression.
Defect number three is that Buzz has items advertising stuff he sells
appear as though they are links you have not followed. So no matter how
many times you click on a "Buzzflash Premium" it displays as though you
have never clicked on it beofre. Ummm, I looked at it. I wasn't
interested then and I'm not interested now. And I'm fucking pissed off
that you try to make me look yet again at it.
Defect number four is that "Buzzflash Premiums" not only appear to be
previously unfollowed, they do their own random walk amongst the new
articles. I consider this behaviour to be unethical, immoral and to
be treating me as a stupid piece of shit who will read adverts time
and time again until finally giving way. Since Buzz targets his site
against those who are intelligent, treating us like morons with his own
advertising can only annoy. If you want to use advertising that attracts
morons then create a site that praises the GOP.
Defect number five appeared yesterday. All links, no matter whether
you have followed them or not, look the same. In the past I could rely
on my browser to tell me what I'd read before and my memory and
intelligence
to tell me which of the unread links were Buzzflash adverts that I would
NEVER, EVER, follow and FUCK YOU BUZZFLASH FOR BEING SUCH ANNOYING
ARSEHOLE.
Now the entire site has become totally unusable unless you are willing to
reconfigure your browser each time you look at it to ignore the Buzzflash
colours (if your browser even lets you do that).
Fuck you, Buzzflash, you finally hit the limits of my patience. Although
you are good at selecting stories and good at editorializing, you are a
FUCKING MORON at advertising.
Brian dF
Wow, Brian!
Have you dropped a note to the good folks at
Buzzflash?
Wasn't aware of any changes there, but will check it out. Between the kid back in school, a new shift & new days off, I'm a bit behind (so what else is new?).
from Mark
Another Bumpersticker
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny, breezy day.
Rumor has it Larry-by-the-Sea knows poker. All right, Lar!
The local tv stations 'news' programs are spending a lot of time on Ahnold's campaign - more coverage than all the other 134 candidates & Gray Davis put together.
Then I realized how much advertising time Ahnold's bought. Guess they have to keep their new favorite cash-cow placated. Moooooo.
Tonight, Sunday, CBS starts the night, as usual, with '60 Minutes', followed by a RERUN 'Without A Trace', then a RERUN
movie, 'Out Of Sight'.
NBC opens the night with 'Dateline', followed by the RERUN 'Great Women Of Television Comedy', then
the FRESH 'Conan O'Brien's 10th Anniversary Special'.
ABC begins the evening with a 2-hour RERUN of 'America's Funniest Home Videos', followed by a RERUN 'Alias', then a RERUN
'The Practice'.
The WB offers a RERUN 'Steve Harvey's Big Time', followed by a FRESH 'Play For A Billion', a 2-hour Pepsi commercial in the guise of a game show.
Faux has the movie 'The Lost World: Jurassic Park'.
UPN has the weekly RERUN 'Enterprise', followed by 'Stargate SG-1'.
A&E has 'Columbo', 'Biography' (children of U.S. presidents), and 'Meet The Royals'.
AMC offers the movie 'Planet Of The Apes' followed by the documentary 'Behind The Planet Of The Apes'.
BBC -
[6pm] 'Monarch of the Glen' - Episode 3;
[7pm] 'Ground Force America' - Behind the Scenes;
[8pm] 'Faking It' - Sheep Shearer to Hairdresser;
[9pm] '3 Non-Blondes' - Episode 2;
[9:40pm] 'Coupling' - The Girl With One Heart;
[10:20pm] 'Manchild' - Episode 3;
[11pm] 'Faking It' - Sheep Shearer to Hairdresser;
[12am] '3 Non-Blondes' - Episode 2;
[12:40am] 'Coupling' - The Girl With One Heart;
[1:20am] 'Manchild' - Episode 3;
[2am] 'Ground Force America' - Behind the Scenes;
[3am] 'Faking It' - Sheep Shearer to HairdresserSheep Shearer to Hairdresser;
[4am] '3 Non-Blondes' - Episode 2;
[4:40am] 'Coupling' - The Girl With One Heart;
[5:20am] 'Manchild' - Episode 3; and
[6am] 'BBC World News'. (ALL TIMES EDT)
Bravo has 'Full Circle With Michael Palin', 'Inside The Actor's Studio' (John Goodman), then the movie 'Five Easy Pieces'.
HBO debuts 'K Street'.
History has 'Dead Reckoning', 'Hiroshima: The Decision To Drop The Bomb', 'Mail Call', another 'Mail Call', and 'Guts & Bolts'.
SciFi has 'Tales From The Crypt Presents Demon Knight', followed by 'Tales From The Crypt Presents Bordello Of Blood' (with another 'stellar' performance by Dennis Miller).
Tonight TCM offers one of my favorite off-beat films - Brewster McCloud (1970), directed by
Robert Altman, and starring
Bud Cort as Brewster McCloud, with
Sally Kellerman,
Michael Murphy,
William Windom,
Shelley Duvall,
Rene Auberjonois,
Stacy Keach,
John Schuck, and the one & only
Margaret Hamilton (yes, the 'Wicked Witch of the West' Margaret Hamilton).
[6am] 'My Man Godfrey' (1936);
[8am] 'The Bride Came C.O.D.' (1941);
[10am] 'Two Weeks With Love' (1950);
[12pm] 'Here Comes Mr. Jordan' (1941);
[2pm] 'It Started With A Kiss' (1959);
[4pm] 'Send Me No Flowers' (1964);
[6pm] 'Bringing Up Baby' (1938);
[8pm] 'Walk, Don't Run' (1966);
[10pm] 'The Grass Is Greener' (1960);
[12am] 'The Flying Fleet' (1928);
[1:30am] 'Brewster McCloud' (1970);
]3:30 am] 'Flying High' (1931); and
[5am] 'Don't Bet On Blondes' (1935). (ALL TIMES EDT)
Drumming icons, seated from left, Elvin Jones, Louis Bellson and Roy Haynes, and standing, Freddy Gruber, left, and Steve Gadd, gather at a reception prior to the 2003 Zildjian American Drummers Achievement Awards at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Saturday, Sept. 13, 2003. Gadd is the recipient of the 2003 award, which is given by cymbal maker Zildjian to honor musicians who have made extraordinary contributions to the art of drumming. Jones, Bellson and Haynes, who trace their roots to the birth of bebop and jazz, received the award in 1998.
Photo by Michael Dwyer
The Information One-Stop
Moose & Squirrel
Sold for Over $430,000
George Harrison's Guitar
The guitar played by George Harrison at the Beatles' last concert in 1969 fetched $434,750 in a Hollywood auction conducted live and online on Saturday.
The guitar, a custom-made Fender Rosewood Telecaster, was used by Harrison during the filming of the Beatles' movie "Let it Be."
Harrison also played it on Jan. 30, 1969 when the Beatles performed on the rooftop of Apple Records in London, the last time the group played together, said Bill Miller, a president of Odyssey Auctions based in Corono, California.
Harrison had given the guitar to musician Delaney Bramlett in December 1969.
George Harrison's Guitar
Very Recommended Reading
California Republicans
by R. Scott Moxley
Republicans have done a masterful job demonizing Gov. Gray Davis, but they've been suspiciously vague about how GOP control of the governor's mansion would clean up a political system corrupted by both major political parties. Sure, gubernatorial hopeful Tom McClintock is running TV commercials that ask voters to imagine a Republican victory and a state with "taxes low" and "jobs plentiful." But there's no need to imagine when you can check the record of a place so thoroughly dominated by Republicans that not a single Democrat has served on its five-member Board of Supervisors in two decades: Orange County.
Known as the original "Reagan Country" and home of fat-cat Republicans, OC should be a model of Republican Party principles at work. Here, you'd guess, taxes would be lowest, government most efficient and political corruption nonexistent.
McClintock and celebrity body-builder Arnold Schwarzenegger have promised new leadership while loading their campaigns with OC Republican advisors. But you won't hear any of these campaigns tout Orange County as an example of what the GOP can create without Democratic interference.
Why is Orange County the GOP's dirty little secret? Because, as conservative humorist P.J. O'Rourke once observed, "The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it." Consider:
SIZE OF GOVERNMENT. If government is the problem and not the solution—as Republican strategists say—how to explain OC's GOP-controlled government? The number of county bureaucrats is at an all-time high (17,000) and county spending has skyrocketed in the past decade by 42 percent to almost $5 billion.
FINANCIAL ACUMEN. Republicans blame Davis and the Democrats for not understanding money management, but Orange County is No. 1 when it comes to fiscal screw ups. The largest municipal bankruptcy in the world occurred here in December 1994, under the watch of an all-Republican Board of Supervisors. Betting on exotic Wall Street schemes with taxpayer dollars, they lost $1.7 billion almost overnight. Little has changed. Earlier this year, the county's planning department lost $24.5 million and, more recently, auditors "found" an unaccounted $40 million in various bank accounts.
For the rest, California Republicans
Former President Bill Clinton, center left, laughs with U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, before speaking at Harkin's annual steak fry, Saturday Sept. 13, 2003, in Indianola, Iowa. Looking on are Democratic presidential hopefuls Florida Sen. Bob Graham, left, and Ambassador Carol Moseley Braun, right.
Photo by Charlie Neibergall
Scientists Share Honor
Christopher Reeve
Actor Christopher Reeve, two scientists who discovered an arthritis therapy and a researcher who helped show how cells read their genes have won prestigious medical awards.
The prizes, from the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation, will be awarded Friday in New York. In the last 11 years, 15 scientists who received one have gone on to win a Nobel Prize.
Reeve, 50, will receive the Lasker public service award for "perceptive, sustained and heroic advocacy" for medical research and for disabled people.
Armed with star power and a sophisticated knowledge of medical research, Reeve has lobbied federal and state lawmakers on that topic while pursuing both a rigorous rehabilitation program and a career in acting and directing, the foundation said.
For more, Christopher Reeve
Lasker Foundation
Reeve foundation
Fred M. Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children's Media
St. Vincent College
St. Vincent College on Friday established The Fred M. Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children's Media, which will offer degree, certificate and continuing education programs for early childhood education and children's media.
Fred Rogers, the television pioneer whose "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" has been watched by generations of children, had been working with the Catholic liberal arts college to set up the center for about three years before he died.
The college plans to raise $10 million within the next five years for the center, which is funded in part with $1 million from the Heinz Endowments.
St. Vincent College
www.stvincent.edu
www.fredrogerscenter.org
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Five Hurt During Filming
'She Spies'
A moving car being filmed for a stunt in a television show went out of control and injured five crew members, authorities said Saturday.
Four people were in serious condition, Fire Department spokesman Bob Collis said. The other had minor injuries. None of the injuries was life-threatening, he said.
The accident occurred Friday in the Los Feliz area, northwest of downtown, during filming for the syndicated series "She Spies."
"The car was supposed to go backward about 45 mph and make a 180 (degree turn) and go in the other direction," actor Bob Lazar told KNBC-TV. "And the car instead of going in the other direction went sideways and hit the people who were filming."
'She Spies'
Actor Richard Thomas relives a moment from off the set of 'The Master of Ballantrae,' at a new exhibition at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills, which opened Friday, Sept. 12, 2003. The show, titled 'Imaging and Imagining: The Film World of Pat York,' features 150 photos of film figures taken over the past four decades.
Photo by Todd Wawrychuk
Heads to DVD
TMBG Documentary
An expanded edition of "Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns)," AJ Schnack's feature documentary about Brooklyn, N.Y.-based rock duo They Might Be Giants, is being readied for release on DVD.
The deluxe version of the film will include four-and-a-half hours of bonus material, including some of the band's video clips, performance footage, outtakes, deleted scenes and bonus interviews. The disc also will include feature commentary with TMBG's John Flansburgh and John Linnell as well as Schnack.
Music videos for "Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head," "Don't Let's Start," "(She Was a) Hotel Detective," "Ana Ng" and "Birdhouse in Your Soul" are tacked on to the DVD. Live footage includes a 1990 performance of "Birdhouse" on "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson," a 2001 in-store performance at Tower Records and three extra songs from a 2001 concert at Brooklyn's Warsaw club filmed exclusively for the documentary.
It also features actors Michael McKean, Andy Richter, Harry Shearer and Janeane Garafalo offering deadpan readings of TMBG lyric selections.
TMBG Documentary
Praises 'Passion' Clips
Vatican Official
A senior Vatican official who watched clips from Mel Gibson's controversial film "The Passion" offered enthusiastic praise Saturday for what he saw, despite concerns from Jewish groups that the movie will promote anti-Semitism.
U.S. Archbishop John P. Foley of the church's social-communications office said he hoped to show the film in the Vatican and said he doubted whether criticisms of the film were valid.
Gibson, an Academy Award-winning director, spent nearly $30 million to produce the movie, which is expected to be released in the spring. Gibson has defended his work as faithful to the Gospels and said it is intended "to inspire, not offend."
Gibson is a member of an ultraconservative Catholic movement that rejects the Vatican's authority over the church.
Vatican Official
Formerly 'The Vidiot'
Struggles with 'Heavy' Ballerina
Bolshoi
Moscow's Bolshoi Theater was embroiled in a high-profile row on Thursday with an ice-cream-loving ballerina it says is too heavy for ballet partners to lift.
Anastasia Volochkova, one of Russia's best-known ballerinas, says the theater telephoned her 12 hours before she was due to perform in Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" last week telling her not to turn up.
She told a news conference on Thursday she had been sacked.
But the prestigious theater denies dismissing her. It says it has offered her a new contract but cannot find her a partner for ballets which require lifting.
"None of the male soloists at the Bolshoi Theater agrees to dance with her, particularly in her current physical state," Bolshoi Theater director Anatoly Iskanov told Reuters.
Bolshoi
Sonam Tenzin, a Tibetan Buddhist monk from the Drepung Loseling Monestary in South India, constructs a mandala in colored sand near a portrait of the Dalai Lama at the Asia Society in New York, Saturday, Sept. 13, 2003. The Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, will visit New York for a series of lectures and workshops the week of Sept. 15-21. The mandala, which symbolizes the universe in its most devine perfect state, will take 10 days to create, at which time it will be dismantled.
Photo by Jennifer Szymaszek
Compares Himself to Bin Laden
R. Kelly
R. Kelly, who gained fame with songs such as "I Believe I Can Fly," now compares himself to Osama bin Laden.
The R&B singer was indicted last year on child pornography charges after a videotape purportedly showed him having sex with an underage girl. Kelly, who's free on bond, has denied the charges.
"People can say whatever they want about you without knowing the facts," Kelly tells Blender magazine in its October issue. "They can criticize you without even knowing you, and hate you when they don't even know you. All of a sudden, you're, like, the bin Laden of America. Osama bin Laden is the only one who knows exactly what I'm going through."
R. Kelly
Rahima, a small new born Angolan giraffe, stands in front of her mother on Friday, Sept. 12, 2003, at the zoo in Dortmund, Germany. Rahima, which means energy in the African language Swahili, was born last Friday. She had a hard start into life, when new born giraffe fall more than two meters, six feet from her mother to the ground.
Photo by Martin Meissner
'The Osbournes'
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