Garrison Keillor: The Christmas dividend
I've just come from Cambridge, Mass., that beehive of brilliance, where nerds don't feel self-conscious: There's always someone nerdier nearby.
Roger Ebert's Journal: The Twelve Gifts of Christmas
The problem with gifts is that you almost always give something you want for yourself. There are obvious exceptions, such as a woman giving a man a tie, but even then he is almost certain to receive the tie she thinks he should be wearing.
Paul Krugman: Pass the Bill (nytimes.com)
The current health care bill falls a long way short of ideal, but it is better than anything that seemed possible just a few years ago.
The grim reality of life as an air stewardess (timesonline.co.uk)
As public anger grows over British Airways's looming strike, Imogen Edwards-Jones says that it's no wonder cabin crew have had enough - the old days of job satisfaction and glamour are long gone.
Alan J was first, and correct, with:
Cote d'Ivoire
Marian the teacher answered:
The Netherlands
Charlie replied:
Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast, though they don't like to be called that), gets credit for 1.3 million tons, which is 37.4% of world production, and they also grow a lot of coffee.
MAM noted:
The West African country of Côte d'Ivoire produces the most cocoa beans.
Sally said:
Would you believe, we are having a full-blown blizzard tonight, here in the NYC area! We did the tourist sights this morning/early afternoon (Rockefeller Center Skating Rink, St Patrick's Cathedral, American Girl doll Store, etc.) and just about got the train home before the snow cometh in, full blast.
So, after much effort, I located today's BCE page on my daughter's laptop, making it the perfect winter night!
As for today's question, I believe that The continent that produces the most cocoa beans would have to be Africa.
PS: We shall try another venture tomorrow, so if I don't check in before, see you all on Monday :)
And, Joe S responded:
Ivory Coast.
Chocolate, it's not just for breakfast any more!
went to the grand opening of christmastown at busch gardens williamsburg va a couple of weeks ago.... this was the tree show i did not film it myself but found this on the net
CBS starts the night with '60 Minutes', followed by the SEASON FINALE'Survvivor: Samoa'
NBC fills the night with LIVE'Sunday Night Football', then pads the left coast with some or all of an old 'Monk', and maybe an old 'Dateline'.
ABC begins the night with a RERUN'America's So-Called Funniest Home Videos', followed by the movie 'the Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause', then a RERUN'Desperate Housewives'.
The CW fills the night with the movie 'Nicholas Nickleby'.
Faux has some LIVE football that runs late, so the left coast has a RERUN'Simpsons', followed by a RERUN'Cleveland', then a RERUN'Family Guy', followed by a RERUN'American Dad'.
MY has an old 'That 70s Show', followed by an old 'House', and another old 'House'.
A&E has 'Criminal Minds', another 'Criminal Minds', still another 'Criminal Minds', followed by a FRESH'The Jacksons: A Family Dynasty'.
AMC offers the movie 'National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation', followed by the movie 'A Christmas Carol', then the movie 'Prancer'.
BBC -
[12:00 PM] Britain's Missing Top Model - Episode 3
[1:00 PM] Top Gear Winter Olympics Special
[2:00 PM] Top Gear - Episode 7
[3:00 PM] Great Natural Wonders of the World
[4:00 PM] The Life of Mammals - Meat Eaters
[5:00 PM] The Life of Mammals - A Winning Design
[6:00 PM] The Life of Mammals - Return to the Water
[7:00 PM] The Life of Mammals - Social Climbers
[8:00 PM] Arthur (120)
[10:00 PM] Eddie Izzard: Circle
[11:00 PM] Arthur (120)
[1:00 AM] Eddie Izzard: Circle
[2:00 AM] Calendar Girls
[4:00 AM] Eddie Izzard: Circle
[5:00 AM] BBC World News
[6:00 AM] BBC World News (ALL TIMES EST)
Bravo has all 'Law & Order: Criminal Intent' all night.
Comedy Central has the movie 'Napoleon Dynamite', followed by the movie 'American Pie', then the movie 'National Lampoon's Van Wilder'.
FX has the movie 'The Family Stone', followed by the movie 'The Devil Wears Prada'.
History has 'Gangland', another 'Gangland', followed by the FRESH'Sniper: Inside The Crosshairs'.
IFC -
[6:45 AM] Waking Ned Devine
[8:20 AM] La Lecon de Danse
[8:30 AM] Pizza
[10:00 AM] Johnny Gaddaar
[12:20 PM] La Lecon de Danse
[12:30 PM] Flakes
[2:00 PM] Waking Ned Devine
[3:35 PM] Pizza
[5:00 PM] Flakes
[6:30 PM] Wassup Rockers
[8:15 PM] Drugstore Cowboy
[10:00 PM] Arrested Development
[10:30 PM] Arrested Development
[11:00 PM] Good Guys Wear Black
[12:45 AM] Ripley's Game
[2:45 AM] Drugstore Cowboy
[4:30 AM] Good Guys Wear Black (ALL TIMES EST)
Sundance -
[06:35 AM] Marvelous
[08:05 AM] Lemon Tree
[10:00 AM] E2: Design I - 106
[10:30 AM] Carbon Cops: Episode 6
[11:00 AM] How To Cook Your Life
[12:35 PM] Aloha, New York
[01:00 PM] Iconoclasts - Season 3: Howard Schultz + Norman Lear
[02:00 PM] Man Shops Globe: Man Shops Globe - 103
[02:30 PM] Everything's Gone Green
[04:05 PM] Blame It On Fidel!
[05:45 PM] The Tonto Woman
[06:30 PM] Opening Night
[09:00 PM] Neko Case, Sheryl Crow, Ron Sexsmith, Jesse Winchester
[10:00 PM] Lemon Sky
[11:45 PM] Helmer & Son
[12:00 AM] Oldboy
[02:00 AM] I Really Hate My Job
[03:30 AM] Zift
[05:15 AM] Opening Night (ALL TIMES EST)
SyFy has the movie 'The Skeleton Key', followed by the movie 'Dominion: Prequel To The Exorcist'.
Radio host Howard Stern and his wife, Beth Ostrosky, talk while attending an NBA basketball game between the New York Knicks and Los Angeles Clippers, on Friday, Dec. 18, 2009, in New York.
Photo by Kathy Kmonicek
Chihuahuas have been flying out of California since other states learned about the glut of little dogs in the Golden State.
A group of 25 dogs has already arrived at the Humane Society for Greater Nashua in New Hampshire, thanks to "Grey's Anatomy" actress Katherine Heigl, Kinder4Rescue in Studio City and American Airlines.
A group of 43 will leave for New Hampshire Monday or Tuesday, said Kathy Davis, interim general manager of Los Angeles Animal Services, who took part in a news conference Friday to announce Project Flying Chihuahua. They were supposed to leave Saturday morning, but bad weather in the east caused a delay, she said.
Heigl's foundation has paid the discounted airfare for all 68 dogs so far, she added, and new donors for more flights were being sought.
Virgin America will be flying a group of Chihuahuas to New York City from San Francisco on Tuesday, said Gail Buchwald, senior vice president overseeing the ASPCA adoption center in New York City.
A Rembrandt painting that sold for a record $33.2 million last week at Christie's in London was bought by U.S. casino mogul Steve Wynn, The New York Times reported on Friday, citing sources familiar with the transaction.
Christie's is not disclosing the identity of the winning telephone bidder for the 1658 "Portrait of a Man, Half-Length, With His Arms Akimbo," a spokesman said.
The price set an auction record for a work by Rembrandt, Christie's said.
Before the pre-auction exhibition at Christie's, the Rembrandt portrait had not been seen in public for nearly 40 years.
British singer Ian Gillan from the group Deep Purple, performs with the St. Petersburg Academic Choir Symphonic orchestra conducted by Friedemann Riehle, at the Music House in Moscow, Friday, Dec. 18, 2009.
The theme park announced plans Friday to bring back the 3-D sci-fi film starring Michael Jackson next February, over 23 years after the attraction debuted in Anaheim, Calif. The 17-minute film starred the late King of Pop as a singing-and-dancing intergalactic commander. It was directed by Francis Ford Coppola and executive produced by George Lucas.
In the film, Jackson leads a goofy alien and robot crew as they battle a wicked queen played by Anjelica Huston. "Captain EO" originally opened in Disneyland's Tommorrowland in 1986 and ran for more than a decade. Identical versions later opened at other Disney theme parks. They were all closed by 1998.
A billboard sponsored by a local Anglican church that shows Joseph and Mary in bed has set tongues wagging in New Zealand, with the Catholic Church condemning it as others found it funny.
The controversial billboard, erected by St Matthew-in-the-City Church in Auckland, shows a dejected-looking Joseph under bedcovers beside a sad Mary. Underneath the image, a caption reads: "Poor Joseph. God is a hard act to follow."
Church archdeacon Glynn Cardy said the billboard was intended to lampoon the literal interpretation of the Christmas conception story and highlight the real significance of the festival.
"What we're trying to do is to get people to think more about what Christmas is all about," Cardy told local media.
"Is it about a spiritual male God sending down sperm so a child would be born, or is it about the power of love in our midst as seen in Jesus?"
A humanoid robot, developed to get students interested in robotics, walks during an unveiling event in Miyashiro, north of Tokyo December 19, 2009. The 126cm-tall (50-inch) robot runs on Microsoft Robotic Developer Studio, and was developed by ZMP Inc and Nippon Institute of Technology.
Photo by Toru Hanai
The Austrian company that was organizing a global Michael Jackson tribute in London said Friday it is being dissolved and will not be able to put on a star-studded show in honor of the King of Pop.
The company - now officially known as World Awards Media GmbH in Liquidation - said in a statement that the decision to dissolve the firm was made at the end of November. The statement did not provide any details but liquidator Martin Schneider said the main sponsor had decided to no longer financially support it.
Former chief promoter Georg Kindel told the Austria Press Agency that he did not know if Jackson's brother Jermaine would go ahead with the concert - set for London in the first half of June 2010 - on his own.
Jackson and Kindel had initially said they would stage the tribute outside Vienna's Schoenbrunn Palace on Sept. 26 but moved it to London's Wembley Stadium after running into problems.
At an early September news conference, they said too many top performers had scheduling conflicts, and blamed the media for stirring up a negative atmosphere. Jackson had previously said that Vienna was picked as a venue because his brother "loved castles."
A worker polishes an ice sculpture before the Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival in Harbin, Heilongjiang province, December 18, 2009. The 26th Ice and Snow Festival will kick off on January 5, 2010, local media reported. Picture taken December 18, 2009.
Photo by Sheng Li
Tiger Woods lost backing from his third major sponsor in a week Friday when Swiss watchmaker Tag Heuer revealed it is dropping the golf star from US advertising campaigns in the wake of his sex scandal.
In a move that follows consulting firm Accenture ending a six-year deal with Woods, Tag Heuer chief executive Jean-Christophe Babin told Swiss newspaper Le Matin his firm will not use Woods images in US ads for the foreseeable future.
"We recognize Tiger Woods as a great sportsman but we have to take account of the sensitivity of some consumers in relation to recent events," Babin told the newspaper.
The company, a unit of French luxury goods empire LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, will continue to back Woods's charity foundation, Babin said.
An image of swan is projected on a screen created by a water fountain during a press preview of "Odaiba water illumination" show in Tokyo December 18, 2009. The 15 minutes show, which projects images on a 15 meters (49 feet) tall and 40 meters (131 wide) water screen, will be held from December 21 to January 11, 2010.
Photo by Yuriko Nakao
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.
noted:
