JK Rowling read a dying girl her unpublished Harry Potter story so that she would know what happened before she passed away.

The child died on page 347 of the 1100 page masterwork called Harry Potter and the 20 Pound Novel.

"Administration Cites Spelling Mistakes On Pages 4,482 and 11,549 As Grounds For Attack"
After days of meticulously analyzing Saddam Hussein's 12,000-page declaration of arms, the Bush administration believes it has discovered the grounds on which a United States-led attack of Iraq would be justified.

- The Chortler -

Halfway down this page you'll find a history of the dictionary definition of fascism, showing how the writers kept deliberately refining the definition, removing all references to it being a capitalist system in order to prevent people from perceiving it as a description of the USA.

Big Brother would love smart billboards. 

After police searched through a suspect's garbage, removed a used tampon, and sent it to a lab for drug testing, Portland's top brass said it was OK to swipe garbage, so a crack newsteam from Willamette Week grabbed theirs.

"U.S. Had Key Role in Iraq Buildup"
Trade in Chemical Arms Allowed Despite Their Use on Iranians, Kurds 
- The Washington Post -

Last Friday, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, and, you guessed it, Afghanistan, signed an agreement for the U.S. to build a $3.2 billion gas pipeline project passing through the three countries, but it's got nothing to do with oil.

Close to half the incoming members of Congress are millionaires and many will face votes that could affect their financial holdings.

Michael Henderson only needs $5 billion to build a moon-themed hotel and casino in Las Vegas. 

Some Israelis killed some Palestinians and some Palestinians killed some Israelis.

Jack Black's Lord of the Rings was taken down from wherever I said it was, so I've reposted it here because you need a laugh.

My GOP Wish List - A Republican agenda in five easy pieces by Newt Gingrich (free but requires registration)

The funniest George W. Bush video of the week. 

Lie, Cheat, and Steal

Still the mouth that roars, Meria Heller.

Marc Maron's napkins are funnier than yours.

The U.N. says Iraq will need $37 million in aid after the war.

Just become an airport security man.

Yes, it's the wonderful world of Jobless Recovery.

"First, we would certainly deploy one carrier and probably two into the theater. Heavy bombers based on Guam would participate. We also have substantial air assets in Okinawa and in South Korea itself, and there will be large numbers of uncommitted air units remaining in CONUS would could be deployed to the theater if need be. (If necessary, we could activate ANG squadrons, but there will be regular Air Force squadrons available as well.) Okinawa is not ideally placed to support a war in Korea, but there are plenty of excellent airfields in Kyushu, and I think that the Japanese government would permit their use. A new outbreak of combat in South Korea would be something that Japan would greatly fear, and there can be no question that it would actively help."
- blogger Steven Dan Beste on how we'll fight the war in Korea -

    Though Grape Nuts contain no grapes or nuts, Coca Cola is called Coca Cola because it is flavored with coca and cola. When they removed cocaine from the formula, they did not remove the coca, just the cocaine. It is still flavored with de-cocainized coca. 
    This week, Bolivia’s undersecretary of Social Defense, Ernesto Justiniano, reported that his office had authorized the exportation of 350,000 bricks (about 159 tons) of coca leaf to the United States “for the manufacturing of the soft drink, Coca-Cola.” Since the cocaine must be removed from those leaves, there is little doubt that truckloads of pure cocaine leave the Coca Cola syrup processing plant every day.
    Ask the Coca Cola company what happens to that cocaine and they will tell you it is used for legal pharmaceutical purposes, but when's the last time your dentist prescribed cocaine for your toothache? Doctors NEVER prescribe cocaine, even though it's the best local painkiller in existence, because they would have to report the transaction to the government. Too much paperwork. Coca Cola also claim that cocaine was never an ingredient in Coca Cola, clearly a lie that's easily disproved by simply looking at their ads before 1903. 
    So what happens to all those truckloads of cocaine? Can you say CIA? Can you say crack epidemic?

THE COCA-COLA RECIPE 
1 oz. citrate caffeine
1 oz. vanilla
2½ oz. flavoring *
4 oz. fluid extract of coca
3 oz. citric acid
1 qt. lime juice
30 lbs. sugar
2½ gal. water
caramel
* orange, lemon, nutmeg, cinnamon, coriander, neroli oils, alcohol, and crack

What the Rest of the World Thinks of Us

Insane E-Mail of the Week

"George W. Bush gets credit for a very good year as president. His vision has been clear; his commitment to fight terrorism has not wavered; and his redefinition of America's foreign policy doctrines will change the way the world thinks about international aggression. The Cheney-Rumsfeld-Powell-Rice team has helped Mr. Bush in just two years in office join a small group of outstanding foreign-policy leaders--Churchill, Reagan and Thatcher--in leading the world to a better understanding of what it means to be free, and how freedom must be defended."
- Pete Du Pont -

...who writes these damn things?
 

Dear Doc Hollywood,:. 

Happy New Year!

I am a screenwriter from B.C.  I have been writing for a number of years along with working as a nurse and coroner. (great fodder for writing).   Some years ago I had a number of options but have not had time to write and market as much as I like.  I have a number of solid producers who will read my work.  It is incredibly frustrating to come so close.

Is perseverance the answer?  I also managed to pitch to a popular 1 hour show a few years ago that since became really successful.  They will still talk to me from time to time but I'm still not making any headway. Is there hope in keeping going?  How long is reasonable to keep up the fight?

Charleen 

Charleen,

Thank you for braving time and space to contact me.

Allow me to tell you how I ended up writing for Animaniacs...

As a film critic for the LA Weekly, I was voted in as a member of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. One year we gave our Best Picture award to Schindler's List, which meant that Steven Spielberg joined us for a private luncheon to receive his award. Of course I didn't get to sit at his table. I was stuck at a table in back with the unknown actor we were giving the award for best supporting actor to, a punk kid named Leonardo DiCaprio whom I had nothing to say to. 

After lunch, I went up to Spielberg and mentioned that as much as I liked Schindler's List, my favorite creation of his that year was the TV show Animaniacs. He loved this and we ended up talking a bit about the show. I was pleased to find out that his involvement with the show was very "hands on," and that he personally approved of every script before it went into production.

Finally, he told me that the reason I like the show so much was because it was written by guys like me. I said I'd love to try to write for the show, and he told me the name of the guy to call, Tom Ruegger. 

I called Tom Ruegger a half dozen times and he never got back to me, despite the fact my messages said that Steven Spielberg told me to call. 

Then, months later, in a miraculous fluke of serendipity, I got a call from one of the editors of Daily Variety asking me to do a piece on children's television. They gave me a list of people they wanted me to interview, and one of them was Tom Ruegger. This time I called him saying I was a writer from Variety wanting to interview him for an article, and THAT got me in his office. 

After the interview, I mentioned the Spielberg story, and he told me to get in touch with the headwriter of the show, Peter Hastings. Six months and a dozen phone calls later, I still hadn't gotten into Hasting's office. 

At a party for the opening of a film, I happened to meet a show biz attorney, and I told him my Animaniacs story. He told me that HE could get me in, but only after I signed a contract with him agreeing to give him a percentage of anything I would make. I signed and he finally got me a meeting with Hastings, though he told me later that it even took HIM more than half a dozen calls to get me the appointment. 

Once in Hasting's office, it became clear that he was one of the most creative people on earth (he now runs Disney's One Saturday Morning), that he was thoroughly capable of writing every single Animaniacs himself, and that who needed me. I persisted. I pitched idea after idea. Half of them they were already doing, which was actually good since it showed we thought alike. Other people came in and out of the office to do important business on that week's show. I didn't leave. I just kept pitching and pitching and pitching until he looked at me like he couldn't believe I was still in his office. Finally he said he'd let me know and I left. 

Three months later I called the attorney and asked if he'd heard anything. He said no but he'd give them a call. He called me back ten minutes later to tell me that two months ago they had decided to buy several of my ideas but had neglected to get back to me. I had an appointment the next day with Hastings to go over the scripts they were hiring me to write. This was close to one year after my meeting with Spielberg.

I wrote the scripts, they were accepted, I got paid, the attorney got his percentage, then the show was canceled before any of my scripts got made.

Is perseverance the answer? Fuckin' A. You've crossed the first major hurdle that 99% of Hollywood hopefuls trip over, you've actually gotten somebody to pay attention to you. Be ruthless. If you're working in a coroner's office and you've got the ear of somebody at Crossing Jordan, call the bastard EVERY SINGLE WEEK with a couple of new stories. Make it so they expect your call every Monday. Make it so if they don't get your call, they wonder what the hell happened to you. Eventually they'll get so sick of you that they'll ask you to please go away, or you'll actually hit on a premise they haven't thought of and you'll make a sale.

MD

Calling all Screenwriters and Filmmakers

For cheap used equipment, go here.

Send your questions to "Ask Dr. Hollywood" at disinfotainment@earthlink.net

 

WHO’S GOING TO HELL THIS WEEK?

by Helen A. Handbasket

You never know who’s going to trade their soul away or what they’re going to get for it unless you’re Helen A. Handbasket, ex-executive chief in charge of operations for the burning flames of hellfire. Who are her sources? Wouldn’t you like to know? Sorry, all communications are confidential and the property of Helen A. Handbasket, whose opinions do not necessarily reflect those of this or any other publication. 

December 30, 2002

UNDO THE COUP
Satan for President in 2004

BELATED CHRISTMAS GIFT FROM HELL

Mr. President Head

JUSTICE FROM HELL

A millionaire won the biggest lottery in U.S. history.

QUIZ FROM HELL

Why did America tear out 8000 pages of the Iraq dossier?

a) because it was boring.
b) because it exposed American corporate ties to Iraq.
c) so JK Rowlings could read it to a dying child.

HISTORY LESSON FROM HELL

Prior to 9/11/01, more than twice as many FBI agents were assigned to fighting drugs than fighting terrorism. 

The only death sentence George W. Bush ever commuted while Governor of Texas was serial killer Henry Lee Lucas.
 

SATAN DOESN'T WANT YOU TO KNOW

A small piece of bread in your cookie jar will keep your cookies crispy.

SATAN DIDN'T WANT YOU TO KNOW

If you'd bought the following stocks two months ago, here's how much you would have made: Art Technology 176% gain, Kana Software 204% gain, Priceline 72% gain, Navisite 206% gain, Viisage Tech 90% gain, Visionics 41% gain, Amazon.com 38% gain, Copper Mtn 54% gain, Entrada 56% gain, ICGE 118% gain, Internap Network 33% gain, iVillage 36% gain, Niku Corp 54% gain, Scient 50% gain, and Fidelity Select Gold  59.9% gain.

QUOTES FROM HELL

One of these statements was never made.

"I want to see the proof of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before we engage in a war that will send tens of thousands of civilians to their deaths, enrage the Muslim world against us, grievously wound the American economy, and guarantee more terrorism here at home. I am sure the Bush administration's incontrovertible proof that these weapons exist is a sheaf of shipping manifests from roundabout 1984, when we sent the stuff to Saddam in the first place, but I want to see it anyway."
- William Rivers Pitt: All I Want for Christmas -

"These are the times that try men's souls."
- Thomas Paine -

"These are the souls that try men's ties."
- GQ -

"A neo-conservative Washington-based organization known as the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), funded by three foundations closely tied to Persian Gulf oil and weapons and defense industries, drafted the war plan for U.S. global domination through military power. One of the organization’s documents clearly shows that Bush and his most senior cabinet members had already planned an attack on Iraq before he took power in January 2001."
- Christopher Bollyn: America "Pearl Harbored" -

"It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation."
— Herman Melville -

"Years ago, my mother gave me a bullet, and I put it in my breast pocket. Two years after that, I was walking down the street, when a berserk evangelist heaved a Gideon bible out a hotel room window, hitting me in the chest. The bible would have gone through my heart if it wasn't for the bullet."
- Woody Allen -

"Bush is unusually incurious, abnormally unintelligent, amazingly inarticulate, fantastically uncultured, extraordinarily uneducated, and apparently quite proud of all these things."
- Christopher Hitchens -

“Saddam Hussein is a creep and besides, it would be fun.”
- Don Imus on why we should go to war with Iraq -

"To promote their wars and imperialistic agenda, Bush and company continue to deceive the populous with the inevitable, unsubstantiated propaganda and demonization of their quarry. This administration’s unilateralistic arrogance is now supported by manipulated and misguided patriots. This ploy has worked time and time again throughout history, while the peace advocates are castigated and dismissed as unpatriotic and dangerous. Mark Twain said, 'History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes.' Well, I’ve heard this rhyme before and I’m ashamed and embarrassed for myself and all Americans."
- Randolph Branch: For the Love of War and the Cowboy Kill -

"But what really struck me as so absurd about the statement [from Patty Murray] was the notion that bin Laden has built day-care centers. Just think about that! There are no day-care centers in an Islamist society, except the built-in day-care center that every family has – the mother. The idea that Islamists would build day-care centers to permit women to work is one of the reasons I was so sure Murray was the subject of a hoax. But no. She wasn't kidding. She really said these words. And she really meant them."
- Joseph Farah -

"If we're all God's children, what's so special about Jesus?"
- Jimmy Carr -

"One thing I can give George W. Bush, he is at least smarter than anyone who voted for him."
- Rack Jite -

"How should a small country feel when it is told that it is all but part of forces of evil of biblical proportions and should be fought against until total annihilation?"
- Georgy Mamedov, Russia's deputy foreign minister blaming George W. Bush for the Korean nuclear crisis -

"We must not completely forget that Osama bin Laden may not actually exist — except in the minds of war publicists. It is already a virtual certainty that this dreaded al-Qaeda bunch is actually a department of the U.S. CIA, designed to wreak fake terror in order to facilitate more oppressive laws to keep the unruly population in check. 
    And right now the United States is making war, right in front of our noses, in more than a dozen countries, and on the wrong side of honor and justice — against the rights of the people — in every single case. Land of the free and the home of the brave? Shit! Land of the duped and home of the chickenshit chickenhawks! The big one is not really Afghanistan or Iraq — it's Colombia, where rapidly increasing numbers of U.S. troops are preparing for action next door in Venezuela, but also in Ecuador, Peru and Brazil, all countries in which people-power movements have broken out."
- John Kaminski: The New Resistance -

"The only path to ending narco-trafficking is drug legalization: that is to say, the regulation of its production and sale." 
- from An Interview with Gustavo de Greiff, former ambassador and Attorney General of Colombia -

"2002's Most Suspicious Coincidence: George W. Bush's prostate examination and the search for Dick Cheney's missing Rolex." 
- L.A. Weekly -

"The goals for this country are peace in the world. And the goals for this country are a compassionate American for every single citizen."
- George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Dec. 19, 2002 -

"You haven't lost your freedoms, you've gained limits on your civil liberties."
- Stephen Colbert -

"It isn't the things we don't know that get us in trouble. It's the things we know that aren't so."
- Artemus Ward -

"I think there is very compelling evidence that at least some of the terrorists were assisted not just in financing - although that was part of it - by a sovereign foreign government and that we have been derelict in our duty to track that down, make the further case, or find the evidence that would indicate that that is not true and we can look for other reasons why the terrorists were able to function so effectively in the United States. It will become public at some point when it's turned over to the archives, but that's 20 or 30 years from now."
- Senator Bob Graham on PBS -

"It was not by making yourself heard but by staying sane that you carried on the human heritage."
- George Orwell: 1984 -

"Knowing that the other person is angry,
one who remains mindful and calm
acts for his own best interest
and for the other's interest, too."
- Buddha -

"Did I say truth and humor? I meant lies and sarcasm."
- Mike Jasper -

ANOTHER BELATED CHRISTMAS GIFT FROM HELL

Sex Toys - The Connecting Toy for Adults

BUDGET FROM HELL

Number of seniors who will be cut off meal programs because of Bush budget: 36,000. 

Number of families who will be cut off of heating assistance because of the Bush budget: 532,000. 

Number of homeless kids who will be cut off of education programs because of Bush budget: 8,000. 

Number of kids who will be cut off of after-school programs because of the Bush budget: 50,000. 

Number of kids who will be cut off of child care because of Bush budget: 33,000. 

Number of workers who will be cut off of unemployment insurance on Dec. 28 because of Bush budget: 800,000. 

- Molly Ivins -

REWRITE FROM HELL

God Bless America (Iraqi version)
with apologies to Irving Berlin and Kate Smith, 
though you should certainly picture Kate Smith singing it.

God bless America
Land I distrust
They'll destroy us
Annoy us
Turn us all into powdery dust

From your hot dogs
to your burgers
and your milkshakes
white with foam
God Bless America
The fast food king
God bless America
Of thee I sing

God bless America
all through the day
I ignore it
I'm for it
Just as long as it stays far away

From your A-bombs
and your drone planes
to your blowjobs
white with foam
God bless America
The place I fear
God bless America
Just watch your rear

SITES FROM HELL

Mandatory reading: Jon Rappaport writes about the root of the problem, and Unhappily ever aftermath, or I didn't have to do a year end wrap-up because I couldn't do it any better than Barry Crimmins.

Roger Masters has discovered a correlation between the presence of silicofluorides in the water supplies of Massachusetts towns - as a result of intentional fluoridation - and elevated levels of lead in the blood of children.

Money from tobacco settlements that was supposed to be used to fight smoking is being reinvested in Big Tobacco.

Rhawn Joseph believes there is a neurological, even genetic, explanation for religious belief and spiritual experience.

Gee, I wonder why Dick Cheney stopped poor countries from getting cheap drugs?

The world needs a practical guide for lie detection, or it doesn't, depending upon if I'm telling the truth.

This incredibly useful site converts any measurement to any other measurement.

Limpfish is a blog where people post a lot of very funny pictures.

Microsoft is completely pulling the plug on Windows 95, so if that's what you've got, you're up shit creek, and very soon, without a paddle.

There's a 500 pound gorilla missing from Judicial Watch's list of the dozen most corrupt people in politics today.

Get Rael. (insert clone joke here)

Don't miss the 2002 Year-End Google Zeitgeist.

Stop global warming and see the Rolling Stones.

The United States REALLY didn't let Santa cross the border.

The White Rose Society is fighting the rise of the new fascism.

NASA has films of UFOs they don't want you to know about.

Beyond God and the Devil, beyond material matter and thought, there is THE ALL.

Joshua Micah Marshall explains why the myth of Republican competence persists, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

Oh, by the way, no need to be paranoid or anything, but the next major terrorist attacks will probably hit our country as soon as we attack Iraq, maybe in the next few weeks, so why not be prepared?