Site Map

JIM HENSON'S MUPPET ADVENTURE -- CHAOS OF THE CARNIVAL

Muppets Holding Company
by Wikipedia

The Muppets Holding Company, LLC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of media conglomerate The Walt Disney Company, formed in 2004 through the acquiring of The Muppets and Bear in the Big Blue House characters from The Jim Henson Company.

Since the mid-1980s, Jim Henson had been in talks with Disney CEO Michael Eisner to sell Disney the Muppets. He and other Muppet performers had secretly filmed tutorials for Disney animators, entertainers and Imagineers on the matter of how to properly operate a Muppet, and many Muppet producers were already preparing for the transfer. On August 28, 1989, the two announced a deal for Disney to buy Henson Associates and all of its characters, excluding those featured on "Sesame Street." The deal fell through several months after Jim Henson's untimely death in 1990, largely due to clashes between the Henson family and Disney attorneys. Following several legal battles, the theme park attraction, Jim Henson's MuppetVision 3D, opened at the Disney-MGM Studios in May 1991.

Disney CEO Michael Eisner remained interested in Henson for many years. It was only until 2003 that negotiations were finally re-opened after the Henson family bought The Jim Henson Company back from EM.TV, to whom they had sold the company in 2000. Michael Eisner officially announced the purchase of the Muppets characters from The Jim Henson Co. in February 2004, and the first Muppets movie under complete Disney control (several Muppets movies had been made before with the help of Walt Disney Pictures), The Muppets' Wizard of Oz, went into production immediately and aired on ABC in May 2005.

When Eisner stepped down and new Disney CEO Robert Iger succeeded him, one of the first things Iger did the day after becoming CEO was remove the head of the Muppets Holding Company and several senior staff, who Eisner had personally hand-picked himself when the Muppets became Disney property in April 2004, and who had travelled with the Muppets from Jim Henson to Walt Disney through the purchase. Many see this as a demonstration of Iger's power to the public and to Eisner. The Company has also been holding open auditions across North America for Muppet performers working in Disney theme parks, the Disney Cruise Line and television and motion picture projects. The Muppets Holding Company operates as a division of Disney Consumer Products.
 

Disney's Board Interlocked With Defense Contractors, Energy Cos.
by leveymg

DAILY KOS

Fri Sep 08, 2006 at 10:35:48 AM PDT

So, who do you think runs Disney, anyway? Boeing, among others.

Members of Disney's Board also sit on other big companies. That makes Disney "interlocked" with, among other huge multinationals, Boeing, and Edison Electric. Until recently, a Halliburton Board Member also directed Disney.

So, why should anyone be surprised that ABC is going to run GOP propaganda? After all, the Bush Admin. and the Republican Party are also wholly-owned by the same companies.

Dig out your dog-eared copy of C. Wright Mills The Power Elites, because these guys are the real thing. As CBS owner Sumner Redstone explains below, unlike most Americans, big media behaves politically with rational self-interest -- in other words, even the "liberal media" will betray principle to make or save a buck. Isn't that a lot like how advertising, or, increasingly, the network news departments work?

Now, let's take a look at the corporate profile of the four, major broadcast TV networks in America: ABC; CBS; NBC; and, FOX.

They're a dying industry, but they're part of something that's still enormously powerful.

ABC

ABC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Disney Corporation. Here's the corporate biography of the Disney Board. http://corporate.disney.go.com/

John E. Bryson
Director since 2000
Mr. Bryson, 62, has served as Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer of Edison International, the parent company of Southern California Edison, an electric utility, since 1990. He is also a director of The Boeing Company and a director/trustee for three funds in the Western Asset funds complex.

John S. Chen
Director since 2004
Mr. Chen, 50, has been Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President of Sybase, Inc., a software developer, since November 1998. From February 1998 through November 1998, he served as co-Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Chen joined Sybase in August 1997 as Chief Operating Officer and served in that capacity until February 1998. From March 1995 to July 1997, Mr. Chen was President of the Open Enterprise Computing Division, Siemens Nixdorf, a computer and electronics company, and Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Siemens Pyramid, a subsidiary of Siemens Nixdorf.

Judith L. Estrin
Director since 1998
Ms. Estrin, 51, is President and Chief Executive Officer of Packet Design, LLC, a company that she co-founded in May 2000 to develop networking technology. Ms. Estrin served as Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President of Cisco Systems Inc., a developer of hardware and software to link computer systems, from 1998 until April 2000, and as President and Chief Executive Officer of Precept Software, Inc., a developer of networking software of which she was co-founder, from 1995 until its acquisition by Cisco in 1998. She is also a director of FedEx Corporation, an international provider of transportation and delivery services.

Robert A. Iger
Director since 2000
Robert A. Iger, 54, has served as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Company since October 2005, having previously served as President and Chief Operating Officer since January 2000 and as President of Walt Disney International and Chairman of the ABC Group from 1999 to January 2000. From 1974 to 1998, Mr. Iger held a series of increasingly responsible positions at ABC, Inc. and its predecessor Capital Cities/ABC, Inc., culminating in service as President of the ABC Network Television Group from 1993 to 1994 and President and Chief Operating Officer of ABC, Inc. from 1994 to 1999. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City.

Steve Jobs
Director since 2006
Mr. Jobs, 51, is Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors of Apple Computer, Inc. Prior to Pixar's merger with the Company, he was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Pixar since 1986.

Fred H. Langhammer
Director since 2005
Fred H. Langhammer, 62, is Chairman, Global Affairs, of The Estée Lauder Companies Inc., a manufacturer and marketer of cosmetics products. Prior to being named Chairman, Global Affairs, Mr. Langhammer was Chief Executive Officer of The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. from 2000 to 2004, President from 1995 to 2004 and Chief Operating Officer from 1985 through 1999. Mr. Langhammer joined The Estée Lauder Companies in 1975 as President of its operations in Japan. In 1982, he was appointed Managing Director of its operations in Germany. He is also a director of The Shinsei Bank Limited.

Aylwin B. Lewis
Director since 2004
Aylwin B. Lewis, 51, is President and Chief Executive Officer of Sears Holdings Corporation, a nationwide retailer. Prior to being named Chief Executive Officer of Sears in September 2005, Mr. Lewis was President of Sears Holdings and Chief Executive Officer of KMart and Sears Retail following Sears' acquisition of KMart Holding Corporation in March 2005. Prior to that acquisition, Mr. Lewis had been President and Chief Executive Officer of KMart since October 2004. Prior to that, Mr. Lewis was Chief Multibranding and Operating Officer of YUM! Brands, Inc., a franchisor and licensor of quick service restaurants including KFC, Long John Silvers, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and A&W, from 2003 until October 2004, Chief Operating Officer of YUM! Brands from 2000 until 2003 and Chief Operating Officer of Pizza Hut from 1996. Mr. Lewis is also a director of Sears Holdings Corporation and Halliburton Co.

Monica C. Lozano
Director since 2000
Monica C. Lozano, 49, is Publisher and Chief Executive Officer of La Opinión, the largest Spanish-language newspaper in the United States, and Senior Vice President of its parent company, ImpreMedia, LLC. In addition, Ms. Lozano is a member of the Board of Regents of the University of California and a trustee of the University of Southern California. She is a trustee of SunAmerica Asset Management Corporation and a director of the California Health Care Foundation.

Robert W. Matschullat
Director since 2002
Robert W. Matschullat, 58, a private equity investor, served from October 1995 until June 2000 as Vice Chairman of the board of directors of The Seagram Company Ltd., a global company with entertainment and beverage operations. He also served as Chief Financial Officer of Seagram until January 2000. Prior to joining Seagram, Mr. Matschullat was head of worldwide investment banking for Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated, a securities and investment firm, and was on the Morgan Stanley Group board of directors. He is the Presiding Director of the Board of Directors of The Clorox Company, a consumer products company, and a director of McKesson Corporation.

George J. Mitchell
Director since 1995
George J. Mitchell, 72, has served as Chairman of the Board of the Company since March 2004 and is Chairman of the law firm of DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary LLP. He previously served as Chairman of the law firm of Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson & Hand in Washington, D.C., which merged with Piper Rudnick in October 2002. He served as a United States Senator from 1980 to 1995, and was Senate Majority Leader from 1989 to 1995. He is a director of Staples, Inc., an office supply company. He has also served as Chairman of the Peace Negotiations in Northern Ireland and the International Fact-Finding Committee on Violence in the Middle East.

Leo J. O'Donovan, S.J.
Director since 1996
Leo J. O'Donovan, S.J., 71, is President Emeritus of Georgetown University, having served as President of the University from 1989 until 2001. He is a Professor of Theology at Georgetown University and has been a Visiting Professor at Fordham University. He has served on a number of higher education boards, including that of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, and was a member of the Steering Committee of Presidents for the America Reads initiative. He also is a former member of the National Council on the Arts of the National Endowment for the Arts, past chair of the Consortium on Financing Higher Education and past president of the Catholic Theological Society of America.

John E. Pepper, Jr.
Director since 2006
John E. Pepper, Jr., 67, serves as Chief Executive Officer of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. Previously, he served as Vice President of Finance and Administration at Yale University from January 2004 to December 2005. Prior to that, he served as Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of The Procter & Gamble Company until December 2003. Since 1963, he has served in various positions at Procter & Gamble, including Chairman of the Board from 2000 to 2002, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman from 1995 to 1999, President from 1986 to 1995 and director from 1984 to 2003. Mr. Pepper serves on the board of Boston Scientific Corp. and is a member of the Executive Committee of the Cincinnati Youth Collaborative.

Orin C. Smith
Director since 2006
Orin C. Smith, 63, was President and Chief Executive Officer of Starbucks Corporation from 2000 to 2005. He joined Starbucks as Vice President and Chief Financial Officer in 1990, became President and Chief Operating Officer in 1994, and became a director of Starbucks in 1996. Prior to joining Starbucks, Mr. Smith spent a total of 14 years with Deloitte & Touche. Mr. Smith is a director of Nike, Inc. and Washington Mutual and serves on the Advisory Board for the University of Washington School of Business, the University of Washington Medicine Board of Directors and the Board of Directors of Conservation International.

These guys aren't cartoon animators. The Board Members also run Defense contractors, energy companies, along with the usual throw-away consumer goods makers and big global banks.

CBS

Then, there's Viacom which spun off CBS late last year into a second subsidiary owned by 81-year old Sumner Redstone and his family. http://www.viacom.com/


While in the past, Redstone described himself as a "liberal Democrat", that may not be the case. In 2005, the Center for Public Integrity observed: http://www.publicintegrity.org/

Sumner Redstone tacitly endorsed George Bush for re-election in late September, at a meeting of CEOs in Hong Kong. The election of a Republican administration, Redstone told his audience, "is a better deal" in Viacom's view, "because the Republican administration has stood for many things we believe in, deregulation and so on."

Newsweek reported that Redstone's remarks were viewed by many as a breach of an understood code of silence regarding political endorsements that most media conglomerates respect. Several other executives from the top broadcasters were asked to comment, and most repudiated any notion of political favor, while a public interest lobbyist pointed to the remarks as evidence of "what we have known all along"--a comfortable relationship between the industry and its government regulators.

When asked to comment on Redstone's endorsement of Bush, a News Corp. spokesman told Newsweek, "We run these businesses not to promote an ideology or political agenda, but to make them successful."

NBC

NBC has long been a subsidiary of General Electric Corp., GE, which is a one of the world's largest conglomerates. It is also a major financial institution, and defense contractor. The Board is interlocked with an equally wide swath of global corporate interests, including Bechtel. http://www.ge.com/

FOX

You've heard of Rupert Murdoch. Haven't you?

Well, who else runs News Corporation? Kinda hard to tell, because unlike the other major broadcasting companies, News Corp. doesn't provide on-line biographies for its Board, just names and titles. http://www.newscorp.com/

Nonetheless, Viet Dinh is no doubt an interesting recent addition, having been plucked directly out of the Bush Justice Department, where he drafted both the Patriot Act and the torture memos.

And they call this the "liberal" media?

Disney Dinner at the Red Hot and Blue, Laurel, MD
By UberSquirrel

October 14, 2003

This is long, but some of you might find it interesting. My husband and I met some new co-workers of his tonight for dinner. This married couple (I'll call them "Jack and Jill") just came from California -- they had been Imagineers at Disney since the early '80s. They left Disney because it had become too painful to work there anymore, so they ended up in Baltimore working for a large defense contractor.

Jack worked on just about every cool thing Disney did, from about 1980 onward. He helped design Tower of Terror. He helped do ToonTown. He did Splash Mountain (one of his kids provided a voice for one of the rabbits). He did Star Tours (his license plate and those of other Imagineers ended up as "numbers on the overhead buckets"); all of the robots and "inside show" gadgets were done by his shop. He worked on DisneySea, and had horror stories about Japanese customs. He offered to help in Hong Kong, but Disney said they didn't need him there, and he was finally glad not to be a part of it... "it's going to be horrible, like a big shopping mall. And the air is still horrible there; one of our friends has a wife and kid who have been deathly ill from the moment they set foot there."

I mentioned to him that I met Dave Smith last year when I flew through Burbank on my "Ohana Project," and he told me about his one encounter with Dave. They were redesigning something in Fantasyland (I think?) and throwing out the restroom signs that said "Prince" and "Princess." Dave said that they weren't identifiable as Disney property, so he concurred with throwing them out. John asked if he could have them instead -- and they ended up on his kids' bedroom walls.

Jack said that he had to go through the executive program, which included going to Disney World and being a character for 20 minutes. He was Br'er Bear. He said the costume was horrendous; it was hot, he couldn't see, and he lost track of his "handler." He got lost and was wandering around aimlessly, bumping into things, until he felt his handler tug on his costume and lead him back offstage. He said one guy, who is very high up in the Studio, was bitching and moaning the whole time about having to wear the costume. He thought it was stupid. He ended up being "Tigger." He got into his costume, bounced off, and they lost track of him -- he just disappeared.

Jill worked on "Alien Encounter." She said the Imagineers warned the brass that the attraction was not scary and was very lame, but nobody would listen. Then Eisner came through with one of his teenage sons -- who said, "Dad, this is lame." Then they had to spend a lot of money revamping the whole thing.

I asked Jack why there was such a revolving door between Disney and the defense contractors. He said it was because both Disney and the defense contractors used strict project management techniques. Used to be, the Imagineers would get an idea and just sort of go with it, to see where it took them. He said that the shell of "Haunted Mansion" sat there for years before they figured out what to put in it. Same with "Pirates of the Caribbean." Now, everything is micromanaged to death, just like building an F-22 Raptor.

I said, "Maybe what they need is something in the middle, between those two extremes?" He said, "No, maybe what they need is to allow for creativity. Disney is a creative company; it's not a defense contractor. You can't run it the same way."

Finally, Jack told me about his last encounter with Frank Wells. Jack was at Disney MGM, working on Tower of Terror, and Frank showed up, just to say hello and ask how things were going. Jack said that Frank often did things like that. They had a nice chat about how the ride was coming along, then Frank said goodbye. It was dusk, and Frank was wearing those sneakers that have lights in the soles, which light up with every step. Jack said that, for some reason, he felt compelled to watch Frank walk away until he couldn't see the sneaker lights anymore. Just about two weeks later, Frank was dead.

That's about it.

~alice

Profligate Producer Helps Hallmark To Corner the TV-Miniseries Market
 by Kyle Pope

Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

LONDON -- At a massive production complex on the western edge of the city, Robert Halmi puts the finishing touches on epics that American TV viewers will be watching this season.

Mr. Halmi flits from building to building, overseeing the filming of "Cleopatra," a lavish four-hour production for ABC that is said to be the most expensive miniseries ever. Along with his staff of 20, he is also polishing the script for "Don Quixote," starring John Lithgow, and building the sets for a TV version of "A Midsummer Night's Dream." His team is also doing postproduction work on "Arabian Nights," which just finished shooting in Morocco and Turkey, and tweaking the special effects for "Animal Farm," based on the George Orwell novel.

At age 75, Mr. Halmi, a Hungarian emigre, holds the distinction of being the most prolific producer in TV history, with a film library of more than 300 hours. All told, he will churn out more than 40 hours of prime-time fare over the next year for the Hallmark Entertainment unit of Hallmark Cards Inc., which acquired his company in 1994 and hopes to use his library to build a much larger entertainment empire.

With so many channels scrambling for viewers, and ratings for network sitcoms and dramas continuing to plummet, Mr. Halmi's big-event programs, such as "Merlin" and "The Odyssey," are coveted by the big networks as sure-fire attention-grabbers. Though sometimes ravaged by critics -- Howard Rosenberg, TV critic of the Los Angeles Times, branded "Noah's Ark" "a laughably bad, stunningly low-burlesque, excruciatingly slow two-parter" -- his epics draw in the viewers. More than 30 million people watched all or part of "Noah's Ark" for the two nights it ran earlier this month, making it the No. 2-rated show for the week, behind "E.R."

Before the explosion of cable TV, networks would readily spend tens of millions of dollars on a single miniseries like "Roots" or "Shogun." But now, with a smaller slice of the advertising pie going their way, the networks can ill afford to launch such elaborate productions on their own. So they hire outside companies like Hallmark Entertainment, which agree to carry much of the financial risk of producing a star-laden TV spectacle.

A $28 Million Spectacle

For example, in the case of "Merlin," the most-watched miniseries on NBC last season, Mr. Halmi charged the network $12 million, then delivered an epic with big-name stars like Martin Short and Isabella Rossellini, filmed in exotic locales around the world. Final budget: $28 million.

For this Sunday's "Cleopatra," Hallmark Entertainment was paid about $13 million by ABC. But Mr. Halmi spent nearly $30 million, hiring "Titanic" co-star Billy Zane to play Marc Antony at a cost of $2 million and building a quarter-mile-long replica of Alexandria in the Moroccan desert.

In fact, Mr. Halmi's formula, though a departure from the typical Hollywood business model, is fairly simple. Mr. Halmi goes into lavish productions knowing they will lose money in the U.S., gambling instead that he can recoup part of his budget through extensive international and video sales. To help attract those overseas audiences, all of his pictures feature international stars and European locales. Last year, "Merlin" was the best-rated TV movie ever in Germany, Spain and England.

Profits Overseas

Because Hallmark Entertainment retains the rights to the movies it sells to the networks, it is able to sell them overseas and keep the proceeds; overall, less than half of its revenue comes from the U.S. In the case of "Animal Farm," which is budgeted at $23 million, Time Warner Inc.'s TNT is paying for 40% of the film in exchange for the U.S. television rights. Hallmark, meantime, is releasing the movie in theaters in Europe in July, helping to defray about $10 million of its part of the cost. Finally, Mr. Halmi negotiated significant tax breaks for the film by shooting it in Ireland and saved money on actors because the film's biggest stars are mechanical animals.

In the end, all of Mr. Halmi's big miniseries have made money for Hallmark, say Mr. Halmi and his son, Robert Halmi Jr., 42, who together run the Hallmark Entertainment division as chairman and chief executive, respectively. Irvine O. Hockaday Jr., chief executive officer of privately held Hallmark Cards, declines to discuss the entertainment division's finances, but says Hallmark Entertainment makes a profit. (Mr. Hockaday is a director of Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal and the Interactive Journal.)

Mr. Hockaday, who admits that he is no Hollywood insider, says he has given the Halmis free rein to run Hallmark Entertainment on their own. "I've heard people say Hallmark just must be throwing money away," Mr. Hockaday says. "People tend to look at this from the point of view of a public company. We tend to try to build for long-term value."

Hallmark Entertainment helps bankroll Mr. Halmi's big-budget projects by churning out a number of less-costly but profitable TV movies. While Mr. Halmi's pricey epics get all the attention in Hollywood, they actually account for only about 20% of Hallmark Entertainment's output. The bulk of Hallmark Entertainment's movies, most of which are overseen by Mr. Halmi Jr. and other producers, are much cheaper and make much more money in the U.S., in effect subsidizing the marquee projects until overseas revenues are realized.

Viacom Inc.'s Showtime, for instance, has made more than 80 films with Hallmark, none of them huge ratings-grabbers. Hallmark has a children's programming division that produces animated shows for cable. And its "Hallmark Hall of Fame" series churns out highly rated but relatively cheap movies such as last year's "What the Deaf Man Heard" and "To Dance with the White Dog" on CBS.

Deep-Pocketed Partner

In Hallmark Cards, Mr. Halmi also gained a deep-pocketed corporate partner with a strong incentive to promote his productions. With the greeting-card business mature and under attack from the Internet, the Kansas City, Mo., company recently launched three cable-TV channels that depend on the Halmi library.

"They want to transition themselves from being primarily known as a card company," says Margaret Loesch, a longtime executive with News Corp's Fox network who was recently tapped to run the Odyssey Channel, a Hallmark cable venture co-owned with Jim Henson Co. "This is definitely the end game."

Hallmark Entertainment also has developed a growing business in Broadway shows, helping to produce "The Scarlet Pimpernel," "The Sound of Music" and "1776," and it is on the lookout for projects from Mr. Halmi that can be translated to the stage. Soon, Hallmark stores around the country will begin selling Mr. Halmi's movies on video.

One reason for Mr. Halmi's domination of the miniseries-production business has been a dearth of competition. But the networks, worried that he has developed a monopoly, are beginning to fight back. ABC balked at a planned three-hour version of "South Pacific" with Glenn Close because network executives thought Mr. Halmi's asking price was too high. The networks are beginning to look for alternatives: General Electric. Co.'s NBC, for instance, has vastly beefed-up its own in-house TV movie unit; among its big hits was the recent miniseries "The '60s." ABC has begun airing TV movies developed by its parent, Walt Disney Co. makes its TV movies without depending on Mr. Halmi at all.

Mr. Halmi, for his part, dismisses the networks' ability to produce quality miniseries on their own. "Everything the broadcast networks thought they do well is now on cable, and it's better," he says. "I offer at least something different." He adds: "I tell them, 'You guys are always underestimating the intelligence of the American people.' "

As a result, he has made it his business to make prime-time hits out of the most literary of subjects. In addition to bringing Homer to Americans' living rooms in "The Odyssey," he has produced TV versions of "Crime and Punishment," "Moby Dick," "Gulliver's Travels" and this year's "Alice in Wonderland," with Martin Short.

Dramatic Life

Born in 1924 in Budapest, Mr. Halmi was the son of a playwright mother and a father who was the official photographer to the Vatican and the Hapsburg empire. After the war, he says he worked in Hungary for the U.S. precursor of the Central Intelligence Agency. In 1947, he was put on trial by the Communists for blowing up bridges and was sentenced to death. He says he was saved only after his father arranged to have him kidnapped: He was given a bicycle to get to the Austrian border, and escaped from Hungary by hiding in a potato truck.

For a time, he continued his intelligence work in Salzburg, helping to spread American propaganda in Eastern Europe. His travails were chronicled in a seven-part series in the Saturday Evening Post called "Trial by Terror," which was later made into a movie for 20th Century Fox.

He came to the U.S. in 1950 with a camera and little else. Borrowing from his father's legacy, he ultimately landed a job at Life magazine as a photographer. He developed a name for himself in adventure photography. After seeing a stunt man at a county fair climb into a box and blow himself up with dynamite, Mr. Halmi replicated the trick, setting up a camera to capture the moment. In another act of derring-do, he was airlifted onto a glacier to take pictures, only to have the glacier break and drift off, leaving him stranded from the mainland for 10 days.

Getting Into Showbiz

He left Life magazine when it folded in the mid-1960s and moved to California, where he used his photography contacts to get into the movie business, filming a documentary about an African tribe. He then raised money to produce a TV movie based on a Hemingway short story, "My Old Man."

His business took off in the 1980s with a string of hits leading up to 1989's "Lonesome Dove" for CBS. In 1994, he produced a miniseries version of "Scarlett," the "Gone with the Wind" sequel for which Mr. Halmi paid a then-unheard-of $9 million for rights to the book.

Today, his unorthodox upbringing shines through in his work. He shot "Crime and Punishment" in Budapest because of his fondness for the city, and made "Animal Farm" because he had read and reread the book when he was in prison in Hungary. "That book almost saved my life," he says of the allegorical story about the failures of communism. "It told me there was hope out there."

Mr. Halmi, who walks with a cane since breaking his hip last year while scouting for locations for "Crime and Punishment" in Hungary, keeps up a frenetic pace, sleeping no more than four hours a day. He lives primarily in London, but has homes in New York and Kenya, as well as a houseboat in Spain, which he loans out to stars as an incentive to do his movies.

The Micromanager

Unlike other producers, who hire actors and directors but don't bother with the details of their projects, Mr. Halmi is a micromanager. During a recent 10-hour workday, he picked out the T-shirts for the crew of "Cleopatra," ordered a set of 2,000-year-old coins used by Julius Caesar for the major stars (they cost $600 apiece), and reviewed set designs for "A Midsummer Night's Dream." He even auditioned a dog to star in a coming epic for NBC. Told by the dog's owner that the mutt would be neutered before shooting began, Mr. Halmi intervened, saying he thought it was inhumane and that he would refuse to hire the dog if the procedure was done.

Mr. Halmi has his own watchdog: his son, whom he calls Robbie. The pair talk twice a day and own homes next door to one another in a suburb of New York City. The senior Mr. Halmi admits that their relationship is somewhat reversed, with the father spending as much money as possible and the frugal son reining him in.

"He's sort of playing the crazy cop, with me playing the sane cop," says Mr. Halmi Jr. "He likes to just go out and say it's going to be the greatest show of all time, and it's going to be very expensive. Then I come in and work it out in the trenches."

His father is currently planning an eight-hour version of the Bible, complete with a "Star Wars"-style beginning of the universe, as well as "10th Kingdom," a 10-hour miniseries to be shot in New York and Europe that encompasses nearly every children's fairy tale into a single story. Hallmark Entertainment is getting paid $24 million by NBC for "10th Kingdom," a record for a miniseries. And, Mr. Halmi says, he will spend at least $20 million more before the show makes its way to television.

H.R.4989
by The Library of Congress

Title: To award a congressional gold medal to Jane Henson, the widow of Jim Henson.

Sponsor: Rep Hertel, Dennis M. [MI-14] (introduced 6/7/1990)      Cosponsors (None)

Latest Major Action: 6/15/1990 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on Consumer Affairs and Coinage.

H.R.4989

Title: To award a congressional gold medal to Jane Henson, the widow of Jim Henson.

Sponsor: Rep Hertel, Dennis M. [MI-14] (introduced 6/7/1990)      Cosponsors (None)
Latest Major Action: 6/15/1990 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on Consumer Affairs and Coinage.

SUMMARY AS OF:
6/7/1990--Introduced.

Authorizes the President to present a gold medal posthumously to Jim Henson in recognition of his contributions to the education and entertainment of children.

Authorizes appropriations.

Authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to strike and sell bronze duplicates of such medal at a price sufficient to cover the cost of such duplicates and the gold medal.

MAJOR ACTIONS:

    ***NONE***

ALL ACTIONS:

6/7/1990:
Referred to the House Committee on Banking, Finance + Urban Affrs.
6/15/1990:
Referred to the Subcommittee on Consumer Affairs and Coinage.
TITLE(S):  (italics indicate a title for a portion of a bill)

    ***NONE***

COSPONSOR(S):

***NONE***

COMMITTEE(S):
    Committee/Subcommittee: Activity:
    House Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs Referral, In Committee
      Subcommittee on Consumer Affairs and Coinage Referral
RELATED BILL DETAILS:
    ***NONE***
AMENDMENT(S):

***NONE***

Muppets
by Wikipedia

The Muppets are a family of puppet/marionette characters created by Jim Henson in the 1950's. The first, and most, famous Muppet is "Kermit the Frog", created in 1955 for a daily two-minute puppet show called, "Sam and Friends." Kermit had feet instead of flippers and no collar, becoming "Kermit the Frog" later, in a show called "Hey Cinderella." In 1969, the Children's Television Workshop began televising Sesame Street, starring Muppet characters, "Bert" and "Ernie", "Oscar the Grouch", "Cookie Monster", "Grover", and "Big Bird."

The Muppets got their own television series, a variety show hosted by "Kermit", in 1976. It ran for five years and reached audiences in more than 100 countries. Among the characters created for the show were "Miss Piggy", "Fozzie the Bear," "Gonzo," "Dr. Bunsen Honeydew," "Beaker," and "The Swedish Chef". The Muppets also "starred" in a string of films, including, The Muppet Movie, The Muppets Take Manhattan, and The Great Muppet Caper.

There were two other Muppet TV series, one called, Fraggle Rock, and the other, The Storyteller.

The Muppets

The Muppets are a group of puppets and costume characters, and the company created by Jim Henson. Individually, a Muppet is properly one of the puppets made by Jim Henson or his Creature Shop – though the term is often used erroneously to refer to any puppet that resembles the distinctive style of The Muppet Show and Sesame Street characters, the term is both an informal name and legal trademark linked to the characters created by The Jim Henson Company. After frequently changing hands since the death of creator Jim Henson in 1990, The Muppets have been owned by The Walt Disney Company, through the Muppets Holding Company, since early 2004.

The word "Muppet" itself was said by Henson to have been created by combining the words "marionette" and "puppet"; however, Henson was also known to have stated that it was just something he liked the sound of, and he made up the "marionette/puppet" story while talking to a journalist because it sounded plausible. [1]

Muppets are distinguished from ventriloquist "dummies", which are typically animated only in the head and face, in that their arms or other features are also mobile and expressive. Muppets are typically made of softer materials. They are also presented as being independent of the puppeteer, who is usually not visible, hidden behind a set or outside of the camera frame.

Appearance

The most common design for a Jim Henson Muppet is a character with a very wide mouth and large protruding eyes. The puppets are often molded or carved out of foam rubber, and then covered with fleece. Yarn, nylon string, or (most commonly) ostrich feathers are used to create hair. As there is no "eye store" from which they can be purchased, Muppet eyes are often made (as in the case of the original Kermit) from ping-pong balls, from fishing floats, or from a hemispherical toy called a Wacky Stax. Muppets may represent humans, anthropomorphic animals, realistic animals, robots or anthropomorphic objects, extra-terrestrial creatures, mythical beings or other unidentified, newly imagined creatures.

Operation

The puppeteer typically holds the puppet above his head or in front of his body, with one hand operating the head and mouth and the other manipulating the hands and arms, either with two separate control rods or by "wearing" the hands like gloves. One consequence of this design is that most Muppets are left handed as the puppeteer uses his right hand to operate the head while operating the arm rod with his left hand. There are many other common designs and means of operation. In advanced puppets, several puppeteers may control a single character; the performer who controls the mouth usually provides the voice for the character. As technology has evolved, the Jim Henson team and other puppeteers have developed an enormous variety of means to operate puppets for film and television, including the use of suspended rigs, internal motors, remote radio control, and computer enhanced and superimposed images. Creative use of a mix of technologies has allowed for scenes in which Muppets appear to be riding a bicycle, rowing a boat, and even dancing onstage with no puppeteer in sight.

Some Muppets and their performers

The only major, unretired characters that have always been portrayed by one puppeteer are Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, Gonzo, Floyd, Pepe, Rizzo the Rat, Robin, and Zoot.

Animal - Frank Oz (1975 - 1999), Eric Jacobson (2002 - )
Beaker - Richard Hunt (1977 - 1990), Steve Whitmire (1992 - )
Crazy Harry - Jerry Nelson
Clifford - Kevin Clash
Dr. Bunsen Honeydew - Dave Goelz
Dr. Teeth - Jim Henson (? - 1990), Bill Baretta (1991 - )
Sgt. Floyd Pepper - Jerry Nelson
Fozzie Bear - Frank Oz (? - 2000), Eric Jacobson (2001 - )
Gonzo - Dave Goelz
Janice - Richard Hunt (1974 - 1992), Brian Henson (1992 - )
Kermit the Frog - Jim Henson (? - 1990), Steve Whitmire (1990 - )
Lew Zealand - Jerry Nelson
Link Hogthrob - Jim Henson (? - 1990) (character has been semi-retired since Henson's death)
Marvin Suggs - Frank Oz (? - 2000) (character has been semi-retired)
Miss Piggy - Frank Oz (? - 2000), Eric Jacobson (2001 - )
Pepe the Prawn - Bill Baretta
Rizzo the Rat - Steve Whitmire
Robin - Jerry Nelson
Rowlf the Dog - Jim Henson (? - 1990), Bill Baretta (1991 - )
Sam the Eagle - Frank Oz (? - 2000), Kevin Clash (2001 - )
Scooter - Richard Hunt (1976 - 1990), Adam Hunt (1992 - ?) [voice only] Brian Henson (2002 - 2003), Rickey Boyd (2006 - )
Statler - Richard Hunt (? - 1992), Jerry Nelson (? - ?), Steve Whitmire (currently)
Swedish Chef - Jim Henson (? - 1990)/Frank Oz(? - 2000), Bill Barreta (1992 - )/Eric Jacobson (2001 - )
Sweetums - Richard Hunt (? - 1992), John Henson (1993 - )
Waldorf - Jim Henson (? - 1990), Dave Goelz (1991 - )
Zoot - Dave Goelz

Films and Specials

Jim Henson films

Sam and Friends (1955) (Regarded as the "Birth of the Muppets").
Frog Prince (1971)
The Muppet Musicians of Bremen (1972)
A Muppet Family Christmas (TV) (1987)
Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas (1977)
The Great Muppet Caper (1981)
Jim Henson's MuppetVision 3D (Walt Disney 3D Film) (1991)
Frank Oz films
The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984)
Brian Henson films
The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
Muppet Treasure Island (1996)
Jim Frawley films
The Muppet Movie (1979)
Tim Hill films
Muppets from Space (1999)
Kirk Thatcher films
It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie (2002)(TV)
The Muppets' Wizard of Oz (2005)(TV)
Other major Muppet productions
John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together (TV) (1979)
The Muppets at Walt Disney World (TV) (1990)
Kermit's Swamp Years (Direct-to-Video) (2002)

Famous Muppets

The Muppets in Weezer's 'Keep Fishin'"

Famous Muppets include Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Gonzo, Big Bird, Bert and Ernie, Elmo, and Oscar the Grouch. The most widely known television shows featuring Muppets are Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock, and The Muppet Show. A recurring adult-oriented cast of Muppets (in a setting known as the “Land of Gortch”) were part of the first season of Saturday Night Live. Other, less popular series have included The Jim Henson Hour and Muppets Tonight. The puppet characters of Farscape, The Storyteller, The Hoobs, and Dinosaurs, as well as from the films Labyrinth, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and The Dark Crystal, are not considered Muppets, although they were also made by Jim Henson's Creature Shop. For a history of Jim Henson's Muppets, see Jim Henson.

After earlier unsuccessful attempts, The Walt Disney Company finally bought the Muppets in 2004. Exceptions include characters appearing on Sesame Street (as they were previously sold to Sesame Workshop), the Fraggles of Fraggle Rock, along with the above-mentioned non-"Muppet"-brand characters.

The show's popularity has been so expansive that Muppet characters have been treated as celebrities in their own right, including presenting at the Academy Awards, making cameos in Rocky III and An American Werewolf in London, and being interviewed on the newsmagazine 60 Minutes. Kermit the Frog was interviewed early on in Jon Stewart's run on The Daily Show, and Michael Parkinson once famously interviewed Miss Piggy on his UK chatshow.

Muppet-like and Muppet-inspired puppets star in the 2004 Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Avenue Q (which disavows any relationship with Sesame Workshop or the Jim Henson Company).

America's Next Muppet

In 2005, ABC announced it was purchasing a six-episode mini-series titled America's Next Muppet. The mini-series is going to be produced by The Jim Henson Company for Disney, and is going to be a direct parody of America's Next Top Model. The show is going to feature many famous Muppets holding a talent contest to find the next Muppet to add to their famous group. The show is tentatively scheduled to air in spring or summer of 2006.

Regional usage

In Great Britain and in Ireland the word muppet has come to be used as a mild term of abuse, meaning a stupid, incompetent, or moronic person, or the obvious interpretation of someone who is inanimated or somehow not there. It can also be applied (in the United Kingdom but not in Ireland) to an aesthetically displeasing individual.

The Swedish translation mupp is often used in a similar manner.

In the United States, "muppet" is used as a term expressing frustrated envy directed towards those that make the muppet-sayer feel inferior and insecure. Under some instances of insecurity-rooted distress or anger, "muppet" is often combined with other words, most commonly "muppet-head" and under extreme cases, "muppet-head-face."

The term muppetry is also rapidly gaining popularity as a description for an individual, or group of people collectively behaving in a muppet like fashion. The origins are believed to have come from workers in large organisations, who were unhappy with the low to non-existent level of thought or application, that other colleagues put into their work. For example - "I'm sorry the figures will be late this quarter, due to the high amount of muppetry going on in the accounts department", or "Gregory's muppetry appears to have been infectious."

Cultural references

In The Simpsons episode 3F15: "A Fish Called Selma", actor Troy McClure stars in the fictional film The Muppets Go Medieval. Kermit and Miss Piggy are shown as well. Homer tries to explain what a muppet is with "It's not quite a mop, and it's not quite a puppet, but man...(laughs)...So to answer your question, I don't know."

The film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels: "Hatchet" Harry: "I don't want to know who you use, as long as they're not complete muppets."

The music video for the Weezer song "Keep Fishin', is premised on the band performing on The Muppet Show and features appearances by several characters.

On September 28, 2005, the United States Postal Service released a Jim Henson and the Muppets postage stamp series.[1]

The 1987 film Dragnet: As a car chase crashes through a carnival display of stuffed animals: Friday: "Look out! Muppets!"

A skit on the MTV series The State involved dinner guests luring generic Muppets to their window, catching them and eating them.

In the 2005 animated Teen Titans episode "Bunny Raven... or How To Make A Titanimal Disappear", the final scene takes place in a theatre that resembles the set of The Muppet Show. There is a puppet Amazing Mumbo stage manager that mimics Kermit's mannerisms and a pithy one-liner joke is delivered by two Mumbos that look like Statler & Waldorf.

In "The Goodies" episode titled "Earthanasia", Tim, Bill and Graeme are waiting for the end of the world. As Tim does some ironing, he explains that there will be no more Muppets when the world ends. Graeme then explains that they are just puppets and even takes some socks and imitates the voices of Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy, which causes Tim to go insane.

Originating from Australia, "Muppet" is used as a derogatory and racist term describing someone of African descent who is commonly viewed as an incompetent immigrant worker.

In a Family Guy episode, in one of Peter's visions, he was watching Lost on TV, and there was a balcony with Statler & Waldorf saying "Lost? That's what I am watching the show!"

CIA DIRECTOR GEORGE TENET'S ROUSING SPEECH TO GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY DUTIFULLY CHOMPING JUICY POLITICAL TURD OVER WMD INTEL "OOPSIE"
by whitehouse.org

For Immediate Release - Office of the Press Secretary - February 6, 2004 - 3:11 P.M. (EST) February 6, 2004

Address by the Director of Central Intelligence
DIRECTOR TENET: Good afternoon.

"HEY, IT'S NOT LIKE THIS INTELLIGENCE THING IS ABOUT HARD FACTS AND STUFF!"

It’s a real pleasure to be here, back at my alma mater of Georgetown University. I stand before you today, a successful career bureaucrat, an institutional part of the problem, a flag-waving patriot who distorts reality to America's detriment if only to cover his own hairy, conniving, cottage cheese backside; a cloak and dagger henchman blurring the line between unbiased security assessments and manipulative election fodder, knowingly confusing the public as to the reasons for our blood-drenched joyride through the desert, per my direct marching orders from the boss.

And so, it is with respectful gravitas that I tell you today – Go Hoyas!

(Thunderous applause and high-fiving. The auditorium empties.)

And also: Iraq does not and never possessed the thundercloud of suitcase nukes that this administration told Congress would rain down upon their Atkins diet-addicted constituents at the very twitch of Saddam Hussein’s moustache.

By all accounts, I should have been fired and sent packing to a cushy job at any number of high paying defense contractor or corporate espionage consortiums – but I’m not. Instead, today, I’m here, sort of apologizing for actively allowing the conservative policy wonks of the executive branch to slather up their fists in Crisco, corkscrew their claws through my normally hermetically sealed anus, and make me lie through my teeth, Jim Henson-style.

But I’m still here – the only appointee from the previous administration whoring for the current Junta. I remember in my younger days, walking through the halls of this prestigious university thinking, “When I grow up, I want to be an unctuous big government parasite who will say and do anything in order to keep his sweet corner office and lifetime's supply of MK-ULTRA-era LSD.”

The main reason I’m still employed here today, puking my facile damage control to you star-struck kids, is because back in the 1990's, I gave the Republicans who ran the Senate Armed Forces and Intelligence Committees the same proof about the threat of terrorism as I did to President Clinton. Only back then, the GOP decided to pursue the President’s pecker instead of national security – thereby putting political gain above concern for national security.

Hell if I wanted to, I could sneeze some reports fingering how the GOP willfully sat on their hands and waited for terrorists to hand them a reason for being.

But I’m not. And why? Because the winners maintain legacies, and the first thing I learned in politics is – you can’t eat integrity.

Who would have thought that I, a product of not only this University, but also the liberal semen-thick Jacuzzi that is Columbia University, a Bill Clinton appointee, and a peer of such bleeding-heart preemptive war-loving psycho doves like Madeleine Albright, would one day become a tool of the right wing.

But here I am, and let me just say, that when President Bush rapes you, he snuggles afterwards with a faux-cowboy tenderness that is truly surprising.

And you know what? Intelligence isn’t perfect. And while I can’t disclose the classified inner-workings of the CIA, unless it’s Mr. Vice President and Karl outing an agent and endangering her life in order to make a political point, I can say that sometimes truth is just a lie you really, really want to believe.

Is Santa Claus a lie? Not to the little children. And remember, no matter how many errors the CIA makes, no matter how many politically convenient pipedreams we dress up like “facts,” what we do, we do for the children.

To summarize everything in a convenient sound byte, while I may have never stated that the threat from Iraq was imminent, I stand by our false intelligence. Nonsensical as that may sound, it allows me to do all of the following: a) cover my ass and not have history judge me as a total laughing stock, b) play both sides of the coin and hopefully keep my fat gig in a John Kerry administration, and c) still espouse the unrepentant arrogance required of any key player in the George W. Bush cool clique.

In closing, while my continued deception is regretful for myriad abstract ethical reasons, I am proud of the fact that hundreds of young American men and women have died because of it.

(Applause.)

Thank you for listening, and God Bless America.

Fafblog on the Plame Case
by Brad DeLong

As is so often true these days, only Fafblog can approach today's news and press on the appropriate level. It is as true as it ever was that Fafblog is the world's only source for Fafblog:

Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal
Fair, Balanced, and Reality-Based

October 30, 2005

Fafblog! the whole worlds only source for Fafblog.: If Only Corruption Came With Cliff Notes!

Michael Kinsley points us to a compelling flaw in the rationale behind the Fitzgerald investigation today: Michael Kinsley doesn't understand it.

True, the Plame scandal is simple enough to be summarized in one sentence(1), but the devil is in the details. There are names and people and places - names like "Niger", which sounds very much like Nigeria and yet is not Nigeria - and people like "Scooter", which is the name of the Vice President's chief of staff and yet is also the name of a muppet. Will the muppet be indicted? If so, will the muppet himself be charged alone, or are the puppeteers who operate his mouth and limbs also under investigation? Was he voiced by Jim Henson, and if so, how will the Justice Department prosecute the dead? Sorting out these intricate questions of "who" and "what" would take a reporter, and Mr. Kinsley doesn't appear to know any of those.

Mr. Kinsley is also troubled by the impossible paradox of press freedom the Plame scandal presents. Should reporter-source privilege be an implied contract in which a journalist protects her source's identity in exchange for reliable information, or should it be an absolutist right wantonly abused by state officials to disinform the populace, crush their critics, and commit crimes from beyond the veil of a shield law? Mr. Kinsley can't quite decide.

The Medium Lobster could answer these questions, but that isn't the point. The point is that he shouldn't have to. Scandals should be accessible and easy to follow for all of us - even for someone like Mr. Kinsley, who was an editor of The New Republic and remains easily distracted by shiny things. America is meant to have a government of the people - and its scandals should be scandals of the people, too. Outing CIA agents, silencing war critics, covering for the false pretext of a false war - it's all too cerebral to have the kind of mass entertainment value that is the raison d'être of the American criminal justice system. Where's the heart, the soul, the semen-stained dress?

Don't worry, Mr. Kinsley - we'll work on getting you a proper, decent scandal with a proper, decent blowjob. After that there will be a big car chase and many flashing lights.

_______________

(1) "White House staffers leaked a covert CIA agent's name to the press in an attempt to discredit a critic of the flawed intelligence used to support the Iraq War."

RED HERRINGS, A PLAY IN NO ACTS
by This Blog is Full of Crap

isfullofcrap.com

[GITMO PRISON: COMMUNAL PRAYER AREA]

(In Arabic)

TALIBAN 1: You'll love this one.

TALIBAN 2: Great.

TALIBAN 1: Muppets.

TALIBAN 2: Muppets?

TALIBAN 1: Yeah, Muppets

TALIBAN 2: I don't know about this one.

TALIBAN 1: What's wrong?

TALIBAN 2: I mean, come on. Muppets?

TALIBAN 1: Yeah.

TALIBAN 2: You don't want to go back to those goddamned caves, do you?

TALIBAN 1: Hey, I just want to have a little fun, that's all.

TALIBAN 2: Okay, but if this backfires, we'll tell the Americans you're Al Qaeda. Rules don't apply to them, you know, and you'll get dumped in with those other pricks.

TALIBAN 1: Relax, I know what I'm doing.

TALIBAN 2. Okay. Fine. Muppets.

TALIBAN 1: Exactly.

[GITMO PRISON, INTERROGATION CELL 1]

(In English)

FBI: "We have thwarted your wicked and sinister plans to blow up apartment buildings, even though they're still blowing up all by themselves with gas leaks. So, what other plans did you guys come up with that we need to look out for?"

TALIBAN 1: "Muppets."

FBI: "Muppets?"

SILENCE

FBI: "You can't be serious."

TALIBAN 1: "Yes, infidel! Muppets to teach your kids the way of Jihad over your public television screens and spread the way of the Prophet Muhammed."

FBI: "No way."

TALIBAN 1: "Jim Henson was one of our greatest students, and when he turned from the Holy Path, he was poisoned. How else could you explain his unusually rapid demise? Do you honestly believe that such a great man, loved by millions, could die from a mere cold?"

FBI: "Well, I never thought of it that way ... and I've always thought Bert was kind of evil..." 

TALIBAN 1: "Snuffleupagus is the Arabic word for Kill All Americans, after all."

FBI: "That cinches it. Muppets."

FBI LEAVES ROOM

TALIBAN 1 CAN'T KEEP A STRAIGHT FACE ANYMORE, FALLS FROM CHAIR LAUGHING.

FBI ENTERS ROOM

FBI: "What was that?"

TALIBAN 1: "Oh, um... just praying. Yeah. Special time today."

FBI: "Fine."

[THE WHITE HOUSE]

CIA: Spybird's working again, sir.

BUSH JUNIOR: It better damn well. Last time when you had the Hubble up, it looked like a dog drank three buckets of paint and took a squat on the sky.

CIA: I'm very sorry, sir.

CHENEY GASPING

CHENEY: Popcorn's... ready... again...

BUSH JUNIOR: Jesus, just call down to the kitchen, Dick.

CHENEY: Thought one... looked like... scuba diver...

BUSH JUNIOR: Ah, okay. Good thinking, Dick. I'm so glad you picked me as a running mate, because I don't know what I'd do without you.

CHENEY: Damn... straight...

CIA: We're getting an image.

TV: *grunt* *grunt* *grunt*

BUSH JUNIOR: Radical!

CIA: Yes, sir.

CHENEY: Um, George?

BUSH JUNIOR: What?

CHENEY: I don't think that's them.

BUSH JUNIOR: Huh?

CHENEY: The man's black.

BUSH JUNIOR: shit. Hey...

CHENEY: So is the woman.

CIA: Ooops, this isn't the right feed. I looks like it's closed-circuit from inside the building on the wrong port on the router.

BUSH JUNIOR: Hey, I know that ass...

CHENEY: Which one?

CIA: It's definitely one of the security cameras.

BUSH JUNIOR: COLIN! CONDI!

CHENEY: Um, George, earlier... about the ass...

BUSH JUNIOR: Aw, screw it. Condi's much hotter than Connie any day of the week.

CIA: Yes, sir. Now about increasing funding for the Spybird project?

BUSH JUNIOR: Where's it made?

CIA: Texas, sir. Armey's district to be exact.

BUSH JUNIOR: Perfect. It'll keep numbnuts off my back. Take it out of the homeless kitty. f--- 'em.

CIA: Whatever you say, sir.

CHENEY: Um, does this thing tap into all of the security cameras?

[GITMO PRISON, JUST OUTSIDE INTERROGATION CELL 1]

TRANSLATOR: "He said Snuffleupagus means what?"

FBI: "Kill All Americans."

TRANSLATOR: "Really?"

FBI: "Really."

TRANSLATOR: "Well, that explains a whole lot. We've been trying to figure out what Snuffleupagus meant for all these years."

FBI: "Well, now you know."

TRANSLATOR: "Cool. All I need is three more and I win the Translator of the Year Award this year. And I'm up against Patterson and Murphy."

FBI: "Patterson's assigned to Bob Dylan, isn't he?"

TRANSLATOR: "Yup. Every time there's a new album out, Patterson cleans up."

FBI: "Well, good luck."

*RING*
*RING*

CONNIE CHUG: "Hello?"

FBI: "Muppets."

CONNIE CHUNG: "You're shitting me."

FBI: "Nope. Muppets."

CONNIE CHUNG: "Muppets?"

FBI: "Hey, you heard it straight from the horse's mouth. Muppets."

CONNIE CHUNG: "Fine. Muppets. Oh, and..."

FBI: "Yes?"

CONNIE CHUNG: "Well, normally I wouldn't ask, but I'm kind of concerned about my husband..."

*CLICK*

[HEADLINES READ:]
KILLER MUPPETS! SESAME STREET CANCELLED!
ALL SIGNERS OF INTERNET PETITION TO SAVE SESAME STREET JAILED AS COLLABORATORS

[GITMO PRISON: COMMUNAL PRAYER AREA]

(In Arabic)

TALIBAN 1: This is way too easy

TALIBAN 2: Tell me about it. I've got my handler thinking Jane Fonda's going to blow up Cleveland.

TALIBAN 1: No, really?

TALIBAN 2: Really.

TALIBAN 1: Well, now that I think of it...

TALIBAN 2: You can't be serious. Jane Fonda? She wouldn't be caught dead in Cleveland, let alone kill herself blowing it up. Sometimes I think I was right not to put the operation in your hands...

TALIBAN 1: Hey, haven't I done good recently?

TALIBAN 2: Okay, okay.

TALIBAN 1: Hey, did you forget to shave today?

TALIBAN 2: Crap, I think I did.

TALIBAN 1: Well, you better be careful. They might recognize you even with just third-prayer-o-clock shadow.

TALIBAN 2: Thank you, my friend. Keep this up, and who knows how far you'll go in the organization.

TALIBAN 1: Thanks, Osama. Now you're going to piss your prayer mat when you hear this one...

What We Think About When We Think About Iraq
How So Many Americans Can Be So Wrong About WMD
by A Tiny Revolution, tinyrevolution.com

In a functioning democracy, opinions always differ but facts remain facts—which is why a recent survey by the Project on International Policy Alternatives is so dismaying. PIPA, you've probably heard, found supporters of President Bush hold views on Iraq strikingly at odds with reality; for instance, 47% of Bush supporters believe Iraq had actual WMD, while an additional 25% think Saddam Hussein at least had a major program for developing them.

As we approach the election, this should concern everyone. No nation can be self-governing if so many of its citizens reside in a fantasy world. So how did we get here? Steven Krill, PIPA's director, points to a bond between Bush and his supporters forged by 9/11, which "makes it difficult for his supporters to imagine that he could have made incorrect judgments."

This is probably true, as far as it goes. However, America's conservative media also bear a heavy burden of responsibility. Unembarrassed by their pre-war performance, they still relentlessly promulgate a mixture of half-truths and full lies about Iraq's WMD. And the right-wing press is now so omnipresent, anyone susceptible can be swayed by their worldview—one that is superficially convincing, internally consistent, well-argued—and completely false.

Imagine a Bush supporter—let's call him Sam, after the muppet Sam the Eagle—who is honestly interested in the truth. Sam doesn't have the time or inclination to delve into the minutiae of the WMD issue, but tries to keep up.

On October 14, Sam reads a column in the Wall Street Journal by Richard Spertzel. Spertzel, a member of UNSCOM during the nineties, returned to Iraq to work for Charles Duelfer's Iraq Survey Group on the CIA's final WMD report. Thus, it's certain Spertzel knows exactly what the report says. Indeed, that's the whole point of his piece, titled "Have War Critics Even Read the Duelfer Report?" In it, Spertzel argues Iraq was an imminent threat to America, but that the liberal punditocracy refuses to pay attention to what the ISG actually discovered. For instance, Spertzel writes,

many clandestine laboratories operating under the Iraqi Intelligence Services were found to be engaged in small-scale production of chemical nerve agents, sulfur mustard, nitrogen mustard, ricin, aflatoxin, and other unspecified biological agents.

Huh, Sam thinks. So Iraq did have chemical and biological weapons.

What Sam doesn't know is that Spertzel, despite the schoolmarmish title of his op-ed, is glad nobody reads the report in full. In fact, he's counting on it—because while the ISG did discover clandestine labs run by the Iraqi Intelligence Services, the report states "ISG has no evidence that IIS Directorate of Criminology (M16) scientists were producing CW or BW agents in these laboratories."

The closest thing in the Duelfer report to Spertzel's assertion is scattered testimony by low-ranking Iraqis that the labs may have been planning to produce such agents at some undefined point in the future—but, the ISG says, it was "unable to corroborate" this. And of course Spertzel doesn't mention the one thing the ISG says the labs definitely were used for: testing the food of senior regime officials for poison.

Interest piqued by Spertzel, Sam rereads some columns by William Safire and John Podhoretz. Both Safire and Podhoretz have written that the British government's report by Lord Butler, released in July, vindicated President Bush's claim that Iraq "sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Butler, Safire explains, determined the statement was "well-founded"—which thereby proves Iraq was actively seeking nuclear weapons.

Not so fast. What Butler decided, and Safire and Podhoretz slyly elide, is that the uranium statement was reasonable based on intelligence available at the time—that is, before coalition troops occupied Iraq and captured the regime's documents and top officials. (Butler also decided it was reasonable for Blair to say Iraq was seeking mobile bioweapons labs.) The determination about whether Iraq actually had tried to buy uranium overseas was the job of the ISG.

And what did the ISG find? Its final report states flatly: "ISG has not found evidence to show that Iraq sought uranium from abroad after 1991." Indeed, "ISG has found only one offer of uranium to Baghdad since 1991—an approach Iraq appears to have turned down."

Unfortunately, Sam doesn't know this. Neither Safire nor Podhoretz has seen fit to mention it.

Tired of reading, Sam then turns on Sean Hannity's radio show. Hannity is talking about the Duelfer report, and explains Duelfer is "out there saying today that a lot of the weapons went to Syria."

Did Duelfer say this? Nope. The ISG determined Iraq hadn't had any WMD since 1991. What Duelfer did state in his Senate testimony—under prodding from Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)—was, "A lot of materials left Iraq and went to Syria... But whether in fact in any of these trucks there was WMD-related materials, I cannot say."

By this point, fed on a diet of untruths and misdirection, Sam believes Iraq (1) had biological and chemical weapons, (2) sent lots more to Syria, and (3) had an active nuclear program. (He's probably also wondering why "the liberal media" is ignoring all this.) But what about Iraq's intentions for the future? For that, Sam goes online.

On Glenn Reynolds' Instapundit.com, he finds a link to a story in the Scotsman claiming the ISG "found documents which showed the 'guiding theme' of [Saddam's] regime was to be able to start making [WMD] again with as short a lead time as possible."

Too bad the ISG did not find such documents. Rather, the report states, "The former Regime had no formal written strategy or plan for the revival of WMD after sanctions." Reynolds knows this, since he and I exchanged email about it. But Sam doesn't know, because Reynolds declined to post any correction.

Lastly, Sam reads a NewsMax.com story about Mahdi Obeidi. Obeidi is the Iraqi nuclear scientist who, after the invasion of Iraq, produced uranium centrifuge blueprints and parts he'd buried in his garden. Newsmax explains Obedi was "awaiting orders from Baghdad to proceed. 'I had to maintain the program to the bitter end,' Obeidi said recently. His only other choice was death."

Surely, thinks Sam, this is hard proof of Iraq's duplicity and nefarious plans. (Sam isn't alone in this; mainstream publications like The Economist and Los Angeles Times have recently said much the same.)

But is it? When Obeidi turned himself in, Scott Ritter appeared on CNN, telling Wolf Blitzer, "I think he maintained these components and these blueprints of his own volition"—ie, without Saddam's regime knowing about it.

The ISG concurs. Obeidi, the Duelfer report says, "retained prohibited documents and components in apparent violation of the Regime's directives." Imad Khadduri, an Iraqi nuclear scientist who escaped in 1998 and now lives in Canada, also agrees with Ritter, saying Obeidi's story is implausible and that he was "well known for his dishonesty."

In fact, Khadduri compares Obeidi to Khadir Hamza—a notorious fraud who made wild claims about Iraq's nuclear program before the invasion. (Not coincidentally, Hamza is another favorite of the right-wing press.) Obeidi, Khadduri says sardonically, "is simply paying back the Americans for their refuge. Ditto Hamza, whom I assume is having tea with Mahdi."

Of course, Sam is unaware of the ISG's conclusion about Obeidi. It hasn't been reported by any news outlet, conservative or not.

And all this is, believe it or not, just a small sampling of the right-wing media's attempts to obfuscate and distort the reality of Iraq and WMD. Thus it is that Bush supporters like Sam—in perfectly good conscience—are eagerly preparing to vote for the president. After all, he kept America safe from the terrible threat Sam knows about in such detail.

What does this mean for everyone living back here on Planet Earth? Walter Lippman famously wrote about the difference between "the world outside and the pictures in our heads," and the problems this poses for self-governance. But Lippman never anticipated a time when billions would be spent each year to drive false pictures into as many heads as possible. Can democracy survive under such conditions? We may be about to find out.

JIM HENSON'S MUPPET ADVENTURE -- CHAOS OF THE CARNIVAL
by seanbaby.com

Jim Henson's Muppet Adventure. I think this game was written by the Swedish Chef and programmed by Beaker. It was sort of like the Muppet Show except there were no songs, and nothing fun ever happened. It revolved around a group of muppets who were trying to rescue Miss Piggy. She was "pignapped." Oh... ha ha. That's a little joke from the game. Ohhh... "pignapped".... ha.

Luckily, Miss Piggy got captured at a carnival, so the muppets get to go on super fun rides and things to save her. The first is one where Kermit floats slowly down a river in an inner tube. It's about as fun as it sounds.

After that, one of the monster muppets (I can't remember its name) drives a bumper car through a bomb filled obstacle course. It sounds dangerous, but if you go slow enough, it's laughably easy to never get hit by anything bad. But since the game is already boring enough, you'll probably just drive as fast as you can and not care if you hit a bomb. And you can take 5 hits before you die and you have nine lives, so I don't think there are enough bombs on the course to kill you anyway. It's a boring game. I didn't say it was hard.

Then you can play two other games that Animal programmed in an afternoon of screaming and banging on a computer keyboard. One had Gonzo flying through monotonous outer space, and the other was an exciting game where you moved Fozzie across the screen to pick up presents. Not only would no one ever consider playing through these boring things, who the fuck cares if Miss Piggy is missing? Couldn't they just find some other fat puppet to annoy everyone?

Graphics: 4 Yeah, they were bad, but not enough for me to have something funny to say about them. So I'll just say, "pignapped" again. Hee hee.

Fun: 0 Here is a list of things one might say while playing the various muppet games:
River Ride: "Golly. Kermit's coming up on a rock. Only have a fraction of a second. Better push left. Whew."
Car Course: "God damn it, when does this damn thing end?"
Space Ride: "Wow. I'm playing Muppet Adventure."
Amazing Maze: "Guess I'll move Fozzie over here. Okay. Now I'll... eyes.... heavy... game... boring."

Medicinal Purposes: This game is often prescribed by doctors and psychologists to cure insomnia. The CIA used to use Jim Henson's Muppet Adventure as a torture device until the court case of the "People of Guatemala vs. CIA and Muppets" found this to be cruel and unusual.

Return to Table of Contents