Now Look Here

Is it any wonder that TV's best ensemble cast also throws the best Christmas party?

The cast of "Scrubs" added some new dialogue to the classic "Charlie Brown Christmas" for a holiday party they threw a few seasons ago... If you are at all familiar with the show, this ten-minute reel is just as brilliant and inspired as you might imagine. If you're not familiar with the show, this could very well serve as a fine introduction to one of the funniest shows -- Nay -- the funniest show on TV today.

Either way, it's a fair guess that you'll probably never see Scrubs' "My Charlie Brown Christmas" on TV -- or on DVD for that matter -- so have a look here. And if you decide you want a copy for yourself, download it here.


If you don't have RealPlayer, get it here so you can stream our videos and music... It's free.

Now Look Here

Smokey the Bear? Crying Indian? Pshaw. Have a look at this.

Your Escape From Holiday Hell

Radio Zero's Helpful Holiday Hints To Make Your Gift Shopping More Fun

* Take 24 boxes of condoms and randomly put them in people's carts when they aren't looking.

* Set all of the alarm clocks in the Housewares section to go off at 5-minute intervals.

* Make a trail of tomato juice on the floor leading to the restrooms.

* Walk up to an employee and tell her in an official tone, 'Code 3.' Watch what happens.

* Put a bag of M&M's on lay away.

* When a clerk asks if you need help, begin to cry and ask, 'Why can't you people just leave me alone?'

* Look into the security camera, like a mirror, and pick your nose.

* Dart furtively around the store while loudly humming the "Mission Impossible" theme.

* In the Auto department, try a "Madonna look" using different size funnels.

* Hide in a clothing rack, and when people browse through, yell "PICK ME! PICK ME!"

* When an announcement comes over the loud speaker, assume the fetal position and scream "No! No! It's those voices again!!!!"

* Go into a fitting room, shut the door, wait awhile, then yell very loudly, "There is no toilet paper in here!"

Dying Breeders

Over the years a blind eye has been turned to the practice of polygamy in the United States. But the trial of a Fundamentalist Mormon for assisting in the rape of a minor could change all that.

Of all the difficult public relations campaigns in the world, this must be among the toughest: to sell polygamy, the practice of keeping more than one wife by one man, as a deeply Christian, rewarding activity that frees the women as much as it forwards the spiritual standing of the man.

But that is the challenge Anne Wilde has taken up, as a sort of unofficial spokeswoman for the polygamists of Utah.

Wilde was the second wife of Ogden Kraut. She keeps stressing that she feels that being a polygamist gave her more, not less, independence as a woman; and although her husband was a patriarch, part of his role as head of the family was to treat his wives with respect.

Wilde's purpose is made particularly tough because polygamy gets a consistently bad press, fuelled by events in some polygamist communities that appear to be anything but celestial.

Warren Jeffs, the "Prophet" of a polygamist community in Utah, has recently been charged with assisting the statutory rape of a 14-year-old girl, who had allegedly been forced into a spiritual marriage with her cousin, and ordered to "multiply and replenish the earth."

In other words, procreate, or risk eternal damnation.

Jeff's lawyers argue that to commit him to trial would be to continue the persecution Utah's polygamists have suffered since the late 19th century.

Read the full article by EdiPilkington at Guardian Unlimited

In Space, No One Can Ask If You Want Fries With That

NEW YORK (Reuters) - From space, extraterrestrials and astronauts can look back to earth and see The Great Wall of China -- and KFC's Colonel Sanders.

The KFC Corp. recently launched a rebranding campaign with an 87,500 square-foot image of Colonel Sanders in the Nevada desert which the company says makes Kentucky Fried Chicken the world's first brand visible from space.

Read the full story here.

Missing Think
Evidence that psychology, like biology, is conserved between human and nonhuman species augurs a shake-up for science and society

Back in 1974, an unusual report from Jane Goodall at the Gombe Stream Wildlife Research Centre in Tanzania caught the public eye. Chimpanzees had committed infanticide and were engaging in war. Not only were they acting in unanticipated ways, chimpanzees were acting like humans.

Since then, what we know about ourselves and other species has changed substantially. We now recognize that species other than humans engage in an array of behaviors that bring variety and depth to life: dolphins teach cultural customs to their young, octopi demonstrate diverse personalities, and rats show a sense of humor.

Once at odds with the conventions of her discipline, Goodall's interpretations today are supported by decades of research in neurobiology. They are part of a broad conceptual framework that has coalesced around the idea that psychology, like biology, is conserved among animals.

Ethologists studying animal behavior with close links to humans, however, have long made it a principle not to infer humanlike mental states from humanlike behavior and, until recently, many scientists in the field frowned upon any discussion of animal mental states.

Read the full article by G.iA.iBradshaw and RobertiM.iSapolsky at American Scientist Online

Cognitive Dissonance
We at Radio Zero find ourselves strangely attracted, yet repelled.

Now Look Here

The Sultan's Elephant
"Created by theatrical magicians Royal de Luxe, it was an extraordinary experience for everyone who saw it. The majestic elephant and the little girl giant captured the hearts and minds of thousands of Londoners and visitors, and will live in our hearts and minds for years to come." -- text from The Sultan's Elephant website
The Sultan's Elephant appeared in Calais from September 28 to October 1, and in Le Havre from October 26-29 2006.

It's A Thin Line Between "Tongue Twister" and "Ball Buster"

"This is the true joy in life -- the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy."

-- George Bernard Shaw

Ramey:
(addressing a group of professional military officers) Are you a Feminist? Oh...WRONG question. I should have asked 'are you a Father?' When your daughter loses her job to a clearly less-qualified man, you will discover YOU are a feminist.

Now, I like testosterone. Every home should have some. But it becomes damaging as a man gets older. I'm trying to help men live longer, although I'm not sure all of them deserve it.

Yussef:
Did you hear about the Muslim strip club? It features full facial nudity!

What do you say to a Muslim woman with two black eyes? Nothing! You told her twice already!

Because You Can't Make Goat Cheese With A Woman
Sudanese Man Takes Goat Bride After Roll In The Hay

A Sudanese man has been forced to take a goat as his wife, after he was caught having sex with the animal. The goat's owner, Mr. Alifi, said he surprised the man with his goat and took him to a council of elders. They ordered the man, Mr. Tombe, to pay a dowry of 15,000 Sudanese dinars ($50) to Mr. Alifi.

"We have given him the goat, and as far as we know they are still together," Mr. Alifi said. Mr. Alifi, Hai Malakal in Upper Nile State, told the Juba Post newspaper that he heard a loud noise around midnight on 13 February and immediately rushed outside to find Mr Tombe with his goat.

"When I asked him: 'What are you doing there?', he fell off the back of the goat, so I captured and tied him up." Mr Alifi then called elders to decide how to deal with the case. "They said I should not take him to the police, but rather let him pay a dowry for my goat because he used it as his wife."

Stolen almost entirely word for word from BBC News

Lancelot Link: Mindless Saturday Morning Fodder... Or The Window Into Our Primoridal Selves?

Mounting evidence suggests that human beings are hard-wired to appreciate music. Now researchers want to know why our ancestors evolved music in the first place.

Researchers at the Montreal Neurological Institute, for example, have scanned musicians' brains and found that the "chills" that they feel when they hear stirring passages of music result from activity in the same parts of the brain stimulated by food and sex.

As evidence mounts that we're somehow hard-wired to be musical, some thinkers are turning their attention to the next logical question: How did that come to be? The benefits of our affinity for food (nutrition) and sex (procreation) are easy enough to explain, but music is trickier.

Some suggest that music originated as a way for males to impress and attract females. In many bird species, for example, males sing to impress females. Depending on the species, females will tend toward the males with the broadest repertoire or the most complex or unique songs.

The foremost defender of that model today is GeoffreyiMiller, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of New Mexico. Miller argues that in prehistoric communities, singing and dancing might have worked-as they do today in some Native American cultures -- as proxies for hunting and warfare. The ability to come up with imaginative melodies and rhythms would connote intelligence and creativity, and the long, arduous dances would be proof of one's endurance-the sort of traits that a choosy female would like to see in her offspring.

Even today, Miller argues, music retains some of its old procreative roots. Looking at 6,000 recent jazz, rock, and classical albums, Miller found that 90 percent were produced by men, and that those male musicians tended to reach their peak musical production around age 30, which he notes, is also the peak of male sexual activity.

Miller points in particular to the example of JimiiHendrix. Miller has written that, despite dying at 27,iHendrix had "sexual liaisons with hundreds of groupies, maintained parallel long-term relationships with at least two women, and fathered at least three children in the United States, Germany, and Sweden. Under ancestral conditions before birth control, he would have fathered many more." To Miller, it was Hendrix'sistatus as a music-maker rather than his fame or charisma that gave him this sexual allure.

Edited from the article byiDrakeiBennettifor the Boston Globe. Read it here in its original, expanded form

Compassion, Mercy, Charity... In Action.
Priest Admits Madonna Bomb Hoax

A 63-year-old Dutch priest has confessed to making a hoax bomb threat in an attempt to stop a concert by US pop star Madonna, prosecutors say.

Her mock re-enactment of the crucifixion in one of the scenes offended some Christians during earlier shows in Italy and Germany. But the concerts in Amsterdam went ahead as planned on Sunday and Monday. A city official said the priest was arrested soon after making the call because he used his home phone. Emergency services quickly traced the number.

Edited from BBC News

Now the Healing Can Begin

from a correction in Audubon

The urine of the red fox smells more like skunk musk than the urine of the gray fox, as stated in "Winter Yaps."

They Must Be Mad
from the Walden (Colorado) Jackson County Star

On August 9, a gate was left open along Highway 14 west of Walden and several head of cattle left a perfectly good pasture with some of the lushest grass in years to go stand on asphalt. Their owner was notified.

Animals and children... They just know...

Who Invited That Guy?

Here at Radio Zero, we believe it is much more important to appear intelligent than to actually be intelligent.

That's why there was cause for excitement when we scored an advance copy of "TheiConciseiGuide toiSoundingiSmart atiParties."

Everyone else must wait until October to buy this book. But as a reader of this blog, you have an exclusive preview. Soon, you can lay legitmate claim to being the erudite raconteur extraordinaire that everyone wants to talk to at parties.

"The Concise Guide" grips you from the very start with strategies detailing how you can bring up Hannibal [247 BC - 183 BC] in conversation ("There's more foreigners here than in Hannibal's army") and it never lets go.

Here are just two more bon mots to mix with your pink drinks:

How to Bring Up Richard Wagner in Conversation
"Dude! Maybe it's time to get a little Richard Wagner and compose yourself."

How to Bring Up Bob Fosse in Conversation
"Hey now! Those are some sexy moves. Been taking dance lessons from Bob Fosse?"

Of course, if you want to truly appear intelligent at parties, you'll need to back up such powerful entrees to conversation with some actual knowledge of culture and history. We at Radio Zero, however, are a bit intimidated by things like the sheer enormity of recorded history, and would much rather leave that stuff to the professionals to figure out. In fact, we would rather just not read at all unless we really have to.


Rest assured, the authors have done all that reading for us. And they present the annals of history with such rapier wit that we found ourselves just laughing too hard to realize that we were taking in the accumulated wisdom of a civilization many millenia in the making. (In fact, through this book, we've also learned that 'annals' is actually spelled with two N's)

For instance, in the section "J. Robert Oppenheimer Was Da Bomb," we learn that the titular scientist was "appointed to lead the Manhattan Project -- the government team responsible for creating the first nuclear bomb, not the Alan Parsons Project, the rock band responsible for creating explosive pop music."

And in "Hitler 101," we learn that Der Fuhrer blamed Jews "as the source of all problems in the world with not even one nice word at least admitting how delicious bagels are."

The authors have a firm grasp of their incredibly varied subject matter and are imminently qualified to present it in an entertaining yet informative way. DavidiMatalon is a feature film director (he's wrapping up production oniVolleygirlias we speak), and ChrisiWoolsey is a freelance writer, 'youth speaker' and actor. We may not ever be lucky enough to see these Hollywood power brokers in action at a party, but with this book, we don't need to.

Anyway, to quote Mr. T, enough jibber jabber. There's so much to take away from "The Concise Guide," but here's just a small sampling of more smart-sounding subjects sure to stimulate scintillating small talk at the next soiree that has the honor of your presence:

How to Bring Up Smallpox in Conversation
"Agh! I've got this thing on my face that makes me look like I've got variola major."

How to Bring Up Sir Walter Raliegh in Conversation
"Girl, I can't believe you took credit for that. You totally just pulled a Raleigh."

How to Bring Up Bhopal in Conversation
"Don't you hate people who make empty promises like Union Carbide at Bhopal?"

How to Bring Up John Wayne Gacy in Conversation
"That guy's house stank so bad, I thought John Wayne Gacy was renting a room."

How to Bring Up Anton Chekov in Conversation
"Ya gotta chickity Chekov yourself before you wreck yourself by getting too serious about things."

"I hope there's an animal somewhere that nobody has ever seen. And I hope nobody ever sees it."

-- Wendell Berry, quoting his daughter, in "To the Unseeable Animal."

Now Playing

My Kid And My Money Go To Monty Python
John Cleese Appointed Cornell Provost's Visiting Professor for Three-Year Term

"We have been fortunate to have John Cleese as an A.D. White Professor for eight years -- two years longer than the normal term," said Cornell President Hunter Rawlings. "He has been so popular we've now made him Provost's Visiting Professor in response to requests from students and faculty."

Cleese holds an M.A. in law from the University of Cambridge and an honorary LL.D. from St. Andrews University, where he was rector for several years.

Throughout his career, Cleese has used humor as a teaching tool. Along with his Monty Python cohorts, Cleese has presented relatively advanced concepts in philosophy, science, history, religion, politics, human relations and physics to general audiences.

Appointed an A.D. White Professor in 1999, Cleese used his role to introduce other notable visitors to campus whose knowledge, expertise and enthusiasms were in concert with his own, including Hollywood screenwriter William Goldman, wildlife preservationist Simon Hicks and W.C. Fields biographer James Curtis.

Cleese became known on campus for presenting eclectic rounds of public talks on topics ranging from human development and animal welfare to the works of W. Somerset Maugham. He delivered a sermon at Sage Chapel on his experience with religion, gave public readings and screenings of Python blockbusters and generally seemed to relish his role as "professor-at-large."

Adapted from Cornell University Chronicle

Happiness Is...

... for idiots.

-- Charles de Gaulle

... And We Shouldn't Call It "Child Rearing," Either

"Even if [the dad] drops the kid and he cracks his head, at least he'll be heterosexual. A small price to pay."

-- Research psychologist Joseph Nicolosi encouraging his followers to engage in manly activities with their male children.

Thank God they found each other.

Brokaw: This 'Media' Thing Is Nothing But Trouble

"You live in a world of chat rooms and web sites. You are manned with cell phones, have video on demand and games on a chip. You are exposed to high-def and low-brow. You are masters of a new universe... or are you?"

- Tom Brokaw (pictured right, with tennis partner) to graduates of the University of Florida College of Medicine.

With arched eyebrow, Brokaw then snickered derisively and said, "Progress!? Flibberty floo!!" before shaking his head and mumbling something about "wagging the dog."

"Let me put it to you this way -- country simple," he continued. "Are you feeding the beast? Or is the beast feeding off of you?"

One student broke the uneasy silence that had fallen over the room, shouting: "That sounds like something Rather would say." Pockets of nervous laughter could be heard.

Brokaw shot back: "Go ahead. Laugh. But don't be surprised when you wake up one day and find that your hand has been bitten clean off." The crowd hushed again.

Brokaw's posture strightened while he sighed heavily, pausing as he struggled to focus his gaze on some distant point. His suddenly ashen face squinted. "I have seen the trail of tears this will leave. I've seen it myself. It is a bitter, twisted, bloody trail... Corpse-strewn. You must use this power only for good. Only for good..."

Dean Terry Hynes of the University of Florida's College of Journalism and Communications later commented: "Why didn't he come talk to us?"

But If You Look Closely...

"When he spoke again, it was to talk of pumpkins and cabbages, and after that, for he was a man of limited ideas, of cabbages and pumpkins." -- PG Wodehouse

Chuck Norris Does Not Sleep.
He Waits.

Chuck Norris doesn't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.

Simply by pulling on both ends, Chuck Norris can stretch diamonds back into coal.

Chuck Norris eats beef jerky and craps gunpowder. Then, he uses that gunpowder to make a bullet, which he then uses to kill a cow and make more beef jerky. Some people refer to this as the 'Circle of Life."

You'll find many more Chuck Norris facts here
courtesy of Sean

No, really, you had to be there