It's back! Here's a fascinating piece of business - an animation test of a proposed Paramount TV series which was attempted in 1967. As you can tell by the title, it's based upon the highly popular comedy album series The Bickersons from the 40s and 50s. They created a pilot by animating one of the album tracks, which actually gives it something The Flintstones never had - the feel of an actual studio audience.

But of course the main attraction of this is the guy who did it. Five years later, he became an underground hero by animating R. Crumb's Fritz The Cat for the big screen. Here's Ralph Bakshi's The Bickersons.

Tourism to Florida dropped 3.2% during the dead of summer this year. The intelligence which finally concluded that going to a broiling swampland during hurricane season was probably responsible for the November election results.

Focus On The Family spent over a half a mil to kill gay marriage in California. Now they're going to lay off over 200 employees. We guess they found it worth destroying 200 of their "families" to destroy a state's-worth of potential families. James Dobson took one more step toward hell.

I seriously hope that McCain now realizes that his campaign thugs and his delightful running mate stoked the flames of hatred toward Obama ("Palling around with terrorists" sure didn't do anything to stop it) when the jeers, the booing and the screaming of epithets at their rallies gave the green light to at least some of this abhorrent behavior.

If you let your animal snarl without correction, that animal will go to the next level. That's what's happened with the anti-Obama animals.

Why does all this seem to be headed for disaster (of the annoying kind, not the End-Of-Days kind)? Conditioning.

President-elect Barack Obama’s advisers have begun reviewing former President Bill Clinton’s finances and activities to see whether they would preclude the appointment of his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, as secretary of state, Democrats close to the situation said Sunday.

A team of lawyers trying to facilitate the potential nomination spent the weekend looking into Mr. Clinton’s philanthropic organization, interactions with foreign governments and ties to pharmaceutical companies, a Democrat close to both camps said. While Mr. Clinton has used his foundation to champion efforts to fight AIDS, poverty and climate change around the world, he has also taken millions in speaking fees and contributions from foreign officials and businesses with interests in American governmental policies.

Obama advisers are discussing what Mr. Clinton would need to do to avoid a conflict of interest with the duties of his wife, who is said to be interested in the post.

Wanda Sykes declares.

Comedian Wanda Sykes says the passage of a same-sex marriage ban in California has led to her be more outspoken about being gay.

"You know, I don't really talk about my sexual orientation. I didn't feel like I had to. I was just living my life, not necessarily in the closet, but I was living my life," Sykes told a crowd at a gay rights rally in Las Vegas on Saturday.

"Everybody that knows me personally they know I'm gay. But that's the way people should be able to live their lives," she said.

Sykes, who is known for her feisty and blunt style, said the passage of California's Proposition 8 made her feel like she was "attacked."

"Now, I gotta get in their face," she said. "I'm proud to be a woman. I'm proud to be a black woman, and I'm proud to be gay."

The Pluses:

• Paul Rudd didn't come on the plug a movie (Currently Role Models) at all - he was just good and funny.
• Lead Weekend Update story: "It's official. For the next four years it'll be pronounced 'nuclear.'"
• The wonderful "This Song Reminds Me Of..." bit which normally suffers from having no ending - finally had an ending. (I always marvel at the timing of this whenever they do it. The cadence of the writing always matches the song JUST in time for them to sing the hook. It's really pretty amazing.)
• Beyonce. Damn. And her all-female band which killed. Double damn.
• Hey! Wall-E drops Tuesday!
• Justin Timberlake's 2-1/2 minute version of a complete SNL episode. How scary is this guy?*

*Bah. The prohibition of musical performances in SNL's web videos means the final part of this bit isn't here. Too bad. It was a fun exclamation point.

The minuses:

• Must've been gay week in the writers' room. The kissing family. The digital short. Snagglepuss. Parts of the "This Song Reminds Me Of..." sketch. The closing bit on the Prop 8 rally. The Beyonce video shoot (which in all fairness had the audience falling out of their seats). The suicide sketch. Really. Gayest episode ever. Not that there's...y'know.
• They introduced two new featured cast members in the opening credits. Where were they?
• Kristen Wiig must have had a plane to catch. She disappeared 20 minutes into the show.
• Wiig's disappearance made us realize how much Amy Poehler is missed. And Wiig. And Tina.
• The fact that I'm writing about SNL. After 30+ years, I'm still rooting for it. What can I tell ya.

Presidential. Nice change after eight years.

We went out of town yesterday but on the drive out we saw the beginnings of a couple of the mountain fires from a distance. When we returned, the entire L.A. area was under a cloud of smoke. This morning, our area which was pretty clear last night, is awakening to a brown sky and a dusting of ash on the entire community. Your mind really tries to wrap itself around all this - wondering what forest or whose home is contained in those ashes which traveled maybe dozens of miles.

The ongoing dry hot weather and Santa Ana winds - in late November, mind you - are going to make this a sad ongoing story which is definitely impacting thousands of lives and likely the climate.

Frank Rich reminds us all why (a) the GOP needs to finally reign in their horribly outdated Southern Strategy and (b) why their new shiny icons don't move the stakes in their lame attempt to make their tent bigger.

In defeat, the party’s thinking remains unchanged. Its leaders once again believe they can bamboozle the public into thinking they’re the “party of Lincoln” by pushing forward a few minority front men or women. The reason why they are promoting Palin and the recently elected Indian-American governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, as the party’s “future” is not just that they are hard-line social conservatives; they are also the only prominent Republican officeholders under 50 who are not white men. The G.O.P. will have to dip down to a former one-term lieutenant governor of Maryland, Michael Steele, to put a black public face on its national committee.

Such window dressing aside, there remains only one Republican idea for reaching out to minority voters: Richard Land, of the Southern Baptist Convention, recommends pandering to socially conservative blacks and Hispanics with yet more hyperventilation about same-sex marriage. Weird though it may be, gays were the sole minority group that actually voted slightly more Republican this year (though still going Democratic by 70 to 27 percent). Pitting blacks and Latinos against them could open up a whole new bloody front in the G.O.P. civil war.

The only other widespread post-election conservative ideas are Bush 2000 retreads (market-based health care and education reform). Jindal offers generic gab about how the party must offer Americans “real solutions” and “substance,” but he has yet to offer a real solution to his own state’s gaping $1 billion budget shortfall. Indeed, the only two “new” ideas that the G.O.P. is pushing in defeat are those they condemn when practiced by Democrats: celebrity and identity politics. Palin’s manic post-election publicity tour, which may yet propel her and “the first dude” to “Dancing With the Stars,” is almost a parody of the McCain ad likening Obama to Paris and Britney. Anyone who says so is promptly called out for sexism by the P.C. police of the newly “feminist” G.O.P.

At the risk of being so reviled, let me point out that in the marathon of Palin interviews last week, the single most revealing exchange had nothing to do with her wardrobe or the “jerks” (as she called them) around McCain. It came instead when Wolf Blitzer of CNN asked for some substance by inviting her to suggest “one or two ideas” that Republicans might have to offer. “Well, a lot of Republican governors have really good ideas for our nation,” she responded, without specifying anything except that “it’s all about free enterprise and respecting equality.” Well, yes, but surely there’s some actual new initiative worth mentioning, Blitzer followed up. “Gah!” replied the G.O.P.’s future. “Nothing specific right now!”

Peter Schiff told us the sky was falling. The the sky fell. Until it did, the media and other "experts" trashed the poor guy. Sullivan has 10 minutes of video proof.

The derisive laughter from those he faced for over two solid years makes you want to go back in time and kick their teeth in. Okay...to hell with going back in time.

I mean I'm Jewish and all, and I'm all for the survival of Israel just as all nations have a right - right or wrong - to exist without encroaching on the existence of others. That's a very simplistic description, but I hope you get my drift.

When I'm asked about my priorities or my life mission, I'll generally say that I hope I'm enriching the lives of others, helping when I can, reaching back when needed, and being an asset to my family and community. And I do indeed love my country, my countrymen and my friends (and the friends I haven't made yet) worldwide. Sorry, but Israel isn't one of the first things I blurt out. So when Roger Ailes says,

"I stand up for what I believe. I don’t back off. I’ve been that way for 40 years. That’s the secret to my success. I have thick skin. I don’t care what people say about me.

"I defend the United States, Israel and the Constitution."

...I worry that this egotistical lack of compassion is running a major news organization. It ain't strength. It's arrogance. And thankfully it's no longer a recipe for success as we're now seeing. Ailes will find out soon enough.

And I still don't understand Israel being a higher priority than one's own family or Ailes using his influence to stoke the flames of intolerance instead of making the world - including Israel - a better more peaceful place.

I'm crazy that way.