Tales of overcoming adversity. Holiday gift ideas. CD reviews. Interviews with fighters. All this and MORE can be found in this week's issue, which is online and ready for readers! Feel free to comment on its contents here.

Geraldo Rivera visit the Fox Theater tonight for a talk about his new book, His Panic, which explores the nation's ongoing hysteria over illegal immigration.

Rivera says the book was inspired to write the book after this impassioned shouting match with his fellow Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly.

I'll be joining Geraldo on stage for a Q&A. The show starts at 7 p.m. at the Fox, 17 W. Congress St.

Fear not, dear bloggers: If you are going through election withdrawals (of Obama, the bridge to nowhere, lipstick on a pig and the American flag), there is now an online game--Super Obama World--to help you get to Jan. 20.

With the economy in the tank, the best thing about the game is that it is FREE. Go forth: superobamaworld.com.

Roll Call is reporting that Sen. John McCain will seek reelection to his U.S. Senate seat in 2010. The story is subscription-only, so details remain sketchy.

Joy, craziness or obsession? What is it about Facebook? Oh, and yeah, don't forget the Weekly has a Facebook page. Want to be our friend?

Here a two items of note that were not included in this week's Noshing Around column.

On Nov. 20, Zivaz celebrates its 3rd anniversary with a $3 paella plate when your purchase a drink and eat in. This offer is good for the first 200 people. Doors open at 5 p.m.

Also on November 20 (12:01 a.m. to be exact), the greatest wine-marketing circus starts exploding on the Internet with hundreds of press releases touting this year's Beaujolais Nouveau from France. The wine is the first press from gamay grapes in the Beaujolais region and is meant to be drunk now or by the end of the year. Beaujolais Nouveau is also the perfect pairing with turkey or so the marketing madness will have you believe.

I have a love/hate affair with the wine. I love it when it's good (serve lightly chilled) and hate it when it tastes like mouthwash. Every year is slightly different.

RumRunner informed me that this year they have a Boisset Family Estates Bouchard and Mommessin Beaujolais Nouveau in lightweight PET bottles. The 100-percent recyclable bottles reduce shipping weight by 42 percent, and cut freight costs by one-third. PET bottles have a smaller carbon footprint than glass bottles, and are calculated to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent.

When buying wine this holiday season, please consider investing your dollars in local wine shops like RumRunner, Catavinos Wines, Plaza Liquor and 58 Degrees.  

The Boondocks Lounge has been at the center of the election-intergrity squabble and debate regarding the sighting of Pima County Elections Division employee Bryan Crane.

According to former county employee Zbigniew Osmolski, Crane allegedly told Zbig that he was instructed to rig the Regional Transportation Authority election one fine night at Boondocks. Crane has reported that he had to look up Boondocks to know where it was located--he's never been there, he said. The conversation between the two supposedly took place on the Boondocks patio the night of Jan. 27, 2008.

One blog-comment-leaver wondered what folks at the Boondocks saw, or if anything was captured by a security camera.

Well, dear blogger, a call to Boondocks co-owner Cathy Warner didn't produce much--except for the revelation that Warner has now been interviewed by Attorney General investigators regarding the night in question. Warner said she was asked about cameras and if anyone reported to her that they saw Crane enjoying a smoke out on the patio.

Warner was clear: She doesn't know Crane, and formally met Zbig only a couple of months ago when he came up to her one night and explained who he was (although she said she recognized him as someone she's seen at Boondocks in the past).

As far as surveillance goes, Warner said that in January, she was still using an old system that only had cameras focused on the bar area. There were no cameras on the patio. The sytem used video tapes, and once Warner reviewed the tapes for suspicious activity, she often used those tapes over again. And that's exactly what happened: The Attorney General's office asked her to look, and she confirmed that a tape from Jan. 27 no longer exists.

The Attorney General investigators also took pictures of the patio area--and lamented to Warner that this case just won't go away.

What they didn't ask Warner is about her staff--those working that night who could have potentially ID'd Crane and Zbig, with Crane wearing his fedora and ponytail, and Zbig with a Brazilian shirt and cigarettes telling Crane in his Polish accent that he is Billy from Brazil.

Warner said she'd have to turn her office upside down to find the staff schedule from that night. She said most of the Sunday staff is usually pretty young and doesn't keep up on the news.

To this day, she said, no one on her staff has told her that they saw anything that night--or that they even read about this Boondocks affair in the Weekly.

Ouch.

Where else in the world could

everyone own an auto company,

yet be too broke to drive one.

—Dr. Knowledge

The new Weekly is here! Feel free to comment on its contents here.

In our Oct. 23 issue, our cover story and our Editor's Note focused on Pima County elections security. The story was an examination of various claims election-integrity activists are making against the county's Elections Division; the Ed Note made the case that Elections Director Brad Nelson should be relieved of his duties.

These stories apparently touched a nerve with the county. After a conversation with Tom Lee, the Weekly's publisher, Chuck Huckelberry sent to us a response to the Oct. 23 stories.

In an effort to be fair, we're running Huckelberry's entire response in the Nov. 13 print edition, except for a testimony excerpt we could not fit in. You can find Huckelberry's response--exactly as he sent it to us--here.

Meanwhile, Bill Risner--the lawyer for the Democratic Party who was a key player in getting the whole election-integrity ball rolling here in Pima County--also got hold of a copy of Huckelberry's response to the Weekly. In response to Huckelberry, he typed up a letter, which can be found here.

We're continuing to follow the elections-integrity story--and stand fully behind all of our previous coverage.