And in Hollywood - Where reality is just another thing you fake

Heather Mills, the Queen of Charity and Paul McCartney’s ex, had lots of reasons to demand Justice Bennett keep the divorce decision secret. Now it’s out that the charitable Ms. Mills’ wasn’t as charitable with her “Dancing With the Stars” fee as she bragged. And the security risks for daughter Beatrice - well that was all in her head too. McCartney told da judge, “My real concern with Heather’s demands for bodyguards 24 hours a day is our daughter. Unless on tour, my older children had very little security. They all attended local state schools. It is not healthy for a child to have security 24/7. It sets them apart from their peers and makes them an object of curiosity and, at times, ridicule.” Does that go for moms too? ‘Cause there’s a ridiculous rumor going around that Mills is wailing how the neighborhood she grew up in was so poor, cat buglers stole mice.

Guess it’s Satellite TV time. Or will be if Comcast goes through with putting spy cameras in their cable equipment. Gerard Kunkel, Comcast’s senior VP of User Experience told Chris Albrecht (newteevee.com) not to worry. Comcast just wants to know who’s in the living room so they can customized the ads - that’s all. Gee, thanks Gerard but I think I’ll pass. And please don’t customize the World Series either. Next thing you know there’ll be spy cameras on each seat. That way when someone steals second base - they’ll know if they should mug the second baseman too.

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Inconvenient Quotes

“And on the seventh day God rested. That’s when he asked me to take over.”

Today’s pundit: From “The Second World War” by Winston Churchill (1874-1965), British statesman, writer, prime minister during WWII

Dedicated to World Leaders everywhere:

In the prelude to WWII: “The malice of the wicked was reinforced by the weakness of the virtuous.”

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News Fit to Quip Remember - no one is perfect - until they write their campaign literature of course

It ain’t over until it’s over. China may have cut off all outside coverage of the carnage in Tibet but it’s spilling out elsewhere. Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, played dodge with police as they disrupted the flame-lighting ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. Three members of the journalism advocacy group waved their flag in the birthplace of the Olympics to protest China’s version of the ‘Peace Games.’ Meanwhile in Nepal, police arrested 475 people who chanted “China, stop killings in Tibet. U.N., we want justice.” Understand China has taken a cue from the West’s legal system to declare Tibet and those who support it legally insane.

You’ve been OUTSOURCED! Get sick, need some expensive care and you just might find yourself in a foreign country getting cut by the locals. To show us it ain’t so bad, David Boucher, assistant vice-president of health-care services of South Carolina’s Blue Cross & Blue Shield went to Bumrungrad International Hospital in Bangkok and got a colonoscopy for $640. About what it would cost in SC but cheap for a publicity stunt. The beauty of outsourcing isn’t just cost savings. Seems it’s difficult to impossible to sue for malpractice in these Asian countries. And the insurance companies can force you to go cheap by raising USA deductibles to the point, you’d have no choice. Thailand must really understand what Blue Cross & Blue Shield is up to. ‘Cause when Boucher went there to discuss the deal, officials didn’t greet him with a key to the city but a lockpick.

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Report From Liliputian Land - Where it’s the ANNOYING who inherit the earth

When in his mid-20’s, one current presidential candidate went looking for a job and became alarmed. “There was something about him that made me wary. A little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.” That’s from Obama’s FIRST autobiography “Dreams From My Father” written ten years later. Which maybe explain his SECOND 2006 autobiography “The Audacity of Hope” written ten years after that. Does the first spilling of the Obama guts tell the racist preacher Wright tale? “I ceased to advertise my mother’s race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites… it remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names.” Of course there’s plenty of conservatives sporting the same hue as our ‘Oh Mama’ Obama who disagree with the Man of Hope and Change. And at this revealing rate “Hope” I Get Elected just may wind-up Political Spare “Change.”

A slip of the PEN? In “Living History” Hillary Clinton wrote “Due to reports of snipers in the hills around the airstrip, we were forced to cut short an event on the tarmac with local children, though we did have time to meet them and their teachers.” But with all the muss and fuss of dredging up the proper “Experience” to lead, the poor dear misspoke as she talked to reporters Monday. “I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base. Everyone else was told to sit on their bulletproof vests. And we came in, in an evasive maneuver. … There was no greeting ceremony, and we basically were told to run to our cars. Now, that is what happened.” Okay, Hil. You’re tired. But what about the ‘I save Northern Ireland’ claim? “I helped to bring peace to Northern Ireland. I remember a meeting that I pulled together in Belfast, in the town hall there, bringing together for the first time Catholics and Protestants from both traditions, having them sitting a room where they had never been before with each other because they don’t go to school together, they don’t live together and it was only in large measure because I really asked them to come that they were there.” But Northern Ireland’s Lord Trimble, negotiator and aide to John Hume doesn’t quite remember it that way. Says Hillary’s inflated claims are a “wee bit silly.” Get the funny feeling that if Hillary ever took a stroll in Venice, Italy - somehow it’d be mis-remembered as the time she ‘walked on water.’

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Sleaze-noid News With two sides to every story - Local and Network

What if you gave a newscast and nobody watched? It’s getting to that point for network news. Gone are the days when NBC’s Huntley-Brinkley Report was a big cheese in pop culture. Now the 18-34 demography belongs to cable TV or the Internet. Fainting in the ratings are “CBS Evening News with Katie Couric” down 21% from last year. ABC’s “World News with Charles Gibson” slipped 13.5%. And NBC’s “Nightly News with Brian Williams” is off 10.1%. But let the good times roll for cable news. It shot up 31% during January and February. And then there’s the Internet. It serves as the primary source of news for 55% of 18-29s. One problem for network news could be their early hour broadcast time. Or it could be how they sandwich the news. You know. A little bit of substance at the beginning. A little bit of substance at the end. A lot of baloney in between.

BBC is really really sorry it got caught twice finessing the news and promises it’ll try not to get caught again. Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) proved the BBC cooked the books on a recent story. The BBC fiction was “Hours after the attack, Israeli bulldozers destroyed his family home” supported by pixs of Israel bulldozers flattening the home of Ala Abu Dheim. The man who hunted - then gunned down eight yeshiva students. Fact was the dump still stood. As did a martyr’s tent for fellow terrorists to come and pay their “respects.” Second flight of fancy was caught by a Brit citizen from Manchester, England. He noticed the BBC taking a UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon quote out of time and context. Puppeteer like, they had Ban Ki-moon condemning Israel for defending itself against a terrorist rocket barrage launched from playgrounds and densely populated apartment complexes. These days, the BBC is as likely to report the truth as Marcel Marceau is to deliver singing telegrams.

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The Chicken Little Report - The weather - brought to you by Bossy - and a good MOOO to you!

It’s a hot hot time in the Antarctic. An iceberg 7 times the size of Manhattan cleaved off from the South Pole and sent shivers of expectation down the backs of freezing Global Warmest everywhere. Now while this is a natural occurrence, it’s unusual - because - THEY SAY SO! A recent paper published in the Journal of Glaciology says it ain’t quite so simple as hot air. “Our new study shows that ice-shelf break up is not controlled simply by climate. A number of other atmospheric, oceanic and glaciological factors are involved. For example, the location and spacing of fractures on the ice shelf such as crevasses and rifts are very important too because they determine how strong or weak the ice shelf is”. At least as long as Global Warmest are around no one will starve. ‘Cause every time they open their mouths - you get fed up.

Scientific Consensus on Climate Change?
By Klaus-Martin Schulte
Monday, 24 March 2008

FEAR of anthropogenic “global warming” can adversely affect patients’ well-being. Accordingly, the state of the scientific consensus about climate change was studied by a review of the 539 papers on “global climate change” found on the Web of Science database from January 2004 to mid-February 2007, updating research by Oreskes (2004), who had reported that between 1993 and 2003 none of 928 scientific papers on “global climate change” had rejected the consensus that more than half of the warming of the past 50 years was likely to have been anthropogenic. In the present review, 31 papers (6% of the sample) explicitly or implicitly reject the consensus. Though Oreskes said that 75% of the papers in her sample endorsed the consensus, fewer than half now endorse it. Only 6% do so explicitly. Only one paper refers to “catastrophic” climate change, but without offering evidence. There appears to be little evidence in the learned journals to justify the climate-change alarm that now harms patients.

Excerpted from Science & Public Policy Institute

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And in Hollywood - Where reality is just another thing you fake

The Paul McCartney - Heather Mills divorce is settled. She didn’t get the $250 million payout she wanted. The judge said it “is and was unreasonable, indeed exorbitant.” And the judge also ignored Mills’ desire to keep the divorce ruling secret to protect her moneybag’s - er - daughter’s safety. So to get even, Mills plans to promote how she acted as her own lawyer with a do-it yourself divorce reality show called - ‘Whining for Dollars.’

A kiss is just a kiss - unless you’re smooching one of India’s favorite female superstars. Then you’re breaking India’s public obscenity laws - NOT! A judge just suspending last year’s arrest warrant on Richard Gere. Hindu activists were okay with Gere shouting ‘No condom, no sex,’ to thousands of truck drivers at an AIDS awareness event. But went ballistic when Gere bent the Bollywood star over backwards to plant a sexy kiss on her cheek. Gere apologized for what he called a manufactured controversy by the small hard-line political party, Shiv Sena. Media first reported Gere saying the Shiv Sena party was missing. But that was a mistake. What he actually said was mentally - they’re not all there.

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Inconvenient Quotes

“And on the seventh day God rested. That’s when he asked me to take over.”

Today’s pundit: Michael Kinsley, (born March 9, 1951 - political journalist, commentator, television host and liberal pundit)

“A gaffe, it has been said, is when a politician tells the truth.”

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News Fit to Quip Remember - no one is perfect - until they write their campaign literature of course

Legqoi, a member of China’s puppet government, the Tibetan Regional People’s Congress said “‘The rule of terror in Tibet’, as Dalai claimed, was downright nonsense.” Tell that to the Tibetan prisoners paraded through the streets of Lhasa Monday. Hands cuffed behind their backs with a Chinese soldiers at each’s neck to make sure their heads remained bowed in submission. The Red Chinese government blocked YouTube.com Sunday when foreign news reports popped up with unpleasant truths concerning the Lhasa riots. Somebody should remind the Chinese government as they host the Olympics, the games are about “building a peaceful and better world.” The problem with the Red Chinese is they want to play by their own rules. In fact, if the world was a big Monopoly Game, you’d catch ‘em building hotels on Free Parking.

When Bear Stearns became over extended ‘cause of the sinking subprime mortgage fiasco last week, they crashed and burned big time. One of the largest global investment banks, securities trading and brokerage firms in the world, last year their stock traded for $150. Now JPMorgan Chase has agreed to purchase the failing investment bank at a 93% discount from Friday’s close - a paltry $2 a share. It was a point of pride for employees to own stock in the company and currently they hold about one-third of the firm’s stock. When management called the employees together Monday to explain the buyout, the VP of Human Resources gave each a bar of soap. When asked what is it was for, he told ‘em, “You’re taking a bath.”

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Report From Liliputian Land - Where it’s the ANNOYING who inherit the earth

It’s been a fairy tale week: First the Emperor Spitzer Has No Pants classic followed by Obama’s Wizard of Oz - “Pay no attention to that racist preacher behind the curtain” speech. Pastor Jeremiah Wright is giving Barack Obama a bad case of foot in the political mouth disease. The Rev. has gone from “sounding board,” inspiration for Obama’s book “The Audacity of Hope,” and the source for his 2004 keynote address at the Democratic National Convention - to “inflammatory and appalling.” My, my what a few reality checks can do for ya. The Rev. Jim Wallis, founder of the Sojourners and an Obama friend / apologist says, “If you want to understand where Barack gets his feeling and rhetoric from, just look at Jeremiah Wright.” Would that be the same Rev. Wright who spat out gems like? “The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.” Of course this maybe another “just rhetoric” moment but it sounds more like Adolf Hitler trying to get “Mein Kempf” published by the “Christian Science Monitor.”

If you can’t take the heat Barack - stay out of the Press Room. Ever since SNL gave the media a new set of balls, Obama has actually gotten some tough questions. Like why did his representative tell the Canadian government his campaign’s anti-NFTA talk was “just rhetoric.” Or refusing to be candidate about his connection to ex-campaign fund-raiser Tony Rezko, now on trial on corruption charges. The reporters kept shouting questions even as Obama scurried from the room. Now Fox News has an “Obama Watch” countdown. They’re waiting for the Man of Hope and Change to fulfill his 2006 promise to sit down to a little political mano-a-mano interview. Chris Wallace, host of “Fox News Sunday” said Sunday, “Many of you have sent us e-mails asking why the senator won’t come on ‘Fox News Sunday’ and face tough questioning. It has now been 730 days, 13 hours, 53 minutes and nine _ no, 10 seconds and counting since Obama agreed to be a guest on ‘Fox News Sunday.’ Tune in next week for the latest.” Obama is becoming proof of that old proverb, “If you have half a mind to run for office - that’s all it takes!”

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