I'm with the Grinches on this one. If there's one thing the MSM does an absolutely terrific job of, it is delivering footage of cute kids and cute pets. Interesting juxtaposition of this clip with the French condom ad, though.

Ummm .. on the basis of this clip, he's just annoying. He SHOULD have gotten soaked with coffee.

South Park really covered the bases on cute animals in the media last year in its "Quest for Ratings" episode. The boys are in danger of failing their extracurricular AV assignment for South Park Elementary's closed-circuit TV network because their serious-minded news magazine keeps getting trounced by another show, "Animals Close-Up With a Wide-Angle Lens" and its sequel, "Close-up Animals With a Wide Angle Lens... Wearing Hats." But keep these coming, if you must -- we are paying for this content, but it doesn't really cost anything to skip over these when they arrive in our daily Salon mailings. Day after day.

Really! Pot, black, calling kettle...

I slipped a disc this week. The last thing I need is to be laughing my ass off like this! The music only adds to the hysteria.

Isn't it nice to see Professor Snape in his earlier years!

Did Isaac Hayes jump, or was he pushed? Whatever -- the creators of South Park have now given us a mantra to chant when the scientology craziness gets to be too much for us:

"Fruity Little Club..."

"Fruity Little Club..."

"Fruity Little Club..."

Really truly not something we need to see here. Let's edit a little better, OK?

To be fair, I must say that we were channel surfing last night, and we came to rest on VH1. As soon as I recognized that we had landed during "Flavor of Love," I was able to say "change it change it CHANGE IT!" I wouldn't have known to do that without seeing this clip yesterday...

Well, Herb, maybe they let it go because they realized that's Stravinsky's "Firebird" and not Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain." (OK, maybe not much better if I recall the character whose dance that is.) But they seemed not to have minded he inclusion of queer composer Benjamin Britten's "Simple Symphony," either.

Still, kinda hard to watch.

Stunning, shocking, exhilarating -- that's what Stephen Colbert's comedy routine at the White House Correspondents' Dinner was. It was seriously telling-off to the powerful and to the mainstream media who coddle them.

Colbert got in the gentlest of digs at Jesse Jackson, then spun it into a gag line on glaciers and global warming that caught the audience with its guard down. He made vulgar gestures at Scalia that made him rock with helpless laughter. He used spoons and salad forks as a metaphor to mock McCain's supposed maverick status, then reminded us McCain is about to crawl into bed with the hatemongers at Bob Jones University.

He coined some new catchphrases while he was at it, giving us " backwash" to describe the 32% who still approve Bush and "Snow Job" as the code name for the new White House spokesperson.

He reminded us about Guckert, the prostitute who called himself Gannon for his stint as a planted stooge at White House press conferences (not to mention whatever other activities he engaged in the rest of the many hours for which his time is unaccounted for at the White House outside of press conference times).

And he joined Helen Thomas in raising the question: "Why are we in Iraq?"

We will look back on the clips of this performance years from now as a landmark in political humor of the bravest kind.

Where do we take up the collection to buy extra bodyguards for Stephen Colbert?

If nothing else, we now know that Mary Cheney is a Class Act.

Jeez -- is the NYPDance guy really wearing German Zunfthose (traditional guild / carpenter's pants with 2 zippers on the front)? Haven't seen them onscreen on an American before!

Not really much time to come up with entries when this doesn't go out to our mailboxes until after 7:30am the next day (May 17), and with a subject line of "Salon Newsletter -- Thursday May 18, 2006" (those have been off by a day all month, by the way).

"If it were me and mine, I'd consider marriage (quickly)"????

How nice to have legal marriage as an option! That sure isn't going to help same-sex couples with kids, is it?

One of the points you're all missing here is the wakeup call that just because you're not gay or lesbian doesn't mean the American Taliban is not working to legislate away your freedoms.

That won't-say-he's-ex-gay client is now chatting online with women, looking for dates. Questions for those women:

"What's your comfort level with being one of those dates? Does having seen or read 'Brokeback Mountain' affect your opinion on this in any way?"

Rove says, "Like too many Democrats, it strikes me that...." Since when is Karl Rove a Democrat?

Worst

Supreme

Ever

Let's face it -- the MSM are joke.

I'll admit to being a little disappointed in the Camus essay, but I'm not going to let broad-brush condemnation of Louis Bayard as a writer go unchallenged. I just finished reading my second Bayard novel of the summer yesterday ("The Pale Blue Eye," hot on the heels of "Mr. Timothy" -- and I'm tracking down his previous two books, "Endangered Species" and "Fool's Errand"). He's an engrossing author, and both of these books were a terrific read. So let's lighten up on Salon and allow Mr. Bayard an off day once in a while.

I have based my summer reading on the Salon list that came out two months ago, and the most enjoyable things I've read have been this book and Mr. Bayard's previous novel, Mr. Timothy. Couldn't put either of them down. I'm glad to have been introduced to this novelist's work!