Don't be reading this. Henry Rollins is on IFC right now. His regular show starts 11 PM EST tonight. But before that IFC is airing a show he did in Israel. Both funny, crazy and an interesting American Jewish Punker view of Israel. If you are online right now, STOP and turn on IFC, NOW!!! Rollins rocks and he tells it like it is with both naivete and cynicism in a bizarre but mesmerizing mix. Watch it...now!

I, Liza Michelle Sabater-Tirado, am the father of Anna Nicole Smith's daughter, Dannielynn.

It was a freak accident of telepathic autogenesis that made me the father of Anna's daugher. Seriously. Since the father of my children doesn't want more kids, I was using all my mental abilities to immaculately conceive the baby girl I want so much. Unfortunately my powers got transferred to Anna Nicole.

No wonder Matt had a huge grin on his face after this happened. I was so oblivious about who she was, I took it as one lesser mortal trying to upstage this goddess and blogdiva.

Oh yeah baby, I'm having a moment here.

The Democratic National Committee Winter Meeting was exactly that --a meeting to discuss the order of business within the DNC and it's caucauses. Fascinating stuff to witness for someone who is as clueless as I am on what people actually do within political parties.

So, during the general session there was some kind of a discussion lull involving financial reports. I stepped out to get a soda --an endeavor that at the horrid Washington Hilton took an eternity to complete.

When I come back to my seat, I see a woman sitting on my chair --notwithstanding the fact I had left my laptop, purse, camera, podcasting gear and basically everything that no self-respecting blogdiva would blog without.

My first thought was "bitch, get off my seat". Being the marginally professional diva that I am, I calmly requested the woman's attention and said to her : "Excuse me, you're in my seat."

Now, you have to understand something about this : This woman happened to be sitting in the credentialed bloggers section. This was were a big chunk of the top bloggers were covering the action. We were even making fun of Ezra loosing his coolness credentials because he was working that day and had to sit in the press section.

Via DailyKos, the news that the Bush administration is forcing inconvenient District Attorneys – the kind that pursue official corruption - to resign. Must have something to do with that 'honor and dignity' business.

The New York Times: Bloomie plans a property tax cut, and the elimination of the sales tax on clothing. Cue the Bloomberg '08 chatter.

Albany budgets that are transparent and balanced - what's the world coming to?

The Wall Street Journal has relief for those confused by the wildly gyrating Presidential race, a handy overview chart.

Capitol Confidential says that Craig Johnson has $211,845 cash on hand. Teaser: that number may rise very shortly.

MyDD: Senator Escalation loses a GOP straw poll, which will surprise the media, but not people who are paying attention. I keep on telling people: their base hates him. Listen to people occasionally instead of telling us what you think the story should be, dear media.

And lastly, via CultureKitchen, the Hotness of Jake Gyllenhaal.

    

There has got to be meaning to this juxtaposition :

James Brown, the hardest working man in show business who took shit from nobody and represented the emerging black powered pop culture revolution. He dies on Christmas day.

Gerald Ford, the man who had to clean Richard Nixon's shit while nurturing the emerging white supremacist neo-con movement introduced by his presidency. He dies the day after Christmas.

James Brown, no matter how fucked up his situation, he always seemed to be able to overcome through hard work and determination. His foibles? Pardonnable because even though he was superhumanly talented, his shortcomings and humble beginning just made him more like us.

Gerald Ford, on the other hand, never seemed to break a sweat. His photographs in the White House make it look like he is more like a vacationer than a president; just passing time before his time to go. And his biggest foible? Pardoning Nixon, and letting him skip free from the consequences of his corrupt actions.

Today's big stink is centered around a 4 minute piece on The Today Show, produced by Matt Lauer. Take a look :

In many of my presentations about blogging I have made the point that right now we are in the middle of a semantic warfare and that Google and blogs are the tools of semantic guerrilla warriors like me.

Here's the deal : Big Media was the tool of the powerful. When people talk about "Top-Down Politics" or hierarchical politics, it really doesn't start in Washington DC. Top-Down politics starts in New York City addresses like One Rockefeller Plaza and 229 West 43rd Street.

The magazines, TV shows and advertisments produced over at Madison Avenue, 6th Avenue (or Avenue of the Americas) and 10th and 11th Avenues have only one purpose : To influence "the demographics". It isn't a coincidence that politicos and advertisers use the same term to describe "the people" who end up shopping with their votes and voting with their wallets. The delusion is that Power in the United States is purveyed only by those who have control over what "the demographics" read, listen, wear, eat, like.

If you control desire/information/knowledge, the maxim used to go, then you control Power. So how are we to understand Matt Lauer's move?

Howard Kurtz on the linguistic missile :

I'm still working on the part where NBC gets more power if the conflict is viewed as a civil war. Because the network would be seen as galvanizing support for a pullout? All because of the use of the C-word? Is American support for the war so shaky that a single network's phraseology can cause that support to crumble?

[...]

I have no problem in using the phrase. But I don't think every news outlet needs to have an edict from on high.

I continue to believe that the day-to-day coverage of the carnage in Iraq is more important in terms of swaying public opinion than the label that the MSM chooses to slap on the conflict. Did most people think this wasn't a civil war before Lauer et al made the switch? I don't think so.

You never know how much you love New York until you go away for a few days and return a turkey-fattened, tryptophaned, cranberried and essentially immobile victim of the SUV lifestyle, or perhaps merely of the holiday spirit.

But in any event, here's a clip, from the broadcast last Wednesday on NBC, of Madonna performing "I Love New York"; the bleeped-out part should be rendered "and you can suck George Bush's ....".

Please, do enjoy.

DailyKos: Speaker Pelosi will keep the House in session in January, a break with established practice that is likely to provoke howls of outrage from lazy republican lawbreakersmakers not used to, like, really working for their government handout.

ThinkProgress: George Allen says buh-bye with a bill that would allow the carrying of concealed weapons in the National Parks. No, seriously.

The New Republic is frightened of black people with power. Now imagine what they'd say if they had seen Yvette Clarke's new and improved hair.

Unhappy days in the Vice-Royalty of Iraq; the UN notes that the civilian death toll is at an all time high, with 3,709 killed in October.

The New York Times doesn't get Madonna.

On Room 8, in case you didn't know, the Thanksgiving holiday is explained as a celebration of capitalism, the corporation, loosened church-state separation, military dominance and all those other warm and fuzzy things dear to the right.

And lastly, The Washington Post has video on how to carve a turkey.

That's all for today, folks. Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours. There's so much to be thankful for this time around.

Let's do snark instead! Via PerezHilton.com comes this magazine cover.

No, I don't quite know what to say, either.

Blame it on Brangelina's baby

Actually, it's Perez Hilton's fault. Getting Perezzled is worse than a slashdotting. On that note, with the C&Ds found after the jump, I can say I am now in the proud company of Perez Hilton and Nick Denton. Does that make me a mediawhore?

Heh.

I actually am trying to make a serious point about the current use of copyright law. My point with this pic is very simple : invocation of the Digital Copyright Millenium Act ought not to be used as a substitute for a marketing or business plan.

Who in their right minds does not release a picture of the most famous baby in the world as part of their media and communications strategy? Not just that : who in their right mind would want to have two "exclusive" separate launches of the same photographs?

This is the age of digital globalization and as such, you have to think of worldwide strategies. That means, you launch at the same time all over the world. Yes, it takes a bit more logistics work but the payoff is huge. The computer industry understands this but nobody has milked its potential for hype more than Steve Jobs. It's why the man is a marketing genius.

People and Hello! should have synchronized their launching strategies. As it is, this C&D goes to show they've been operating under a 19th century communications model --and it is why the DCMA is a joke. It does not protect copyrights. It protects outdated and ineffective business models.

What do you think? Are they right or wrong for using copyright law to cover for their lack of a marketing strategy?

You can find the legal verborrhea after the jump.