‘God is Not Great’ Flying Off Shelves

Jeffrey Trachtenberg chronicles the success of Christopher Hitchens' God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything in today's WSJ. [T]he biggest surprise is a blazing attack on God and religion that is flying off bookshelves, even in the Bible Belt. "God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything," by Christopher Hitchens, wasn't expected to be a blockbuster. Its publisher, ...

Glenn Beck F-Word Controversy

John Aravois is outraged that CNN is defending Glenn Beck's use of the word "faggot" on its airwaves and urging a letter writing campaigns to the network's major sponsors. I'd somehow missed the controversy. It turns out that Beck only used the word in the context of discussing the controversy over Grey's Anatomy co-star Isaiah Washington's use. Here's the ...

Caption Contest Winners

The Lemguins Marching Into The Sea Edition OTB Caption ContestTM is now over. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko/FILE) The Winners: First: charles austin - Moments later, in Mel Gibson’s Antarcticalypto, the penguins turn on their human benefactors... Second: Mythilt - The Disney corporation decided to go with lemmings after the first attempt at creating a mass drowning suicide failed. Third: ...

Apocalypto Tops Box Office, Gibson Not Done After All

The reports of the death of Mel Gibson's career have been greatly exaggerated: Mel Gibson's bloody epic "Apocalypto" debuted as the No. 1 weekend movie, proving the filmmaker still can deliver a winner despite his drunken-driving arrest and anti-Semitic rant last summer. Let me hereby predict that, Michael Richards' tirade notwithstanding, "Seinfeld" DVDs will sell as well as they ever have ...

Michael Richards, Seinfeld’s Kramer, Racist Tirade Video

TMZ has a very blurry video of what purports to be Michael Richards launching a bizarre, racist tirade at a black member of his audience. Richards, who played the wacky Cosmo Kramer on the hit TV show "Seinfeld," appeared onstage at the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood. Kyle Doss, an African-American, told TMZ he and some friends were in the cheap ...

John Kerry: Get An Education or Get Stuck in Iraq

John Kerry, who came a few thousand Ohio voters short of being Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces: You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq. Unbelievable. ...

Caption Contest Winners

The Walk a Mile for a Camel Edition OTB Caption ContestTM is now over. (CBS NEWS 60 MINUTES/Handout/Reuters) Winners: First: Greg Tinti - I didn't realize you were that close with Mel Gibson... Second: charles austin - Mike Wallace calms a jittery President Ahmadenijad by telling him that the ticking sound he hears is just the ...

Caption Contest Winners

The Blue Oyster Bikers Edition OTB Caption ContestTM is now over. (REUTERS/Daniel Aguilar (MEXICO)) Winners: First: Mark - You guys should have heard the crap Mel Gibson said to us when we pulled him over! Second: charles austin - Bowling for Columbians. Third: yetanotherjohn - Peyote, its not just for breakfast anymore. Honorable Mention: Bithead - "Aw, Jerry...You should ...

C’mon Jews… Show ‘Em Who Really Runs Hollywood

Classic: Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan for the image. Claude Brodesser-Akner provides the backstory: A comedic capstone on all this comes via an full page, hardcover ad in today's issue of Daily Variety. In a "For your consideration" Emmy Award ad for the infamous Tom Cruise "Trapped in the Closet" episode of "South Park," the text reads, "C'mon Jews... Show 'em ...

Mel Gibson Charged with DUI

No great surprise here: Mel Gibson has been charged with misdemeanor DUI. Actor-director Mel Gibson was charged Wednesday with driving last week under the influence of alcohol, a misdemeanor, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office said. Gibson, 50, was charged with one count each of driving under the influence and driving while having a 0.08 percent or higher blood ...

ADL “Accepts” Gibson Apology

Anti-Defamation League chairman Abraham Foxman, who called for Mel Gibson to be brought up on hate crimes charges for saying bad things about Jews, has now tentatively accepted Gibson's (second) apology. Somehow, however, it puts me in mind of Mark Antony's Funeral Oration, only in reverse: "I come to praise Gibson, not to bury him."

Gibson: I Am Not an Anti-Semite

In words that I am sure will spark comparisons to Richard Nixon's declaration "I am not a crook," [and O.J. Simpson's search for the "real killer"] Mel Gibson has proclaimed that he is not an anti-Semite. His full statement (transliterated into the British, courtesy BBC): [Update: ABC/AP have the American variant.] There is no excuse, nor should there be any ...

Mel Gibson and the Speed of Scandal

The Mel Gibson incident over the weekend demonstrates the incredibly fast pace of the news cycle in the Internet age. Almost as stunning as Mel Gibson’s anti-Jewish tirade when arrested on suspicion of drunk driving in the early hours of last Friday was the speed at which the scandal unfolded, doing serious damage to one of Hollywood’s most valuable careers along ...

Jewish Federation Shooter Recently Baptized

The (take your pick) mentally ill individual/evil Muslim terrorist who shot six at the Seattle Jewish Federation, killing one, recently converted to Christianity, according to a Seattle Post-Intelligencer report. Naveed Haq, now widely portrayed as a Muslim American so angry at Israel that he shot up a Jewish charity in Seattle, had recently converted to Christianity. His conversion is perhaps the ...

Gibsonpalooza (Video)

Considering the events that transpired over the weekend, it was a given that Mel Gibson was going to be savaged by Monday's late shows. And as you're about to see, they sure didn't disappoint. Here's a video round-up of the massacre: No spoilers, but if I had to choose, I think Kimmel took it by ...