I’m a big fan of Jon Stewart’s work on The Daily Show, so when someone mentioned at a BBQ this weekend that he was the commencement speaker at William and Mary this year, I went hunting to see if i could find a transcript. It wasn’t all that hard to find, theres quite a bit of buzz about it, becuase it’s both extremely funny, and extremely astute “Lets talk about the real world for a moment: … I’ll be blunt. We broke it.”

I mean seriously, when was the last time you laughed while reading a speech that used the word “ennui” ?

I saw this the other day, but the significance of the claim didn’t really register in my mind untill today. Rick Soloman has filed a lawsuit against “Marvad Corp”, for displaying still shots taken from the well known video of he and Paris Hilton having sex on their web site. The basis of his suit is copyright infringement — which is key to keep in mind, because Marvad’s lawyers have responded by claiming that as “The Producer”, he is commiting fraud by claiming copyright without the consent of Paris Hilton, “The Director”.

From their petition: “Ms Hilton offered directorial comments and physically controlled and directed the camera. Solomon’s failure to identify Ms Hilton as a co-author on the application for copyright registration renders the certificate of registration invalid and fraudulent.”

From actually-able-to-be-stomached conservative blogger Daniel Drezner (see, Adam? they do exist) comes this fascinating item: A very informative post about… Britney Spears.

As metioned previously, Babs has been acting like a spoiled little child, complaining that the California Coastal Records Project had violated the sanctity of her home, and was aiding stalkers. I didn’t notice untill today, but last week the judge dismissed her case.
The CCRP web site has more info about the dismissal, and tons of press links.

Wow, we’ll sue over anything, won’t we?

In an interview with CNN following up on her notorious open-mouthed kiss with Madonna at the MTV Video Music Awards, Britney Spears had some interesting commentary when asked about her position regarding the war in Iraq: “Honestly, I think we should just trust our president in every decision that he makes and we should just support that.”

That’s my little Mouseketeer.

For those of you who aren’t members of the MTV generation, you may not have heard about “The Kiss” (or more appropriately: “The Kisses”) from Thursday nights MTV Video Music Awards. Being the 20th anniversary, Britney Spears & Christina Aguilera got together on stage to do a tribute rendition of Madona’s legendary “Like A Virgin” stage performace from the very first VMA ceremony. They were then joined by the orriginal material girl, who launched into her latest single “Hollywood”, taking breaks between versuses to plant big juicy open mouthed kisses on each of the two pop-princesses.

For those of you who like looking at hot chicks kissing, there are plenty of pictures all over the web, and even some video clips.

There are plenty of people pointing out how contrived the whole thing was, but what I find most ammusing is how much all the coverage has been about “Madona kissing Britney” — with very little mention of the fact that she planted big wet ones on both of them. The clip I saw acctually cut away when Madona turned towards Christina …. which brings me to the second most ammusing part of all this, the way they cut to Justin Timberlake just for a reaction shot. (I have to admit, it was a hilarious reaction shot).

Sports Illustrated has not one, but two stories about the current conditions of Ted Williams’s cryogenically frozen remains. The New York TImes seems to have followed up the story, and has some more details.
What a wild, wacky, and sad sad state of affairs.

It’s kind of hard to categorize this one. It’s an interview with actor James Woods by Salon writer Amy Reiter, and it’s definitely worth watching the MCI commercial (or whatever) to get the one-day pass for it: Woods on fire. He’s promoting his new movie, Northfork, so it should probably go in the “Movies” category, but the interview actually ends up being about lots of other things, like whether or not George Bush is a moron and why people on the left-wing can’t admit that it was a bad thing for Bill Clinton to put a cigar in Monica Lewinsky’s vagina and whether it’s important that WMD have not been found in Iraq and so on. On balance, I think the thing the interview is “about,” more than anything else, is the nature of celebrity and the larger context of people like Woods doing interviews like this, so that’s the category I chose for it.

I certainly don’t agree with all the conclusions Woods comes to. But I certainly do agree with some of them. And his comments about the frustration of dealing with people whose minds are already made up on every political issue struck a chord with me, given the kind of ranting I’ve been doing on this site lately.

It was more than a year ago, in May of 2002, that Justin Timberlake rocked our world with the news that Britney was not, in fact, a virgin. Well, she has now confirmed it. From CNN: Britney acknowledges she’s not a virgin.

Excuse me. I have to go lie down.

From British tabloid The Sun, courtesy of Daypop: Face up to the facts, Mel. Not Michael Jackson yet, by a long shot, but yeah, scary.

She lied to the SEC. She lied to the FBI. And this isn’t about her hiding her secret recipe for chicken tartar. The question remains on whether or not she is going to go to jail for misleading investigators over a paltry $229,000.00. But at least its going to be entertaining to watch her squirm in the courtroom!

Hey, maybe we can talk jbc into giving us a daily update on her wardrobe throughout the trial.

Barbra Steisand is really annoying sometimes. At the moment, because she’s suing the California Coastal Records Project. It seems she resents the fact that multimillionaire Kenneth Adelman included her Malibu estate in his exhaustive, and extemely cool, catalog of coastal images, intended as a tool for anti-development forces that need to be able to document illegal coastal development.

Anyway, read about it in this LA Times article: Streisand sues over photograph of her coast home on web site. And be sure to go to the page that displays her estate, so her obnoxious legal effort will be guaranteed to have the exact opposite effect of what the privacy-obsessed diva intended.

Update: More detail from californiacoastline.org on the history of their interaction with Babs.

On the lighter side of things, I felt this was too choice not to post on: Darth Vader Made Me Cry.

slate.msn.com has a few choice ditties by Donald Rumsfeld from the past few years. It’s the kind of list you could compile for just about anybody if enough source material is available … but it’s a humorous read none the less.

Speaking to television reporters in Finland during a break in his Finnish tour, singer Harry Belafonte said the U.S. is currently being run by “men who are possessed of evil” (among some other choice quotes). I’m not sure why it makes me so happy to read that, but damn, it really does. You tell ’em, Harry.

Someone who taught me, and a lot of other boys and girls, about the values of caring and openness and honesty passed away this morning. Fred Rogers, rest in peace.

Prosecutors are doing their best to paint Paul Reubens as a menace to society, based on the 50-year-old images in his vintage gay porn collection, as we continue through the process of pre-trial motions. Fucking Ashcrofts. Don’t you think there might be some children actually being abused out there somewhere who could benefit from some of the time and energy you’re currently devoting to railroading this guy?

Apparently the new Madonna video for her song “American Dream” will feature a violently depicted anti-war message. You go, girl. (Always nice when I can run a story that is actually about the person whose image I stole for the category image.)

Winona Ryder apparently will appear in Marc Jacobs’ spring advertising campaign, reprising her role as criminal clothes horse from last fall’s trial. You go, girl.