Stand-up Guy: George W. Bush, captured by Reuters' Jason Reed, April 29, 2005.

Related: Blue Collar TV.

Above, Vladimir Putin, Cairo April 27, 2005 (via Reuters); Below, Malcolm X, 1964 (by John Launois/Black Star)

Above: Scenes from Jonathan Glazer's 1998 video for UNKLE's Rabbit in Your Headlights
Below: Scenes from Timur Bekmambetov's 2005 feature Night Watch

Previously: Twentieth Century Fox, Meet Award-Winning Director Chris Cunningham

Finally, a more shocking joke than "The Aristocrats." From, Man Says 7-Year-Old Joke Led to Killing, AP, April 26, 2005:

A man shot a former co-worker to death on Easter because he was offended by a joke told seven years ago, authorities said Monday.

Stanford Douglas Jr., 29, was arrested on murder charges Sunday after a two-hour standoff with police. He allegedly shot William Berkeyheiser, 62, three times in the chest and shoulder on March 27 at Berkeyheiser's suburban home.

Prosecutor Diane Gibbons said that Douglas told police he had been thinking about killing Berkeyheiser since 1998, when the two men worked at a Philadelphia nursing home and Berkeyheiser told a joke that offended Douglas.

The prosecutor would not say what the joke was.

The downside: This joke was clearly hurtful.

The upside: It was also clearly memorable.

Disclaimer: low culture does not advocate laughing at people getting killed. That would not be funny. In fact, it would be totally hack.

That Word Must Mean Something Different in Danish: The Manderlay trailer.

The trailer for Lars Von Trier's latest exercise in actor torture, Manderlay, is out. If Von Trier brings his characteristic subtlety and humanism to the project, I'm sure it will transcend the Tarantino-esque language of his trailer. And it might even be better than what it looks like: a remake of Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi's execrable Goodbye, Uncle Tom.

Eh, who am I kidding? This thing has Mandingo 2005 written all over it. I'm guessing the reason Nicole Kidman's not in it is that it offends her kids. Wonder what New Wave song will close this one out.

[via Greg.org]

Good news, Jeff Gannon! According to today's New York Times' report, Pentagon Considers Changing the Legal Definition of Sodomy, by John Files:

The office of the general counsel at the Pentagon has proposed decriminalizing consensual sodomy among adults, a change to its 55-year-old policy on sodomy that would bring the military legal code more in line with laws that govern civilians, according to a memorandum sent to Congress.
[...]
The changes proposed by the Pentagon's lawyers would narrow the definition to prohibit acts of sodomy with a person under age 16 or acts "committed by force." Their memorandum says this would "conform more closely to other federal laws and regulations."

Recruitment will surely go up—or, at least, recruits will go down—now.

Related: Anyone else enjoying Sundance Channel's The Staircase, which also features a plot twist involving a military M4M escort? This documentary series is so good and so suspensefully constructed, it makes every iteration of Law & Order look like The Stick Figure Players Do Bad Twist Ending Theater.

C.K. TK: Williams, left, and Louis, right.

C.K. Williams won the Pulitzer Prize and this year's $100,000 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize.

Louis C.K. won an Emmy for The Chris Rock Show and is developing a sitcom for HBO.

C.K. Williams was born in New Jersey.

Louis C.K. was born in New York.

C.K. Williams published Flesh and Blood.

Louis C.K. made a joke about Bill Clinton breastfeeding puppies.

C.K. Williams wrote:

A squalid wayside inn, reeking barn-brewed vodka,
cornhusk cigarettes that cloy like acrid incense
in a village church, kegs of rotten, watered wine,
but then a prayer book's worn-thin pages,
and over them, as though afloat in all that fetidness,
my great-grandfather's disembodied head.

Louis C.K. wrote: "Dirty Dee, you're a baddy daddy lamatai tebby chai!"

C.K. Williams has a head of salt and pepper hair.

Louis C.K. is bald.

C.K. Williams has been published by Slate.

Louis C.K. has his own website.

"Why is this leather interior different from all other interiors?": A Pesach caravan of Mitzvah Tanks led by a white stretch SUV limo head uptown on Sixth Avenue and West Fourth Street; noon, April 20, 2004.

Congratulations on adopting or purchasing your Ashton Kutcher. In the coming days and weeks you will bond with your new Ashton Kutcher in ways that you can only begin to imagine at this time. Ask anyone who's welcomed Ashton Kutcher into their lives, and they will tell you that he becomes a fast member of the family, brings hours of fun, laughter, happiness, and joy to children, adults, and seniors.

But in order to enjoy your Ashton Kutcher to the fullest, there are a few things you need to know to take care of him the best way possible. Ashton Kutcher is an independent, mischievous animal; he needs attention, love, and a little discipline to feel comfortable and safe in your home. These helpful hints will make your life with Ashton Kutcher that much easier.

First off, know that in the wild Ashton Kutchers roam in packs, also known as 'posses.' This is an important fact, since as you bond with your Ashton Kutcher, he will come to think of you as his posse. Ashton Kutcher is loyal and intensely protective of his posse and he has a tendency to bond closest with the older alpha-female of the posse. Some even say Ashton Kutchers are nature's 'Mama's boys.'

Heil, Mary: Achtung, Ratzy!
New Pope Appears, Asks World for Prayers, Reuters, April 19, 2005.

Through all the accusations of pederasty, paedophilia, and boy-fucking, fans of both the Papacy and Michael Jackson have stood tall. Can you tell the difference? Click through for the answer.

Up top, "Blake Sanford, 6, son of South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, waits his turn to shake hands with President Bush, far right, as he arrives in Columbia, S.C. to deliver a speech on Social Security reform Monday April 18, 2005. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)" and at the bottom, well, that famous JFK, Jr. pose at his father's funeral.

Yesterday, as Adobe Systems announced the acquisition of Macromedia, the primary reason for the merger of these onetime-rival multimedia software titans soon became clear: terrorism. Yes, terrorterrorterrorterroreconomyterror.

News reports clarified this stance:

"After 9/11, we both realized that being enemies didn't make sense," Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen said in a conference call on Monday, referring to his discussions with Macromedia's then-CEO Rob Burgess. "We were no longer competing."

And in other coverage of the merger/acqusition, Chizen continued with his moving paean to an American tragedy, but this one a bit more "economic" in nature:

He acknowledged that combining the companies will lead to some lost jobs, but would not provide details.

"There will be some areas of redundancies, and that's where there will be some layoffs," Chizen said. "It will be difficult to quantify that until we get in and look at the integration."

A loss of lives, a loss of jobs...what's the big deal? We're all good people here. Working to overcome tyranny by making web-safe graphics. Annihilating the enemies of freedom by distributing American propaganda as Flash-based short films.

And your pink slips? Now available in the ever-popular PDF document format.

It's Gotta Be The Shoes: Ann Coulter on the cover of TIME, April 25, 2005

Yankee Gary Sheffield inappropriately gropes at a fan at Fenway Park last night; Jimmy Fallon inappropriately gropes at Drew Barrymore in Fever Pitch.

Many have argued about whether and how powerfully movies can influence our behavior. Should filmmakers bear responsibility when the scenes they present as fantasy are reenacted by overzealous fans? Generally, we prefer to encourage freedom of speech and personal responsibility, but when a filmic scene of overly intimate contact across the low wall at Fenway Park is so eerily reprised at the same spot in real life, it's pretty clear where the idea came from.

Via the Associated Press: "President Bush, lower left, sits in the Presidential Box with members of his family and guests at RFK for the home opener Washington Nationals and the Arizona Diamondbacks Thursday, April 14, 2005 in Washington. Also sitting with Bush are Sue Selig wife of Commissioner of Major League Baseball Bud Selig, Tony Tavares, President, Washington Nationals, center, first lady Laura Bush, lower right, and daughter Jenna Bush, top right, leaning her head on the shoulders of an unidentifiable male friend. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)"

EARLIER: Young Love, Republican Style

	James Earl Jones as Lt. Lothar Zogg in 1964's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb Kills thousands.
	Scatman Crothers as Dick Hallorann in 1980's The Shining Dies.
	Dorian Harewood as Eightball in 1987's Full Metal Jacket Dies.

EARLIER: As 'Wicker Park' approaches, we present this definitive and comprehensive list of good, quality films starring Josh Hartnett

As French citizens prepare to vote in their May 29th referendum on whether or not to approve the European Union's new constitutional charter, President Jacques Chirac took to the populace yesterday to stake his claim that it was imperative for the measure to pass. His driving point, effectively, being that for Europe to be unified and powerful (when translated from his native leftist French, this reads as "able to exist as a counterbalance to Bush's United States of Imperialism"), it was vital for France to support this burgeoning European Union, lest one of its biggest players be seen as stepping away from the table, thereby leaving a weak and disconnected shell of a coalition in its wake.

So, if that doesn't make sense, try this metaphor put forth by the French Interior Minister:

French Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin said Europe would end up being driven by a "tricycle" rather than a "hot rod" if the French vote the treaty down.

"With a 'no', there won't be anything left in the garage... At best, there will be a tricycle," de Villepin said. "With a 'yes', there will be a hot rod... It has to be admitted that it's better to get around with that."

The Renault sitting in my garage, by the way, has a meager 40 horsepower, for what it's worth.

Here's To You: Todd Solondz's Palindromes, 2005; Mike Nichols' The Graduate, 1967.

Donald Rumsfeld and Ibrahim al-Jaafari, Tuesday, April 12, 2005. [via Reuters/NYT]

Via the Associated Press: "In this photo released by The White House, President Bush gives Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a tour of his ranch in Crawford, Texas, Monday, April 11, 2005. (AP Photo/The White House, Eric Draper)"

RELATED: Sharon Dismisses Bush on Settlement Growth, the Associated Press, April 12, 2004

Hi, Bob: The Bob Newhart Show, season 1; I ♥ Huckabees.

From Maggie "Mo' Money" Gallagher's syndicated column, THE FUTURE OF CATHOLICISM, April 6, 2005, A.D.:

Pope John Paul the Great is not yet buried, but the divisions among American Catholics have already taken center stage on cable television: Will the next pope be Catholic?

Of course, JP II's critics don't put it that way. But the long-deferred hopes of this group (call them sexual liberals) -- that the Catholic Church is about to abandon its ancient teachings on premarital sex, abortion, divorce, homosexuality and, above all, birth control -- have burst out anew in the 24-hour coverage of the pope's death.

Sexual liberalism has a lot of powerful things going for it in terms of attracting adherents: passion, for instance, the difficulty of self-restraint, the attractiveness of choice as the highest moral good. But sexual liberalism's most powerful ally is the myth of progress. Sexual liberals, like Marxists of old, see themselves as the inevitable wave of the future. The Catholic Church is "out of step" with the future, they believe, and must eventually get in line with the poll numbers, or fade into irrelevance.

Ooooh, Marxists! Gay Marxists! Also, it's cute how she jumps the gun and calls him Pope John Paul the Great. (Okay, bad word choice.)

Salvete in VaticanAir! Recumbete et relaxate in levamentum dum vos refovemus cum mantele madido.

Welcome to VaticanAir! Stretch out and relax in comfort as we refresh you with a moist washcloth.

Probate defigere balteum vestrum per acensum descensionemque.

Be sure to fasten your seatbelt during takeoff and landing.

Gaudeamus praebere varietatem de materias lectorium pro iucunditate vobis.

We are happy to offer a variety of reading materials for your pleasure.

Servabitur prandium parvum per fugum.

Light in-flight refreshment will be served.

Cistas vestri portabitur cum curam maioram.

Your luggage will be handled with the greatest care.

[Indulgete omnia errata mea, magistri mei...]

Reports of the "festive" atmosphere in Rome, where hundreds of thousands of pilgrims have camped out to celebrate grieve the death of the Pope, can't help but prompt speculation about how many little miraculous conceptions -- immaculate or otherwise -- might arise from this event. A clever newspaper editor should keep track of some of these pilgrims and then check maternity records in 9 months or so.

Of course, it should be no surprise that young love can blossom in even the gravest circumstances:

Cracked: A car bombing near Abu Ghraib, March 30, 2005 (via Reuters).

Related: Fixing "Broken Windows"

High Rate of Failure Estimated for Silicone Breast Implants, by Gardiner Harris, The New York Times, April 7, 2005.

Better make room next to that 2001 Impact award for Story Telling.

Is anyone else looking forward to when Solondz makes the John Waters-like transition into Broadway musical kitsch maestro? Welcome to the Dollhouse is basically ready. (It even has a killer signature song.) Happiness, on the other hand, is a harder sell.

Well, people paid to see Assassins.

Paging Mr. Eisenstein: The world mourns the the passing of the Pope and record high oil prices. (via Reuters Pictures)

Related: Prince Charles Pushes Wedding Back a Day.
Elsewhere: Deconstructing Harry

"I know, it's crazy, right? I'm basically a murderer thousands and thousands of times over and spent billions of dollars on a project that's not nearly over and which will deepen America's defecit for generations. Honestly, I can barely balance my own checkbook! Man, someone up there must like me."

Related: "You sendin' The Wolf?... Shit Negro, that's all you had to say."
(via Reuters)

Bloggers, or 'Web loggers,' may not have invented April Fool's Day (that would be Pope Gregory with his conversion to the eponymous Gregorian Calendar in 1582), but as with so many other things, they have taken credit for improving on it.

As the clock struck midnight on April first, several prominent bloggers created puckish, at times almost humorous, stabs at April Fool's content. As you might expect, many were parodies of other websites and the conventions of the medium. "Bloggers are a world onto themselves," said Jeff Jarvis, who runs the website Buzzmachine.com and who actually called this reporter himself assuming she'd be doing this story. "So, of course, they'd parody their world."

Father Guido Sarducci

Remember the party scene in The Graduate where Benjamin Braddock is buttonholed by his father's friend who has one word for him, "Just one word"?

Well, we have one word for you: Premium.

Due to the amazing success of our reader feedback module (you know, the little "Did you find this content useful?" radio buttons that have sprouted up on this site like wild flowers on the side of the highway), we've decided to go premium. Following the successful model of Salon and several other pay-per-view sites, we've implemented a premium area to provide our core readers with the best this site has to offer.

Membership has its privileges:
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As Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald puts the finishing touches on his recent efforts to determine a) whether or not a crime was committed two summers prior when the identity of a CIA employee was revealed to the public by a then-unidentified White House source, and b) whether or not Judith Miller and a less well-known reporter for Time magazine will be jailed for their role in masking the source's identity, tongues on Capitol Hill are wagging in gleeful anticipation – but for altogether different reasons than you might have expected.

Why, you ask? Well, White House followers may finally learn the sexuality of the purported informant, Lewis Libby, as other sources in the investigation are revealing that a series of anecdotes indicate that...

Geli Raubal hates the word 'celebutante.'

"It's not even a real word!" she protests.

When I point out that 'celebutante' is a word—a portmanteau word, in fact, Geli sticks her tongue out playfully and says what she always says when the absurdity of the word flies smack-dab into her flawless, porcelain face: "Pish-posh. What does it mean anyway? That I should get special treatment because I have a famous relative? That I should get into clubs ahead of the line or get free clothes from designers just because of the family I was born into? Pish-posh!"

But like other young ladies in her caste—Paris Hilton, Bijou Phillips, Kimberley Stewart, and the Bush twins come to mind—she does get special treatment and free clothes. She even gets into clubs ahead of the line. All because she's the favorite niece of her famous, well-connected, powerful uncle. And who is her uncle, the man who dotes on her like she's his own? Well, you've certainly heard of him, unless you've been living in a bunker.

Fever Pitch, 2005... Other image available to Premium members only

Some ideas are just homeruns!

As the commission appointed by the President to assess the failures of the Intelligence community in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq two years ago reported its findings yesterday, noticeably absent from the list of those deemed to be worthy of blame were, of course, the hapless President Bush and his chief advisors. However, some scathing indictments nonetheless crept out of the woodwork and into the otherwise impenetrable bubble that has surrounded the White House for far too long.

Included in this hierarchy of suddenly-shamed former executives and intelligence czars were none other than...

(Image available to Premium subscribers only)