NEW YORK - Manhattan resident Stephen Albtraum recalls the grim spectacle as if it were yesterday.

"It was a couple of months after 9/11, and on TV comes this retrospective of 9/11," he remembers. "I thought, 'That's odd, this remembrance of this event no one has been able to...

WASHINGTON - Mere hours after President Barack Obama announced that he would "veto any legislation that came from intransigent Republicans that would burden our richest 1 percent of Americans and wildly profitable corporations with unfair tax hikes," a bill crafted by John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Eric Cantor (R-Virginia) that did...

ST. CLOUD, MN -- An undercover investigative report has revealed that the clinic run by Marcus Bachmann, the husband of Republican Presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann, attempts to cure migraine headaches through the power of prayer.

A former patient who suffered from crippling migraines revealed that he was told that...

Village Voice Media, fresh off its triumph putting Ashton Kutcher in his place for trying to bring awareness to the problem of human trafficking, has directed its crosshairs to an even bigger celebrity and a more vexing issue: George Clooney's advocacy against the genocide in Darfur.

"Clooney and his...

WASHINGTON, D.C.: Declaring that "Enough is enough," Senate and Congressional Republicans today brought forth new legislation that would ban sympathy toward one's fellow humans, even those who were victims of rape and incest.

Speaker of the House John Boehner, in introducing the legislation, said, "This is a sweeping...

The world sucks as much as it did last year, so here's the redux on last year's holiday special. With luck, and the blessing of the Holy Spirit (Roger Ailes), perhaps this will become an annual tradition for you and yours.

Open on a set of a humble working-class...

WikiLeaks' latest document dump of confidential State Department memos contain a stunningly disappointing assortment of breathtakingly trivial missives, leading some observers to speculate that the whistle-blowing website is running on fumes when it comes to revelations of U.S. government secrets.

The most recent batch of a cache of a...

Dear Friends,

It has recently (and, I confess, somewhat belatedly) come to My attention that on Earth, speculating on My possible activities has become something akin to a parlor game -- what would I do? What would I not do?

Such conjecture has reached a point so hysterical...

(Cockaigne) - Cable news talking head/America's Savior Glenn Beck, flush from the success of his "Redefining Honor" rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in our Nation's Capital this past weekend, revealed plans for his next audacious stab-at-aggrandizement -- uh, rather, rally to make utterly non-racist Americans finally and...

Thoughtful, articulately argued judgments on the unConstitutionality of gay marriage be damned: The religious right still has a few trump cards and jokers left in their deck to demand gay marriage remain illegal. Among them:

* "Did you see that episode of True Blood where that vampire tore the...

WASHINGTON - During Congressional hearings on April's unprecedentedly deadly airborne leak of ricilin at Raub Industries' St. Louis factory, which is estimated to have killed some 270 million Americans and millions more beyond the borders, plant officials struggled to explain how such a deadly chemical was handled in such a...

Despite the simplicity of its execution, BP's Oil Spill Live Feed offers something unprecedented in the history of cinema: a $200-billion experimental art film. It audaciously challenges audiences by offering none of the draws big-budget disaster movies generally employ to lure viewers -- no A-list movie stars, no eye-popping special...

This past week, Comedy Central showed off some of that audacious verve it's so celebrated for by utterly retreating, tail between its legs. It censored an episode of "South Park" that dared to include a few jokes about the Prophet Muhammad, because those pesky Islamic extremists threatened violence, in particular...

Nike launched on Thursday a commercial featuring Tiger Woods looking mournful, or contrite, or, well, something, on the eve of his return to golfing at the Masters. How the spot, championing and/or denigrating rampant womanizing, would help move Nike product remained oblique at press time.

But on the heels...

It's time you acquiesce to the brutish bully of all facts: You are not a winner. Winners don't read self-help tracts, such as this one (as insightful as it is); they're too busy winning. Millions of self-help books are purchased every year, resulting in the suspicious lack of millions of...

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI - Minutes after watching the miraculous revitalization of the city of New Orleans thanks to the Saints' 31-17 upset victory over the Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl XLIV, Haitian President Rene Preval contacted the National Football League about securing a football team for his earthquake-ravaged island nation.

(Open on a set of a humble working-class home - a Christmas tree, lovingly decorated, stands to one side, a roaring fireplace exudes holiday comfort on the other. In the center sit two easy chairs, in which BILL O'REILLY and SEAN HANNITY are seated. They wear festive sweaters.)

O'REILLY...

General Electric must be pinching itself right now: it's about to unload its share of NBC-Universal on Comcast. Ostensibly, it's win-win for both sides: GE dumps an underperforming albatross, while Comcast becomes a media conglomerate that almost rivals Rupert Murdoch's empire, only without those pesky, antiquated newspapers Rupert is so...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Less than a week after being named the newest judge on the hit TV reality show American Idol, comic and talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres has added yet another high-profile job to her already busy schedule: She'll serve as the new White House Press Secretary, replacing Robert Gibbs,...

Just in case South Carolina didn't already have enough to be embarrassed about, given the now-notorious proclivities of its hiker-in-chief governor, Mark Sanford, Republican Congressman Joe Wilson managed the unthinkable overnight. In heckling President Barack Obama, he not only ensured that a country that had pretty much never heard of...