Meghan McCain Takes Shot At Bristol Palin On ‘The Daily Show With Jon Stewart’ (VIDEO)

Meghan McCain has been stirring up controversy with her new book, “Dirty Sexy Politics,” which tells the story of the 2008 presidential campaign through the eyes of a nominee’s daughter.

McCain made a visit to the “Daily Show” on Thursday, telling host Jon Stewart that she wanted her dad to pick Joe Lieberman as his running mate. Instead, GOP nominee John McCain picked Sarah Palin.

The younger McCain has already railed against Palin on TV this week, so this time she took aim at a fellow campaign daughter — Bristol Palin. When Stewart suggested that McCain was hard on herself in the book, she replied:

“I was not on my best behavior the whole time. I wasn’t always acting like I should. But when you’re sent to an image consultant and it’s said that you look like a stripper and you talk bad and you’re hurting the campaign, when there’s a pregnant teen there, it does a little bit to your self esteem.”

It was revealed that Bristol Palin was pregnant shortly after her mom was picked to run for vice president.

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Tallulah Morehead: Big Brother 12 : “One of My Good Dogs,” The 8-Second Man

This was an odd week, as the penultimate week always is. We had a live eviction on Wednesday, then a second live show without an eviction on Thursday. Just one more column, I keep telling myself, and I’ll never have to see or hear or discuss Boobiac ever again.

Sunday: Britney never had a chance at this Decorate-Your-Xmas-Tree challenge. I’ll give her this, she passed the ever-lame Penguin.

Poor Beast. He had to emcee the HOH contest, which meant using big words like “ornament,” and “breaks,” and “supercalifragilisticexpialadocous.” “Christmas ornaments! I hate that word!” said the Beast, unable to count to two.

Bitchney: “I’ve been called a ‘ball-buster’ before, but who knew that I was actually that good at it?” What’s your fiancé’s name again, darling? And the name of every boy you’ve ever dated? And every waiter who has ever had to take your order?

Hayden credits 22 years of experience decorating Christmas trees for his runaway lead, though it took him two tries at the mathematical poser: 24 – 2 = ? to get the answer right. So, is he telling us that for 22 years, he was never allowed near a Christmas ornament nor tree except through chicken wire? It seems an odd condition to lay down, but perhaps his parents knew best. After all, some Christmas music is actually that dreaded Classical Music, aka “Hayden’s Bane”! What if Handel’s Messiah came on without warning, and Hayden suffered a seizure that sent him spiraling out of control into the family Christmas Tree? Then, that chicken wire might be all that could save Christmas!

Hayden’s years of experience at stuffing his fingers through the wire mesh of his various cages paid off, and he became the Head of Household. He asked us: “When I busted into this joint, did you ever think I would make it this far?” No, Hayden, I didn’t. If I had, I might have taken my own life then and there.

Having become aware that perhaps there are not “500 dead presidents with my name on them,” as The Penguin announced back in episode one, he now has to figure a way to spin reality where he can still be the winner, even though he’s going to lose.

“I’m just happy just to be part of de Brigade. I’m happy to even come up with de name … Boom! Boom! Bra-Gade. When Hayden wins, dat’s like me winnin’!” Ironically, it’s also him losing! “We’re de Brigade. I started dis ting from de beginning. I’m de mastermind of de whole Brigade!” Actually Mr. Mensa was the mastermind of The Brigade. That’s why they got rid of him. They didn’t dare compete with someone smart.

Speaking of being a Mastermind, here’s a tidbit The Penguin said to Bitchney this week, heard on the live feeds and told back to me, sadly not used on CBS. It seems (prepare for a shock!) that both Bitchney and The Penguin have ambitions to become actors. What are the odds? The Penguin asked Bitchney: “What kind of actor are you going to be, a methodist?”

He’s a mastermind!

Bitchney was now channeling her inner-Ragan, and having a teary self-pity party, though she at least understood that it was an immature reaction.

Hayden is not the only houseguest facing the horrors of complex higher mathematics. Said The Beast: “There’s no word that could describe how excited I am, ’cause I’m in The Final Four. I have one out of – what is it? – Three chances? Or four? I get them mixed up. Like, do I count myself? ‘Cause I can beat myself, so do I count myself?” He can beat himself, and has, as many a You Tube visitor has seen him do in the shower. But should he count himself? It’s not an easy answer. A number representing him would probably be an imaginary number, so I say, no, don’t count him.

Luxury Competition: $10,000 will buy you some luxury. The Beast is almost showering at the idea: “A chance to win ten grand? You know how many cases of beer I can buy with that? Plus Muscle Milk? Oh my gosh. This is Heaven.” No wonder I’m not religious.

This game was just a pimped-up version of hide-and-seek, with coins instead of people. At some point in the past The Penguin may have played this, so he knew he had it smoked. “The Meow Meow doesn’t get his name for nothin’. Hide-and-Seek is my game. Let’s do it.”

All the houseguests picked good hiding places. The Penguin hid his behind some huge metal wall-sculpture that will remain in place until the house is demolished. Hayden put his into an unopened cereal box. The Beast hid his in the trash. Bitchney combined the Hayden and Beast approaches, and hid hers in a cereal box in the trash. Hayden later did her the favor of hiding it more for her by taking the garbage outside, and dumping it in the bin.

The Penguin found Hayden’s coin.

Poor Beast, he said that the contest was so long “It’s like waiting for the ending of one of the Harry Potter movies. It’s forever!” Does he mean the wait for the next movie, or the wait once the movie starts, for it to end? I suppose it wouldn’t occur to him to just read the books, like every other ten year old in the world has.

Bitchney found The Penguin’s coin and eliminated him. So much for it being “The Meow-Meow’s Game.”

Then Bitchney found The Beast’s coin, and won the $10,000. The Penguin was pissed, and indulged in a little Diary Room sour graping: “Okay, Britney, you won. Good for you. Now you got ten Gs, another target on your back. You just won a vacation to the Jury House. See ya!” And this differed from her situation before the challenge how? Oh yes. She has the $10,000 that The Beast just lost. She was already fated to the Jury House unless she wins the next POV. But then, I’m sure The Penguin will win the next POV challenge. If this be madness, yet there’s Methodism in it.

CBS used five minutes of national air time to show us Hayden, The Penguin, and Bitchney having an energetic pillow fight.

Hayden finally proposed to The Penguin turning on The Beast, and keeping Bitchney. It had to come, though I never saw the reason being that he might be too smart for them. I’m not saying The Beast isn’t smarter than Hayden and The Penguin, I’m just saying that those would be the only two people on earth he might be smarter than.

Nominations: Bitchney and The Beast were nominated. Showmance #3 is on the block. Hayden loves everybody there.

Wednesday: This was a special, live eviction show.

Bitchney’s plan is to win POV. Good plan. The Beast’s plan is for Bitchney to win POV. Brave warrior, oh Texan one. The Beast has let more of his true self show this week. It made me pine for the days when he kept his mouth closed, and I could pretend there was a nice dumb guy in there, instead of the uncivilized creature who has emerged. Trust me. We will be discussing The Beast’s “8-Second Game” before we are done.

The Wisdom of Hayden Moss: Hayden to The Beast: “I hope me, you, and Enzo can get in the Final Three, because then that means that we got a good shot to get in The Final Two.” There is no arguing with this pointless statement.

Lazing back on a well-padded chaise lounge, by a swimming pool and a Jacuzzi, well fed and well-wined, mellowed-out, in loose, comfy clothes, outside his air-conditioned home, while enjoying the very-warm summer evening, The Penguin said: “I feel like a Spartan goin’ to war tamarraw.” I have seldom witnessed anything more Spartan in my life. I see my Facebook chum and future ex-husband Gerard Butler screaming to the gods: “We are Sparta! Tonight we dine in STUDIO CITY!!!!!!

The Beast told Hayden and The Penguin he wanted to go in and take a shower, but he didn’t want to leave them alone to plot behind his back. The Beast should stop mentioning the shower altogether. Whenever he says he wants to take a shower now, it makes all America giggle, like Beavis and Butthead hearing the word “teabag.”

Bitchney tried brokering a save-her-butt deal with Hayden, to take her off the block, by playing numbers games with him to make it sound like he’d beat her in the final round. She told Hayden that The Penguin would win unanimously. What a horrible thought. Could a jury reward such terrible game play over Hayden, who has at least won three HOHs? Or was Bitchney just snowing The Frizzied One?

Said Bitchney of The Penguin: “Enzo played a very different game than everybody, but he played an immaculate game.”

He did play “a very different game” than the other players. They were playing Big Brother; he was playing Big Loser. It was like they were playing Scrabble (a stretch for most of them, I know), and The Penguin was playing 52 Pick-Up.

And what is playing “an immaculate game”? Is she planning to tell her fiancé that The Beast’s Love Cub was immaculately conceived?

Power of Veto Competition: A vital competition, since the winner decides who goes home and who stays into the Final Three.

Movie Marquee asked simple and not-so-simple questions about the housemates, and the players had to choose two-faced posters (perfect for these two-faced players) to line up for answers. Perfectly good quiz, and Bitchney has a real shot at it.

Except that rather than adopt a policy of get-the-first-one-absolutely-right, slide in answer, and move on, she decided to get all the answers before sliding in any posters. Plus she had no sense of urgency, and went at it like an afternoon’s crafts project, setting out all her materials, organizing her tools, doing everything but spreading out newspapers on her workspace. The result: She had no answers at all slid in when Hayden rang in for the win. The Penguin did better than she did, and he got five-out-of-seven answers wrong!

But The Beast was the most-pathetic. He doesn’t retain memories like a fully-evolved homo sapian. His family are planning to use home videos to reintroduce themselves to him when he comes back to Texas next week. They know that to The Beast there is tomorrow, today, yesterday, and “Ago”. And “Ago” is just a gray blankness. So he figured out the answers to exactly none of the questions. He is lucky to remember who he himself is.

By his own testimony, The Beast got into an argument with his own brain. I don’t know which horse to back in that race!

The Beast: “My brain is mixin’ me up! My brain is backstabbin’ me! My brain is throwin’ this. It’s throwin’ it for me! I’m thinkin’, I know that answer; my brain’s sayin’: ‘No, you don’t.’ I’m thinkin’, yes I do.”

I’m thinking his brain is right. He should stop arguing with it and try listening to it. It can’t be more wrong all the time than he is.

Lord of Delusions: Bitchney: “Even though I didn’t win the Power of Veto, I still feel like I have a really good chance of staying in the house, because I’m really close with both Hayden and Lane, and I don’t think that Enzo realizes that he could still end up being the person who goes home this week.” Aren’t they adorable when they’re that deluded? How has she never come up against a boy’s club before? Has she never heard of “bros before hos,” the motto, both in gameplay and in Life, of The Brigade? Bitchney is about to get a very jarring awakening.

The Brigade, flush with victory in their winnowing down the house to just themselves without anyone ever learning of their existence, decided to come out to Bitchney. I can’t think why they feel compelled to do this. It’s not like it’s gonna be a vote-winner with them. (That anything might lose you jury votes is not a concept that ever sinks into The Penguin: “Hello. My name is Enzo. I engineered your blindside eviction. I hope I have your vote.”)

What it is is this: The Penguin has won almost nothing all season, except a lovely flat-screen 3-D TV. So The Brigade’s victory, must be his personal victory, and He Who Created The Brigade From The Dust, and Lo, It Was Good, must brag about it to someone, and Bitchney is the only person he can brag to about it.

So the whole point of telling Bitchney was really just so The Penguin could preen. The Beast would have preferred drowning himself, or drowning The Penguin, and the Penguin didn’t even wait for Hayden to arrive to spill his guts. “Personally for me, I think it’s greatness,” said The Penguin, oblivious to the emotions rising in Bitchney as she contemplated the depth of their deceit, realizing that the alliances she thought she was forming hither and yon were always being trumped by the silent voting unanimity of The Brigade, and faced her own inevitable eviction.

Even Bitchney has admitted in subsequent interviews that her first reaction was not her best, as she tearfully whined the boys an earful of angry self-pity between sobs: “I mean, how does it feel to know that you just wasted three months, and you have no shot at $500,000, and it’s the only reason you came here? And it’s like a guarantee, to know 100% you’re going home? That you came all this way for no reason? I left my fiancé, my family.”

How does it feel? My guess is that it feels exactly like every evicted houseguest feels: how Boobiac feels, for instance, how Brendon feels, how Monet feels, how Andrew feels, how Mr. Mensa feels, he who now has no money to donate to the foundation for his wife’s imaginary bone disease. And you didn’t come for “no reason.” You won $10,000 a few days ago. I’d hate to be wailing my eyes out in angry, aggrieved self-pity less than a week after winning $10,000. I’d hope still to be in a good mood, or unconscious, or both.

For the record, I know exactly how it feels to know I’ve wasted three months. I know what it’s like to wake up not remembering the last three months. I know what it’s like to wake up not remembering the last 24 months. I’ll be damned if I can remember anything at all of the 1970s! Did I miss anything good? And I can assure you, I have no shot at $500,000 in the immediate future either. But you don’t see me getting all whiny and self righteous about it, do you?

And then, we beheld the emotional depths of The Beast, and learned his True Regard for The Fair Sex.

The Beast: “To see Britney hurt that bad, was like one of my good dogs died. It crushed me.”

“To see Britney hurt that bad, was like one of my good dogs died.”

At least it was one of his good dogs. It would be terrible if hurting Britney was only like one of his bad dogs died.

Let’s talk about Lane Elenberg, whom, thanks to The Penguin, I’ve been calling The Beast all summer long. I’ve wanted to like him. Gee, how I wanted to like him. He is gorgeous, no question about it. His shoulders are larger than my head. He has a country charm to him. He can be quite funny. He’s upfront that he’s stupid.

But stuff kept coming out of his mouth, about the joys of getting liquored up on Saturday night (I’m with you so far), and then careening about roads and fields in a pickup truck, shining a light about and then shooting at “anything that looks like it has eyes.” (I’m off of this bus!)

We began to get a clear sense that his idea of a good time is going to bars and picking fights and beating up strangers, a job he’s certainly built to win every time.

This week on the live feeds was an amazing conversation betwixt our lovely Brigadesters and a clearly reluctant and disgusted Bitchney, on what The Beast calls “The 8-Second Game,” which CBS saw fit not to broadcast. Let’s see what you would call it. (I’ve edited it down some):

Lane: “You ever play the.. 8 second game with her?”

Enzo : “What’s the 8 second game? … You gotta drop.. Oh.. The 8 second game, when you pull your pants down and.. uh.. I forgot. What is it, yo? What’s 8 seconds?”

Lane: “Four of your buddies bring a girl back..”

Enzo : “Oh, ok”

Lane : “…and then you get her in the bed, and all of us are waitin’ at the door, and we bust in on ya, and you gotta hold the girl down for 8 seconds.”

Enzo: “Oh!”

Lane: “You know, cuz the girl’s tryin’ to squirm and tryin’ to get under the covers..”

Enzo: “Oh sh**! I’m definitely gonna do that.”

Lane: “8 second ___”

Enzo: “Oh! I wanna do that. You just hold her down? Down?”

Lane: “Yeah.”

Enzo: “Isn’t that rape?”

The Beast laughs uproariously. It goes on, and gets more graphic, but the ending is the stinger:

Enzo: “Nah.. I’d be divorced. I can’t do that.”

Lane: “She has to ride back with you.”

Britney: “If that happened to me, I would kill myself.”

Lane: “It’s all fun and games.”

Did that sound like “fun and games” to you? It sounded like sexual assault to me. The Beast is a beast. It’s not a joke. It’s not fun and games. It’s subhuman.

If you’re planning on voting for “America’s Favorite,” think of “The 8-Second Game” before you vote.

But I digress…

Final Veto Meeting: This was the beginning of beauty-pageant-pro Bitchney’s Veto Meeting speech, which she knew would really be her house farewell address: “I would also like to say hi to my mom, brothers, Dad, all my family, I love you guys, my friends, I miss you so much, and I’ll see ya soon. I can’t wait!” Conspicuous by his absence was her fiancé, What’s-His-Name. She gave The Beast a lot of airtime, but had not one syllable for the Love of Her Life.

And she said she was sorry she couldn’t have been “an original member of The Brigade,” nor a later one. She lacked the most-basic requirement for entry into any boy’s club. She wasn’t a boy. There was no doubt of her not-boyness. She has no trace of an Adam’s apple.

Anyway, she also had no trace of a hope, and was evicted. All were adults about it, and swore undying love. She repented of her teary eyeworks and went out campaigning for “America’s Favorite.”

Final Head of Household Challenge, Level One: This part of the challenge had me roaring with laughter. The three remaining Brigade members dangled from ropes, while getting slammed hard into canvas walls. When they hit the wall, they were lifted to slide the other direction, and slam into the canvas wall at that end. Last contestant left clinging to life advances to the final challenge, while the early fall-offs faced off in Level Two.

Then they started up a waterfall they had to roll through on their way towards slamming into the next wall. It was like the least-popular thrill ride at Disney’s California Adventure: The Grand Slammer!

We’ve been having triple digit temperatures for the last couple weeks, and that waterfall might have been refreshing, except the heat waved broke the day before, and it was overcast and chilly when they were doing this challenge. We left them, still being slammed into walls. It never grows old.

Thursday: My GOD! They made Julie Chen work two consecutive days this week! What are they, slave drivers? Why is it always the ones who never suffer who suffer?

Final Head of Household Challenge, Level One [cont.]: The Penguin doesn’t think Bitchney would have been much good at clinging to a rope, sailing through a waterfall, and getting repeatedly slammed into walls. I too, doubt she’d have lasted long, but I surely would love to have seen it. I’m picturing it now — vividly! Slam! Wail! Gracious me. I’d go take a cold shower, but Lane is hogging the bath room as usual.

The Penguin on an All-Brigade Final Three: “Tree dodos in De Final Tree, you can’t have wrote a better – ah – script dan dis.” Don’t tell me what I can’t have been wrotten!

Hayden on slamming into walls: “After a while, hitting the wall felt like a frinkkin’ car wreck, without the car.” So it felt like a “wreck”? Which wreck? The Mary Dreare? My career? Your hair?

TMI: The Penguin: “This little wooden seat now, it’s got my left leg numb. My boys downstairs are squooshed.”

Well, see what the boys in the back room will have.

The Penguin continues: “I’d like to find out who designed this little wooden seat, you know, so then I could give him a nice – ah – Jersey beat down. That’s what I do.” He remains a source of charm to the end. He actually still thinks that’s funny or cute. In any event, the only person I know with a little wooden seat is Pinocchio.

But count on The 8-Second Man to bottom even The Penguin: “This is like a Texas bar fight. You get slammed from wall-to-wall-to-wall, people pour alcohol and water on your head, and then you wake up the next morning, and your testicles hurt.” Maybe they got a Jersey beat down from The Penguin’s boys downstairs. TMI

I’ve been slammed from wall-to-wall-to-wall while people poured alcohol in the direction of my head on many occasions, but never in a bar fight. We were just young and in love.

The Penguin fell off first. Hands up, everyone who is surprised. Hands? No one? Okay.

The Penguin: “I have a chance to prove myself in this competition, and I didn’t do it.” Oh I disagree. I believe you did prove exactly who you were. You’re the guy who always loses competitions. You’re the male Kathy.

While The 8-Second Man and Hayden were being slammed into wall after wall after wall, each actually competing full-out to win, the Penguin, alone in the house at last, made himself a pizza. Left completely alone, he becomes his mother. If he’d had a TV, he’d have put his feet up and watched an old Matlock while he ate, but since he didn’t, he went out and ate while watching Big Brother from the front row, enjoying his pizza while they suffered for his dining and dancing pleasure.

At one hour and fifty-eight minutes of being repeatedly slammed into walls, which must be a record, even for The Beast, he suffered an injury he was quite specific about. “I just ripped my whole ass.” What exactly does he mean? Maybe I should see for myself. Now hold still. This may tickle. Stop squirming. It’s all right. I’ve played people in movies who knew doctors, so they know what I’m doing.

At two hours and thirty-five minutes, The Beast slipped off. A mere two and a half hours of being repeatedly slammed into walls? That’s all you got? Pussy!

Okay, The Penguin’s “Wifey” is pretty and appealing. What is she doing married to him? She could do better.

Wifey: “He’s an amazing dad, but he is a mama’s boy.” Tell us something we don’t know.

Mommy: “In school, he was not so much of a A+ student.” I’m flattened with shock! I’m guessing neither was Mommy, though she may have done well in cooking classes.

“Enzo has definitely been underestimated,” said Wifey, overestimating him.

Jury House of Hell!: Kathy is still upset that a man who sits around the living room with people who are not his family, wearing Skull & Crossbones pajamas in the middle of the day, might be what she sees as evil. Is there some way Kathy could be evicted from the Jury House?

“Is Ragan a competitor?” asked Boobiac back at the jury house of the man who got both her and her boy toy evicted, and who has repeatedly won POVs, and outlasted her and Brendon at every endurance challenge. Somehow she never noticed he was a competitor while he was busy wiping the floor with her and her musclebound boyfriend?

“I’m painting a yellow picture,” added Boobiac brainlessly, “so whoever comes in can be cheery and sunny.” Try painting a picture of a house that Boobiac is not in, if you want whoever walks in to be cheery and sunny.

“Another showmance to the Jury House,” announced Ragan to Mr. Mensa. So that’s why Mensie was sitting around in pajamas. He intends to hustle Ragan off to bed, and finally consummate their bromance, before Ragan finds out about Mr. Mensa’s little white fib, and Ragan-poontang goes off the table. Mr. Mensa has probably had to listen to Boobiac and Brendon all week (You just know she’s loud at the, you know, loud times.), and is horny as hell.

“I see Ragan as a bully,” said Boobiac, in a glaring example of it-takes-one-to-know-one in action.

Everyone, even Kathy, laughed out loud when Ragan hit The Penguin in the head with the CD. This is definitely a Three Stooges crowd.

After watching Ragan’s eviction DVD, Mr. Mensa asked Ragan to accompany him outdoors. Off went Ragan, hoping this was, at last, the longed-for proposal: “I’ve decided that when my wife dies of her imaginary bone disease, I want to marry you. My wife’s given us her blessing.” But he had something else to say.

“Take your drink; you’ll need it,” said Kathy, in the first intelligent thing she’s said all season.

View this moment out-of-context for a second: As Mr. Mensa said, “My beautiful wife can not be happier and healthier,” we watched Ragan’s face droop, his smile vanish. He was devastated to learn his friend’s wife was healthy and happy. All his dreams of their post-show-and-bone-dead-wife marriage dashed to pieces. Now he has nothing to show for his time in the house but the $20,000 dollars he got by being the Saboteur, and thereby lying to everyone in the house, including Mr. Mensa. High horse saddled up, ready for mounting.

Ragan: “I feel like Charlie Brown when Lucy pulls the football away.” Two-dimensional? Stuck in childhood forever? Dressed like a dork? What?

Bottom-Feeder Boobiac, lurking at the door, listening to every word, like a nameless horror lurking in a crypt in an H. P. Lovecraft story (I apologize to all nameless horrors in Lovecraft tales. None of you are as hideous as Boobiac.), now calculating that Ragan’s emotions are at their rawest, moves in to strike. I’d liken her to a scorpion, but what has a scorpion ever done to me?

Ragan came clean about his great lie, which turned out to be the forgettable fact that he is a professor, and actually has the PhD that Brendon covets, and Mr. Mensa also lacks, for all his MENSAcity.

But big deal. Who cares? What about coming clean about being The Saboteur? Well? We’re waiting. Oh, how you sewed seeds of paranoia on everyone for an extra $20,000, and lied to everyone, including Mr. Mensa, would make it harder to play the Moral Superiority Card against him, wouldn’t it?

Instead, he and Boobiac went at it over her being a total bitch, and not accepting this fact. She pointed out that there had been no arguments in the jury house, conveniently forgetting the blow ups when Mr. Mensa first confessed his lie.

But here’s a fact, the complaints by regular watchers of the live feeds that the feeds are duller than watching blood dry have increased substantially since Boobiac left the house.

“Ragan, go grab your tiara and be a f***ing queen; I’m over you.” said Boobiac, sashaying off into the house, believing that this witlessness-wrapped-in-homophobia constituted a stinging exit line, though she only showed again her utter lack of any trace of class. And I was left wondering if she meant one of Bitchney’s tin foil tiaras. And if she was actually over him, why was she trying to battle him at all?

Head of Household Competition: Level Two: This involved recognizing who was whom in “funny” pictures in which the houseguests faces had been smushed together, and “Frankensteined,” which is no joke, and I speak as the ex-wife the Karloff family still refuses to admit Boris was ever married to. (That was one unpleasant break-up.)

So this involved recognizing faces and a bit of brain power, and it was between the two prize dimwits of this season’s men, The Beast and The Penguin. The competition seemed to be to see who could lose worse.

The Beast did better than I expected. He got them all right in one minute and thirteen seconds. Ooh. Suspense. How much worse would the Penguin’s score be?

Just a thought on the voting for America’s Favorite Houseguest. I wish, when they announce it, that they’d show all the houseguests rankings on it. I’d love to see Boobiac in last place, and my guess is Mr. Mensa isn’t racking up the votes either.

“We’ll determine the winner when we return,” said the Chenbot, though I can’t imagine what extremely slow children she thought she was addressing, because anyone watching the show already knew that The Beast had beaten The Penguin by 30 seconds. “It was a close game,” was a lie The Chenbot felt she needed to tell.

Okay, as regards this show’s wind-up and Survivor‘s kick-off: I was mistaken when I wrote last week that my last Big Brother column will be on Monday, for I could see no possible reason for the show not to end on Sunday with an evening-long weekend blow-out. But no. Sunday will be a deleted-scenes hour, where we’ll advance nothing, but see hopefully juicy bits of bad behavior. Translation: Lots of ear-splitting Boobiac footage.

Big Brother is ending following the Suvivor season opener next Wednesday. Oh joy. Darlings, I can watch both shows in one night, but I can not write two columns in one night. If I tried, the second one would be even less worth-reading than the first.

So, I’ll be back here next Thursday with my recap of the Big Brother finale and reunion show, and then I’ll be here on Friday also, with the Survivor recapped opener a day late. Live with it. Thereafter, Survivor recaps will appear each Thursday. Who says we don’t have seasons in California?

Cheers darlings.

To read more of Tallulah Morehead, go to The Morehead, the Merrier, or buy her book, My Lush Life.

Read more: Texas, Reality TV, Big Brother 12 Episode 27, Julie Chen, Big Brother 12 Episode 26, The Penguin, Mensa Society, Entertainment News, Cbs, Big Brother, Big Brother 12, Big Brother 12 Episode 28, Entertainment News

Colbert Continues Salute To Iraq War Veterans With Hot Dogs, Free Beer (VIDEO)

Last night on “The Colbert Report,” Stephen Colbert continued his salute to the troops of the Iraq war, this time filling his entire audience with veterans, and again lavishing them with free beer and hot dogs. Colbert even considered the needs of the lady veterans, who were neglected two nights ago when Colbert only had sexy ladies serving beer and no sexy men. Colbert fixed this by sending out a sexy guy in a hot dog costume to dance for their pleasure.

But last night’s show wasn’t all hot dogs and sexy men. Colbert also got down to business re-assimilating the vets to today’s world. He started by catching them up on the latest developments in the last 7 years, including an introduction to Snooki and “Extreme” Pringles. Then he continued to check things off his ‘how to honor veterans’ checklist, everything except for “jobs and educations.” For help with just that, he turned to architect of the new G.I. bill Sen. Jim Webb.

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Read more: Stephen Colbert, Colbert Iraq Veterans, Colbert Salutes Veterans, Colbert Veterans Video, The Colbert Report, Colbert Salutes Troops, Colbert Sexy Hot Dog Guy, Colbert Hot Dogs Beer, Funny Videos, Colbert Iraq Troops, Comedy News

Karen Dalton-Beninato: Today Show Hosts Discuss Tonight’s Saints – Vikings Kickoff

The Today Show returned to New Orleans for the third time in a month, and I had the chance to visit the set. As the show provided an early tailgating opportunity, I asked for Vikings – Saints season opener predictions because someone will eventually predict the win and I will have the scoop.

Matt Lauer was too diplomatic to call the game and answered, “We’re standing here in Jackson Square surrounded by black and gold, I think the Saints are going to do really well tonight, and if we were standing in Minnesota I would say go Brett Farvre.” He noted that I was hardly unbiased in a black and gold fleur de lis cap, but I told him it’s okay – I blog.

Al Roker pointed out that, “The statistics support the Saints, the last 10 Superbowl champs have won their home opener for the next season.” With no game predictions, how about ratings predictions? “Huge, it doesn’t get much better than this.”

“If you think about what the Saints did ratings wise for the Superbowl and the NFC Championship game, you have to give them a lot of credit,” Lauer added. “At the season opener they’re going to draw a lot of people. We just had the 5th anniversary of Katrina, there’s still an enormous amount of interest in the city.”

“It’s one of the things that this helps, keeping the focus on improvements and what’s going on here,” Roker said.

Between the Saints storybook season and Brett Farvre’s return, departure and return it’s “ratings gumbo,” Today Show producer Jim Bell said. Bell, the longest-running Today Show Executive Producer since Jeffrey Zucker, kept the remote running smoothly in a city that feels like it’s running on pure Who Dat adrenaline. Despite all the challenges a traveling set presents, “When you get the word we’re going to New Orleans, it puts a smile on your face,” Bell said.

The tourists, the game, the parade – all of it is a much needed shot in the arm to kick off tourist season in New Orleans after a summer of oil spill coverage.

“i think our show this morning is more about that shot in the arm, and our show a couple of weeks ago was much more an unjaded look at what’s happened here after Katrina,” Lauer said. “There are a lot of good things happening here, but there’s still a long way to go so we tried to handle it in that way. But today we’re kind of a pep rally.”

“It’s a celebration, this is fun,” Roker agreed. “We’re happy to be here, we love this city.”

It shows.

Roker then interviewed Deuce McAlester and I let loose with “Deeuuuuuuuuuucce” along with the rest of the crowd. It’s more of a reflex at this point. I also yell at the Lombardi Trophy whenever the opportunity arises. Saints Executive Vice President Rita Benson LeBlanc talked with Lauer about the emerging role of women in sports, including an ever increasing fan base.

Longtime Superdome public address announcer Jerry Romig gave Roker a Superbowl-Champion Saints apron, and when asked about calling the Superbowl win after how far the city has come in five years, Romig was moved to tears. He apologized off camera for tearing up, but by then anyone who heard him was tearing up as well. It’s been a delicate dance, covering both what has been accomplished and what remains to be done. NBC in particular has done a stellar job. Brian Williams’ Nightly News series about the 5-year anniversary of the flood was a gift to New Orleans and a reminder to the rest of the world.

Winding up the Today Show remote, Chef John Besh provided tailgating goodness with a spread that included jambalaya, pickled shrimp, short ribs and spicy chicken. When the bacon scent wafted across Jackson Square, he had the production team’s full attention.

He also made a bloody mary pitcher that was gone by the time I got to it. That was fate intervening to tell me it’s going to be a long, long day.

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Photos by Jeff Beninato

Read more: New Orleans, Matt Lauer, Lombardi, Vikings, Jim Bell, Today Show, Nbc, Superbowl, John Besh, Al Roker, Deuce McAlester, Saints, Superdome, Jackson Square, Nfl, St. Louis Cathedral, Sports News

Fallon Presents His Back-To-School ‘Do Not Read’ List (VIDEO)

Jimmy Fallon got into the back-to-school spirit last night on “Late Night,” and unveiled his list of “Do Not Read” books for the fall. You’ll be amazed that some of these were even published, including a practical guide to dating white women (for Asian men) and a book of crafts you can make with old pantyhose. The whole list is pretty ridiculous, and Fallon cracks up a number of times just reading the chapter titles.

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Read more: Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, Fallon Do Not Read Video, Funny Videos, Fallon Books, Jimmy Fallon, Fallon Do Not Read List, Back to School Do Not Read List, Fallon Crappy Books, Fallon Terrible Books, Comedy News

IDF soldier convicted of killing U.K. activist in Gaza released from jail

Read more: Gaza Strip, United Kingdom, Home News

Electric Vehicles Face One Crucial Hurdle: Where To Plug In?

Now a new generation of drivers is set to embark on a similar kind of experiment. Until recently, most electric vehicles, or EVs as they are often known, have had a range of just a few dozen miles, limiting their usefulness and appeal. That’s a big reason the long-talked-about era of electric vehicles has been, well, talked and talked about for so long with little real-world progress.

Read more: Hsbc, J.D.Power Automotive, Tesla Motors, Tesla Roadster, J.D. Power and Associates, Cars, Electric Vehicles, Mitsubishi, Japan, Ford, Ford Motel T, Business News

Max Blumenthal: “There Are No Civilians During Wartime.” Rachel Corrie’s Family Confronts the Israeli Military in Court

Cindy, Sarah, and Craig Corrie in the Haifa District Court for the second round of hearings in their civil suit against the Israeli government Cindy, Sarah, and Craig Corrie in the Haifa District Court for the second round of hearings in their civil suit against the Israeli government

In a small courtroom in Haifa’s District Court, a colonel in the Israeli engineering corps who wrote a manual for the bulldozer units that razed the Rafah Refugee Camp in 2003 offered his opinion on the killing of the American activist Rachel Corrie.

“There are no civilians during wartime,” Yossi declared under oath.

Yossi made his remarkable statement under withering cross examination by Hussein Abu Hussein, the lawyer for the family of Corrie, who was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer in Rafah on March 17, 2003. In the back of the courtroom were Rachel’s parents, Craig and Cindy, and her sister, Sarah, back in Israel for the second round of hearings in their civil suit against the state of Israel. They were joined by supporters, friends and a handful of reporters, including me. No reporters from the Israeli media were present — the case has been virtually ignored inside Israel.

In the immediate wake of Corrie’s killing, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, then the chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, instructed Corrie’s parents to demand a “thorough, fair and transparent investigation” from the Israeli government. Since then, the Israelis have stonewalled them, refusing to provide key details of their investigation, which was corrupted from the start by the investigators’ apparent attempts to find evidence that a bulldozer did not in fact kill Rachel.

A 2003 bill introduced in the House International Relations Committee calling for a thorough Israeli investigation in Corrie’s killing and for American efforts to prevent such killings from happening again garnered 78 signatures in support (Rahm Emanuel was the only Jewish signer). However, Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, one of the Israel lobby’s closest allies in Congress, prevented the bill from getting out of the committee. President George W. Bush could have pressed for a full floor vote on the bill but he did nothing. The bill died as a result.

Having been obstructed by the Israelis’ opaque investigation and betrayed by their own government (with notable exceptions like former Rep. Brian Baird), the Corries have been forced to take matters into their own hands. And so they have filed suit against the Israeli government for criminal negligence. Whether or not they will be able to secure the ruling they seek, Rachel Corrie’s family has already elicited a number of damning revelations about the Israeli army’s abuses in Gaza in 2003 and the machinations it has relied on to obscure evidence of its criminal conduct.

“I think we are in a situation similar to South Africa. What we are trying to make clear is that the truth has to be pursued diligently or we won’t make it to the point of reconciliation,” Craig Corrie told me, referring to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that enabled South Africa to peacefully transition from an apartheid system to representative democracy. “We need to understand and acknowledge the truth first.”

So far, the truth has not been easy to come by. The Corries are saddled with a judge who is said to have never ruled in favor of any plaintiff in a civil rights-related suit. And the defense has claimed unspecified state security concerns in its successful bid to avoid revealing the full contents of the investigation into Rachel Corrie’s killing — the family’s lawyers have only been allowed to view a summary. But the Corries’ legal efforts have not been in vain.

On the first day of hearings, the Corries’ lawyers were able to confirm through testimony from “Oded,” one of the investigators of Rachel Corrie’s killing, that Major General Doron Almog, then the head of the Israeli army’s Southern Command, had attempted to stop the military investigators from questioning the bulldozer operators who killed Rachel. When asked why he did not challenge Almog’s apparently illegal intervention, Oded stated that he was only 20-years-old at the time, with no college education and only a few months of training as an investigator. He was intimidated by the high-ranking officer who stormed into the room and menaced him and the other investigators. (Almog once canceled a trip to Britain after being warned that he would be arrested on arrival for ordering the destruction of 59 homes in the Rafah refugee camp in 2002).

Among the most disturbing aspects of Corrie’s case is the abuse of her body by Israeli authorities after she was killed. Craig Corrie recalled to me a panicked phone conversation he had with Will Hewitt, a friend and former classmate of Rachel Corrie who had just witnessed her killing.

“It’s getting dark over here and there are no refrigeration units for her body in Gaza,” Hewitt told Craig Corrie.

“Just leave it until tomorrow,” Craig replied. “We don’t want you or anyone else to get killed.”

“But her body is starting to smell,” Hewitt pleaded.

Somehow Hewitt and his fellow activists from the International Solidarity Movement were able to get Rachel Corrie’s body out of Gaza. But first Hewitt was ordered by Israeli troops to remove the body from the casket and carry it across a border checkpoint. Only Hewitt was allowed to escort Corrie’s body in the ambulance; the rest of the activists who witnessed her death were forced to hitchhike home in the desert. Finally, Corrie’s body was transported to the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute in Tel Aviv where the notorious Dr. Yehuda Hiss autopsied her.

Who is Dr. Hiss? The chief pathologist of Israel for a decade and a half, Hiss was implicated by a 2001 investigation by the Israeli Health Ministry of stealing body parts ranging from legs to testicles to ovaries from bodies without permission from family members then selling them to research institutes. Bodies plundered by Hiss included those of Palestinians and Israeli soldiers. He was finally removed from his post in 2004 when the body of a teenage boy killed in a traffic accident was discovered to have been thoroughly gnawed on by a rat in Hiss’s laboratory. In an interview with researcher Nancy Schepper-Hughes, Hiss admitted that he harvested organs if he was confident relatives would not discover that they were missing. He added that he often used glue to close eyelids to hide missing corneas.

When Craig and Cindy Corrie learned that Hiss would perform an autopsy on their daughter, they stipulated that they would only allow the doctor to go forward if an official from the American consulate was present throughout the entire procedure. An Israeli military police report stated that an American official did indeed witness the autopsy. However, when the Corries asked American diplomatic officials including former US Ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzner if the report was true, they were informed that no American was present at all. The Israelis had lied to them, and apparently fixed their own report to deceive the American government.

On March 14, during the first round of hearings in the Corries’ civil suit, Hiss admitted under oath that he had lied about the presence of an American official during the autopsy of Rachel Corrie. He also conceded to taking “samples” from Corrie’s body for “histological testing” without informing her family. Just which parts of Corrie’s body Hiss took remains unclear; despite Hiss’s claim that he “buried” the samples, her family has not confirmed the whereabouts of her missing body parts.

“It’s so hard to know that Rachel’s body wasn’t respected,” Rachel’s sister, Sarah, told me. “Doctor Hiss and the Israeli government knew what our family’s wishes were. The fact that our wishes were disregarded and a judge hasn’t done anything is absolutely horrifying.”

The treatment of Rachel Corrie’s body is peripheral to her family’s lawsuit. But it demonstrates the degree to which she and those whose homes she died defending have been dehumanized — “there are no civilians during wartime,” as Colonel Yossi declared. Rachel Corrie’s family is seeking only one dollar in symbolic punitive damages from the Israeli government. Their real goal is to force a country in a perpetual state of warfare to treat its innocent victims as human beings, and to be held accountable if it does not.

“It is incredibly expensive for us to carry this case on both emotionally and financially,” Craig Corrie remarked. “It is a whole lot to ask of a private citizen. But as a family we still have the ability to do a lot, so we are going to carry this cause on for everyone who cannot.”

Read more: Palestine, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Gaza, George W. Bush, Rachel Corrie, Idf, Zionism, Israel, Israel Gaza Operation, Brian Baird, World News

Deepak Chopra: Spiritual Solutions #6: Are You Trapped by Beliefs and Advertising?

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By Deepak Chopra and Annie Bond.

Are You Trapped by a Belief System?
Examine your possible motives for wanting to suffer. Do you deny that there’s anything wrong? Do you think it makes you a better person not to show others that you hurt? Do you enjoy the attention you get when you are sick or in distress? Do you feel safe being alone and not having to make tough choices? Belief systems are complex–they hold together the self we want to present to the world.

It is much simpler not to have beliefs, which means being open to life as it comes your way, going with your own inner intelligence instead of with stored judgments.

If you find yourself blocked by your suffering, returning to the same old thoughts again and again, a belief system has trapped you.
–Adapted from The Book of Secrets, by Deepak Chopra(Three Rivers Press, 2004).

Are You Trapped by Advertising?
The harm of many synthetic chemicals on health and the Earth is backed up by science. Yet, a few years ago I read in Scientific American the article “Doubt is Their Product,” about a 3-decade-long disinformation campaign by industry groups to cast doubt and vilify scientific studies when they implicate their products as being harmful to humans, pets, and the environment. What do you believe about the topic? Can you be open to change about your opinion? The process that transforms your home to a sanctuary of health and well-being can begin at any age. The rewards of having a home with clean air are bountiful beyond words.
Adapted from Home Enlightenment, by Annie Bond (Rodale, 2007).

Read more: Beliefs, Ecological, Healthy Living, Green Living, Pollution, Spirituality, Deepak Chopra, Living News

Meredith Fineman: Fifty First (J)Dates: A High Holy Days Bromance

Yes, I wrote about how to get some shmearing done during the High Holy days. However, one category I didn’t delve into was bromances.

For those three people living under a rock, a bromance is a platonic romance between two heterosexual males. Why there needs to be a word for that, instead of just friendship, I think is unnecessary, but I don’t make the rules. I wanted to bring to light a special Rosh Hashanah bromance, whose anniversary is one year ago this week.

Thank you to the FFJD fan who contributed this, I am retelling it in my own words.

So I was at the DC JCC for Rosh Hashanah services, scouting out some chicks. Two rows ahead was a girl I went to high school with, who has long since forgotten about my dorky phase, that incident at Prom, and had four years at Syracuse where she morphed into a hot girl with a mild substance abuse problem. About a row behind is an ex-hookup, who isn’t looking so bad in her ugly long skirt and cardigan. I can’t tell if she’s sitting with her new hookup, (the friend of Rachel’s who was controversial because he and Rachel used to shmear) her brother, or a boy who she’s sort of dating but is still hunting around.

Either way, I’m glad I have options.

Sitting next to me is another dude, scanning the crowd equally fervently for girls whose faces say “I’m hot but I don’t want any commitment because I’m a little kooky but that can be reinterpreted as sexy.” Their outfits say, “My skirt suit only sort of fits because I normally dress like a floozy.” Bingo.

My Shalom Safari mate and I begin talking. I notice his icy blue eyes and loud laugh. As we sit through the next two hours on our Shofar Sojourn we get to know each other – what kind of game console each of us owns, our favorite female asset – mine breasts, his bottoms – our favorite sandwich that we’re craving when freed from the iron grip of synagogue. We oggle at the girl in the next row over, whose third button has come undone. Purple bra.

I call dibbs.

As the service comes to a close, he asks me for my number. Sure man, I say. He says he’s new in town. He has picked the right shmoozer to show him the ropes.

The following week he texts me to continue in our Butts Falling Asleep Because These Benches are Uncomfortable Jewish Extravaganza. I am excited. I’ve missed those baby blues and sexual innuendos involving Sara Rosen.

We walk in together, scouting out the best potential spot to quietly discuss our failed attempts over the weekend – mine with Purple Bra, and his with Liz Who Has A Mental Balance Issue.

We comiserate in our hunger and dream of corned beef. As we walk out into the cool September air, I am struck by two men I saw years ago, with the same combination of raw talent and sheer beauty as we do. Just like Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, I think to myself. And we can take on the world.

One year, many bagels, boobs, and brunches later, we did.

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Read more: Relationships, Judaism, Humor, Dating, Online Dating, Rosh Hashanah, Fifty First (J)Dates, Bromance, Love, Style News