If it's okay for

If it's okay for CBS Sports to dub bird sounds into their coverage of the Buick Open golf tournament, and it's okay for Bob Costas to have a video-enhanced fireplace beside him during NBC's coverage of the Olympics, what else is okay for sports coverage? What the heck, it's all entertainment, right?

Last year, 100 journalists

Last year, 100 journalists and media workers around the world were killed while on duty. The International Federation of Journalists's report [pdf] details each case. I had a hard time reading through them all.

Johanne Sutton, a reporter for Radio France Internationale; was one of three journalists killed when Taliban forces fired on their Northern Alliance military convoy.

Nahar Ali, a correspondent for the newspaper Dainik Anirban in Khulna, was kidnapped on 18 April in the village of Dumuria. He was found unconscious two days later near Dumuria, after being beaten and tortured by his kidnappers.

Bekim Kastrati, a reporter for the Albanian-language daily Bota Sot, was shot dead by unidentified attackers in a drive-by shooting near the town of Srbica, northwest of the Kosovar capital of Pristina.

The body of a journalist [Ahsan Ali], whose face was disfigured by acid, was found in an irrigation canal two days after he was reported missing.

If you're an early

If you're an early riser, and if you live in San Francisco, you might want to check out the tumbleweed in South Park at 6:00am. According to the press release from Nowhere.com, "former high-tech employees [will] spread tumbleweeds throughout South Park, giving it a final goodbye." No, South Park isn't going anywhere. It's just that someone feels the need to create some more melodrama around the whole dotcom thing.

In a ceremony meant to pay last respects to the dead so that the spirit of San Francisco can grow into the future, in the same area that was once home to companies like Organic, BigBook and Vivid, a load of tumbleweeds, dispersed from the belly of a 17-foot truck, will pepper the streets and sidewalks of the now desolate Multimedia Gulch.

No word on the validity of this press release, but if you happen to run into any tumbleweed tomorrow, let us know.

Those wacky Shiv Sena

Those wacky Shiv Sena activists are at it again: This time they're burning Valentine's Day cards in Mumbai (Bombay).

The activists had also warned young couples in Bombay and the central city of Bhopal not to celebrate. Those disobeying would have their faces painted black, they said.

Someone please explain to me how buying a romantic card is a strike against Hinduism.

The Graduate is a

The Graduate is a great movie, and I'm fully aware that I'm not the first to realize this. But what gets me every time I see it (this being the second), is the scene where Ben (played by Dustin Hoffman) is racing across the San Francisco Bay Bridge in his Alpha Romeo. I just don't understand why, if he's on his way to Berkeley, he is driving on the top deck of the bridge. You see, the top deck of the Bay Bridge goes away from Berkeley, not toward it.

"Ben, this whole idea sounds pretty half-baked."

"No, it isn't. It's completely baked."

So, theoretically speaking, let's

So, theoretically speaking, let's say a company sends you an extremely generous refund check by accident. Do you point out the error, thus upholding the tacit individual morality that is supposed to keep society together? Or do you cash it, considering it your little protest against the corporate behemoth that's keeping the working man down?

Theoretically speaking, of course...

Apparently, it's a big

Apparently, it's a big deal that Greta Van Susteren, the legal lead for Fox News Channel's "On the Record," has a new look.

What's more pathetic: that the Associated Press is running an article about a newswoman's physical appearance; or that the Fox News Channel seems to fit so well in the "Entertainment News" category?

Update: What's with Lisa de Moraes of the Washington Post getting in on the snickering? Be sure to read the incredibly cynical last three paragraphs.

You can go for

You can go for months without worrying too much about things like racism and prejudice, and then suddenly you can get accosted twice in two days -- first, by the flailing homeless man who tells you (somewhat tritely) to "go back to your own country," and then in an email from an anti-Semite who thinks that you're Jewish.