Hmmm ... I Wonder ... Would She Rather Be In Philadelphia?

No word on where she'd rather be, but this has to be - despite Mike Huckabee and what he might say at any given moment - the head-shaker-of-the-day story;

EXCLUSIVE: The AP Has Written Britney Spears' Obituary

I'm half-surprised the Cable News networks haven't tossed their 24/7 political coverage aside to run hours of loops of the same footage of Britney, accompanied by a parade of Tinsel Town talking heads - the B-Journalists - who, in truth, are very much part of Britney's problems and, exponentially, increase the coverage by running the loops of Anna Nicole Smith, rehashing her sad life and the parallels to Britney ...

Too bad this isn't a Sweeps Month, or that may very well have come to fruition.

I wonder if, like a racetrack's tote board, this jostled the betting at the Dead Pool?

Now, it's time to kick back and wait for the other shoe to drop ... Paris Hilton, complaining that no one has written her obituary yet, or worse, as with her singing, she's going to do it herself ...

Tell-Britney-To-Stay-Away-From-Green-Bananas Links

Attytood: Thank God the AP is ready for the biggest story of our lifetime

Attaturk: Alert the Pulitzer Prize Committee

The Death Pool - Chronicling Death in Pools since 2007

The Home Of The Celebrity Dead Pool

The Dead Pool

Gerald Ford Dana Carvey SNL - Dana Carvey impersonates Tom Brokaw in a mock news broadcast on SNL as he enumerates the ways that Gerald Ford could die

"We Still Had Manners" ... Barry Crimmin's Year In Review

You could go with Parade Magazine, or some other MSM fluff.

Or, you can go to the source.

What better way to ring in the New Year than with Barry Crimmin's annual Year-In-Review?

Crimmins has been doing this for so long, has been so prescient, insightful and dead-on-target, he makes Theodore White's Making-of-a-President series look like hack National Enquirer tripe.

And this year, there's no change in that status, with On the national affront: An inescapable year reaches its inevitable conclusion.

"Could 2007 somehow have been avoided? Where does one begin to recap 12 months of such willful self-parody? Isn’t it insulting to explain why, say, waterboarding is wrong, especially when one of the few people who needs this clarified is the new attorney general of the United States?

Corporate and political hoodlums spent the year doing three things: planning crimes, committing crimes, and covering up crimes. If this is news to you, no summary will bring you up to speed. So here are just some highlights of 2007, because it would be cruel and indecent to make you remember it all."

Crimmins mows down the list, from unreal real estate, to Saddam Hussein ("We still had manners"), to the cowering Congress and, of course, our pop culture pap that passes in so many outlets as hard news ("On February 8, the news-o-tainment divisions caught a break when hillbilly superwidow Anna Nicole Smith died of a drug overdose."), and, of course the ever-growing violence in our ever-growing police state ("While American children spent the year playing Russian roulette with Chinese toys, teens and alleged adults dabbled with even deadlier devices.")

Senator Larry Craig and the Bush Regime don't escape unscathed, as well as the Presidential Marathon, err , Campaign, complete with the numbing addition of the "Ewe tube"

"These confabs were sometimes said to be revolutionary because they employed the popular video-sharing Web site YouTube to collect questions from regular Americans, thus cutting out the mainstream media. Except for one thing: the mainstream media vetted the questions. So what we got were either inane stunt queries, included to underscore the Earth-shaking newness of this approach, or the same stupid questions the hacks could have asked more succinctly than some narcissist with a Web cam hamming it up on technology that produced video about two notches below Neil Armstrong’s viral “One Small Step” work in 1969."

So, ring out and shed your old, scaly 2007 skin with Barry Crimmin's Year-In-Review!

Read: On the national affront: An inescapable year reaches its inevitable conclusion

Visit Barry Crimmins website

Other Barry Crimmins on The Garlic

Bonus Barry Links

Picking up on a Crimmins post, Vanity Fair's James Wolcott's "Huckabee in the Bonnet"

Wolcott, again, quoting from Crimmin's hilarious "review" of Wolf Blitzer and his Situation Room program in his The Year of Tragical Thinking

Cosby Out At MSNBC But Still In Running For World Wonder Title

Smith Funeral Coverage Pushes Former Raspy-Voiced Anchor Ahead of Great Wall of China, But Trailing Pyramids of Giza

It's often said by optimists, that when one door closes, another door opens.

For MSNBC anchor Rita Cosby, she's now wishing that the open door is the portal to a new world title.

MSNBC announced that Cosby is being let go, canceling their plans for a 24-Hour Anna Nicole Smith channel that she was pegged to anchor.

At the same time, in a confluence of fate, Cosby is headed towards being a finalist in the contest voting on a new set of the Seven Wonders of the World.

Abrams: "Can't Count On White Woman Going Missing, or Dying Suddenly" To Justify Cosby Contract

With her contract expiring on April 1, 2007, Cosby was informed that it was not going to be renewed.

This was the second blow to Cosby, who last year, had her "Rita Cosby Live and Direct," replaced by the networks justice filler, 'Doc Blocks". Cosby languished, sparking briefly when former JonBenet Ramsey murder suspect John Mark Karr surfaced surfaced and, more recently, with her coverage of the Anna Nicole Smith case.

MSNBC President Dan Abrams confirmed Cosby's departure, with her last day being March 31st.

"It's just the pressure of the business," lamented Abrams. "Rita has a certain set of skills. We can't count on a white woman going missing, or one that dies suddenly, occuring enough to make the kind of investment like the 24-Hour Smith channel

In yet another measure of irony, when Cosby first joined MSNBC, coming from the Fox News Network, then President Rick Kaplin bumped the poster of Abrams in the main lobby, to accommodate Cosby's.

Abrams denied he was letting Cosby go, just to reclaim his poster's main lobby location.

Raspy, Husky Voice Cited In World Wonder Voting

Cosby was initially stunned to find that she was in the running for a World Wonder title.

Contest founder Bernard Weber was also, but as the votes poured in, the decision was made to let it go, to see how far she could rise.

"I was surprise, yes," said Weber, in a telephone interview with The Garlic. "I had no idea who she was. But there were many, many votes pouring in, and people marveling that her voice had to be a world wonder."

For much of Cosby's career, on-camera, she was noted, and criticized, for having a raspy, husky voice.

"There was a surge of voting, during that Anna Nicole Smith thing going on," added Weber. "It pushed her past the Great Wall of China, but still trailing the Pyramids in Giza.

Cosby, since taking a forced vacation that was a prelude to her dismal, has lost the raspiness and is speaking in a normal tone of voice.

"Gosh," said Cosby, "I like the voice I have now, but, if it means going the distance to get one of those World Wonder titles, I'll start chain-smoking and eating glass, if I have to."

Both Cosby and Weber dismissed Cosby's contest voting popularity due to a "suitcase full of rocks" that former MSNBC colleague Keith Olbermann offered as a measure on how dumb Cosby may be.

"No," said Weber, "We already have the Acropolis, Stonehenge and other locations in the contest, we don't need any more rocks."

Links

Welcome to the election of the New 7 Wonders of the World

Rita Cosby, American Hero










Headier days for Rita Cosby, chasing down murder suspects.

Cosby has been bounced from MSNBC and now awaits voting to become a finalist in the New 7 Wonders of the World contest

MSNBC Readying 24-Hour Anna Nicole Smith Channel

Cosby To Be Sole Anchor; New Packaged "Anna-Blocs" To Debut On Flagship Channel

Saying it is not simply a February Sweeps Month promotion, MSNBC President Dan Abrams hinted an announcement will be coming soon, on a new 24-Hour Anna Nicole Smith Channel that will debut as part of an expanded MSNBC network.

"This story not only has legs," said an earnest Abrams, "but it growing new legs ... It's almost endless on how long we can run with this."

With the flagship MSNBC channel devoting more-and-more air time to nearly every squeak of news that is coming out of the Ms. Smith's post-death legal hearings, and often leading into longer pieces detailing the former Playboy centerfold's life, Abrams believes the venture is both "needed, and can be profitable."

The website Think Progress noted on the day after Smith's death, MSNBC was the leader as to its' coverage

"NBC’s Nightly News devoted 14 seconds to Iraq compared to 3 minutes and 13 seconds to Anna Nicole. CNN referenced Anna Nicole 522% more frequently than it did Iraq. MSNBC was even worse — 708% more references to Anna Nicole than Iraq."

To that end, this morning, as President Bush gave a speech on the Afghanistan War at the American Enterprise Institute, that had both MSNBC rivals CNN and Fox News carrying the speech live, in it's entirety, while MSNBC broadcast a hearing in Florida over the disposition of releasing Ms. Smith's body for burial.

"This is a story that will write itself, continued Abrams. "There are hundreds of thousands of people out there that came in contact with Anna Nicole Smith and they all have stories to tell. We won't have any problem getting advertisers to support this channel."

"Given the mysterious nature of Smith's death; the "take a number" controversy surrounding who sired her baby daughter; and the bonanza of Benjamins in the balance, cable couldn't have concocted a better story," wrote Gail Shister of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Abrams defended the launching of the channel devoted only to Anna Nicole Smith.

"It's not just tabloid news we have here," sniped Abrams. "There's a pending Supreme Court decision and we also have substantial legal issues with her burial and the still-unresolved paternity issue. I think we've only seen the tip-of-the-iceberg as to potential fathers and that will only mean more court time."

The latest to step forward claiming to be father of Smith's daughter, Dannielynn is the noted, world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking.

Abrams indicated that he is considering making MSNBC Special Units reporter Rita Cosby the sole anchor of the new Anna Nicole Smith channel and that reports and in-studio interviews will be packaged for a new series of "Anna-Blocs", to compliment the on-going MSNBC series of Doc-Block programming on law and justice.

Abrams would neither confirm or deny rumors that he was courting CNN's Anderson Cooper to fill the void of MSNBC's Special Units reporting if Cosby is tapped to anchor the Anna Nicole Smith channel.

"I kinda wish we had different circumstances here," conceded Abrams.

"Instead of dying, we could have really landed the golden goose if she had simply gone missing in the Bahamas, a la Natalee Holloway ... Another white woman - this one a beautiful, wealthy celebrity - goes missing on an island ... I could retire a rich man on the back of that story ..."

Bonus Link

Anna and the Astronaut Trigger a Week of Tabloid News











Rita Cosby (left) is rumored to be tapped to anchor a new Anna Nicole Smith channel MSNBC is slated to launch