Beat that, Rupert Murdoch!

Television gazillionaire and former Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi proved he was the media mogul with the mostest recently by treating guests at his Sardinian villa to entertainment reminiscent of some of his imperial Roman predecessors: a simulated earthquake and the eruption of a specially constructed faux volcano.
Unfortunately, he failed to warn his neighbours about this in advance, and they called in the fire department.

she is now limiting herself to whoring of the media variety

As if we needed more evidence that the Apocalypse is nigh, Paris Hilton has decided to become celibate.

"I'm not having sex for a year. ... I'll kiss, but nothing else," says Hilton, who told the magazine [British GQ] she has had sex with only two men during her lifetime.

Some might say that this is an inconsequential news item to seize upon, given the current widespread misery in the world. They'd be right, but take a look at some of the other stories getting reported on at the moment:

europa, europa

Given how easy it is to fall into a dichotomous trap when thinking about European vs. American social values, I thought it worth noting that a day after el presidente's veto of a bill allowing federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research made even Bill Frist a partisan of rationality for the day, Germany is pushing for a ban on EU funding of embryonic stem-cell research.
But they don't have any snowflake babies.

mary-kate and ashley should probably get a PAC going

We may have elected a father and a son to our highest office twice in our country's history, but Poland has brought nepotism to a whole new level, with (rightist, homophobic) identical twins now serving as the country's President and Prime Minister. Also, in a nod to our 40th president, they used to be actors.

Jenna and Barbara 2020?

a cross to bear

Lady Liberty has some image problems to contend with in today's America. For one thing she's French. And "give me your tired, your poor" is sooo nineteenth century; the United States of 2006 prefers that the huddled masses remain on the teeming (foreign) shores. Not only that, as a toga-clad female allegorical figure, she is just a shade to close to promoting paganism (or, as Pastor Williams would have it, "expressions of New Age, Wicca, secularism and humanism").

Lest Bartholdi's colossus be doomed to irrelevance in our current renaissance of jingoism and and Christo-fascism, the Times reports that the tellingly named World Overcomers Outreach Ministries Church has given the Statue of Liberty a makeover. The church has erected its own Statue of Liberation Through Christ in Memphis, Tennessee, triumphantly raising a giant cross and the Ten Commandments. Reaction to the statue has been mixed, with some Memphis residents feeling that the Christianization of this patriotic symbol is inappropriate. At least one local, however, countered, "I can't see anything wrong with it. This is the Bible Belt." Isn't Bible Belt supposed to be a depreciative term?

Going to Graceland

In part because of concerns over his upcoming infamous annual visit to a shrine that holds the remains of Japanese war criminals, Junichiro Koizumi's final trip to the U.S. as Japan's PM will not include official events like an address to Congress. Instead, this Friday, he and W are going to hop into Air Force One to visit...Graceland.
Koizumi's deep appreciation for the King is well known; indeed, it led to him make the curious political decision to lend his name to an Elvis Presley Greatest Hits compilation in 2001. (He seems to favor the plaintive love songs of the later, rhinestone-bedecked Elvis.)
This should be a pleasant and diverting photo op for both lame ducks, but it is a bit surreal that they would carry out an extracurricular event like this when, among other things, we are in the thick of the North Korea long-range missile test crisis and the IDF seems to be in the process of invading Gaza. Or perhaps we should just take solace in the fact that these sorts of things don't really require their involvement.
God, I'd love to know what W's nickname for Junichiro is.

In Europe, the monsters prevail

If you really want to understand the dynamics of Europe today, you could do a lot worse than to watch the Eurovision song contest.
The really interesting thing isn't that the majority of nations favor derivative, becostumed hard rock (everyone except the first-time-in-Eurovision Armenians, in my admittedly drunken and distracted tally, voted for the Finnish goblin band Lordi), but the way that intra-European dynamics play out (not to mention the fact that this is a Europe that includes Armenia, Turkey, and Israel). The accuracy with which a European audience predicts, for example that Germay's top vote (Germany, incidentally, fielded a country-western combo complete with bolo ties and banjo) will be Turkey (due to it immigrant population), or that Finland, even if it hadn't actually been awesome, shares both the Scandinavian and Baltic votes, could teach the average American a lot about the fallacy of Europe as a hegemonic entity. The ways in which blatantly American musical forms (not only the Germans, but also the Danes, employed country, and nations as divergent as Moldavia and the U.K. explored rap) were mined was also worth a seminar paper, as, I think, was the fact that almost every single country's voting representatives spoke English (truly, the only exceptions I noticed were France and Andorra). All in all, one got the impression that there was a globalization taking place that was both inspired by the United States and yet made the United States completely irrelevant. It was really quite thought provoking. As well as cheesy and absurdly fun.