...And Purple Smoke Means "Send Snacks"

This just in from CNN: The Pope is still dead.

Breaking news from MSNBC: There is no new Pope yet. We have no idea when there will be one.

Hot story from CNBC: The Pope was Polish and Catholic.

FOX: We love the Pope. The Pope is great. We love him like Reagan and Bush. A great conservative that Pope was. We've always loved him, despite the things we've said about him in the past. (here too)

While it may be fascinating for some people, though I don't know who, to still be droning on and on about one guy's death for the past five days (six for FOX, since they "confirmed" his death 26 hours early) there is some actual news to report that the 24-hour channels seem to want to ignore. Seriously, you have to be dying or dead to get on the news these days. And there seems to be no end, news of Schiavo was replaced by Pope, who is now briefly interrupted to talk about Prince Rainier (why can't these "professional journalists" take two seconds to learn the correct way to pronounce his name?) and a small mention of Saul Bellow, and then back to the Pope. They should start calling them the "24-hour obituary channels". I'm trying to decide if it's better or worse than 24/7 Michael Jackson trial.

Here are some stories that are kind of flying under the radar that have a lot more impact on people's lives than a stranger's feeding tube or a dead gay-bashing misogynist.

More and more things keep coming out about the ethically and morally challenged Tom DeLay. Today's Washington Post article about a trip DeLay took in 1997 that he claimed was paid for by a non-profit group. Turns out that it was only filtered through that group from a company registered in the Bahamas that did extensive lobbying for Russian interest. This breaks not one, but two House ethics rules. Congress is not allowed to have trips paid for by either lobbyist or foreign interests. This follows two other trips already being investigated for the same reasons, involving Indian gaming lobbyists and a Korean businessman, among others. And there's also this story from the New York Times about how his whole family is lining their pockets with cash from his own PAC and campaign committees, to the tune of over $500,000 in the last four years. I guess it's good to be married to DeLay, except for the sex with a troll-like man part.

Potential vote-rigging in Zimbabwe. Widely unpopular leader wins an election landslide, where no international observers were allowed except for his allies from neighboring countries. And before the election there were allegations of opposition intimidation and a crackdown on the media to make sure no negative stories were done on the ruling party. Basically all I've heard from the news channels is that Zimbabwe voted and the incumbent won.

Oh yeah, by the way, the Iraqi government appointed a president.

And something that should be one of the biggest stories in the media right now should be the comments made by Sen. John Cornyn(R-TX) saying he understands why people want to shoot judges, with all those liberal activist rulings and such. You've got to see it to believe it. Go here and then click on the link for the video. Here's a little taste.

SENATOR JOHN CORNYN: "I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. Certainly nothing new, but we seem to have run through a spate of courthouse violence recently that's been on the news and I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters on some occasions where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in - engage in violence." (Senate Floor, 4/4/05)

If you ask me (I know, you didn't), we should be seeing a lot more conversations and interviews about whether or not this guy should be impeached or resign instead of what the color of the smoke means during the Cardinal Conclave.

OK, that's all I've got for now. We now return to talking about the Pope single handily defeating Communism with small interruptions about Michael Jackson's showering practices.