HANNIBAL LECTER'S VICTIMS DIDN'T NUMBER IN THE 'UPPER HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS'

Saddam Hussein will be forced to sit in a Hannibal Lecter-style cage during his trial.

Top-secret photos of the Baghdad courtroom being built in readiness for the deposed Iraqi dictator’s impending day of judgment are in The Sun today.

The centrepiece will be the reinforced metal cage, similar to the one used to house cannibal Lecter — played by Sir Anthony Hopkins in 1991 movie Silence of the Lambs. More...

FRONT PAGE, ABOVE-THE-FOLD NEWS ACCORDING TO CNN.COM

Beating such established Hollywood hunks as Colin Farrell and Vin Diesel, U.S. President George W. Bush won the Golden Raspberry Award on Saturday for worst actor of the year for his appearance in Michael Moore's documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11."

Bush, two members of his administration, Britney Spears and the storybook about a goat that the president was reading to children as the September 11 attacks were taking place all took top honors at the "Razzie" awards, now in their 25th year.

"Catwoman," starring 2002 best actress Oscar winner Halle Berry, tied with "Fahrenheit 9/11" by scooping up four "Razzies" -- worst picture, worst directing, worst screenplay and worst performance by an actress for Berry for her "berry bad" work.

John Wilson, founder of the nonprofit Golden Raspberry Award Foundation that gives out "Hollywood's least coveted trophies" on the eve of the Oscars ceremony, said Moore's anti-Bush documentary allowed the foundation's nearly 700 members to do some Bush bashing of their own.

The president not only was named worst male actor in a leading role, he also won for being half of the year's worst screen couple when paired with either Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice or "My Pet Goat," the book he was reading to schoolchildren on the morning of September 11, 2001.

Footage of Bush continuing to read the book after being given first word of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon was one of the key scenes in Moore's highly critical film.

Two other "Fahrenheit" stars were "honored." Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was named worst supporting actor and pop star Britney Spears won for worst supporting actress for a clip in which she declares blind faith in Bush's policies while popping chewing gum.

PTD COMMENT > Or, perhaps it was just faith.

More...

SO WHAT, THE GRANDSON'S HOME: HUNTER THOMPSON AND HIS 'VERY LOVING' SUICIDE - A TRUE 'GESTURE OF STRENGTH'

PTD COMMENT > WHAT A GUY...!

Hunter S. Thompson heard the ice clinking.

The literary champ was sitting in his command post kitchen chair, a piece of blank paper in his favorite typewriter, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot through the mouth hours earlier.

But a small circle of family and friends gathered around with stories, as he wished, with glasses full of his favored elixir — Chivas Regal on ice.

"It was very loving. It was not a panic, or ugly, or freaky," Thompson's wife, Anita Thompson, said Thursday night in her first spoken comments since the icon's death Sunday. "It was just like Hunter wanted. He was in control here."

Anita Thompson also echoes the comments that have been made by Hunter Thompson's son and daughter-in-law: That her husband's suicide did not come from the bottom of the well, but was a gesture of strength and ultimate control made as his life was at a high-water mark. Read the whole distorted account from Ms. Thompson...

LOST TSUNAMI PHOTOS FOUND

A long, sunny holiday in Thailand exploded into terror for a British Columbia couple whose camera captured their last minutes together before the tsunami swept them to their deaths. Go to story/see pics...

PHOTO-OP STRATEGERY

Peggy Noonan in another classic column (blog-style) discusses Secretary of State Rice's apparent attempts to avoid the "gotcha moments" the media loves to catch on camera... interesting take on Hillary also.Read the column...

HERE'S HOW LIBERAL HOLLYWOOD WRITERS DESCRIBE THE REST OF US

Snippet from a revealing article: It’s no exaggeration to say that the stakes are huge for Rock on Sunday night. He’ll be blamed if the telecast stutters in the ratings, even though this is a star-challenged year where none of the five Best Pictures have even come close to $100 million in grosses, a sign they haven’t been seen in fly-over country. It could also damage Rock’s film career, which is on life support already. Read the rest of this case study in leftwing out-of-touchism...

CRACK ON BUSH IN FRONT OF A CROWD OF HOLLYWOODERS? MY, ROCK MUST HAVE BALLS AS BIG AS MARBLES.

At a time when Hollywood crybabies and their Big Media daddies are crumbling under pressure from conservatives, Chris Rock is, well, like a rock. That’s why, at the Academy Awards this Sunday, you can count on the guy who may well be the funniest comedian working right now to break out of the mold of mediocrity that usually defines the broadcast’s opening monologue and blow up the status quo.

L.A. Weekly has learned that Rock has earmarked a segment of his standup to joke about George W. Bush. Ali LeRoi, a longtime Rock collaborator and part of the team of writers helping to craft the comic’s opening remarks as Oscar host, tells me: “The guy who says inflammatory stuff is going to say something inflammatory. He’s made a career of being outrageous so, yes, there’ll be presidential humor.” More...

VIVA LA REAGAN REVOLUCION!

Jimmy Carter... you can stick your ironic namesake of a sub and your Hugo Chavez-hugging tendencies. Now, this is what we're talking about.

AHMED OMAR ABU ALI MAY BE MUSLIM... I THINK THEY'RE STILL CHECKING.

A former Virginia high school valedictorian who had been detained in Saudi Arabia as a suspected terrorist was charged Tuesday with conspiring to assassinate President Bush and with supporting the al-Qaida terrorist network.

Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, 23, a U.S. citizen, made an initial appearance Tuesday in U.S. District Court but did not enter a plea. He claimed that he was tortured while detained in Saudi Arabia since June of 2003 and offered through his lawyer to show the judge his scars.

The federal indictment said that in 2002 and 2003 Abu Ali and an unidentified co-conspirator discussed plans for Abu Ali to assassinate Bush. They discussed two scenarios, the indictment said, one in which Abu Ali "would get close enough to the president to shoot him on the street" and, alternatively, "an operation in which Abu Ali would detonate a car bomb." More...

ONLY ISRAEL 'OCCUPIES' TERRITORIES, AND BEIRUT HAS A 'CHIC WATERFRONT DISTRICT'

Chanting "Syria out," thousands of people packed the streets of Beirut on Monday to protest against Syrian forces in Lebanon.

A significant security presence was also on the streets, with about 300 officers armed with M-16 rifles and AK-47 assault rifles.

Monday's protest follows the assassination last week of former prime minister Rafik Hariri.

A popular politician and construction industry billionaire, Hariri, 60, had resigned as prime minister in October, after parliament decided to extend the term of pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud for three more years.

Hariri had pushed for a U.N. resolution calling on the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon.

He was murdered, along with 16 others, in a bomb explosion in Beirut's chic waterfront district on February 14 -- a blast so powerful it left a crater in the road and rained debris on the streets for blocks. More...

SHOULDN'T BUSH SCORE 'COOL POINTS' WITH LIBERALS FOR THIS?

Private conversations with George Bush secretly taped by an old friend before he was elected president foreshadow some of his political strategies and appear to reveal that he acknowledged trying marijuana, The New York Times has reported. More...

THE OLD GREY LADY RELEASES SNIPPETS OF 'SECRETLY TAPED' BUSH CONVERSATIONS

As George W. Bush was first moving onto the national political stage, he often turned for advice to an old friend who secretly taped some of their private conversations, creating a rare record of the future president as a politician and a personality.

In the last several weeks, that friend, Doug Wead, an author and former aide to Mr. Bush's father, disclosed the tapes' existence to a reporter and played about a dozen of them. More...

IRONY ALERT

The USS Jimmy Carter entered the Navy's fleet Saturday as the most heavily armed submarine ever built, and as the last of the Seawolf class of attack subs that the Pentagon ordered during the Cold War's final years.

The $3.2 billion Jimmy Carter was commissioned Saturday, the first submarine named after a living ex-president. More...

BUSH BILLBOARD DEFACED, BUT FIXED FOR OSCAR NIGHT

We previously reported the conservative group, Citizens United, planned to erect two pro-Bush billboards in Hollywood "thanking" Hollywood for Bush's reelection. As planned, the signs were created, coinciding with the buildup to Oscar night. However, one of those tongue-in-cheek billboards was seriously vandalized Wednesday night, when a Swastika was painted on President Bush's forehead. More...

WHY IS THIS RACE-BAITING IMBECILE GETTING TOP BILLING ON CNN.COM? OH, THAT'S WHY.

Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth, tagged as an imperious diva on "The Apprentice," criticized the NBC reality show for stereotyping her and other black contestants.

"Once you start looking at how all the black men are lazy and laid-back and nonassertive and nonaggressive and all the black women are quite the opposite, I think there is a pattern," she said Wednesday. More...

WHY THE U.N. WEAPONS INSPECTORS WERE A... BURP... JOKE

UN inspectors in Iraq spent their working hours drinking vodka while ignoring a shadowy nocturnal fleet believed to be smuggling goods for Saddam Hussein, a former senior inspector told the US Senate yesterday. More...

OUR FIRST DNC NEWSLETTER FROM CHAIRMAN DEAN: I RUN THE PARTY !!

Dear Robert,

You run this party.

On Saturday, I was honored when your representatives on the Democratic National Committee elected me Chairman. And I can't wait to get started. But when they voted, it wasn't about me -- they were voting for a plan for the future of our party.... (blah, blah, blah)

GOOGLE FOR KERRY

PTD COMMENT > This is no surprise... Prevent Truth Decay's advertisement for our "Give Terrorism a Chance - John Kerry for President" bumper sticker was removed from Google... we, according to them, were promoting terrorism. We maintained that, quite to the contrary, we weren't, but John Kerry would have.

Employees of U.S.-based search engine Google gave $207,650 to federal candidates for the 2004 elections -- virtually all of it to Democrats.

A USA Today analysis published Monday indicated 98 percent of the money went to Democrats, the most-lopsided giving of any of the top tech company donors.

Microsoft was the biggest tech donor, with its political action committee contributing $3.1 million last year, 60 percent to Democrats. MORE...

CHRIS ROCK FISHING FOR A GIG AT THE NEXT DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION?

"Abortion, it's beautiful, it's beautiful abortion is legal. I love going to an abortion rally to pick up women, cause you know they are f**king" - Hollywood dearheart and Oscar host Chris Rock

from DRUDGE

HE... READ HIS BOOK. A NOW A BAND IS PLAYING.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton won the second Grammy Award of his career on Sunday, when he was honored in the spoken word category for his best-selling memoir "My Life."

Clinton, who was not present to accept his award at the Los Angeles Convention Center, also won a Grammy last year in the spoken word for children category. His wife, U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, won a spoken word Grammy in 1997 for her memoir "It Takes A Village." More...

A PARTY OUT OF TOUCH: RUNNING KERRY, NOW RUN BY DEAN

Howard Dean, whose high-flying presidential bid collapsed in disarray one year ago, won the post of Democratic chairman on Saturday and promised an aggressive drive to mobilize voters and rebuild the party ``from the grass roots up.'' More...

CONDI, A STAR BEING BORN

As she tours the continent after her Senate confirmation, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is like a rock star — her every movement, her every meeting covered by an adoring media.

America’s first black female secretary of state is doing in public what she has always done in private — speaking frankly about America’s priorities and the realities of the post-Cold War world. As she jokes with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, loosening up his dogmatic anti-American policies, lectures Russia about freedom and warns Israel of tough decisions ahead, one thing is obvious: A star is being born. More...

WHAT A SCREAM: DEMOCRATS HAVE A BUMPER CROP TO PICK CHAIRMAN FROM

Tim Roemer, the only remaining opponent of Howard Dean in the race to be chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said Monday he's bowing out of the race - but he offered a warning to Democrats.

Dean, the former presidential candidate and governor of Vermont, is expected to win the DNC chairmanship at the election Feb. 12.

Roemer, a former congressman from Indiana and a member of the Sept. 11 commission, said Democrats must be more inclusive in their outreach to fast-growing parts of the country. More...

GOVERNMENT SPENDING... AND SPENDING... AND...

Bush's Budget - Departments at a Glance (Here)

WHY DON'T YOU START BY NOT HATING AMERICANS?

France wants a fresh start in relations with the United States and both sides have much to contribute to a renewed transatlantic partnership, Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said in comments published Monday.

He made the remarks before a visit to Paris Tuesday by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice aimed in part at repairing ties damaged by the U.S.-led war in Iraq, which France opposed. More...

DEMOCRATS CRITICIZE SPEECH? WHAT!!?? WHO'D OF THUNK...

Democrats came out swinging at President Bush's policies and plans but used his State of the Union speech on Wednesday more to hurl criticism than offer specific alternatives.

Before the president delivered his speech, Democrats tried setting benchmarks for measuring how he would address major issues. More...

THIS WOULD BE AS IF BUSH CALLED CASTRO 'A GREAT STATESMAN'

In his first public remarks since the United States dubbed Cuba an outpost of tyranny, Fidel Castro (news - web sites) called President Bush (news - web sites) "deranged" and belittled recent improvements in relations between Cuba and Europe. More...

C&F'S "IRAQIS VOTE" - MOST POIGNANT EDITORIAL 'CARTOON'

The only thing missing from this heavy-duty cartoon is a Democrat standing with the knife-bearing terrorist.

VOTING IRAQIS - IN THEIR OWN WORDS

Yesterday was a great day to be an American, and an even better day to be an Iraqi. Notwithstanding the best efforts of Osama bin Laden, Barbara Boxer, Jacques Chirac, Ted Kennedy, Saddam Hussein and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, millions of Iraqis cast their first free ballots. The scenes of joyous Iraqis embracing freedom were as moving as watching Germans dance on the Berlin Wall 15 years ago--and all the more impressive given that Iraqi voters faced real physical danger from terrorists seeking a return to tyranny. More...