'Bart Simpson' records Scientology ad; producer responds

Scientologist Nancy Cartwright, who does the voice of Bart Simpson on "The Simpsons," has recorded a message in the voice of the iconic animated character promoting the controversial quasi-religious organization.

Cartwright recorded the pitch (audio below) for a robocall to boost turn-out for a Scientology event at the organization's Hollywood center. Though she takes care to identify herself by her real name and not her character, she uses the Bart voice at a few points in the recording.

“This is not authorized by us," said "Simpsons" executive producer Al Jean. "'The Simpsons' does not, and never has, endorsed any religion, philosophy or system of beliefs any more profound than Butterfinger bars." (Okay, it's not Jean's wittiest line).

The move is not only unauthorized, of course, but almost certainly violates Cartwright's contract. Though Fox is remaining mum on the subject, and their legal department is very much looking into the matter, the "Simpsons" characters are owned by Fox. Sure, Scientology is a non-profit group (ahem), but it doesn't matter (a Fox vs. the Church of Scientology lawsuit over the misuse of Bart Simpson? Oh-please, oh-please, oh-please...).

Publicity wise, coming right after the John Travolta fiasco, Cartwright could have probably recorded the message for, say, Hamas, and received less public blowback.

Whys is Scientology so big with HollyWood stars? I just don't get it...

Illinois senate votes to oust Governor Blagojevich

he Illinois state senate on Thursday convicted Governor Rod Blagojevich of abuse of power, removing him from office amid charges that he tried to sell the U.S. Senate seat once held by President Barack Obama.

More than two-thirds of the 59 senators, acting as a jury following the two-term Democrat's impeachment on January 9, voted to find him guilty, effectively ousting him from office.

The vote was televised live from the state capitol building in Springfield, Illinois. Blagojevich is the first governor in Illinois history to be impeached and removed from office.

Good!

Large Hadron Collider could create long-life black holes

People who feared that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will create long-life black holes that will destroy the Earth might have a point after all.

Defenders of the LHC have said that if it creates any black holes they will only last a millisecond before collapsing.
However, three physicists have been looking at the maths and worked out that any Black Holes could last a bit longer than thought.

Roberto Casadio of the University of Bologna in Italy and Sergio Fabi and Benjamin Harms of the University of Alabama say mini black holes could exist for more than a second. If they last that long, they could eat enough matter to grow bigger and stop themselves from decaying.

However, Casadio, Fabi and Harms think the black hole would lose out, and pass through the Earth or out of the atmosphere before it got to be a problem.

"While the growth of black holes to catastrophic size does not seem possible, it remains true that the expected decay times are much longer than is typically predicted by other models," the three state in a brief paper posted at the scientific discussion website ArXiv.org.

Uh oh...

A recap of Barack Obama’s first seven days as president

He's done quite a bit already!

It's nice actually having a REAL President...

House Judiciary chairman subpoenas Karl Rove

The House Judiciary Committee chairman subpoenaed former White House adviser Karl Rove on Monday to testify about the Bush administration's firing of nine U.S. attorneys and its prosecution of a former Democratic governor.

Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., said the ongoing legal battle to get Rove and other former Bush administration aides to testify may have success with a new president in the White House.

Former President George W. Bush upheld Rove and two other senior aides who asserted they did not have to testify before Congress about their actions in the White House.

The legal dispute between the executive and legislative branches of government is before a federal appeals court.

Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, did not return phone messages seeking comment.

The subpoena commanded Rove to appear on Feb. 2 for a deposition on the U.S. attorney firings and the prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, a Democrat.

Maybe we'll see him in handcuffs still?

Obama to Bush: I Can Release Your Records. Don't Like It? Sue.

On his first day in office, President Obama put former president Bush on notice. His administration just released an executive order that will make it difficult for Bush to shield his White House records--and those of former Vice President Dick Cheney--from public scrutiny by invoking the doctrine of executive privilege. Shortly after taking office, Bush handed down his own executive order, amending the Presidential Records Act to give current and past presidents, along with their heirs, veto power over the release of presidential records, which are considered the property of the American people.

"[Obama]'s putting former presidents on notice that if you want to continue a claim of executive privilege that [Obama] doesn't think is well-placed, you're going to have to go to court," says Anne Weismann, the chief counsel for Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW).

Awesome!

Schumer signals support for prosecution of Bush officials

My feeling is generally that of President Obama, that we should be looking forward, not backward. How do we correct the mistakes of the past and how do we keep ourselves secure and preserve vital liberty?

If there are egregious cases, I don't think you can say blanket no looking back, no prosecutions. If there are egregious cases, yes, you have to look at them.

But overall, the tone of Barack Obama and of Attorney General Holder — I've spoken to him privately on this, as well as what he said at the hearing — is not to spend too much of our time, a lot of our time, looking backward and pointing fingers.

It's, rather, going forward and making the policy better in the future.

Good!

US companies cut 45,000 jobs even before stock market opens

Somebody was working this weekend to make sure thousands of other people didn't.

US companies announced they're cutting 45,000 jobs by 9 am Eastern Time on Monday morning, even before the US stock market opened, according to a quick count by Raw Story.

This crisis is about to get very personal for a lot of people.

MSNBC Wants to Add a 3rd Prime-Time Show

Building on the momentum of its prime-time hours, MSNBC is developing a 10 p.m. program that would complement its left-leaning evening lineup, the cable news channel’s president said this week.

A new program could increase the competition between MSNBC, a unit of NBC Universal, and its two chief competitors, Fox News Channel and CNN, for news viewers in the time slot. Unlike most major networks, MSNBC’s original programming ends at 10 each weeknight. The 8 p.m. program “Countdown With Keith Olbermann” is rerun at 10 p.m., where it usually ranks third.

But Phil Griffin, the president of MSNBC, is making 10 p.m. a priority now. In an interview on Tuesday in a studio on the Mall, hours after the inauguration of President Obama, Mr. Griffin said that the channel needed a third original show in its lineup.

“We can’t let this momentum stop,” he said.

Is big Eddie finally getting his own show??? Rumor has it that a deal might be in the works.

We'll see...

Al-Qaeda cell killed by Black Death 'was developing biological weapons'

The group of 40 terrorists were reported to have been killed by the plague at a training camp in Algeria earlier this month.

It was initially believed that they could have caught the disease through fleas on rats attracted by poor living conditions in their forest hideout.

But there are now claims the cell was developing the disease as a weapon to use against western cities.

Experts said that the group was developing chemical and biological weapons.

Interesting...