18-year-old Michael Kinsell has a dream of being the next Mr. Rogers. Last year he started telling people at his school that he was filming a show called Michael's Enchanted Neighborhood, and that it was going to be aired on PBS. The show was modeled closely on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. From pointweekly.com:


This year he ramped up his story, claiming that he was organizing a star-studded charity event to honor Mr. Rogers, an event that would simultaneously serve as his anointment as the new Mr. Rogers. Celebrities in attendance were supposedly going to include Danny DeVito, Maria Shriver, Bette Midler, Tom Hanks, Sally Field, Barbara Eden and Eddie Murphy. Kinsell and his mother set up a website to promote the event, on which they claimed it "may set a record of the biggest celebrity turnout in the history for San Diego." Tickets were being sold for $500 each.

But it turns out no celebrities were actually planning on attending. As word of this leaked out, the whole scheme collapsed, leading Kinsell to cancel the event. PBS has also demanded that he stop using their name to promote himself. Likewise, Mr. Rogers' production company has demanded that he stop using Mr. Rogers' name. More details at current.org.

The highlight of Sunday night's MTV Movie Awards came when Sacha Baron Cohen, dressed up as Austrian fashion reporter Bruno, floated across the room on wires, but then somehow fell and landed face down in Eminem's lap (his butt in Eminem's face). Subsequently Eminem stormed out of the show.

The award show's head comedy writer, Scott Aukerman, is now admitting it was not a spontaneous mishap. The entire scene was choreographed and rehearsed. In fact, Paris Hilton had reportedly been Cohen's first choice of victim, but she declined to participate.

I can't imagine this revelation will surprise anyone. It would only have been a surprise if the stunt wasn't staged.

In the forum Captain Al linked to a recent Newsweek article that's well worth reading. It details how Oprah Winfrey has routinely promoted dubious medical/pseudoscientific nonsense on her show. It appears that the only standard of evidence important to her is whether a claim is emotionally appealing. If a claim passes that test, then it must be true!

Some of the nonsense promoted on her show includes:

• Suzanne Somers' vitamin/hormone cure for aging.
• Jenny McCarthy's crusade to pin the blame for autism on vaccines.
• Dr. Christiane Northrup's theory that thyroid dysfunction is caused by repressing your emotions.
• Radio-wave skin tightening treatments.
• And "The Secret", that by "thinking positively" you can attract success and good health to yourself.

The article doesn't even get into her relentless promotion of psychic scammers.

Gawker devoted a series of posts last week to shockjock Erich Muller, aka Mancow. First they praised him for having undergone waterboarding so he could decide for himself whether or not it was torture. But then they obtained a series of emails from Mancow's publicist suggesting the entire thing was a hoax, that Mancow faked being waterboarded.

Mancow insists the waterboarding wasn't faked, despite what his publicist's email may suggest. Apparently there's no video of the event, which is the only thing that would conclusively end the debate.

Frankly, I find it hard to care one way or the other. Whether Mancow had water poured on his face for six seconds or not, the whole thing was a publicity stunt. He's a loudmouth trying to get attention, and contributing nothing intelligent to public debate. It's unfortunate he does get attention.

Thanks to Bob and Joe!

Update: My mistake... there is video of what happened. So I guess the debate is about whether he faked his reaction, not whether the waterboarding itself was fake. (Though some might argue that since his hands weren't bound, it wasn't really waterboarding.)

People who spend far too much time staring closely at the TV have identified an extremely small, blurry dark shape that appears to move rapidly across the stage during a semi-final performance on Britains Got Talent. (Embedding is disabled on this video, so you've got to go to YouTube itself.)

It took me a while to even be able to see the "ghost." It starts at 0:51, at the right side of the stage. By 0:53 it's gone, darting off the left side of the stage. (Warning: it's really, really small!)

I think it's just a lighting artifact. Dave Tolomy, who gave me a heads up about it, thinks it may be something an audience member is holding up. Or maybe it really is a ghost! Decide for yourself, if you have nothing better to do.