Crooks and Liars has the link to the video of the "Bright Eyes" performance on the Tonight Show last night. "Bright Eyes" sang a song, "When the President talks to God." It's more than a little surprising NBC allowed it to air. Check out the lyrics at Daily Kos.

Amid the fanfare of Apple releasing its new operating system named Tiger, a lawsuit is still pending over some online writers who are being sued and/or subpoenaed by the company to produce records that would reveal their sources of information.

80 California bloggers have filed a friend of court brief (pdf) in support of the writers in O'Grady v. Apple. SoCal Law Blog, one of the brief's authors, provides a description of the case and details.

In the U.S., Tom Cruise makes headlines because he's found a new girlfriend, a 26 year old actress named Katie Holmes. In Europe, at least in Germany, the headline is that Cruise has brought Scientology onto the movie set of the new Spielberg film, War of the Worlds, and brags about how many drug addicts he's cured with his religion - and, astonishingly, claims that his religion has the only successful drug treatment program in the world.

From a Der Speigel interview with Cruise and Spielberg:

SPIEGEL: Do you see it as your job to recruit new followers for Scientology?

Cruise: I'm a helper. For instance, I myself have helped hundreds of people get off drugs. In Scientology, we have the only successful drug rehabilitation program in the world. It's called Narconon.

SPIEGEL: That's not correct. Yours is never mentioned among the recognized detox programs. Independent experts warn against it because it is rooted in pseudo science.

The presumption of guilt never takes a rest with Nancy Grace. Via Crooks and Liars,on the missing bride-to-be:

That which is Nancy Grace...

4/28 transcripts

GRACE: Well, look, I don`t have a degree in being a police chief. But I can tell you this much: This is not cold feet, all right? This is not cold feet. I know that much.

4/29 Transcripts

GRACE: Another question. Could you tell me, Jonathan, what was the fiance doing at the time she was jogging? Was he there in the home? Does he have an alibi?

Tonight at 9 p.m. on PBS you can watch the first in-depth American television interview with Haj Ali, a former prisoner who says he was the man under the black hood in the infamous photo from Abu Ghraib.

"Abu Ghraib is a breeding ground for insurgents," says Ali, who describes his experience in detail. "99% of the people brought in are innocent, but with all the insults and torture, it makes them ready to do just about anything."

....Before the Iraq war Haj Ali was the mayor of the Al Madifai district, near Baghdad. After the U.S. took control of the area he was removed from his position. As an official, he was required to join the ruling Baath Party. Haj Ali then worked as an administrator for a mosque, until he was picked up off the street one day in October 2003. Today Haj Ali works for a prisoner's association. He says he has no part in the insurgency.

[link via Cursor.]

Why is there so little media coverage of a Gallup poll in early April that shows 50% of Americans believe Bush lied to the public about WMD's in Iraq? Via Cursor:

Uncritical Mass. According to a Google News search, about the only mainstream media citations for a finding from an early April CNN/USAToday/Gallup poll that 50% of respondents now believe the Bush administration
deliberately misled the American public about whether Iraq had WMD, is a column. by Paul Krugman.

OK, so Editor and Publisher.com carried it. And Rich Lewis in the Sun Sentinel. Where's everyone else?

I have been receiving e-mails from people telling me that Sirius radio has a liberal talk station it identifies as "TalkLeft." When I checked the Sirus website, I saw it lists its liberal talk station as "Sirius Left" , which is fine. But now I get another email that says in Kansas City, on station 143, the display clearly reads "TALKLEFT SIRIUS CHANNEL 143."

I don't get Sirius, so can anyone let me know if this is accurate? Sirus should not be appropriating TalkLeft's name.

Thanks to Ian of The Political Teen for putting up the video of today's Blogger Report on MSNBC's Connected Coast to Coast which I narrated. Here's what was featured (the show covers both sides):

The Nuclear Option:

• Chris Bowers at MyDD writes about a blogger conference call with Sen. Harry Reid today during which he dispelled the myth that Democrats will shut down the Senate if they don’t get their way on the “nuclear option.” Rather, Chris writes, they will stop allowing Republicans to set the legislative agenda and insist on introducing and having votes on their own bills.

I don't usually walk out on movies but Sin City proved the exception. If there was a redeeming value or even a point to the film, I didn't get it. My distaste for the film is not based on gender or moral issues - or on the amount of violence - it was more the cartoonish nature and total lack of credibility of the violence, coupled with the unappealingness of the main characters. It just seemed stupid. It would have helped if even one of the characters had some depth. Plus, the repetition got old and boring quickly. I can't begin to understand why so many people have described the movie as "visually stunning."

I liked Mickey Rourke in his portrayal of the sadistic Wall Street deal broker in 9 1/2 weeks. He was watchable in Year of the Dragon. But both he and Bruce Willis in Sin City were a total waste of time. I wish I could get my ten nine bucks back.

Update: I probably should add that I didn't know it was based on a comic book and have never heard of Frank Miller or his comic book. Also, I only lasted 25 minutes -- I left at the end of the scene where the parole officer and Marv are in the cannibal's room which had the heads on the wall of the people he had eaten. I had closed my eyes about five minutes before that, I really hate it when people gouge peoples' eyes out, so I didn't get to see any eaten body parts, if there were any.

Update: Alterman responds to Cloud.

Nobody really cares about Mr. Cloud personally, or the fact that he found Ms. Coulter so charming and “ironic” sipping her white Bordeaux and throwing her blonde locks back as she downed her Nicorette. The issue that engages those of us who are invested in protecting and defending the honesty and integrity of American journalism is that Mr. Cloud has used the powerful and influential pages of Time magazine to declare Ms. Coulter’s work “mostly accurate” while admitting that neither he, nor Time’s minions, did the necessary work to defend that pronouncement.

*************
Who is John Cloud? He's the Time Magazine reporter who wrote the puff cover piece on the she-pundit with long blond hair. He also is today's most ridiculed reporter in the blogosphere.

First, Cloud's Infraction

• John Cloud's Time Magazine Article

Initial Response to Infraction

• Xoverboard
• Alterman
• Billmon
• Media Matters
• Daily Howler
• James Wolcott
• Daily Kos
• Digby
• Blaghdaddy

Cloud's response to his critics

This Modern World [link via Xoverboard.]
Alterman here.

It's also the anniversary of the siege at WACO and the Battle of Lexington and Concord.

Tomorrow will be the 9th anniversary of former President Clinton signing AEDPA, the 1996 "Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act" (AEDPA) that was a response to the Oklahoma City Bombing and severely curtailed habeas corpus and immigrant rights. And the sixth anniversary of the Columbine School shootings.

The acclaimed documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room is set to open Wednesday in Houston to an invitation-only audience. The film, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January, opens to the public nationwide on April 29. The film is based on the book "The Smartest Guys in the Room," by two writers for Fortune Magazine Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, both of whom appear throughout the film.

I watched the film this week. It's very well done and worth viewing. Of course, it's also entirely one sided, demonizing all but the whistle blowers, Barbara Boxer and curiously, Gray Davis.

Statements by principals Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling, at press conferences, company meetings and before Congress, are interlaced with descriptive commentary by former employees Amanda Martin, Sherron Watkins and others, and mixed with a cool sound track and snippets from pop culture. The film's goal is to establish that Enron was a human tragedy, not just a numbers tragedy.