• I told you that Karl Rove was a genius. Getting our hopes all down about Democrats taking charge only to toy with our emotions weeks later by offing a senator under the guise of a medical condition and beginning the eventual takeover of Congress once again.

 

Suddenly, the Democrats' grip on the Senate looks very tenuous indeed. With the party poised to take power with a 51-49 edge in January, Sen. Tim Johnson's unexpected hospitalization ignited the possibility of a 50-50 Senate and a return to the unprecedented power-sharing pact that existed during the first half of 2001.

Actually, I feel for the guy from South Dakota. He seemed to be sane enough for a Democrat. It’s a shame this didn’t happen to, say, a certain Senator from New York. Actually, I wouldn’t have cared if it happened to Hitlery or Schmuck Jewmer. Any you know what? Even if the guy dies and that state’s Republican governor picks one of his own, it’s not really going to matter. Yeah, the Senate will be split, giving Dick Cheney the tie-breaking vote, but so what? It’s the SENATE. It’s Republican-lite. Arlen Specter. Susan Collins. Olympia Snow. How the hell are they in the same party as me? Whatever.

 

• Wait a second. Is this the chick from the American Pie movies who was the girl who gave all sorts of love advice but never got a dicking of her own? Now I know why.

 

"American Pie" star Natasha Lyonne, arrested after threatening to sexually abuse a neighbor's dog, left court a free woman Friday after a judge promised to dismiss the charges against her.

 

• Oh no, Judith Regan got canned by Rupert Murdoch.

 

O.J. Simpson's would-be publisher, Judith Regan, was fired Friday, her sensational, scandalous tenure at Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. ending with the tersest of announcements.

Like I’m supposed to care. But hey, it’s in red text on Drudge’s Web site, so this must be important.

 

• So I haven’t watched ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption in a while and decided to tune in. And what do I see? Kommie Kornheiser acting like goddamn pussy because some guy from the Chicago Bears got busted for having an invalid gun permit for a half-dozen firearms in his house. Christ, I thought Tony was going to shit himself regarding this story. What’s the big deal? Brotha’s gotta protect his crib. Then Tony has to remind us all about how much he hates guns and that they’re bad and shit. Normally I bitch about Wilbon during this show, but I have to give Tony an open-handed slap across the face this time.

 

• Although the critics who say what this mayor did was patronizing, I feel for the poor theater ushers who had to clean up the mess these crazy people probably made while sitting through this movie.

 

Inspired by his father, who was homeless for a time as a teenager, Chattanooga Mayor Ron Littlefield tried to raise the hopes of a group of homeless people by taking them to see a new movie that tells a rags-to-riches story.

 

"The Pursuit of Happyness," a movie starring Will Smith as a man who gets evicted along with his young son and becomes homeless for a while, is based on the true story of Chris Gardner, now a millionaire business executive.

 

"This is not going to drastically change anyone's life," the mayor acknowledged as about 15 homeless movie guests were given large soft drinks and buckets of popcorn, concessions provided by an anonymous donor.

 

• I was going to make a joke about what ever will black people do now that they’re no longer “king of the mountain,” until I realized that Indian penises were too small for condoms. I bet Asians are feeling mighty good about themselves right about now.

 

Indian men's penises do not match international sizes and most condoms on sale in the country are too big, according to a medical study reported on Friday.

 

The Indian Council of Medical Research, the country's top health research institute, found 60% of men in Mumbai had penises at least one inch shorter than international condom sizes, The Times of India newspaper said.

 

For 30%, the gap was two inches, said a researcher quoted in the article headlined "Indian men don't measure up".

 

The institute surveyed 1,400 men visiting family planning clinics across the country to conduct the "Study on proper length and breadth specification for condoms".

 

The study was carried out in a bid to improve the sizing of condoms, which have a failure rate of up to 20% in India.

 

"While improper usage is one of the reasons, there is also condom slippage or tear, which is associated with the size of the condom in relation to an erect penis," said Dr. Chander Puri, director of the council's National Institute for Research in Reproductive Health.

 

The effectiveness of condoms in India, which has a growing population of 1.1 billion, is an important issue as the latex sheaths have emerged as a vital safeguard against sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV-AIDS.

 

India has the world's largest HIV-AIDS caseload, with 5.7 million people living with the illness, according to U.N. figures.

• Eh, I knew someone who beat off into pizzas at his job. No, it wasn’t me. With all the crap jobs I’ve worked over the years, two places I’ll never work are grocery stores and pizza joints. No, I don’t consider myself better than those who bag my groceries or knead my dough. I’m just a lazy bastard.

 

A student at Wheaton North High School is accused in a vulgar case of food tampering. Police say he put his bodily fluid into salad dressing in the school cafeteria.

 

Actually, this part of the story had me laughing.

 

Police were called into the investigation by District 200 superintendent Gary Catalani. He did not want to talk on camera and asked us to hold the story so parents would learn what happened in letters that were put in first class mail today.

 

But students say it's too late, and everyone knows about the incident already.

 

And everyone is universally repulsed.

 

Well no shit. But then again, I'm sure there were at least one or two who got turned on by this.