By Debbie Schlussel
Based on USA Today’s description, it sounds like the most amusing new TV show of 2007 will be “Living with Ed“–an HGTV reality show on the life of left-wing enviro-freak actor Ed Begley, Jr. and his wife, Rachelle Carson.
It looks like the show will portray how ridiculous these enviro-freaks are. And how impossible it is to live with them. And how joyless, to boot. It sounds hilarious:

Actor Ed Begley Jr., 57, has long been eco-obsessed. He has driven an electric car for decades. He recycles. He uses solar energy.
But his wife, Rachelle Carson, 46, gets a little tired of the unconventional lifestyle. Waiting for him to power the toaster by riding a stationary bike, for example, is frustrating. . . .

Environmental Wacko & Actor Ed Begley, Jr. w/ Wife Rachelle Carson

In the yard, for example, she’d like to pull that weed, but then she’s not sure if it’s a weed or something Ed planted that might be edible. . . .
In the series, Ed clocks Rachelle’s shower with a stopwatch, taunting her outside the bathroom door about how many gallons of water she’s wasting.

Claims Begley, Jr.:

I’m a perfect husband. Women in America are going to see it that way.

You keep telling yourself that, Ed. He would be the perfect husband . . . in the Stone Age. Or the Amazon Jungle.
This show reminds me of President Jimmy Carter’s speech to America telling them to ride their bicycles to work in the sweltering hot summer in coat and tie, sweating themselves to a drench, in order to conserve energy. Come to think of it, Begley is sort of like the actor version of Jimmuh Carter, minus the Southern accent and specious, anti-Semitic books.
And it reminds me of “Curb Your Enthusiasm”/”Seinfeld” actor Larry David’s lamentations about how his whacked-out environmental activist wife Laurie David makes him separate the plies of toilet paper and other absurdities, all in the name of conservation and environmentalism. Their life, too, would make a hilarious show into the absurdity of the She Greens/He’s Normal lifestyle.
I’m already looking forward to the follow-up season spin-off of this show: “Divorcing Ed.” I can almost guarantee there won’t be a fight over who gets the stationary bike-powered toaster.
The show begins with a sneak preview on HGTV at 1:00 p.m. Eastern New Year’s Day, and starts in its regular Sunday Night slot on January 7th, at 10:00 p.m. Eastern.

By Debbie Schlussel
This week, the U.S. Postal Service released results of yet another meaningless, irrelevant survey. The quasi-governmental delivery monopoly announced that the most popular stamp collected since 1988 is the 1993 Elvis stamp (the one featuring young, trim Elvis, not drug-addicted, bloated Elvis).
Almost every major news media outlet reported the results of the survey. Apparently, every year the USPS surveys 10,000 homes to determine the most popular stamps saved by collectors.
But who really cares which are the most collected? The Post Service already monitors sales of stamps. The computerized registers and systems at your local post office are carefully monitored by Postal Service marketing and products execs for the most popular products. And it doesn’t let those statistics dictate its production of stamps, anyway. For example, sales of the Islamic Eid stamp are very, very low. But the USPS continues to produce them, anyway.
And they aren’t making any more of the Elvis stamps. You can’t buy them online at the USPS site, either.

The USPS, the pensions of which are still borne by the Treasury Dept. a/k/a U.S. taxpayers (according to the Wall Street Journal), is still a quasi-governmental body. It still has a monopoly on the delivery of first-class mail. It still keeps raising the prices of stamps.
Part of the costs of all of that includes these silly surveys. Doing a survey of 10,000 homes every year is costly–a non-competitive cost that the USPS, now a loser to e-mail and faxes, can’t really afford.
So, why does the Postal Service continue these surveys? If it’s about publicity, how does a stamp–the Elvis stamp–that’s no longer for sale at your local post office help sales? It’s just like past wastes of money in the name of empty marketing, employed by the USPS: the Millenium countdown clocks in every post office in 1999, the endless sponsorships (in the multi-millions) of Lance Armstrong and the U.S. Olympic Cycling Team.
Time for the Postal Service to stop wasting money on stupid surveys. It’s already lost most of its market share to technology. And it simply can’t afford to waste money on silly pop culture surveys.
As much as I like Elvis and his stamp, the Postal Service needs to wake up. The USPS has a “Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee” and encourages Americans to write with advice and ideas. Time for citizens to advise the Postal Service to stop the fruitless surveys and endless waste.
Read my 2001 column on silly USPS wastes of money, subsidized by your first-class stamp and tax money.
Read Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal editorial on USPS legislation just passed by Congress.
***
By the way, did you know that Elvis was Jewish? According to Jewish law, you are a Jew if you were born to a Jewish mother (or if you convert to the religion). Elvis’ mother and all the women on her side back to his great-great grandmother, Nancy Tackett Burdine, were Jews. She originally had a Jewish star on her grave’s headstone. And Elvis even got a nosejob. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

By Debbie Schlussel
Been looking for this video on YouTube all day, and it figures it was on Google Video instead. Like the “James Brown is Dead” techno hit from 1991, this doesn’t seem nearly as entertaining now that President Ford is dead. But still entertaining and funny nonetheless because it illustrates the absurdity of NBC News and Tom Brokaw.
The only scenario they forgot is Broke-jaw’s absurd, real one from this morning: “Gerald Ford dead today, and his teenage sons were sluts in the Lincoln Bedroom.” My fave Carvey as Broke-jaw utterance: “President Ford is dead today, and I’m gay.” France being destroyed by a fireball isn’t bad either. If only.

By Debbie Schlussel

It’s official. The secret is out. For all you FBI agents out there–especially those wanting to become a Special Agent in Charge or otherwise advance up the ladder–I have news for you. Law enforcement skills and being a good manager will get you NOWHERE.

Here’s how to move up: Suck up to, pander, fawn over, and otherwise engage in obsequiousness to the most radical, extremist forms of leadership in your local Islamic community. If they support HAMAS, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Al-Qaeda, the Brotherhood–any of those will do–and you kiss their asses, you’re in.

Just ask Andrew G. Arena. The new FBI Special Agent in Charge in the heart of Islamic America–Michigan–got his new job that way. One of his closest associates told Detroit Newsistan fabricator David Shepardson:

Alhamdillullah, Abu Arena Has Made the Hajj to D-Mecca

“He knows all the aspects of the community,” noting his outreach with the Muslim community in Detroit and New York.

Yup, that’s “the community” to the FBI. Not you Infidels. Just the extremist Muslims who support terrorist groups like Hezbollah and HAMAS.

And, oh yeah, Arena is a Lions and Tigers fan, too, which everyone knows makes you a great law enforcement honcho. Right?

Alhamdillullah (praise Allah), Andrew Arena is here. What’s that brown on the end of his nose?

**** UPDATE, 12/28/06: The Christian Science Monitor has even more disturbing news about Andrew G. Arena. It appears that just a month ago, with the New York FBI, he was trying to change American popular opinion about Islam. Is he a federal law enforcement official or a dhimmi change agent for jihad? Hard to tell:

The FBI found many such misperceptions about Islam among its agents as well, according to Andrew Arena, the special agent in charge of the New York FBI office. And so, as the bureau began a concentrated effort to reach out to the Muslim community, education became one of its first priorities. At the FBI Academy and in ongoing field training, agents are now taught about the Muslim faith – its basic tenets and things like the difference between Shiites and Sunnis.

“It’s helped to make our agents more culturally sensitive to the concerns of not only the Muslim community, but all of the communities that we deal with,” says Mr. Arena.

Andrew Arena–sent to Detroit by the FBI NOT to investigate Islamic terrorism, but to help change our perceptions about its operatives. No wonder we are losing the war on terror.

By Debbie Schlussel
Are we running a country . . . or a Muslim etiquette shop? Sometimes, it’s hard to tell.
Take the latest machinations the TSA has gone through: Hajj Sensitivity Training. (FYI, the Hajj is the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, at which, each year, hundreds of Muslims get trampled to death. Because, hey, it’s the “Religion of Peace.”)
No lie–the TSA went through Hajj Sensitivity Training! They really went through this, as reported by someone’s State Department (it couldn’t possibly be ours, given its history and this kind of crapulous article):

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has provided special training to sensitize the 45,000 security officers working in the nation’s airports to the cultural traditions of American Muslims traveling to Saudi Arabia to participate in the hajj.

“We put out information telling everyone that hajj is coming; this is the time frame; individuals are going to be traveling with these types of items; just to be aware that they may also be praying,” TSA spokesman Darrin Kayser told USINFO December 26. “I guess you would call it cultural sensitivity training.”

I’d call it bending over. Forward, backwards, whatever way pleases the Religion of Hijackers.

The training comes just one month after Department of Homeland Security personnel came under criticism for removing six imams from a domestic flight for what one passenger considered suspicious behavior.

HUH?!!! ONE passenger? No. A whole country, you idiots. A WHOLE COUNTRY found their behavior suspicious. The flight crew, the captain, most of the passengers. And MOST OF AMERICA! Hello? Hello? Hello . . . ?

Hajj Sensitivity: ZamZam Muslim Holy Water > 3 Ounces

Kayser said the training included reminders about procedures for screening individuals with head coverings and TSA policies regarding the transport of holy water. According to TSA guidelines, any container larger than 88 milliters must be carried in a passenger’s checked baggage.
The TSA began its training sessions in mid-December and expects to see hajj travelers through early January 2007.

The real test will be what happens when a Muslim woman in a hijab sets of the security system and she also happens to be carrying arsenic-laced ZamZam water (holy water) that’s more than 3 ounces. My bet is she gets through with it all, no problem.
After all, why should they? She’s not Steve Feld. She’s a member of the “RoP.”

By Debbie Schlussel
Stories of those winning millions in the lottery and losing everything are evergreen stories. Almost consistently, poor people winning the lottery spend themselves away, drink themselves away, or commit crimes. And some of them die due to their behavior (usually some sort of substance abuse).
This story is more tragic. Ralph Stebbins won the $208 million Mega Millions lottery jackpot with his wife, Mary in April 2005. They took the lump sum payment of $124.7 million. Stebbins was a well-digger and tow-truck operator in Port Huron, Michigan who dreamed of buying a farm and a cow.
He bought the farm. And Saturday, just 1.5 years after winning millions, he “bought the farm” again–figuratively. He died of heart failure at age 43, according to the Detroit Free Press. He seemed healthy and didn’t have a history of heart problems, the paper claims.

Mary & the Late Ralph Stebbins Accept Mega Millions
Not unlike all the other failed lottery winners you read about, Stebbins, too, had problems with police after winning the lottery. He was arrested on domestic charges earlier this month, after a confrontation with his 19-year-old daughter’s boyfriend, according to the Free Press. But the Port Huron Times-Herald reports that it was far more serious:

In October, Stebbins was charged in Leelanau County with attempted murder, possession of a dangerous weapon and being a habitual offender for stabbing his daughter’s boyfriend, Timothy Doan, 21, with a pocket knife at an auction.
The case still was pending when Stebbins died.

(Sounds like Free Press reporter Gina Damron didn’t do her homework–she got the month and the details of the crime entirely wrong, not to mention, a differing story of his health condition; but that Times Herald reporter Shannon Murphy does know how to report.)
The Ralph Stebbins story is yet more proof that winning the lottery isn’t everything. (It may even be a curse for most.) And that life is short. And unpredictable.

By Debbie Schlussel
I’ve written about the various Muslims who’ve sent me very serious death threats–from Lola Elzein–a Shi’ite Lebanese Muslim University of Michigan-Dearbornistan student and official of several Arab and Muslim organizations, Robert Mustaq John–a Muslim convert from Jamaica and alien living in Brooklyn, New York, Wasil Burki–a Pakistani Muslim who was here working for Sun MicroSystems on an HB1 visa, and “Michael B,” a Dearbornistan relative of Hezbollah officials in Lebanon, also a student at U of M-Dearbornistan (America’s own version of Bir Zeit University a/k/a Terror U).
Now, the latest disturbing harassment from the “Religion of Peace”:
For the past several months, I’ve been getting constant phone calls from a phone number that shows up on Caller ID as:

Chami, Ibrahim 313-587-9347

I’m getting a little tired of his constant, unsolicited calls from Dearbornistan at very late hours, including after Midnight, with constant hang-ups. But this Christmas Day, December 25, 2006, Mr. Chami left me a message at 9:05 p.m.:

Shut the Hell Up!

For the record, I’ve never met an Ibrahim Chami, never had contact with him, and have no desire that he contact me.
I’ve looked him up, and it appears there are at least two Ibrahim Chamis, all of whom live in Dearbornistan and who are likely close relatives: one is a pharmacist who owns Detroit Pharmacy, and the other–the more likely suspect–is a student at The University of Michigan-Dearbornistan. Last year, he ran for Student Government there, just like his fellow extremist, harassing Muslim, Lola Elzein (who is now on U-M/D Student Govt). Wonder if he’s involved in the cheating scandal involving Muslim students on campus.
Either way, his calls and hang-ups and disturbing messages designed to intimidate me, but they won’t work.
Ibrahim Chami, stop calling me. I’ve reported you to the FBI, and I’m on the lookout for you. Stay away from me. You are forewarned.
And I will not be shutting up, any time soon. You will NOT silence me. This isn’t Shi’ite-, Hezbollah-dominated Lebanon . . . yet.
***
If anyone reading this has a photo of Ibrahim Chami (and can prove it), please send it to me, so I can post the face that goes along with the harassing phone calls.

By Debbie Schlussel
As I’ve written, there is no Adrian in the new Rocky movie, “Rocky Balboa.” Yes, she’s there in flashbacks, but in the plot, she’s dead from “woman cancer,” according to Rocky.
USA Today has an interesting, touching interview with actress Talia Shire (real name: Talia Rose Coppola), the actress who played Adrian Pennino Balboa in the first five Rocky movies. Shire, age 60 and the mother of actor Jason Schwartzman, lost her own spouse in 1994.
Some excerpts from the interview:

She was ringside at every fight after the Philadelphia lovebirds met 30 years ago in 1976’s Rocky. But yo, Adrian, she is no more.

Stallone concedes that breaking the news to pal Talia Shire (Adrian) was not easy.
“She handled it with such dignity,” he says. “I told her, ‘Talia, you’re the heart and soul of this movie, but you’re just here in spirit, and that’s what’s going to drive the film. Your heart drove the first film.’ It’s what I call ‘The Adrian Factor.'” . . .
Q: How did Sly prepare you for Adrian’s death?
A: Sly showed me the script because he knew I’d lost my husband (producer Jack Schwartzman). When Jack was alive, he and I were producing movies, so I was doing much less acting and more development. I was aware of the possibility of Adrian (at one point) being in it and dying (on screen), but my being in the movie or not was not as interesting as how Sylvester was going to achieve this. Ultimately, I was wondering how in the world he was going to justify getting Rocky back into the ring.
Q: Does he?
A: Rocky is a folk hero. There was a great mythological aspect to the first one, and this film has that. I am so in his corner. Sly is so gifted, and the writing in this piece is courageous. It is Rocky’s rebirth.

Q: Do you agree with Burt Young’s feelings that Adrian is even more influential in death?
A: That’s how many religions get going. Yes, the film has great regard for the process of mourning. Sly utilizes mourning to empower Rocky, and Adrian is made very mythical.
Q: Did your own spouse’s death (in 1994) make this whole experience even more poignant for you?
A: In our culture, we like to say, “Get over it; move on.” But you don’t move on. Our past is who we are, and death is one of our experiences. I lost my husband a long time ago, but it’s always yesterday. Watching Rocky wake up from a very lonely bed, searching for her at the grave, felt very familiar.
Q: There are so many sweet flashbacks of young Rocky and Adrian – at the pet store, on the skating rink. Do you remember those shoots?
A: I remember all of it. We didn’t have a lot of money in the budget. We started shooting the skating in Philadelphia, but we couldn’t afford to stay there, so we shot the rest in L.A., on an empty rink. And it turned out brilliant.
Q: Rocky takes another woman, Little Marie (a character introduced in the first Rocky), under his wing. Was it tough for you to watch their bond grow in this film?
A: Yes, it was. But it wasn’t sexual and felt very appropriate. And I liked the actress (Geraldine Hughes) very much.
Q: Did you cry at any point during the film?
A: I lost a button on my blouse because I had an explosive moment in the boxing ring (scene), because I felt that fight was really about a man going up against time and love and courage. Adrian wasn’t there, but she was very much within him.

A very dignified, classy actress and lady.

By Debbie Schlussel
Yet another corner of pop culture continues its sympathy with Muslm extremists and terrorists. We’ve written about fiction novelists and thriller writers engaging in this silly agenda. Well, apparently, like a rich bean soup, it keeps repeating. And it’s malodorous.
Yesterday, USA Today hyped Brit Robert Wilson’s new fiction thriller, “The Hidden Assassins.” But it hardly sounds “thrilling.”
Frankly, moral equivocation of religious Christians–in this case Catholics–with Islamic terrorists is getting as boring as it is absurd. YAAAAAWN.
In this one, the imbecillic author, Wilson, questions why American lives in 9/11 are “worth more” than Iraqi civilians who died in the pre-invasion “assault.” He also features a plot in which it’s unclear whether terrorists who blow up an apartment complex are Muslims . . . or “Catholic extremists who hate Muslim immigrants.”

After all the victims include Muslims praying at a basement Mosque. And Muslims would never bomb Muslims, right? Remember Iraq’s Golden Mosque, anyone? Catholics did that one, huh? Sunni Catholics?
Uh, since when have Catholics bombed Muslims? Has that ever happened in contemporary history? NO.

Dear Mr. Wilson:
Please keep your politics to yourself and out of “international thriller” novels. If you can’t do that, then at least be honest, and label your sorry book what it is: political propaganda.
Regards,
The American Reading Public

More from USA Today’s fawning “review”:

He has written a challenging, engaging novel about the terror of religious zealotry, both the Muslim and Christian varieties. . . .
The novel opens as a police procedural, triggered by the discovery of a mutilated body. The hands have been severed, the face disfigured with acid, and he has been scalped for good measure. . . .
Quickly, the terror escalates when a bomb goes off in an apartment complex, then collapses on a preschool. Among the victims are Muslims at early-morning prayers in a mosque in the basement. As Falcon begins unraveling layer upon layer of what may have happened, he questions whether the terrorists are Muslim extremists or Catholic extremists who hate Muslim immigrants. . . .
Some of his characters make speeches rather than talk, but they offer alternative views:
“Muslim life is regarded rather cheaply in the West,” says an Arab character. “Think how valuable each of the 3,000 lives was in the Twin Towers, how much was invested in the 191 commuters in Madrid or the 50-odd people who died in the London bombings, and then look at the value of the 100,000 Iraqi civilians who lost their lives in the pre-invasion assault.”
The Hidden Assassins is a complicated, disturbing novel for complicated, disturbing times.

No, that USA Today and others would gush over this absurd, agenda-laden novel with such vigor is disturbing.

By Debbie Schlussel
I’ll be on BBC Radio, to talk about the death of President Ford, at about 1:45 p.m. Eastern, this afternoon.