Irish Trojan in Tennessee

George Carlin dies at age 71

By David K.

Comedian George Carlin, whose off-color comedy caused him to run afoul of the FCC and led to a landmark Supreme Court case on decency and broadcasting, passed away from heart failure on Sunday in Los Angeles.

Man-crush 101

By Brendan Loy

Who's your man crush? (Hat tip: BK.)

Calling all moral celebrities!

By Brendan Loy

I asked this question of a few friends, in relation to something that I'm writing about fatherhood, and I've been getting some fun answers, so I thought it might be entertaining to ask the wider blog audience:

What female celebrity or celebrities do you consider to have "good morals," in the sense that you might say of your (real or hypothetical) daughter, "I hope she grows up to have good morals like _______"? (The implicit, unspoken end to that sentence, of course, being "...and not like Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan," etc. etc.) And why?

No questioning the premise of the question, please. :) I know all individuals are unique, and I cherish my daughter's uniqueness; and further, I know that celebrity hero-worship can be toxic, especially for girls, and I'm not actually hoping Loyette grows up to be just like some celebrity or other. I'm simply trying, for analogical purposes really, to come up with a list of celebrities who people consider to be "moral," whatever that means to each of you.

P.S. Feel free to define the term "celebrity" however you like.

Breaking news!

By Brendan Loy

Britney Spears's 16-year-old sister is pregnant... with John Edwards's baby!!

Okay, I made that last part up. Jamie Lynn Spears is pregnant, though.

All I want for Christmas is Ma Spears's parenting book...

Today's entry from the "WTF?" file

By Brendan Loy

The most bizarre Associated Press correction ever:

GAUHATI, India (AP) - In a Nov. 13 story, The Associated Press incorrectly reported that Paris Hilton was praised by conservationists for highlighting the problem of binge-drinking elephants in northeastern India. Lori Berk, a publicist for Hilton, said she never made any comments about helping drunken elephants in India.

Huh?!

UPDATE: Here is the original story.

Britney loses custody of kids

By Brendan Loy

CNN Breaking News: "A court has ordered pop singer Britney Spears to give up custody of her children effective Wednesday at noon, according to court papers."

Leave Steve Jobs alone!

By Jay Johnson

For those of you who've already seen the Britney breakdown of Chris Crocker on YouTube, here's one for the straight male Mac enthusiast.

Heh.

Mike Patrick's important question

By Brendan Loy

If you're a college-football announcer, what better time could there possibly be to start randomly talking about Britney Spears -- confusing the hell out of everyone else in the broadcasting booth -- than in overtime of the Georgia-Alabama game, right before the game-winning touchdown?

Thanks to Georgia QB Matthew Stafford and WR Mikey Henderson, I guess we'll never know to answer to the question, "What is Britney doing with her life?" (Hat tip: Stewart Mandel.)

Also thanks to Stafford and Henderson, Alabama is no longer among the ranks of the unbeaten... and somewhere, some crazed Crimson Tide fan is thinking about registering FireNickSaban.com. :)

Anyway, the Thrilling Thirty-One is down to a Terrific Twenty-Three. After the jump, a look at how all 31 teams that entered the week undefeated fared.

Oops, she made a fool of herself again

By Brendan Loy

Britney Spears is embarrassed. Meanwhile, TMZ is issuing an R.I.P. for her career. More here.

Meanwhile, the AP looks at the catty commentary about Britney's figure and asks:

Did Spears, lest we forget a mother of two, deserve to be held up against the standard of her once fantastically toned abs, sculpted by sessions of 1,000 tummy crunches? Or was she asking for it by choosing that unforgiving black-sequined bikini?

More profoundly, in an age where skinny models and skeletal actresses are under scrutiny for the message they're sending young girls, what does it say that we're excoriating a young woman for a little thickness in her middle?

I'll admit, some of the commentary on her appearance did make me squirm. That she would be called "fat," or "lard," or "like a house" -- I don't know if I'd call it "unfair," I'd just say its inaccurate. Utterly factually inaccurate. She's not "fat." Good grief! ... That said, whether she can pull off that particular outfit is an entirely different question, to which I daresay the correct answer would be a resounding "no."

The more pertinent issue, IMHO, is that she sucked. Sucked monkey balls, in fact (as the Loy family's resident Britneyologist, Becky, would say).

Britney's back

By Brendan Loy

...and skankier than ever. (Not to mention, lip-sync-ier than ever.)

If you're watching the VMAs on MTV, you know what I'm talking about. If not, I'm sure it'll be on YouTube in like 5 seconds.

UPDATE: Here we go. Umm, NSFW? [UPDATE 2: The video has been yanked offline, presumably for copyright reasons. TMZ has a shorter clip; dunno how long it'll last.]

Here's a photo and some commentary.