Harry Markopolos Rips SEC for Missing Madoff Warnings

At last, everyone is hearing Cassandra out. The doomed prophet has taken modern shape in Harry Markopolos, the Boston accountant who blew the whistle on Bernie Madoff. The SEC ignored him. Now Congress listens. More »

Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Blago

Here's what you saw if you were watching Rod Blagojevich's press conference on one of the channels where they weren't interrupting him. It's an amazing defense of... cattle rustling? More »

Chris Wallace Defends Bush Against Mean Ron Howard

Ron Howard, TV's Opie, just directed the film version of Frost/Nixon, because the man knows Oscar-bait when he sees it. And also, sure, because it's politically relevant or something. Howard, the very definition of American Middlebrow, is not a political director, though this year he endorsed Obama because he is a Hollyweird liberal (like his godless pal Andy Griffith). At a recent screening of the film, Howard mentioned how the lessons of Nixon became newly relevant during the Bush administration. Shocking! Good thing Fox News anchor and noted objective journalist Chris Wallace was there to set him straight! Nixon was a crook, see, and Bush is a hero. More »

Stop The H8 With Super-Breath!

· Showtime and Stan Lee are indeed developing a drama about the life of a gay superhero, as Hero author Perry Moore hinted back in May. And he just happens to be gay, OK? He's not, like, Poppers Boy or Wonder Trannie. [Variety] More »

UK Reporter Drunk on Hope, Booze

This is Adam Smith, "also known as Steve Zacharanda," in Chicago on Election Night. He is a reporter for the Birmingham Mail, a newspaper in the UK. He's just been approached by a friendly Dutch person with a video camera. He seems to be filing a story, and he's definitely been drinking. Please watch his hilarious reportorial style—"I'm just a little bit pissed.... Thank god for the BBC, because I'm cutting and pasting, baby!"—after the jump. More »

American Hero Fired!

Is anyone hiring experts in weights and measures? "L.F. Eason III gave up the only job he'd ever had rather than lower a flag to honor former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms. Eason, a 29-year veteran of the state Department of Agriculture, instructed his staff at a small Raleigh lab not to fly the U.S. or North Carolina flags at half-staff Monday, as called for in a directive to all state agencies by Gov. Mike Easley." So Eason was forced retired from the lab. We nominate him for a hundred Nobel Peace Prizes. [NewsObserver]

Out, Out and Away as TV Prepares for World's First Gay Superhero

The recent spike in comics franchises and other superhero entertainment could soon take an especially fabulous turn if Perry Moore gets his way. The novelist and Chronicles of Narnia co-producer (pictured) blabbed to Vulture this week about negotiations to adapt his young adult novel Hero — about Thom Creed, "the world's first gay superhero" — for TV; Moore expects a deal with one of two unnamed networks any day now, but he isn't waiting around to affirm its credibility among gays, fanboys, gay fanboys, executives and myriad other demographic permutations: More »

But I Gave You A Moniker

NBC News anchor Brian Williams "loves his nickname," says Rachel Sklar over at HuffPo. The perenially upbeat media blogger dubbed him 'BriWi' at some point, we couldn't even begin to tell you why. Makes him sound like some newfangled networking device from Apple. Oooh, maybe he is! Thing is, when she mentions it to him in a video interview, he looks like he just wants to bolt. Or smack her, whatever ends the whole thing fastest. More »

Hollywood Empowers Republicans Organization ("H.E.R.O.")

The Arlington-based H.E.R.O. ("Hollywood lives...Heartland values") would like to let Hollywood know that this "speaking out against Iraq" nonsense has exposed them for what they are—people who pretend to be other people in film and television! From a press release responding to Screen Actor's Guild President, Melissa Gilbert's statements that she was concerned about the possible return of a McCarthy-era "blacklist": "...what hasn t been talked about much is the other reason people are angry. Actors that we have grown up with, and watched every movie they made, actors like Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Martin Sheen, Barbra Streisand and others have 'stepped out of their make believe roles.' In some cases, their outspoken views have forever changed the perception that the movie going public has for them. We can t look at them the same anymore, the wall between make believe and reality is shattered." More »