Free Republic

CBS is spending $15 million a year on Katie Couric. That comes to $7.5 million per shapely leg. The new CBS anchor flashed her gams just a few minutes into her debut on the “CBS Evening News” last night. Couric opened strong. After a taped voiceover introduction from Walter Cronkite, Couric segued to stories on the Taliban’s growth in Afghanistan from correspondent Lara Logan and President Bush’s warning about complacency in the war on terror. Then it hurtled downhill. Couric interviewed New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, asking him to essentially translate what Bush had just said. Just a little...

BEIRUT, Lebanon — We went to Kaafoun, north of Beirut in Mount Lebanon, on Thursday looking for a story. But anger and suspicion about our purpose meant we couldn't fully report on life in the beleaguered village. Kaafoun is a village of about 5,000 residents, but it is overwhelmed right now with about 40,000 internally displaced people from other parts of Lebanon.

BOSTON - A Massachusetts lawmaker is trying to get himself out of a sticky situation by dropping his opposition to Marshmallow Fluff. An amendment proposed by Sen. Jarrett Barrios to limit the availability of Fluff in schools sparked impassioned defense of the marshmallow spread, a lunch box staple of children for generations. The proposal was panned on talk radio, and another lawmaker even suggested legislation to make the Fluffernutter — a Fluff and peanut butter sandwich — the official state sandwich. Colin Durrant, spokesman for Barrios, D-Cambridge, said Barrios was abandoning the proposed amendment to the school nutrition bill. Barrios...

BOSTON (Reuters) - When it comes to food, Boston is best known for baked beans and clam chowder. But this week, state legislators have engaged in robust debate on Marshmallow Fluff -- a locally made, sugary spread. State Sen. Jarrett Barrios started the tempest in a lunch box when he learned that his son's Cambridge grammar school cafeteria offered Fluff-and-peanut butter sandwiches daily. In a nation where child obesity rates have more than doubled in the past 25 years, Barrios fretted that was not a healthy option. Monday he proposed a law that would allow schools to serve the "Fluffernutters"...

The escalating war on junk food in schools has targeted a new enemy -- that gooey, sugary, and often irresistible sandwich spread known to children everywhere as Fluff. Outraged that his son was served peanut butter and Marshmallow Fluff sandwiches at a Cambridge elementary school, state Senator Jarrett T. Barrios , a Democrat, said he will offer an amendment to a junk-food bill this week that would severely limit the serving of marshmallow spreads in school lunch programs statewide. ``A Fluff sandwich as the main course of a nutritious lunch just doesn't fly in 2006," Barrios said. ``It seems a...

Sure enough, the holidays brought only a temporary reprieve from the mainstream media's strange and endless fascination with Al Franken, where fluffy coverage is routine. Isn't it more of an affliction for these reporters, like a Frankenflu? And what an especially astounding example of Frankenfluff we have today, coming from the Chicago Tribune's Nina Metz. Get a load of these brutal, probing questions on the contents of his soon-to-be-vacated New York City flat, from "The Truth (and a Joke) About Al Franken's Apartment": .......snip........

As of today, Unhinged is ranked 18th in book purchases at Amazon (click the box in the upper-right-hand sidebar to see the latest rank and "reviews"). That may be why they're so angry: assuming it would flop, liberals immediately proclaimed it a failure, while trumpeting Al Franken's The Truth (With Jokes). After peaking in the top five, it's now sitting in 10th place. In coming days, Malkin could very well surpass Franken. That's despite a huge number of mainstream media Frankenfluffy reviews, while Michelle's book is largely ignored (as are most by conservative authors). She doesn't get to appear on...

Why haven't the broadcast networks been going wall-to-wall today with Katrina coverage? It's a perplexing question that baffles the Radio Equalizer. Sure, there were plenty of early morning updates, but at 9am it was abruptly cut off for a return to normal programming. Say what you want about Pat Robertson, but his 700 Club had superb Katrina coverage, while Regis and Kelly were doing trivia segments.... ...In the category of "timing is everything" comes word that among the lawsuits filed by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) against another batch of file-swappers are some against individuals living in NEW...

The Nominee: John Kerry's acceptance speech Thursday night was the most keenly awaited Democratic address on foreign policy in decades. It turned out to be heavy on symbolism, but light on substance. We await the details.Everywhere you looked at FleetCenter, you saw American flags and photos of Kerry as a young man in Vietnam. And time and again in his speech, Kerry returned to that experience.The idea, no doubt, was to reassure Americans in the middle of a war on terror that the party of George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis and Michael Moore could really be trusted...

He doesn't look much like the world's hottest chef - or the one who introduced the world to sardine ice cream, snail porridge and cauliflower risotto with chocolate jelly. He doesn't look much like the chef who has won his third Michelin star faster and younger than anyone in history. In fact, Heston Blumenthal doesn't look much like a chef at all. One of the new breed of mobile prop forwards maybe, but not a chef. There's no toque on his cropped reddish hair. His broad features break easily into a breezy grin. His white jacket struggles to contain his...

So what happened? Any stunning secrets? Dissappointing, shocking, or good? Yeah, yeah, yeah, its stupid and meaningless, TV will destroy the Roman Empire, etc., save us the speeches. Yes TV has never been the same since Greg Kinnear left Talk Soup(though I thought Monkey Boy had his moments). I just wanna know what happened.