Busybody Keith Olbermann couldn't wait to see how Saturday Night Live was going to portray him. So, says Politico.com's Michael Calderone, he apparently breached the show's (I thought) tight security to find out.

And of course, when contacted, the MSNBC host took yet another cheap shot at his personal obsession, Sarah Palin. It was just a few weeks ago on NBC's Sunday Night Football that Olbermann made a Palin Derangement Syndrome-betraying allusion when describing the mental condition of a just-injured NFL quarterback.

Here is most of Calderone's brief item:

MTV News has posted an outrageous story: the rapper T.I. (Real name: Clifford Harris) was arrested in October 2007, mere hours before he was to headline the BET Hip-Hop Awards in Atlanta. The rapper was charged with possession of unregistered machine guns and silencers and possession of firearms by a convicted felon. He pleaded guilty to the charges in May as part of a plea deal. But despite a guilty plea and jail time to come, the rapper was allowed to vote in Georgia in the 2008 election. MTV asked:

How was T.I. able to vote? Well, the Georgia Secretary of State's office, in consultation with their own lawyers, "reviewed the law and found that Mr. Harris is eligible to in Georgia because the state constitution says that to be able to vote, you have to have served your entire sentence, which includes all probation and fines and any other stipulations," said Matt Carrothers, the Secretary of State's director of media relations.

Because T.I. is not slated to go to prison until next year on felony gun charges and is not currently incarcerated – though he is under house arrest – and is not on probation, all he had to do was contact the county he votes in and get re-registered in order to cast a ballot.

Just as he did in two earlier interviews with Barack Obama when he held up magazine covers and asked Obama to glow in the moment, in an excerpt from this week's session with Obama aired on Friday's NBC Nightly News, Williams cued up Obama with another visual image -- this time holding up a photograph of Obama in sandals in Honolulu when he went for a walk after visiting his dying grandmother -- to empathize: “The human in you, and the husband and father and grandson must want to just bust out sometimes, or disappear, if you can't go for a walk like that?” Back in January, Williams held up a Newsweek with Obama on the cover and wondered: “How does this feel?” In May, he held up a Time magazine cover with Obama's picture and presented it to him: “Have you yet held this in your hands?”

Showing Obama the picture of him walking in a Honolulu neighborhood, Williams pondered: 

I want to ask you about -- it's a press-related question. This picture was so striking to me. And according to the press pool traveling with you, you asked to just take a walk and be alone. You're visiting your grandmother. What may, by all accounts be the last time you see her. How do you react to this, I guess it's part of the contract you make when you run in such an extended campaign, but, the human in you, and the husband and father and grandson must want to just bust out sometimes, or disappear, if you can't go for a walk like that?

On Friday’s American Morning program, CNN correspondent Carol Costello referred to the liberal organization ACORN as merely "a group committed to registering minority voters," and highlighted how it’s "trying to quiet what it calls ‘hysteria,’ coming from conservative circles" who "charge it’s... guilty of voter fraud." The on-screen graphic accompanying her report, which was the last full segment during the 6 am Eastern hour of the CNN program, exclaimed that "ACORN Fight Back: Says Conservatives Creating ‘Hysteria.’"

Despite playing two clips from Republican presidential candidate John McCain and conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, who both criticized ACORN, Costello played three clips from two individuals who sympathized with the organization. The first two clips came from former U.S. attorney David Iglesias, who was one of eight U.S. attorneys who were controversially fired by the Justice Department in 2006. He compared the GOP’s focus on the liberal group to the "Red Scare of the 1950s." During the third clip, Michael Waldman, a former speechwriter for President Clinton who now directs the Brennan Center at NYU’s School of Law, emphasized that "voters should know is that when someone registers under a fake name, that doesn’t mean they can vote under a fake name." Costello identified Waldman as merely as an "elections expert," and repeated his talking point twice at the end of her report.

But Why Does The AP Report Ignore Key Part of Story?

Remember when you were a young school kid and you drew a vampire during the week of Halloween? Remember how the blood was always dripping down from his menacing, pearly white teeth? Remember how it was all in good Halloween fun? Well, you can just forget THAT mister, at least if you are a 5th-Grader in the Savannah-Chatham school system in Georgia. In Georgia, if you draw a vampire you get called a gang member -- even when you were assigned to make the drawing -- and then you get sent to "psychological evaluation" as if you are some mentally disturbed monster. Then they kick you out of school... for a Halloween drawing. Really.

The Savannah Morning News gives us the gruesome story of another touchy-feelie teacher gone stupid and another poor little kid lost in "zero-tolerance" hell this Halloween week.

When Jordan Hood was assigned the task of drawing a "scary Halloween mask," he innocently drew a scary vampire. His art teacher even helped him out with a few of the details. But then came home-room teacher Melissa Pevey (amusingly, even her name sounds pent up) who decided that, far from Halloween fun, little 5th-grader Jordan was obviously a violence prone, mentally disturbed, gang member. So in a harrowing Halloween experience that had no fun in it at all, Pevey had him paraded down to the principal's office where he was confronted by the police and assigned "psychological evaluation" as a punishment for his artistry.

If Team McCain needed some "bulletin-board material"—the kind of outrageous taunt from the opposition a coach will pin up in the locker-room to inspire his troops—they got if from Charlie Cook tonight.  So confident is the pollster of an Obama victory, he's proclaimed that if McCain wins, he'll go to work bagging groceries or behind a fast-food counter.

Cook was a guest on this evening's Race for the White House.  It was in looking at the Electoral College map with host David Gregory that he made his super-sized pledge.

View video here.

In 1995, Barack Obama gave a TV interview to discuss the memoir he wrote, "Dreams From My Father." Philip Klein at The American Spectator picked up on this back in August, but the video is making rounds again now. Obama spoke very highly of his then pastor Rev.Jeremiah Wright(my empahasis added:)

 OBAMA: In times of economic scarcity, ahm, generally, ahh, the politicians in this country, right now, ahh, want to look for scapegoats, want to organize around race, as opposed to around principle, and around values, ahh, and I think that's a mistake, and I think that can be countered, but it's gonna require the kinds of grassroots mobilization, ahh, and, and the kinds of work at a local level that I think, ahh, I talk about a lot in, in those chapters on Chicago.

INTERVIEWER: Wonderful man there, Reverend Wright?

OBAMA: Right! [ED: WRIGHT ?!?] And...

INTERVIEWER: Yeah...

OBAMA: ...ahh, who is, who is, ahh, my pastor, and, ahh, he is a wonderful man, and I think it, ahh, that's an example of, ahh, he's a pastor of a, of a large congregation in Chicago, and one of the interesting things that I discovered in my journey to discover...

INTERVIEWER: Mmm-hmm...

OBAMA: ...what my identity is, and who my father is, is also discovering sort of, ahh, my own faith, which, which is not, ahh, necessarily a traditional faith - I don't come out of an institutionalized religious setting, but, ahh, ahh, what becomes important to me is I work with, ahh, churches in...

INTERVIEWER: Mmm-hmm...

10 years ago, I was at Fuji Bank in the New York headquarters of what was then the largest bank in the world, in charge of corporate finance for the leading companies of that time. With support from the governments of Japan and other Asian countries, we were succeeding in the fight against the Asian financial crisis and rescuing troubled companies.  However, we faced strong objections from the USA, and were criticized as having departed from the capitalist free economy competition principle. The USA requested that Japan reduce government expenses and national debt, allowing the free market to eliminate poorly performing enterprises and punish the responsible executives. As a result, many leading world companies declared bankruptcy and numerous employees lost their jobs. Many CEO’s and other executives committed suicide, or were prosecuted and subsequently sentenced.  

Heard anything about Barack Obama's sleazy online fundraising, where thanks to purposely lax security measures his site is able to receive untraceable donations from obviously fake names? Not if you've been reading the print edition of the New York Times.

The Washington Post has run two stories, most recently on Wednesday: "Obama Accepting Untraceable Donations: Contributions Reviewed After Deposits." Post reporter Matthew Mosk explained how the Obama campaign isn't taking the most basic steps to ensure the validity of the online donations made to the campaign:

Faced with a huge influx of donations over the Internet, the campaign has also chosen not to use basic security measures to prevent potentially illegal or anonymous contributions from flowing into its accounts, aides acknowledged. Instead, the campaign is scrutinizing its books for improper donations after the money has been deposited.

Those two Post stories mark a Woodward-and-Bernstein level of intensity compared to the Times's treatment. A search indicates that the Times has published zero stories in its newspaper on recent revelations concerning the Obama campaign's avoidance of basic security measures to stop illegal contributions.

On Thursday’s Countdown show on MSNBC, New York Times columnist Frank Rich charged that it looks "morally bad" and "idiotic" that Republicans have not elected a black candidate to federal office in six years. The Republican party also seemed to remind Rich of South Africa’s racist Apartheid policy of the past: "The fact is, this isn`t South Africa 25 years ago, this is a major political party that is essentially all white. And the hierarchy of it is definitely white. There hasn`t been a new black Republican elected to federal office, I think, in six years. And so, what does that tell us about the party? And how does that look to voters? I think it looks like it`s the party of the last century. It looks bad. Not only is it morally bad, but politically. I think it`s idiotic because it`s against the whole demographics of this country and where they’re going."

Washington Post reporter Sholnn Freeman frontloaded his October 31 business section front page article, "Airfare Surcharges Stay Despite Oil Price Drop," not on examining the valid business reasons for why some airlines retain the fee but in citing a liberal politician seeking to grandstand the issue.:

When oil prices were rising rapidly, many financially-strapped airlines started adding special surcharges to ticket prices to cover the bill. So now that oil prices are falling, are the fees coming off? Not yet.

The lag is drawing complaints from air travelers, consumer watchdogs and a member of Congress. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) is sending a letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters asking the department to investigate whether the charges "have any basis in reality or if they are being used to mislead travelers, reduce competition and increase fares."

For those who liked the Zo videos, I present the latest of Zo titled "1 More B4 11 04".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yvc0tYG_YpA

If you need a another Zo fix, here is Zo's video blog: http://zo.black-and-right.com/

Photographs of Barack Obama and John McCain, as juxtaposed by the New York Times on the front page of the newspaper's edition of October 29, 2008.

Give them credit for noticing. Pass out demerits for incompleteness.

Friday's USA Today carried a slightly inaccurate Page 1A tease ("Iraq is safer for US troops; October is on track to tie July for the month with fewest combat deaths"). It went to a top of Page 7A story ("US Deaths in Iraq on track for record low") that noticed how relatively well the month of October has gone for our troops in Iraq. That still is the case, with hours to go in the calendar month in Iraq. Reporter Charles Levinson even noticed that there have been no hostile US troop deaths in Baghdad during the entire month.

But Levinson missed the opportunity to notice even better longer-term results in Iraq. He also failed to notice that coalition troop deaths in Afghanistan, again with hours to go until the end of the month, are less than half of that seen in previous months. Finally, he didn't catch this remarakable fact, given the gloom that seems to abound over the supposedly intractable situation in Afghanistan -- Combined theater troop deaths in October have been the lowest in over four years. (Straight zeroes everywhere would, of course, be ideal.)

Here are the key paragraphs from Levinson's report:

Wait, wait, wait. I know I am forgetting something. The merger that's it.

"World News Now," which airs on the cable news arm of ABC News, had a treat for viewers on Oct. 31, but the "good news" didn't mention the recently announced merger between Northwest and Delta.

"World News Now" called fare declines "good news for air travel for once," in its news brief. Co-host Jeremy Hubbard said on the broadcast:

Speaking of money, major U.S. airlines are cutting fares for the Thanksgiving and winter holiday seasons. The airlines see price cutting as necessary in the face of a slumping economy. Northwest Airlines started the rush with what basically amounts to a holiday fare sale and most other major airlines are matching Northwest's prices. So if you are planning to fly for the holidays then you could see a savings of up to 25 percent.

Liberal ABC reporter David Wright derided Joe Wurzelbacher (AKA "Joe the Plumber") as John McCain's "campaign mascot" during Friday's edition of "Good Morning America." Wright, who has developed quite a track record in the 2008 campaign of boosting Barack Obama and bashing Senator McCain, also sneeringly compared Wurzelbacher's appearance with the Republican to Obama's Ohio campaign rally featuring Bill Clinton.

He sniffed, "Barack Obama turned to a celebrity with a bit more history and stature. Former President Bill Clinton hit the stump for Obama right here in Ohio." On the October 23 "Nightline," Wright attacked the "angry rant" McCain delivered during a speech on taxes. During the October 22 GMA, he insisted that Governor Sarah Palin's attacks on Senator Joe Biden might not be that valid because the vice presidential contender lives in a "glass house."

Political cartoonist Sam Ryskind with his idea on the perfect journalist costume for trick-or-treating:

You can find more of Ryskind's work at Human Events and at his Web site, The Ryskind Sketchbook.