Lewis Black has a special that begins multiple runs today on Comedy Central. It's called Lewis Black: Taxed Beyond Belief and I haven't seen it yet. But as I've laughed at darn near everything Mr. Black has done, I thought I'd mention it.

Also: "Smilin'" Stan Lee will be on the Home Shopping Network on Monday, April 15, hawking a number of signed, limited-edition items and celebrating the 40th anniversary of Spider-Man and the release of the movie. It'll air in different times around the country but I think it's 4:00 in the afternoon on the west coast. Better check to make sure.

No one seems to know the cause of the massive power outage that hit the Bellagio Hotel early Sunday morning. Obviously, these people have not seen Ocean's Eleven.

In other news: This is not a smart thing to do. Even though in this case, it turned out okay and will probably lead to a TV Movie or something of the sort.

The scary-looking gent above is another entry in our roster of "People I've Always Admired and Heard From Because of This Website."  He's James Randi, and he's probably only scary if you claim to have psychic powers or to be able to heal sick people by pulling evil spirits out of them.  Once upon a time, he was a top magician and escape artist but he has long since transformed himself into the world's greatest debunker of hokey claims of impossible powers.  I am, obviously, a skeptic about such assertions; ergo, I cheer the work he does via the James Randi Educational Foundation.

Its website, which you can access by clicking here, is a wonderful oasis of sanity.  (Would that the Internet offered even a tenth as much sanity as pornography.)  Randi is a feisty exposer of frauds, charlatans and folks who would have you believe they possess paranormal abilities.  He offers a million-buck reward for anyone who can demonstrate the genuine article and his cash looks pretty darn safe.

Randi is also a gentleman.  I remember seeing him one time on a TV show, exposing a nugget of Uri Geller's chicanery.  In the circumstance, the easiest thing for him to have done was to reveal the secret of the magic trick involved, but he did not.  It was a trick sometimes employed by legit magicians (i.e., those who do not pretend to any superhuman abilities) and exposure might have robbed one of them of a chunk of livelihood.  Instead, Randi replicated the feat, admitted it was achieved via a gimmick and effectively debunked without ruining anyone's act — except, of course, for Geller's.  It's obvious that if Randi ever went over to the dark side, claiming powers of E.S.P. or telekinesis, he could wrest millions out of those who are keen to believe.  (It is a lesson, not just about fraudulent psychics but for life in general, that human eagerness is at the root of most scams.  The putative medium can usually not pretend to read your mind unless you are hoping for them to succeed and unconsciously helping them along.)

Mr. Randi wrote me recently because he wanted to get in touch with my partner-in-comics, Sergio Aragonés, to replenish an old friendship.  He also said he'd enjoyed my article here on Peter Hurkos, and I've given him permission to re-post it on his site.  And what's amazing is that I predicted this would happen.  You see, a couple weeks ago while I was bending spoons with my brainwaves, I had a premonition…

George W. Bush could earn a chunk of respect from me if he would stop saying things like, "If we'd had specific knowledge of the terrorists' plans for 9/11, I would have moved mountains to prevent it." I'm almost as sick of that as I am of jokes about Donald Trump's hair.

Is there anyone anywhere who thinks any president, given hard info, would have gone fishing rather than try to stop the murder of thousands of Americans? Hell, I think most Chief Execs would even try to do something about Donald Trump's hair if only they could.

I do think Bush is getting hammered a bit unfairly by Democrats on this. But I also think a certain amount of it is his own fault for saying things like that, and also for statements like this one. This morning, he tried to characterize a document entitled, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S." as saying — and I quote — "…nothing about an attack on America." To me, that's right up there with "I did not inhale" in the category of Disingenuousness.

I do not believe Bush is stupid but I sometimes agree with Jon Stewart's line about how he sure seems to think we are.

As we get closer to November, the Democrats are going to launch a full-scale assault regarding what Bush did the morning of 9/11. They will charge, in effect, that when he was informed America was under attack, he did absolutely nothing. They may even make commercials out of that footage of him reading stories in a classroom and put in in a split-screen with people falling out of the World Trade Center. If Bush responds with his line about not wanting to panic the children, he'll do himself an awful lot of damage.

As you may know (or be able to guess), I have a pretty good collection of comedy albums. I think I own all or almost all of the fifty named in this list of what one guy picks as the 50 "Most Influential" of all time. If I made up such a list, it would be quite different but I don't find his choices all that outrageous.

I have no big reaction to the P.D.B. (President's Daily Briefing) that was released last night. Yeah, it does suggest that there was a bit of advance warning of the 9/11 plot but no, it doesn't convince me that anyone was negligent not to snap into action. I think Bush's foes have made a strong case that the White House should have been more focused on terrorism than it was but a weak case that someone there could have prevented the disasters of that awful day.

I was struck by the amazing contrast in how the P.D.B. of 8/6/01 is being reported, though. The following is the lede from The Washington Post…

CRAWFORD, Tex., April 10 — President Bush was warned a month before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that the FBI had information that terrorists might be preparing for a hijacking in the United States and might be targeting a building in Lower Manhattan. The information was included in a written Aug. 6, 2001, briefing to Bush that was declassified Saturday night by the White House in response to a request from the independent commission probing the Sept. 11 attacks.

And here's how the same story began if you picked up The Washington Times…

CRAWFORD, Texas — The Bush administration last night released the declassified contents of a presidential briefing document that contains mostly historical information about Osama bin Laden's terrorist plans — almost all of it compiled from open sources, including television and news reports.

Despite my view, I think the Post report is the fairer summation. Doesn't the writer of the Times piece strike you as a bit too eager to insist there's no story here and that Dr. Rice was correct to say it was a "historical" document? Usually in a news article, you lay out the charge before you provide the rebuttal.

A website that plays 20 Questions. I hate websites that are smarter than I am.

I've been getting a lot of spam from some company that wants to sell me vast quantities of pornography. The offers don't interest me but what's on the "Sender" line is usually kinda fun. Apparently, someone is using a program that takes a random word and makes it the first name. Then it inserts a random letter as a middle initial. Then it picks another random word for a last name. The following are the actual sender names on the last 16 I've received…

Pancreas H. Delmonico, Aristocracies G. Installation, Tolkien M. Bloodthirstier, Hunchbacked S. Glamored, Cesar P. Simulcasted, Outrage H. User, Tricycling P. Dobbin, Yipping V. Month, Modal D. Indignantly, Devotes H. Hollering, Wintry R. Wariness, Potteries U. Wideness, Orlon L. Sensory, Rattling C. Knocker, Sonic I. Outcries and Pearly C. Economic

Aren't those great names? Don't some of them sound like characters that Groucho Marx should have played? Next script I write, I'm naming someone Pancreas H. Delmonico. I just have to figure out if Pancreas is a man's name or a woman's.

I've been listening to MP3 files of Al Franken's new radio show and I have to say I'm impressed. I don't agree with all that Franken says but unlike a lot of Talk Radio shows I've heard, he is often willing to engage in a genuine back-and-forth exchange with others. The last few times I've tuned in Limbaugh, I felt there was a desperate, underlying need to not allow non-Rush viewpoints to be fully expressed. The minute some caller (apparently pre-screened and selected to serve as prey) got thirty seconds into presenting a contrary opinion, he'd be cut off and then Limbaugh would spend five minutes dismissing what little the guy got to say. I've never been half as bothered by Rush's views as I am by how fervent he always seems to be not to let anyone else even state the case against them. Has this man ever appeared in a debate format where he couldn't cut the other guy off?

I guess I was expecting Air America Radio to be the Liberal implementation of the same practice…and the show hosted by Randi Rhodes comes close. Even when I agree with her, I find myself repelled by the theatrics and the demonization of the opposition. The other day, she spent about 10 minutes yelling at Ralph Nader, who was on the phone and eventually hung up on her. There may be valid reasons to yell at Ralph Nader but at best, what she was doing was letting out emotional frustration and at worse, trying to entertain by being rude to a guest. In either case, no one got to say anything of substance…and, well, I don't think I'll be listening to Randi Rhodes in the future.

I also sampled Janeane Garofalo's show and while I think she's a smart, outspoken lady, I don't find her compelling on the radio. Maybe she'll grow into the job but I thought she did some fairly uninteresting interviews with some interesting guests. I'll check back in a month or so if she's still there.

But so far, I like Franken. I just listened to a long discussion with David Kay, the Weapons Inspector, who strikes me as a very informed, non-partisan gentleman. It aired on 4/6 and if Air America ever gets their archives page up and running (it doesn't work yet), I'd recommend a listen, at least to that segment. Kay did not engage in wholesale Bush-bashing and did defend the administration on many points…and I can't imagine any right-wing radio show giving so much air time to a learned, rational official who would speak as well on behalf of Bill Clinton. Franken and Kay agreed on some points and disagreed mightily on others, which is how a debate ought to work but on radio or television, seldom does. Kay cited errors and misrepresentations in the Iraq invasion but without trying to score electoral points. Franken did try to spin him to say Bush was a liar, Rumsfeld was wrong, etc., but he gave Kay ample time to make all his points and showed him great respect. I actually felt I came away from the exchange a little more informed about the topic than I'd been before, and not in the sense that I was propagandized into the host's point-of-view…because I wasn't. I also liked that it was a long discussion, or at least somewhat longer than one usually gets on television.

I have no idea how this approach will play with the radio audience. They may simply reject it for lack of fireworks and I still think that Air America has much going against it, just trying to establish a new franchise, regardless of content. Conservatives are already eager to declare it a flop and to sell the idea that there's no market out there for Liberal viewpoints, which may be true…or the whole enterprise may fail for other reasons. I'm still afraid that in search of ratings, the whole thing's going to have to get more theatrical…or at least, think it has to.

I've had my picture taken with a couple of famous people. But it's nothing compared to Jeremy.

I've lately been playing around with the new Rio Fuse MP3 player. It works just fine but being as tiny as it is, it has one drawback. A small player means small controls.

I've been recording Al Franken's shows and some others that aren't on Air America and attempting to listen to them while walking or driving or even working. What keeps happening is that I get two or two and a half hours into a three hour recording and then I have to pause it and resume later. There's a way to do this if you're real careful and delicate with the controls but I'm your basic klutz and what I keep doing is hitting the buttons wrong and losing my place. So when I go to restart playback, I find myself at the beginning of the recording. This is much easier to do than it oughta be.

I've partially solved the problem by chopping the MP3 files into small files but it's still annoying to listen to 40 minutes of a 60 minute file then lose your place. What I'd like to do is find another MP3 player where this won't happen. (I also wouldn't mind one that held more than 128MB.) I'd like to be able to listen for a while, then turn the thing off, then turn it on the next day and be right where I left off. And I'd like it not to be easy for me to lose my place. The Fuse has a "bookmark" feature but it seems too awkward for my purposes.

Anyone here got an idea what I want to go out and buy?

Certain fast food chains keep to certain areas. In-n-Out Burger, f'rinstance, is only in California, Nevada and Arizona. Koo Koo Roo is only in Southern California. Hardee's is only in 32 states…and so on. Some of these chains don't expand because they don't think there's a demand and others have reciprocal deals not to go into certain areas. Some just plain don't want to bother with setting up facilities and supply lines in other states.

For a long time, the big holdout to expansion has been White Castle. They're only in Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, Indianapolis, Louisville, Minneapolis, Nashville, New Jersey, New York, St. Louis and a few cities adjoining these places. Frozen White Castle burgers (or a reasonable facsimile) are available in the refrigerator cases of many supermarkets across the nation…and sometimes you'll find a stand that tries to confuse the issue by calling itself "White Palace" or "Blue Castle" and serving some approximation of the White Castle cuisine. But genuine White Castle outlets have been confined to the aforementioned places.

Sometimes, some company that's assembling a new food court in a mall or some sort of amusement park outside those territories will decide that it wants to include a White Castle. Those who have tasted the greasy biscuits that the White Castle people pass off as burgers will wonder why anyone would desire such a thing. The answer is usually that some exec grew up in one of the above locales, has had a jolt of misremembered nostalgia, and somehow thinks that the citizens of some other vicinity will flock to buy 'em by the bag. With this as a premise, they approach the White Castle people and offer generous terms, only to receive a polite no.

Several years ago, I found myself at a party with several folks who were involved in the planning and construction of a forthcoming Las Vegas mega-resort. (A mega-resort is basically a hotel where you have to walk a long distance to your room.) The gent who was in charge of the food court told me — with a note of pride and achievement in his voice — that the selection of fast food outlets would include…a White Castle. I said, "Really? I always heard they refuse to go outside their area. How did you get them to agree to set one up in Vegas?" He revealed, as if mentioning a minor technicality, that the White Castle Board of Directors was as yet unaware that their wares would be in his food court. "They cannot say no to our offer," he said in a manner that echoed Don Corleone and explained that the terms he'd be presenting were such that someone would have to be brain-dead to decline. Then he added that if by some chance the head honchos at W.C. were brain-dead or foolishly stubborn, his hotel had "certain business connections" that would and could pressure them into accepting his generous proposal. I don't think he meant Mafia or anything of the sort. I think he meant genuine, above-board business connections. I also think that at that moment, he would have bet his house and kids that he could bring the White Castle execs to their knees and force compliance.

Eight months later, the hotel opened. In its food court, in the slot that was obviously intended for a White Castle, there was a Wendy's or maybe a Fatburger. Many years later, there is still no White Castle stand in Vegas or anywhere west of St. Louis.

But we may be seeing the end of an era. At the end of July, a new movie is being released called Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle. It's a road trip movie about two guys who crave White Castle burgers. The very existence of the film will obviously give a pretty good boost to the chain in terms of publicity…but a friend of mine who works for the company releasing the movie says that this will coincide with White Castle coming to Hollywood. He says one will open at or around where Sweetzer Avenue intersects the Sunset Strip. This is very close to the location of Carney's, which is one of the best places in L.A. to get a burger or hot dog swimming in chili but my friend says, "That's where they're saying it's going to be."

You now know as much about this as I do. My friend may be wrong (he's been wrong before) or plans may change. But I do think that if they do finally open a White Castle here in Los Angeles, an awful lot of people are going to rush to eat there. Once.

What do you get for the person who has an enormous blank wall and nothing to put on it? Well, how about a billboard?

One thing I love about this weblog is that when I ask a question here, someone always has the answer…

Driving along today, I noticed a Ford Explorer with something odd attached. A hose about a half-inch in diameter was coming out of the bottom of the back seat door on the driver's side. The door was closed so there may have been some sort of notch cut into the door to allow this. Anyway, the hose led over and attached to the center of the hubcap on the rear tire on that side.

What the heck is that? The only thing I could guess was that some kind of battery is being charged by being connected to the spinning tire…but that doesn't seem particularly energy-efficient.

But like I said: Someone here will know…