Charles Johnson has a post about this shocking story.

Okay, so it’s not really a hoax. There really is a class action lawsuit against MGM and you really can get free DVDs. But according to The Digital Bits, the plaintiffs are the ones running the scam on MGM–and they won.

Just a note of caution: A lot of Eagles stuff this week. Twenty-four years worth, actually. You’ve been warned.

Bill Lyon today talks about the last Eagles team to win it all:

The last Eagles team to win the championship of professional football might have been the loosest team in sports history. The Super Bowl was still seven years away from being born when the 1960 Birds defeated the Green Bay Packers, 17-13, the day after Christmas in the Gothic bleakness of snow-shrouded Franklin Field.

Concrete Charlie, a.k.a Chuck Bednarik, the last of the 60-minute men, tackled the Packers’ Jim Taylor and sat on the squirming, fuming fullback for the last nine seconds.

Two nights before that game, quarterback Norm Van Brocklin, whose word was law, who routinely convened team “vespers” at local watering holes, was host at a loosen-your-chin-straps-boys gala that ended with several sleeping in flower beds. It didn’t seem to affect the team’s performance.

That was the only playoff game Vince Lombardi ever lost.

He then concludes:

These Birds can win. These Eagles can beat the Patriots. It will take something along the lines of Villanova’s practically perfect game against Georgetown in the 1985 NCAA basketball final, but it is possible.

No turnovers. Every scoring chance cashed. No injuries forcing players out of the game. And no making out the opponents to be larger than life.

Yo’ Adrian, I’m with him.

Howard Dean now says, “I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for.”

Wow. Not a lot of wiggle room, is there?

The New York Times carries an interesting report on the Ducth art world and Muslim intimidation. This seems like another important moment in Europe’s struggle with reconciling their culture of tolerance with the advent of Islamist aggression.

A report from R. Scott Rogers would be helpful.

I don’t mean to be a wet blanket–yesterday’s election in Iraq is really nothing but wonderful news. The turnout and relatively low level of violence marks a real victory for the people of Iraq, for the American, British, and other coalition military people who have midwifed the rebirth of a nation, and for President Bush and his administration which has persevered, often in the face of harsh criticism and even sometimes of contradictory evidence.

Here’s the wet blanket part: Over the weekend, a number of happy television analysts decried the foolishness of those who worry that certain cultures may not be 100 percent compatible with democracy. This election, they contended, is proof of democracy’s universal appeal.

But what concerns me isn’t that an Arab Muslim country can’t hold democratic elections–it’s that their democratically expressed choices may not, over time, tend to advance the causes of freedom and liberty. I would point to Susan Glasser’s important February 2003 article in the Washington Post about Kuwait’s semi-abortive attempt at democracy. As I summed up the Glasser article at the time:

Kuwait is among the wealthiest and most liberal Middle Eastern states, with a free press and what Glasser calls a “thriving civil society.” When the United States liberated Kuwait in 1991, the ruling family promised to revive the National Assembly and give women the right to vote.

Twelve years later, women still can’t vote and the parliament has limited influence over the emir–but this last might be a good thing, since the elected parliament is dominated by Islamic fundamentalists with sympathies for Yasser Arafat and Osama bin Laden. And, as Abdul Razak Shuyji, one of the Islamic fundamentalist leaders, observes, “Whenever there is true democracy, the Islamists will prevail.”

Important, if true. In “liberal” Kuwait, women cannot go to college with men and are not welcome in the political salons. Only Muslims can be citizens (even non-Muslims born there are denied citizenship). The democratically elected Islamic fundamentalists would like to deepen this segregation and put more distance between Kuwait and the West. Saud Nasir Sabah, the Kuwaiti oil minister, says that the fundamentalists “do not welcome any further U.S. or Western investment in the country.”

We should all rejoice in the success of the new Iraq’s first Election Day. But on the issue of whether or not Islam, as practiced in the Middle East, is compatible with democracy, the jury is still out.

If you sign up to be part of this class action lawsuit against MGM. Galley Brother B.J. will laugh, yea and verily.

This will only be funny to those of you interested in either (a) Joss Whedon programming, or (b) network entertainment executive follies. But if you fall into one of those groups, it’s gold.