Alert: a new weapon of mass intelligence destruction has been discovered:

North Korea has launched an intensive media assault on its latest arch enemy – the wrong haircut.
A campaign exhorting men to get a proper short-back-and-sides has been aired by state-run Pyongyang television.
The series is entitled Let us trim our hair in accordance with Socialist lifestyle.
. . .
It stressed the “negative effects” of long hair on “human intelligence development”, noting that long hair “consumes a great deal of nutrition” and could thus rob the brain of energy.

Just another example of how a government can fool the masses into believing stupid stuff if it has the assistance of a compliant media.

The United States Supreme Court rules that judges must consider prison sentencing guidelines, but they are not mandatory.
TalkLeft has links to the six opinions.

Via Talking Points Memo, I see our “values voters” have another legal cross to bear: the undoing of a Secret Service ban on crosses at the inaugural parade. Imagine what the Founding Fathers would think about the destruction of our Christian nation!
Elsewhere at the website, I notice this:

A journalist is making an impassioned plea for radio, TV and newspaper outlets to invest in hiring qualified religion news writers, noting that since many media gatekeepers attach little importance to religion, they often don’t hire the best people for the beat.
In an article written for Poynter Online, a Web site for the professional improvement of journalists, Washington Times chief religion reporter Julia Duin said many media outlets have no one covering religion regularly or have someone with little knowledge covering the topic.

That’s a good point there. Unfortunately, it applies to reporting on a lot of issues, not just religion. Our news outlets are equal opportunity offenders.

Bill O’Reilly has once again appointed himself national charity policeman and has set his sights on an upcoming NBC tsunami relief telethon. Per Bloggermann, George Clooney has apparently had enough:

Clooney, whom O’Reilly had also attacked after a similar celebrity telethon for 9/11 victims, released a letter he wrote to the bizarre Fox host. “So all right, Mr. Journalist… come on in. I’m booking the talent for the Tsunami event… and you, Mr. O’Reilly, are now officially invited to be a presenter… either you ante up and help out AND be that watch dog that you feel we clearly need… or you simply stand on the sidelines and cast stones… This is your chance to put your considerable money where your considerable mouth is.”

“Considerable mouth.” Heh. It’s about time someone stood up and fired back.

Yeah, that looked kind of bad. Yesterday Howard Dean announces his candidacy for DNC chair; hours later Joe Trippi endorses Simon Rosenberg on Hardball. Party politics are heating up.