FoxNews is covering the Clinton hostage crisis that is ongoing right now (if you’ve not heard, someone strapped a bomb to his chest and took one of her NH offices hostage until he gets to speak to Hillary). Their website link? “Clinton Campaign Office Hostage-Taker Claims Bomb Strapped to His Body: Watch Live.”

Sure, everyone else has a simliar link to live coverage on their websites, but it’s just funny to see that juxtaposition of “bomb strapped to his body” and “watch live” on FoxNews’s website. It’s exciting in a shameful way…

EPIC RECORDS/LEGACY RECORDINGS UNVEIL
THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION
OF MICHAEL JACKSON’S THRILLER
THE WORLD’S BIGGEST SELLING ALBUM OF ALL TIME

Newly Expanded Deluxe Edition of Multi-Platinum Grammy-Winning Album
With New & Previously Unreleased Bonus Tracks
Including Remixes By Akon, will.i.am & Kanye West
+ Bonus DVD Featuring Digitally Restored Short Films
& Michael Jackson’s Historic Breakout Performance
From “Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever” Television Broadcast

Thriller – 25th Anniversary Edition
Available Worldwide Week Of February 11, 2008

* * * * *

Epic/Legacy Recordings proudly celebrates the 25th anniversary of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, the world’s biggest-selling album of all time, with a newly expanded deluxe edition of the phenomenal record-breaking pop culture touchstone, available worldwide the week of February 11, 2008.

The Michael Jackson Thriller 25th anniversary celebration kicks off in December 2007 and continues throughout 2008 with the release of a new single and a multi-faceted global marketing campaign featuring high-profile television, radio and online events around the world.

The Thriller – 25th Anniversary Edition will include the original album in its entirety as well as eight bonus tracks and a DVD featuring Michael Jackson’s groundbreaking short films from Thriller (”Thriller,” “Beat It,” and “Billie Jean”) and the artist’s Emmy-nominated breakout performance of “Billie Jean” from the legendary “Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever” television special (first broadcast on NBC on May 16, 1983).

The newly expanded version of Thriller premieres five tracks previously unreleased in any form: a new Kanye West remix of “Billie Jean”; a new 2008 version of “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” with Akon and will.i.am; will.i.am remixes of “The Girl Is Mine” and “P.Y.T.”; and “For All Time,” a rare unreleased cut from the original Thriller recording sessions, newly mixed and mastered by Michael Jackson.

Additional bonus material on the Thriller – 25th Anniversary Edition includes “Someone In The Dark,” “Carousel,” and Michael Jackson’s original demo recording of “Billie Jean.”

The deluxe Thriller – 25th Anniversary Edition packaging contains a personal greeting from Michael Jackson to his fans penned exclusively for this special release.

Originally released 25 years ago early December 1982 by Epic Records, Thriller, Michael Jackson’s sixth solo album and second with producer Quincy Jones, rocketed the former child-star lead singer for the Jackson 5 into the stratosphere of international superstardom. Introducing the “robot” and the “moonwalk” into the international lexicon of clubland dance moves via the pulsing sounds of Thriller, Michael Jackson revolutionized all aspects of mainstream pop culture — from radio airwaves to the newly emerging art form of music videos — becoming the world’s most popular entertainer in the process.

The original Thriller spent an astounding 80 consecutive weeks in the American Top 10, 37 of those at #1. Seven of the album’s original nine tracks became Top 10 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 while Individual singles from Thriller reached #1 chart positions in the US, the UK, France, Italy, Australia, Denmark, Belgium, South Africa, Spain, Ireland, New Zealand and Canada.

Thriller made history as the first and only record to be America’s top-selling album two years running (1983 and 1984).

Thriller has been certified 27x platinum by the RIAA, giving it Double Diamond Award status in the US. In addition, the album has achieved Diamond or Multi-Platinum status in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and the UK. Thriller was named the Best Selling Album of All Time by the Guinness Book of Records in 1985.

In February 1984, Michael Jackson held a record-breaking 12 Grammy nominations, going on to win eight, which stands as the record for most Grammy Awards to be won by anyone in a single year. Seven of Michael’s Grammys that year were for Thriller: Album of the Year; Record of the Year (”Beat It”); Best Male Pop Vocal Performance (”Thriller”); Best Engineered Recording, Non-Classical (Thriller); Best Male Rock Vocal Performance (”Beat It”); Best Male R&B Vocal Performance (”Billie Jean”); Best R&B Song (”Billie Jean”). (Michael’s eighth Grammy that year was in the Best Recording For Children – Single or Album, Musical or Spoken category for “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial”). That same year, Michael Jackson took home eight American Music Awards and three MTV Video Music Awards. The following year, “The Making of Michael Jackson’s Thriller” took home the Best Video Album trophy at the 27th Annual Grammy Awards.

Named the “Most Successful Entertainer of All Time” by the Guinness World Records, Michael Jackson is among the most highly acclaimed and influential artists in pop culture. He was named the World Music Award’s Best-Selling Pop Male Artist of the Millennium and received the American Music Award’s Artist of the Century Award. He has been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame twice: in 1997 as a member of the Jackson 5 and as a solo artist in 2001.

* * * * *
THRILLER – 25TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

Thriller – original track listing – US Billboard Chart Peaks
“Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” – (#5 Hot 100, #5 R&B)
“Baby Be Mine”
“The Girl Is Mine” (with Paul McCartney) – (#2 Hot 100, #1 R&B, #1 Adult Contemporary)
Thriller” – (#4 Hot 10, #3 Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks)
“Beat It” – (#1 Hot 100, #1 R&B)
“Billie Jean” – (#1 Hot 100, #1 R&B, #9 A/C)
“Human Nature” – (#7 Hot 100, #2 Adult Contemporary)
“P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)” – (#10 Hot 100)
“The Lady in My Life”

Bonus Material:
10. Someone In the Dark ^
11. Billie Jean (Michael Jackson’s original demo recording) ^
12. Carousel ^

Previously Unreleased Tracks For 25th Anniversary Edition
13. The Girl Is Mine 2008 with will.i.am*
14. P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing) 2008 with Michael Jackson and will.i.am*
15. Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ 2008 with Michael Jackson, Akon and will.i.am*
16. Billie Jean 2008 with Kanye West*
17. For All Time (unreleased track from original Thriller sessions)*

^From 2001 Thriller Special Edition
*-previously unreleased

Bonus DVD
The Videos
1. Thriller
2. Beat It
3. Billie Jean

4. Billie Jean performance from Motown 25: Yesterday, Today and Forever

25th Anniversary Executive Producer: Michael Jackson
Original Album Produced by Quincy Jones for [Quincy Jones Productions logo]

Sony BMG

…and all I see are Claritin ads. Has “the Google” found its way into my thoughts and sensations already?

And not just a portion of its dignity, either!

Politico is reporting that Rudy Giuliani used city funds and resources to live it up in the Hamptons during his extramarital affair with now wife, Judy. Apparently he casually transferred travel expenses for his security detail accompanying him to her home over the course of three summers to the accounts of “obscure mayoral offices.” In 2001, a city auditor first stumbled across $34,000 worth of travel expenses buried in the accounts of the New York City Loft Board. This information is only now coming to light. Wanna see the Amex bills? Click here!

So I think it’s time we ask an important question: can we trust this guy not to fly his girlfriends to Jamaica on Air Force One??

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of the Iowa caucus finds former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee with 28% of the vote, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney with 25% support, and everyone else far behind. National frontrunner Rudy Giuliani gets just 12% of the vote in Iowa at this time while former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson is the only other candidate in double digits at 11%.a

Huckabee shakes up the GOP and Obama is now in the lead in Iowa among the Dems. Is this media-fueled drama or a legitimate transition? Who’s going to watch the CNN YouTube debate tonight? The last one was a riot!

In case you missed the memo, it has been rude to smoke around non-smokers for about twenty years now. Every time you blow smoke my way, you’re infringing on my right to breathe without discomfort. Don’t get snippy with me if I say something, either. IT’S AIR FOR GOD’S SAKE!

Oh, and thanks for making me self-conscious about my clothes and hair smelling like a wet ash tray. You’re also infringing on my right not to friggin’ stink. Maybe you decided long ago that it would be easier to consort with smelly people, but I didn’t, and I don’t want to hang out with them or date them, so don’t pull me into your little abyss of negative self-image. People tell me I smell nice without having to apply cologne. Why should I have to bathe in false scents just because you need to shove a burning wad of chemical-soaked leaves enveloped by cheap paper in your mouth?

Bonus: it’s not only rude to smoke around non-smokers, it’s practically criminal to smoke around children. Take it outside. They don’t have a say in the air they get to breathe. Smoking around children has got to be one of the most callous, selfish acts I’ve seen perpetrated repeatedly in my short (and likely shortened) life. Smoke fumes can linger in even a well-ventilated room for more than two hours after it’s exhaled, providing ample opportunity for it to be breathed in and out multiple times by any kids in the room.

Superbonus: just because the problems associated with smoking are often slow to take hold, they are no less excruciatingly painful to experience and hardly worth purchasing for $4 a pack. Why would you use what little money you have to buy an early death?!?!

*puts soapbox away*

So I’ve been reading all day about how Cheney’s got an irregular heartbeat and is being treated at GW’s hospital (adjacent to my bi-weekly Metro destination). Lucky Crystal actually got to witness the hub-bub firsthand (thanks for the text and voicemail, btw!). I’ll have to wait and hear from the press though about Cheney’s security needing the three surrounding hospital rooms for base camp, forcing the hospital to turn away poor, urban minorities. I’m not saying I heard that this actually happened, but if anyone can be blamed for death on a daily basis, it’s our lame duck Veep.

It should be paradise for these two people, but each day the dingy film on every surface grows thicker. The din in the air grows shriller. The space they carved out for themselves to raise their family without any outside help and through their own hard work is falling apart.

In the biological world, parasites invade other organisms’ living space as if they are entitled to it, they take over, they fill every space with their waste and offspring, and ultimately they kill their hosts. They don’t pay rent, they don’t clean house, they don’t help fix any problems that their mere presence catalyzes or expedites, they don’t appreciate their hosts’ belongings, they certainly don’t respect them…

And I certainly don’t respect parasites.

So apparently “Sweet Caroline” was inspired by a photo of then-nine-year-old Caroline Kennedy riding on her horse. The ladies on the “Today Show” have been fawning over how sweet this story is–and that he waited until she was almost 50 before telling her–but what everyone fails to recognize is that the song’s lyrics in the context of being about a nine-year-old are downright unsettling!

———

SWEET CAROLINE by NEIL DIAMOND

Where it began, I can’t begin to know when
But then I know it’s growing strong
Oh, wasn’t the spring, whooo
And spring became the summer
Who’d believe you’d come along

Hands, touching hands, reaching out
Touching me, touching you
Oh, sweet Caroline
Good times never seem so good
I’ve been inclined to believe it never would

And now I look at the night
And it don’t seem so lonely
We fill it up with only two, oh
And when I hurt
Hurting runs off my shoulder
How can I hurt when holding you

Oh, one, touching one, reaching out
Touching me, touching you
Oh, sweet Caroline
Good times never seem so good
Oh I’ve been inclined to believe it never would

———-

Yeesh…

“There was one problem. It was not true,” McClellan writes, according to a brief excerpt released Monday. “I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president’s chief of staff and the president himself.”

That’s an excerpt from former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan’s new book. You can praise him all you want for finally admitting that he knew Bush and Cheney were involved in the Valerie Plame leak (and thus our President committed TREASON), but he doesn’t deserve it. Where was this courage when he was lying to cover his boss’s ass?

Exactly.

Read for yourself

You are crack. You lure us in with the illicit high of tHollywood fashion horror, accidental nudity and bad music, but when we try to quit your website to regain our dignity and pride–and our credit ratings–we can’t.

You tell us lies, and we forgive you when they are proven untrue (see Fidel Castro).

You draw little white dots around the mouths of people you think are gay, and we pretend like the joke isn’t stale.

You dance in front of your webcam and show the world that you honestly think people enjoy you for any other reason than your strangely powerful information connections.

But we run to you. You are a permanent water cooler fixture. “Have you read Perez today?” Yeah, only like a million times!!!!

Oh Perezzers…I wish I could quit you.

Love,
The Cool Kids