here are some bite-sized news nuggets for those of you who were offended by my glamour shots post below.

forget santa and the easter bunny... what will happen when the kids discover that hannah montana isn't real?

go hillary! as i've said before, i don't really have a dog in the presidential primary race, but i've been kinda rooting for hillary to win NH if only because it would shut the hillary haters for a few minutes. and now the news orgs are starting to project hillary as the winner for the state. iron my shirt indeed! (both clinton and obama each received more votes than the republican winner, john mccain.)

i hear the surprisingly moderate weather in NH helped drive a record turnout over there. i guess that's cool for them, because it's also sixty degrees here in indiana, but over here we're getting torrential rains and lethal flooding. doug has more.

desperate for new content, cbs is going to air the first season of showtime's dexter. this is a smart move because dexter is an excellent show... but it's much better on showtime, where they can air it with all the violence and occasional profanities or nipple shots intact. then again, if you're the kind of person who likes to watch the sopranos on A&E (and apparently such people do exist) then you'll probably love dexter on showtime.

i watched the first new episodes of a daily show and the colbert report since the writers strike began. jon stewart has tremendous wit, so he was still fairly watchable, but the show clearly pales in comparison to what it was with a writing staff, which jon himself pointed out repeatedly. he also seems generally puzzled and almost hurt as to why the WGA hasn't cut a deal with him and colbert similar to the one it cut with letterman's worldwide pants. i have to wonder myself, as it would seem to be in the WGA's best interest to sign such deals. the colbert report was relatively fresh, but i don't know how long they'll be able to keep it up. i can't really imagine what the tonight show or late night must be like without writers... anyone watching that shiz?

there'll be no golden globe award show this year because every single nominee refused to cross a picket line in order to attend. but the golden globe awards will still be given out, just at a press conference instead. however, the SAG awards will go on, and will not be picketed, because SAG are down with their union brothers.

a reporter with the new republic managed to dig up some of ron paul's old newsletters, where he found some frankly disturbing content. paul argues that he didn't write the shockingly racist articles—the newsletters have no bylines so it's hard to tell who wrote what—but it's a bit hard for him to wash his hands of the content of a publications with names like ron paul political report. my favorite quote so far is "opinion polls consistently show only about 5% of blacks have sensible political opinions." but tnr has released a bunch of excerpts, so read 'em all and pick your favorite moments. zach wendling has more. ¶

Leno is shockingly better without the writers. You can tell he's writing his own stuff again. He's improved dramatically. Letterman still, well, sucks. His jokes are as bad as ever. ¶