Captured Iranian-American Scholar Returns Home
Haleh Esfandiari, Director of Smithsonian’s Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars returns to her Potomac, Md., home after eight months of imprisonment in Iran.

… to embrace Islam by OBL (who has taken to dyeing his beard):

“I invite you to embrace Islam,” bin Laden said, according to a transcript posted by ABC News on its website.

“It will also achieve your desire to stop the war as a consequence, because as soon as the warmongering owners of the major corporations realize that you have lost confidence in your democratic system and have begun to look for an alternative, and this alternative is Islam, they will run after you to please you and achieve what you want to steer you away from Islam,” he said.

This is one confused dude. It sounds like he’s been reading the comments at Daily Kos, HuffPo, and Comment is Free.

As I sit here with my iBook battery scorching my lap, my iPod battery charging quietly in the background after a mere 1 hour of use, I’m loathing Steve Jobs enough without having to read this:

Therefore, we have decided to offer every iPhone customer who purchased an iPhone from either Apple or AT&T, and who is not receiving a rebate or any other consideration, a $100 store credit towards the purchase of any product at an Apple Retail Store or the Apple Online Store.

Give them their money back, you prick.

So I was just writing about the worthiness of the endeavor of book publishing, right?

Well, here’s an item sure to make you think twice about that:

Rosie O’Donnell has used her Web site to lash out about her own, upcoming book of memoirs.

O’Donnell wrote on her blog, that she received a copy of her new book (due in stores on Oct. 2), “Celebrity Detox (The Fame Game),” and was shocked by notes on the sleeve of the hardcover.

“So i just got my first hard copy of my new book CELEBRITY DETOX there on the front flap in print ‘when rosie odonnells (sic) mother was diagnosed with cancer in 1968, ten year old rosie thought fame could cure her,’ i was born in 1962 my mother was diagnosed in 1973 WTF!” the actress and former “View” moderator wrote.

How could this many mistakes make their way into flap copy? Let me count the ways:

Whoever wrote the copy hadn’t read the book. (Yes, it happens.)
Whoever edited/proofread the copy hadn’t read the book. (Yes, it happens.)
Rosie O’Donnell and her people didn’t read the flap copy. (Yes, it happens.)

There was a failure at every level—including yours, Rosie. Tough luck.