The fine folks at Animal point to this interesting bit on News Hounds, detailing how Hezbollah issued a "directive" to Fox News in particular and the media in general "not to show outgoing Katyusha rocket fire." Such a reaction might have been prompted by segments like the above, where Fox's Bill Hemmer points out (from the Israeli side) where such rockets had likely been fired from, and where they likely landed. Apparently Hezbollah believes that such coverage helps the Israelis target their positions. Since Fox has personnel on the Lebanese side of the border who might, you know, get all dead and stuff if one of those rockets "accidentally" went the wrong way, Fox agreed to abstain from rocket spotting.

There are many ways to go about ridiculing Fox News screambox Bill O'Reilly. If you're mouthy, you can shout "Shut up!" at every given opportunity. If you're crafty, you can distribute personalized falafel loofahs as holiday gifts, as did the Smoking Gun in 2004. If you're enterprising, you can even start your own satirical spin-off on Comedy Central. All are perfectly acceptible ways of deriding a man who seems to have been sent from above solely for the sake of mockery. Hell, if you're lazy, you can even just don an O'Reilly mask and do a stupid dance. You cannot, however, don an O'Reilly mask and do a Nazi salute. MSNBC host Keith Olbermann tried it this weekend, and the humor just got overshadowed by that whole systematic extermination thing.

We know it's all too easy to regurgitate a funny from last night's Daily Show, but trust us, this particular segment merits a look for sheer ranty showmanship over and above Jon Stewart's usual routine mockery. The main subject is CNN's waffling on the use of the phrase "brink of war," plus the appending of a cautionary question mark on same. The wrap consists of a long-overdue slam on the media trope of worrying how actual pain elsewhere translates into "pain at the pump" for Americans.

• Fox News viewers more likely to believe Iraq war was worth it, Bush doing good job, Ann Coulter "moderate voice of reason," Jesus loves tax cuts. [SJSU]
• Disney ousts studio head as she sits in hospital with her newborn child; fires Elizabeth Vargas again for good measure. [LAT]
• Sarah Dickerson spends way too much time looking at the cover of Gourmet. [Slate]

From today's Page Six:

• Jesus lives and saves us all: Star Jones is reportedly announcing her departure from The View, preferring instead to continue her rapid shrinking in the privacy of her own home. If we're lucky, her on-air farewell will be the exact opposite of Katie Couric's: hilarious and laced with blood. [Access Hollywood]
• Producer Dallas Austin has now been in a Dubai prison for one month for trying to bring drugs into the country for Naomi Campbell's birthday party; Campbell has yet to forgive him for ruining her big day. [MTV]
• A sneak peek at a former Playboy Bunny's tell-all, plus her requisite cleavage. [Hollywood Interrupted]
• Best Week Ever comedian Sherrod Small slams the John Mayer report, insists that the musician's use of the n-word was funny. [BWE]
• Extremely loud and incredibly derivative. [The Velvet Blog]
• One block of 103rd Street is renamed Humphrey Bogart Place in honor of the actor's childhood home. Not that it makes the locale any more appealing. [Cinematical]
• Unintentional hilarity: Laura Ingraham as the next Jon Stewart? It's a pilot we'd gleefully kill to get our hands on. [TV Newser]
• Overheard in NY gets its own stalker map. [Overplot]
• Kudos to the generous Daily News editors who allowed Ben Widdicombe to out both Anderson Cooper and Shep Smith in one fell swoop. [Gatecrasher]
• Hipster Swiss Army knives, crafted especially for Bedford Avenue stabbings. [Consumerist]
• Does Us Weekly have a problem with Britney Spears? Is People coddling her? And at what point will we all collectively agree to just look the fuck away? [Media Orchard]

Because the First Amendment is actually just a suggestion, New York representative Peter King has declared the Times an enemy of the state for reporting on the government's bank data program. His explanation of how the Times has joined the axis of evil:

The Silicon Valley Fight Club enjoys its third round of publicity (see round one and round two) on Fox News, where anchor John Gibson grills club founder Gints Klimanis about its safety.

• Recognizing that print is a dying medium, The Guardian bows before the primacy of the web. [The Guardian]
• Old people learn to shop on the Internet. Next up for the Geritol set: Goatse. [NYT]
• Video bloggers as self-absorbed, deluded about their place in media as regular bloggers. [cnet]
• Gannett likes its sources dusky. [NYT]
• The average viewer of Fox News is 64.6 years old, hates Mexicans, and will believe anything he's told as long as it's shouted at him by Bill O'Reilly. Okay, the article only mentions the first thing, but, c'mon, you know the rest is true. [Multichannel]

What's wrong with this picture?

• America's first couple, Britney Spears and Kevin Federline, may no longer be rolling in the filth of their wedded bliss. Brit's publicist refuses to deny that they've split, and in the court of celebrity trash, silence is an admission of divorce. If the sweet sounds of "Popozao" can't save a marriage, can anything? [Mirror UK]
• After signing a $6 million deal with Miramax Books for her memoirs, Barbara Walters has weaseled her way out of the contract in pursuit of a better deal elsewhere. If Hillary Clinton can get $8 million for her autobiography, then certainly Babs can fetch just as much. The face-lifts aren't going to pay for themselves, you know. [Page Six]
• Having worked for everyone in Hollywood, jailbird P.I. Anthony Pellicano may have worked with Israeli mobsters — a natural climb up the Power Jew ladder. [R&M]
• Brandon Davis issues an official apology to Lindsay Lohan after calling her a firecrotch. He's also "horrified" by that bit about her seven-foot-long clitoris, and considers the freckles coming out of her vagina to be "reprehensible." [Page Six]
• Fox News' Kimberly Guilfoyle is set to marry male socialite Eric Villency in Barbados tomorrow — and just in time, too, as she's 5 months pregnant. We can't have a bastard baby around Murdoch's house. [Lowdown]

• Teen lit packaging expert Lizzie "Old Hag" Skurnick talks about the realities of 17th Street's "packaging" of Kaavya Viswanathan's first novel: Packagers are writers and editors who get the job done quickly for larger publishing houses, and make a lot of money doing so. If that meant pulling out some stock passages for Viswanathan to get her manuscript in on time, that would explain the suspected plagiarism. Related: Why aren't we in the packaging business? [Harvard Independent]
• How do you calculate New York's nightlife apocalypse? Take a bill to freeze liquor licenses and multiply it by Axl Rose at Misshapes. [VV]
• Good news for anyone who likes to touch themselves: Nerve.com launches its video site. [Nerve]
• The FBI launches an investigation of Pellicano case leaks to the Times. PlameGate for Hollywood, yay. [Fishbowl LA]
• Fox News' Shep Smith doesn't appreciate being mistaken for Steve Kmetko. But who does? [You Tube]
• Donald Trump has paid the $5 registration fee necessary to become a Rhode Island state lobbyist, so now he can schmooze his way towards — what else? — yet another casino. [ProJo]
• For the record, we've no fucking clue who made a Gawker MySpace profile — but we're thrilled to have 541 friends! [Got Detroit]

Considering anyone with a camera crew is down in New Orleans right now for Mardi Gras, the town has become a happy media melting pot. To wit, our man in Louisiana reports that the other night, at a restaurant called Cuvee, he was sitting at the table next to cable news anchor Bill Hemmer, who's lately on Fox News after being dumped by CNN last May. At one point, the Today show's Al Roker happened to walk between the two tables. "Hey, Al!" said Hemmer, but the look of confusion on Roker's face made it clear that the he had no idea who the perky white guy was. "I'm Bill Hemmer," he clarified. "You know, I was on CNN."

Dave Letterman was in fine form last night, as he adorably served a spanking to Fox News shoutytwat Bill O'Reilly:

Attention prospective gentleman callers on Ms. Lauren Green: Contrary to popular belief, the Fox & Friends anchor ain't a lez. What a shame, too, because when lilywhite FOX correspondent James Rosen gushingly tried to play matchmaker with Green and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, we saw UPN midseason replacement written all over that thing. Alas, not all urbane, black conservative women are chowing one another's boxes:

• Esquire's geeky guinea pig A.J. Jacobs wikis the shit out of himself and his publication. Book deal TK. [News.com]
• Does South Beach need its own Bret East Ellis? And will someone please step up to the plate besides Wenner Media's Gwen Cooper? [MNT]
• If the impossibly adorable Mandy Moore is, in fact, in Silver Hill for rehab, then we're throwing in the towel. We simply cannot save these people, no matter how hard we try. [Bricks and Stones]
• New York gets movie-script level edgy. [NYP]
• That bastion of high design, Fox News, is hiring a new graphic design guru. Live the dream, young conservative art fags. [Craigslist]
• High Times Stony Awards is, none too surprisingly, more entertaining, snack-filled than the Oscars. [The Reeler]
• Us Weekly editor Janice Min is after your kids. It was inevitable, really. [Radar]

• Director Steven Spielberg might be ending his love affair with Tom Cruise because of the actor's sojurn into Crazytown. Specifically, Spielberg uses Ritalin to dope up his kids, which Cruise finds "glib." [Page Six]
• Meanwhile, new mom Britney Spears sides with Brooke Shields, takes on Cruise's ire in her battle against postpartum depression. [Scoop]
• Sadly, the most creative name anyone can come up with for model Tyra Banks and her well-notched bedpost is "Hollywood Hop." [R&M]
• When a pregnant employee speaks less than glowingly of Brad Pitt, the actor brings out his remarkably handsome pink slips. [Page Six]
• In his fight with the New York Times, which he feels portrayed him inaccurately, National Puerto Rican Coalition gets behind Fox News' Geraldo Rivera. The Gray Lady better watch out now, 'cause we hear they can throw a mean parade. [Lowdown (2nd to last)]

Simultaneously:

From the MSN homepage right now:

• God bless Jack Shafer, who writes what most journalists know but don't say: That readers are two-faced nincompoops. [Slate]
• BusinessWeek gets hammered by new circ rules; other pubs likely to follow. [NYP]
• Natalee Holloway's Aruba disappearance is, while bad for Natalee, very, very good for Greta Van Susteren. [AP]
• Explaining the baby-mag boom. [Mediaweek]
• Esquire announces five-year-plus series on building the Freedom Tower. [NYT]
• More proof of Simon Dumenco's very strange fantasy life: An imagined Thanksgiving at the Murdochs'. [Ad Age]
• Mediabistro's Elizabeth Spiers doesn't like women's magazines. Also, she is friends with people who are friends with Christopher Hitchens. [mb]
• On the recently wrapped MTV reality show Miss Seventeen, 17 girls compete to win an internship from Atoosa. [WWD, second item]