PHONOGRAPH

The Weinstein Co. is claiming that NBC and the CW have refused to air national ads for the new Dixie Chicks docu "Shut Up & Sing."

According to the Weinstein Co., NBC's commercial clearance department said in writing that it "cannot accept these spots as they are disparaging to President Bush."

On Oct. 12, in the basement of a Unitarian church on the town green in Lexington, Mass., a carpenter named Michael Cresta scored 830 points in a game of Scrabble. His opponent, Wayne Yorra, who works at a supermarket deli counter, totaled 490 points. The two men set three records for sanctioned Scrabble in North America: the most points in a game by one player (830), the most total points in a game (1,320), and the most points on a single turn (365, for Cresta's play of QUIXOTRY).

\Quix"ot*ry\, n. Quixotism; visionary schemes.

Rush Limbaugh has accused actor Michael J. Fox of exaggerating the physical effects of his Parkinson's disease in political ads urging viewers to vote for Democrats in next month's election...

John Rogers, Fox's spokesman, called Limbaugh's remarks "shameful."

It's an appalling, sad statement," Rogers said. "Anybody who understands Parkinson's disease knows it's because of the medicine that one experiences" body movements like those seen in the ad.

The squabble may be entertaining (I always enjoy it when Rush puts his foot squarely in mouth), but it's not the issue. Let's not forget the issue. The issue, buried at the bottom of an article from the AP:

Dr. John Boockvar, a neurosurgeon and assistant professor at Weill Cornell Medical Center at New York's Presbyterian Hospital, called Limbaugh's claim that Fox was acting "ludicrous." Boockvar said those with Parkinson's have "on" and "off" spells.

"If there is one single disease that has the highest potential for benefit from stem cell research," Boockvar said Tuesday, "it's Parkinson's."

Let's not worry about Limbaugh or Fox. Let's worry about doing everything we can to cure Parkinson's and other terrible diseases. That's the issue!

Studio 60's real problem is structural. The show, which is set behind the scenes of a live network sketch show (also called Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip), must be a brilliant hour-long drama and a brilliant sketch comedy. And so far, the sketch comedy hasn't been satisfying.

Sorkin's already hired SNL and Kids in the Hall vet Mark McKinney to oversee Studio 60's sketch comedy, and it's unclear how much McKinney has contributed thus far. But maybe Sorkin should give McKinney more control over the sketches.

Late Night is getting scary, and I am not just talking about the evil puppy. From the AP:

Watching Conan O'Brien's "Late Night" on Halloween may be a scary proposition — the entire episode will be in "skelevision." The Oct. 31 edition will be a painstakingly reconstructed rerun of a show last May, with all featured performers appearing as skeleton puppets, NBC announced Monday.

The episode featured Larry King, "House" co-star Omar Epps and pole dancing workout instructor Sheila Kelley.

"It was a big clump of dirt," Rogers said after the game. "I didn't know it was there. They told me about, but it was no big deal."

Something so bizarre went on at Comerica Park on Sunday night that we need a Congressional committee, the cast of "Law and Order" and at least one descendant of Sherlock Holmes to sort it all out.

I know, Rogers pitched a scoreless first inning with the gunk on his hand. And then he pitched seven more scoreless innings without anything on his hand. In fact, one of the two hits he gave up came during the first, as did a walk. So he actually pitched better after his hand was clean.

But even if Rogers didn't do a thing wrong, this whole episode has a mysterious, someone's-not-telling-the-whole-truth feel to it.

Rogers with similar dirt patterns on his pitching hand in his ALCS start against Oakland. That, coupled with the statistics, makes Rogers look pretty guilty. But it's still circumstantial evidence.

So what I'd propose is this: Hire a crack team of physicists, from MIT or Stanford, Give them the FoxTrax data And see if Rogers' pitches are actually moving in ways that it is physically impossible for a normal baseball to move.

The United States is willing to use its full military might to defend Japan in light of North Korea's nuclear test, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday as she sought to assure Asian countries there is no need to jump into a nuclear arms race.

Eleven more U.S. troops were slain in combat, the military said Wednesday, putting October on track to be the deadliest month for U.S. forces since the siege of Fallujah nearly two years ago.

The teenager said the stabbing pains in her face felt like electrical shocks that lasted 10 to 30 seconds and struck 20 to 30 times a day. Her doctors diagnosed trigeminal neuralgia, a nerve disorder sometimes called "suicide disease" because of the excruciating and dispiriting pain it causes.

Doctors tried painkillers, then stronger medication, but in the end, a cure proved more simple: The young woman removed the metal stud from her pierced tongue.

Two days later her pain vanished.

After a disabled woman's cat started a house fire, her specially trained dog rescued her by bringing a phone to call for help. Jamie Hanson, 49, received third-degree burns on her arm in the fire that killed both of her pets, Sheboygan County Sheriff's officials said Monday.

The fire started Sunday night when Hanson's cat knocked a candle onto a chair. Hanson's dog then brought her a phone, allowing her to call for help.

• Donned a derby hat, a bamboo cane and a fake mustache.
• Ran across the field at Camp Randall Stadium minutes before kickoff of the homecoming game against Minnesota.
• Threw my cane over the goal post.

The University of Wisconsin has put its marching band on probation after receiving reports of severe misconduct during the band's trip last month to the University of Michigan football game.

What band members did, exactly, is still a mystery - even to some students - but it was described in an Oct. 3 letter from Chancellor John Wiley to band director Michael Leckrone as behavior "that can be seen as anything from boorish and offensive to patently dangerous and unlawful."

Wiley warned in the letter he would consider suspending the band's activities and travel or replacing its leadership if there were more reports of "gratuitous vulgarity, sexualized banter or joking, hazing, or other forms of demeaning conduct."

A 60-year-old man visiting La Crosse to help his elderly mother spent 17 hours in jail this week after a background check during a routine traffic stop uncovered an arrest warrant for a 1984 ticket.

Michael L. Saxton of Phoenix, said he never knew about the citation for failure to display boat registration numbers that the Wisconsin Circuit Court Access Consolidated Court Automation Programs' Web site listed as having been issued against him in June 1984.

Saxton, a La Crosse native, was jailed from Monday until a Milwaukee County court commissioner reviewed the case Tuesday.

More than 600,000 Iraqis have died violently since the U.S.-led invasion, according to a new estimate that is far higher than any other to date.

The report, by a team of researchers criticized for its death estimates two years ago, says that 601,027 Iraqis have suffered violent deaths since the March 2003 invasion. It also suggests that the country has become more violent in the last year.

"This clearly is a much higher number than many people have been thinking about," said Gilbert Burnham, the report's lead author and a professor at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. "It shows the violence has spread across the country...."

Based on the survey results, the Johns Hopkins researchers said, they are 95% certain that the number of Iraqis killed violently during the war ranges from 426,369 to 793,663. They said 601,027 is statistically the most probable number.

A 62-year-old retired accountant from Nevada swallowed 247 peppers in eight minutes to win the Jalapeno Eating World Championship at the State Fair of Texas.

Richard LeFevre won $2,000 for prevailing in Sunday's contest, which was sponsored by the International Federation of Competitive Eating...

LeFevre was one of four professional eaters who took the top four places in the competition.

Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas said she had never eaten a jalapeno before the contest. Ranked third in the world by the federation, she downed 239 peppers to take second place and $1,000 in prize money.

Christopher Huang, of Arlington, entered the competition even though he doesn't normally eat spicy foods.

"I eat mild salsa," Huang said. "But there's nothing like putting yourself through a lot of pain for no reason."

Is there ever any reason to eat a hot pepper, except to put yourself through a lot of pain for no reason? I know that's why I eat them.

Those people wearing "Stewart/Colbert '08" T-shirts can stop hoping — Comedy Central's fake news stars have no intention of making a run for the White House.

Jon Stewart said the T-shirts promoting him and Stephen Colbert "are a real sign of how sad people are" with the state of affairs in the country.

"Nothing says 'I am ashamed of you my government' more than 'Stewart/Colbert '08,' Stewart told an audience Sunday at the New Yorker Festival. He was interviewed by the magazine's editor, David Remnick.

If you want a t-shirt anyway, you can get one here, or here, or here.

Lasee came up with the idea following the recent string of school shootings.

"When you can make someone think twice about doing something like that or be very concerned about 'Gee, I don't know what classroom is going to have someone who's armed and who may return fire' I think that's a good thing," says Lasee.

O'Reilly's chapter on "The Class Factor" (Chapter 1, luckily for me) contains some puzzling counterevidence. "I'm working-class Irish American Bill O'Reilly … pretty far down the social totem pole," he says. Growing up in the 1960s, he watched his father "exhausting himself commuting from Levittown" to work as an accountant for an oil company. Dad "never made more than $35,000"—which would be $100,000 or more in today's money.

CTV's Joy Malbon told Canada AM that crime is something a lot of them have never even heard of, much less grappled with.

"Many of them don't watch TV, don't have cellphones or cars, and wouldn't even be aware of the rash of school killings that have happened in the United States in the last few weeks," she said, reporting from Paradise, Penn.

"What strikes me is how everyone says we must forgive, we must move on, because the only thing we have is our faith and each other...."

Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College in Lancaster County.

"I think the Amish community has a remarkable capacity for dealing with diversity. In many ways, they are better prepared to deal with this kind of situation than many other Americans," Professor Donald Kraybill, a leading scholar of Amish communities, told CTV's Canada AM.

A Republican staff member warned Congressional pages five years ago to watch out for Congressman Mark Foley, according to a former page.

Matthew Loraditch, a page in the 2001-2002 class, told ABC News he and other pages were warned about Foley by a supervisor.

Loraditch, the president of the Page Alumni Association, said the pages were told "don't get too wrapped up in him being too nice to you and all that kind of stuff."