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Guten morgen, all. I notice the online WashPost had a photo of Dubya in business suit on board the ship. I guess they were afraid the flightsuit pic was just too, too attractive to potential voters.

Tinfoil alert:

CELEBS wouldn't be celebs without their own personal paranoia. Elle Macpherson's big fear is radiation in the skies. That's why the supermodel had a special lead-lined cot made for her 12-week-old son, Aurelius, to protect him from supposedly deadly rays while flying on planes. Macpherson's better half, banker Arpad Busson, hefted the weighty contraption aboard a recent British Airways flight from the Bahamas to Heathrow recently, while Macpherson and her older son Flynn wrapped themselves in special foil blankets for the journey. (Page Six)

Psycho alert:

-- SEN. John Kerry might want to tell his wife to clean up her language now that he's running for president. When Teresa Heinz, the widow of Republican Sen. John Heinz III, married Kerry in 1995, she said, "Someone my age who has a professional life doesn't change her name." But now she's conforming to Middle American taste and letting herself be called Teresa Heinz Kerry. "They'll call me Mrs. Kerry, because that's what's natural to them. And I don't tell them to shut up . . . Now, politically, it's going to be Teresa Heinz Kerry, but I don't give a [bleep], you know?" she chuckles. "There are other things to worry about." (Page Six)

The late Roone Arledge on the prima donnas of ABC News (his employees, but they didn't want to act like it):

In "Roone," which comes out May 13 from Harper Collins, he wrote that "There were days when I hated the effing business, hated dealing with the effing prima donnas of both sexes!"

When Arledge, who died in December at the age of 71, created "Prime Time Live" for ABC News in 1989, he said, "More than anything, I wanted my hands around [Sam] Donaldson's neck."

The problem? Arledge was stealing Sawyer from CBS' "Sixty Minutes" and wanted to pair her with Donaldson. Both were getting nearly the same money. But Sawyer would get to say "Hello" as the show opened. "I should say 'Hello,'" Arledge quoted Donaldson as saying. If the former White House pit bull couldn't couldn't open the show, "it would be a dealbreaker," Arledge wrote. "What rational adult - even Sam - would walk away from such an opportunity over a 'hello'?"

Sawyer's arrival also didn't sit well with Peter Jennings, who was only appeased when he learned she wouldn't share his anchor desk, Arledge wrote. NY Daily News

Here's a remarkable story:

MOAB, Utah, May 2 — Pinned by a boulder for five days and having run out of water, a climber amputated his own arm with a pocket knife, rappelled down a cliff and walked until rescuers found him. Aron Ralston, 27, of Aspen, Colo., was in serious condition Friday at a hospital in Grand Junction, Colo., following the ordeal Thursday.

Ralston was climbing Saturday in Blue John Canyon, adjacent to Canyonlands National Park in far southwestern Utah, when a 1,000-pound boulder fell on him, pinning his right arm, authorities said. Initial reports said the boulder might have weighed 200 pounds, but rescuers who later went to the site said it weighed closer to 1,000 pounds.

Sheriff’s Sgt. Mitch Vetere told NBC’s “Today” show that the team that went to the site concluded “he had no other option” but to cut off his arm because the air-based search team “wouldn’t have seen him from the air.”

Ralson was able to tell rescuers that he ran out of water on Tuesday, and on Thursday morning decided that his survival required drastic action. Using his pocketknife, he amputated his arm below the elbow and applied a tourniquet and administered first aid. He then rigged anchors, fixed a rope and rappelled 75 feet to the canyon floor. He hiked downstream and was spotted about 3 p.m. by a Utah Public Safety Helicopter.

The search for Ralston had begun the same morning, after authorities were notified he was four days overdue reporting for work.

Vetere, who led the air search, spotted Ralston with two hikers near a trail head. Ralston was then loaded into a helicopter for the 12-minute flight to a hospital. Ralston was “thoroughly exhausted,” Vetere said. “The only thing he wanted was water.”

Ralson walked into the emergency room on his own.

“I’ve never seen anybody who has the will to live and is as much of a warrior as Aron is, and I’ve been doing this for 25 years,” said park ranger Steve Swanke, who was with Ralston in the emergency room. “He is a warrior period.”

Ralston’s expeditions have been known to trigger awe, said Brion After, manager of the Ute Mountaineering store in Aspen where Ralston works. After said Ralston has climbed 49 of Colorado’s 14,000-foot-plus mountains.

"To be honest, sometimes we get pretty scared with some the things he’s doing,” After said.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/908232.asp?0cv=NB10

The Elle psycosis has left me speechless.

So Sam's a sore loser. While he was WH correspondent there must have been a dust up between Sam and Hellen.

How lucky is Diane Sawyer to have sqeeked out of hosting with Sam?!

Peter Jennings would feel threaten if Eminem was hired.

Now, politically, it's going to be Teresa Heinz Kerry, but I don't give a [bleep], you know?" she chuckles.

I knew this was going to be fun. :-)

The whiny twins
Sam and Peter