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Instapundit reports that in a post-Election Day appearance, Maureen Dowd "looks absolutely terrible. It's like she's aged ten years since I last saw her. Her manner is subdued, and bitter, too. I guess that explains her post-election writing. It's striking to see a pundit taking the election so hard — most actual Democratic politicians seem to be maintaining more personal distance." Well, really, who had more on the line in this campaign? A professional politician has ups and downs in his or her career; you win some races, and you lose some. But the press bet the house against...

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Oscar-winning movie star Catherine Zeta-Jones has sued a small strip club in Nevada for using her picture on its raunchy website, court documents showed. The Welsh beauty filed suit Thursday against The Spice House, billed as "Reno's Friendliest Topless Cabaret," for allegedly using her image for advertising and promotion without her permission. Zeta-Jones, the wife of Hollywood prince Michael Douglas, said her image was "prominently featured on numerous pages" of the adult club's web site, according to the lawsuit filed in the US District Court in Los Angeles. An image of Zeta-Jones appeared on some pages...

Catherine Zeta Jones had bullet-proof windows installed at her Swansea mansion to fend off stray golf balls - and not potential attackers. The multi-millionairess actress raised eyebrows when the high-security glass was put in at her £2m house. At first it was thought she wanted to prevent a potential attack on her young children and Hollywood star husband Michael Douglas. But the glass has actually been installed to prevent stray shots flying into her lounge from the golf club next door. A member of the club said: "If you slice your shot your ball will fly towards their house so...

LOS ANGELES - A psychiatrist was appointed to examine a woman accused of stalking Catherine Zeta-Jones. Superior Court Judge John Wiley ordered Tuesday that Dawnette Knight, 32, be examined by Dr. Kal Sharma by Sept. 15. The psychiatrist will determine whether Knight is competent to stand trial and can work with her lawyer. The examination will be conducted in jail, where Knight is being held on $1 million bail. Knight, who wrote numerous letters threatening the Oscar-winning actress, is charged with one felony count of stalking and 24 felony counts of making criminal threats. A hearing to determine whether there...

LOS ANGELES - A crazed stalker with a fatal attraction to Michael Douglas terrorized his wife, Catherine Zeta-Jones, threatening to "cut her to bits" or blow her up "so pieces of her head look like President Kennedy's," according to bombshell court testimony yesterday. Douglas and his movie-star wife took the stand to reveal terrifying details from phone calls and letters they said were written by aspiring psychologist Dawnette Knight, 32. In a case that seems almost ripped from the script of Douglas' chilling 1987 film "Fatal Attraction," Knight allegedly took up her poisoned pen because she was infatuated with the...

WASHINGTON — The capital has plunged into satire. There's the bizarre investigation of Sandy Burglar, as the respected former national security adviser has now been dubbed, pulling a Fawn Hall and smuggling stuff out of the National Archives in his fine washables. And just when you thought the Bush foreign policy couldn't sound more chuckleheaded, revelations in the 9/11 commission report being released today elevated the Bush doctrine to an Ali G skit. The most astute prophet of the administration's Middle East muddle is Sacha Baron Cohen, the hilarious British comedian whose Ali G character is an uninformed gangsta rapper...

LOS ANGELES — As Republicans on the East Coast fret about Dick Cheney acting bonkers, Democrats on the West Coast fret about Teresa Heinz Kerry acting flaky. It would be an act of simple courtesy to the world for Mr. Cheney to get off the ticket, since he has already done as much damage as humanly possible in four years. But the Bushes always stick to their bad but deferential vice-presidential choices. John McCain, Colin Powell or Rudy Giuliani would be way too threatening for W. So now we have to watch the nauseating spectacle of Senator McCain pumping up...

NEW YORK (AFP) - Actor Eric Douglas, a member of Hollywood's Oscar-winning Douglas acting dynasty, was found dead in a New York apartment, according to news reports. The 46-year-old son of Kirk Douglas and half-brother of Michael Douglas had battled against drug and alcohol addiction for years and had frequent brushes with the law as he lived in the shadow of his famous relatives. The actor and stand-up comedian was found dead on the floor of the living room of his Manhattan apartment after someone hailed a passing police car, New York City Police reportedly said. There were no signs...

hey are pretty.Pretty and soothing.Soothing and smooth.Smooth and light.Light and watery.The eight designs for a memorial at ground zero, gleaming with hanging candles and translucent tubes and reflecting pools and the smiling faces of those killed on 9/11, aim to transcend. And they succeed.They transcend terror. They have the banality of no evil. They represent the triumph of atmosphere over atrocity, mood over meaning. The designs are more concerned with the play of light on water than the play of darkness on life.They have taken the heaviest event in modern American history and made the lightest memorials.As I walked around...

They were wrong, of course. Soldiers should not go public in the middle of a conflict and trash-talk their superiors or ask for the resignation of the secretary of defense. But it was inevitable that their gripes would bubble to the surface. Many American troops in Iraq are exhausted, and perplexed about the scary new guerrilla war they're caught up in. And they have every right to be scared, because the coolly efficient Bush commanders have now been exposed as short-term tacticians who had no strategy for dealing with a war of liberation that morphed into a war of attrition....

hy, oh Y, are men so insecure? The darlings have been fretting for some years now that they may be rendered unnecessary if women get financial and biological independence, learning how to reproduce and refinance without them. What if nature played a cruel trick and demoted men, so they had to be judged merely by their appearance, pliability and talent for gazing raptly at the opposite sex, no matter how bored? New research on the Y chromosome shows that my jittery male friends are not paranoid; they are in an evolutionary shame spiral. As Nicholas Wade wrote in The Times:...

The Maureen Dowd Two Minute Mock* Column I: Conspiracy Theories June 23, 2003 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- by Bernard Chapin -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *This column, and all that follow, are inspired by Donald Luskin’s excellent, “Krugman Truth Squad”, which appears at nationalreivew.com. Like a cat who spends a good part of its life scratching your leg for no discernible reason, Maureen Dowd is back this week with another fantastic tale to tell. It is our pleasure to analyze it. Her column is called “Desert Double Feature”. Maureen, as always, first instructs. In the beginning we discover that the genesis of the war against Saddam had...

By rolling over Iraq, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld hoped to deep-six the sixties. The president was down with that. He never grooved on the vibe of the Age of Aquarius anyway.Conservatives were eager to purge the decades' demons, from tie-dye to moral relativism, from Hanoi Jane to wilting patriotism, from McGovern to blaming America first, from Lucy-in-the-sky-with-diamonds to the Clintonesque whatever-gets-you-through-the-night ethos.In their preferred calendar, more Gingrichian than Gregorian, American culture fast-forwards from Elvis's blue suede shoes to John Travolta's white polyester suit.Whatever else has gone awry in the Mideast so far, the administration may have succeeded in exorcising...

Michael Douglas has launched an unprovoked attack on some of Catherine Zeta Jones former boyfriends - branding them idiots. The Welsh actress dated the likes of John Leslie, Soldier Soldier star Angus McFadyen and Mick Hucknall before getting together with Douglas. Talking about their initial courtship, Douglas, who is 25 years her senior, told the London Evening Standard: "I found out she had strong family ties and had her share of knocks as far as relationships were concerned - she'd been with her fair share of idiots." And referring to the considerable age gap between them, the actor added: 'I...

The main nominations for this year's Bafta film awards, to be held at the Odeon Leicester Square cinema in London on 23 February. Best filmThe Pianist Chicago Gangs of New York The Hours The Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers Best British film (Alexander Korda award for the outstanding British film of the year)The Warrior Bend it Like Beckham Dirty Pretty Things The Hours The Magdalene Sisters Best director (David Lean award for achievement in direction)Roman Polanski - The Pianist Rob Marshall - Chicago Martin Scorsese - Gangs of New York Stephen Daldry - The Hours Peter Jackson -...

New celebrity virus -- Catherine Zeta-JonesBy Will Sturgeon Silicon.com The popularity of media favorite Catherine Zeta-Jones has led to the Welsh actress being used as a hook to tempt users into launching a virus on their PCs. Anti-virus firm Sophos has detected a virus hidden in a file which offers recipients some smutty pictures of Mrs. Michael Douglas. Although the firm says customers have reported instances of the virus in the wild there are no known cases of infection. Users at risk are those using file-sharing service Kazaa and internet relay chat (IRC) instant messaging through which the virus can...

The Berlinale is expected to attract more than 100 000 visitors to Berlin. (February 6 - 16, 2003) The annual glitter at this year's Berlinale film festival may be overshadowed by a war on Iraq. At the pre-festival press conference this week, Berlinale director Dieter Kosslick called to "shoot films, not people". The possibility of a war in Iraq has already thrown a shadow over Germany's most glamourous culture highlight, the Berlinale film festival. It even influenced the selection of films for the annual festival competition, Berlinale director Dieter Kosslick(photo) said on Tuesday - in the case of a war...

Who Has the Hot Rods?By MAUREEN DOWD ASHINGTON — Colin Powell finally has the goods on the evil dictator.He has spy satellite photos of trucks pulling up to buildings in the outlaw regime when inspectors aren't around, lots of bustling activity around those metal rods for the nukes threatening civilization.Mr. Powell has all the evidence he needs to convince the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday that we are justified in making a pre-emptive strike on North Korea.Only one hitch: President Bush doesn't want to attack North Korea; he wants to contain North Korea.He doesn't want to contain Iraq, he told...

WASHINGTON -- Veterans groups are angry at President George W. Bush for supporting a 1995 government decision to rescind an old promise of free lifetime health benefits for military retirees. This is the man who told veterans and active-duty military personnel after the 2000 campaign that he would make sure "promises made to our veterans will be promises kept." So why does he persist in short-changing the retirees, especially when he is preparing for another war and hoping to lure more volunteers for the military? Many World War II and Korean conflict veterans have been hopping mad ever since the...

WASHINGTON There was no smoking gun last night. There was merely a smoky allusion. President Bush tried to sell skittish Americans on a war with Iraq by alluding to the possibility of a link between Saddam and Al Qaeda. Outlaw regimes seeking bad weapons, Mr. Bush said, "could also give or sell those weapons to terrorist allies, who would use them without the least hesitation." The axis of evil has shrunk to Saddam, evil incarnate. Iran and North Korea were put aside with the dismissive comment: "Different threats require different strategies." The state of the union is skeptical.