NOW ALL THE KIDS ARE DOING IT

See what that Iraqi reporter started?

Then, referring to the authority’s chief executive, who was sitting about 15 feet away, he said: "Where is Elliot Sander?” He stooped, slipped off one of his shoes and shouted, “You made $300,000 last year.”

Immediately, authority police officers swarmed him and pushed him out of the room. He was clutching his shoe, a black, thick-soled oxford, in his hand.

“This shoe is for you,” he shouted as he was hustled out.

Still, I don't think the trend will take hold in the US media. Katie Couric's not going to be pegging anybody with thousand-dollar custom pumps, you know?

NEW YORK SERVES NOTICE ON SANTA

Oh, they may boo Santa in Philadelphia, but only New York City could slap him with a traffic ticket while he's delivering toys.

REASSURING OURSELVES

The Giants are falling apart, the Jets will break your heart and so will the Mets, the Yanks have thrown a bunch of money around with little to show, the hockey and hoops are dismal, but we're still number one in corruption...aren't we?

What color foam-rubber #1 finger goes with that, anyway? (Don't answer that.)

DITKA: TANNED, RESTED AND READY

Suddenly, Albany's got some catching-up to do in the grand corruption race. Client #9, meet Senate Candidate #5. At this rate, they'll have a retired-numbers wall going up by Christmas.

ICEBOX BILL JEFFERSON: DONE

50-47 means Jefferson (D-LA) can fully devote his attentions to all those indictiments, but had turnout not been driven down last month by Hurricane Gustav he'd be back - and comebacks are always possible. Even a certified nutter like Cynthia McKinney got her seat back, and she'd still be in DC if she hadn't gotten all slappy with that Capitol cop back in '06.

Congratulations in the meantime to Anh Cao. And with Jefferson and Ted Stevens both defeated the stage is set:

"Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure In Federal Prison" would be most totally awesome.

YOUR TIMING'S PERFECT, MR. PRESIDENT

My first full day on the air and look who's coming to West Point. As if there's not enough for me to stress about on that day.

MARTINEZ ACQUITTED

I haven't WTF'd over a jury verdict since the first OJ trial, but this one out of Fort Bragg is a serious headscratcher: the acquittal of Staff Sgt. Alberto Martinez in the fragging deaths of two Hudson Valley soldiers despite what looks to this untrained eye like something that should have been open and shut:

The prosecution said Martinez killed the soldiers after his anger at Esposito slowly rose from making threats to placing the mine. He had promised to "burn" and "frag" the captain -- and, after the killings, was seen laughing, happier than he had been in some time, after the killings, prosecutors said. He even asked a former supervisor if he wanted his old job back, they said. Staff Sgt. Amy Harlan, who also worked in supplies, had testified that she provided Martinez with Claymore mines in May, unaware of what would transpire...

THIS MONTH'S OVERWROUGHT JOURNALISM AWARD...

...goes to the New York Times reporter who compared last week's Black Friday Wal-Mart trampling death to the Spanish Civil War:

A Shopping Guernica Captures the Moment

Obviously ridiculous - unless my experience of having a new checkout line at Target open just as I was rolling up to it can be compared to Gandalf arriving with the Riders of Rohan just in time at the Battle of Helm's Deep.