5/4: Morning Communique

THESE DAYS

Mike Smith, the mayor of New Lenox, IL, apologized to his constituents and admitted to racking up $1,462 in Chicago strip club charges on his government credit card.

Cologne has banned foreign press from its red light district in the run-up to the football World Cup in Germany this June, after prostitutes complained about journalists chasing away their customers since British media reports raised global interest in local "drive-in brothels."

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

Voted Best Right-Wing Blog in last week's Best of the Twin Cities issue: Nihilist in Golf Pants

[Minnesota-based blog directory]

TIME WASTERS

Catch a glimpse of Daniel Craig in action as James Bond in the Casino Royale trailer.

Amnesty International's supplementary briefing to the UN Committee Against Torture

The Mystery Science Theater crew bring the funny to an old drivers education film.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"The fact of the matter is that the people who struggle most with writing are drunks. They get hammered at night and in the morning their heads are full of pain and adverbs."

-- Garrison Keillor, on writers who complain about the difficulty of their craft