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Ann Coulter got invited on NBC? Really?

Matt Drudge is reporting unconfirmed, single-source news that commentator Ann Coulter was disinvited from the NBC "Today" show, where she was to appear this week to promote her new book. Supposedly, Coulter -- whose idea of heaven seems to include a plate-glass window where she can spend all day looking out at people being tormented in Hell -- has also been Banned For Life from NBC.

I don't know about the banning part, but here's my question: Why do MSM news organizations keep covering Ann Coulter? Why do they keep letting her leave flaming turd bags on their front steps? Instead of banning her, NBC and all the rest of the MSM should be ignoring her. Just let her wail away on the non-MSM fringe. She seems happier there anyway, although in Coulter's case "happy" is a highly relative term.



Special FX shows return

Hey, kill your HBO -- "Nip/Tuck" (9 pm CT Tuesday) and "Damages" (9pm CT Wednesday) are back on FX, after being off for more than a year! And they won't cost you an extra $10 on top of the $100 you're already shoveling at the cable company.

No offense to "Big Love" (which is returning to HBO Jan. 18), but it sure seems like FX is making a bigger effort than certain pay-cable channels I know -- and without that icky "pay" part involved.

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"Damages," "Nip/Tuck," "24" return

And Chip Franklin and I got around to talking about these shows -- just as soon as we had exhausted all football possibilities.

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Jere Gish is outta here

KMBC-TV's most chiseled anchor-reporter just signed off on tonight's 10 p.m. newscast. I always like it when they let you say goodbye.

"I'm taking an anchor job back in Pennsylvania," Jere Gish announced, saying it will allow him to raise his family near his extended family. Call it an educated guess, but I'd say he's going back to WGAL in Lancaster, the station (owned by Hearst, which also owns KMBC) where he worked before coming to Kansas City, where a morning anchor has just retired and where, I notice, a number of his stories are still online -- including the time he covered the red-hot "Amish in the City" controversy.

Speaking of goners, an update on the Pitch situation, where I'm told reliably that Charles Ferruzza has brokered what is becoming an increasingly common deal in our industry. He's staying on as a freelancer. Good to know he's still in print ... and on the market.

Best holiday card of '08

0103091719For sentimental reasons I will remember this card from the "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" gang, their last after 16 Christmases in NYC. For friendship reasons I will hang onto my annual card from Brian Hall, who sends out pictures of himself with Hollywood beauties to everyone from David Letterman to ... well, me.

But the prize goes to this beaut from the forever hip promo department at Comedy Central:

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A different take on the Gaza invasion...

Everybody is on the Gaza situation. Even MSNBC has interrupted its weekend of rerun filler to cover it.

But if you'd like a decidedly non-American-centric take, Al Jazeera English appears to have reporters all over the place. And the Doha correspondent just had one of those exchanges with a spokesman for the Israeli PM that you just don't see on American TV. And if you do, it's usually followed by someone throwing a temper tantrum - remember the McCain campaign blackballing Larry King, the softest of all softballs, after Campbell Brown beat up a McCain flack earlier in the day? Those Israelis put their suits on with five-inch nails -- they're tough. Watch as the spokesflack gives as good as he gets. And they'll get right back on AJE and do it again in a couple of hours, if not sooner. And beam it into Israel, where AJE has (last I heard) replaced BBC World on the largest Israeli cable systems.

Remember, Al Jazeera English is streaming live on Livestation.