Stop and take a breath

Strange things happen when you don’t:

After a summer of ranting in the US over health care reform, both left and right held their collective breath for Barack Obama‘s big policy speech last night and it was…fine. A predictably eloquent yet middle-of-the-road summary that gives Obama the advantage of making anyone who opposes his fair-minded reform plans look like a total asshole — oh, and here’s one right on cue:

Remember when anyone who opposed Bush’s disastrous war on Iraq was told to shut up and “support the president?” How quickly they forget!

But of course, all this drama was overshadowed by the news that Ellen Degeneres has been chosen to replace Paula Abdul as the new permanent judge on American Idol! Finally, someone gayer than Simon Cowell and it surprised a lot of us who had her pegged as more of a ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ girl:

Ellen is so excited about her new role on ‘Idol’ that she’s already run out and become addicted to Percocets!

 

Before all that ‘Idol’ worship, however, we’ll all need a break and I’m happy to say I’m getting one last cottage weekend in, so I’ll be back on Monday but first, with ronight’s season premiere of hot-guys-hunting-monsters show ‘Supernatural’ (or next Wednesday on Space), I’ll leave you with the most gratuitous website ever — The Shrine of Jared Padalecki’s Ass. Enjoy!

A former editor of the late, lamented fab magazine, Scott has been writing for Xtra since 2007 on a variety of topics in news pieces, interviews, blogs, reviews and humour pieces. He lives on the Danforth with his boyfriend of 12 years, a manic Jack Russell Terrier, a well-stocked mini-bar and a shelf of toy Daleks.

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