ALL THE NEWS THAT FITS, BUT JUST BARELY (given this darn new beta program for posting)

Comic Relief celebrated its 20th Anniversary by Raising Funds to Assist Families in the Rebirth of New Orleans on Saturday night, November 18th... The three hour show aired on HBO and its sister station, TBS... Hosted by its original trio of Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg, and Robin Williams,. it was filled with hot, rising comedy talent and live segments from New Orleans. If you missed it it’s available On Demand…

Meanwhile, Lindsay Lohan, pictured here hurriedly changing out of leather pants and a leopard-skin pillbox hat... Has reportedly just given up fur after learning that she was just days away from being named by PETA as this year's Worst Dressed Celebrity…

OJ Britney

But no laughing matter is this news item: the Washington State Department of Ecology has fined Celebrity Cruises $100,000 for dumping untreated wastewater into state waters in the fall of 2005 from its ship, the (aptly or unfortunately named) Mercury. The company blamed the spill on confusion about whether the ship was in state-governed waters...

Kobe Bryant Lebron

...Wait, does that mean outside of state waters it’s assumed it's okay to dump?! Oh, my…

Friday night at the United Nations, American rap star Jay-Z premiered his new video diary, ‘Water For Life’, which captures his journey into areas affected by the ongoing global water crisis... Touring several developing countries, Jay-Z is shone travelling children along the roads they take every day to fetch water for their families and schools, water that is often unsafe and inadequate to local needs... UNICEF is working to improve water and sanitation conditions – with an eye toward the Millennium Development Goal of halving the number of people without access to safe water or basic sanitation by 2015…

… More sweet music to globally over-heated ears, rock luminaries Green Day and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) announced a major new campaign Friday. Move America Beyond Oil will mobilize and empower music fans to demand clean, renewable energy solutions that break our dangerous dependence on oil -- a fuel that threatens both our security and our environment…

The pairing unites one of the world's most popular and socially conscious rock groups with one of the nation's most effective environmental action groups… The online hub for the Move America Beyond Oil campaign is http://www.greendaynrdc.com/ where visitors can see exclusive video messages from the band and send personal messages directly to political leaders straight from the site. Visitors will also be able to send text messages directly from their cell phones to lawmakers and corporate leaders, a development the NRDC sees as ushering in a new age of ‘Cell Phone Activism’… Fine with me, as long as you’re not driving… The NRDC, long known for the work of its lawyers and scientists, has gained prominence by virtue of it collaborations with well known conservationists such as Robert Redford, James Taylor, Leonardo DiCaprio, Laurie David, Jack Black, Cameron Diaz and Ben Harper...

Readers will want to take a look at Elizabeth Kolbert’s most recent article, "The Darkening Ocean," in this week’s New Yorker. Following on her fabulous, three-parter last year on global climate change -- far more detailed and frightening than even the admirable An Inconvenient Truth -- this piece gives the particulars of a newly identified phenomenon known as "ocean acidification" which is nearly irreversible and the result of carbon emissions.