cactus i.v.

By JIM MONTANA
jim.montana(at)hotmail.com
I will miss George Bush being President for one simple reason: He never fails to provide material to make fun of him.
Monday at the G8 summit was another of those times where Bush provided countless jokes at his expense. While talking to the Nigerian President, Bush summoned the attention of Canada’s Prime […]

After a long and tedious search, the golden cactus has been returned to it’s rightful owners. Just goes to prove what they say: Never trust the French.
All of this being said, the Newsmaker of the Day award has been returned to it’s rightful owner. So in honor of Independence Day, we proudly give the N.O.D. […]

When I was in eighth grade or so, I liked the Miami Dolphins — but that had nothing to do with Dan Marino, who was a QB, not a commentator, at the time. It had to do with Jonathan Brandis.
My friends and I were crushing on him hard. I can still probably recite lines from […]

If you’re reading this, you’ve survived the New Year’s festivities — and you’re working off that hang over [[water works, people!]].
If you spent a quiet evening watching Ryan Seacrest play Dick Clark, you saw the ball drop in Times Square in New York City. While the ball does ring in the new year, it also […]

I was planning on giving the “Newsmaker of the Day” cactus to Vinny Testaverde. On Sunday, he broke his record of being the oldest QB to win a game. And now he’s retired. After spending a big chunk of his 44 years throwing the pigskin, he deserved recognition.
But first his glory was stolen by an […]

On Christmas, a tiger escaped from the San Francisco zoo. On Saturday, an 18-page transcript about the incident was released.
One of the highlights was that zoo employees “questioned whether early reports of the Dec. 25 attack were coming from a mentally unstable person,” according to Jordan Robertson of the Associated Press.
The potentially unstable person was […]

Right now, you have to take out a second mortgage if you want to buy a gallon of milk. I mean, it’s seriously cheaper to raise a cow from birth and squeeze your own milk than to go to the grocery store and buy some. I don’t care if you live in a no pets […]

You know what there isn’t enough about on the cactus: stamps.
And you know why? Stamp collecting isn’t a topic that can be mentioned every week. But it can today.
Apparently some super rich Big Apple exec bought the inverted Jenny – known as “rare 24-cent stamp, depicting an upside-down Curtis JN-4 biplane known as ‘Jenny,’ ” […]

If you weren’t a traveler the past week, if you didn’t watch the news or if you lived in the Midwest or the East Coast and didn’t look out your window, you completely missed the huge storm that blew threw.
At last count, 11 people had died. Those families didn’t miss the storm.
You know who also […]

Jagshemash!
Sasha Baron Cohen has told a British tabloid that he is retiring his alter egos of Borat and Ali G. The two characters have become all too popular with the public and his comedy sketches with the characters are based on impromptu interaction with the public.
Many fans have grown to love the characters, especially Borat, […]

Santa Claus was groped at the Danbury Fair Mall by a woman in crutches. The police didn’t go into detail over the incident, but apparently Sandrama Lamy, 33, groped the unnamed Santa in front of children waiting in line.
“He was apparently shocked and embarrassed by the whole incident,” said Capt. Bob Myles, of the Danbury […]

The Committee to Protect Journalists said that 64 journalists have died in 17 countries this year, the deadliest year in more than a decade (and two short of the record). According to the group, 31 journalists died in Iraq — one fewer than a year ago.
We obviously cannot bring these people back, but today’s cactus […]

After two months of marriage, Pamela Anderson is getting divorced… again. The blonde bombshell is on her third husband, Rick Salomon, the man famously known for his sex tape with Paris Hilton.
She was previously married to Kid Rock and Tommy Lee. We thought this marriage would last because both became sex tape stars and at […]

Listening to Delilah at Night, you get to hear some heart-wrenching and heart-warming stories. Tonight, Delilah was taking holiday calls and one 12-year-old came to say how two years ago her family met an old man at Denny’s. The man was sitting by himself and started crying. His wife was a nursing home because she […]

I’ve been singing If I Could Turn Back Time, but that’s Cher, not Tina Turner.
Tina sang What’s Love Got To Do With It. She also allegedly beat Ike Turner.
I wonder if she ever really apologized.
She won’t get the chance now. Ike Turner died on Wednesday at age 76.
So, we give him the “Newsmaker of the […]

Jessica Alba broke up with her boyfriend of three years Cash Warren not too long ago, then they quickly got back together. Maybe the plus sign on the pregnancy test brought the couple back together.
Yes folks, Jessica Alba’s pregnant. She’s due in late Spring/early Summer, according to her publicist.
We can’t give her her pre-baby figure […]

Jeopardy host Alex Trebek had a minor one on Monday.
What is a minor heart attack.
Yup. The host of the popular game show was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center last night.
So, we can’t give Trebek a new heart, but we can give him the “Newsmaker of the Day” cactus and, let’s be honest, we know which […]

Michael Vick got 23 months in jail for running an underground dog fighting ring.
He doesn’t get the “Newsmaker of the Day” cactus for that.
Instead, we give it to some random online comment poster using the screen name Mosiemoyoung
Our dear Mosiemo commented the story on aol.com, so profoundly saying, 01:42:19 PM Dec 10 2007
Report This! Didn’t […]

Last night, two undefeated boxers met in the ring. Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Ricky Hatton were both a lot and oh going in, but one would end up with a blemish on his winning record.
Hatton, because he has an accent, would have been my pick; but, when I saw the hits his face has taken […]

When people die, they leave behind a will, giving out limited amounts of money and family heirlooms — and lots of “junk” — to living relatives.
When rich people die, they leave their stuff to people and places unrelated to them. Like museums. Or libraries. Or friends with a Chinese restaurant and a great recipe for […]

Most people thought the Buffalo Bill tight end wouldn’t make it after taking a bad hit early in the season.
But Kevin Everett proved people wrong. His spinal cord injury isn’t holding him back. In fact, Everett was walking on his own, it was said today.
According to Yahoo! News, “Everett was paralyzed from the neck down […]

So Jack Bauer was stuck in China and had to escape — or something. I don’t watch 24, so I couldn’t tell you [[DA Southern, any ideas?]].
Either way, hopefully Keifer Sutherland learned something about survival when his character was kidnapped [[trapped? held hostage? on Survivor?]] because Sutherland is in the news today for entering a minimum […]

So Ellen DeGeneres has a talk show. And maybe people watch it. And maybe she has good guests on it. I don’t know. I stumbled over it the other day, and she was interviewing one of the girls who made it to the final two of The Bachelor and then didn’t get a ring in […]

Today we give the “Newsmaker of the Day” award to Blake Lewis, the runner-up on the most recent season of American Idol.
Lewis, known for his beat boxing, releases his debut album, Audio Day Dream, today on Arista/J Records. As of 5:20 p.m. today, it was ranked No. 18 on the music charts on Amazon.com.
I don’t […]

Swedish people are typically gorgeous, so I don’t ever expect them to do anything but bathe in their beauty. Apparently some like to play with numbers.
Sweco, an engineering consultancy in Sweden, found out just how fast Santa’s reindeer must fly — 5,800 kilometers per second. That leaves “… 34 microseconds at each stop” said Anders […]

So today’s “Newsmaker of the Day” isn’t just one person, today, we give it to the entire Washington Redskins’ team.
Earlier this week, Redskins free safety Sean Taylor was shot and killed at his home. His funeral is tomorrow. And, instead of mourning his death in a melancholy way on the first game day after his […]

Kayne West missed claiming the first “Newsmaker of the Day” cactus by a few minutes, but he earns it today.
His mother died three weeks ago today from complications due to plastic surgery.
Yesterday, Evel Knievel died.
Don’t worry: There’s a connection.
Two days before Knievel’s death at 69, he and Kayne West settled a federal lawsuit because Kayne […]

So today we give the imaginary “Newsmaker of the Day” cactus to a Pittsburgh woman who sued Kmart.
If you go back a few weeks, you can see why I hate Kmart. So does that Pittsburgh woman.
See, Pennsylvania state law says that says that while paper products are taxable, toilet paper is not. Kmart is fascist […]

The cactus is getting a new feature in a couple hours. It’s going to be called “Newsmaker of the Day.”
Lisa’s going to read that day’s news [[at least, the news until 5 p.m.]] and at or about 6 p.m., we’ll claim someone the “Newsmaker of the Day.” We’ll give them a N.O.D. of a cactus, […]