Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was born on this day (October 28 – same day as Bill Gates, by the way) in 1956, has never exactly been a friend of the Jews (he has vowed to wipe Zionism off the map, and has come very close to denying the Holocaust, among other things), so there seemed to be an imminent irony overload in the making when it was alleged that Ahmadinejad was part-Jew himself. After the jump, we trace the controversy, and reveal the authority that has settled the question for good.

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After the (FTL) jump, Battlestar Galatica (BSG) series regulars Grace Park, Tricia Helfer, Michael Trucco, Jamie Bamber, Tahmoh Penikett and Katee Sackhoff discuss the making of the new DVD and Blu-ray release Battlestar Galatica: The Plan, their feelings about leaving the galaxy of BSG for good, what it was like playing Cylons, and the possibility of a BSG feature film.

(Plus: this week in home video.)

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Apparently, letting your babies sit in front of Disney-produced educational DVDs does nothing to make them smarter, and may actually make them stupider.

This is not exactly shocking. What is shocking, however, is (as reported in The New York Times) that Disney, which makes a ton of cash of these things, is pretty much admitting it:

The Walt Disney Co. is expanding a refund program for its ”Baby Einstein” videos for toddlers in response to challenges about the legitimacy of its educational claims [...]

The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, a Boston-based advocacy group, claimed ”victory” Friday in its yearslong battle to protect consumers from falsely believing the videos could, for example, teach words to babies under two years old.

”We believe that this is an acknowledgment that baby videos are not educational,” said Susan Linn, a psychologist and director of the campaign.

Honestly, if you were leaning on a Disney movie to teach your kid to speak and think, the only intellectual capacity you should be worried about is your own.

But then, I’m still waiting for my refund from the makers of my X-Ray vision goggles and my penis enlargement kit.

Speaking of people suckered by obvious shams (and also, adorable smiling creatures who are impervious to learning) did you know that former President Bush made his debut as a motivational speaker the other day?

(Top image from Tedsblog flickr page, used under Creative Commons license)

The Associated Press reports that Lebanon has fired the latest salvo in the ongoing battle with Israel over which country can lay claim to hummus, that delicious  and oh-so addictive chick pea-and-tahini spread/dip:

Lebanese chefs prepared a massive plate of hummus weighing over two tons Saturday that broke a world record organizers said was previously held by Israel — a bid to reaffirm proprietorship over the popular Middle Eastern dip.

“Come and fight for your bite, you know you’re right!” was the slogan for the event — part of a simmering war over regional cuisine between Lebanon and Israel, which have had tense political relations for decades.

Lebanese businessmen accuse Israel of stealing a host of traditional Middle Eastern dishes, particularly hummus, and marketing them worldwide as Israeli.

This is all sufficiently absurd, but wait for the punchline:

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The Cove, if you haven’t seen it – and you probably haven’t, since the documentary seems not to be doing so well in theatres, despite being as gripping and watchable as a Bourne movie – concerns the efforts of a group of environmentalists, led by former dolphin trainer, now dolphin liberator Ric O’Barry to document the slaughter of dolphins in a well-protected cove in a small village in Japan.

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For someone who entered college with no intention of becoming a writer, Malcolm Gladwell has found remarkable success as the author of three best-selling, non-fiction books, the only three he’s written, as a matter of fact.

His fourth effort, What the Dog Saw (published by Little Brown & Company, available Oct. 20 for $34.99), is a compilation of some of Gladwell’s work as a staff writer with The New Yorker, a position he’s held since 1996. Readers of his previous works — The Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers — will recognize Gladwell’s fluid storytelling, accessible style and keen insights in the 400-plus pages of What the Dog Saw.

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Oct 24-29, Toronto–Whether your love of martial arts stretches back to the era of Bruce Lee, or is of the more recent, Kill Bill variety, there is probably no better place to be this coming week than Toronto’s Ricoh Coliseum for the 10th World Wushu Championships, which is held every two years. The grand opening ceremony is on Saturday, and will feature a performance by members of Official China Performance Troupe. (Snappy name, that.)

The promo materials promise “Full Motion, Full Contact, Full Combative”, which sounds promising, if ungrammatical. So pack up the nunchucks and do that cool “running across the treetops” thing down to the Ricoh.

Here’s something to warm you up – a little Wu-style Wushu – after the jump (probably NSFW).

(Photo by Jeremy Barwick, used under Creative Commons License 2.0)

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Jack Kerouac, who finally drank himself to death on this day (October 21) in 1966, spent two months a decade earlier doing one of the most symbolism-stuffed job a  writer could possibly do: fire-watching alone in a small cabin on Desolation Peak in Northern Cascades National Park in Washingon State, about 250 km from Vancouver.

Kerouac had already written On The Road, but it wasn’t published until the following year, 1957. He was looking for some time alone and a place to dry out a little and maybe get some writing done, and what better spot could there be but a rickety wooden shack perched on the top of a mountain with nothing but a two-way radio for company?

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Simply put, Megan Fox is hot property in Tinsel Town and for moviegoers around the world. Fox’s seeming overnight success, brought on by the worldwide success of the Transformers cinematic franchise — director Michael Bay’s live-action adaptations of the cartoon series about battling skyscraper-sized robots who can mutate into anything mechanical — has transformed the down-to-earth  actress into a sizzling tabloid cover girl and international sensation. This success of this summer’s film phenomenon Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen (or TR2) has reinforced the beauty’s star power. Fox chats with Earl Dittman after the jump. (Plus: this week in home video)

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