A judge ordered that Toni Locy reporter at the subversive rag USA Today pay out-of-pocket fines to upwards of $5000 a day for not revealing her sources. She was given a stay while her an appeals court looked at her case.

We've been following this case because it's worse than fiction. Nothing you can make up can be more bone chilling and frightening to reporters or to the integrity of The Constitution. But if tyranny and Bush appointees give you a warm and fuzzy feeling - here's your feel good story from the Boston Globe:

"Nicky Scarfo can have a defense fund," Locy said. "Scooter Libby can have a defense fund. But I can't have a defense fund."

Is this a great country, or what? Scooter Libby can lie for an administration that had already lied us into a needless war, get a free pass from the guy who runs that administration, and we're going to throw Locy in jail?

Judge [Reggie] Walton said, from the bench, that he hoped his ruining Locy would make other government officials less likely to talk to reporters.

That's nice. The last time I checked, the country is a mess not because the press has too much power, but because the government does.

Shudder.

USA Today journalist Toni Locy,was ordered by U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton to pay dearly for not revealing her sources.

From the LAT:

Until she does, Walton ruled last week, Locy must pay out of her own pocket daily contempt-of-court fines that would increase from $500 the first week to $1,000 the second week to $5,000 thereafter.
On Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit stayed Walton's order during Locy's appeal, raising hopes that she might prevail. Even if she does, other reporters could be pressed to choose between bankruptcy and a violation of professional ethics. Until the Supreme Court reverses a wrongheaded 1972 holding that the 1st Amendment does not protect a reporter's privilege, protection must come from Congress.

USA Today's Ken Paulson chimes in and breaks it down:

In its most basic terms, Locy is being punished by one arm of the government for listening to another arm of the government.

That's how 'Kristen' must feel about Client #9.

MySpace just got a whole lot less fun. FOX is going to comb through the files to find sites using copywrite music. Repeat offenders will be barred from the site.

FOX licensed technology from Gracenote which compares
music on individual pages with Gracenote's database of copyright material and can block uploads without proper rights. And so many 15 year olds think of synch rights when building a page in honor of Horse.

FBLA wonders FOX didn't think of this sooner.

Al Gore and his bastion of amateur content, Current TV, have announced a contest for the best video that addresses "issues of tolerance and understanding diversity". Submissions are judged by Margaret Cho, Paul Haggis, Melissa Ethridge and Edward Norton. Thanks to the Third Millenium Foundation, the big winner gets $115,000 with $15K going to a charity of the prize-winner's choice.

It would be cynical indeed to point out that the official rules state:

Current TV and TMF reserve the right to approve the selection of such charitable organization, and each Participant hereby agrees to comply with the exercise of that right, if at all.

It would also be very cynical to speculate that such charitable organizations might possibly include The Boy Scouts of America, the Republican National Committee, National Right to Life Commitee, Students for Academic Freedom, the Cato Institute, Focus on the Family, the Hoover Institution et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

If you don't trust me with a choice, how can you trust me with a camera?

Pirates of the Caribbean is subtitled Dead Man's Chest. And after Saturday's premier at Disneyland, we know why.

Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom couldn't even make it down the red carpet without veering off midway, body guards in tow, to stop for a cigarette break, a red carpet doyenne tells us.

"Granted it was a long red carpet, and they were being sweet and signing autographs for everyone who asked," says the eye-witness, who asks not to be name for fear of never being able to bum a smoke in this town again. "But still, it had only been about 45 minutes."

Starting in September '007, Activision will have Bond.

With "Casino Royale" due out from MGM in six months, the nation's number two gamemaker has wrested the popular video franchise from Electronic Arts.

The question is, after Daniel Craig - hardly the poster child for secret agents - gets done with Bond, will there still be any interest the franchise?

The winners of this year's Pultizer Prizes were announced today, and L.A. Times, which nabbed two last year, was completely shut-out.

Perhaps just a surprisingly, in the fiction run-off, Aussie Geraldine Brooks's "March" startled industry-types by eliminating E.L. Doctorow's "The March," widely considered the favorite.

Wagged one motion picture lit agent, "It's the Florida election in West Palm Beach all over again."

Geraldine Brooks = The new Pat Buchanan?

Hmm...

Bob Sillerman, the former radio and concert mogul, today announced that he's acquired an 80% interest in the name and likeness of Muhammad Ali for $50 million.

Despite the sloppily-written press release (which offers no first reference to who "Mr. Sillerman" is) we are please that Ali has finally gotten such a windfall.

We remember Ali - addled by Parkinson's - poignantly struggling to sign boxing gloves and 8 x 10's, in David Remnick in 1998 masterpiece, "King of the World."

Said Ali at the time, "I sign so we can eat."

Those days of worry are clearly over for Ali.

The larger question though, is what exactly Sillerman is driving at. Having who sold his concert behemoth SFX Entertainment to Clear Channel for $4.4 billion in 2000, he appears to be assembling an entertainment company he hopes will tap profits for stars beyond traditional film and TV sources: For instance, last summer, his acquisition of MBST management.

We're confused about one thing, though: If Sillerman acquired an 80% stake in Muhammad Ali's name, wouldn't that only spell "Muhamma-" ?

(Rimshot, please.)

Additional coverage in the Wall Street Journal.

All this talk of what Dan Brown's spouse-brarian Blythe Brown knew and when she knew it obsfuscates the real point of the "DaVinci" trial: To sell product. The $1.75 million in legal fees has generated some 406 media postings today alone.

Wire services have dutifully covered the tedious legal grind of the trial. The plaintiffs, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, have throughout exhibited an almost childishly naive sense of how a trial works. Viz, Bloomberg's report about their lawyer, Rayner James, who laments that, under cross examination, Dan Brown offered

"...not a positive defense of identifying from where he obtained this material, but rather the production of a list of possibilities..."

Well, duh. Brown doesn't have to prove anything; that's the job of Baigent and Leigh's testimony. So far, they've failed utterly.

However, while the two historians are likely facing $1.75 millon in legal fees, Reuters notes that the trial has been a boon to both books:

"...the publicity has caused a spike in sales of "Holy Blood." Also set to benefit from the media coverage is the upcoming Hollywood adaptation of "The Da Vinci Code," starring Tom Hanks, due in theaters in May; the release of the U.S. paperback edition of the novel on March 28, and Baigent, whose book "The Jesus Papers" is due out next week."

Honestly, Sony must be praising the Lord right about now. Really, not that a Hanks and Ron Howard pairing represents any kind of a risk, but still: You can't buy this kind of publicity.