Jason Leopold got a journalistic black eye three years ago when Salon retracted a story the freelancer had written about a Bush administration official, saying it could not authenticate the piece.

Now the former Los Angeles Times and Dow Jones reporter has written a book, Off the Record, that criticizes journalists as lazy. Oh, and by the way, Leopold says he engaged in "lying, cheating and backstabbing," is a former cocaine addict, served time for grand larceny, repeatedly tried to kill himself and has battled mental illness his whole life.

But the book's publisher, Rowman & Littlefield, has canceled Off the Record days before it was to go to press, despite having sent out news releases and listed the book on Amazon.com.

Maybe it's my fever (yes, I'm still sick; why bother assuming otherwise), but this article reads like nothing so much as nonsense. Or, to put it another way: If humor relies on intentional contradictions, unintentional contradictions are generally too confusing to be funny. Huh? That's right: confusion sucks, doesn't it? (Huh?) (... Must go back to ... sleep.)