By Debbie Schlussel

As you know, most people don’t watch tonight’s Super Bowl for the action on the field.  They watch for the ads.  Last year’s ads were mostly unmemorable and unremarkable.

Below is an ad which was an absolute utter failure and only ran once–during the Superbowl.  Holiday Inn realized that this wasn’t exactly the best way to market that they’ve spent millions to, um, “surgically” change the look of the hotel.  And everyone remembered the ad, the next morning, but not the sponsor of it and the product being, uh, “pimped.”

What’s your fave Supe ad, and why? Feel free to post a link to yours. And in the meantime, here are some previews of ads airing during tonight’s Big Game, which I like, with my brief commentary:

Gatorade: Uh-oh, they show Christian football players praying and players with their hands on their hearts during the National Anthem. Religion and patriotism–we can’t have that. The nerve . . .

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By Debbie Schlussel

The best commentary I’ve read in defense of the Tim Tebow Focus on the Family Superbowl ad airing during tonight’s Big Game, is from Michael Hiestand, USA Today’s Sports on TV columnist.  An excerpt:

Tim Tebow & Mom, Stars of Supe Ad

After relentless ads on TV football for erectile dysfunction treatments we’ve already passed the point where we can assume Super Bowl ads will be G-rated. . . .

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By Debbie Schlussel

As in years past, I guess I’ll have to use the word “Supe” instead of “Superbowl,” lest the NFL send its private cadre of  ICE agent speech police my way for violating its trademark to the word.

And on that note, I think it’s no strange coincidence that Warren Sapp was pulled from today’s NFL Network coverage of the Supe, after being arrested for allegedly domestically assaulting whatever bim he brought with him to his Miami hotel room.  Sapp has always been a thug, both on AND off the field.  And that’s, sadly, the problem with far too many NFLers and has been for some time.  You take people off the killing fields of America (and that means some White players, too, like Ryan Tucker, so please spare me the “you’re racist” comments), and then you expect that with a ton of money and nice XXL Armani suits, they’ll be civil.  Not how it works.

This thuggishness and violence is a not a first for Sapp.  And I had my own “experience” seeing Sapp’s rude and violent side (more on that later).  He inspired new NFL rules against “unnecessary roughness” after he deliberately blindsided Chad Clifton of the Green Bay Packers and sent him to the hospital, when Clifton was not in the main action and was merely jogging down the side of the field.  During Sapp’s NFL career he deliberately bumped two different referees on the field in two different games, one of them, after repeatedly swearing and gesturing at the ref.  And that’s in addition to several other altercations and disruptions at NFL games, including threatening to beat up then-Packers Coach Mike Sherman.  Sooner or later you knew this predilection for violence would spread off the field with this guy.  And I’m not just talking about at least four kids he fathered with three different women.

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By Debbie Schlussel

You’ve no doubt heard the news from earlier in the week that Northwest Flight 253 Islamic terrorist and undiebomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is now talking to the feds at the urging of his parents, whom FBI agents traveled to see in Nigeria.  Reportedly, agents prompted the parents to nudge their son into spilling, lest he get the death penalty (a potential sentence he faces, but I doubt would get).

Yesterday, as I was reading an article on Pops Mutallab, Alhaji Umaru Mutallab in the Wall Street Journal, I couldn’t help but notice the uncanny resemblance of a pic Abdulmutallab’s dad, from the late ’80s, to a certain African leader we knew and loved from the late ’80s. I’m thinking maybe they were the same guy, twenty years apart, since James Earl Jones is much older.

Separated at Birth?

Pops Mutallab, 1987; King of Zamunda, 1988

Got a feeling that James Earl Jones will play Pops Mutallab in the movie. . . .

Luke, er . . . Farouk, I am your father.  Come on over to the light side.

By Debbie Schlussel

As you know, during Sunday’s Superbowl (or is it, Super Bowl?) telecast, Tim Tebow and Focus on the Family will run a pro-life ad.  And timing is everything.

That’s why I question the timing of the latest People Magazine, the cover of which is above.  The issue is in stores today and features a photo of the Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar, the parents of the Duggar Family, a religious Christian family, with 19 kids (the latest of which was recently born).  The family, which does not believe in birth control or abortion, has a TV reality show to help pay the bills.  The People cover has the nerve to blare this question:

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By Debbie Schlussel

Since I used to regularly be on “The Howard Stern Show” when he was on terrestrial radio, a number of readers and others are asking me what I think of reports that “American Idol” producers want Stern to replace the soon-departing Simon Cowell on the show.  For the record, I don’t agree with the filth Howard puts forth on the show, and I said so.  No, I never answered his lascivious questions or took my clothes off–I was there to spread a conservative message, especially on Islamic terrorism, and I did convert quite a few people.  It was a forum for me that served its purpose at the time. I viewed it as William F. Buckley’s columns in Playboy–reaching out to the unconverted, rather than preaching to the same old amen crowd.

I have mixed thoughts on Stern hosting Idol, but mostly I’m against it, even though I think he’d be a great judge. Howard’s show is filthy and aimed at adults.  “American Idol” is aimed at kids and families, and I don’t see how you mix family viewing with Howard as a judge, and keep a straight face.  Like, I said, he’d be a sharp judge, and that, unfortunately, would entice kids to want to hear his strictly-adult radio show.  Howard is smart, quick-witted, and an acute observer.  He might be even better than Simon Cowell, and he wouldn’t be his risque self as on his radio show.  But is it really appropriate for him to be a judge on that show, while he’s putting forth the most vile material and hanging out with strippers and porn stars in the morning?  Well, “Idol”‘s network, FOX, did give Paris Hilton a show after she became famous for making porn tapes.  So, it’s not like this is out of the ordinary for FOX.  Still, I don’t think it’s suitable.  We’re fighting a cultural war here in America, and this is how to continue losing it.  On, the other hand, if Stern quit his radio gig, it might be different.

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By Debbie Schlussel

I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of hearing about the spate of famous cheating husbands and their wives–John Edwards and Elizabeth and his chick and his married couple of body-men, Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Young;  Tiger Woods and Elin and his harem; and Mark and Jenny Sanford and the girl from Ipanema or wherever.  They all have their tawdry books, and I don’t want to read them.  Tree abuse extraordinaire.  Old news.  Boring.  Next.

Sadly, it’s now the turn of Jenny Sanford, the wife of  Governor Mark, for her Baba Wawa interview and woman-done-wrong book.  But, while I first had much sympathy for this scorned woman, I no longer do and wish she’d go away.  Why?  Well, tonight, in her interview with ABC’s Wawa, airing on “20/20” at 10:00 p.m. tonight, she tells Barbara Walters that when she got married, her husband refused to include a vow of fidelity in their marriage ceremony.  She married him, anyway, saying that it merely “bothered me to some extent, but . . . we were in love.”

Um, hellooooo . . .? Giant clue.  Sorry.  No more sympathy from me.  Cannot believe that Republicans and the mainstream media were actually talking up this dummy as political candidate material after she became the scorned wife. People said they admired her for not standing by her prominent politician husband after he got caught having an affair. But, in fact, she stood by him the whole time, because she went along with his anti-fidelity stance, beginning with her wedding ceremony.

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By Debbie Schlussel

I was told by the studio that they changed the ending of “Dear John,” so I went to the Midnight showing, last night, to make sure I had seen the final cut.  And I’m glad I did.  It’s even better.  That said, I’d have given THREE REAGANS to it and “From Paris With Love,” regardless, as I enjoyed both–in both American fighting men and counterterrorism forces are actually the good guys . . . for a change.  There’s something for everyone this weekend, with “From Paris” aimed at guys, and “Dear John” aimed at chicks.

*  “From Paris With Love“:  This action-packed, hilarious movie is short and sweet at an hour-and-a-half, my ideal movie length.  While this Luc Besson project isn’t nearly as good or as tight as his far-superior “Taken” (read my review), from last year, it’s good enough.  I enjoyed it immensely, after about the first half-hour.  If you liked “Taken,” you’ll like this.

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By Debbie Schlussel

When I was a working man I didn’t want to go to a concert for some bastard to talk down to me that I should be thinking of some kid in Africa.

I’m sorry mate, do it yourself, spend some of your own money and get it done. . . .

It makes me mad when people try to use politics or charity for publicity.

Do a charity gig, fair enough, but not on worldwide television

—AC/DC’s Brian Johnson

Amen, brother.  I think this guy is my new hero.  And not just ‘cuz at age 62, he can still perform the repertoire of “Back in Black.”  But because he knows how to aptly describe celebrity PR “dirty deeds done dirt cheap.”

AC/DC frontman Brian Johnson has lashed out at charity work done by Bono and Bob Geldof, saying they should do it in private.

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By Debbie Schlussel

You can read about yesterday’s conviction of Al-Qaeda female operative Aafia Siddiqui in plenty of mainstream news publications and sites.  And you can read the regurgitation of the news on a number of bloggers’ and writers’ websites–you know, the ones who claim they are “experts” on “jihad,” when they haven’t a clue on the huge story behind the case, the one everybody missed.

The real insight:  Siddiqui’s conviction for shooting at U.S. soldiers after they caught her in Afghanistan (with chemicals, a dirty bomb recipe, plans to blow up U.S. gas stations and major New York sites) is really not the story here.  The story is Aafia Siddiqui’s part in the early stages of Al-Qaeda around the world, as it was formed by a close circle of friends, who were mostly Muslim students in Boston here on visas in the late 1980s and early to mid-’90s.  One of those students, one of those friends, was Aafia Siddiqui, who would later become Al-Qaeda’s designated master terrorist in the U.S., until she was caught in Afghanistan.  It’s the story of how America dropped the ball on the inchoate Al-Qaeda world leadership concentrated amongst a few Muslim visa holders concentrated in a major American city.  And it’s the story of how America let those people leave the country and did nothing to stop them, even the one they caught after 9/11 and willingly gave up to the Syrians.

That’s the real story behind Aafia Siddiqui that you didn’t hear, amidst the hubbub about her shrieks against Jewish jurors and judges, and the Israelis.  But I’m telling the Cliff’s Notes, er . . . “Debbie’s Notes” version of that frightening story here.

It was the late 1980s. Bassam Ahmad Kanj a/k/a Abu A’isha, Nabil Al-Marabh, Raed Hijazi, and Mohamad Kamal Elzahabi fought together as part of Al-Qaeda forces in Afghanistan.  At that time, Kanj, as I’ve written, also shared a house in Pakistan with:

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