I don’t pay attention to the news anymore, of course, nor do I record Olbermann, Maddow, or anything other than entertainment shows (I think I actually still subscribe to the Countdown and Maddow podcasts or vidcasts or whatever it is you call them, but I don’t watch anymore; I stick to music at work these days – better for my soul). But I guess Keith did a “special comment” responding to Ted Koppel’s dissing of opinion people in general – and MSNBC and Keith Olbermann in particular. Far be it for me to side with a Cornell guy over a fellow SU alum, but Keith is right and Koppel is wrong. If you report two sides of a story equally – no matter how outlandish and ridiculous one “side” is – that’s not being “objective.” That’s being deliberately ignorant at best, and disingenuous at worst. To paraphrase Al Franken, the color of the sky is not in doubt, even if “some people say” otherwise, and to report the sky is blue vs. the sky is green “controversy” as anything but bullshit is, in itself, not objective. And if somebody is lying or being a hypocrite, it isn’t being “objective” not to say so. It’s being complicit in the lie. So screw you Ted, you piece of limey garbage you.

Speaking of garbage, somebody remind me to put mine out tonight. They blew me off last week, so let’s see if they actually pick it up tomorrow. If not, I’m going to tell them to take back their nice nifty garbage can. I actually go right by the garbage facility on my way in to work, and can dump off garbage for $1 a bag (and recyclables for free). If I average 1.5 bags a week, that’s $78 a year, as opposed to $68 a quarter. And by the time I get the garbage all the way to the curb (so to speak; there are no curbs out here), I might as well go the extra mile (so to speak; it’s more like 20 miles) to the dump.

So, we’ll see.

One nice thing about not being a celebrity is that you don’t have all those nasty paparazzi following you around hoping to snap a photo of you getting out of a car without your panties on. Another is that they probably won’t exhume your body 400 hundred years after your death, just to find out what you died of, and then discuss your personal hygiene habits. Unfortunately for Astronomer Tycho Brahe, that’s not the case.

On Monday, an international team of scientists opened his tomb in the Church of Our Lady Before Tyn near Prague’s Old Town Square, where Brahe has been buried since 1601. After eight hours of work, they lifted from the tomb a tin box like a child’s coffin in which Brahe’s remains were placed after the only previous exhumation, in 1901.

Brahe’s extraordinarily accurate stellar and planetary observations, which helped lay the foundations of early modern astronomy, are well documented but the circumstances surrounding his death at age 54 are murky.

It has been long thought that he died of a bladder infection: Legend said it was the result of his reluctance to breach court etiquette during a reception by leaving for a toilet.

I was unaware that holding it in could cause a bladder infection. Frankly, I thought one could only hold it so long, and then, well, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do – whether in court or not. But perhaps one develops different techniques (if not some sort of unspeakable tourniquet-like apparatus or 16th Century version of the hose clamp) on those long nights of sky gazing or something.

Speaking of ancient stars in the news, Apple says today will be a day you’ll never forget (or something), because it will start selling The Beatles’ music on iTunes. I’m pretty sure I’ll forget today rather quickly – Beatles or no Beatles. Frankly, if I want the Beatles, I’ll buy a CD and burn it. No offense to anybody, but I think you have to be nuts to buy anything from iTunes – or to even use it. But I suppose it’s “easy” (much like AOL was the easy way to get online back in the day – no matter how bad it sucked), and of course you can’t beat their marketing. And this is America, where marketing is king.

Carrying on the fine tradition of British Royal inbreeding, Prince William (not sure which one he is – the older one or the younger one) and his 12th cousin (or something) Kate Middleton have announced their impending nuptials. I know this, because CNN appears to consider it “breaking news.”

Well, gosh, maybe I will remember this day as long as I live, after all.