Drudge just called our attention to this remarkable Political Punch item, which says that a White House employee meant to send a Reuters story about the Iraqi Prime Minister supporting Obama's withdrawal plan to an internal distribution list, but instead sent it to the gazillions of reporters on the White House press list.

The emailed article's subject is not exactly what the White House wants to promote: the Iraqi Prime Minister told Der Spiegel, "U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months [as a withdrawal timetable]. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes."

Maliki also reportedly expressed frustration with the Bush administration's failure to create a timetable.

We just saw on Strollerderby that John McCain, an adoptive father himself, recently said the following, as quoted in the New York Times, "I think that we've proven that both parents are important in the success of a family so, no, I don't believe in gay adoption."

Strollerderby goes into all the reasons why this is ludicrous, and how gay adoption has been shown again and again to produce kids just as happy and healthy as those in straight adoptive homes. If you want to humanize this topic, just check out this amazingly great blog by two men who are foster parents to a toddler.

But it reminded us of something John Edwards (remember him?) said back in the day.

Here's a nice way to start your weekend: Tempest Storm, the 80-year-old burlesque queen, is still stripping, and MSNBC has a nice little story about her, with video.

The best detail: when Elvis came backstage to meet her he spent their first moments talking fiddling with her skirt.

Here's her MySpace page. And a Taschen piece about her with a truly great name: "Tempest in a D-Cup."

Not one but four teachers at the Helix High charter school in California have allegedly had inappropriate sexual relationships with teenage students in the last couple of years, reports KFMB News 8 in San Diego:

• Former music teacher Frank Palumbo was accused of having sex with a 17-year-old female student and was sentenced to five years probation.
• Ex-band director Jessica Kahal got three years probation after pleading guilty to having unlawful sex with a 17-year-old male student.

Christopher Ciccone, the Roger Clinton of the celebrity world, has written a memoir about his sister, Madonna, and judging from the excerpt on the Daily Mail Online, it is not pretty (or good). Here's an excerpt of the excerpt:

I am not keen to attend the wedding because I really can't afford it. Moreover, I no longer have any affinity for Guy.

But Madonna owes me the final payment for the interior design work I did on one of her houses and when I call to make my apologies, her assistant tells me the debt will be paid in the form of a ticket to Scotland, with the rest of the money sent separately. . . .

Last week, we interviewed the World Champion Chessboxer, a 19-year-old Russian math student, for TIME magazine, and remembered why we love our job: we get to research things like chessboxing.

The matches work like this: competitors alternate between three-minute rounds of boxing and four-minute rounds of speed chess with one-minute breaks in between to get the gloves off and hunker down at the chess table. The winner is determined by knockout, checkmate, or referee decision.

Here's an excerpt from our conversation with the winner, Nikolaj Sazhin:

The rumors have been flying for days now, but finally there's confirmation from that source of sources, the People Daily email: the Jolie-Pitt twins, Vivienne Marcheline and Knox Leon, were born on Saturday by C-section in Nice, France.

Everyone's healthy and Nice's mayor is just giddy about it.

So, celebrity watchers, rejoice, for the suspense is over: the "most famous babies in the world" are now among us and the couple now has six chidren.

Now all that's left is this mystery: why do all the Jolie-Pitt boys' names (Pax, Maddox, Knox) end with an X?

The much-hyped Carla Bruni love songs album is supposed to be great. It also reinforces pretty much every stereotype of over-sexed Europeans.

Charles Bremner writes, "This must be the first time that the presidency of a leading nation has promoted a pop album." But even if you were the leader of a European nation, wouldn't you promote an album if it talked about you like this?

Fox News reports, with barely disguised pleasure:

The Rev. Jesse Jackson apologized Wednesday for saying Barack Obama is "talking down to black people" during what Jackson thought was a private conversation before a FOX News interview Sunday.

Jackson was speaking to a guest at the time about Obama's speeches in black churches and his support for faith-based charities. Jackson added before going live, "I want to cut his nuts off."

The weird, violent remark was picked up by a live mic.

Now a third man has climbed the new New York Times building, reports the New York Times, although not with the exasperated C'mon, you guys! Stop it! tone you might expect.

Instead, they're going the uhh...oops route, and acknowledging that the decision by architect Renzo Piano to encase the building in a gazillion horizontal ceramic rods (intended to let in sunlight and keep out heat) might not have been 100% thought through.

It may be eco-friendly, but it's also just a little too convenient for all the activists out there who want nothing more than an iconic building from which to unfurl spray-painted banners.

Sasha Baron Cohen is following up his Borat film with a film featuring "Bruno," an Austrian celebrity journalist, and it's liable to be just as outrageous.

The Jerusalem Post reports that one of Bruno's targets was a political analyst and former spy in Israel.

Maybe all the talk of boycotting the Olympics in China will die down with the first perfect round-off, but in the meantime it's hard not to wonder what we're doing there.

The New York Times recently ran a horrific story about what Chinese athletes go through to get ready for the Olympics. Hint: It's not just waking up early and catching a ride to the local skating rink.

It's that time of year again: cue the obligatory anti-fireworks article in every local newspaper. Some are totally justified. Governor Schwarzenegger is right to tell Californians not to use consumer fireworks this year because of how dry it is out there and how many fires they've had to fight already this year.

And the National Council on Fireworks Safety is right to offer helpful hints about how to shoot off fireworks safely. (We enjoyed their video starring a suburban Philip Seymour Hoffman lookalike.)

But all the articles nit-picking about, say, the environmental impact of bottle rockets, such as this advice column on Salon.com, seem like buzz-killing at its most extreme. The latter's suggestion:

There's an item on BoingBoing about a recent AP report that at certain cemeteries, hymns have been almost entirely replaced by secular songs as funeral music. And not secular like "Happy Birthday," but like "Stairway to Heaven" and "Highway to Hell." Among the top picks: "My Way" and "Wonderful World."

We've noticed this trend. We were at a wake once and the mix included - no joke - "Don't Get Around Much Anymore." Personally, we'd go for a little "Farther Along," or "Amazing Grace," but to each his or her own.

Anyone have any song requests, or any crazy funeral music anecdotes to share?