AP - LYNCHBURG, Va. - The Rev. Jerry Falwell, the television evangelist who founded the Moral Majority and used it to mold the religious right into a political force, died Tuesday shortly after being found unconscious in his office at Liberty University, a school executive said. He was 73.

Ron Godwin, the university’s executive vice president, said Falwell, 73, was found unresponsive around 10:45 a.m. and taken to Lynchburg General Hospital. “CPR efforts were unsuccessful,” he said.

Godwin said he was not sure what caused the collapse, but he said Falwell “has a history of heart challenges.”

jay: heart challenges? like sympathy or like blockages?

Falwell had survived two serious health scares in early 2005. He was hospitalized for two weeks with what was described as a viral infection, then was hospitalized again a few weeks later after going into respiratory arrest. Later that year, doctors found a 70 percent blockage in an artery, which they opened with stents.

[…]

Days after Sept. 11, 2001, Falwell essentially blamed feminists, gays, lesbians and liberal groups for bringing on the terrorist attacks. He later apologized.

In 1999, he told an evangelical conference that the Antichrist was a male Jew who was probably already alive. Falwell later apologized for the remark but not for holding the belief. A month later, his National Liberty Journal warned parents that Tinky Winky, a purple, purse-toting character on television’s “Teletubbies” show, was a gay role model and morally damaging to children.

jay: oh, so both sympathy and blockages. gotcha. i had forgotten about the teletubbies thing. and i had no idea that the antichrist was already alive and had taken the form of a male jew. what i find really sad is that it took jerry falwell’s death for me to learn that he sounded a lot like borat.

rob: it’s always sad when a teletubby dies. (i’m just relieved that it was the evil racist one that died instead of the gay one.)

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Hamas militants have suspended a TV program that featured a Mickey Mouse lookalike urging Palestinian children to fight Israel and work for global Islamic domination, the Palestinian information minister said Wednesday.

Information Minister Mustafa Barghouti said the character — a giant black-and-white rodent with a high-pitched voice — represented a “mistaken approach” to the Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation.

He said that the program was pulled from Hamas-affiliated Al Aqsa TV at his ministry’s request and “placed under review.”

jay: behold the power of disney.

By DIAA HADID, Associated Press Writer

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Hamas militants have enlisted the iconic Mickey Mouse to broadcast their message of Islamic dominion and armed resistance to their most impressionable audience — little kids.

A giant black-and-white rodent — named “Farfour,” or “butterfly,” but unmistakably a Mickey ripoff — does his high-pitched preaching against the U.S. and Israel on a children’s show run each Friday on Al-Aqsa TV, a station run by Hamas. The militant group, sworn to Israel’s destruction, shares power in the Palestinian government.

“You and I are laying the foundation for a world led by Islamists,” Farfour squeaked on a recent episode of the show, which is titled, “Tomorrow’s Pioneers.”

“We will return the Islamic community to its former greatness, and liberate Jerusalem, God willing, liberate Iraq, God willing, and liberate all the countries of the Muslims invaded by the murderers.”

[…]

A spokeswoman from Walt Disney Co.’s headquarters in Burbank, Calif., did not immediately return messages asking for comment about the use of a Disney-like character.

jay: hamas just made their fatal mistake: they made themselves known to the most frightening bunch of motherlovers on this side of the gaza strip: the disney copyright enforcement division. sux to be hamas right about now. peep the video.

By MICHAEL VIRTANEN, Associated Press Writer

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — The Albany Patroons declined to renew the coaching contract of former NBA player Micheal Ray Richardson on Wednesday following his suspension for using a gay slur at heckling fans and controversy over allegedly anti-Semitic remarks.

Richardson was suspended for the team’s last two Continental Basketball Association playoff games on March 28, a day after he told the Times Union of Albany that he had “big-time Jew lawyers” working for him. The coach yelled at hecklers during the first playoff game, using a profanity and gay slur.

dan: have we talked about this yet? i don’t think we’ve talked about it. i actually feel sorry for him. here’s what he said.

jay: we haven’t. i like that he used the word ‘jew’ to strike fear in the hearts of his enemies. this is not common usage, is it? unless you’re talking about the israeli army, of course.

“They got a lot of power in this world, you know what I mean? Which I think is great,” Richardson told the Times Union. “I don’t think there’s nothing wrong with it. If you look in most professional sports, they’re run by Jewish people. If you look at a lot of most successful corporations and stuff, more businesses, they’re run by Jewish. It’s not a knock, but they are some crafty people.”

dan: i mean, i get why he’s out of a job and all. but he clearly thought he was being complimentary. and let’s face it, we “jewish” are crafty. like ice is cold.

jay: word ‘em up. i’ve seen your needlepoint. midwestern lutheran ladies ain’t got nothin’ on you.