South Park Creators Threatened, More On The Iceland Volcano (Otherwise Known As Stan), And Michael Douglas's Son Charged With Drug Dealing

Hi everyone. Tonight we're kicking it off with...um, I don't exactly know. Glee ran long and I was distracted by its complete awesomeness. When I flipped over, Drew Griffin was on my screen. Yay? And they were talking about South Park. Um, what? Okay, from what I can make out, in continuing their quest to absolutely piss off everyone they possibly can, Trey Parker and Matt Stone put the prophet Mohammad in a bear suit. It was a compromise with Comedy Central. Yeah.

Now a radical group has laid down a kind of fatwa on the South Park creators because they feel it's highly offensive for the prophet Mohammad to be shown--even, apparently, in a bear suit. It's a bit of an exercise in passive aggressiveness, actually. The group's website is like, this isn't a threat, but you're probably going to end up like Theo van Gogh. Not a threat. It's like an FYI. With stabbing.

I have a question: is 360 really leading with a story about South Park? Yeah, yeah, it's not really about the show. I know. But the whole radical-Muslims-going-nuts-over-portrayals-of-Mohammad thing isn't new. Anyway, for discussion we're joined by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the writer of Theo van Gogh's film. I'm just going to assume you're familiar.

I'm not exactly an Ali fan. I'm with her on her views of freedom of speech; not so much on Islam. She doesn't seem to make any distinction between the moderate and radical factions of the religion, and thus alienates some of the very people who would normally be on her side. It bugs me a bit that she's allowed to go on these news shows and come off much more sympathetic than she would if her past statements were revealed. But you can't deny she's led quite a life. You can check out profiles of her here and here.

Transitioning back to that volcano in Iceland, which I have renamed Stan. Yes, I wield that kind of power. Our intrepid correspondent Gary Tuchman is still on-the-ground, and in a report from him we get to see, well, what he didn't see. Zero visibility looking out from inside of the car. Ash, ash, everywhere. We're also shown footage from Gary's helicopter ride. Craziness. I like how he tells us their pilot was "a very good one." That's what I would have went with too.

Then we're on to Chad Myers talking about, you know, weather stuff. Says Chad: "I'm going to call it the E-15 volcano -- because I can't say it." Apparently he hasn't heard we're now calling it Stan. Also? I love his description of the volcano's lightening: "It's like a million little people rubbing their feet on the carpet, making shocks and making sparks in the winter time when the humidity is low." From now on I'm totally going to think of teeny little feet every time I see lightening.

Now time for the business side of the story with Richard Quest, who unfortunately for him, is still stranded. The good news is that a lot of planes are flying again, thanks in part to adjusting the levels of what's deemed safe to fly through. I dunno. Seems like the Civil Aviation Authority might be bowing to pressure from the airlines. In any regards, if you don't have to travel? "They're barking mad if they actually go anywhere near an airport and you don't actually have to get on a plane," says Richard. You heard it here.

Moving on to a Randi Kaye piece about Michael Douglas's son Cameron, who has been charged with dealing drugs. Meh. This is followed by discussion with Jeffrey Toobin and addiction specialist...Dr. Reef Karim? What have you done with Dr. Drew?! Yay for at least having on someone else, though if it were up to me, this entire segment wouldn't even exist. I mean, here we have a legal expert who wrote a freaking book on the Supreme Court, and instead of discussing today's decision, we're focused on some celebrity's kid. Because that makes sense. You're kinda killing me here, 360.

That'll do it for me. I didn't look for the "shot" because I think we've seen enough mascot falls. Again, not their best night. Gary has pretty much been carrying the show for the past two days. South Park. Cameron Douglas. WTF? I hope they're going back to Haiti soon. Perhaps I'm being unfair because 360 had the unfortunate experience of being sandwiched between what were truly great episodes of Glee and The Daily Show. Still. They can do so much better.

More Volcanic Ash In Iceland Causing All Sorts Of Problems, Conspiracy Theorists Continue To Exist, & Seriously, Screw Goldman Sachs

Hi everyone. We're kicking things off tonight with Mother Nature gone wild. I don't think we've seen this much craziness out of Iceland since Bjork. Apparently, the volcano there has been angered, because today it spewed out even more ash. Perhaps it's upset that no one can pronounce its name correctly. Eyjafjallajokull? C'mon! You can hurt yourself saying that. None of the 360 kids even try. They're just going to pretend like it doesn't have a name, I guess. Also? Are we absolutely positively sure that the whole 2012-world's-gonna-end thing isn't true? Because if you'll look to your left, there's freaking lightening coming out of a volcano. I mean, I'm just sayin'.

Anyway. Gary Tuchman is still on-the-ground in Iceland and Anderson Cooper informs us he actually got caught in an ash cloud. Did he ever. Take a look at the picture of Gary that I stole borrowed am using to promote his awesome blog post (heh). He looks like he's broadcasting from post-armageddon. I am very happy to see the mask, but I'm a bit worried about Team Gary's lungs right now. And of course, this isn't just about a news crew bringing us cool images--farmers live there and now their livelihood is covered in ash. God knows the long term effects of breathing the ash. Seeing as though it can stall a plane engine, I'm thinking not good.

Gary also talks to us live by phone (satellite went down) about the extremely poor visibility in the ash. At one point they just had to stop driving because they couldn't see anything. Then when the ash cleared a bit they discovered they were on a collision course with another vehicle. So basically? Danger, danger, everywhere. Oh, and Gary went up in a helicopter to check out the volcano too, which I imagine was both awesome and terrifying. Hopefully this volcano--which I think I'm going to refer to as Stan--will calm down soon.

After Gary, we have Chad Myers live to talk about the ash and the millions of travelers who are stuck. One such traveler is CNNI's Richard Quest, and he joins us in studio since, well, I guess he has nothing better to do. Actually, Richard is pretty relevant to this story given his business expertise and the financial implications on the airlines of all these grounded flights. Yet I still can't help laughing every time I see him. If that end-of-the-world thing does happen, they should totally have Richard anchor. It won't seem quite so bad.

Transitioning now to an acknowledgment that today is the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing; a day when 168 people lost their lives. Today was also a day of pro-gun rallies and protests against the government, which segues us into a Drew Griffin piece on some of these like-minded people. The first person we meet is Catherine Bleish of the Liberty Restoration Project. Drew asks her if Obama was born in the U.S. "I don't know that, but everyone should question that at this point," she replies. Oh. My. God. His birth certificate is on the Internet, independent fact-checkers have held the original, a birth announcement was published in the Honolulu Advertiser...what more do you people want?!!

Ahem. I'm okay now. Okay, so thing is, best I can tell, conspiracy theorists don't really want you to "question," but rather to believe their craziness. Because anyone who questions Obama's citizenship will quickly find the proof they need to confirm he's an American. One of the other whoppers thrown at us is HR-645, AKA the "Oh my God, they're going to throw us in FEMA camps!" bill. Drew notes that it's stalled, but that's pretty much where the reporting ends. He does even tell us the introducer, much less call them for the context.

Anyway, that Catherine person seems nice and all and I'm down with her desire to work together for the good of the country, but I don't see that happening when there are people who refuse to accept simple proven facts. (Also, Obama doesn't want to take your guns, people. In case you haven't noticed, he's kinda busy right now.) This is all followed by discussion with centrist dude John Avlon. It's noted that April 19th is also the anniversary of Waco and Lexington and Concord. These are big dates for violence. Virginia Tech was April 16th; Columbine April 20th. As T.S. Eliot said, April is the cruelest month.

Moving on now to Anderson at the Magic Wall, giving us info on those douchebags at Goldman Sachs. This is important and everything, but I kinda got distracted with breaking news (on Twitter) that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert will be staying put through 2012. Yay! I don't know how I'd get through an election without my boys. They're my longest news relationship! Anyway, back to my second-longest news relationship (360 got bumped after I "broke up" with Countdown), we've got Michael Lewis and David Gergen and Alexis Glick, but meh. I'm not in the mood.

The "shot" tonight is Willie Nelson on Larry King. Again. Actually, it's Joe Johns' reaction to the edited clip, except he doesn't realize it's edited. I'm not nearly as amused by this as the Silver Fox. "I can't believe you thought that's what actually happened," he says. Well dude, you are supposed to be the most trusted name in news.

I wasn't all that interested in the show, if we're being honest (and I kinda always am). The stuff Gary brought us was amazing. Other than that? Eh. Sorta boring. Tomorrow is another day.

Volcano photograph by Marco Fulle, Barcroft/Fame Pictures