TODAY'S TOP FIVE: Make Sure to Watch Bush Spew A Bunch of Bullshit Tonight at 8:30.

We Should Do This to Rockville Apparently betting that the international acclaim heaped on the ultra-violent crime flick "City of God" isn't going to spark tourism in its crushingly poor favelas, the Brazilian government is trying a new scheme to deal with its dangerous slums: Walling them off from the rest of the world. Weirdly, the officials involved say that if the slums aren't walled off, they'll not only lead to crime in the more affluent areas, but also "destroy the forests." Man, those are some mean-ass gangs. They clearly don't give a hoot, and will indeed pollute.

Worst Morale Booster Ever Shigeru Ishiba, Japan's defense minister, was scheduled to take a trip to Iraq to boost the morale of his country's cotingent of 550 soldiers, but has now decided that it's way too dangerous and has canceled his trip. If I were a Japanese soldier in Iraq, that wouldn't exactly fit my definition of a major morale boost.

Law and Order: Special Kidnapped In Iraq Unit Fear not, ye 40 people from 12 countries currently being held hostage in Iraq: the FBI is investigating! Yes, the people who all week have been explaining why they couldn't foil Al-Qaeda's 9/11 plot despite knowing all about it for months are now busily working to arrest those dastardly evildoers responsible for the kidnappings. I'd feel much better if we just threw in the towel and sent Jesse Jackson over there to spring them.

Quack, Quack! Scalia's Contrite! Looney Tunes Supreme Court Justice Antonin "Duck Hunt" Scalia has apologized to a Mississippi reporter for having federal marshals illegally confiscate a tape recorder she brought to a public appearance of his. "I abhor as much as any American the prospect of a law enforcement officer’s seizing a reporter’s notes or recording," he wrote, confusingly, in an apologetic letter. "I have learned my lesson (at your expense), and shall certainly be more careful in the future." Rest assured: He hasn't and he won't.

We're Going to Get You Just Like We Got Bin Laden The US military has officially put out a warrant on chunky-but-spunky Shiite cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr, saying it hopes to "capture or kill" the leader of the rebel Mahdi Army that has caused so much trouble for coalition forces this month. Hey, if our manhunt for Al-Sadr is half as successful as our manhunt for Bin Laden, um, the cleric actually has nothing to worry about.

-Consider Arms