Odds and Ends

People

Can't take a joke

Sarah Silverman still is responding to the negative reaction to her Britney Spears jokes at the MTV Video Music Awards on Sept. 9. "The joke that everyone was upset about — me calling the kids 'adorable mistakes' — was the most innocuous joke," the comedian tells Us Weekly magazine. "It never occurred to me that would be deemed hurtful or over the line." Silverman, 36, known for her deadpan delivery and winsome depravity, drew criticism earlier this month when she followed Spears' much-panned VMA performance with an off-color monologue taking aim at the troubled singer and her two sons with Kevin Federline, now Spears' ex.

Kid's outta the picture?

The New York Post reports Steven Spielberg and George Lucas are enraged that an actor has leaked the plot of "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." Tyler Nelson, 24, who has a small part as a "dancing Russian soldier," spilled it all to his hometown paper, the Edmond Sun in Oklahoma, which has since yanked the story from its Web site. Spielberg and Nelson's representatives said the actor may never have a movie job again.

"I want a fatwa"

Conservative firebrand Ann Coulter is upset that no matter what objectionable nonsense she babbles about Islam, the Middle East and Iran, she can't get Muslim clerics peeved enough to issue a fatwa calling for her death as was done in the case of writer Salman Rushdie. "I want a fatwa," Coulter tells British Esquire. "I used to see Salman Rushdie in the Sky Bar in L.A. He wasn't in hiding; he became world-renowned for his fatwa. So why can't I get a fatwa?"

For sale

Treasure for sale

A 13th-century copy of the Magna Carta, a milestone of English freedom, will be offered for sale in New York in December, Sotheby's auction house said Tuesday. The vellum manuscript owned by the Perot Foundation is estimated to sell for $20 million to $30 million, Sotheby's said. Ross Perot bought the copy in 1984 and loaned it to the National Archives, where it was on display for more than 20 years.

Book talk

Who's really in charge?

Even Dick Cheney is curious about who runs Washington, D.C. The vice president was seen Tuesday night at a Borders bookstore with a copy of Washingtonian magazine's October issue featuring the "Power 150," its choices for the capital city's most influential people in business, culture, education and other pursuits. Elected officials are excluded, so he didn't make the list.

Law breakers

Getaway with cuffs, car

Three Mexican minors detained in California on suspicion of smuggling drugs stole a U.S. Border Patrol car while still wearing handcuffs and drove it back across the border to Mexico. A Border Patrol agent stopped the boys on a remote California highway, handcuffed them and put them in his patrol car while he searched their truck for drugs. "As the agent was doing his search, he left the vehicle running and the keys in the ignition, so one of the lads, still wearing handcuffs, grabbed the steering wheel and they headed back to Mexico," a police spokesman said.

Let's eat

Now that's a rich dessert

This dessert may be a little too rich for you, but you're probably not rich enough for it. A Sri Lankan resort is charging $14,500 for what it calls the world's most expensive dessert. It's a gold-leaf Italian cassata flavored with Irish cream, served with a mango and pomegranate compote and a champagne sabayon enlighten, decorated with a chocolate carving of a fisherman clinging to a stilt and an 80-carat aquamarine stone. No one has yet forked over the money to try it.

Today in History

1789: Thomas Jefferson was appointed America's first secretary of state.

1960: The first debate between presidential candidates took place as John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon faced off in Chicago before a national TV audience.

1981: The twin-engine Boeing 767 made its official debut in Everett.

1991: Four men and four women began a two-year stay inside a sealed-off structure in Oracle, Ariz., called Biosphere 2. (They emerged from Biosphere on this date in 1993.)

Today's Birthdays

Actor Philip Bosco, 77. Singer Olivia Newton-John, 59. Actress Linda Hamilton, 51. Singer Shawn Stockman (Boyz II Men), 35. Actor Mark Famiglietti, 28. Tennis player Serena Williams, 26.

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