Madonna and No-Child

Madonna will not be allowed to adopt a second child from Malawi, a 4-year-old girl named Mercy James, the African country's High Court ruled on Friday. The ruling will please campaigners who say authorities have given the singer special treatment. Malawi's government, which came under fire after Madonna adopted a 13-month-old Malawian boy, had said on Thursday it would support a second adoption. Court registrar Ken Manda told reporters Madonna's bid to adopt Mercy had been rejected because the star was not a resident of Malawi.

An AIDS epidemic in the impoverished southern African country has orphaned more than one million children. In her ruling, Judge Esimie Chombo warned against celebrity adoptions, saying they could lead to child trafficking. "Anyone could come to Malawi and quickly arrange for an adoption that might have grave consequences on the very children that the law seeks to protect," she said.

Prominent rights activist Mavuto Bamusi defined said the decision was a "defining moment for child protection" but urged the pop star to continue her charity work. "We finally appeal to Madonna to take this positively and continue to help the children of this country," he told Reuters.

ISF: Uh huh. Ask the kid about her "defining moment" twenty years from now when she has a starving kid hanging off each tit and eating what resembles shit from a clay bowl.

"We finally appeal to Madonna to take this positively and continue to help the children of this country." We hate you, but please keep sending money!

All you need is faith, trust, and pixie dust!

Michael Jackson has refinanced Neverland ranch in time to save his famed California spread from a public auction that was scheduled for later this month. Jackson attorney L. Londell McMillan told The Associated Press on Thursday that the pop star has worked out a "confidential" agreement with Fortress Investment Group, LLC. The deal allows him to retain ownership of the famed property in Los Olivos, Calif. An auction date had been set for March 19 because of $24.5 million the singer owed on the 2,500-acre spread northwest of Santa Barbara.

WP: THANK GOD. I'd hate for him not to have a place to molest children.

TV Study

Watching too much television may not only help make children fat, it may also raise their blood pressure, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday. They found obese children who watched four or more hours of TV a day were three times more likely to have high blood pressure than children who watched less than two hours a day. "There is a significant association between hours of television watched and both the severity of obesity and the presence of hypertension in obese children," Dr. Jeffrey Schwimmer of the University of California, San Diego and colleagues wrote in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Are you sure it's not the entire bag of Cheetos they're eating while they watch TV?